Beginning of April

 

Today is the 6th April. If I was working (I retired nearly 6 years ago) yesterday’s date and today’s would have meant the tax year end for 2023/24 and start of 2024/25.  I’m pleased I don’t have to work to that pressure any more but when these dates come around I still think it as a new year.  With spring here at last it’s good to think there are nice days ahead, even though it’s still very windy and rainy today, much like the winter!

Anyway I have a couple of finishes to report. The main one is a fox. Three weeks I purchased Florrie the Chicken Mad Fox from Lucy Locketland, when I saw a post on Instagram. I could not resist her, she is so pretty.  The kit came five days later and I immediately started working on her.

The kit came with all the yarn to make Florrie, her dress and cardigan, underneath the yarn is the woollen stuffing and a couple of chicken stitch markers, the little one of which I’ve used as a brooch on her cardigan. All the instructions including Lucy’s pattern for the dress and adaptations to the original pattern by Julie Williams, the designer behind Little Cotton Rabbits.  The kit was part of Lucy’s Year of Cotton Rabbits series. 

By the end of last month I had some foxy pieces and a dress knitted (see my monthly marker at the top,of this post for a close up).

I was also finishing off the clown ready for Cecily’s birthday (see my last post) so Florrie to a back seat for a few days but I was back on it as soon as I could. There was a cardigan, feet and legs (each leg and foot was worked in one piece), sewing the pieces together and stuffing.  I’m pleased to say that she’s finished.

She’s a lovely bit of frippery but I also learn a lot from making a little character, especially with the shaping - invisible increases and correct decreases to get the shapes just right. Making a 3D item to look like it should.  I would like to make a sheep one to join my other softie sheep and I’ll probably make that later in the year. 

My second make has been a succulent, a String of Pearls.  This is from a book by Emma Varnam called Crochet Succulents, which I’ve had for a few years.  I’ve got a plant display with owl plant pots which was a birthday present year before last and although I’ve bought little plants, they’ve not survived.  Last month I made a ball cactus with a little flower.  This time I’ve made the String of Pearls, which involves crochets bobbles. This is literally a quick make, which took a couple of evenings making the stands of bobbles, then the ‘soil’ cushion to stuff and sew the strands into.

Then it joined the other plants in the plant arrangement.

I then had a lovely little pot for Mothers Day last month but with just a ball of soil and a Viola but that dried out and died.  I should have planted in the garden straight away. So that will be another contender for a crochet succulent makeover, because the pot looks so cheery.

But that is going to wait until I come back from our holiday to Holland, where we go off to on Thursday for a week.