The little amigurumi ninja is finished, and hanging-out in the garden to make sure that no baddies are coming to get us.

Her face was drawn using a uniball marker on a piece of cotton duck, then attached using fusible webbing. To be sure it wouldn’t come off, I’ve run a small line of stitches around the edge. Finishing shouldn’t have taken long, but Meg and I went through six or seven versions of the face until we got one that we both liked and agreed on.

Now that she’s done, she can go and live in Meg’s room, and I can start a new project – or maybe finish another one that is already underway…

Motivation can come from the strangest places. On Monday – a public holiday here in Melbourne – I spent the day in the Emergency department of our local hospital with my mum, who had what we think was a really severe bout of food poisoning. While I waited, I crocheted – keeping my hands busy so that my mind wasn’t.

As a result, the little amigurumi ninja has been finished and put together, though she is still waiting for her face…

When I finally got to take Mum home (tired and unwell, but safe) and came back to my own home, I couldn’t settle. I found myself sitting at my sewing machine at 1.30 in the morning, making pincushions from left over squares that had been cut for a quilt I made Meg a couple of years ago.

My frenzied activities continued all day yesterday, too. I cooked, wrote, sewed and crocheted, and shopped for supplies so that I can do more ‘making’. Does everyone else do this, too, or is it just me who makes things when I’m stressed?

Actually, I only bought one more supply yesterday, and that was some textile medium so that Meg and I can get on with stamping some material with the rubber stamps we made last week. Imagine my delight when, in one of the quiet moments last night, I found (by way of LoobyLu) a fantastic tutorial for hand-carved rubber stamps. These were also made from erasers.

You can see the Hand-Carved Rubber Stamp tutorial here on Geninne’s Art Blog.

This Queen’s Birthday weekend has given me a chance to catch up on a couple of UFOs – including a quick crocheting project that I couldn’t resist trying: my first original amigurumi.

This little ninja (again, drawn by Meg) has been the inspiration.

I’ve got her body and one arm made, with the second arm and legs ‘on the hook’ as we speak. I’m still tossing-up how to do her face, but at the moment, embroidering and appliqueing a felt face is looking like the way to go.

My latest passion is amigurumi, having discovered it recently when I was searching the net for crochet patterns.

I love that the animals are small and cute and quick to crochet, so that a lot can be achieved in a few spare minutes here and there. And lets face it, sometimes that is all the time we can find!

I came across the pattern for this dear little bird at BitterSweet, and couldn’t resist it. It was a wonderful introduction to this style of crocheting. Meg named her Custard because of her colour.

Next to Custard is a little panda Meg made out of polymer clay. To put them in perspective, Custard is about 7.5cm (3in) tall. The little panda is sitting inside a thimble, and stands at about 1.5cm (5/8in) tall. She made this on the same day she made these dogs.

Here she is in close-up, although still hiding inside the thimble!