Creative Mischief Handmade

My son loves the Octonauts , a TV show on ABC for Kids based on a series of books by Meomi. I have recently bought him stuffed toys of the three main characters and decided to try my hand at crocheting a toy or Amigurumi (the Japanese name for a small crocheted toy/animal) to go with his Kwazii, Barnacles and Peso. The OCTONAUTS are a team of undersea adventurers who are always ready to dive into action! Their mission: to explore new underwater worlds, rescue amazing sea creatures and protect the ocean. The result is this little octopus. Im really happy with how it has turned out. I found this pattern online and made it up, without the bobble stitches on the underside of the tentacles, as I knew an 18 month old would just not appreciate the time of all those extra stitches! I also used a double crochet stitch to join the top and bottom together as it gives a nice orange 'border' to the white underside. It is approx 7cm tall x 14cm wide a...

This weekend I have cleaned my sewing room all ready for the next project and when my sewing room is in order I feel my life is in some sort of order. It always becomes a dumping ground and complete mess when Im focused on finishing a big project and I like to clean it up before I start the next one. There is always fabric, thread and other supplies to put away and now I have the added bonus of items my son has occupied himself with while I sew.... mainly he had pulled out all my quilting magazines from the bookshelf and taken all the pencils from my drawer and posted them into various containers around the room. I also decided it was time to clean my sewing machine as I havn't done it for ages - WOW the amount of fluff that came from under the foot plate was amazing! (Sorry but that would only be of interest to other sewers) But everything is back in its home (mostly) so I can get back to the fun stuff - SEWING! I have a few things on my project list -...