Ah l’ennui...

There’s nothing like being in the middle of three lengthy projects with no immediate end in sight to make me want to go drape myself, sighing and clad in a diaphanous gown, over a chaise lounge. However, since I lack for both the gown and the chaise lounge, I had to content myself with restlessly picking up and putting down the various pieces of knitting, all to the tune of many an exasperated sigh. I itched to be making something but that something certainly was not Icarus, Pomatomus, or the Traveling Plum.
Images of knitted items I covet flitted across my mind but the thought of casting on yet another project sent me sinking back down on my mental chaise lounge with hand to forehead. When I found myself starting to play metal games of bribery (one page of New Yorker reading for every 4 rows!) to keep on knitting, enough was enough. Into the bag went the needles and fiber and out came the fabric and crafting books.
As often is the case, a little sewing quite soothes the need to create and leaves a delightful physical product to boot. This time, the result was Squee.
(Warning: gratuitous multi-angled photos below...I got a bit carried away).



Squee's sitting on my ipod for size reference. The pattern I made him from is in this lovely Japanese craft book (ISBN 4-7778-0011-3). While the directions were fairly clear, the fact that Squee is made from real fabrics and not good ole forgiving felt caused there to be a surprising amount of finagling in order to get the various small pieces of fabric to fit together just so. Even with the fussing though, poor Squee still ended up a bit lopsided in the back since my sewing skills, alas, are not equal to my ambition. Still, I'm quite happy with the little penguin. He looked a tad chilly when he was all done so I made him a scarf from some linen. I think it gives him quite a festive air!
Changing crafting mediums certainly did the trick to chase away my vague feelings of discontent. Now, back to Icarus…