creature making with Julie Arkell

Last Sunday (gosh, was it only one week ago?!) I was at the wonderful Loop in London taking part in a creature making day with the fabulous Julie Arkell.  Things have been a little difficult of late, so I decided that this was a massive treat to myself as I know I'll never be able to actually afford to buy one of Julie's creatures for myself, so this was the next best thing.

I arrived in London bright and early for our 11am start and we (there were 7 of us altogether) met our naked creatures.  I chose mine as she was lying face down in the basket, and not standing up like all of the others, that was a sign I thought, that we were meant to be together.

Julie passed around a whole cacophony of patterns to use to make our creatures, there were hats galore to chose from, plus wings, trousers and knickers to create and clothe our creatures in.  I went for the fabric ear hat which involved knitting a strip of wool then crocheting two ends and finally choosing some fabric to be added to make the ears. 

The ear fabric chose me as I had rummaged around inside Julie's box of fabrics, and this checked piece had adhered itself to one of the other pieces so I decided it had chosen itself to be used.  There was lots of quiet in the room as we all concentrated on our knitting patterns.

I then added some grey knitted knickers in a very soft wool as no one wants to be wearing itchy pants, do they?  Then I used some more of Julie's fabric to create a mustard and white spotty frock for my creature, who named herself Audrey. 

our collection of creatures

A quick sew around of the edge later and I had one fully dressed creature.  I think I may add a knitted apron with a name tag on it at a later date, but for now Audrey is complete.

She's been a firm hit here, in fact my mother tried to steal her away from me but I'm no fool and Audrey is currently in my lounge resting on some crafty books.

Fairly soon she will be residing on the mantelpiece in my new lounge as I hope to be moving Christmas week into my new girlie pad for three.  2015 has been a challenging year in many ways but I am looking forward to 2016 as being my year of 'new beginnings'.

G x