Decisions decisions!

It might be a bit late in the evening to be blogging but I really felt like saying hello and I'm definitely one of those bloggers who has to be in 'the right mood'. Which is now!

This is first weekend this year where I've actually been home and it's been nice to get stuff done, take photos of the things I've been making and just enjoy not travelling! I've been to London lots lately (don't get my wrong, I love it!) but it's been quite nice to have a weekend off. That said I've been very busy and I'd quite like to just sleep!

I think I've already admitted that I broke one of my resolutions about not starting a new project but this is kinda a replacement so that's ok right?



This is ripple number two! I decided (about 7 stripes in actually!) that I really wasn't liking my first ripple at all. My colour order was all wrong, who knows others might like it but I don't and that means I really don't want to give it to my new niece or nephew in a few months when they're born so I started this new one and I LOVE it! I'm basically more or less copying the same colours I used in my granny stripe


Having said all that I might give ripple number one to another friend also having a baby because I figure this is better than binning it (which she can do if she wants!!) or unravelling it for the sake of a little bit of yarn.

Or not! I'm very undecided. I do have a good friend who loves my crocheting, even the fugly stuff but unfortunately her kids are 4 and 6 now so I'm not sure what she'd do with it! Decisions decisions :-)

In other news the snood is onto it's last ball of yarn! I need to start taking proper lunch breaks as this is about the only time I seem to work on it now!

The last of the Christmas presents

I've just noticed I have ninety-two followers :D and I've decided that 100 will be a great opportunity to have my first giveaway... A lot of other bloggers do it and it's quite exciting! I just haven't decided what I might giveaway yet so I'm hoping the next 8 followers don't come all at once :)


So! I've been having a very educational evening watching Stargazing Live (on the BBC) while I crochet away with tea and cake. On Monday I went past Jodrell Bank on the train and I always get a little bit excited! I've wanted to be an astronaut for forever but maths just let me down :p

I've completely forgotten to show you the last Christmas present I made for my mum! I don't mean the pink fluff no ;)


These cute little cactii are from a pattern by Elf Luvs Dwarf who unfortunately seems to have stopped blogging so if you want the pattern I'd recommend saving them just incase!


I modified the pattern a bit - well I say modified! I stopped short of making the pot and just glued them into some tiny teracotta pots that our fish tank plants came in :) I reckon they're a bit more steady and it was a lot easier too!






And now they all live at my mums in little green houses. I might even get you a photo one day!

I've broken one of my resolutions already and I was doing so well for the last 17 days! I've started something new...


:o

x x x x

Pink Fluff Ta-Dah!

One of my 2012 Resolutions has been to finish my 2011 unfinished-projects and I'm very happy to have this one done, especially seeing as it was meant for Christmas...

But before you see it be warned, it looks like a giant pink fluffy caterpillar!!!



:D

I've told my mum she really doesn't have to wear it out if she doesn't want to just-because-her-daughter-made-it. It's not that I don't like it, I kinda do which I didn't think I would but it just seems rather large now it's finished!

This is me wearing it:



I'm pulling a silly face so I chopped my head off for blogging purposes :)

If you'd like to create one the yarn is Patons UK Lulu in Colorway
07005 (pink/purple). I cast on 36 stitches (I like even numbers) and knitted until my mum said STOP!

Well it's 1 down and a possible 5 to go before I can start anything else. Boo! The start of 2012 is going to be rubbish!!

Now if my herbs will just start to grow I can create some culinary masterpieces!!

Hello Twenty Twelve

Good bye 2011! I know a lot of people are glad to see the back of that year, for me it wasn't so bad. It feels like only yesterday I met up with friends on New Years day for an enormous fry up and here we are again!

So 2011...  I made new friends, started climbing, properly got into knitting which I now love, participated in my first Ravelry swap and stayed employed; always a bonus!

This is the end of day one here in Manchester :-) Beautiful!

Last night before going out I made some mosaics of 2011. I've never been an "end of month/year mosaic" blogger but I think I might start doing it because I was amazed by how much I'd actually made, lots of things I thought were from 2010!  It's a great way to remind yourself of all the things you've been upto :-)

Crochet





1.  Granny stripe blanket for my friends baby
2.  Japanese flowers wip
3.  Tissue box cover.  J *loves* this
4.  First wedding card of the year
5.  Amigurumi monster for G
6.  Flowers for N
7.  Wedding card # 2
8.  Hexagon blanket wip & One A Day project
9.  Wedding card # 3
10.  Cactus pin cushion
11.  Bunting for Wiggles - this went missing in the post and is now lost :-(
12.  Phone pouch for H
13.  Amigurumi mugs
14.  Rainbow ripple for J's sisters baby due in a few months
15.  Christmas trees

Knitting:





1.  First fairisle attempt wip / frogged
2.  Pink scarf.  Needed to be wider and less curly!
3.  First attempt with DPNs.  May also be the last!
4.  Knitted tea cosie, love this project so much!
5.  Moss Stitch scarf wip
6.  Monster for CJ
7.  First attempt at cables, coffee cosie
8.  First attempt with circular needles, my stripy snood wip
9.  Pink fluffy scarf (now finished! Ta dah post coming soon...)

I also did a fair bit of sewing too!

Sewing





1.  Baby owl
2.  Green bunting - first Etsy sale1
3.  First attempt at making clothes, Russian Doll skirt
4.  Blue knitting needle roll
5.  Heart for charity raffle
6.  Dotty bunting for E's wedding
7.  Christmas decorations
8.  Climbing chalk bag
9.  Felt Christmas Tree decorations

I have a few resolutions for 2012 though and although I'm not a great one for keeping to them I reckon these are pretty managable:

1. Crochet/Knitting: Finish my 2011 unfinished objects (see above!)
2. Climbing: Do an outdoors climb (at least one!) and by the end of the year climb a 6a on lead
3. Health: Eat less meat and be more creative when cooking
4. Life: Keep my house tidier!

That's it from me for now!  Hope the New Year brings you lots of love, creativity and happiness!  I'll leave you with some lovely Haycinths my Family got me for Christmas which have since been banished to the spare room because J can't stand the smell!




x x x x

Merry Christmas!

Whatever you do, wherever you spend it and who ever you're with hope it's a good one :-) see you in 2012!

What's pink & fluffy?

Hello my lovelies! How are you all doing on this fine Sunday afternoon? I can't believe we've finally had a sunny winters day, lots of sunshine, frost on the ground and NO rain! I know the weather in Manchester is usually pretty bad (and we Brits love to discuss the weather!) but honestly it was getting ridiculous. So there we are.

Last week I was nominated not once but twice for a blog award! The very lovely Suzanne (Crea in the City) and Hazel (Hazels Crochet) both gave me the Liebster blog award and now I need to nominate 5 other upcoming blogs who have less than 200 followers which I love reading; believe me this is not easy because lots of you are already very popular!!

I've had a good old look through my reading list and I think I've made a good choice. I hope you'll all visit & enjoy their blogs as much as I do :-)

1. Rainbow Bunting
2. Hilly Town Blue
3. Lucy in the Sky
4. According to Matt
5. Aurora Blythe

None of this of course has anything to do with pink fluff! Last week I was hunting around for the yarn I'd bought for my stripy snood and it turns out I have a lot more hiding places for yarn than I thought! I found a few balls I'd forgotten about (woops!) and a load of "pink fluff" that my mum bought to make a scarf. I stole it because I knew she was never going to start (let alone finish) which is ironic because I've only just started it myself...





It's not what I'd usually choose to knit with (the yarn if you can call it that is Lulu by Patons), the problem with it is when you drop stitches (and you will!) it's hard to see them and pick them up. The good thing is if you drop stitches it's hard to see them ;-) So I'm trying to get this finished in time for Christmas! Fortunately I've got two bonus days as I'm not seeing my mum til the 27th. Stripy snood is slightly on hold (again) but here's this weeks progress!






New Years resolution is going to be to finish some scarves I think!!

:-)

x x x x

On the 10th day of Christmas

I had a cup of tea! :-)

It's been 18 days since I last blogged, I really did stop didn't I after I stopped making hexagons didn't I! I think I'm going to pick those up again in the new year when hopefully I have a few other projects done. I've really missed blogging and all of you lot, you are very cheery and it's nice to be part of this lovely bloggy, knitty, yarny, crochet community :-) x

Stripy snood has been a very slow progress so I've picked it up and I'm trying to have a marathon knit this weekend. I'm hoping to get onto ball 3 of 4 :-)

Here's todays photo:






It's curled quite a bit so is wider than it looks, I'm thinking I might iron it when it's finished but I need to do a bit of research and find out if this will kill it in a good or bad way!











Isn't the colourway devine!? I seriously cannot get enough of this yarn and I'm so glad I went and bought more. Might have been because I'd had a drink or two before visiting the yarn shop though!!

*I thought I'd best add some details of the yarn!  It's Lang Yarns Mille Colori in Pink / Purple (53.  I got it from my LYS Purl City Yarns in Manchester and it was about £4 for a 50g ball.  I'm probably going to use 4 in total but it will be well worth the cost and I never make anything from expensive yarn to it's a little treat to myself.  *grin!*

Soooo do you remember back in October I mentioned I'd been making Christmas decorations but it was way to early to share? Well I almost forgot and now its December!

My friend Jeni had a craft fair so I made some hanging tree deorations, crochet trees, bunting and two amigurumi mugs; the ones I've changed my profile pic too. Jeni's mum & brother bought those (yay, a good home!) and most of the felt decs sold. I was very glad to keep the bunting (and not make more!) and also the trees which I sort of overpriced for a reason... haha! Sorry for the terrible photo, I realise I didn't take any close ups of the tree decorations so this will have to do I'm afraid :-)






I didn't really come away with a "profit" because I bought a lot of over lovely things being sold (a necklace, a canvas, some cake...!) but I also technically didn't spend any money which is totally awesome!

So now that I'm feeling all good and festive, I've started re-watching the Lord of the Rings (it's become a Christmas tradition!) and my tree is up. You want to see?!






I've been hauding Christmas bags for a couple of years and the tins were a Friday lunchtime purchase from Lidl, £3.99 for all three - they might still have some if anyone is looking  interested!






I could go on sharing Christmas things but I think I might save them for another day!

Hope you're having a good advent so far (lots of kinnerton chocolate!) and are looking forward to Christmas as much as me :-)

x x x x

Tuesdays tallies hiatus

It was good while it lasted! I knew when I joined The Gingerbread Girl's One-A-Day project that eventually I'd get sidetracked and I'm finally read to admit it happened a few weeks ago!

I will definitely get back into making my hexagons but for now I want to make other things and I don't want to feel guilty for yet another week of no updates so I'm going to jump ship for a bit but hopefully I'll rejoin!

It's not all bad though, it means I get to make awesome stuff like this!




They're from a pattern I found on Ravelry HERE and they were very easy to make (I was sick while doing it which says a lot!)

They are going to look lovely when I get all my other decorations. Only 9 days to go until decorating day!!

I had a pretty busy weekend just gone, the folks were up from the South and we had a good mooch around the Manchester Christmas Markets. I should have taken some photos, I'm sure there will be loads on Flickr, because they're brilliant! The only two things missing this year were the goulash soup stall and the wooden mushroom man, both stalls I would have made purchases from (probably several of the goulash!)


I also got my sewing machine back out and made this:


I know it's not terribly exciting but I really needed a chalk bag for climbing and I was pretty outraged at how expensive they are! Most are about £13 upwards (I found some for £20+) and it didn't even include chalk!!

So I did what all good creative people do and I had a go myself. My dad (yes my dad!) helped a lot with the sewing, who knew he was actually quite good! I thought I got all that from my mum :-)




We can blame the wonky eyelets on him (even though there wouldn't be any without him!)


Look at the lovely fleecy lining! I know it doesn't really go with the outside but I love it. Soft soft soft :-)

Time to go and pick J up now!

x x x x

The only way is up!

Oh dear. I'm feeling very sorry for myself indeed! Friday at work I felt 100%. Friday evening at home I started to feel a bit off. Saturday morning major meltdown! I've gone into full swing "feverish-cold" (apparantly a 'cold' isn't ill enough but I'm not sure this is the flu!) I'm off work today but hoping (!) to be back tomorrow...

But wait! There's more!

None of this was helped by venturing out on Saturday evening to pick up J from town. Stopped at a set of lights, car shakes and then turns off. I'm out of petrol. This is a TOTAL disaster! I'm sick, I'm tired, in 5 mins I would have been in town, J smiling and driving home to look after me. Instead I'm stuck in the middle of a busy junction!

I had to ask some nice men in a nearby pub to push me into a side street. Horray for chivalry! Boo to the embarassment of being pushed past the large glass windows of said pub with the the chivalrous men's friends cheering them on...

Queue massive breakdown on my part (a lot of tears!) An hour later and one tram ride, one round trip in a taxi to buy a bloody expensive petrol can & petrol, one trip in now working car to get petrol and two promises (from both of us) to never ignore the petrol light again.

Anyway... You didn't come here to hear tales of my woeful automobile filling inadequacy did you! No :-) I'm going to cheer myself up by sharing with you some crochet goodness that I have been working on before feverish-cold struck-me-down.

First up what could be happier than two smiling amigurumi mugs of tea?



Now I know the pattern's called Cafe con Leche (coffee with milk that is!) but when I make it it's tea. Yorkshire to be exact. The pattern is on Ana Paula's blog here and is also in her book Amigurumi World. I've made a few of these before (see my Ravatar!) but I think these are the first two that I've made properly, they're certainly different to #1!

I haven't decided wether to sell these at my friends craft fair tomorrow (if I make it!) keep them (but I can make more) or what else I don't know!

Second up are snowflakes! These are going to help decorate a very special ward where babies and their families will be spending Christmas Day



If you want to get involved please visit the Ravelry topic here - they're very quick & easy to make and would help a lot!

Last but not least I've made some good ripple progress!



I think some sort of magic might be involved, this blanket just seems to work itself out of nowhere! I hardly feel like I've spent any time on it at all. This calls for more baby ripples (two more little ones due next year from friends).

Right, I've just about exhausted myself and I think I need a lie down. I'm serious! Don't mock me ;-) Take care!

z z z z

P.S if you visit Lucy in the Sky's blog here she has a fantastic yarny giveaway!!

Rainbow ripples

I know I shouldn't have... But I've started a new project!




I had all good intentions of finishing my hexagon blanket first (and all the other WIPs!) but Deramores were selling Stylecraft at 10% off and I was running low. I also have a Little Woolie inspired blanket in my mind that was calling out for some Stylecraft so a purchase was very necessary.

I just hadn't planned on starting a ripple on the same day the yarn arrived!

This will be a blanket for my new niece or nephew! J's sister & brother-in-law are having a little one in Spring next year so this will either be an xmas present or a baby shower present. I'm sure I can russle up some other baby goodies if it becomes an xmas present!

Lucy & Heather (Attic 24 & Little Tin Bird) are doing a Ripple Along here so it made sense to join in :-)

My cowl/snood is coming along reeeeally lovely but my camera (ok J's...) needs to be charged so I can't show you. I needed more yarn for it and guess what was opposite the pub I went to on Friday - the yarn shop! This is a total coinsidence I promise, I didn't even pick the pub!

In other news I've recently taken up climbing... I can't honestly tell you why, it never appealed to me before and I'm not a big fan of heights but I thought I'd give it a go - now I'm hooked!

This is where we go:




I've been to the top of the nearside right wall (it's green) and others of a similar height which are about 10m or so. ScArY stuff!

Anywho that's all from me, apart to say (which I totally forgot) my interview went well and I get to keep my job, horray! Hope you're all enjoying your weekends (it's actually sunny here!) and hope you're getting some hooky / knitting time in :-)

x x x x