Category: Little one

Hi all,

Apologies for the lack of a blog last week, there was an issue with the server but I’m back now!

Today myself, Engel and Felix went lambing – it was rather surreal and more of a walk in documentary type affair than the hands on experiences I’ve had with lambing in the past.

Needless to say though Felix had a ball – with much shouting of sheep! And lambs! Took a while for her to understand that baby sheep were lambs and mummy lambs were sheep, but we got there. She was very timid about petting them though.

I find it amusing that my two year old fearlessly deals with the snakes and tarantulas that we own as pets, but runs screaming because a sheep baa’d at her…

Onto knitting news, still working my way through the blanket, not sewn anything together so other than a bundle of squares there’s not much to show. I do however have line little finished project:

Yes it’s another dicebag birthday present.

And yes, it’s a star wars one too. The charts are from the free pattern ‘star wars double knit scarf‘ by Notanicedragon.

I may have to extend my circle of friends, or criteria, about making dice bags, there’s only one or two left who haven’t received the traditional gift – this troubles me as I enjoy making them far too much!

Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 13 (2 this update!)
Wool bought – 9

Total – 693

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Just a few things since my last blog post…

A request from someone at work who is expecting their first grandchild – it’s an adorable hooded cabled cardigan called, rather excitingly, ‘Design I’ from Sirdars Gorgeous Babies booklet. I’ve just cast on a blanket now for them also, but more on that on a later post.

Next of all, a little story.

Whilst in Edinburgh, at the museum of Scotland, Felix batted her eyelashes at Daddy and left cuddling a small triceratops.

On the bus ride home, she informed me it needed a mummy and I was going to make her it.

Can’t fault a two year olds logic sadly…

It was easy to achieve though using the triceratop pattern from ‘Knitted Dinosaurs’ by Tina Barret. Just a little bit of colour work and voila!

I must admit, the squeals of joy when I gave her it this morning made the effort well worth while!

Except, just one small detail.

She just asked for a Daddy dinosaur…

Wool Count down:

Starting total – 697 balls

Wool used – 11

Wool accidentally purchased – 9 (it was a super good offer and a really nice bright green that will make an adorable…something…)

Total – 695

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Felix has recently started to refer to herself and her most loved ones (mummy and daddy) as cats. It’s very cute, if not incredibly confusing to everyone not clued in on the cat craziness here.

Seriously, we’re all crazy old cat ladies, without the old part and, in the case of Engel, he’s a laddie, not a lady.

Anyhow I’ve spent the last few days in Edinburgh, seeing the family, and having lots of adventures! By the end of it, Felix’s cat family expanded to include her granny and two cousins as well – that was an interesting thing to explain to an eleven and six year old, why it was an honour too be called a cat…Granny figured it out right away.

She’s used to my crazy.

A little present my neice asked for, quite coincidentally, was ‘happy family – cats and kittens’ from the book ‘Knitted cats and kittens’ by Sue Stratford.

I also made the matching tiny mice. It went down well and sums up the trip a fair bit!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 11 (1 this week)

Total – 686

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Several years ago, before Felix, I made myself a crocodile scarf (the pattern was from an old let’s knit magazine) and after wearing it that winter, it got shoved into the box of spare scarves and gloves and forgotten.

One day, looking for anything that Felix might agree to wear that was warm, she spotted the crocodile scarf and has since worn it like a shawl around herself.

It was adorable, and warm, and I never thought more about it.

The other day she got a toy cat that came with a lilac sparkly scarf with fluffy white trim. After one look at it, and a testing cuddle, she demanded the offending purple fluffy thing be removed and replaced with its own crocodile scarf.

I was about to tell her not to be silly when Engel replied ‘of course mummy will make Whiskers (the toy cat) one!’

Out came the pattern and one was made in miniature. And I have to admit, the photo bombed pictures of Felix hugging that cat wearing its scarf and squealing ‘thank you mummy! Love you!’ does make it worthwhile…but they’re for my private collection, so you’ll have to make do with the cat by itself.

He is cute with it on…

Besides this scarf, I made Engel another pair of armwarmers. Same pattern, same wool, same colours. Boring!

Quiet week otherwise. Well, a slow one. Redundancies have been announced at work so I’m playing the waiting game to see if I’ll be staying or going.

I’ve begun to stress knit…wool tension is through the roof though…

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 10 (1 this week)

Total – 687


 

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Completely different!

A warm cosy hat for Engel! I used the free pattern ‘Leef’s Ear Flap Hat (3-color)’ by Leef Bloomenstiel, only changes were a knitted merino lining inside the hat for extra warmth and the number of stitches. The pattern says 84, Engel has a huge head. Seriously. He wears an XXL motorcycle helmet and even that’s a little snug. I increased the number of stitches for this hat to 147.

147!

But it fits, and he likes it, and I am reminded once more why I don’t knit him hats. I’ll forget in a few years and offer to make another no doubt…

Onto my other project this week!

Remember how I blogged about my obsession for dice bags? Well, Felix has clocked on that when we’re playing our RPGs that everyone (near enough) in the group has a knitted dice bag. So, she demanded her own dice bag and dice. And it had to be a full complement of dice, not just the D6’s!

Here’s the dice bag – her pick of pattern and colours.

Not surprisingly, she wanted owls. This bag actually is a cross between her mittens and her Christmas stocking. I was impressed with how well she managed to get across what she wanted!

That’s all for this week – except the wool count, three balls used again this week!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 9 (3 this week)

Total – 688

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Slight change of pace this week – I couldn’t leave Felix out after both myself and Engel getting armwarmers, so mittens it is!

I used the free pattern ‘Owlet‘ by Odessa Reichel – though I did end up making two pairs as the first came out large enough for a 6/7 year old! Felix can have those when she outgrows the smaller pair (pictured).

For the food item this week I actually went old school and used one of my many knitting books – Amigurimi knits by Hansi Singh. Can you guess which pattern I used? Here’s a hint:

Peas! This is probably going to be the last knitted food for a while – I will be making more, but will wait till Felix asks for them! She actually seems satisfied with the influx she’s received these past three weeks…

Last but not least:

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 6 (3 this week)

Total – 691

Have a good week everyone!

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Well, I couldn’t resist. After I made Engels armwarmers last week, I got jealous of their warm merino softness…and made a pair for me…

Not the exact same as his, but a billion times cuter! Based on the free ravelry pattern ‘Foxy Mittlets for Mama Foxes‘ by Mertsu. I made them longer and added a thumb so they were a little more suited to me!

Onto other knits, lots more plasy food for Felix!

Banana! Free pattern by Kimberly Chapman. Adorable too – you can ‘peel’ the banana skin!

Made using a free Cherry knitting pattern by Linda Dawkins

And lastly, after Engel commented that Felix needed more ‘interesting’ food…

A durian fruit! They smell like rotting fresh when ripe, but apparently taste like custard…this one is based on the free knitting pattern ‘Stinky‘ by SSknits. The only difference is since I can’t crochet, I did a BlackBerry stitch outer ‘shell’. Not quite as cool as the original patterns, but good enough for me.

Felix just enjoys having things she can ‘chop’ and cook…

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 3

Total – 694

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More play food for Felicity, that happens to tie in nicely with the time of year! Its a free Ravelry pattern, ‘Natural Look Halloween Pumpkin‘ by Caroline Lord.k

Also working well for the time of year, some baking that Felix ‘helped’ with.

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Its amazing how much fun a two year has mashing bananas…the recipe itself is a sugar-wheat-dairy free banana and date cake. Though to help the coffin appearance, I used some 70% cocoa chocolate and a few spoonfuls of cream to make a dark frosting. I’d say it went well at he party I took it to, but Engel made it clear it was his and everyone else should eat the sugar filled cake he couldn’t have…

What else have I been making?

Market bags!

Lots of them! Its another free Ravlery pattern, ‘Grrlfriend Market Bag‘ by Laura Spardin.

Rather than wrapping all my christmas presents with paper that would then just be thrown away, I opted to ‘wrap’ presents in market bags! The super colourful one was my prototype (and for Felix to play with) and I learnt one important lesson. Make the strap short, once any weight goes in that bag, its going to stretch.

Felix needs to grow a foot before shes going to be able to get any actual use out of hers!

I made five more afterwards, only got four photographed (and even then in poor lighting) and I may well make more, but thats all I had time for as I was giving them to all my family in Edinburgh when I was up for my mums birthday a fortnight ago.

What else to say? Its all been rather busy! Eh…oh, I’ve had a few queries as to how one accidentally purchases thirty balls of wool. Quite simply when the wool is only sold in packs of ten and I wanted three different colours. What a shame…but hey! Nine balls used since the last post, and not all of them little ones either!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 98
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 719

Annoying, despite using nearly 100 balls of wool, I’m only down by about thirty in my collection…

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It’s been another busy week. Work, team building day involving playing Rambo by shooting my work colleagues and superiors with laser guns running about the woods, the conclusion to Cthuhlu: Horror on the Orient Express (it was epic, and so far off course the actual written recommended ending that no matter how much I could try and explain, no one but those who were there would understand.)…and Fallout: Shelter was just released on Android (my platform of choice).

Because of all this, mostly my new game, this not-so-little owl lay languishing in pieces for four days.

Free pattern courtesy of  Rachel Gallagher-Miller

Cute, isn’t it? It’s for Felix’s childminders birthday this week (cutting the sewing close here) and the colour choice, well, this is what happens when a not quite two year old gets let loose in my wool stash.

And that’s it for this whole week. In shame, and frustration at my own addiction, I’ve deleted Fallout:Shelter from my tablet. Productivity has quadrupled…

However!

Last week I finished this cute project.

Centre panel is a free pattern – Paw Print Cloth by by Rhonda White and I just winged the rest…

It’s a dog blanket for my dog-niece Missy (or Mishap) and I had far too much fun making it!

No wool used this week, so no wool count.

Not sure if any will be used this week either as I have lots of little projects on the go, and two blankets, but they’re going slowly…

Chat to you all next week!

 

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This seems a good week to go through the archives and dig out all the microbes I’ve made! (Last week was missed due to ill health, I blame Felix – little plague carrier!)

Rhinovirus juggling balls

C. diff – a super bug needs a cape!

Listeria spp

Salmonella spp

No pattern details – these are all my own imaginings! They were all also made when I was at university studying … microbiology! Yeah, no surprise there really, is there?

Anyhow, wool count! Seven used these past two weeks, will post the pictures next week when I have more energy…

Wool Count down:
Starting total (28Feb15) – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 65
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 3

Total – 709

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