AMIGURUMI SOCK MONKEY

I first saw sock monkeys on Etsy and fell in love with them. They are so cute and colourful and it is hard to believe they are made from Socks. So when I found myself thinking of something different to crochet, it isn't too difficult to see why sock monkey popped into my head.

I wanted to make this into one of my keyring buddies but it has turned out too big. I think this size, approximately 6.75" (17 cms) is perfect for hanging from a bag or even for sitting on your desk, a pocket sock monkey. I am hoping to start another today, but I have not decided on the colour combination.

NEW KEYRING BUDDY

Here is my latest keyring buddy, a cute little octopus. I already have Sunshine Sally for sale in my Etsy shop, but she is a little larger and probably too big to hang from a keyring. I did make a pink one like this one before, the same size as Sunshine Sally, her name was Polly and she is now residing in Kazakhstan. I think I will call this one Ellie. I have also made another Nellie the Elephant keyring buddy pictured here with her brother Sydney.

BEST SELLER

This cute keyring buddy, known as Tina Turtle, has become my bestseller. The first ones I made were in a different colour combination, they were orange and yellow and I also made one in blue and green. Most of them have found new owners in the United States, another has gone to Greece and several are residing in the UK. This latest one went on sale in my Etsy shop last night and has already had 16 views. I have now adopted Tina Turtle as my Etsy avatar so hopefully she will attract more customers to my gift shop.

I am now trying out different colour combinations, but I think the yellow and green is very eyecatching.

HOME AGAIN!

We arrived home in the early hours of Saturday morning. We travelled back through the night to avoid the traffic. We have had a good holiday and have enjoyed relaxing and being away from work. Unfortunately the British weather let us down and we had rain nearly every day.



It was a little sad being in Cornwall this year. I have so many happy memories of family holidays spent there with my parents and this year may have been the last time I will visit. As I have mentioned in earlier posts we are in the process of applying for our Australian visas and next year we are hoping to move there.

Amy got to see the Dr Who exhibition she was so looking forward to, this is her with one of the many 'monsters' on display.

We did have a few days of good weather there and we managed to get on the beach a few times. Amy was able to practice her surfing skills ready for her new life in Australia.

Thank you to everyone that has continued to visit my blog whilst I have been away and dropped there entrecard and for all the comments left. I am going away again on Wednesday, this time for 5 days. We are going to a family wedding and taking the opportunity to have a few days away. After that things will be back to normal and I will be catching up on dropping and commenting on all your lovely blogs!

HOLIDAY TIME

We are going away tomorrow for a couple of weeks to Cornwall. I hope the weather stays as good as it has been here for the last couple of days. It is has been beautifully warm and sunny. It is about time we had some good weather in the UK. I am looking forward to searching for new beads and yarns whilst I am there and getting inspiration for new items to make.

The picture above is the cove near to where we are staying. That picture was taken last year. We had some great days on the beach, in the sea, searching the rockpools and having barbecues.

This second picture is taken at Lands End. We had a great day there too. There was a Dr Who Exhibition on, Amy loved it and she wants to visit it again this year.

THIRD COLUMN

I have been wanting to add a third column to my blog for ages but I know nothing about html code and I couldn't find simple instructions to do it. That is until today. I came across this fabulous blog Blogger Buster which is written by Amanda Fazani. Her instructions for creating a third column are so simple that even I could follow them. There are other tutorials on there but I have yet to look at them. Thank you so much Amanda!

BEADING SUNDAY

I wanted to have a relaxing day today so I decided to have my second lesson in beading. I recently bought a book, which I mentioned in an earlier post. It is a beautiful book and has some gorgeous projects, but I think it is probably for someone who has a little more experience than me in the art of beading. I am still learning the basic stitches. I would love to go to a beading class, unfortunately there are none close to where I live.

I have discovered the second best thing to classes is You Tube. There are some great videos on there which show you how to do these stitches. I find it so much easier watching someone actually doing it rather than just reading and looking at diagrams. So today I have learned ladder stitch and herringbone stitch, it looks a bit wonky but apparently the beads are supposed to be offset like that.