Lent 14.

Today is not Ash Wednesday. It is the Tuesday afterwards.

But lets just pretend for a moment that today is a time for serious thoughts. Not my usual bag I know.
Ash Wednesday is a time to affirm your faith for all to see. A time to renew your statements of trust and faith. At least that's what I think.

Lent is begun. The traditional time for giving things up. For becoming better human beings. For contemplation and introspection.

It can suck if you don't like what you see.


Last year you may have seen my attempt at a project for lent. This year is

This year is a new year.

Perhaps that will help.


Again I have made a new pattern, still in my illusion speciality (lit. only thing I can design). This time perhaps I aim a little lower. Simpler than last year, smaller than last year.

Perhaps that too will help.

Tiny minions of cute

In Birmingham there is an awesome bookshop. It outdoes the new library (largest public library in Europe) by a country mile or three million. In terms of books you can take away. Aside from the whole money aspect of course. The library wins hands down on that one.

Anyway, it occurred to me (after spending the day at first the bookshop and then the library unsuccessfully finding books) that the awesome bookshop would have knitting books. Cue another trip to central Brum.

This is all a roundabout way of saying I found a new crochet book and I likes it.

It advertises itself as q book of creepy cuteys. But its not really creepy. Just cute.

And really quick to create. Below I present my first two minions of cute: the devil, and the ninja.

Dragon of luuuuuuurve

"Because your love is eternal. Just like the (imaginary) fire of this dragon"

It makes perfect sense if you don't think about it at all.

Coraline doll

So some months ago it was Ross' birthday (in true me style with organisation and all) and so in accordance with my general principles I got him to name something for me to knit him. He went with Coraline, after some initial indecision and disinterest.
Since then, um, we moved so - not only is this present several months late, but to someone who is now an ex-housemate when it was promised to a housemate.
I suck at timing.

Whatever.
This one posed a few problems, chief among them that Ross was not so impressed with the concept of a knitted raincoat, but that is totally iconic for Coraline. Ebay to the rescue.

This apparently is a vintage Amanda Jane doll raincoat, hood and shoes set. This I care about very little, but the raincoat is perfect, so I went for it. The hood and shoes I ditched. Far too much like effort to incorporate them.

I used this pattern, but making sure that the body and arms were in red colours for her jumper and fit into the little raincoat. Surprisingly enough this worked perfectly, without any alterations or anything. Rocking.
The next problem is not really a problem at all, but... I don't much like her hair. I ran out of my preferred blue for hair, so had to multihue it. And now its giant. The hair. Its giant.
Hopefully Ross won't mind too much!

Knitted skirt

I tried to come up with a better blog title. Honest.
It didn't happen.

The summer holidays rumble on like an inevitable freight train. I may (very slightly) be bored completely to death by them. However, knitting is my salvation.

I've been wanting to knit a skirt for a while, and since I also have recently been impulse buying wool in yarn shops I have nice pretty wool to play with.
Pattern is Lanesplitter skirt from Knitty. It demands a specific yarn (which I don't have) but after a fairly short inspection of the mathematics and construction of the skirt I worked out that actually it doesn't make a difference. Rather - it makes a difference to colourways and hang of the material. However, provided you like the colourway of the yarn you use, and that you use something with sufficient weight that it will hang vaguely properly, everything will in fact be fine and dandy.

I used Ultimate blend colours of Patons Colour Works Aran yarn. Which is not wool - mostly. 25% wool. Whatever. I never have cared much on that distinction.

A whole load of people on ravelry hate the side seam, but I quite like it. I'm not sure why, but that's fine with me.

This is also one of the very few projects I have actually blocked properly. Between that and paying close attention when inserting the elastic for the waistband it actually fits very well.

In the mean time, I have also decided that garments you can try on as you go are the right way to go. Accordingly I have begun a top down cardigan, which doubles as an interesting project, and research for a long cardigan that I sort of promised my mum I would create for her and haven't done a single thing about.

Chubby the Dragon

It has been a stupid year in the way of weather. Everyone in England knows this, but I just thought I would mention it.
After having snowfalls all the way to the Easter holidays, and frosts continuing beyond that we have had a heatwave that lasted over a month and now we seem to have just about finished with a fortnight of thunderstorms.
Its like the weather spins a wheel, picks a form of weather conditions to play with, and then goes hell for leather on it for insert-time-period-here.

In any case, it has meant that the beginning of my summer holidays were wool free, because it was hot enough to make my fingers sweat without adding wool to the equation. Now though, I have got back on the horse. Or dragon, as it were.

This guy is just so cute.





I've been calling him Chubby, more or less because I've been listening to Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms while crocheting him. As he is a present for Suzz's birthday, she will probably rename him, which is possibly good as Chubby's fate in the book was to be exploded by means of a mirror.

Which was quite mean really.

He's about 30 cm tall. I used a whole variety of purple double knit wools that I have various quantities of in my stash. I am seriously pleased with him, but I really wish he could hold his own head up. I spent some time and effort trying to arrange things so that this was so, but he refused.

The pattern for him is for sale on ravelry. I seem to have gotten over my objection to spending money on patterns. Maybe I've grown.

Wedding cushion

The Wedding happened.

The last several times I saw the various other uni friends who have been hitting the same stumbling block with this concept (to whit "AAAAAAHHHHH ITS TOO SCARY IT CAN'T BE HAPPENING AAAAAAHHHH") before the day we have been referring to said event as "the big Focus get-together with slight legal proceedings".

But. Its official.

We are Grown Ups.

Elsewise how could my best friends be married? And they are definitely married. I know. I was there. I signed the register and everything. Okay, so it may look somewhat like a four year old stepped in and signed it for me, but honestly it was me. Really.

The point of this post was not in fact to bemoan the state of adulthood and the world in general or the specific piece of it known as Sophie and Matts marriage certificate. Although it does seem to be what has been achieved so far.

In any case, what actually makes this all relevant to this blog in particular - since I really don't want it to devolve into a diary blog - is the wedding present I made them.

It *may* have been completed on the train.

Slightly.

I also should vaguely apologise for the quality of the photos. As I finished the thing on the train, I also took the photos on the train. This has the effect of them having rather randomised lighting as my phone either over flashed, underflashed, or shook.                                     

It's awesome though. I really am pleased with it, and seriously hope they will be too.

All the pieces are slightly random. Most of them are entirely freeformed, though there are some that I found charts for. As previously chronicled on this here blog o' mine the Happy Lion I actually had to create a chart for, and its available on Scribd free of charge. (I hope).

The pieces were sewn (or in some cases glue gunned) onto a fairly icky coloured cushion cover I got in Hobbycraft, which more or less fit a boring cushion inner.

In all fairness to my organisational abilities, the completion on the train only consisted of a small amount of touch up sewing, and taking the photos. Also in my defence, we did move house the weekend before W-Day.

btw  - I realise that the wedding passed, but the happy couple aren't doing pressies yet. So, again delayed publishing.

EDIT: um.... now the delay is just cause I'm not that organised. Whatever. Catch up works.