bilious

I am becoming obsessed with the idea of making toys. It started over Xmas when I was visiting my cousin, who knitted a whole gaggle of beautifully perfect teddy bears as gifts. They're like Steiff bears - shaped arms and legs, cute little snouts, and wearing little knitted sweaters and scarves. I borrowed her bear-making book because she said she was burned out on them for a while, but I haven't tried making any of them yet.

There are also some great knitted toys floating around on the web these days. The Winter issue of Knitty has the excellent cat doll, Kate, made by Jess Hutch who has a whole world full of knitted animals and robots over on her blog. Bugheart led me to Wee Wonderfuls, which makes me insane with the cuteness. I love going there because it's like crossing into another dimension full of cool toys - the links just lead you further and further into the fairyland. Same with Loobylu - I could spend hours trolling around in her "Month of Softies" gallery. Okay, maybe I already have.

Thusly inspired, I checked out a book from the library called "Making Stupid Sock Animals" and it was good. I made this monster on Sunday afternoon. His name is Bilious, and he is a stomach monster, whose job is to eat all the foul bile and virus bits and other nonsense that's been troubling my stomach. But he won't get ill, he just swallows it all uncomplainingly - hence the stiff upper lip.

I think I'm going to make some more.

One of the things that appeals to me most about this toy-making is the recycling. Scrap yarn, old socks, fabric scraps - this is SO much cooler than running to the LYS or firing up the PayPal account every time I get inspired & want to knit something. I could go a long time making toys from all the stuff we've got lying around here. Speaking of which... got any socks you don't need anymore?