Friday 14 March 2008

Fortune Cat Finished!




I finally sewed up my fortune cat. The pattern is from justjussi.com and is also available as a free ravelry download, if you're on there. It was quite easy to make, although I did have to rip the arms and make them a big longer cos I wasn't paying attention to how big they should be.

There's more information on fortune cats here. They're Chinese in origin, and they're supposed to bring you money and good fortune. I think mine worked cos the day after I sewed him up, I found £5 in my jacket pocket! Lucky!

Tuesday 4 March 2008

More Socks, and a Performance

I'm a bad, bad blogger, I know. No cookies for me. I logged in earlier and noticed I haven't blogged since the 21st of February! I've been knitting only socks - I seem to have been going through a bit of a sock phase just now. I finished a pair of 9 to 5 socks, which I thought were going to be a bit plain after the monkeys and pomotamous, but I love them! I love the little cable going down the heel, and overall just think they're really cute. On my first attempt at them, I kept the cables going right down to the toe, cos ordinarily I hate stockinette toes, but they didn't look quite right like that, so on the second sock I did the stockinette toe, figuring I could rip one of them out. I ended up keeping the stockinette toes. This particular pattern just looks better stopping abruptly for some reason.




I'm knitting a pair of brown monkey socks just now. I started them as an easy project to do while babysitting. I pretty much have that pattern memorised now, and can see I'm going to make lots and lots of them.




I tried to knit some drunken bees socks, but that didn't go well. The yarn I was using was a little too thin, and there were gaps everywhere. I frogged them, and I'm going to try again with a different yarn. I think a darker one will work better too, since the red was a bit bright for all the little cables.


I was also practicing for a performance last Saturday. I performed a solo with Isis wings at a hafla (which raised a lot of money for a very good cause), and was totally terrified. I got up to dance (I was midway through the first half, there were a lot of acts), and my legs just turned to jelly. I couldn't stand still and do anything, because my legs wobbled every time I did so, so I had to keep moving and dancing. I forgot my choreography about a minute into the song (which was five miniutes long), and then just had to improvise. I kind of figured that was going to happen though, because my mind was just totally blank from nerves. It went really well though. It was my first performance with Isis wings, and a lot of the audience hadn't seen them before, so they seemed impressed. Phew! The thing about Isis wings is that they do a lot of the work for you, they just look impressive and lovely and shiny all by themselves, so you don't need to do that much with them to do a successful dance. Just as well, really :D