August 2012

I mean, we (Team GB. GO TEAM GB!!!) had a bit of a slow start but the last few days have been really exciting. The cycling especially has been bad to knit to as I've found myself going faster and faster and faster... and then having to unravel a lot because I went wrong 50 rows back and didn't notice.

P.S. I know, I know, I mentioned the O-word.

Please don't sue me.

04/09/2012

Dorothy II

What do you do when you don't like something that you've spent a long time knitting? Throw it away? Unravel it? Put it away somewhere in the hopes that you will like it better tomorrow?

Well I put the Dorothy Doll away and I didn't like it better tomorrow. I couldn't quite bring myself to start again so I got rid of the bonnet and redid the hair. I added a few extra flourishes on the dress and embroidered some shiny silver bits on the shoes. I'm much, much happier with this doll although she does look a bit like every other knitted doll ever made.

The skirt came out a bit Marilyn Monroe but it took ages so I'm not redoing it.

02/09/2012

Dorothy

OK, so its not technically August any more but I was so determined to finish this set of dolls that I've decided to keep going on the same theme for a little bit. Plus it's my website so I can do what I want.

According to 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' Dorothy

• is ten or eleven years old
• wears a faded blue gingham dress and a pink sunbonnet
• has magical silver shoes

Which isn't much to go on really. I couldn't find any mention of eye or hair colour so I guessed brown for both.

Here's my attempt at a Dorothy Doll.

I kind of hate it.

My reasons are manifold. Here are a selection:

• The sunbonnet. It makes her head look like a baby's, especially from the front. You can't even really tell it's supposed to be a bonnet, though it is structured like one. It looks more like a candyfloss halo.
• The colours. I couldn't find a good flesh-toned yarn. The beige was too grey, the pink was too bright, the peach was too dark and the white was too light. This is an issue that I didn't think about at all when I planned to start knitting dolls, but now it's going to cause a problem every time I try to knit a human character. The lip colour isn't right either. It makes Dorothy look like she's wearing makeup and she's supposed to be ten for goodness sake. Plus the pink I used for the hat doesn't look good with the dress.
• The shoes. They plain don't look magical, they barely look any different to the legs. It's like she's got dirty feet. Yuck.
• The curly hair. I thought it would look good poking out from under the bonnet but it's gone a bit Shirley Temple.

31/08/2012

Tin Woodman

And here's a Tin Woodman. Not that you can tell he's a Woodman. He could be a knight or a robot or even a ghost. I'm thinking of knitting him a little axe to make it more obvious.

He looks a bit upset about something. It's probably because he thinks he doesn't have a heart.

Poor baby, he needs one of these.

The trickiest bit in knitting my tin man was choosing a colour. I have lots of grey wool, but I wanted something a bit more metallic. I have a couple of metallic yarns but they were a bit too shiny/sparkly. In the end I bought a new grey yarn that had a nice silvery shimmer to it. This completely fails to show up in the above photo, but I wanted you to know I tried.

Talking of silver, did you know that in the books Dorothy has silver shoes, not ruby slippers? That's my geeky detail for the day.

27/08/2012

Just Another Update

The blank doll pattern has been added to the site.

I wish I knew where this month was going. When I thought of the blank doll pattern at the beginning of the month I imagined having hundreds of the blinking things by now, instead I have two and a half. Not very impressive.

23/08/2012

The Cowardly Lion

Did you know that lions have round pupils, not slit ones like house cats? I'd never really thought about it before.

Here's my Cowardly Lion Doll. I've used the same knitted pieces, but arranged them differently so that the lion is standing on all fours. I'm quite proud of this doll. Look, he has little ears!

And paws!!

15/08/2012

The Scarecrow

So here is my attempt at knitting the Scarecrow from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Ta Daa...

According to the book he wears a blue suit, a pointed blue Munchkin hat and black boots. My scarecrow also has a red bow tie because I thought he needed a dash of colour (also, bow ties are cool).

The scarecrow's features were drawn on with blue paint. I embroidered them in black because I hadn't reached that bit of the book yet. I did get one eye bigger than the other though, which is as it should be.

One thing I've found is that it's very, very difficult to embroider features onto a doll without making it look sinister. Just take a look at the snowman I made a couple of Christmases ago and tell me he's not planning something...

I tried to give the scarecrow a smile but he always came out creepy. I tried to give him a nose, but that didn't work either. In the end he has a flat line for a mouth and no nose at all. It gives him rather a blank expression, but I suppose that's suitable for a character with no brain.

On the subject of creepy I'm beginning to wonder quite why I chose to knit dolls this month because, as a rule, dolls freak me out. Come to that, scarecrows freak me out a little too. As do flying monkeys.

13/08/2012

"I beg to announce to your glorious highness... that my Emerald City has been overrun by a crowd of impudent girls with knitting-needles, who have enslaved all the men, robbed the streets and public buildings of all their emerald jewels, and usurped my throne."

The Scarecrow – The Marvelous Land of Oz.

The Next Step

Now I have my plain doll I can start knitting some variations (my favourite word at the moment – imagine me doing happy jazz hands every time I say it. VariAtiiiioooonsss!).

First up I have decided to do some Wonderful Wizard of Oz dolls. That's the book, not the film. I still get to knit a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodman, a Cowardly Lion, Munchkins, Winged Monkeys, a Wicked Witch and more, I just don't have to match an existing design which should make things easier. If I get really carried away the book's sequel (The Marvelous Land of Oz) has an entire army of knitting-needle wielding warriors to knit. Of course I may get bored and wander off after I've done the main characters.

In other news I'm in the process of writing up the doll pattern for the site. I'll probably knit it a couple more times first, just to check I'm happy with it.

In other other news check out the J M Crafts blog for July 27 to see a heart decoration based on the ODDknit banner pattern. I love that it's in a collection of hearts made of different materials.

Knitting goes with everything.

Knitting takes over the world!!!

12/08/2012

Happy, but Sad, but Happy

Currently watching the Olympic closing ceremony. With all the happy smiley athletes waving at me, its sort of hard to resist waving back. So sad it's over. Tomorrow I take down my special decorations, but tonight I bop along without cynicism.

11/08/2012 – EDIT 13/08/2012

Making it up as I go

I always tell people that I use maths to design my knitting patterns. I've even got a whole design section about how I do it on this website. Truthfully though, I only use maths about half the time. The rest I just make things up as I go. It's about half guesswork and half referring back to previous designs to see how I did something similar last time.

Yes I realise this directly contradicts what I wrote last month, I probably should have thought of a different way to name this section. I think there's a differnce between what I was doing then – fiddly and completely freestyle designs – and what I'm doing now. Now is about cones and squares and structure. I'm much happier knitting structures based on number guesswork than I am doing patterns based on pictures. I hope that makes a vague sort of sense. Perhaps "estimation" would be a better word...

The estimation approach is good for the small and simple shapes. Luckily my knitted doll project is nothing but small and simple shapes.

I knew from experience that I wanted the body to be 30-40 stitches around. I curved the corners and knitted until the body was nearly square. I made the arms and legs about the same number of rows in height so they would match. The round face is another square with even more rounded corners. It took a couple of tries for me to be happy but here's my blank doll.

The important question: is make it up as you go faster than working it out with maths?

The answer: no idea.

Both can turn out right first time, or both can make you want to defenestrate your knitting. I guess it's good to have two approaches, that way when one doesn't work out you can switch to the other.

05/08/2012

The Month of the Knitted Dolls

OK first challenge this month it to knit a simple doll shape. Something like this:

It's out of proportion – only three heads high – but a knitted doll is never going to look realistic anyway, and big heads are cuter.

Once I have a plain doll I can make it up to look like characters from TV, film, literature, real life, anything really... ooh the possibilities.

04/08/2012

What do you think of it so far?

Last month was all about knitting fossils and my inner nerd enjoyed making them as anatomically correct as she could. This month it's my inner geek's turn to knit, but more on that later.

I've decided to keep doing the new-style front page with the more regular updates. I realise that last month the regularity and volume of what I was writing trailed off a bit after the first week but that's probably to be expected (plus house-buying and proper job doing and OLYMPICS have all had an effect). On the other hand the amount I was knitting was greater than normal and that can only be a good thing.

Once I write that I'm going to knit something on here, I then have to actually do it. It counters my natural talent for prevarication.