Category: Little one

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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Something that isn’t hats! But what exactly is it?

Is it a llama? Is it an alpaca? We can all definitely agree it’s cute! Pattern for the actual critter is a free Ravelry download – Flounce the Fluffy Alpaca by Tabitha Rose – and I just winged a blanket and teeny tiny pom-pom detailing!

I made this cutie as a thank you to a fellow yarnie work colleague who crochets as opposed to knits, and gifted me a cone of the fluffy wool as it wouldn’t behave for her crochet hooks! I made it yield to the knitting needles!

(The llama unleashed game was Engel giving me a random ‘saw this and thought of you’ gift, squee!)

That’s all today, Inklings had a stomach bug start of this week that rivals THAT scene from the exorcist, and after one day of peace, Felix has now started…when will it end?!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 15 (2 this week!)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 689

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I promise I am knitting things besides hats! Honest!

This week we had a request for a snake hat, identical to Felixs and, rather interestingly, Felix turned up from school with a ‘pattern’ one of her best friends had designed for a hat get herself.

Felix gave me the puppy eyes. I rssisted. Them the pout. I caved.

Blue brim, brown background, lion on the side, and a pom pom on top. Check, check, check and check! The lion chart used was a freebie – Lion Chart by Kyra Alvey.

And to show them together:

Snakes and lions oh my!

Not long back from a family Nerf event – feeling rather stiff and sore do going to call this post quits and try and unlock my muscles with a toasty hot shower!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 13 (4 this week!)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 691

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Happy new year everyone! May it be happier and healthier than last year!

Since my last post, I finished up three projects – a snake hat for Felix, a cosie for the in-laws and a teeny tiny knitted jumper, as I keep getting asked by someone to make them a jumper and, no, just no.

The tea cosie is based on the free pattern Mug and French Press Jacket by MK Carroll, as you can see in the photo, it’s a glass teapot with a very, very short spout and I figured having the bottom covered was better than the top!

The jumper is made following the free pattern Mini Sweater Ornament with Cables by Emily5446 – very cute, very well written pattern and I have a jumper that’s about 4 cm tall!

As for 2020, I have finished my first project just yesterday! Maleficent!

This pattern is based on Dragons by King Cole Ltd – though I had to tweak it a fair bit and add a lot of extra details to turn it into Maleficent! The reason for this is that every year I knit a Christmas decoration, and for 2019 I planned to knit a Mickey mouse head to mark our first proper family holiday to Disneyland Paris!

Except Felix told me no, I had to knit Maleficent. I argued that I wouldn’t get all the detail into an ornament, to which I was told not to make an ornament, but a dragon big enough to sit on top of the tree!

Engels oh so helpful in put to this was ”if you knit an even bigger one it could sit under the tree and guard the presents!”

So Maleficent it was, and at a hefty 60cm long she’ll either be taking the whole top of the tree, or hoarding the presents beneath – we’ll have to wait till next year to find out!

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 2
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 702

I feel I had best explain why my wool count has gotten so much bigger – I was given quite a few balls for Christmas (Inkling gave me two yellow balls and informed me that one was a digger and the other a bulldozer, hmm, I suspect he’s learning from Felix) and I ripped out a few old finished projects that weren’t being used, so that wool has gone back into the wool stash. I also bought four balls of bright orange in order to make a project I have planned! This year, I really do hope to finish with 600 or less!

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It’s been one hell of a week. Fortnight actually. Home stuff, stuff that doesn’t belong on here, but needless to say it’s pretty much killed what little festive spirit i’ve had.

Seriously, I have felt festive for two hours this year. Which in turn makes it hard to create the magic for Felix and Inkling. I think I’ve managed – they’re eagerly counting down the days and it’s getting harder and harder to settle them at night!

The tree is up, the decorations out, presents squirrelled away everywhere…yep…even if I don’t feel it, it’s nearly here…

Even if I haven’t been feeling it, I have been cracking on with Christmas knitting! Though I had said I wouldn’t make any this year…

In order to not be eaten by the Yule Cat, you must receive something warm and wooly. I showed Felix a bunch of patterns and without looking at them, she informed me I was to make her a snake jumper. When I sarcastically asked her if there was a specific snake she had in mind, she replied cobra…and that it had to be a green jumper…sigh…

The jumper is based on Heart Sweater from the book ‘Cool knits for kids’ by Kate Gunn & Robyn Macdonald. I used the snake charts from the free pattern Swing-Snakes by Tina13.

And if I make something for Felix, I make something for Inkling! He chose the free pattern traffic by Amy Bahrt, insisting on a red car. Then I found the matching Traffic Hat and yeah…

But wait, there’s more!

My new gaming group are obsessed with Pokémon, and with the new sword and shield game out, have sorted themselves into teams of Pokémon type to have battles with their other friends. There was talk of team colours and then I saw this free pattern on Ravelry (Dawn/Hikari Pokéball hat in 2 variations by Mina Janssen) and I knew I had to make them.

So, top left is bug, top right is ghost, bottom left is poison and bottom right is dragon.

There’s other things in the works too, but you won’t be finding out about those until next year, so until then, have a good festive season!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 112 (3 this week)
Wool bought – 63
Wool given – 167
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 662

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A friend did us a huge favour when our oven died, by helping us get a new one that very night! There was some fun and shenanigans, and I learnt that he had a huge love of dragons, so much so he had a drawing of his own own complete with fantastic colour scheme!

So as a thank you, I decided to knit him up a dice bag with his very own dragon on it!

I took the dragon chart from Targaryen Knit Hat by Holly G Hats, (a free pattern) and combined it with another fantastic free pattern, Cthulhu Dice Bag! By A. A. Leavitt-Reynolds. Doing all the different colours to make it match the drawing was both a challenge and quite fun – it’s been some time since I’ve experimented with colourwork!

Aside from that, it’s been a busy week. My dad came to visit last weekend from Ireland, we all did the circus and saw the Blackpool illuminations, and then it’s been work, work, work.

This weekend saw next the part of cthulhu scenario where despite internal group sabotage, no one died. I need to up my game, or stop giving them special one off reroll tokens to increase their chances of survival…

Felix got to take part in the Rememberance Parade with her little Beaver Pack. Group? Collective? No idea. They didn’t let girls in the Scouts when I was a kid!

Engel informs me that it’s a Lodge.

Wikipedia informs me it’s a Colony.

I prefer Pack so let’s run with that.

As well as that there’s been play dates and knitting and the usual mayhem, as well as the added mayhem of a Nerf event next week, so Engel and his friend destroyed the living room modding Nerf guns…

Ah well, it’s worth it cause next weekend is going to be a blast! (Pun intended)

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 105 (2 used)
Wool bought – 30
Wool given – 163
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 635

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Free pattern Striped Stockinette Snake by Purl Soho – though I tweaked it a bit to be more cobra like!

I was looking at my hand dyed wool I did quite a while ago now, and had the urge to knit it into a snake. Felix wholeheartedly agreed.

Thus, this cutie!

Sometimes I just make things on a whim with little to no reason or story behind it. Doesn’t make for interesting blogging, but it looks cute!

In other news, it’s my favourite time of year nearly – Halloween! Have quite a few fun activities lined up, and intend to enjoy them thoroughly!

But what costume to wear?!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 101 (Can’t believe it!!!! 6 used)
Wool bought – 30
Wool given – 163 (was given a cone of the perfect toy sheep wool at work!)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 639 

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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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I need to think of better blog post names for these huskies…

Anyhow, this is the third knitted husky! Husky one, and husky two can be found in their respective links.

There’s one more pure bred husky, a husky/collie cross and a collie to go.

It’s been quite a week this week. A UKAS audit at work, my birthday during said audit, finding damp in Felixs room, having builders come and fix said damp and today I did about four and a half hours worth of driving.

The reason for the long drive was partly to fulfill Felixs only summer holiday request – a trip to the beach – and to pick up my birthday present from Engel:

A spinning wheel!!!!

I suspect he wants me to get all those fleeces used up…

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 74 (3 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 157 (2 as birthday presents!)
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 649

Hi all!

Short post this week as I am ready to fall asleep and it’s not even the little terrors bedtime yet! My mum came down for a flying visit this weekend and we literally crammed as much as we could before she went back north in the train less than an hour ago.

The main highlight was Sci-fi in the sidings at the East Lancashire Railway – both myself and Engel have soft spots for steam trains and it’s passed on to both Felix and Inkling. Coupled with storm troopers and daleks? Sold!

And today it was a cat show, none of us had ever been to one, neither had the friends we met there, but it proved a laugh. Felix has now decided she’s going to show cats when she’s older after falling in love with a litter of kittens! The women who owned/showed them was very good with her and let her ‘help’ with filling out the numbers and giving the cats a lucky pet before they went for each showing…

We may also have rocked up wearing cat ears and tails, myself included, much to the bemusement of most of the people there… unfortunately my mum “borrowed” my cat Welly socks and they are now classified as MIA, so I’ll be needing to make another pair before winter sets in…

Enough of that, on to the knitting!

The second in a pack of huskies! The next few weeks will be seeing more of these guys. Like the first one, I’ve used the pattern Siberian Husky by Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne from the book Knit Your Own Dog: Easy-to-Follow Patterns for 25 Pedigree Pooches.

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 576

Wool used – 71 (3 used)
Wool bought – 19
Wool given – 155
Wool gifted – 31

Total – 650

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