Tinsel Owl

The name "Tinsel Owl" has sort of stuck because the yarn looks like Christmas tinsel. He's from a King Cole pattern, using tinsel chunky wool. 75% polyester, 25% lycra. Great fun to knit, so much so I've just bought the wool to knit two more - heading towards a parliament of owls! These need a proper name please. 

Shaun the Sheep hat

Fun to knit, maybe I'll use smaller needles for my next one, as he's slightly too big for my head! BUT he'll make a great cover for something - maybe he can live in the kitchen guarding the biscuit tin! I made the ears double thickness. The pattern is from March 2015, Simply Knitting magazine.

Paddington Bear

Paddington Bear is LARGER than life, as I used Aran and chunky wool, not DK as the pattern. He's 66cm long/40cm seated.

I used new acrylic Aran for the bear, and new chunky premium acrylic for the hat and duffle coat. The toggles are recycled from the Oxfam shop, likewise the book. The “wellies” are knit with new 4ply yellow, used double, as I couldn’t find the right shade of yellow in the chunky wool. 

He's stuffed with Habico non-allergenic, washable, polyester filling, which has BS numbers for fire safety and cleanliness, plus European Standard EN71.

He’s now looking for a new home, as I love knitting soft toys, but don’t have the room, or little people around, to enjoy him.

Felted postcards and pictures

                  
There's an exhibition this summer at Woodend Gallery in Scarborough, "Wish You Were Here", and all entries have to be 2d, postcard size, but any media .... so this was an experiment to see if images and pictures would felt down small enough to qualify. 
I made the "cards" by adding coloured merino tops to a 10" x 8" half-felt base, very loosely needle-felting the picture so it would stay in place, then wet felting until it shrunk to the right size.
The finishing touches, once the "postcard" was dry, were added by needle-felting fine detail - sheep's eyes, foxgloves, owl's claws etc.
The larger picture was an experiment to see how to get landscape features, so I started on a larger base, and I shall frame this one.