A Little Brown Rabbit........

Here's my little brown rabbit child - the second doll I've made using this pattern, which I have devised for an up-coming class. I thought I'd better make sure there were no bugs in the design (I don't think there are). It is quite an easy pattern using my "small child head" with a flange at the neck for jointing (the head turns). The most difficult part is painting the head, because it is quite small - this doll is only 23 cms tall to the tips of the ears.

 I decided to use the same cotton print fabric that I used for the dress, to make the paw pads and the ear linings and I used thinned down brown acrylic paint to stain the fabric. I really like this simple blue and white spotted cotton fabric. The body fabric is a viscose pile fabric with a woven (non-stretchy) backing.

 I love that very worried, serious expression that small children get on their faces when they are really trying to understand something that baffles them - I tried to replicate that expression in this doll's face.

Serendipity!

The one thing I really love about the Internet is the way you can happen upon something unexpected and delightful, simply by poking around and following a few links. That happened to me a few weeks ago when serendipity lead me to the sites of a knitted toy designer based in the UK called Wendy Phillips. I'm a bit of a sucker for a well-designed knitted toy and I found these irresistable! Because they are available as PDF downloads in Wendy's Etsy store, almost instant gratification is possible. What was difficult was deciding which one to buy first, since they are all very appealing, but in the end, I decided to get "Mother Bunny". Since much of what I do is quite complex and time-consuming, occasionally I like to make something purely for the fun of it - this project fitted the bill perfectly. Wendy's patterns are very affordable - she has lots of different doll patterns as well as animals and even one for baby shoes. If you like to knit and want a few projects that will only take a few evenings to make, you couldn't do much better than ordering one or two or ten  patterns from this wonderful designer. Here's how my "Mother Bunny" turned out - the only things I did a bit differently from Wendy's pattern were the eyes and a little needle-sculpting of the face. I really love those shoes! Well, that's enough fun - back to work today - but I'm already thinking about which one of Wendy's patterns I'd like to tackle next!

You can also visit Wendy's blog at http://flutterbypatch.blogspot.com

Steppin' Out!

All done with socks and shoes..........

And a cute little bunny in a felted bag!