Craft Night a la Swaddle

Hello everyone! 

We had our second Craft Night since starting the blog on Monday night. It was over to Laura's this time (we take it in turns to host, share out the cooking etc.). 5 of us made it this time, and were treated to some very lovely home made pizza, chips and salad, and a particularly lovely Chocolate Cheescake, with strawberries and cream, nom! We then made our way up to Laura's study/craft room depending on what time of day/night! 

View from Laura's kitchen, lovely sunny afternoon :)

We had a new friend joining us this time, craftertime is expanding! Laura's friend from choir Becky came over to say hi and do some squeaky knitting! It is great to have a new face, and to help us expand our crafting repertoire - Becky was knitting a doll of Audrey Hepburn! It was only the start, but she did get the body done, including some accidently inverted row we generally decided were in the right place for her boobs!

Laura was working on her beautiful granny square afghan, this has been a fairly long term project she has been returning to as an 'in betweener' and is sooo close to being done, depending on how big it ends up being. 

We had a good discussion about the relative number of blankets we have in our houses, compared with the number of people that live there - Laura's other half had assumed her blankets were gifts... no... But came happily to the conclusion that as long as we are happy, and not bankrupting ourselves/pimping ourselves out for yarn and fabric, we are all good!

Amy was starting a new project. A self confessed fan of learning a craft to achieve an end product, rather than to actually learn it, took up a challenge from Mollie Makes to make some crochet star bunting. Having been a while since Amy's last project this took a little more effort than expected! I was trying to be a good tutor, but after half a bottle of rose this wasn't the easiest! We came up with a few different versions, the pattern was not written clearly, a shame as I fancied the book it came from and have now been put off! 

I did manage to try again whilst sober, and did manage it, but pattern was still annoyingly difficult to follow!

Fiona was working on sewing a read rectangle! Early starter on Christmas crafting, Fiona refuses to go anywhere need crochet (mutterings about the devil's craft...) and started off with the border for her embroidery - watch this space for more!

I was mainly drinking wine and helping Amy with her crochet to limited success, and trying to finish the wiggly edge on my crochet blanket, I've been lusting after crocheted edged items on Pinterest for a while, don't quite know why but felt my bed blanket needed some additions! I also brought along a blanket I'm making for a pregnant friend, but as it was just sewing in the ends I didn't actually touch it all night!

And that be it! Oops, almost forgot, we had Amy's lovely little friend come to join us too! Totoro is adorable, very cute and also a fantastic back rest!

Gives you a sense of the scale of Totoro!

See y'all next time,

Ali

xx

Totoro!

Hi all!

Mixing things up again, Amy here.
For those of you that don't know me I love "My Neighbour Totoro"! He was the reason behind me learning to crochet (a previous project of mine) and the reason behind this crafting venture. If you're reading this and have no idea who he is, well I can fix that!

I've recently been on holiday to France, Paris specifically, and their love of comics/manga/general geekiness is not a secret. Soooo with high hopes I set about trying to find me a Totoro, as big as I could fit into my suitcase. We'd seen one last year (when I was less foolish and didn't buy it immediately) so I was pretty confident I could acquire one, but alas it was not meant to be.

A discussion with my fellow insane crafters resulted in finding this beauty online, but this was not the scale I was looking for, so I got my oh so helpful husband to blow up the pattern for me so this occurred:

Realising that this could work I found myself at the fabric store rummaging through the faux fur section. And here we are, a simple step by step guide, should you too have the need for a massive Totoro in your household!

Firstly I mapped out all the pieces on the reverse of the fabric using chalk, then cut them all out.

I then pinned the stomach and stomach pieces in place. I stitched the little marks through both layers of fabric to keep it all in place. He's starting to take shape! (the ears are not attached yet, i was just checking he looked ok!)

It was then simply a case of pinning them front sides together and running it through the machine, not forgetting to leave a hole at the top for the stuffing! I pinned the eyes and nose on at this point but didn't stitch them on until he was turned the right way round - Totoro's face, like any character has to be just right or he just looks sinister! Having decided I was pleased with him, I could then go spend a load of money on stuffing! I thought I'd best take a helper, cue oh so helpful husband again!

I then stuffed and stitched ears, arms and a tail before finally stuffing the main body and of course stitching the eyes and nose in place. I kept stuffing whilst stitching together his head to keep him firm and to support the ears which went on next. I used wool to stitch them in place as it was strong enough to keep them upright. Finally I attached arms, and a tail in the same way and ta-dah!

One massive Totoro! I was pretty chuffed with him :) He only took a day to make and was great fun. The fur fabric is very forgiving so if you're not the neatest of crafters don't worry! One word of caution though, he does like watching a spot of tv.........

Until next time!

Amy :)