Mayla & Molly Bear

Introducing Miss Mayla and her little Molly Bear. I think they are the best of friends now, don't you agree? These are some photos I took this morning on my table,  but I'm hoping to take them out into the garden once we see a sunnier day. I think they would both love to be outside playing among the flowers.

Teddy Bear Dreaming

I finished Mayla's bear this morning, so I thought I'd share a few photos of her. She's all dressed up in her Sunday best.

Mel xx

Mayla's Bear

Working away on Mayla at the moment. She whispered that she was feeling lonely, and I thought to myself.... nothing beats a big bear hug when you are feeling a little sad and lonely.

I found this photo on the net, it kind of encapsulates the essence of bear love, don't you think?? 

Mel xx

Little Mayla's Waiting

Ah the busyness of Easter, visiting family and friends has meant I didn't get as much work done over the weekend as I would have liked. But it was so lovely just the same. I think Easter is one of my favourite holidays, mainly because we approach it from such a relaxed place. What will happen will happen, if not, oh well. I wish I could tap into that for Christmas, which is so pressured and stressed.

So this week is all about getting Mayla finally finished. Yesterday saw her dress done and now she finally has something to wear. But today I am working on some shoes, a little cardigan and little special friend for her. She is such a shy little girl, a special teddy bear might make her feel a little more braver as she sits for her photos and waits for her new forever home.

Mel xx

Flowers and Dolly Goodies

Many a morning is spent knitting in the garden. Theres something about the combination of knitting and garden, like peaches and cream and coffee and chocolate! The rhythm of the needles, the feel of the fleece and sitting in the busyness of a garden. Bees, butterflies, birds and the joyful colours of the flowers.

Thought I'd share a few new pieces that have just been put into the shop, some garden floral dolly goodies.

Happy Easter

I'll be working to finish little Mayla over the Easter break. Hoping that I'll manage to steal away a few hours to finish her little outfit, which funnily enough is blue, yet again more blue!

In the meantime I hope you all have a lovely weekend, filled with lots of happy moments with your friends and family.

Oh I thought I'd share this vintage Easter illustration, I instantly fell in love with it. I love seeing the Easter Bunny knitting away and I giggled to myself, maybe I see a bit of my own reality in this quaint little picture. I think my kids are very used to hearing their requests being answered with, "yep no problem just let me finish this row...."

Stay tuned for Mayla's unveiling next week.

Happy Easter
Mel x

Molly Moppet in Blue

The last couple of days I have been in a very blue mood, and not in a sad way, just the colour blue. I can't get enough of it! Most my my work starts with wool, I love my yarn stash. Even my dolls begin from a skein or ball of wool, a colour that catches my fancy in a moment. Colour has the amazing ability to inspire.

This weekend I raided my yarn stash and pulled out balls of blue. I really enjoyed making up some little dolly goodies from all manner of blues.

So with blue in my mind and on my work table I started to work on a little knitted bunting doll. I wanted to do some fuzzy hair on this one, so she would be a little older than my other blossom baby buntings.

This morning Molly Moppet was all finished and sitting up on my work table looking back at me.

I thought some photos in the garden might be nice. It was a lovely morning and the garden was filled with bees and birds, a perfect place for Molly Moppet who LOVES flowers.

Molly Moppet is in my Etsy store, waiting for her new home.

Mel xx

Miss Molly's Music

This weekend my husband disappeared into his little shed down in the very back corner of our garden. He emerged late on Sunday afternoon with this little Pentatonic Glockenspiel.



We saved some of the branches we cut from our big, old Mulberry tree last winter. A little bit of sanding and some beeswax and the lovely old branches have new life.

The keys are made also by my dear husband and are polished solid brass. It has such a lovely sound to it, very accurate 7 pentatonic tones.

I have loved the sound of pentatonic instruments ever since I first set foot in a Steiner Kindergarten. The lyres and the glockenspiels are sacred to those special early childhood sanctuaries. Rudolf Steiner spoke often of the value of the pentatonic scales. What is of utmost importance is that no matter how you play them, the music and sounds produced are harmonious, as a result they encourage musical improvisation with children.

Left over trails of little visitors to our tree are buried in the surface of the the old branches. Long gone are the little grubs but the tiny trails remind us of that they too have used this wood for their own use many months before us.

Arrabella & her Double Moss Stitch

This week I have also been dreaming of another doll. Her name is Arrabella and she is filled with vintage, bohemian personality.

 

 

I wanted her sweater jacket to have real texture and weight so I thought double moss stitch might be nice. Only problem is, I've never tried it before, but hey, how hard can it be, right??

 

But after a slow start I got it. The most important part is to keep track of what row you are on.


There seems to be a couple of ways people do double moss or double seed stitch

1) Working on a row with stitches in multiples of 4

Rows 1 & 2  knit two, purl two, repeat

Rows 3 & 4  purl two, knit two, repeat

Repeat these 4 rows for pattern.


2) Working on row with stitches in  multiples of 2

Row 1  purl one, knit one, repeat

Row 2  knit one, purl one, repeat

Row 3  knit one, purl one, repeat

Row 4  purl one, knit one, repeat

Repeat these 4 rows for pattern


I decided to use the latter, example 2.

Mayla

This week, as long as the children allow me, I am hoping to finish Mayla. On Saturday night I worked into the wee hours, only to wake the next morning and discover Mayla sitting on my work table.

 

 

I have been saving this piece of William Morris design fabric for just the right moment. When Mayla told me that blue is her favourite colour I immediately remembered this small piece. I have a few ideas of what I am going to do..... just a couple of days to, hopefully, make it happen.

Early Autumn Loveliness

Besides my family, there are 2 things that I am deeply passionate about, dolls and gardening. There are times when I can combine them by grabbing some knitting and heading out to sit and knit in my garden.

At the moment what a joy that is. The zinnias and salvias are in full glory. I thought I would share the view of my morning with you all from my Autumn Garden.

Our path that leads into the garden is regularly over growing to the point where we can't get through, I guess we can thank all the rain we have had lately, a far cry from the bush fires that threatened us some 6 months ago.

Finally we are seeing banana passionfruit flowers on our vine! Can't wait to start harvesting, does anyone know if you can make passionfruit butter from banana passionfruits?? Worth an experiment or 2 perhaps.

I have a very real soft spot for zinnias and salvias. As a result I think I have salvia plants by the dozens and zinnias by the hundreds. At this time of year it is not uncommon for my little garden to be swarmed with butterflies, obviously the butterlfies love them just as much as I do.

Gwen and Dolly

I've been working on a little dolly named Gwen this past week or so. She started as a dolly dream, I really wanted to create something out of some beautiful grey wool that I have had in my wool stash.

I also wanted to play around with a vintage knitting stitch known as feather & fan. I'm new to lace knitting and I thought that good ol' feather & fan would be a lovely first step. So Gwen's dress has a skirt made of this pattern.

Gwen loves playing dollies, her favourite is her little felt doll named Missy.



Gwen has a scarf that she wears around her neck or sometimes as head band. It is made of delicate mohair blended yard in a variegated, dusty pink colour.



Gwen has a sweet little pair of crochet baby jane shoes on. They are made from the same variegated mohair that is in her scarf.



I'll be putting Gwen and her dolly Missy up in my Etsy store today.