Even though it’s early (for us) the pleading eyes of Felix and Inkling have led to the Christmas tree being put up, the decorations festooned around the house, and the Christmas knits are falling off the needles.
If only I had more hands and time to work on all the things I want made for Christmas…
One project that I have finished however was a request from Felix. She wanted to give everyone in her class both a present and card. After a bit of negotiation, we agreed to a small Christmas tree decoration for each child and no cards.
I suggested candy canes, as they are quick and easy and cute, but what did she want?
Have you noticed that most couples have some cute or endearing little terms they use with one another if the other is say, in a bad mood, or being particularly excited?
For example, if myself or Engel want to be left alone, it’s described as ‘being a squeezle’ ( a No Reservations reference to a porcupine) or if one of us is being just grouchy then they’re ‘a grumpy bunny’ if all’s well then we’re ‘little/big cat’.
Well I was requested to make someone else’s version of ‘grumpy bunny’ and that is ‘angry badger’…
Think he looks angry enough? I think he looks ready to murder someone…
And a side view of him having a tantrum and destroying all the Duplo…
I’ll be honest in that I had a lot of fun with this, I’ve not knitted a badger before (this is a great free pattern Miss Barlow Badger by Jem Weston) and I have never purposefully tried to make a toy look angry before!
He went down really well, and there’s already been a request for a ‘bad news badger’ for Valentine’s, I’ll wait till closer to the time to see if that’s something that is genuinely going ahead, but it’s certainly made me laugh!
Not much in other news, well, that’s not quite true, a lot has been going on, but not the kind of stuff I talk about here. It’ll all be fine in the end, just need to remember that there is an end, and it is in sight.
Christmas has descended upon the household, did a Grinch-mas trail last week and the tree has gone up today. A bit early for myself personally but the combined puppy eyes of Felix and Inkling made me cave in.
Oh, one more thing, the wool count! Normally I pop it on the bottom of the post and leave it at that but after using one ball up these last two weeks I am now at 666! The number of the beast!
Though I keep singing ‘Knit-Knit-Knit, the stitches of the beast!’
On that note, cheerio till next week!
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 108 (1 this week) Wool bought – 63 Wool given – 167 (was gifted four balls this week) Wool gifted – 31
A friend of mine does a bonfire/Halloween fancy dress party every year, and after being rescheduled several times, finally happened last night. The theme this year? Lovecraftian Horror!
After much debate, I settled on myself and Engel being cultists of Shub Niggurath, (Black Goat of the Wood with a Thousand Spawn) and Felix and Inkling went as two of the said spawn.
Rabbie did me a huge favour in putting together a pair of awesome cultists robes (that double up as jedi robes and wanderers of the apocalypse robes) Edit: just linked to her blog post about the cultists robes and it made me laugh, I took my two to a cthulhu themed party, complete with bonfire, and she’s taken the fur baby to Santa Paws…
Anyhow, so all I had to do was whip up four pairs of hats with horns! Which I started monday. Oops.
Managed it more or less and super pleased with the outcome!
These are made based on the pattern Skull by Vanessa Mooncie from her book “Monster Hats: 15 Scary Head-Warmers to Knit”
Ready for the full effect?
I’ve positioned it so you can see inside the cloak and see all the eyes of the other 998 spawn yet to be summoned. Felix wore her knitted sheep costume from a long time ago, plus hat, and Inkling had his bear costume on, with goat horn hat rather than bear hat.
All in all, we made for an adorable family set! I’m also pleased to say a lot of people also turned up dressed, and there was an amazing Hastur and a good number of people with that ‘Innsmouth Look’ about them!
Will leave it at that, see you all next week!
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 107 (2 this week) Wool bought – 63 Wool given – 167 (was gifted four balls this week) Wool gifted – 31
Total – 667 (If I use one more ball, it’ll be the number of the beast! Or would that be knit of the beast?)
First of all I shall start with this weekends activities – The Winter Battle of BritNerf! Fridays battle as held in a skatepark, and I’ll be honest, it was chaos. I hit it too hard, too fast, and hadn’t eaten properly because of driving all the way up to Scotland, and about half way through went all wobbly. Once I had eaten and recharged I was good to go, and 15 seconds into humans Vs zombies, I got tackled and had I been on anything other than the smooth skate ramp, I’d have been fine, but instead went down, along with the ‘zombie’ and landed hard on my left wrist.
One of my fellow team members immediately called in first aid and I had an ice pack on it in under a minute and a very thorough apology from the Zombie. After twenty minutes I realised my wrist was definitely sprained and the drive to Rabbies was rather painful.
Worse still, I couldn’t knit. The horror!
Saturday saw the main event, a close quarters combat scenario, and in this set of games in tight narrow corridors with small areas to hide and hunker down and also to snipe the ‘enemy’ – myself and Engel where in our element! Despite my sore wrist making me unable to prime any blasters (thank goodness for flywheels!) I lasted the majority of the games, and instead only had to call it quite after being literally smoked out.
Asthma and smoke bombs in confined areas, not a great combo. I missed the last two games and due to even more smoke bombs, decided not to dart sweep and instead tidied the resting/set up area.
And despite taking it easy on the wrist, no knitting on Saturday either…
Overall, a great weekend, made better by good company and my sister’s fantastic sweet treats and her adorable dog, Missy. I wouldn’t go to the effort of the four hour drive for the skate park again, despite being fun, just not quite my cup of tea, but for another close quarter game? Definitely!
I’m just doing some research into gas masks that would be suitable for nerfing in, and which I can easily purchase filters for…
In knitting news, I shipped up my holiday knits, some very boring but incredibly good stash busting dish/washcloths!
In more interesting knitting news, Engel managed to somehow sell one hat to two people. He nearly sold it to three before it was realised. What hat was it?
My dead Blinky hat! The original was a commission that fell through (hence why I now ask for half payment up front) and was never actually photographed and recorded anywhere. This is the second, and as most have probably already guessed, made following the free Knitty pattern Fish Hat [Dead or Alive?] by Thelma Egberts.
That’s enough nattering for now, I need to rub some life back into my legs following this weekends mad activity! Mine aren’t too bad, more stuff than sore, Engels though…
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 105 (0 this week) Wool bought – 63 (I fell off the wool wagon hard this weekend, there was a few absolute bargains of wool I really like that’s being discontinued so I stocked up…33 balls…In fairness, my guilt from doing this meant I bought Engel a Hades (a very, very big Nerf blaster!)) Wool given – 163 Wool gifted – 31
Total – 665 (If I buy one more ball, it’ll be the number of the beast! Or would that be knit of the beast?)
A friend did us a huge favour when our oven died, by helping us get a new one that very night! There was some fun and shenanigans, and I learnt that he had a huge love of dragons, so much so he had a drawing of his own own complete with fantastic colour scheme!
So as a thank you, I decided to knit him up a dice bag with his very own dragon on it!
I took the dragon chart from Targaryen Knit Hat by Holly G Hats, (a free pattern) and combined it with another fantastic free pattern, Cthulhu Dice Bag! By A. A. Leavitt-Reynolds. Doing all the different colours to make it match the drawing was both a challenge and quite fun – it’s been some time since I’ve experimented with colourwork!
Aside from that, it’s been a busy week. My dad came to visit last weekend from Ireland, we all did the circus and saw the Blackpool illuminations, and then it’s been work, work, work.
This weekend saw next the part of cthulhu scenario where despite internal group sabotage, no one died. I need to up my game, or stop giving them special one off reroll tokens to increase their chances of survival…
Felix got to take part in the Rememberance Parade with her little Beaver Pack. Group? Collective? No idea. They didn’t let girls in the Scouts when I was a kid!
Engel informs me that it’s a Lodge.
Wikipedia informs me it’s a Colony.
I prefer Pack so let’s run with that.
As well as that there’s been play dates and knitting and the usual mayhem, as well as the added mayhem of a Nerf event next week, so Engel and his friend destroyed the living room modding Nerf guns…
Ah well, it’s worth it cause next weekend is going to be a blast! (Pun intended)
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 105 (2 used) Wool bought – 30 Wool given – 163 Wool gifted – 31
It’s my favourite time of year, the weather is growing colder, the leaves are turning red, all the winter knits can finally be brought out and worn and best of all, Halloween!
Because if Halloween landing on a Thursday this year, we’ve managed to spread it over a whole week. The Manchester Halloweekend, Felix’s school spooky disco (the only one she will go to) actual Halloween and trick or treating, then friends coming round for games and far too much food…
For Engels costume I dug out my oldest WIP, and after 30 minutes of detail work, it was finished. Part of me feels rather ashamed of was sat in s corner for four years, the other part of me is chalking it down to experience…
A facehugger! This guy is of my design, the pattern notes for it is long gone, so it’s one of a kind too. Which is a shame, but that’s life!
Did everyone else have a spook-tacular Halloween?
But wait, there’s more!
It was my mum’s 60th a few weeks ago (it was dances of the decades with an encouragement for people to dress up) and my present was paying towards the big party bash. But I wanted to give my mum something as well, and Rabbie handmade an awesome elephant patchwork quilt, but what stereotypical gift do you give a 60 year old woman?
Slippers.
Elephant slippers (to match the blanket)
So I made these:
The Cuddliest Kitty Slippers by Janine Peter, a free pattern, tweaked a little as I prefer slippers to cover the ankle. But that’s a cat, I hear you say.
So I took those, combined it with ‘Elephant’ from Sarah Keens book ‘100 Little Knitted Projects’ and got…
Aren’t they adorable?! And we’ll received. My mum’s hinting at having more slippers…
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 103 (2 used) Wool bought – 30 Wool given – 163 Wool gifted – 31
Free pattern Striped Stockinette Snake by Purl Soho – though I tweaked it a bit to be more cobra like!
I was looking at my hand dyed wool I did quite a while ago now, and had the urge to knit it into a snake. Felix wholeheartedly agreed.
Thus, this cutie!
Sometimes I just make things on a whim with little to no reason or story behind it. Doesn’t make for interesting blogging, but it looks cute!
In other news, it’s my favourite time of year nearly – Halloween! Have quite a few fun activities lined up, and intend to enjoy them thoroughly!
But what costume to wear?!
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 101 (Can’t believe it!!!! 6 used) Wool bought – 30 Wool given – 163 (was given a cone of the perfect toy sheep wool at work!) Wool gifted – 31
How could anyone resist such cute squishy toes on such dainty paws?
And thus began the madness.
Long story short, I have laminate flooring, and wooden chairs. The felt on the bottom of the chairs had worn off and they were beginning to scuff the floor. I was going to replace the felt but…
They look so much cuter than plain chair legs! But I couldn’t do one chair, oh no, all six chairs had to have them. And they all had to be different cats too.
Tabby, British blue, tuxedo, Calico, mackerel tabby, Siamese. Of course everyone had to pick their favourite for their chair, but once done I now have chairs that don’t scratch the floor!
For those curious, I used the free pattern Chair Paws: Cat by Nicola Valiji but on larger needles and a few extra stitches as my chair legs are obviously chunkier than what the pattern was designed for!
That’s all this week!
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 92 (2 used) Wool bought – 30 (Up by 11, I thought I bought two skeins of gradient wool, turns out, they were 5 balls of wool braided together to look like one skein. Hence my cheeky purchase of 3 suddenly became 11…) Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!) Wool gifted – 31
It was Felix’s birthday yesterday! And her party too!
As mentioned in my previous posts I knitted lots of butterflies and tiny bees for the party games and party bags, and after building a section of honeycomb on Monday it was realised that the bees were too small to toss!
So I knitted an emergency batch of large bees! And after that, I realised I had to out them in something when not in use, so I needed a beehive!
I used my own free pattern for this one – cocoon or chrysalis – on 8mm and tweaked the colours, but it got done!
Then Felix said that since the bees had a house, the butterflies needed one too…so…
Again using my own pattern. Finished this one on Friday evening…
The day itself was great, Felix loved her main present, a baby Mexican red knee tarantula, and the party was the crazy kind of chaos that small children thrive on!
I could seriously do with sleeping for a week now though!
Chat more later!
Wool Count
Starting total – 576
Wool used – 90 (5 used) Wool bought – 19 Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!) Wool gifted – 31
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