Blue Bird of Happiness

Blue Bird of Happiness, a photo by Kelshandra on Flickr.
I'm heading to the Australian Discworld convention in two weeks!  Woot!  And because it is always more fun to have a costume for that sort of thing, after much careful consideration, to dress as the Cheerful Fairy.  Don't remember her?  She's in the Hogfather and is one of several mythical creatures who arise after the Hogfather is um, killed?  Made to not exist?


"'Excuse me madam' said Ridcully. 'But is that a chicken on your shoulder?' 'It's, er, it's, er, it's the Blue Bird of Happiness' said the Cheerful Fairy."

So I needed a blue chicken.  But I figured it would be much more amusing if my chicken was looking a bit sad and pathetic... 'my Blue Bird of Happiness hasn't been himself lately'.  A toy rubber chicken and a can of spraypaint later and things were looking a bit sad.  Paint oozing off the rubber chicken and not drying.  So I came up with a plan B; one rubber chicken pattern later, some cheap acrylic and there you go.  Not sure if I'll use him but I do sense a charity raffle contribution at the end.




Now to go and work out the rest of my costume! Any Discworld jokes for the Cheerful Fairy's joke book?  Leave a comment below.

An elephant for my nephew

It's been a while and my only excuse is that I've not been crafting (which is sad, I know).  But my nephew's first birthday was approaching so I decided to pull out the knitting needles because I found a lovely pattern for a knitted elephant. The pattern is one from the book Knitted Wild Animals by Sarah Keen.  I nearly bought the book in Lincraft but at $30 for the book, knowing that I'd make one or two animals at most, it was a bit dear.  However, happily when I got home I searched Ravelry for an elephant I found that the designer had a pattern available online- free!  Here's the link to the Woman's Day site it is available through.

The pattern is well written for the most part, there was only one part that was a little confusing (and based on Ravelry I wasn't the only one).  While the body pieces use make 1 stitches (so don't increase within a stitch but rely on making a new stitch), the other pieces use increases (knitting in the front and back).  If you don't realise this and instead continue to make stitches when making the head etc, your stitch counts will be off.

But aside from that little hiccup, it's a lovely pattern.  Easy and quick to make and looks adorable. If you wanted to make a menagerie of animals then I would say the book Knitted Wild Animals is a good buy.  If you only want to make an elephant then this is a good one to make- particularly if you are relatively new to toy making.

And the careful observers would already have realised that I've not put a tail on my elephant yet- oops!  I'll just go do that now!