Ta dah! It's out today, Mollie Makes magazine with a tutorial by me

I have been excitedly waiting for this day since I started my project back in July.
The winter issue of Mollie Makes, out in the shops today, has a tutorial by me and I know some of you have guessed it is my much loved Nutcracker character.

My starting point was an illustration I did of a Nutcracker a couple of years ago and I turned that into these simple cut and sew kits.

This summer I had the idea to bring him to life and turn him into a 3D rag doll so I set about working the proportions out, creating his outfit and all the trimmings and embellishments which went with it.

This was prototype number 1.

Next we have prototype number 2 and you can see he's become a bit more handsome!

It seemed to take ages, actually the longest bit was photographing each stage of the 'make' and then writing it down in a way people might be able to follow it.
You know how it is when you create something yourself and you know all the sneaky ways around things but you can't quite put it into words, a bit like that!

So, eventually I got there and I sent off 3 Nutcracker dolls to Mollie Makes at the beginning of October as it turned out to be a tight deadline once I got the go ahead.

I'm absolutely delighted it has gone into print for others to try. I would like to say that I think they have edited some of the photo stages for the tutorial and therefore if anyone has a go but finds it a bit tricky, do let me know and I can send the full detailed instructions I created. It has quite a lot of embellishments which make it a bit more involved and I guess they had to keep the pages to a minimum.

I took lots of photos with Nutcrackers in festive settings but they didn't use those so I would like to display a few here. 
Most of these creations are for sale at Gallery 49 in Bridlington, one or two may find their way into my Folksy shop.

They do take quite a long time to make but I am still churning out one or two more in time for the festive season, I have even created a Sugar Plum Fairy to go with her Nutcracker! She might appear as a pattern at some point.

Thanks for sticking with all the pictures, this is one of my most exciting things to be featured in my favourite magazine.

Have a good weekend everyone, I'm going to get things ready now for my craft fair. :)

How to make your own Bob the Bunny!

As I may have mentioned before I am rubbish at knitting, I can do knit and pearl (or is it purl) and I make squares or rectangles. This may be about to change, she said hopefully, as I have made enquiries about going on a beginners knitting course at Me & Mrs Fisher cafe in York next Saturday.... fingers crossed!

With my limited knitting skills it gets a bit boring doing scarves or squares for blankets, so with that in mind I thought about sculpting or shaping a square into something and the result was the birth of Bob the Bunny.

So here in all it's glory is a little tutorial to make your very own bunny like Bob.

You need a small quantity of wool, appropriate size needles, stuffing, black embroidery thread, felt.

1. Have fun choosing some pretty wool and then knit a simple square or rectangle, mine was a rectangle & measured approx. 9cm high x 11cm wide.

When you've cast off leave a longish tail for stitching up later. Decide which is the front and with some embroidery thread or black wool stitch his eyes and a cross for his mouth at about a third of the way down from top.

That is the main body done.

2. Now for his ears, knit 2 more smaller rectangles, mine were approx. 3.5cm high x 3cm wide. Again cast off and leave a tail on each to stitch up.

3. Now we stitch up Bob's body. We start at the top, if you've got a tail of thread at the top great (if not thread up some of the wool) and with a darning needle do a running stitch along the top edge. When you get to the end pull to draw it up as you can see in the photo, make sure it's drawn up fairly tight so that there's no hole for the stuffing to escape. 

Next stitch the 2 sides together down the back of Bob and finish by stitching in your thread or if you have a loose tail push it into the body.

4. Now do similar with the 2 ear pieces. Do a running stitch along the top edge and draw up to form a slightly pointed ear shape and stitch the sides of the ear leaving the bottoms open. 

We are ready to start stuffing!

5. First push a bit of stuffing into each ear to give them a bit of strength.

Stitch the ears onto the top of Bob's head.

6. Now stuff Bob's body, hiding any loose tails of wool if you hid them inside earlier.

7. Nearly done, cut a small circle of felt at whatever width the base is and stitch that in place to keep the stuffing inside.

Voila! Bob is done.

Up to you if you want to add a little bunny tail or perhaps dress your bunny up like the cuties below.

Have fun and if you get cracking now you can make a whole family of these for Easter Bunnies!