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Tag: Engel

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

Something that appeared shortly after Felix was born was a very old cat hand puppet. Turns out, this puppet was given to Engel when he himself was tiny. There was three apparently, two natural coloured and a green one, but as far as anyone can determine, there’s now just the one left.

As such, I was asked to create a few more, ones that could be taken out without fear of losing the last, original puppet. After some discussion, it was decided it didn’t have to be the exact same pattern, just close to it.

Couldn’t find anything so I dug out my notepad and set to work recreating the cat hand puppet. But since I hate sewing, it was going to be knit in the round. And have the ears incorporated into the actual head. and the tail would be made from picked up stitches to cut down even more on sewing.

Took three versions, but I give you: Cat hand puppets!

The original is on the right, mine is on the left.

And a better photo of my version, which you can get as a free pattern!

I’m looking forward to seeing more cat hand puppets out there!

Interestingly, the original appears to be knit on 3.25mm needles and with three strands of embroidery cotton. Front, back and each ear (fronts and backs) are all knit separately and sewn together, with a little looped tail. It really would have been a labour of love to make. Mine is a chunkier (4mm) and simpler version, so that many can be made to replace the inevitably lost ones.

I actually really enjoyed getting to have a good look at someone elses old, old project, and recreating the pattern – if even only very loosely in this case. In future, I’d like to do it again, but produce a true recreation. We’ll have to see if time will allow and if inspiration strikes though!

Till next week, enjoy the cuteness for now!

Starting total – 650

Wool used – 39 (3 this week!)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 49
Wool gifted – 16

Total – 644

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

First of all, Happy Easter for all those who celebrate it – for me it’s an excuse for lots of yummy chocolate!

So, onto the post. I was given the Super-Scary Mochimochi book for mother’s day (it’s awesome) as I’ve been making quite a few Anna Hrachovecs patterns lately. Like a little child I looked through it going I’ll make myself this one then this one and, oh, I need at least three of those…

Then the following conversation took place:

Engel: It’s been a while since you made me something
Me: It’s only been a few months.
Engel: Feels longer…
Me: Look, I’ll check Ravelry and get you an exact date. (Cue frantic typing) Ah. I made you armwarmers last.
Engel: Much appreciated armwarmers.
Me: In December 2015.
Engel: (somehow holding up the Super-Scary Mochimochi book that had been on my lap mere  a seconds before, on the sarcophacat page) Can i haz?
Me: Let’s go pick out some wool…

Here’s the finished result (Felix helped wrapped him, all the while telling me I was going to make her a smaller one, in blue)

And here it is naked! Couldn’t resist a photo of the actual knitted item. Unlike the pattern I was made to knit him legs – both Engel and Felix insisted the extra limbs were necessary because ‘How else will he walk?’

It’s a mummified cat!

Which, by the way, should not be casually mentioned when knitting at work to fellow colleagues who now think I’m insane rather than just a little mad.

But come on, who doesn’t want a cute mummified cat? It’s proven a useful teaching aid about the process of mummification and canopic jars to Felix!

Starting total – 650

Wool used – 32 (Just one this week – I’ve been very busy with work and getting Felix’s new room sorted out so the baby can have her old one)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 49 (Felix felt I needed a treat, so she and daddy got me three balls of wool, aww!)
Wool gifted – 16

Total – 651 (Just one more to use up to get back to the starting total!!!!!)

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

Went swimming one day, over the hills and far away, mama duck said ‘quack quack come back’ but they were all eaten by a crocodile…Wait a second…

Look! There’s that pesky crocodile again!

I gave in and knit Felix those ducks she wanted to keep her crocodile ‘company’ in the pond. The crocodile number has increased as well, there’s two helping control livestock…

For those curious, I tweaked the free Tiny Chickens by Anna Hrachovec to make these guys. Easy to do, just lots of colour changes!

Speaking of colour changes…

Yeah…I know I said I was 99% sure I would never make another, what with the 156 colour changes but…I did. This is my second Elmer the Elephant now, and again, it’s made using the ‘Eddie the Elephant’ pattern by Ann Franklin from the May 2015 edition of ‘Love Knitting for Baby’s. Engel came up with a method for working out the colour changes so they are more uniform but still rather random, does it look any better or more like Elmer?

Felix had a friend’s birthday coming up (it was on Saturday) and I know the gran is particularly fond of my knitted toys so…Yeah. One cuddly toy and Elmer the Elephant treasury and sorted!

Though this time, I really am sure I won’t be making more.

Starting total – 650

Wool used – 31 (2 more since last post)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 49 (Felix felt I needed a treat, so she and daddy got me three balls of wool, aww!)
Wool gifted – 16

Total – 652 (Curses! I’ll never get back to my starting total at this rate!!!!!)

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

As mentioned last post, everything got put on hold so I could whip up a knight costume for Felix with just six evenings to do it in.

(Super short version: Felix school having Royal Banquet, gave a weeks notice, Felix chose knight from options of knight, prince or princess, unable to find costume Friday, decided to make one)

So did I do it? Do the knights of Ni say Ni?

All the knitted parts are free knitting patterns:

Helmet by Geraldine Allemand

Knitted Chainmail Hauberk for a Young Knight by Kara Shallenberg

Knitted Lace Belt by Anna Waites

The sword was made by Engel, painted and tinfoiled by Felix, and the sheild was made by me, painted and decorated by Felix. Never show a three year old a Google search on knights sheilds – she wanted to do them all! Settled on four colours, split into quarters with bats on it (thank goodness for bulk buying post Halloween craft packs) and little red bead eyes.

The Royal Banquet was a success, as far as I could get out of Felix (getting information from three year olds is like getting blood out of a stone, unless it’s a secret, in which case they’ll tell everyone! Prime example: Mummy! I got you a mother’s day present! It’s a surprise! It’s chocolate oranges!)

She was the only girl dressed as a knight, all the rest were princesses, and all bar one boy was a knight, the one boy who wasn’t came in his uniform and was apparently very sad, so Felix gave him a hug.

Engel did however teach her that knights say “Ni!”… Sometimes I question his parenting skills​…

After all that excitement I did manage to finish another project and mostly done another, but I’ll go over those next week as I am pretty exhausted from a rather fun packed weekend!

Till next week.

Starting total – 650

Wool used – 29 (2 more since last post)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 46
Wool gifted – 16

Total – 651 (So, so close to getting back to that starting total!)

 

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

Let’s start with that pesky crocodile!

Photographic evidence of him prowling around the farms livestock… Felix has actually been having a ball playing with him as part of her farm, though she now insists that I need to knit some tiny ducks to keep him company in the pond.

Company, eh? More like snacks…

Anyhow, cuteness aside, I just finished another little project:

A pair of ‘magic mittens’ – I’ll get to the story in a moment, details first. The mitten pattern is a free Ravelry download called The World’s Simplest Mittens by tincanknits – and it’s true to its name.  There’s schematics for different sizes of mittens in all different weights, and it’s clear and concise. Definitely a keeper of a pattern. The elephant chart itself is from another free pattern – Elephant Hat – Child Size by Kathleen Taylor.

Story time now. My bosses little one, and Felix’s ‘best friend’ has really bad eczema. And of course, it itches. As a sufferer of eczema myself, I know just how hard it is not to scratch. She’s three. She wakes up looking like she’s been butchered in the mornings from scratching so much.

So, Magic Mittens it is! Lightweight cotton mittens in the colours she picked out with an animal of her choosing on them, and ties that can be double knitted so she won’t be able to pull the blasted things off.

I was made to wear wooly mittens as a child. In summer. These are a much kinder alternative! Fingers crossed they’ll help – if she can stop scratching long enough for her cream to work…

And last but not least: St Gertrude’s Day.

On March 17th, also known as St Patrick’s Day, it happens to be St Gertrude’s Day too. She is the patron saint of cats, gardeners and mental health. When we fostered cats, as we never knew their actual ages let alone dates of birth, it became habit to celebrate all the cats birthday on St Gertrude’s Day. This year, even though we know Dashi’s birthday, we still don’t know Crumble’s (we reckon she’s getting on for eight years old now!) so the tradition continues.

Felix was particularly happy to help celebrate the cats birthday, there was presents and special cat came too – tuna cake with salmon paste ‘frosting’.

I personally think yuck, but Engel happily ate one of the spares and went on the prowl for more. Not that the cats lefts much in the end!

Starting total – 650

Wool used – 25 (1 since last post)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 46
Wool gifted – 16

Total – 655 (So close to getting back to that starting total!)

 

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Cats, Knitting, Little one 4 Comments

After having knit the baby to be a blanket, Felix asked me to knit her something with the rest of the green wool. Having knit the snake and the baby blanket in said green wool, I was getting a bit fed up of it, but I couldn’t say no to her request.

So after having a look, it was settled on a cat jumper.

Then Engel took an interest and declared she and the baby to be should have matching jumpers. Yes. The dreaded matching jumpers.

Seeing his eager happy face, and then Felix’s excited face (she is too young to understand the horror of matching jumpers, so we can excuse her) I caved in.

I knew there wouldn’t be enough green to do both, but with a few tweaks and some blue…

This is Felix’s creation. It’s based on the free Ravelry pattern ‘Cat’s Meow Pullover‘ by Amy Bahrt. Minus the striped sleeves. And the cat had to be black, not ginger, so that it was a Dashie cat jumper. Dashie is Felix’s cat.

And this is baby to be’s creation. It’s based on the free Ravelry pattern ‘Children’s Bear Sweater’ also by Amy Bahrt. Except I took the bear off and put the cat on instead. And also, no stripy sleeves.

You can tell where I ran out of green, but I had already intended on a blue button flap (another addition of mine to the pattern to make getting it on baby to be easier) so it wasn’t a huge loss.

For playing chicken with wool, I didn’t come out too badly.

But that green is no more, so my next project can’t be green! Mwahahaha!!!!!!

Hmm…Speaking of chickens, I may just make those next…

Wool count:

Starting total – 650

Wool used – 20 (6 since last post)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 46

Total – 676

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Cats, Knitting, Updates 4 Comments

I don’t know if a lot of people feel the same way, but 2016 was cursed. My family was hit pretty hard, there’s been death, terminal illness and long term ill health. I won’t go into detail on those.

One I will speak of however is Salem, he died in Engels arms on the 21st of December.

(Picking a photo of him just now brought the tears back)

Despite the rest of the menagerie (2 more cats, 2 tarantulas, 1 snake, 3 fish, small child) the house feels a little empty. Explaining death to a 3 year old, whilst an important lesson, was not a delightful experience. I’d have rather gone over where babies come from with her again! (Yep, had that talk a few months ago as well)

So here’s to 2017 being a better year. Fingers crossed.

In knitting news, just one complete project to show:

It’s the last knitted thing for my neice to be, over in America. It’s based on the pattern Little Daisy Cardigan by Sublime Yarns – I made the garter at the bottom deeper and used two colours. Also knit numerous prices together rather than separately to be sewn together afterwards.

Got a more fun, but giant, project on the needles at the moment – more on that when it’s finished!

Lastly, as it’s a new year, I get to reset my wool count and start again – hopefully I’ll have a bit more restraint this year and not buy so much!

Starting total – 650

Wool used – 6
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0

Total – 644

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

Is completely and utterly, finally and at long last, completed!

All the sewing and tucking in of ends and finishing touches are done. They’ll get their own post after Christmas so as not to spoil any surprises.

I’ve also finished all my Christmas shopping today! Just in the nick of time as I was rapidly running out of days in November to do it all in! For those who don’t know me, after working in retail for far too many Christmases in a row, back in my student days, and listening to the same ten awful Christmas song covers for anywhere between 8 to 12 hours from the start of December right through to mid January…yeah, I hate it.

Though I may have picked up a few call of Cthuhlu based treats for myself in the black Friday sales…such as the CoC 7th ed investigators hand book, a nice new keeper screen with two new scenarios, a choose your own adventure Cthuhlu scenario and all the Christmas presents for Engel (Including one chosen for him from Felix) so all in all a good haul! Oh, and Felix was able to add to her dice collection, a bright yellow D20 and a shiny red D4. The people in the shop thought she was adorable as she spent a good 20 minutes picking these dice.

Different shop (comics) and she made a complete random snort and laugh out loud. She pointed at the comics and went ‘Spiderman! And Batman! And the Avengers!’

So I pointed to a Donald Duck one and asked ‘whose that?’

To which she responded ‘I don’t know.’

I pointed to Mickey Mouse ‘How about him?’

‘No. Don’t know.’

So I turned to Engel ‘How can she know Spiderman, Batman and the Avengers and not know Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse?’

His response ‘Well I’m doing my job right.’

Cue stranger cracking up…

Anyhow, that’s enough of that! So, now I’ve done my Christmas knitting I have been knitting…a Christmas hat for a doll?

It’s for my neices American Doll again, and based on the same pattern as the winter hat that I did a whole back, just fewer decreases. Oh, and it’s being modelled on Baymax, my giant, cuddly, Baymax! A get well present from my amazing sis, and a very much loved and appreciated one at that! He’s doing a great job as my personal healthcare assistant – rate your pain in a scale of one to ten? Who cares, happiness just hit ten!

He may be getting cuddles right now…

I’ve got a few knitting projects on the go – a pair of Scotty dogs as I’m expecting a new neice (the mums in America these days, so it’s Scottish themed baby gifts to remind her that we’re all rooting for her back here at home) and I just remembered I had another Christmas knit to do, well, two really, ones tiny, though to be fair, I should do a third…

Guess I haven’t quite finished after all! Well all those can be blogged as I go so more interesting for the readers at least!

Starting total – 697

Wool used – 109 (0 since last week, but very close to using one!)
Wool bought – 53
Wool given – 7

Total – 658

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

As an aside to all the Christmas knitting I’ve been doing, I took part in a Halloween MKAL – which turned out to be a cuddly Frankenstein.

My only issue? He doesn’t have trousers on, and, well, I knit it as given, so it’s seamed, not knit in the round, and he has a proper little behind too…

Ah well. That’s life!

Other than this, knit wise, not much to report as I’m still plodding on with Christmas knitting, and that’s going slow as I keep getting by everything!

It’s been a busy few weeks at home – Engel started a new job so the usual routine is gone and the new one has a lot of kinks to get worked out still. Felix’s friend turned three this weekend, so we’ve been doing lots of birthday stuff (there was even a make your own pizza party, which she took very, very seriously)

And my work has been manic. So manic I pretty much get home, see to Felix then once she’s in bed, veg out. Hence not so much knitting…

Alright, short post, time for the unchanged wool count…

Starting total – 697

Wool used – 106 (0 this week)
Wool bought – 53
Wool given – 7

Total – 661

 

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

And by that I mean Ravelry, Deviantart and here!

Was reorganising Felix’s room (moving toys upstairs, moving others downstairs, moving some furniture about to better position everything…) And spotted two knitted things that, as previously mentioned, have never been posted.

Do without further ado:

Free online pattern ‘Toy hammock by Browneyedbabs’ and…

Felix’s name, as a cute knitted garland in all the colours of the rainbow! It’s several free patterns – the alphabet series by Frankie Brown on Ravelry.

You’ll have noticed a lot of rainbow colours here, believe it or not, I do like rainbows. (Engel at this point always mutters that he hates them) and for a little kids room it seemed a nice gender neutral choice of colours! Felix is a girl, we knew that when I was still pregnant with her, but I do believe in letting kids pick their own colours and interests, not get them forced on them. Hence lots of gender neutral toys and colours, up until she started to pick them for herself mind you!

Her favourite colour is green and toys are, currently, Octonauts and Thomas the tank engine – specifically Luke, the narrow gauge engine.

In other news it’s been pretty busy here – took Felix to see the Blackpool Illuminations (something I had never even heard of being from Scotland, but a staple childhood memory for all those living in the north west of England it seems!) And today we were at Gulliver’s World, this is the second time she’s been to a theme park (the first being Alton Towers but she was teeny tiny then and only just finding her feet, the majority of that trip was spend lost in the Alton Tower! I swear it’s a maze, you go up a set of stairs, turn round, go down the same stairs and end up in a completely different floor to where you started…)

So not much knitting has happened this week – though stage one of the xmas presents is complete, and stage two has begun!

I know there will be distractions, my resolve is waning rapidly…

Speaking of resolve, I…well…there was a kind of…sort of…maybe accidental purchase of…forty balls of wool…

They were in packs of ten! So it was really just four lapses of resolve!

Its my excuse, I’m sticking to it. Even if it does completely destroy my wool count for the year…

Starting total – 697

Wool used – 106 (1 this week)
Wool bought – 53
Wool given – 7

Total – 661 (sigh, it had been doing so well…)

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