by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

Following in from the last post, kitty beans, Engel and the kids won the argument and now the table has knitted kitty paws.

But not any paws. A big table needs big kitty paws.

Big jaguar kitty paws!

This is combination of two free patterns, Chair Paws: Cat by Nicola Valiji and 0-401 Wrist warmer with jaguar pattern by DROPS design.

And of course, they needed beans!

Just a short post as I’ve been very poorly as of late (one of the reasons for the missed post last week) and I’ve pretty much not done anything but sleep. Like 12-16 hours of sleep a day type sleep.

I’m feeling better, not brilliant, but the doctors have told me it’ll be weeks, if not months before I’m back up and running at full speed.

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 95 (3 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 – 162 (5 get better soon balls of wool appeared…)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 644 (net gain of 2)

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Cats, Knitting 1 Comment

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

Total – 642

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

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

Total – 633

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

Have a craft fair coming up in November (more about it nearer the time) and for that, I needed bunnies.

Lots of bunnies. (After this photo, they were left unattended and I came back to find 26)

And as I was knitting bunnies, I needed inspiration, in the form of a work colleagues baby bunny, Hector.

He was subsequently reproduced in wool form.

Coincidentally, that day she brought me in sweets. We both left feeling like we got the better end if the deal…

Oh, and because it made me laugh…

So that’s how they make maltesers…

Next week is Felix’s birthday, and there’s a lot to do on top of daily life and work so going to leave it here for today, till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 85 (3 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 638

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Gaming, Knitting 1 Comment

At long last, the final dog has been knit! I present to you all…

I made him following the pattern Border Collie by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne from the book Best in Show: Knit your own Dog.

I really enjoyed this particular knit, not sure if it’s because it wasn’t a husky or if the pattern was simpler nicer and easier to read, but I did enjoy it.

However, I am far more looking forward to knitting something that isn’t a dog!

But what?

So many choices…

In other news, I snuck off on Thursday to have a playdate of my own with Rabbie and ‘the girls’ (which included her husband, but that’s totally fine, he knows how to talk the talk!) and had a great time running about like a lunatic at Alton Towers. I went on the new ride, Wicker Man, and for being built out of wood, it’s so very, very metal!

There’s been work, kids party’s, and after three sessions, we managed to finish off our “one shot” of Pathfinder, featuring none other than Reyth Strunmah and Calinan. He now has a very impressive battle axe. And a tiny Haggis.

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 82 (1 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 641

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

Mixing it up as in mixed breed of doggy!

I present…a husky/collie cross!

As with all the previous huskies, I based the pattern on Siberian Husky by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne from the book Best in Show: Knit your own Dog.

I have just the collie left to post and then it really will be time for something different!

In other news, life has been its usual relentless self – I ripped apart the kids rooms last weekend and only just now have the worst of the scrapes and bruises healed. We’ve had the usual ups and downs you have with small children and have begun to plot the fine details for Felix’s birthday in a few weeks.

I may have to do a few emergency knits for it…

I also spent some time with friends last night which involved a very long journey down memory lane – the youngest present (a baby of 16) just looked at us all as if we were absolutely mad! It’s crazy how fast technology has moved, and yet here I am with a spinning wheel and knitting needles!

Takes all-sorts, right?

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 81 (2 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 642

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

Yep. I’ve been asked to remake husky no.1 again as the person who was given him was put in a situation where they kindly gifted him to a little girl who wants a pet dog but can’t have one, so now has part ownership of hers…

And yes, that brown blob is a tiny knitted dog poo to go with it.

I do get some strange requests…

This is the last of the pure bred huskies, there’s a husky/collie cross and a collie to go to finish this set off. There’s also other behind the scenes knitting going on, but we’ll get to that later.

In non knitting news, I am very tired! Friday and Saturday saw to the kids rooms being ripped out, some painting, new beds and lots of furniture building and some toy sorting with only a few scraped and bruises and a particularly badly bashed elbow to show for it in regards to injuries!

Today was a treat day with some friends at a cat cafe, with lots of kitty cuddles!

Apologies for the blog post being late this week, I’ve been unable to select ‘add post’ in my wordpress directory and yeah…two hours solid trying to resolve the blasted issue and I’ve finally managed it, but it’s left me rather cranky and debating if I should really continue this blog post on its own little website or just switch to a freebie one and have you all suffer lots of ads instead…wordpress has been very glitchy since it did a major overhaul a few months back and it’s not getting much better…

Oh, and with everything going on, I haven’t had a chance to play with my spinning wheel other than to check it works and have Engel align it all for me…hopefully next week!

Anyhow! Wool count then bed I think!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 79 (5 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 644

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

I need to think of better blog post names for these huskies…

Anyhow, this is the third knitted husky! Husky one, and husky two can be found in their respective links.

There’s one more pure bred husky, a husky/collie cross and a collie to go.

It’s been quite a week this week. A UKAS audit at work, my birthday during said audit, finding damp in Felixs room, having builders come and fix said damp and today I did about four and a half hours worth of driving.

The reason for the long drive was partly to fulfill Felixs only summer holiday request – a trip to the beach – and to pick up my birthday present from Engel:

A spinning wheel!!!!

I suspect he wants me to get all those fleeces used up…

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 74 (3 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 649

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

Hi all!

Short post this week as I am ready to fall asleep and it’s not even the little terrors bedtime yet! My mum came down for a flying visit this weekend and we literally crammed as much as we could before she went back north in the train less than an hour ago.

The main highlight was Sci-fi in the sidings at the East Lancashire Railway – both myself and Engel have soft spots for steam trains and it’s passed on to both Felix and Inkling. Coupled with storm troopers and daleks? Sold!

And today it was a cat show, none of us had ever been to one, neither had the friends we met there, but it proved a laugh. Felix has now decided she’s going to show cats when she’s older after falling in love with a litter of kittens! The women who owned/showed them was very good with her and let her ‘help’ with filling out the numbers and giving the cats a lucky pet before they went for each showing…

We may also have rocked up wearing cat ears and tails, myself included, much to the bemusement of most of the people there… unfortunately my mum “borrowed” my cat Welly socks and they are now classified as MIA, so I’ll be needing to make another pair before winter sets in…

Enough of that, on to the knitting!

The second in a pack of huskies! The next few weeks will be seeing more of these guys. Like the first one, I’ve used the pattern Siberian Husky by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne from the book Knit Your Own Dog: Easy-to-Follow Patterns for 25 Pedigree Pooches.

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 71 (3 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 650

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Gaming, Knitting 1 Comment

 Have you ever had one of those conversations with a group of friends, where everyone is being a bit silly and having a laugh, and some idea, or concept is created from the collective, that’s just so funny, bizarre or stupid that you have the urge to somehow make it real? To make it happen?

Meet Reyth Strunmah, riding Calinan.

The crazy collective idea that had to be brought to life amongst myself and my gaming friends, was of a Scottish Kobold, complete with woad, who tosses cabers from his Sporran of Holding whilst riding a corgi. (There was a side conversation about Cowboy Bebop and how Ein is my favourite character)

Let’s take a better look at that corgi, shall we?

This guy is made using the pattern Corgi by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne from their book ‘Best in Show: Knit your own Dog’.  I later winged a saddle and a set of reigns to fit him.

Now let’s have a better look at my Kobold.

This guy…well…the Kobold body is based on the pattern Bag of Troodons by Tina Barrett, from her book ‘Knitted Dinosaurs’. Then I kinda tweaked him a bit here and there, added some horns and did a whole lot of embroidery…

The kilt? That was fun. I looked at an amazingly clever free pattern – Princess Franklin Plaid Collar by Franklin Habit. Using five colours, garter stitch and a whole lot of patience, you can make something that’s fairly passible for tartan. But I wanted only a tiny piece, and as I was basing it on Black Watch tartan, just needed three colours, so I took the idea and the method and with a bit of tweaking, got myself a teeny tiny Kobold kilt.

The Sporran of Holding? That was just winged. The fluffy effect is loop stitch that I have cut and then combed the loose threads.

And there we have it: Reyth Strunmah and Calinan!

…

Yes, I am insane. No, I don’t have that much spare time, but I also don’t have a TV. Yes, my friends are also insane, they are gamers, it’s goes hand in hand.

Well, I shall leave you all at that with the wool count, and a photo I call ‘Freedom’.

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 68 (4 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 653

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