MERRY CHRISTMAS - - - My shoulder still needs a break

Because my shoulder and elbow really hurt the last couple of days, with throbbing pain in the shoulder on Thursday, I ordered myself some break from felting, sewing and knitting. (and housework :D )
But i was doing something on my blog :D
On the right you can see a new Link : Instructions - Felting instructions -German and English ….
here i share my well hidden bookmark treasures with you.
I will add there more and more as i feel like it.
On the plan are Teddy bear instruction links, free pattern and Resources.
It is a lot of work to go through my bookmarks, i think i got thousands  - and work out what i will need and what is useless.

Mini tests are done

 

And i am not really happy with them.

Here with different eye sizes, 3, 4, 5 and 6 mm.

Because I got a lot of 6mm eyes, but just 1 pair each of 3, 4 and 5 mm … the bear got 6mm eyes :D
The teddy is 5,8 cm tall. I don’t think i can go smaller without going crazy over it.

And i really dislike his profile …
The middle seam on the lower side needs to be adjusted, but i have no idea how to do such things :(

I did a bit of adjustment to the first try, because it was way to flat.
It is better now, but not like i want it.
I would like to have the top nearly straight and the bottom part more curved.
Any help from anybody ? :D

On the plus side of this teddy  - you can fit the parts in all the left overs from other bears and don’t have much to throw away :D

Mini bear tests and a knitted cardigan

 

I didn’t forget about you :)

I just didn’t do anything yesterday …. we were at the restaurant over the street and had a lovely Christmas dinner with my mans family.

I had steak with potatoes and garlic bread and some glasses of Lambrusco.
It was so lovely … I really love to go there for a meal, the cook is a master of his class.

Today i modified a bit on a 5cm teddy i started on Friday… the muzzle is a bit to short and the ears to big, so i made them new.
Now i need to sew the whole thing together, but it is 1 am, and i think i am going to bed :D

Then i finished today the nasty part of my cardigan. This lovely piece i am knitting while watching TV.
Every evening some 2 or 3 hours :D Started it on the 25th of October and it goes very slow.

It is knitted in 1 part. Starting with the collar, doing some stripes from the shoulders to the wrist and then taking for the back the stitches up from wrist to wrist and knitting till under the arms.
The front is not so bad, it is just from wrist to the middle.
So this part is done … now i started to knit all around the front, back and front again.
I closed just a small part of the seam under the arms, so i can take up the stitches needed there, because i think i don’t have enough wool to finish the whole project - so i didn’t knit the pieces at the wrists.

The cardigan is knit with 2 kind of wool - the one is some cotton yarn i bought last summer, in a nice toffee colour and then i got me some medium brown mohair wool to mix it with the cotton yarn.

I knit it in a pattern i like very much, cross 2 stitches to the left and 2 stitches to the right.
purl the next row, and then over the last one, cross 2 stitches to the right and 2 stitches to the left. The effect is really lovely.

But this pattern uses a lot of wool - so I think I will run out of cotton yarn …
I will just knit as far as i get, and decide then what i will do to finish the endings at the wrists and the ending of the cardigan.
If i order some more cotton yarn, i need to take 300 gram - but i think i need just 100 or maybe 150 gram … AND the minimum order all together needs to be 50 euro …

Little Happy is finished

 

Here he is … smiling happily to be alive :D

He is 14,5 cm tall, made of 1cm high faux fur with mini fabric as soles and paws, shaved fur in the inside of his ears.

His face is needle felted. He is filled with polyfill and got steel shots in the feet.

Very agile as you can see :D

Loves to be cuddled and hugged and fits just perfect into a hand :D

He will be the surprise present for my mother in law for Christmas

Little Happy’s is all parts

 

I forgot again to update yesterday :( sorry

I closed all parts on one side, made some steel shot packets for the feet.

Then i turned them all, and put a piece of wool into the supposed joint holes to find the place

can you see in the last picture … its … right … its 2 left legs … I did it again …
And I was SO careful not to do it … But always when i am specially careful - I do it.
Guess I will stop to be careful :D

getting along with my small brownish faux fur bear

 

Yesterday evening i was working on my “new” “old” project.
Red running stitch all around the sewing lines on all parts.

i was a bit fearing the cutting off from the hair on the fur side, remembering the pain of boredom it was with the grey fur from Drucilla, but what a lovely surprise, it went along easy, the hair parted easy and the cutting off went fast.

So tonight i will spend an other hour on it and start to sew the parts together - 1 side of each part :D

I also was asked how i keep all my active projects apart … so here is the secret to this :

exactly … iceboxes :D

Some mini Teddy’s - and carry on an old project

 

Today i was trying to felt mini teddy’s … with not so spectacular results.
I tried 2 … a red one and a pink one… 3,7cm small.
They are 5 way string jointed … which is NOT so nice looking … it makes the limbs look like broken and crumbled and twisted.

Which means, i need to practice them more and more and more …
Probably i will start with bigger bears of some 8cm height and work myself down to smaller exemplars.
But at the moment, i got a bad hurting shoulder - muscular ache - from my 24 hour felting excess from Friday to Saturday.

So i would be glad to take a felting break … and do an old project of mine …

I started it a few month ago, and put it aside because the head didn’t want to work out like i wanted it to.
First i tried to scissor sculpt it, but the fur is so tight, i couldn’t find the middle and the muzzle seams.
So i decided to cut off the hair and - guess what - right - felt a face :D

Which turned out to be not as easy as i hoped for - not so much from the size, but the profile of the little head was not so optimal to do some felting on it.

But i guess everyone of you knows the corner, such projects tend to end in ?
In this corner this teddy went too !

But it wasn’t forgotten, i still kept thinking how i could manage to make him a nice head.
Today i pulled the box out again where he suffered and gave it a mean and nasty thread sculpting to give the head a little more felting friendly profile.

I already tried an arm before i cut out the rest of the bear, and found out, this bear will be a nasty one to finish, because the limbs are so tiny, and the hair so many, i can’t sew around.
I can sew one side of the arm / leg - then turn, and finish the sewing from the outside …
Already did so on the 1 arm, and was swearing all the time while i was sewing ….

BUT i think the end might be worth the swearing - sweating - moaning - and the trouble ….
So see for yourself some pictures of the soon to be bear :

Tonight i will start with the red running stitch on the sewing line, and cutting the hair from the seam allowance.
I am sure i won’t be able to finish it tonight, because i will call it an early night tonight, last night the smoke withdrawal didn’t let me sleep again.