Christmas is Over

We had our last Christmas gathering this weekend, and even though I knew it was coming in January, it still snuck up on me. I had no idea of what I wanted to make for my younger niece, as I had already made her a poncho. I emailed her mother, and they discussed it, and the little miss decided she wanted clothes for her two "Floppy Puppies" that go everywhere with her. These are not 'standard' stuffed animals (WebKinz, or Build-a-Bear, etc). I've never designed Floppy Puppy (or any stuffed animal) clothes. More discussion ensued, and the idea of sleeping bags was raised. Now, I knew I could do that! I had been making the Double Thickness Slippers and figured I could use the same ideas to make a lined sleeping bag.

But what colours do male Boxer Floppy Puppies like? I was overwhelmed. However, these dogs travel to the 'cottage' so I thought a camouflage and safety orange would be good. I already had a huge ball of Red Heart Comfort in safety orange, so I bought two other huge balls. One in a sage, and one in a sort of camo print. The first one I made was camo on the outside, and sage on the inside.

For some reason, when I worked through my pattern idea, I did it opposite of the slippers--I made the outside first, then the liner.This is not a great picture, LOL, but you can see the camo effect. Apparently I should have made a double bag. One thing I didn't like though, was that the inside colour extended too high and could be seen when the bag was laying flat. I fixed that with the orange one.

I also realized, when I grafted the first one together, at the base of the pillow, that that didn't close off the bottom of the pillow and I had to sew the two layers together to prevent the stuffing from travelling down into the bag. On the second one, I stitched the pillow closed after stuffing, then grafted the body stitches together. It was a VERY quick project, even though I was not 100% sure the design was going to work! She loves them, and I think I might need to make more (not sure the two Floppy Puppies like sharing, plus, the girl in me wants to make a cuter one for the girl in her!).

As well, I made ANOTHER pink poncho! This was number 4. After the first one, the cone measured 7 1/4" across; now it measures 6 5/8" across. I have one more to make, then maybe ones for my own girls, LOL. I made this one a little different because it was for the oldest girl (11). It's one long piece, with the cast on edge sewn to the lower side of the other end, so that it can be worn with a straight edge in the front and a point at the back, or with the point in the front like a poncho.

I also was running low on time, so I did a worm edge on the machine, instead of crocheting a frou-frou ruffle. I did use the same tuck st pattern. I had thought of changing it, or the yarn, but I already have all the measurements for this pattern/yarn combo, so why change it now?

The colour here is wrong, but it shows the right side (which is actually the purl side and usually the 'wrong' side), and the wrong side (the smoother knit side).

This shows how the front can be straight across and it makes the neck drapey, or you can flip it and have the point at the front and get a V-neck.

One bit of caution though---I tried it on, and the wide swath of one colour going across my entire front and arms made me look very wide. Perhaps a dark colour would be more slimming, but it's sort of like the "Fuzzy Poop" jacket I made--there's no visual interest to break you up so your eye sees the outline and assumes everything inside it is one big blob. Not that an 11 year old needs to worry about that though!!!