Teddy has arrived

My first post was about a blanket I was knitting for a university chum.. well yesterday her little one arrived and for once I'd finished the present in time!


I had carried on knitting round and round the blanket all over christmas and everyone who saw it couldn't understand how it was going to end up square (I started to have a few doubts myself). I finished the edges with 4 rounds of seed stitch which is the same as the top of the teddy's pocket and once I'd washed it I was AMAZED how square it came out. I've used my teddy, Teddy to show how I'm envisaging new teddy sleeping under the blanket. [My Teddy.. been with me since I was 4.. looking a bit tired now but still in one piece although his head it very wobbly]

Then I set to knitting the teddy...













So all that there is for me to do now, is send it off to the new family.. but while I'm here I'll also show you the card that I made for them.. i'm rather proud. (yes there are 5 of them.. mum dad, big bro, sis and little bro!!)


kxx

Knitting drives me loopy

A slightly late christmas present is currently on my needles.. and I don't mean my little sticks I mean my MACHINE NEEDLES.. I love my knitting machine.

I bought it off ebay late 2007 and then enrolled at a evening class to learn to use it. I've made a few things on it, a wedding blanket for some friends this summer but mainly it's been used for socks. (I love socks almost as much as I love my knitting machine).

One of the weird things about machine knitting is how much the edges curl in when they are being knitted.. It takes a LOT of steaming to uncurl them afterwards and a dear chum commented that this curling back under made them perfect to copy a scarf she once saw.

This christmas I aimed to make her one of these beloved scarfs. I decided on 20 needles wide.. the scarf is only about an inch wide when it curls in but I think it's mainly for beauty rather than warmth and each loop is 100 rows long. I wanted the seams of the links to be as seamless as possible, so rather than cast off each time I transferred the stitched on to real needles (oh dearie me) and hand grafted them with kitchener stitch

So here it is on the machine.. The little green section is a block of waste yarn so that I didn't have to cast off and on again for each loop. It was these green stitches that I transferred onto real needles to graft off. i'm also not knitting on the middle of the machine.. this might be bad practice by it was mainly because my table is a bit weeny and to knit in the middle I'd keep banging into the wall.

I'd really like inspirational pictures of loveliness over my desk but I currently have a star.. it's nice and all but it's just not made of wool is it?? one of my new year resolutions is to sort out this room so that there is enough space for all things science and boyey and my shit (I mean creative masterwork)

so finally this is what the scarf looks like now.. Obviously it's going to get a bit longer.. I don't think it will provide much warmth but at least it can wrap around her neck.

kxx

Oh and pleased as I am with this scarf present idea, I was TOTALLY blown away by my pressie from Lady Kitsch

Twelfth night

Never let it be said that I'm over superstitious but I do like to take my christmas decorations down on the 6th of January and not a moment before.. Alas the tree had to come down about a week ago because it was starting to look more like a twig than a tree as all the needles had dropped off and if there's something lovely about the Admiral it's his love of hoovering and it was ITCHING to clear up the mess.

So it's all packed up for another year.. the knitivity is back in it's bag, the dolls house lights are wound round a tiny dolls house board to stop them getting knotted up and the new addition to my ornament collection.. my swap shop has been put away too.

This year I've been reading a lot of crafty blogs and becoming a bit more aware of what I like to do in the craftzone.. I've head quite a lot about swaps and I didn't really understand.. nice crafing folks from all over the world package up their loveliness and post it to other craftying folks across the world.. how very random. (I haven't got my head around give aways yet at all) I saw one swap of christmas ornaments organised by these crafties Cake and Pie and freshly blended which I was just having a nosey at.. when I spotted it had a flickr site of all the ornaments which were sent in the previous year.. well after some serious soul searching moments of my crafting abilities, I decided I'd sign up and if everyone wrote and said my ornaments were rubbish, well I'd just cry and not play again.

OMG I was sooo excited

then I was slightly less excited.. my design relied rather strongly on my sewing machine.. which I had inherited from my Nanny when I was 14, I'm now a touch older than that so when it finally gave up the ghost on the day set aside to make my ornaments, I was crushingly disappointed that I couldn't make them, but appreciative of the service and support it had given me over the years.

Fortunately Farmer's Wife (tobe) stepped in and I borrowed her machine, made my ornaments and posted them off within a day of the addresses being sent out.

It took a week or so before I got any back..and I still haven't received all my ornaments.. some I was more pleased with than others.. a few just aren't my taste at all.. but I was rather pleased with my haul and may well take part in a swap shop again when people stop getting married/having babies/celebrating birthdays and all those other excuses I make up for starting a new craft project.

[maybe I should make a little apology now.. I am by NO MEANS a professional photographer.. I have also just spent more of my life than I care to admit in trying to put these all in a little table and have failed miserably.. I feel particularly sheepish as Lady Kitch is rather a whiz at that kinda thing and I can almost see her shaking her head at my pitiful attempt.. although that leads me to another question.. names in blogs.. I settled on the Admiral for the admiral after a couple of attempts, Famer's wife(tobe) just is her name.. but Lady Kitch is a blogster herself and so if ever I mention her do I need to mention her blog too?? as my readership is pretty limited (currently.. you never know!!) I think I'm probably safe, but do correct me if I'm committing a blog faux pas.. it's not covered in debrets you know!)




Oh and which ornament is mine.. it's the stripped green tree at the top with a button for a star.. yes I'm kinda fond of all things stripey and buttony too!!

Christmas with the dogs

Cripes i've been away a long time.. initally it was December and that means all manner of preparation busyness and then I was STRUCK with the illness. I went to work on Tuesday, met a chum in the evening for our ritual christmas film (has to be the cheesiest number available at the time) and by the time I was home I felt decidedly swollen in the gland region and spent the next 4 days in bed. EUGH EUGH EUGH. Only made it to the sofa on a couple of days to watch diagnosis murder (and if i can't get out of bed for that, there's no chance).

So mainly I've spent christmas coughing.. so much that I now have a it of a bark every now and again.. and that inspired me to introduce the dogs to you..

this is little dog and lady dog..

I knitted little dog about 4 years ago from a pattern by Jean Greenhowe (who is a tremendous lady) and when the Admiral met him, they got rather attached and i'd come home from work and find little dog in all kinds of scrapes and mischief. then last valentines day, little dog got a card through the post and would you believe there was a new dog just outside the door. rather pleasingly lady dog is slightly smaller than little dog.. and she has a pink collar rather than little dog's red collar.. They came with us on our christmas tour (which took in Plymouth and Reading.. not too huge but plenty long enough thank you very much).. they even had a few jelly bones on Christmas morning.

the dogs have been together for nearly 7 (dog) years and I suspect there may be the pattering of tiny paws quite soon.. just as soon as I find even smaller needles to knit them with!!

Craft and the clap

so far this week (and I'm pretty sure I won't fit any more in) I've been to three (yes three, count them, one two three) craft fairs and they've all been very bizarre.
the first was at my place of work, I'd gone to the farmers' market (and bought a fair amount of cheese) and just as I was leaving I saw a sign saying 'craft fair in the red bar'. It took me a while to find the red bar but after much searching I finally opened the door on a bar decorated in the aforementioned colour.. in one corner of this enormous room were 3 little tables.. already i'm thinking not much of a fair.. I went over and investigated further and found 2 tables selling craft.. one lady had strung bits of dolly tea sets on necklaces which reminded me a lot of a good chum and another had a range of scary creatures made of felted jumpers.. I wasn't over excited and came away with just a bunch of mistletoe for a squid.
So the second craft fair was at the art college rather close to home.. I even left work early to get to this one as I had VERY high hopes.. I'd drawn out a LOT of cash (some was meant for the wallet of The Admiral but I thought in an EMERGENCY I could spend it and reimburse). Alas once again I had to hunt for this fair and when I found it there were maybe 8 stalls but still nothing very exciting. 2 stalls were selling second hand clothes.. no actual crafting done so I think that's cheating and rather randomly the same 2 stalls as from earlier in the day.

All in all I as a bit disappointed until on meeting miss sporty for lunch she said that there was a craft fair at the Create centre in bristol (the home of becksini) which is a lovely recyclylyly hippy place that the council run (quite hard to describe unless you've been there). After my tea this evening (beauf bourginone if you were wondering) I popped over and it was FABDABBYDOSY. My favourite lady is called joanne Rose and she makes beautiful crockery by putting snazzy transfers of flowers and stuff on.. admiral's favourite mug was fashioned by this craftser and so he was rather keen to purchase some more of her ware.. he bought a beautiful teapot and pair of mugs for his grandpares for crimbo and I felt it wasn't fair for me not to get a pressie too..

Look at this little cutie.. (oh another little story.. when my pares were first married my dad painted vegetables dancing round their kitchen.. I kinda imagine they might have looked a bit like this).

oh and I nearly forgot.. why the title of craft and the clap.. well I didn't tell you about the third table at the first craft fair.. hand made lovliness?? no it was a stall offering free clamidia tests (which strictly speaking isn't the clap.. but ley me get away with a bit of artistic licence)

lurve kx

Number 1 - Anna and Andy's number 3

I've been dithering about writing the opening to this blog for ages.. in fact blogger has tried to kick me off several times claiming I was a SPAM BLOG.. how cheeky. So rather than give a thorough introduction to myself and what I'm planning on blogging I thought I'd just start off and write an introduction on that grey day when I don't have any knitting to do.

I'm currently knitting a baby blanket for a friend from University, Anna, who's about to have her THIRD child (cue me feeling VERY old). For her first I made a patchwork quilt, number 2 got a cardi and as I didn't realise she was pregnant until quite late in the game I thought I shouldn't bite off too much. The pattern is from a Vogue Knitting book called baby blankets (I never realised there were soooo many patterns for blankets.. I thought they were just a square). I originally bought it for a pattern of a 'Hey diddle diddle' blanket but as I've already suggested there isn't much inside time left for this little one so it needed to be a bit simpler! I'm rather pleased because I just had a little surf to find a picture of the blanket and found this blogger has knitted it http://wishfulknitting.blogspot.com/ and there is a pleased little person playing with the teddy that lives in the pocket.. so I'm holding out a little hope that baby number 2 (who happens to be 2 when her little brother/sister arrives) might be quietly impressed too.

So back to the knitting.. I'm currently having a bit of love for Rowancashsoft yarn.. I bought a big bag on spec in 4ply peppermint to make (another) baby cardi and then when I went shopping for this yarn had to ring up home and direct the admiral to check I wasn't about to buy exactly the same stuff. thank goodness no, it's DK instead!! So I've gone for bloom for the middle pocket and then there are stripes of chicory, cloud, borage and snowman (think that might be my fave name) which you can have a sneaky look at here http://www.knitrowan.com/yarns/Cashsoft-Baby-DK.aspx. It's the first time I've knit on a circular needle.. I've used double pointers before but this grew much too fast to stay on them for long so I ended up having a little loop of circular needle that I had to keep moving round the knitting.. that may not make sense at all, and maybe I should have bought the smaller length circular needles, but I didn't think of that at the time.

So I'd love to show you a picture of the work in progress but not only is there no natural light to take the most flattering picture, but 2 of the 3 bulbs in here have gone so I'm typing in semi-darkness and that just isn't satisfactory for this cutie. I promise to show it soon.

and I've also made my christmas cards today.. but that's surely another post!

kt