Emily, my helper, had asked me if I could make a soft toy for her daughter for Christmas. Well you know me and soft toys - I didn't need asking twice!!!!!

Apparently her daughter had drawn her favourite little animal - an octofloop!!!! That is what she called it, and this is as close to it as I could do. So she brought me the drawing and asked if I could make it just like that. Well I've never made a soft toy without a pattern, but it looked reasonably easy to make. So I got down to it!!!!

I had to think of how I was going to make a round ball of this octofloop and then add eight little round balls for the feet. So I made a large disc and then sewed around the edges, and pulled the cotton slowly to make the disc become circular. Well then I drew a smaller disc to fit the eight legs on and it was a case of putting the base onto the top disc!! Sounds easy - but it was extremely fiddly.

All the various parts ready to be assembled

Need to put the legs on and then see how it goes....

Then I stuffed the head and proceeded to add the eyes and the mouth....

Base is assembled, head is stuffed.....

The eyes have been added to the head....

Now the difficult part was to attach the head to the base. Well I then had an epiphany moment in the middle of the night and I immediately knew how to make this toy easily!!!!!!

So I cut two large discs, and 16 small discs. I sewed the two large discs together, leaving enough space to turn it inside out. Did exactly the same with the 16 small discs. Then sew the 8 legs (stuffed) onto the bottom disc. Then put in two eyes to the larger head and sew a little mouth. Then turned it outside-in and sewed up the two discs finally.

It was so easy that way - I did it in a day, whereas I was still on the other, smaller toy after 3 days!!!

I completely forgot to photograph the large octofloop, but I did take a couple of the smaller one...

Prefer the bigger octopus really - still I do like this little one

The little octopus finished, with mouth added too

He isn't as good a toy as the larger one, but you can get the hang of what I did. I think I might just make a few more and give them to the children's hospital for Christmas, or to the Salvation Army to give to small children who are in impoverished circumstances.

I've spoken again to Mandi today - she's still in a lot of pain, but is taking it easy - or else she'll be in trouble with me!!!!!

It's extremely cold here today - minus temperatures outside!!!!! I made a lovely chicken stew today in the slow cooker, so that should go down well in a minute - keep me nice and warm inside!!!!

I hope the cold weather isn't bothering any of you much.