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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

Still knitting things for that father’s Day market the school is running, and I’m pretty low on creative generic ideas so…more beer!

Lots and lots of cute tiny beer mugs! 40 in fact, to join the 23 beer mats I knit. Will be turning these into keyrings and/or adding a loop of thread in to them so they can be hung places. The pattern is a free Ravelry download and it’s Buy You A Beer by Tatyana Grigoryan

In other news, it’s been Engels birthday weekend and he definitely crammed as much as he could in to make up for not having anything last year! Japanese restaurant date night, family meal with his parents, met up with friends for sushi and a mooch around town…

Yes, Engels idea of a great time always revolves around food. He gets it from his parents.

Whilst having a mooch, I finally managed to enter a yarn store…and there was a wool-cident. You see, I have a lot of wool. A lot, a lot, a lot of wool. But of all that wool, there are no adult sized sweater quantities which are the same dye lot, same weight, or same composition of fibres. And I want to knit a sweater. A very specific one that involves three colours.

I walked out with 30 balls. 10 of each. Even though that’s enough to knit two adult jumpers, and by switching the contrast with the main colour, two more children’s jumpers…yeah. it happened. My out total is still far higher than my in total, but man I fell off the sheep something bad…

Enough moping! I’ve had a productive and fun weekend, and my more fun planned for next week! But more in that when it happens. (Fingers crossed!)

Till next week, stay safe!

Wool Count

Starting total – 897

Wool used – 81 (1 this week)
Wool bought – 33 (30 in…)
Wool given to me – 21
Wool gifted to others – 1
Wool handspun – 8

Total – 878 (My plans of trying to get below 800 this year I think has been successfully dashed…)

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

And you’ll always land amongst the stars…

I loved that saying as a kid – it made me feel that no matter how high you aim, with hard work, you may not get all the way there, but you’ll get somewhere.

It’s been another hard week, and I am certainly feeling like the moon is very far away right now! I may change my aim and go for some far off distance planet…Saturn looks very pretty…

But enough about that. Let’s talk about rockets. Inklings school has been encouraging parents to send in party bags and to do little birthday parties in the class as to avoid people mixing bubbles arranging their own kids birthday parties given our times of plague. I like this plan, the kids get to celebrate, there’s no added stress of covid, and it’s a lot easier to just not have to worry about it. The only issue is, my two are used to having a party with a theme and a party bag with a little knitted something in it to match said theme.

Isaac declared all things transport. Cars, buses, planes, trained and rockets. He only declared this about two weeks ago and the party bags are getting sent in end of next week to quarantine before distributing. A quick and thorough browse through Ravelry and my knitting books and I came across Mini Knitted Rocket Ship by Ilana R. Marks. It’s not the first time I knitted this pattern – Isaac has a Fallout inspired Red Rocket mobile (now taken apart as just toy rockets)

It’s quick, easy, and with 30 to make…well, the perfect pattern!

A short post this week, but do remember, aim for the moon and keep safe, I’ll see you somewhere amongst the stars!

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

I survived! And no one was sacrificed to Great Cthulhu! The birthday party (slimmed down to just Felix’s best friend as they are in the same bubble) went well – better than expected to be fair!

The only down side to the whole weekend was I was too busy playing games and dancing and wrangling children to do much knitting, so much so I have nothing to show this week. And if I had finished, it would have been a somewhat boring pair of cabled sweater vests for Inkling to wear to school… However, I have a few cute cat themed KAL’s with a friend of mine, and i’ve joined a knitting challenge on Instagram so I’m sure there will be cute stuff aplenty soon!

But in the meantime, I have a special spinning project I can at least reveal! It’s taken five dying experiments to get the colours of the fleece just right, but finally, finally I can present:

Missy? Yes. Missy. The Missy of The Grand adventures of Little Miss daisy. My sister and I decided that such a beautiful loyal and loving member of the family deserved her own wool. So with her being tan and black and her signature pink collar, I got to work.

Natural black Hebridean, fresh coffee dyed Suffolk-Texel and acid dyed pink Suffolk-Texel. I present ‘Missy in the Meadow’.

I had tried used coffee grounds, beetroot and purple kale to get the colours but fresh coffee and the acid dye where the best matches.

But I needed something else, and so, a contrast colour was decided upon.

Depending on the light, her tan colouring can change quite spectacularly, and in the moonlight, it fades to a much fuller brown, and so the used coffee grounds Suffolk-Texel was spun with more natural black Hebridean to give ‘Moonlit Missy’.

There’s approximately 317m of Missy in the Meadows and 196.5m of Moonlit Missy making its way to Rabbie. I look forward to seeing what she makes with it, and will be sure to feature it here!

Last photo – promise – of the two colours together!

Stay safe everyone!

(No woolcount this week as no changes.)

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

Cutting a long story short, two things have been on the cards for a while. A family friendly console that is fully supported (Curse you Wii!) and a birthday party for Felix. With the current situation regarding the plague, it as decided fairly early on that Felix would not be having her big class party. So what to do?

Rewind a few weeks when we were visiting family and Felix was introduced to her auntie and uncles Switch and promptly fell in love. Inkling, despite being 3, could even join in the games and play them (with all the baby settings on, but he didn’t need to know that). I had a go, Engel too, and yeah, it was pretty much decided that when we get a console, it would be the Switch.

Which brings me back to the present. The money saved on not having a big party paid for the majority of a Switch, and Felix quickly agreed to having one or two friends round for pizza and a Switch party. This is taking place next week, so if there’s no post, they’ve probably sacrificed me to an Eldritch Terror.

They grow up so fast…

But come on, it’s not a party organised by me without some cute knitted element! And so I took these Mario kart images:

And turned them into:

Mario Kart party bags! Each one unique with a variety of symbols! There is nowhere near that many invited, just so you all know, it’s to give the kids a choice so as to reduce the chance of a fight breaking out. And so the parents reminiscing of days long past can swipe one too…

If I haven’t been sacrificed to an Eldritch Terror, I’ll share my latest spinning triumph with you all next week. If not, Engel should have finished performing the necromancy ritual for the week after.

Until then, stay safe!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 118 (3 this week)
Wool bought – 18
Wool given to me – 301
Wool gifted to others – 7
Wool handspun – 15 (4 have been used! 5 gifted)

Total – 907

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

As Great Grandma’s (Engels side) 90th birthday was celebrated this week I decided it was a good time to show a special project I made for her.

In Chinese culture, peaches are eaten by the gods to bring immortality, so peaches, particularly golden peaches, are a symbol of longevity. So I knit quite a lot of peaches for the whole family. There is one giant peach for Great Grandma, and then the rest are in pairs. Five pairs of big peaches for the children, and thirteen pairs of little peaches for the adults. That’s thirty seven peaches.

I also knit five red bags for the children’s peaches to go in, as red is a lucky colour and based on my own children enjoying putting things in and out of bags, I figured the others would too!

The peaches are based on the free pattern georgia by peachcake knits and the bags are another free pattern Openwork Drawstring Pouch by Mary Schaefbauer. For those curious, that super shiny gold is Rico Design Creative Lamé – it’s not the nicest to knit with, but it gives a fantastic sparkle!

In spinning news, I spun five skeins – more to be revealed later though when I finish the contrast skeins. As they’re a gift I won’t be adding them to the final total as they’re not destined for my stash.

In non knitting news, it was my birthday this week and I got lots of nice presents, I’ve also started a new Cthulhu scenario and been having fun with that. It’s also the end of my second week at work and I am exhausted – it’s all very different from before! I’ll get used to the ‘New Normal’ but it’s a steep learning curve…

Till next week, keep safe!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 97 (0 this week)
Wool bought – 18
Wool given to me – 296
Wool gifted to others – 7 (4 balls to work colleague)
Wool handspun – 15 (4 have been used! 5 gifted)

Total – 923

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

This week and last I have been knitting Christmas gifts. Yes. Christmas gifts. I always say I won’t do them then change my mind in December and rush, rush, rush. Seeing as I am in the limbo of lockdown, I figured I would start now.

There is one gift I can show you though…

Inklings birthday was on Monday, and like most three year old boys, he is obsessed with Paw Patrol, and Zuma is his favourite. So I knit him Zuma as part of his present. I used the free pattern Dexter the Labrador by Amanda Berry. The pup tag I just winged, but I feel it came out well!

It was a very quiet celebration this year, again because of lockdown, but at three he doesn’t understand what he missed, which was a blessing really. I suspect I was more upset than anyone else as I didn’t get to see my family from up North. Twice now this year and lockdown. Twice!

Anyhow, back to Christmas gift knitting – I’ll try and fit a few things in that I can show you or else it’ll be a rather dull couple of weeks blog post wise!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 46 (7 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 – 672

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

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

Total – 637

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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, Little one, Motorbike, Updates 2 Comments

Well, motorbikes. Which is what I’ll start on then I’ll get to the butterflies.

On Friday, Engels motorbike died. We knew that she had begun to slowly mechanically deteriorate, as all things do with wear and tear and the lovely state of British roads. She was a work horse of a motorbike and did a 40 mile round commute everyday in sun, sleet and snow. So when she died, Engel was left in a rather awkward predicament or requiring a motorbike to commute to work, as he cant feasibly get there via public transport, as fast as possible but with no actual savings to get one.

Yesterday (Saturday) we called upon a few favours and managed to get someone with motorbike know how to, firstly, breathe a few more last breaths into the old motorbike, and then go with Engel to kick some tyres and find a replacement. It was a long day, and I ended up driving for a total of 4 hours (but there was lots of doggy cuddles, four huskies and a collie!), but a new lovely lady of a motorbike was found and we just have to get Engels poor workhorse of a motorbike to last a few more days until everything is in place to get the new one.

Not going into any great details, but I now have a motorbike to pay off, so I’m officially reopening commissions – since Felix was born I’ve pretty much only been making things upon request for  friends and family (and work colleagues, as Yorrick is proof of) but as of now, anyone can request one. Full details on the commissions page.

I’m curious to see what requests get made, I’ve had quite a few interesting ones in the past – life sized knitted recreations of peoples pets, items from games or movies, a knitted womb that would double as a purse… (that last one wasn’t made in the end, after it was explained to me that it was going to be a ‘congratulations on your hysterectomy’ gift, I didn’t feel it would go down well and I do like to think I have a pretty dark sense of humour)

Now, onto the butterflies!

Felix has asked for a ‘mini beasts’ birthday this year (for those wondering what a mini beast is, its now the ‘correct’ term for creepy crawlies, insects, bugs etc – schools didn’t feel it fair on the insects to cast a negative light on them by calling them creepy). Her birthday isn’t until September but I figured that insects would make nice, small, travel sized knits.

So I started with butterflies…

Using the pattern Common Blue Butterfly by Lesley Stanfield from her book 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet

I made a lot of butterflies.

But they were so good for using up scraps…

And using my hand dyed wool…

Oh, and I needed moths too!

After realising there was about 50, or maybe more, of the things I decided I had to make myself stop and choose a new insect for travel knitting. When I finish with that one, I’ll do another post like this one!

I’m going to go and get back to knitting some socks now (a very ‘normal’ knit for me I must say!) and working out which husky pattern to cast on next as a thank you for the motorbike friend…

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 56 (8 this week!!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 660

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

I’m out of car songs and too tired to Google something suiting. It was Inklings second birthday yesterday and we had a BBQ and friends and family and lots of kids round.

So tired.

Onto the knitting!

That 1969 movie I mentioned?

Its Herbie! And I also whipped up these!

Felix reminded me that girls would be at Isaacs party so there should be girly coloured ones. But not pink. That’s too girly.

Who am I to disagree?

Now to rest and knit something, anything, that isn’t a car!!!!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 30 (1 this week!!)
Wool bought – 13
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 686

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