I am still in Athens and still knitting! Just not looking at my laptop that much at the weekends, hence the silence. I finally managed to make the new Greek elephant a lighter dress (on the left). It’s made in cotton, which I bought from a great yarn shop in Athens. I had a weekend to myself a while back, so packed up my elephants and took them on a walking adventure. The yarn shop was wonderful – but so was the owner, who took one look at the elephants and said ‘Little Cotton Rabbits!’ He’d actually spoken to Julie (the pattern creator) via Flickr quite a few years ago. I bought some cotton just to try out, and it’s very nice. I’m undecided as to whether or not this dress suits this elephant, but we shall see.

I also made this small rabbit. He’s actually made on DPNs, which always ends up being way more stressful than a hobby should be, I think—but I do really like him. He’s very solid. I’m thinking he needs some clothes, but not entirely sure where to start with that. Maybe I’ll scale down some clothes from the Little Cotton Rabbits bunny pattern? Not sure. Never having gotten around to making human clothes, I’m not 100% sure how these things work!

Just for scale, here’s the small rabbit next to just the feet of a Little Cotton Rabbits rabbit (Which is still a WIP as a type).

THIS is just the head of a new bunny with a piebald patch, made with/by/via (?) intarsia. As you can see, I’m not great at it – so I think I’ll keep this as an experiment:

It’s annoying actually, because it’s very cute really – but I’ve managed to make the body much neater than usual, so I don’t want it to have a messy head! I’m making these as gifts, so I’d like them to be as neat as possible. I’ve got two bodies with legs sitting next to me as a type. It’s a bit of a production line at the moment. Slightly worried that I’ll run out of stuffing soon, but I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

I’ve also been thinking about tatting a lot recently, as I’ve only been knitting. For a moment I did wonder if I was forgetting how to do it, so after getting back from a huge walk yesterday to / from Athens central market (via the wine shop) I relaxed on the sofa with some tatting thread:

I was feeling too lazy to attach beads but might do that next time. This is my own pattern, so I’m glad it worked out. Could do with a bit of adjusting but I think it’s quite pretty. I’m not sure why, but I got into the habit of tatting all the bottom rings first and then the upper rings on top after. If you do them alternately as you go it’s much neater. Looking back at old photos, I think I’d changed my technique for the worse, for some reason? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ fixed now, hopefully! Will adjust it a bit and try it with beads next time.

And here’s a little story to finish. I ended up showing photos of some of the toys to my team at work. As I get a bit embarrassed about it (not everyone gets knitting!), I usually end up saying something kind of self deprecating. I said ‘I should probably make something useful – like a jumper or something!’. To which one of my team replied ‘NO! Why would you do that? You can just buy a jumper, you don’t need to make things like that. It sounds too stressful, you’ll get burnt out. You should use your time to make nice things that you enjoy, it doesn’t matter if they’re useful!’. And actually I do agree. It’s a hobby, right? It’s supposed to be fun, and you *should* be making whatever makes you happy. Pointless toys are less pointless when the point is enjoying yourself 😉

Hope wherever you are you’re enjoying what you’re making too.

Oh! And PS: I haven’t told anyone this (much like I’ve only told about 2 people that I have a blog) but I’ve got a crafty instagram account. If you have too, I’ll see you there: I’m occasionalcrafter
(sorry about the duplicate photos!)