by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 1 Comment

Well, I couldn’t resist. After I made Engels armwarmers last week, I got jealous of their warm merino softness…and made a pair for me…

Not the exact same as his, but a billion times cuter! Based on the free ravelry pattern ‘Foxy Mittlets for Mama Foxes‘ by Mertsu. I made them longer and added a thumb so they were a little more suited to me!

Onto other knits, lots more plasy food for Felix!

Banana! Free pattern by Kimberly Chapman. Adorable too – you can ‘peel’ the banana skin!

Made using a free Cherry knitting pattern by Linda Dawkins

And lastly, after Engel commented that Felix needed more ‘interesting’ food…

A durian fruit! They smell like rotting fresh when ripe, but apparently taste like custard…this one is based on the free knitting pattern ‘Stinky‘ by SSknits. The only difference is since I can’t crochet, I did a BlackBerry stitch outer ‘shell’. Not quite as cool as the original patterns, but good enough for me.

Felix just enjoys having things she can ‘chop’ and cook…

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 3

Total – 694

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Uncategorized 1 Comment

New wool count!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 697 balls
Wool used – 0

Total – 697

I managed to use 120 balls last year, let’s see if I can make as good a dent on the stash this year!

On that note, I made Engel a little present:

Made using the free pattern ‘Short Wave Mitts‘ by Sybil R. I don’t tend to go on about patterns themselves on my blog, but I have to say, the use of short rows on this, and several other patterns, is amazing!

More amazing? Felix asked to pick a few patterns for play food for her play kitchen! Being two I have questioned a few choices, but hey, I’m not one to judge her adorable requests!

Olives! I used the free pattern ‘Olive Tutorial‘ by Mary Jane Midge.

Fried eggs! Using the free Ravelry pattern ‘Happy Fried Egg’ by Ala Ela

I hope you all had a good 2015 and a better 2016!

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Gaming, Uncategorized No Comments

Baby Yoda hat! A request from work, based loosely on the free pattern ‘Baby Yoda Knit Hat’ by Shinah Chang

A pineapple hat – another request – free pattern by Chile Con Yarne – as well as a plain black one using the same pattern (but no leaves) as a leaving gift for my boss at work. Sadly forgot to take a photo before gifting, oh well…

And last hat, again a request from work, free Ravelry pattern ‘Alpaca Earflaps‘ by OzYarn.

Lots of hats lately!

On a different note, the last photo, some may spy some Shadowrun books – I’m preparing the traditional news year eve game, though this year we’re mixing it up with a new system and world – so we’re going from Call of Cthulhu where you will die, or go insane, to Shadowrun, where the players are probably going to die, or drive me insane. Not that they don’t do that anyway.

My brain is still trying to work out exactly how they managed to skip an entire book (I’m talking 50 odd pages of adventure here) from the Horror on the Orient Express Campaign, and then the final book covering the end scenarios was just tossed to the side… (I won’t go into details, gaming is very much a ‘you had to be there’ type thing in my opinion.)

It’ll be interesting trying out a new system though, we’ll be playing 3rd edition Shadowrun as that’s what Engel and myself own a lot of. Well, I own a rule book. He owns four rule books, one start up guide and about thirty odd companion/expansion books and a 6 page character sheet…and I think there’s a few adventures in there too, but I probably won’t use those – no point really as my gaming group have the habit of, when presented with three options, taking the twelfth.

Anyhow!

Wool count. Five used this week – woot!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 120
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 697

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Uncategorized 1 Comment

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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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting No Comments

A request from work:

Tractor gloves! This is a combination of two free patterns – the gloves are Michelle Gloves by Drop Designs And the tractor is from Gustaf – tractor mittens by Kamilia

This was for his son, but, he’s recently had a little girl! And, important life lesson, never give one without giving the other. So even though shes too young to understand that, yet:

Baby Mittens, free pattern by Malin Nilsson. In real life these are actually bone white, rose pink and bright pink…camera flash kills colour sadly…

Adorable, aren’t they? Both items, that is!

Short post this week, busy making a start on getting the festivities ready!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 113 (3 again! Thats three in a row!)
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 704

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Gaming, Knitting No Comments

 

That’s right. Dice bags.

It all started with this one:

Free pattern – Cthulhu Dice Bag by Arcana Vitae – though I worked this one, and all of them, on 3.75 mm. This is one of about…10? Different colours of cthulhus, backgrounds, eyes, i-cords…

But after my first, I quickly started to use this pattern as a a base and any chart I fancied with it.

So, cats? (Own chart)

Or fish? (Engels chart this time)

Less nature? Alright, Binary code?

(This is based on the free pattern Binary by Christine Domoulin, and this particular bag is coded, it reads – EngelCRLF – the CRLF is the command for carriage return, line feed. Think typewriters!

More geeky? How about the Aquila logo from 40K?

(Logo is from the free Ravelry pattern ‘Warhammer Double Knit Scarf’ by Emma Littlehales)

More cute?

Gotta love Pusheen the cat! (Charts pulled from google)

There’s been more, a VW campervan, fish bones, the 40K ork logo to name but a few, lots get gifted before I get a chance to photograph them!

I have a tradition with gaming group friends in particular – the first birthday they celebrate with the group, they get a dice bag. *Shrug* Its just one of those things. Pusheen was the one I made the other week, the VW campervan the one before…who knows what next! Though I am tempted to make me a new cat one – the red and black one at the start of this post is mine, before I was confident with color changes and patterns, but part of me think I’ll lose all my awesome dice luck if I do…

Till next week, and happy St Andrews!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 110 (3 again this past week!)
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 707

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

On a dishy…

When the boat comes in!

Now, this post isn’t to do with the fish (though its a lovely free Ravelry pattern ‘striped fish‘ by Nettas Knits, though mine is a plain silver/grey, not striped) its all about the plate.

Yes, the plate.

As part of the cat commission I did a while ago I was asked to knit a replica of the plate they used to eat from, and a little snack too. So, here’s the original plate:

And here’s the knitted one:

The plate itself was easy – pinwheel increase, blue purl edge, pinwheel decrease, plastic plate inside with holes drilled in to allow the wool to be fixed and shaped.

The embroidery though! 3 hours! Worth it though for the look of shock it received.

Never again though. Never!

In other news – busy week. Been dying of the plague at work, craft fair Friday, and two of my friends had joint birthday celebrations on Saturday. I did knit a little something for the occasion, but I’ll blog about that next week – there’s a saga involved and I need to get quite a few photos together!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 107 (3 this past week!)
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 710

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

I know its only November, and I’m breaking one of my own cardinal rules, but I’m going to talk about Christmas.

(Normally I don’t talk about it till December, I get the shopping done in January mind you, but I don’t actually like the whole festive thing till December)

But I have a two year old and she knows what Christmas is all about: presents!

And in my case, craft fairs. So, some Christmas knits! Its all tree decorations, and I’ll state now, not all of these are stock, a lot of them are because Felix saw the pattern and then demanded ‘mummy make! Mummy make me happy!’

How can I refuse?

So, onto the photos!

Advent Tree: Candy Cane Heart by Alan Dart (expect to see more of these patterns, Felix wants the lot, except the elf…

Free online Santa hat (tree decoration sized) pattern. Its Knitted Santa Hat Christmas Ornament Pattern by Linda Dawkins.

Felix loves stars, I think its cause she sees them in the shops and they’re bright and sparkly…so this was a must. Free Ravelry pattern called Stjarna by Karolina Eckerdal. These ones are knit in a sparkly silver wool, for extra cuteness!

And last but not least, based loosely on the free Ravelry pattern ‘Oh Balls!‘ by Marcie Nishioka, with some creative colour changes and additions…

Reindeer!

Robins!

and Christmas puds – oh my!

What else? Not a lot bar work and DIY and life…oh, wool count! 6 Balls since last post (and one was a 500g one too!)

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 104
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 713

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

More play food for Felicity, that happens to tie in nicely with the time of year! Its a free Ravelry pattern, ‘Natural Look Halloween Pumpkin‘ by Caroline Lord.k

Also working well for the time of year, some baking that Felix ‘helped’ with.

IMG_20151030_200930404

Its amazing how much fun a two year has mashing bananas…the recipe itself is a sugar-wheat-dairy free banana and date cake. Though to help the coffin appearance, I used some 70% cocoa chocolate and a few spoonfuls of cream to make a dark frosting. I’d say it went well at he party I took it to, but Engel made it clear it was his and everyone else should eat the sugar filled cake he couldn’t have…

What else have I been making?

Market bags!

Lots of them! Its another free Ravlery pattern, ‘Grrlfriend Market Bag‘ by Laura Spardin.

Rather than wrapping all my christmas presents with paper that would then just be thrown away, I opted to ‘wrap’ presents in market bags! The super colourful one was my prototype (and for Felix to play with) and I learnt one important lesson. Make the strap short, once any weight goes in that bag, its going to stretch.

Felix needs to grow a foot before shes going to be able to get any actual use out of hers!

I made five more afterwards, only got four photographed (and even then in poor lighting) and I may well make more, but thats all I had time for as I was giving them to all my family in Edinburgh when I was up for my mums birthday a fortnight ago.

What else to say? Its all been rather busy! Eh…oh, I’ve had a few queries as to how one accidentally purchases thirty balls of wool. Quite simply when the wool is only sold in packs of ten and I wanted three different colours. What a shame…but hey! Nine balls used since the last post, and not all of them little ones either!

Wool Count down:
Starting total – 747 balls
Extra stash found – 20 balls (so far)
Wool used – 98
Wool given – 3
Wool bought – 45

Total – 719

Annoying, despite using nearly 100 balls of wool, I’m only down by about thirty in my collection…

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by RoxyPosted on Posted in Gaming, Knitting, Uncategorized 1 Comment

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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