Pikachu

A little crochet pokemon for my niece :-)
Pikachu's the best!

I used cotton instead of wool, I like how sturdy it is.

My Quiver with Runes

A year ago I made a viking quiver for my husband. I tried to make it historically accurate, according to reconstructions based on excavations. My quiver is more creative than that.

I chose a serpent from this Sweden rune stone as the main theme. I traced it with a pencil on beige dyed piece, painted the body with a darker dye with use of a cotton swab and carved the edges with a scalpel (two cuts - V shaped line). It is necessary to paint first and then cut so that the light color of natural leather would show as a contrast.

The body of the quiver is sewn with a front stitch with a leather band. I made the upper part separately and joined it with this front stitch at the back. I also repeated the lower four side stitches through all layers.

It requires some physical strength to tighten the leather when finishing. I went around a few stitches back.

Viking were decorating a lot of things, so I used a cross stitch to make the handles instead of back stitch, it also looks more female if you like :-)

The bottom was made from piece of leather that was soaked in hot water and pushed into a mug or something in that shape. When it went dry I pulled it out, cut out and sewed on. This design prevents the arrows from cutting the stitches, which happens to straight bottoms even when the stitches are led diagonally...

The design is too wide and the quiver too narrow to make sense from the front, the serpents peek at the sides.

 Ready for shooting!