Wednesday 22 January 2014

Not Myrtle...



I hate that particular bit of rhyming.  Not sure why, but anyway... here's a couple I made earlier...



I made this one earlier in the week, and although he was a lot less fiddly than the guys above, he lacks pizzaz, and most importantly, a shell.  So, I had a bit of a rummage around in my files, and found this:


and so I made a couple.  The smallest size is the original pattern, and I just used my printer to up the second size to 125%.  Mine tilt forward a bit alarmingly, and I don't like the way the belly drags on the ground, so I'll be doing a bit of an adjustment to the pattern to stop that from happening - I also don't like the way the legs & belly are three separate, very fiddly pieces, so I'll be making a new middle piece to fix that.  I've got it printed at 150% as well, that I hope to make today.



They don't take a lot of fabric - in fact, I made the first one from a couple of 10" squares, but the second one, being a bit bigger, needs either two identical 10" squares for the body, or a fat quarter.  The rest of it you could certainly make out of a couple of 10" squares (the shell is lined).  I used safety eyes, rather than french knots.  The instructions are pretty good though, and for an experienced sewist, maybe an hour's work - the perfect gift for a small person.  

Ciao!

PS - the original pattern for Erin's turtle came from PurlBee - here's the link:

http://www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/2013/9/15/mollys-sketchbook-myrtle-the-purl-turtle.html