Home › Posts tagged christmas › Page 6
Tag: christmas

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

More play food for Felicity, that happens to tie in nicely with the time of year! Its a free Ravelry pattern, ‘Natural Look Halloween Pumpkin‘ by Caroline Lord.k

Also working well for the time of year, some baking that Felix ‘helped’ with.

IMG_20151030_200930404

Its amazing how much fun a two year has mashing bananas…the recipe itself is a sugar-wheat-dairy free banana and date cake. Though to help the coffin appearance, I used some 70% cocoa chocolate and a few spoonfuls of cream to make a dark frosting. I’d say it went well at he party I took it to, but Engel made it clear it was his and everyone else should eat the sugar filled cake he couldn’t have…

What else have I been making?

Market bags!

Lots of them! Its another free Ravlery pattern, ‘Grrlfriend Market Bag‘ by Laura Spardin.

Rather than wrapping all my christmas presents with paper that would then just be thrown away, I opted to ‘wrap’ presents in market bags! The super colourful one was my prototype (and for Felix to play with) and I learnt one important lesson. Make the strap short, once any weight goes in that bag, its going to stretch.

Felix needs to grow a foot before shes going to be able to get any actual use out of hers!

I made five more afterwards, only got four photographed (and even then in poor lighting) and I may well make more, but thats all I had time for as I was giving them to all my family in Edinburgh when I was up for my mums birthday a fortnight ago.

What else to say? Its all been rather busy! Eh…oh, I’ve had a few queries as to how one accidentally purchases thirty balls of wool. Quite simply when the wool is only sold in packs of ten and I wanted three different colours. What a shame…but hey! Nine balls used since the last post, and not all of them little ones either!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 98
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 719

Annoying, despite using nearly 100 balls of wool, I’m only down by about thirty in my collection…

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Gaming, Knitting, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Tra la la la la…

Life’s been manic the past two weeks – Felix had her second birthday, there was a surprise family visit, Thomas day out, kicking off a new Call of Cthuhlu campaign, and work, work, work…

Like I said, manic.

One of the things that isn’t helping is i’m cramming Christmas knitting in before I visit the family up north this weekend.

I could really do with some extra arms, like this:

That’s a golden oldies from the archives! A Christmas present for Rabbie way back when I was at uni…

Even original text from the time!

“What can I say really? Its a squid knitting little socks for its tentacles for those cold winter seas.

This is the pressie for my sis, she was very happy with it, I think, she spent most of the night pointing out how I had tweaked the pattern to make it more anatomically correct…

She’s a marine biologist, what should I expect?”

Free pattern from Berroco.

Not much more to say really other than I may have accidentally purchased…32 balls of wool…

I have used 11 up since my last post!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 89
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 727

I’m not doing too well anymore with the wool reduction plan…

Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

Where did 2013 go? And seeing as we’re already a week into 2014, where’s that going too?

Could have sworn it was still October…

Anyhow! Every year I knit a christmas decoration for my tree (if I remember, I’ll photograph them all next year as they’ve all been put away already) but I did get a photo of this years!

Tiny Onsies, free pattern by Akaemi Barnett's Designs

Tiny Onsies, free pattern by Akaemi Barnett’s Designs

Pattern is available here – you will need a Ravelry login to access it though.

The one on the left is for my boss, who had her own little one in November, and the one on the right is to mark the birth of Felix, my little one. I’m not a fan of pink, hence the purple, its the same shade as a whole set of baby things I made. Hmm. Will blog about that probably next week…

Super adorable and a quick knit – each one took me an evening so if someone you know is having a little one, I’d recommend this as a quick gift.

What else have I been doing? Boring house stuff I’m afraid. (Its knitting, so its never truly boring – how about necessity?)

Rag doily rug, free pattern by Julie Weisenberger

Rag doily rug, free pattern by Julie Weisenberger

Pattern can be found here. As you can see, my shower is curved, making a shower mat that fits impossible to find. One extra repeat on this pattern made it fit just right, and saves my poor bathroom floor! This was done on 12mm needles using five strands of DK – great stash buster! (I’ve actually made two, one for when the other is in the wash and managed to use three balls of odds and ends and one whole ball.)

The Quickie Plastic Bag Holder, free pattern by Anna Maliszewski

The Quickie Plastic Bag Holder, free pattern by Anna Maliszewski

And last but not least, bag holders! Anyone else have the problem of plastic bags breeding away under the kitchen sink? I use reusable bags pretty much permanently, but still the plastic ones multiply…Pattern can be found here. I’ve actually made three of these – one was stolen by my mum as soon as it was cast off and I realised one just wasn’t enough for me, so two it was. Planning on making more of these as they’re super handy, useful gifts and very quick to make too. Can do one in just under two hours!

Hope everyone else is having a productive start to the year!

Tagged with: , ,

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

…coming to you from under a blanket…

First things first, photos of all the holiday knitting I’ve been keeping secret.

Haughty Hen Trio from Knit & Purl Pets by Claire Garland

This is for my niece, a miniature version of her very own pet chicken!

Holy Hand Grenade, free pattern by Wylde Strandes

And this is for a good Monty Python loving friend of the family! Pattern is a ravelry download that can be found here.

For those not in the know, its featured in the movie ‘The Holy Grail’.

And lastly, advent stockings!

Little Christmas stocking for beginners, free pattern by Fluff and Fuzz

Never. Ever. Again. Ever. That’s five sets of twenty four stockings, that’s a hundred and twenty stockings! I was dreaming of knitting these things! For anyone out there mad enough to attempt their own, the pattern can be found here. From the top, red, white and purple for my niece. Green, white and blue for my nephew. Dark red and sparkly white for my mum. Black and grey for Engel. Red, green and white for me.

Sadly, the hardest part wasn’t the knitting or sewing, but assembling it together. Here is a photo of me trying to do so:

Crumble supervising to ensure all is done properly

Wool everywhere, stockings everywhere, cat trying to ‘help’…the moment I gave her a sacrificial extra stocking, she lost interest and decided to go play with her catnip mouse instead…

Anyhow, a good festive season has been had so far by myself, Engel and Felix. Engel has actually been festive and put christmas music on yesterday, in the 6/7 years I’ve known him, this is a first! He blames Felix on being the christmas spirit…

How about you guys?

Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting No Comments

As you can see, pineapples!

Pineapple for keyrings here, and bag here.

I’ve not gone mad (well, more so than normal) honest! These are my mums birthday presents – the big bag was last years, and the matching purse and key rings are this year. She loves pineapples and its become a bit of a running joke – although I’ll hastily add she does actually use these! The big one is a lunch bag and/or toiletries when travelling, and the little one she uses to store her electric cigarettes and chargers.

I like it when a present is used, though now I’m stuck for next years pineapple related present…suggestions anyone?

I gave her these when she was visiting last weekend, and on her actual birthday spoke to her via Skype – it was amusing joining in the birthday song and munching cake 300 miles away from the actual party, but hey, it was fun! I did also spend time chatting to my niece and, after her showing me her glittery Halloween spider, I showed her my own knitted tarantula.

Engel then upped us both by bringing in my real tarantula and showed her off, to my nieces horror and fascination!

Its been a quiet week otherwise, worked on some Christmas presents and some stock for the next craft fair – more on that in a future post!

Well, going to make a move and get back to my knitting needles.

Tagged with: , , ,