I just thought I’d make a small something for my mother’s birthday tomorrow (well, really – in about 30 minutes). I won’t be able to see her on her birthday, but a bit of cake would be nice, right?

When we were in London, many years ago, we bought a stuffed snake. Years later, both our children love it and fight often over who gets to play with it. When my daughter went to day care, and I made her a snake to take with her. So, of course, my son wanted one too.

When I made hers, I still had a small amount of Etsuko Furuya Glasses fabric in pink (from our local fabric shop budulina), so I decided to incorporate that in the design – her snake got glasses. When I made the manly version (also with fabrics from budulina) I didn’t have any left, so I drew on plain eyes.

All the sizes given in this tutorial are appropriate for fitting a pair of glasses on the snake’s head, but of course – you can make it any size you want!

This year, I decided that I would be organized. I’ve found that when I use online calendars, they tend to get out of sync – some things I put in my work calendar, some on my phone and I never had a full picture of what was going on. So, I bought a weekly planner (I used a coupon, so it even cost me next to nothing).

The problem was that the planner didn’t have a pocket for documents or a place for a pen. Now, that’s just not good enough! But wait – why don’t I make a cover with both features? This simple project takes less than an hour to make, and a very small amount of fabric (depending on the size of your planner).

A while ago I got a truck load of yarn from my mother. The black yarn is always useful, and the turquoise and light blue were used in a boy’s baby blanket I made as a gift. Here I am, “stuck” with about 5-6 balls of grey yarn, without an idea what to make. I asked some friends and readers, and everyone suggested various grey animals: mice, elephants and cats. I already made an elephant once and wasn’t happy with the result (I need to think of a better design than the pattern I used). Mice can be cute, but I really like cats, so I decided to go in that direction. Maybe I’ll make a mouse for the cat to play with next…

I made the body flat because I thought it was softer and more cuddly that way, but it can also be made into a cute scarf if you make the body long enough. You could also make it into a pillow by making 2 body pieces, stuffing them and sewing closed.

So, here’s how to make her (it’s definitely a she):

After we made such a nice blanket, we need a tote to carry it and other essentials (I never leave the house without baby wipes anymore).

I wanted to use the leftover fabric from the blanket to create a fun tote with a trim, but if you decide to make it without, simply ignore those instructions.

I remembered that I am also a web developer, so instead of providing absolute measurements and letting you calculate yourself if you decide to make it a different size, I’m proud to present a built in calculator. Simply enter the final measurements you want, click “Calculate” and all the measurements will be miraculously updated.

Final measurements:

Materials

• Main pieces, cut 4: 32cm X 42cm
• Side pieces, cut 2 & strap, cut 1: 106cm X 12cm
• Trim, cut 2: 108cm X 4cm
• Zipper pocket top, cut 1: 8cm X 42cm
• Zipper pocket bottom, cut 1: 15cm X 42cm
• Zipper at least 40cm long
• If you’d like to use this tote on a stroller, you’ll need snaps or Velcro.

It’s summer, and we go out to the park almost every day. My oldest hooks up with other kids and runs around and up and down the slides, but my little one still needs me to sit with her on the grass. I used to have a water proof blanket we got as a gift from work at some point, but it disappeared a while ago and I haven’t replaced it. Until now. And what could be better than a matching tote for carrying all the outing must haves?

Before you get started, decide the size you want your blanket to be. If you want your stitched diagonal squares to be symmetrical in all directions, you should take this into account in your calculations. I didn’t and was sorry later… I used my ruler’s width as the size of the squares, it makes it much easier to mark and make sure they’re straight and all the same size.

If you care about it being symmetrical you can do the following calculation: So, let’s say my square size is X, I’m using 8th grade math to figure out the diagonal size: X^2+X^2=Y^2 ==> Y=1.41X. In other words, multiply X by 1.41 to get the length of the of the diagonal. The length and width of the blanket should be some product of this number (it doesn’t have to be the same for both).

My son loves Timmy the Lamb. I agree. Stop frame animation is one of my favorite animation types, and this one is styled so nicely. The stories have little or no speech, so they are appropriate for younger ages, but the story has enough nuances to be interesting to older children and grownups as well.

Timmy the lamb is not to be confused with Shaun the sheep, who may or may not be related to Timmy. They are similar, but Shaun has wool on his head and Timmy does not.

No sheep were harmed during the making of this project. The Timmy doll is made entirely with synthetic yarns.

So, let’s get started.

Materials

• 1 set 4mm double pointed needles
• About 1/3 ball of yarn (33 grams)
• Some black yarn for the eyes and nose
• Tapestry needle
• A ribbon for the neck.
• Polyfill (or other) stuffing

Abbreviations

• K: knit
• Kfb: knit front back: knit in the front of the stitch, and another in the back of the stitch to increase.
• K2tog: knit 2 together
• […] instructions inside the [..] should be repeated as many times as specified.

Because I love Doc Martens shoes so much and since I think I’m a bit too old to wear them, I decided to live vicariously through my baby daughter and make some for her. Unfortunately, there were no patterns available, so I decided to write up my original pattern.

Gauge: I used worsted weight yarn and a 4mm crochet hook to fit a 5 month old baby.

Materials: brown & yellow yarn for sole, black yarn for laces, red (or other color) yarn for shoe.

I used worsted weight yarn and 4mm crochet hook, but really – gauge is not important for this project. Just make sure the stitches are tight enough so that the stuffing doesn’t show through. You can change colors at any point to make an interesting pattern.

Abbreviations

• ch – chain
• sc – single crochet
• st – stitch
• idec – invisible decrease. Instructions for this can be found here.
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