My Creative Space - What's new pussycat?

This week I had to quickly make a softie, so a sock animal seemed an obvious choice... I gave pussycat a sleepy face because sleeping all day seems like the best thing about being a cat.

It was a good excuse to try another pattern from the Sock and Glove book I bought after making my first ever softie, Mr Elephant. They even made friends!

So why the rush? I remembered the toy drive on Meet Me at Mike's, they collect handmade softies each Christmas for The Mirabel Foundation, an amazing Australian children's charity. So Pussycat has been posted to Melbourne, lucky kitty!

See what everyone else has been making this week on www.kootoyoo.com

p.s. We love sock monkeys & friends on this blog, check out this post   :)

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Sock Monkey Mania!

Sock monkeys, sock elephants, sock zebras..you name it, I want to make it! So much so that I dedicated my first ever "DIY or Buy" column for http://www.babybites.co.nz/ this week to sock animals. What I'd like to do is make every fourth or so weekly 'handmade heaven' column into a "DIY instructional" piece that encourages parents just starting to get into handmade or craft projects to have a go. But in the same piece, if they just feel it's too hard to try, I can encourage them to buy from local New Zealand crafters who are selling similar or related goods instead.

Of course, I'm not an expert at writing tutorials - I always look at the real experts, like Maddie at 'lil magoolie or Megan at Mousehouse, and admire their teaching talents. I'll more likely be pointing to other crafters' tutorials: so if you are local crafter with products to sell and tutorials to match, please let me know and I'll include you!! The more publicity for us all the better! (For the next "DIY or Buy" I'm thinking of doing bunting...)

Here's the link to this week's "Sock Monkey" column on babybites, complete with online tutorial from the lovely Sarah at Cotton Kiwi, and links to crafters selling animals including Cotton Kiwi, Ti Ti and Miss Mellie. My own creations, my sister's, and Greta's, are below. Also check out Greta's recent blog post right here on our OTLP blog, showing the process of how she made her elephant friend.

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My Creative Space - E is for Elephant

I have always wanted to make a soft toy and Cotton Kiwi's sock monkey tutorial has been on my 'to do' list for a while, but this week I was inspired by a gorgeous book I stumbled upon in the library, 'Sock and Glove' by Miyako Kanamori. There are instructions for all kinds of animals but I had to make the elephant, I thought the trunk and crinkly ears were so clever.

It took a bit longer than I expected as my handsewing is not quick, but it was like a book I couldn't put down and the only tricky bit was attaching the ears. Apparently the body was a good enough toy all by itself as it was kidnapped for a while...

I had a little teddy bear t-shirt that happened to fit so of course I had to do a mini-version of my alphabet tees (it looked so cute on the sewing machine that I had to stop and take a photo!). My daughter had decided it was a girl, and called 'Elephant' (of course), but when she saw the shirt she told me it was 'not e for elephant, e for Eeyore'.

The drawstring pants are from a pattern in the book, I should have fitted them before sewing because they came out as hipsters (I used a really big sock), but they are still functional, complete with hole for the tail.

I love this book and I must admit my first instinct was to copy the whole thing before I returned it to the library, but then I figured if I don't believe in ripping off music or movies, I should also  support a really clever crafter - so I have a copy on its way from www.bookdepository.co.uk (love their free delivery!).

To see what other craftiness has been going on this week, have a browse through kooyotoo's My Creative Space.

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