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Category: Little one

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

That as indeed been very much the question! Our nerf group is supposed to run every last Sunday of the month, but it was cancelled last week due to rain (anyone in the UK will be more than aware of all the recent floodings) and looks to be cancelled again this week…

Which is a shame as Felix had me make this cute bag for her:

After playing with one of the other club members Vortex nerf blaster (it shoots discs instead of darts, and is super easy to prime and fire do she can do it all herself unaided) she batted her eyelashes at daddy and he got her one. And Inkling too, at least.

Then one of the other club members turned up with one for Felix as, despite not aimed at him, he too fell for those batting eyelashes.

I’m going to have to watch that girl…

Anyways, so we have three nerf blasters that all take discs and Felix rightly pointed out that discs and darts should not mix, so I made a matching bag for the Vortex for all the discs to go live in.

And there’s a lot of discs, we went to buy some and there was a crazy good special on glow in the dark discs…and they really do glow! The fact this bag was so promptly made has nothing to do with the fact the discs were on my bedside table and actually distracting me from sleeping,nope, not at all…

That’s all from me this week, busy with everything and feeling rather poorly as I woke up Thursday morning with no voice. Fridays trip to the doctor confirmed that I had laryngitis, so I get to drink hot honey and lemon water.

I really, really dislike the taste of honey. And fresh squeezed lemon? Not much better….

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 64 (1 used)
Wool bought – 19 (3 more, I needed a pick me up!)
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 658

Fleece bought/own – 13 lots, varying quantities…
Fleece washed and bagged – all the above! Now in 10 bags.

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

Buzz buzz buzz!!!!

These are based on the free pattern Teeny Tiny Bumblebee by The Ginger Hooker – larger needles used and I changed the wings.

For those curious, Felix chose bees as the next insect for her mini beast birthday party, having already picked butterflies. I’ve ended knitting over 60 bees as Felix kept giving them away, Inkling decided they were the must have for his bed and my MIL took a shine to them…

Not sure if I’ll make any more insects for the party (she has asked for ladybirds, worms, stick insects and woodlice amongst others) as I have a few other projects lined up first, but we’ll see if I can sneak another one in!

Short post this week, it’s been so hot I’ve not had the energy to do much knitting and certainly not spinning, though almost all the raw fleeces washed!

I have picked up a little table loom which Felix and Engel have had quite a bit of fun with, and subsequently used up some of my odds and ends bits of wool!

Oh, and I’ve joined a new gaming group, well, more a friend is putting together a time and place for people who want to play boardgames, wargames or RPGs to get together and do just that. I have a number of victims – I mean volunteers – who want to play cthulhu with me! I feel an evil laugh coming on…mwahahahaha!!!!!!

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 63 (4 used)
Wool bought – 19 (3 more, I needed a pick me up!)
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 659

Fleece bought/own – 13 lots, varying quantities…
Fleece washed and bagged – all the above! Now in 10 bags.

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one, Uncategorized 1 Comment

As mentioned area weeks ago, I’m trying to take up spinning and make my own wool. It’s slow going, mainly as I have a lot of fleece that needs washing and carding before I can try spinning, but it’s there.

One thing I need to do all this though is a drop spindle. Before going to the wool experience where I ended up picking up three, I organised a trade:


A beautiful, 3D printed drop spindle (this photo was taken before I attached the hook) in exchange for:

A little knitted replica of his recently deceased kitty, Minnie.

(Pattern used is Tortoiseshell Cat by Sally Muir and Joanna from the book Best in Show: Knit Your Own Cat)

Even though I used a pattern, the markings where all done by eye to match up, as best at I could with wool, the markings on the actual cat. I had six very cute reference photos for the job!

And even though I now have four drop spindles, this newest addition is just lovely to work with…well worth the effort! Though I don’t fancy trying to match Calico cat markings again any time soon!

In other news, I got a little table top loom for Felix, which has been surprisingly fun! She’s finished a bag on it, though I have yet to cut it off, and currently starting a wash cloth for her grandmama! Looks like creativity is running in the family! Photos will come soon once I’ve got them off the loom and all the ends weaved in.

That’s it for now, has been a very busy week at work and at home and an absolutely manic weekend with playdates, christenings and birthday parties all to attend…

Oh, and as I’ve had a few private enquiries regarding last week’s blog post, my sister’s brother in law survived the operation so it’s now just the long road to recovery. He’s not fully out of the woods yet, but definitely over the worst! And the knitted hugs went down well, and didn’t over step any boundaries, so very, very pleased with how it’s all worked out!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 59 (1 used)
Wool bought – 16 (3 more, mentioned above)
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 660

Fleece bought/own – 13 lots, varying quantities…in process of being cleaned  (just three little bags left! The big fleeces have been washed!), carded and combined by sheep breed.

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one, Motorbike, Updates 2 Comments

Well, motorbikes. Which is what I’ll start on then I’ll get to the butterflies.

On Friday, Engels motorbike died. We knew that she had begun to slowly mechanically deteriorate, as all things do with wear and tear and the lovely state of British roads. She was a work horse of a motorbike and did a 40 mile round commute everyday in sun, sleet and snow. So when she died, Engel was left in a rather awkward predicament or requiring a motorbike to commute to work, as he cant feasibly get there via public transport, as fast as possible but with no actual savings to get one.

Yesterday (Saturday) we called upon a few favours and managed to get someone with motorbike know how to, firstly, breathe a few more last breaths into the old motorbike, and then go with Engel to kick some tyres and find a replacement. It was a long day, and I ended up driving for a total of 4 hours (but there was lots of doggy cuddles, four huskies and a collie!), but a new lovely lady of a motorbike was found and we just have to get Engels poor workhorse of a motorbike to last a few more days until everything is in place to get the new one.

Not going into any great details, but I now have a motorbike to pay off, so I’m officially reopening commissions – since Felix was born I’ve pretty much only been making things upon request for  friends and family (and work colleagues, as Yorrick is proof of) but as of now, anyone can request one. Full details on the commissions page.

I’m curious to see what requests get made, I’ve had quite a few interesting ones in the past – life sized knitted recreations of peoples pets, items from games or movies, a knitted womb that would double as a purse… (that last one wasn’t made in the end, after it was explained to me that it was going to be a ‘congratulations on your hysterectomy’ gift, I didn’t feel it would go down well and I do like to think I have a pretty dark sense of humour)

Now, onto the butterflies!

Felix has asked for a ‘mini beasts’ birthday this year (for those wondering what a mini beast is, its now the ‘correct’ term for creepy crawlies, insects, bugs etc – schools didn’t feel it fair on the insects to cast a negative light on them by calling them creepy). Her birthday isn’t until September but I figured that insects would make nice, small, travel sized knits.

So I started with butterflies…

Using the pattern Common Blue Butterfly by Lesley Stanfield from her book 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet

I made a lot of butterflies.

But they were so good for using up scraps…

And using my hand dyed wool…

Oh, and I needed moths too!

After realising there was about 50, or maybe more, of the things I decided I had to make myself stop and choose a new insect for travel knitting. When I finish with that one, I’ll do another post like this one!

I’m going to go and get back to knitting some socks now (a very ‘normal’ knit for me I must say!) and working out which husky pattern to cast on next as a thank you for the motorbike friend…

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 56 (8 this week!!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 660

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

Just a short post today as I’m exhausted!

Firstly, apologies for not posting last week but here’s why:

Last Saturday I did a very early drive up to Scotland to visit the family and attend a dog walk event for the Edinburgh Dog and Cat home. Sunday was Deep Sea World (a personal childhood favourite that they’ve consistently invested in so it never ever gets old or dated) and then Monday was an extremely early flight (3:30 am wake-up) to Disneyland Paris!

There were tears, and tantrums, as expected from an over stimulated and tired 5  and 2 year old, but seeing the joy and happiness and honest to goodness belief in magic (and dragons, Inkling hasn’t forgiven me yet for that one) makes me want to sign up and do another weeks worth of madness all over again!

We landed late last night and it was another early drive but this time back south to home. Several loads of laundry, lots of unpacking and trying to find homes for an army of cuddly toys has pretty much summed up the rest of the day.

I’ve barely managed any knitting, but I did bring some with me and get a few stitches here and there, but just in case of such an event, I’ve hoarded my last few finished projects!

This week, I present Caterpie!

Isn’t he cute?! I used the free pattern Caterpie by Claire Ashmore, my only tweaks where to knit it in the round, incorporate the belly into the body rather than knitting seperate pieces, and rather than casting off the body at the end, I just increased the stitches and knitted the tail, again, to save on sewing seperate pieces.

This guy was made as a thank you to the person who gave me their grandmother’s wool stash upon clearing the house – they requested a first gen Pokémon and left the rest to me, hence Caterpie!

That’s all today, I’m going to knit a few stitches then call it a night!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 34 (4 in two weeks!!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 682

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

I’m out of car songs and too tired to Google something suiting. It was Inklings second birthday yesterday and we had a BBQ and friends and family and lots of kids round.

So tired.

Onto the knitting!

That 1969 movie I mentioned?

Its Herbie! And I also whipped up these!

Felix reminded me that girls would be at Isaacs party so there should be girly coloured ones. But not pink. That’s too girly.

Who am I to disagree?

Now to rest and knit something, anything, that isn’t a car!!!!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 30 (1 this week!!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 686

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

I’ll fetch the suitcase from the van…

Yep, this week’s car is the iconic Reliant Robin, best known as that strange three wheel monstrosity driven in  ‘Only Fools and Horses.

It makes me laugh though that both Felix and Inkling insist that the cars are broken as they don’t have enough wheels! Felix even told me to knit another wheel for it…

On to non knitted car, but still knitting news, I am one wedge away from finishing my other project that I have on the needles – it’s been my out and about and at work project, hence the slow progress…but more will be revealed next week!

As for non knitting news entirely, works been busy, like always, with changes in management which always makes things interesting. Too interesting. But enough about that.

We did DiggerLand in Yorkshire today, which was surprisingly fun, though Inkling wanted to go on everything but was too small for most of it, and Felix was the right size but put off by the sheer size of the machinery.

The digger and it’s construction cousins, are not small.

Alright, time for the wool count!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 26 (1 this week! And a few so very close to finishing!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 687

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one, Uncategorized 2 Comments

I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It’s the only way to live
In cars

Got to love classic 80s synth…and funnily enough, Inkling appears to be a big Gary Numan fan, or maybe it’s just because he sings about cars…

And speaking (or singing) about cars…

Two green cars, as Felix insisted there had to be green ones…

And two orange cars, because it gave me the opportunity to use a partial ball of wool up…

So that’s four cars in a week with me not really devoting all that much knitting time to making them. I’ve been pretty worn out, so my other knit has been getting worked on a lot more as it’s pretty mindless!

Well, that’s all the knitting news, Happy Easter everyone!

…

…

Ok, my good conscience demands I come clean about the wool count. One of the guys at Engels works grandmother passed away, so in clearing out the house they came across some wool and passed it to Engel to pass onto me in exchange for my, at some point, knitting up a first gen Pokémon.

No problem!

Yeah…major wool miscount. The small bag of wool I was expecting turned out to be 151, yes, one hundred and fifty one, balls of wool. It turned out that 31 of those balls had mohair in it, so they were quickly rehomed, but that’s still 120 extra…

So. New wool count!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 25 (1 this week!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 688

If I see below 600 this year I will be amazed…part of me is upset about the stash increase, but the majority is rolling around in the new wool going ‘pretties!’

Till next week!

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

Cars! They’re really neat!

I’ve been watching way too much Storybots (even if you don’t have a little one, I highly recommend it!)

Anyhow, on to the knitting!

Cars! I bet none of you guessed by the title…

Sarcasm aside, these are knit following the pattern ‘Car’ by Sarah Keen from her book ‘100 little knitted projects’. They’re super cute and relatively quick to make, which is good, as Felix has informed me they’re to go in the party bags for Inklings second birthday…

Which is just over a month away, but there’s so much to do, I figured I’d best start early. For those curious, Felix has chosen a ‘transport’ theme for his birthday, decided how his cake should look and which games should be at the party…

I’ve tried explaining that she can get away with doing these things this year, but next year will be a different story as he’ll be calling the shots!

Aside from cars (expect to see a lot, lot more of these) I have a shawlette on the needles, which I’ve ripped out three times and changed the pattern twice…hopefully it’ll be finished one day!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 24 (1 this week!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 4
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 569

The total is going to go up, a lot, as I’m being gifted someone’s from Engels works recently deceased grandmother’s stash…when I work out how much I’ll add it to the total.

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

We survived!

What did we survive?

Many things.

My dad got married this week, and he lives in Ireland, for a variety of reasons we only found out at fairly short notice (8 weeks) so when it came to working out all the fine details…yeah…

After a lot of debate, we decided to fly. I haven’t flown for 13 years, Engel 10 and both Felix and Inkling have never flown. The thought of having two small children (5 and nearly 2) on a flight petrified me. But we did it. There and back. Though airport security did wake-up Inkling from his nap to search him on the way back. He was not amused. Neither was I as he only had 20 minutes of his usual 1-1.5 hours nap…

We also survived all four of us staying in one hotel room with just two beds for the duration of the trip (three nights, four days). Never again. Never. Same room, fine, but Inkling is really like an octopus when trying to share a bed with him!

We also survived the wedding ceremony, meal and after party with no tears, tantrums, or any issues. A miracle really seeing as we were all tired and cranky!

The trip was actually really fun, and I got to catch up with a lot of family, just when it comes to doing it again, I know what to do different next time.

But what about the knitting? This is a knitting blog after all…

A whiskey bottle cozy (ok, it’s actually a wine bottle cozy but my dad likes his whiskey!) Based on the free pattern Winecozy by Jennifer Carter, and the pawprints are from Pawprint Blankie by Oscarsauce! another free pattern)

And there’s more!

And a pair of bows, one a bowtie, the other a hairbow, to go with Felix and Inklings matching outfits. They were so cute!!!! I’ve knit a bowtie before, and this is the same free pattern: Erika’s Knit Bow by loareknits

All for now, I’m tired and have so many chores to catch up on still!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 23 (0 this week – I’ve been busy!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 4
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 570

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