Not bad for a morning!

I'm definitely not what one would call a morning person, but since having the cats I've forced myself out of bed at least once a weekend to feed them, resisting the temptation to lie in.  I even fed them last Saturday while nursing a nice hangover!  If I get up, I usually stay up, so this morning between 8.30 and 10am I got down to some knitting...

They're knitted up from a lovely simple pattern on a blog called Flowerpot. I've made them in the 3 and 3-6 month sizes but I wanted something in between so I cast on 20 stitches and improvised the decreases.  The yarn is Cygnet Kiddies Couture Aran.

These were for Nephew#3 but I've made two sizes for one of my best friends babies and as they're super quick to knit I can see more on the horizon...

I've finished my Christmas wrapping, apart from one thing that I'm still waiting to arrive.  Hmmm.

One of my presents to a friend is the Death Star, in all it's crochet glory!  Kinda appropriate as there's a trailer out for a new film.

My friend asked for one but I don't think he thinks I've made it (confused?) so I'm hoping it's a bit of a surprise.

I just have to say that I'm laughing at I type this, I've been feeding Moggie her favourite Dreamies and she's licking my fingers clean. And then she typed this to you all (I think it means hello)

C47 X9000DFR

She also has the last laugh as J dressed her brother up like this...

Merry Christmas if I don't post before Thursday! 

x x x x

All of what's been going on

I feel a bit like I've lost my blogging-mojo and I want to find it.  I've been really busy when it comes to making things but when I look at my photos I'm not feeling inspired...  I'm just going to give it a go.

I've finished my Solstice cardigan but I haven't managed to take any photos of it yet, although it's been in almost constant wear since casting off.  I think these were the last photos I took but it shows you something I guess...

I had to do the sleeve again because my needles were a size smaller than the pattern said so it was too tight, but I'm really glad I did and I'm very happy with the fit.

I made some rather cute baby mittens for a friend and I forgot to photograph them.  I'm one hand into making some mittens of my own and I've only got a WIP photo to post ,but lets have it anyway

Lets see...  Oh yeah, my Uncle wanted a rag-doll style Dr Who so this is something else I've been hooking

He is meant to be the Eleventh Dr Who, although obviously he shouldn't be bald and hopefully at some point he'll have a mouth and a fez.

Christmas decorating began in earnest on the 1st, I've heard a lot of people say the start of December is still too early to think about Christmas but I want to make the most of it, so there ♥

I also wanted to see whether the cats would destroy the tree so for the first week I only put a few Ikea baubles on, but low and behold we have ANOTHER cat success story and that is they're not remotely interesting in destroying my tree.  Huzzah!

I've even managed to bake some mince pies (and I remember to do them in cases instead of straight into the tin...)

And I've been enjoying hot chocolate in my varying festive mugs.

And as with most years since discovering them I've been enjoying the Christmas Markets in town, made even better by the fact that I only work down the road now...

And a couple of weeks ago I got reaquainted with my sewing machine and made a cushion from an lovely off cut of fabric I found in John Lewis.

I realise that's a bit of an info overload but I think I needed it!

x x x x

Woodside arm warmers

One of my recent knitty projects are these arm warmers.  I had a pair in khaki green when I was at University, but someone stole my coat at a party and they were lost forever!  My mum called them my Fagin gloves.  Well Fagin wouldn't have been wearing a pair like these now would he.

They're loosely based on a Lion Brand pattern called Constellation although I realised my yarn was a different side so I did some customising and decreased to my wrists and played around with the increases to make it fit perfectly.

They're incredibly cosy and I've been wearing them at work although it hasn't been exactly necessary, but winter is coming and I'll be able to knit in these too!

I love the stripes the yarn has produced and that the main colour's the deep purple which is lovely.



The yarn isLoops & Threads Impeccable Ombre and the colour is Folklore; I bought it a few years ago when I went to New York, from Michaels.  I still have most of the ball left and two more, so I'll have to see what to do with those.  I'd quite like to knit more monsters...

I reckon I'm getting the hang of using DPNs too, which is good because I need to use them for the sleeves of my cardigan.  I don't like casting on because I've twisted my stitches several times, and I don't like starting out with a few stitches and having to decrease, but these weren't so bad.

Moggie decided she wanted to be part of my photography shoot too.  It's a shame she's not in focus but she was very curious about what was going on!

I made up three cushions today and I've almost finished some painting (only a door frame) so I feel pretty accomplished.  I just wish it wasn't Sunday and I wish I didn't have to go back to work tomorrow!

I had a go at making short bread, using the recipe that Lucy posted on Attic 24, although I ended up adding quite a bit more flour because it was too sticky to roll out.  I had good fun cutting out my shapes and make little stars to stick on top!

Right, dinner time for all of us.  Have you had a nice weekend with any craftiness?

x x x x

Buonasera!

Hello my lovelies - when did there become 51 of you! How are you all? I hope you had a brilliant bank holiday weekend; I'm shattered! Why is it that holiday's are never relaxing and you always come back needing more time off??



I think I'm just about recovered now, Sicily was absolutely beautiful and the wedding was very fun although being in Italian we had no idea what was going on whatsoever!



I really need to catch up on some Ravelry / Blog reading; so many beautiful things posted that I want to see!

I've been busy with my scarf, just a few rows a day but good progress I think



Do you remember last week I mentioned the dreaded DPNs? Well I bought a set ages ago and they've sat un-used in my needle roll. In truth I bought them because Alice (Crochet with Raymond) had used them and I thought "she's a great knitter, I must need these!" I decided then to give it a go...



I must say I don't really love using DPNs, they're quite fiddly and I ended up poking myself a lot!




But I got quite far and even got a bit brave and changed colours!




Ta dah! Ok not the most amazing thing ever but it's alright isn't it?