It is best not to blink.

I seem to have been so busy recently, I blinked and half of April and May just disappeared!

So I decided to get some help... meet my new helper!
He is called Toby.

I had to go away for a few days on business which meant working in the day and then spending quite a bit of time in the evening on my own, so I thought I would take Toby with me as I would have plenty of time to make some accessories for him.

So here he is... making himself at home in my room,

 

 
 
 

               



                not looking too bad after a long
                journey.

 Luckily we don't need one of these

 

  

 

and we definitely don't need one of these!

 

 

 

However we do need one of these,

 

 

 

and these will be very useful.

 

 

 

 

Time to freshen up

 

 

 

 

and now we're ready for a bit of crafting!

 

I felt as though Toby needed something to show that Winter was over and it was now Spring, what better than a basket of flowers. So I opened my box of goodies and set to work on making a basket.

 

Using the string I made a 'snake' coil by just wrapping round and round, keeping it flat to make the base of the basket. I sewed the coils with blanket stitches every so often to secure it all together. When it looked as though the base was big enough I began to come up the edges of the basket by wrapping on top of the previous layer of string, again using blanket stitch to secure it all.

 

 

Here is a close up of the basket in progress...

 

 

I must admit it took a lot of wrapping and sewing before I thought the basket was large enough and as you can see by the lights in the car park it took a lot of time as well!!

 

 

I made the handle by plaiting three lengths of string and tying a knot at each end and then sewing it onto the sides of the basket.

 

 

I then loosely sewed the basket to Toby's hand.

 

 

Now for some flowers. Using the yellow felt I cut around a 20p piece and a 5p piece (for each flower) and then I fringed the edges of the shapes.

 

 

The next picture shows how I threaded first the larger 20p shape and then the smaller 5p shape onto a cut length of pipe cleaner. Scrunched and sewed them together. I then cut out two of the moustache shaped leaves from the green felt, put a small hole in the middle and threaded them up from the other end of the pipe cleaner.

 

 

Now if only I could have found the green pipe cleaners when I did my packing I wouldn't have had to do the next bit....

 

 

I made 6 flowers in total, 4 in his basket and 2 in his hand.

 

 

 

Here is Toby on my stall at the Bakewell Show

 

 

 

and here he is checking out the local talent!!

 

 

 

Looking forward to fashioning his Summer wardrobe!!