Home › Posts tagged Engel › Page 4
Tag: Engel

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

I’ll be starting this post by recounting a tale that goes back to the start of the third week of July when lockdown was beginning to be lifted. My little family unit of terrors met up with some good friends at Ash End House Children’s Farm. The sun was shining, the kids got to run around and see animals, I may have hugged a few sheep and it was a fantastic day that ended with ice cream. And two whole angora fleece. But that’s a different story.

Whilst we were wandering around the big field where the various animals were out chilling, we started to collect feathers for our good friend. Then random odds and ends of wool fleece that was stuck to fences etc. Then a good few handfuls of reindeer fur – the poor mite was mid moult and scratching at everything to help him shed, so I ‘helped’ and nabbed good few handfuls of incredibly soft but short hairs.

The challenge: can you spin reindeer? The answer is, if blended with the random wool scraps collected on that trip…

Yes. Yes you can. It may look like rough string, but that’s incredibly soft and squishy…and of course if I’ve made wool, I had to knit it!

Combined with some handspun Jacobs, there was just enough for two rather stocky sheep! One for me, and one for our good friends to mark the great day out.

And following from there, in my quest to reduce my wool stash, I was determined to finish every last bit of gold from the golden peaches and made these guys:

They’re plotting about what to do with that Jason fellow and his so called Argonauts…

All the sheep are made following the free pattern FellowSheep by Anna Hrachovec (also known as the wonderful creator of MochiMochi Land!)

Lastly, speaking of my wool stash, I used five this week, haven’t had a chance to spin any more and was pleased that it was going down a good bit for the first time in ages…then Engel brought home five balls of ‘plant fiber’ wools. Two hemp, two recycled cotton and one jute. The jute will be cat toys, the cotton probably wash clothes and the hemp is a very nice green similar to the one Felix wears as her school uniform…

Best get knitting I guess! Except…we got a Switch. And I got Animal crossing. My knitting time has taken a nose dive…

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 102 (5 this week)
Wool bought – 18
Wool given to me – 301 (Up 5)
Wool gifted to others – 7
Wool handspun – 15 (4 have been used! 5 gifted)

Total – 923

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

So, let’s begin at the beginning. Over a year ago, two crazy yarn friends convinced me to go to the wool experience and got me hooked on fleece. I bought a whole Jacobs fleece that day, and a bunch of samples. Then, a few weeks later, so just shy of a year ago, Engel bought me a spinning wheel. A few months later a hand carder followed suit because carding with brushes is hard and tiring and time consuming. Anyhow. I finally had the chance to take the spinning wheel apart, clean it, seal it and have Engel reassemble and service it during lockdown.

I also stained her as part of the sealing process, but as all the shops where closed I had to use what was on hand, which was ebony. She looks looks like something from a dark fairy tale and has subsequently been called Grimm. After the Brothers Grimm. Because I was told very firmly that all spinning wheels have names. It’s not just me that’s mad.

But I digress.

Jacob, who you will meet shortly, has been over a year in the making. The past few weeks I have spun the wool to make him:

(Look! My first three balls of handspun wool! All wound into pretty little cakes!)

And then I finally got to knit him.

Jacob isn’t just special because he’s knit from the very first wool I have spun, but also because he has a set of real Roe deer antlers that were still attached to a bit of skull that I have incorporated into the actual knitting. I will tell you now, knitting around antlers is a very tricky thing indeed! And pointy. He’s also very cute and practical with his coat hook.

So there you have it, my current knitting triumph. But wait! I have a second set of antlers, just in case anything went wrong with the first…and instill have some of my very first handspun left over…I think Jacob needs a friend, don’t you?

Oh, in non knitting news I went back to work this week. And it was boiling this week. I survived but I think I need a month to recover…it wasn’t the work exactly, it was being around people again, having to think and talk about things above that of a 6 year olds mind set…

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 97 (5 this week)
Wool bought – 18
Wool given to me – 296
Wool gifted to others – 3
Wool handspun – 10 (4 have been used!)

Total – 927

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

After the success of Rabbies Unbirthday I couldn’t resist making just one more Alice in Wonderland inspired knit…

It’s a pencil bird!!! The body is based on the free pattern Songbird by Sara Elizabeth Kellner, and the head is one of the Mochimochi pencils I knitted the other week.

I am somewhat smitten with him! Though he will be making his way up North to join his friend hammerbird.

And please note the home grown cauliflower! The garden is brimming with all sorts of vegetables just about nearly ready to eat…

In other knitting news I have a somewhat bigger project on the needles, more next week, and have had the opportunity to try helical knitting – again, more next week.

I have also finally managed to get spinning! The wheel Engel got me for my birthday needed a good clean, wax and oil. I finally had the time to do all that over the course of two weeks of lockdown and have finally, finally gotten to play with her! First attempt spinning is hard, as are all new skills, but very satisfactory. And the wool may be clumpy and uneven, but I have just the project in mind…when I finally spin enough to actually ply and then knit…

In non knitting news…not a lot. I’m still on furlough. The gardens coming along great. Engels dentistry nightmare is finally over after I had to dig around in there and pull out eleven chunks of shattered tooth…

So yeah, ticking along…

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 56 (3 this week!!!)
Wool bought – 7
Wool given – 8
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 662

Tagged with: , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

During lockdown I have been tutoring my niece with her English and it’s not been easy. One of the optional Covid-19 activities her school set was to write a short story of 500 words beginning with one of four sentences you were given.

So to make things a bit more fun, I made it into a family competition. With prizes! Sadly her parents didn’t even bother but the rest of the family did, so that was something. We each read our story out loud (over Skype) and my niece picked the winner.

So first, the participation prizes!

Petite Pencil by Anna Hrachovec from her book “Knitting Mochimochi”

I made sure to make plenty!

And the main prize? This beauty!

Arthur by Anna Hrachovec from her book “Huge and Huggable Mochimochi”

In other knitting news, I’m still working through the Christmas knits! And despite all this knitting, I haven’t finished any whole balls of wool!

In non knitting news, Engel has been having issues with a tooth that got pulled – twice – by two different emergency dentists and they’ve made a mess of it. Note to everyone DIY dentistry is not pleasant or recommended. But after pulling 10 shards of tooth of varying sizes out of the hole, cleaning it out and landing it, it is finally beginning to heal! Hooray!

Till next week!

Tagged with: , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

A short post today, for tomorrow we’re having a little party for Inkling who will be turning three on Monday. Engel couldn’t get the day off work so we moved his celebrations forward by a day – not that he’ll notice mind!

Its not going to be a big thing, we asked him what he wanted for a cake and what he would like for a special birthday dinner, and if he wanted to do anything in particular in the house. He wanted cupcakes (so he could lick off the frosting) Daddys pink roast beef (rare beef), and to play Paw Patrol. Oh, and balloons. But we can manage all that at least and still follow our lockdown procdures.

A lot of people gave mentioned lockdown fatigue, I certainly reached a point a few weeks ago where i just wanted life to go back to normal, this week though has been hard as I just want my family near me – I suspect its due in part to cancelling my Easter trip up North, and Inklings birthday when I would have them come visit.

Two missed chances. Two missed occasions.

All because of…

The Fearsome coronavirus ball (free pattern by Tamara Kulikova) I couldn’t resist knitting this cutie – though it has been getting thrown around the house far more than t has been admired! At least i dont have to worry abouyt the fishtank breaking when this bounces off it!

Alright, enough waffling, I have presents to get knitting – more on that next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 39 (3 this week)
Wool bought – 7
Wool given – 8 (Engel brought two home today as a little pick me up as he noticed the home sickness was setting in)
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 679

Tagged with: , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

So, last post I mentioned that we live in interesting times. Since then interesting has moved on to insane. We’re in lock down, not allowed out the house more than once a day, no work myself (unless there’s an emergency lab sample) Engel working from home, Felix is now being homeschooled as the schools are closed…

Its…strange. I’ve managed a surprising amount between home schooling Felix and wrangling Inkling – gutted the conservatory, started a sour dough culture, lots of carding my sheep fleece, a handful of odd jobs that were being left until I had ‘5 minutes spare’…

I have also managed some knitting too!

This is Morris. He’s a combination of two patterns – Alley Cat and Ginger Tom both by Sue Stratford from her book ‘Knitted Cats and Kittens’. Morris happens to be Engels Pathfinder character – he’s a Cat-folk engineer. (I keep calling him a technomage and keep getting told no). Much like my Kobold Barbarian Reyth, I will get round to making some clothing for this guy. Just not sure quite what yet…

And a nice one of his back as I just winged the striping!

In other knitting news, I have finished off a lot of little bits, which I will post next week/later. No wool in or out so will skip the wool count this week, again.

And in non knitting news, the world has gone mad, I’m just staying inside and following the rules to do my bit, but otherwise avoiding all the crazy I can. The terrors are loving having all the mummy attention but not sure when novelty will turn into annoyance…

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

Something that isn’t hats! But what exactly is it?

Is it a llama? Is it an alpaca? We can all definitely agree it’s cute! Pattern for the actual critter is a free Ravelry download – Flounce the Fluffy Alpaca by Tabitha Rose – and I just winged a blanket and teeny tiny pom-pom detailing!

I made this cutie as a thank you to a fellow yarnie work colleague who crochets as opposed to knits, and gifted me a cone of the fluffy wool as it wouldn’t behave for her crochet hooks! I made it yield to the knitting needles!

(The llama unleashed game was Engel giving me a random ‘saw this and thought of you’ gift, squee!)

That’s all today, Inklings had a stomach bug start of this week that rivals THAT scene from the exorcist, and after one day of peace, Felix has now started…when will it end?!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 15 (2 this week!)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 689

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

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

Total – 666 the number of the beast!

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

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?)

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Gaming, Knitting 2 Comments

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!

A lovely free pattern, Diagonal Knit Dishcloth by Jana Trent.

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?)

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,