Last minute Christmas Making

I'm in the final week of Christmas Making, and everything's getting a bit frantic. I am meant to be sewing a nightdress for grandma pickledweasel, but my plans have been severely scuppered by this:

It may look pretty, but it's meant I haven't been able to go and buy fabric. Or get to work to do extra hours for a few more pennies in January's pay packet :( Munchkin and I ventured down to the bus stop this morning with the hope of at least going to the supermarket and back, but after 15 minutes of waiting in blizzard conditions we gave up and came home.

We have been going a bit stir crazy, and I've had to be very inventive with activities so munchkin doesn't ask for her Peppa Pig DVD every 5 minutes and I don't spend the day pulling out my greying hair. We have practiced knitting:

And made some biscuits:

Can you guess which ones were Munchkin's?

And I managed to rustle up Munchkin a fleecy hat as a last minute Christmas present from Kitschy Coo's tutorial (pictures of her wearing it when she's opened it, promise), and finish her lovely Liberty dress. Although when I asked her to try it on she ran away shouting, "No no no no!", so chances of her wearing it before she grows out of it are slim. It was another Heidiandfinn pattern, and was nice and easy to sew.

My last bit of Christmas making is mr pickledweasel's hat, and despite it being a simple k3 p2 pattern I still managed to cock it up. I started it earlier this week and I'd knitted about 3" when I realised my ribbing was out of sync, and as I tried to unravel it to find out where I'd gone wrong, Munchkin started to shout at me about something and I just went a bit mental and frogged it all in a fit of temper. I have started again, and fortunately he's working earlies this week, so goes to bed at 9pm - plenty of time for secret knitting!

Finally, a lovely bit of Christmas making that was sent to munchkin as a present. A beautiful little crocheted angel tree ornament, courtesy of Great Auntie Diane. Isn't it pretty? I am in awe of her skillz. Right, back to the circular needles - k3 p2, k3 p2, k3 p2...

Custom knitted wristwarmers

Remember this lovely purpley wool?

Well, I thought a bit more about embarking on a double pointed needle journey, and decided it would be a bad move and end up in an unfinished project. And that would be sad because the wool is so nice it deserves to be worn, not languish in a cupboard somewhere.

So I thought I would find someone who could do some knitting for me. And I found Lottie Lodge on Coraindr. She's ace. Look at what she made me!

I'm so pleased with them, they're exactly what I wanted. She was very specific in the information she asked for, and I had to draw round my hand (which was fun :) and provide measurements so they're the perfect fit. And all for the bargain price of £10!

I'm wearing them now, as it's bloomin freezing, and I really can't bring myself to have the central heating on during the day until it's at least November :) If you want something knitted but don't have the skills Lottie's service is perfect. She'll provide you with a quote before you commit to buy, and you can either send her some wool you already have, or she can find yarn for you. Or maybe even buy some from Woolworks or Tomato Tea and have it sent to Lottie!

Christmas Making - Neckwarmer no. 2

This one's for my mum, and is in a lovely soft maroon wool. She recently had a big wardrobe clearout, and the button is salvaged from a cardigan she got rid of. Bit cheeky, giving her back her own button, but it went so well I couldn't resist :)

When I was at the shop choosing the maroon wool I saw this lovely purpley-blue and couldn't resist as it was in the bargain basket. But what to knit with it? I really want some wrist warmers, but looking at all the patterns it seems I'll need to use double pointed needles, and I think they're a bit beyond my skills at the minute.

Even though in this video, the lady demonstrating at the end says, 'It's that simple!' It really doesn't look it. It looks like it could end in tears and possibly some eye gouging with the spare needle. I'll just have to put wrist warmers on my Christmas list :)

Christmas Making - Knitted neckwarmer

I love my cobbled together neckwarmer so much, I thought I'd make a couple as Christmas presents. I finished the first one yesterday, and I'm really pleased with it.


It's for my brother's girlfriend, and I think the blue will be perfect for her colouring, as she has olivey skin and lovely dark brown hair.

It's knitted all in mock fisherman's rib, from a really chunky wool. It didn't take too long to do, so I'm going to start on my next one tomorrow, which is for my mum. I had said I was going to make one for munchkin, which I did, but my measurements came out all wrong and it's far too big, so I'm going to have to unravel it and start over again.

I shouldn't really be here blogging, as I have a job application form to fill in for tomorrow, and so far I've just done the easy bits, so you ain't seen me, right? ;)

I have craft goblins

I do. They have been hiding things. I'm having a pretty crappy week anyway - a cold, sinusitis, possibly no job in about 4 weeks time, an interview last week that I still haven't heard anything back from, rubbish hair, not enough leave left to go on holiday in October, and a Munchkin with a hacking cough.

And then yesterday the craft goblins struck. Grandma pickledweasel is doing a craft fair this weekend (she makes fused glass jewellery), and had kindly said I could put a few of my little wooden brooches on her stall. So I've been making some new ones. Only yesterday I needed my brooch backs to finish them, and I couldn't find them anywhere. Annoyingly I had seen them the day before and thought, 'Hmmm, that's a silly place to keep brooch backs, I'd never think of looking for them there if I needed them.' And then I promptly forgot where they were, and then the craft goblins moved them and now they're lost forever.

So after the brooch fiasco I thought I would sit down and do a quiet bit of knitting. After confessing my knitting fear t'other day, I went and bought a really easy little cardigan pattern - it's just knit knit knit all the way, apart from the ribbing on the edges, and the knitting shop lady said she'd help me with that if I got stuck. Grandma pickledweasel gave me this lovely wool from her stash, I think it's from the eighties, and it's just perfect for a summer cardi.

Only when I got the carrier bag out last night, 4 of the balls of wool had become tangled in a big woolly knotty mess. The work of craft goblins, obviously. So rather than spending the evening casting on and doing lovely easy rows, I sat in front of the telly swearing as I tried to untangle it all.

I've set traps and baited them with jam and some buttons, but I don't know if they'll work. Anyone have any tips on how to get rid of a goblin infestation?

More neck warming

Just a quick little post, as I have a jam packed weekend - BBQ with mr pickledweasel's work mates this evening, shoe shopping tomorrow day, super posh belated wedding anniversary dinner tomorrow evening, ironing, general recovering and Twighlight on dvd on monday.

I've been cobbling together more of my blanket squares, and have another lovely soft neck warmer in preparation for autumn.

I like the colour of this one, it will go beautifully with my grey wool winter coat.

I've started knitting munchkin a neckwarmer too, as scarves and toddlers don't mix. A well meaning great grandma knitted her a lovely fluffy scarf last winter, but it was quickly removed every time I wrapped her up in it. Hopefully she'll be a bit more tolerant this year, and I'm thinking it'll stay on longer as she has to work out how to get it over her head :)

From blanket to neck warmer

I have a confession to make - I'm a bit scared of knitting. The language of knitting patterns seems alien to me, too many abbreviations and special codes. It's like some sort of secret club. I can do your bog standard knit, purl, cast off scenario, but anything other than that and I get the fear.

So when I found out I was pregnant with Munchkin, I came up with a form of knitting therapy to help me resolve my issues and transform me into a confident and prolific knitter, churning out matinee jackets and bootees by the day.

I took some lovely soft chunky wool, and knitted practice squares using different stitches. The idea was to sew them all togther at the end to make a snuggly blanket. I managed to do quite a few, but then couldn't find any more patterns that fitted in with my square size - I was doing some complicated thing whereby the sequence had to be 17 stitches long plus or minus 2 stitches or something. Anyway, the squares were put in a bag and stuffed in a cupboard.

I recently retrieved them and was determined to find a use for them. So they have been very cunningly (if I do say so myself) been turned into a neck warmer. I took four of my squares and sewed them together into a scarf. I then overlapped the ends diagonally and stitched them together. Hey presto! It's a bit like a bandana shape, which I'm loving. And it felt really quick and easy and satisfying because I did all the hard work about two years ago :)

Heart of Gold

I've just finished knitting this lovely little brooch, and it's all ready to go in my shop. But I'm off galivanting again, so it'll have to wait until Monday when I'm back.

We're going to Kent to do the following, in no particular order: camp, visit a poorly uncle, see old work friends, buy cheese, go emergency dress shopping, go to a wedding, see the sea and get some sunshine.

I was planning to wear a beautiful cream linen dress to the wedding, but the dry cleaner can't get out what appears to be engine oil (??!!) on the back, so I'm taking my boring and slightly baggy back-up dress, with the hope that I'll see something in the sales before saturday :( This scenario involves taking many pairs of shoes, much to mr pickledweasel's annoyance :)

Tiny little heart

Knitted from lovely purpley pinky wire, this is teeny. It measures 2cm across at its widest point.

It's too small to be a brooch, and I don't have the findings to make it a necklace, so I've given it to grandma pickledweasel to experiment with. She has a glass kiln, and so she's going to try and embed it into glass. I'll post the results after she next does a firing!

Knitted memories

Late last night I was faffing about transferring photos from my camera for my mom - she's started making glass jewellery and wants to sell it. I found a memory stick to put the pics on, and discovered a file of old photos I'd scanned when I was at my uncle's last year.

This must be me aged about 8 maybe? I'm not sure, I'm a bit rubbish with ages. The jumper I'm wearing was knitted by my mom, and I loved it very much. It was called a Sloppy Joe - I don't know whether that was the name of the pattern, or what my mom decided to call it. It was raspberry pink, and had pockets at the front. Looking at the photo made me feel all warm inside :)