A different kind of Christmas village

I have been debating starting one of those ceramic house village collections for quite awhile now.  The ones by Lemax at the local Michaels always seemed kind of, well, a little cheesy to me and roughly made.  However they are affordable which can't really be easily said about what I was really considering, Dept. 56 houses.  There was even a store of theirs locally where we could go and look at all the different villages they carried.  I think we ended up in there every Christmastime looking and wishing we could afford to start a village.

Now that Mister Vonkysmeed's employment status is more stable I decided to definitely start a collection this year and had even researched a local store that carries Dept. 56 villages for me to go look again.  Then I ended up on the LEGO website to request a free magazine subscription for Lil' Miss and one thing led to another until I discovered this,

LEGO Winter Village Bakery, 10216

Yup, LEGO has gotten into the Christmas village business and they have a new customer in me!  This is the third year they have produced a new building and with Mister Vonkysmeed's blessing I have ordered all three buildings to get us started.

With these buildings we get the additional fun of assembling them together as a family, always a good thing in my book!  Additionally they are not made out of fragile porcelain as the other villages are, always a bonus in this family with young kids and a 'bull in a china shop' kind of hubby!

Meet Angus the Attic Monster

He is the latest addition to a slowly growing collection of monsters around our house.  He began as a way to utilize some yarn I was gifted that I would quite honestly never wear for socks, the colors are just nothing that appeal to me.  But for a monster, particularly an Attic Monster?  They are perfect!  This little guy was nabbed by Destructo-Boy before the glue even had a chance to set on his mouth.

Another fantastic pattern from Rebecca Danger's Big Book of Knitted Monsters, Angus took only 230 yards of sock yarn that was held doubled on US 4 needles.  It is so neat to be able to substitute just about any yarn for that which is indicated in the pattern, I absolutely adore this book!  The patterns are very well written, some of the clearest instruction I have come across and the monsters themselves are easy to assemble and customize.  I guess I don't need to worry overmuch about what to do with yarn leftover once a project is finished, just make a monster!  I did use the resource suggested for safety eyes, 6060 on Etsy and she was fantastic!  The prices are extremely reasonable, great selection, and the shipping was wicked fast, I had the package in my hands in less than 3 days from across the continental US.

Sheldon & Sheila

the project currently gracing my title

After completing one of my recent projects, the Sourpatch top for Lil' Miss, I realized I had a whole mess of yarn leftover after knitting all those bubble stripes.  After checking the Ravelry database for patterns using the yarn I realized I could make not just one, but two of the Sheldon turtles.  I had been eying this pattern for awhile now so was happy to finally be able to make it.

Sheila smelling the lavender, beware of the bees!

It was a relatively tricky pattern, but I was able to conquer it.  I think the part that was the most difficult was guessing the crochet hook size since it is not indicated in the pattern.  I used a size US D which ended up being too small as the bottom part of the shell opening didn't really stretch very much and made it difficult to get the shell on and off the turtle.  Which isn't such a bad thing, maybe this way the shells won't get misplaced!

Sheldon trying to blend in with the thyme, doing pretty good too.

I knitted these turtles in tandem, knitting the bodies first, than legs for one and then legs for the other, etc. so that they would be done at about the same time.  I knew one child would feel left out if the other already had their turtle and they were still waiting.  I got them done pretty close together, Sheldon was finished about an hour or two before Sheila so both kids ended up pretty happy.  Unfortunately the necks aren't holding up too well to little kid handling.  The pattern does say to stuff them firmly and I did the best I could but it still wasn't enough.  On another project I saw notes about the knitter making an extra leg, stuffing it firmly and putting it into the neck to keep the stuffing there.  In hindsight I wish I had done this too, but at least the kids love their turtles!

those shells sure were tricky!

My first Monster

I have recently begun to knit some fun little creatures in my quest to use up stashed yarn.  I hate having bits of yarn leftover and it seems like making stuffed friends seems like a pretty good use for them.  Happily I recently received The Big Book of Knitted Monsters for my birthday and it sure does enable me to use up stash yarn on some really cute little monsters.

The first monster I decided to knit was picked out by Lil' Miss to be given to her school teacher, Dot the Dress Up Box Monster.  Although we did rename her Cleo the Classroom Monster as she would be living in a Kindergarten classroom.  She ended up being significantly smaller than the pattern as I was running short on red yarn, I just didn't do most of the knit rounds that added length through the body, so she is a tad squished looking.  I even had to find another bit of red yarn from my stash box just to finish up the top of her head!  And the blue arms, well, they should be red according to the pattern but I just didn't have enough yarn so they ended up blue.  The snaggly teeth are because that way simply because I don't cut things out very well so I intentionally made them weird, but Lil' Miss likes them so it's all good.

Happily Cleo was well received by Lil' Misses schoolteacher.  So well received in fact that I often see the monster sitting on her desk out of reach of little hands.  Well, except Lil' Miss, since I made the monster she feels quite comfortable cuddling it as she does her classwork and teacher doesn't seem to mind.  I can also claim responsibility in some way for the sale of another of the Monster books.  Apparently teachers mom knits and always makes and gives scarves at Christmastime.  Teacher shared a pic of the monster on her Facebook page and issues a strongly worded suggestion to her mother that a monster for Christmas would be much better received than another scarf.  I do believe the book was ordered the next day.

I enjoyed knitting this little gal so much I am pretty sure I will ended up making every pattern in this book at least once, and some probably more than that.  So, who else wants a monster for a Christmas present?!

Cow fetish

Not that kind of fetish, what kind of sick people are you?!  I was talking about this kind of fetish:

fet-ish  noun
an object (as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical powers to protect or aid its owner; broadly:  a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence

After an angiogram last month discovered a torn arterial valve, Pops-in-law had a wee bit of open heart surgery this week to have it replaced.  He is doing amazingly well and is being sent home from the hospital after only 4 days.  In case you were not aware (and I was not until this request came my way) that when a valve is replaced they can be harvested from either pigs or cows and as you probably already guessed, Pops-in-law got some beef.  So Mister Vonkysmeed suggested that I could just "whip out" a little cow toy for him to put a smile on his face.  I suspect the humor will be most enjoyed by my Mister, but whatever it takes to help everyone get through this stressful event.

Now on to the crafty bit... I used a free pattern, Fabio Frog, from Lion Brand for the head, body and arms and for the snout ears and horns I used Chibi Cow by Marika Allely.  Why did I not just use the cow pattern you ask?  Well, I was lazy and wanted to make as few pieces as possible and this seemed the easiest way to go for me (the cow pattern has the head and body crocheted separately and had more rows to do-yes, I am that lazy).  They were both very easy to follow and the cow was done in a day.  I added on my own tail, just poked some yarn around a few crochet stitches, then braided it and ended with a nice knot.  Last of all I found some pretty checked ribbon recycled from an old floral decoration to tie around Bessie's neck, now if only I had a bell...

I did suggest embroidering stitches along the cow's chest, but Mister Vonkysmeed thought that might be a step too far for his conservative father.  All right, but if the Mister ever needs something like this, it is getting surgery stitches!