Tea Cosy Bun

There was pain, there was tears, there was swearing like a sailer. It took three people to unpick it: Rachel, Mum & Janis. Constant supervision, words of encouragement, soft words in those dark hours of knitting dispair when I thought I couldn't go on. But now at the end of this journey we are all a little stronger and wiser and can fully enjoy tea from a pot which looks like a giant bun. Because I was so shockingly bad at it, I am determined to dive right into another attempt which I will complete without aid. If ever there was a challenge, I feel this is it. May the force be with me.

Knitting part trois

I bought my first pair of knitting needles. This is a historic event. Then I began the epic tea cosy adventure. Rachel started me off with her crazy casting on using her thumb trick, my mother kept me going. I left home, got bak on the train and two rows later it all went wrong and I now I will have to wait two weeks until I go home again and someone can fix the mess I have made. Who would have thought Tea Cosy construction could be so tricky.

In the meantime it's back to crochet.

I taught Rachel what little I know of crochet at the weekend which took all of 5 minutes and the next day she showed me this.



I can't do that! How did this happen! She is a monster I tell you!

Feline Felt

Two cats. One using tailor' thick collar felt and a spotty back, one using Toby's felted jumper.

Jumper

Toby came round with a bag and handed it to me.

'I washed my brand new jumper and it came out five times smaller. I thought you might be able to make me something out of it'.

It's stripey, thick and felted perfectly. I spent a while on the bus thinking of what I could make and decided that in honour of the days when we lived together with Mo; his cat, I would make him a cat. I am making two that are slightly different to see which one is better.

Crochet

On a dark friday night in Sawf Lundan, Samara taught me the beginnings of crochet and the bear was born. I made him a scarf as his neck was so thin his head kept lolling. Behold! It is protobear, my first attempt.

Protobear likes smoking French cigarettes in dark bars on week nights whilst listening to Russian techno. He's a cosmopolitan kind of bear see. He's been writing an epic poem about bear tragedy for many years now but is too much of a critic to ever complete it. His paws are always cold and so he always wears his scarf.

Today I went out and bought hooks and wool to make him a friend. Bear two cometh.

Crocodile Planning

At Christmas Rachel showed this book she bought. We decided to make the crocodile. We decided we need to dye some towelling. Months later we are finally ready and so next weekend we shall make our creatures in her new studio. In preparation, I experimented by making (an completely botching) a mini crocodile.





Now I feel I am ready for the real deal and I have all my material ready and primed for action.

Pin Cushions

I went a bit overboard, but they're so easy to make and I can never decide whether yo make them using bright colours or muted greens and browns so I made some of each. My favourite is the one above. I used my all time favourite button which you can't quite see the colour of, but it's a tiny robin egg blue button. Why didn't I buy more of them? I have no idea. Life is a mystery.

Something Green

I am making something green with sharp teeth. All the greens need to be limey and the same so I dyed some material in the washing machine with mixed results. I am now ready to create my green sharp-toothed monster.

Knitting part deux

So I started off practising with 10 stitches. I dropped about 3, then gained 3. Rachel had to unpick it and fix it along the way as I can't gp backwards, but eventually I made this: my new neck scarf. I am very pleased with myself and have bought a new ball to wool to celebrate.

Pins and Their Cushions

Time to make some more of these I thought. The last ones I made were given away very quickly so I thought I'd do a few more as they're so easy.

New Pin Cushion

Sometimes simple is good.

Baby Quilt

This is an old quilt I made for my best friend's baby and is the hardest, longest project I ever did. There was a lot of work involved in that and I didn't really know what I was doing. I think I watched a whole season of 24 whilst stitching this. It's a traditional Durham baby quilt and I just thought I'd put it up for posterity.

Rock Sock Monster

The only item I bought in the January sales was this pair of black stripey glitter socks for £2 in Oasis. Behold, here is Queequeg. He likes soft rock, tattoos and studded belts. His badge reads: "I'm Lazy" which is probably quite true. Queequeg spends a large portion of his time time sleeping. When he is not asleep, he is awake until he is asleep again. He eats until he is not hungry, then waits until he is hungry again. When not being lazy, Queequeg spends the little time he has left thinking about Boethius and ACDC. This probably accounts for constant snoozing. I am considering making him a sweatband with a streak of lightening on it. Decisions decisions… I best be quick though as this monster is winging its way to the big U S of A on monday. He's going on tour.

To the Dogs

I had a problem with moths a while a go. Luckily I'm far too cheap to go natural fibre, but poor Simon's jumpers took the fall instead - 100% cashmere ones. Even the all time favourite cardigan was shot down in its prime. His love for it was so great that he couldn't bear to throw it away so I found it hidden at the back of the cupboard the other day and decided to immortalise it by making it into a dog. I couldn't decide how big to do it to I made two. They a beautifully soft. but I didn't quite manage to avoid all the moth holes hence the stripey patch on the paw. I don't mind much. I reckon a dogs life is a down and dirty experience so I quite like their rugged edge.

New Year Knit

Resolution - To Knit

I learned to knit when I was quite young, but apart from a few scarfs, never really got very far with it, but after looking in the Japanese zakka books at how they use small knitted squares in their designs I have decided to get back into it and see if I can remember it all. I dreamt last night I was knitting and when I woke up this morning I felt as if I remembered it all. Time will tell. Here is the test wool I bought in the great John Lewis wool bargain bucket for £1.40

Wrapping

So here are the final presents wrapped with labels. Another year done.

Christmas Wish

What I want for Christmas. Every year for a few years my sister bought me a church chair from the expensive castle Gibson shop in Islington. Then I had the inspiration to ask for a cushion for each year on ever subsequent year. This year I asked for another, but she is sighs whenever I mention it. Here is the last one I got, it's ace.

Christmas Wrapping

Finally blogger has upgraded my blog. It looks exactly the same to me. I hope it all works okay.

Anyhow i've been thinking about how to wrap my presents this year. I like wrapping. In fact it's one of the few things I can honestly say I am not bad at. I think it's a combination of having a mother who taught me the indepth skill of sticky back plasticing all my school books from an early age, being a virgo and studying packaging design at college.

People in my family can get quite into the whole Christmas wrapping thing. It started with my mum using her crazy thick multicoloured wools to wrap presents then kicked up a gear when my sister did hers in brown paper and gold thread one year. And everyone remembers the year she had these huge pink furry pipecleaners she twisted into cork screws, it was a hard act to follow.

So this year I decided to do some white flowers to put round my presents which will be wrapped in white tissue paper. I'll see if I can dig out some pictures of previous years to show you the 'Themes'. Last year was purple thick ribbon, purple glittery humming birds, black shiny paper and ornate long labels with white writing. Here's a bad photo, you can't see much though.

Another Monkey

I saw these fancy Burlington Socks in john Lewis when I should have been Christmas shopping and after making the yellow monkey out of posh socks, wanted to try it again so I could improve on my last attempt. I wanted him to be less rigid with less of a slaphead, so here are the results. This time I made the forehead smaller, didn't stuff him too much and weighted him a lot more as he is needed more help loosening up. Behold Fritz, the newest member of the growing sock kingdom.

I have four monkeys watching me as I type now. Two are soon to depart for exotic new homes, but Fritz and Fleabas are staying here to keep me company. The only thing I would change with Fritz is the colour thread I used on his forehead surgery. I guess I didn't think green would show but now he has a very thin green scar, Poor Fritz, he doesn't mind. All he wants to do is eat wieners and impress everybody with his posh voice. He likes to stay up late talking about 'The State of the World' with which he draws many parallels between the Die Hard movies in order to support his arguments.