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Something I always wanted as a kid was a Christmas Stocking. A proper big one. A special one, that was just for me.

This year, I made three. One for Felix:

One for Engel:

And mine!

They’re all based on the Pet Love Stocking by Sarah Hood (Free Ravelry download) with a few of the charts chopped and changed to better suit the individual. Felicity has cats, owls and ducks. Engel has cats, spiders, bats and fish bones, whereas I have black sheep, cats and red squirrels. (All the charts are free on Ravelry, full links can be found on the Ravelry Project pages on my Ravelry account)

Its also no coincidence that there are two black cats and one tortie on each stocking – Dashie, Salem and Crumble, our little kitties!

Quick post today – have presents to wrap!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 115 (Just 2 this week)
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 702

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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…

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It’s been another busy week. Work, team building day involving playing Rambo by shooting my work colleagues and superiors with laser guns running about the woods, the conclusion to Cthuhlu: Horror on the Orient Express (it was epic, and so far off course the actual written recommended ending that no matter how much I could try and explain, no one but those who were there would understand.)…and Fallout: Shelter was just released on Android (my platform of choice).

Because of all this, mostly my new game, this not-so-little owl lay languishing in pieces for four days.

Free pattern courtesy of  Rachel Gallagher-Miller

Cute, isn’t it? It’s for Felix’s childminders birthday this week (cutting the sewing close here) and the colour choice, well, this is what happens when a not quite two year old gets let loose in my wool stash.

And that’s it for this whole week. In shame, and frustration at my own addiction, I’ve deleted Fallout:Shelter from my tablet. Productivity has quadrupled…

However!

Last week I finished this cute project.

Centre panel is a free pattern – Paw Print Cloth by by Rhonda White and I just winged the rest…

It’s a dog blanket for my dog-niece Missy (or Mishap) and I had far too much fun making it!

No wool used this week, so no wool count.

Not sure if any will be used this week either as I have lots of little projects on the go, and two blankets, but they’re going slowly…

Chat to you all next week!

 

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That describes my whole week.

It’s been a very intensive training course, Felix has decided to hit the terrible twos a few months early this week and with Engel out of action after nearly cutting his finger off with an axe…

Yeah, its just been nonstop just to keep on top of things. I have however managed some knitting!

First up, a project I actually finished over a week ago, some Marvel themed cushions!

It was a good friends birthday the other week, and she’s a huge Hawkeye fan – hence the purple arrow (his logo) and she’s also a fan of his ‘sniper bro’the Winter Soldier – hence the red star. (The star motif is from Star Pillow by Jennifer Stafford in her book DomiKNITrix, the arrow I just winged)

I actually had far too much fun making these, and have penciled designs for a whole range of other characters, but I doubt I’ll ever get time/reason to make them!

Though a Deadpool cushion would be awesome…

Anyhow! On to more knitting, and part of the reasons Felix has been difficult this week. Recently, she has become obsessed with ducks (we feed our local ones every weekend) and wanted to take one of her ‘duckies’ to bed. Her choice was a wooden one, fair enough, I thought it was solid but turned out it wasn’t. Thankfully it broke when I was handling it!

So, I cast on An Emergency Duck.

Free Pattern by Frankie Brown.

It goes with her everywhere, and usually it gets ‘fed’ not cooked! At least she knows where roast duck comes from…

On, and its ‘Mummy made duck’ not just ‘duck’. I give it week before she shortens it entirely…

Her other tantrum trigger? Clangers.

She demands a cuddle on the sofa whilst watching them, or else an episode in bed with her milk (usually on Engels phone) and if she doesn’t get her way…

It’s weird though, during the day, she’s rather watch the Octonauts, but before bed? It is relaxing mind…

Anyhow! It’s taken all week (as a certain little Felix keeps stealing the in progress body for bedtime cuddles, and tonight, wanted to dress Tiny herself so I couldn’t sew the armour…) But here’s my first ever Clanger!

(Psst, its a free pattern on the BBC website!) I’m actually rather proud, which is unusual for me, but seeing as Felix has told me she wants ‘Clangers all! Me! Mummy make all Clangers!’ I’d best get started on the next one…

Last but not least, the wool count: This week I found ten more balls of wool hiding in the conservatory (to be fair, it was hiding in some fabric) and I’ve managed to use four balls. I’ve caught up in height with the blanket, but seeing as its a third the width, I’ve not used the equivalent in wool yet. But its my zombie knitting, so it wont be too much longer!

Wool Count down:
Starting total (28Feb15) – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 58
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 3

Total – 715

 

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See, flying eyeballs!

These are based on the free ravelry pattern ‘Gruesome eyeballs‘ and ‘bat knitting pattern‘ an online free pattern.

I made them as light pulls on my big overhead fans in the living room for a Halloween party I had. They’re still there, eight months later, I just find them a bit too cute to switch them back round…

Anyhow! Apologies for my lack of post last week. The craft fair went well, but right afterwards I decided to get stuck into some major DIY at home. And instead of blogging or knitting, and this is working round being a full time mum and full time worker too, I’ve been doing this:

It replaces the previous ‘banister’ which was stair to ceiling 1″ metal poles spaced about two feet apart from each other. And as Felix can undo the safety gate and run up those stairs at the speed of light…yeah. Needed doing asap!

It needs sanding and a good lick of paint, but hey, massive improvement!

And look, flying eyeballs!

Wool Count down:
Starting total (28Feb15) – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 10 balls (so far)
Wool used – 47 (Only three the past two weeks)
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 3

Total – 716

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For going so long without an update. Life has been…well, life.

Mostly the usual, work, Felix, chores, it was however Engel’s birthday this weekend, and I’ve been putting a lot of effort into our rpg call of cthuhlu campaign as we started one on his birthday last year, and its the groups first anniversary of gaming, and another birthday for him.

I’ll go into more detail another time about our gaming group, but suffice to say that if presented with three options, in game, they will take the tenth.

I’m not kidding.

Really.

I spent five hours winging two parts of a campaign together that they completely bypassed the important bits of and found what they were after by sheer luck, then moved on, with none of the information to actually proceed.

Its good fun, just hard work.

So time has been rather short, and something had to give and it was the blog. But only for a fortnight!

Next week I aim to have an interesting post with some photos and knitting…

But for now, you’ll have to settle on the wool count. Its gone down by eight since the last update!

Wool Count down:
Starting total (28Feb15) – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 10 balls (so far)
Wool used – 44 (Yeah!)
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 3

Total – 719

Oh, and a week  Saturday I’m attending a craft fair! Its for the Rabbit Rescue Trust North West

Poster below with details.

image

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Aperture science, you do what you must because you can…

AS issued hot water bottle cosie anyone?

Or maybe you’re own turret?

But no one can say no to cake right?

And everyone needs a companion cube.

For those interested, generic hot water bottle cosie pattern with the Aperture Science logo worked into it via intersia. A little turret I created purely by just winging it. The legs are reinforced with wire ad green stuff. Cake was winged too, as was the Companion Cube, but I actually wrote the pattern for that one – you can find it in the free patterns section!

Anyhow!

Sorry for the huge hiatus (and all the photos are of old projects), between Felix’s first birthday, secret christmas knitting, starting a new job, travelling up north for a bit and back again, I’ve not had much time to go online.

That and I lost my camera somewhere along the way. So all the cool stuff I’ve been working on? No photos.

And knitting blog posts without photos are really rather dull and pointless.

This however, is one of those, but apart from the old knitting projects of mine as a bit of a compromise (at least they’re not posted here already), it has one juicy bit of info! I finally counted my wool – I received some as presents and acquired a few stashes, so was really dreading it, but after some serious stash busting (later post when I find my camera) I decided to take the risk and count.

There was only 747 balls of wool, not as bad as I feared!

But still, 747 balls of wool is a little on the large side. Ok. A lot on the large side seeing as it’s mostly providing insulation in my conservatory…

So for the next while I’m going to keep a running record on the coming and going of my wool stash – hopefully doing this publicly will guilt me out of buying ‘just one more ball/pack/colour lot…’

It should also encourage more posts and a better record of what I’ve been making – my Ravelry account is terribly behind!

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