Look What I Did Last Night!!

I'm such a party animal, I apparantly spend my Friday nights making amigurumi birds!!

Pattern: Caroline's Birds by Marlo D. Cairns

I used tiny amounts of blue and yellow acrylic, 4mm and 2.5mm hooks. This pattern is a really good stashbuster for those tiny bits of yarn left after a project, and it crochets up super fast too. This one took me less than 2.5 hours, not sure exactly how long, but really quickly anyway!!

I love this bird! I keep picking it up and saying "Brrrrd!", I'm sure the bf thinks I've gone insane :D I can see I'll be making a few more of these, in different colours. This one was blue and yellow because I was making it for the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup, Herbology class. The task was to make something that helps remove garden pests. This little birdy eats up all sorts of insecty pests! :D

OK, boring pattern notes. A lot of people on ravelry seem to have got stuck around round 14, which almost made me want to choose another pattern to make, but I'm glad I stuck with this one. I didn't have any trouble on that round. The only thing was on the round after where it said work under the tail, I thought it meant just work sc under the tail, but it soon became apparant that if I did that I didn't have enough stitches to work the rest of the round, so it was all sorted quite easily and quickly. I've amended my printed copy to read "working under the tail" to make it easier for me to remember for the next bird I make! I'd recommend the pattern for people with some experience in making crochet amigurumi, just because of the way it's written, not as basic or straightforward as some other patterns, but I could follow it with hardly any trouble, just a little thinking at some points. But I'd definitely recommend it!!! Cute birds! What more could anyone ask for???

ETA: Oh, quick note. I also used this pattern mod for the wings, as I think they look very cute!

More FO Photos!

I have 3 FOs to show off today. My ravlery profile page is slowly being removed of all those photoless entries! :D Of course, I had to decide to catch up just when the weather is turning cold and rainy and cloudy, and the light is absolutely terrible! Typical!



This is my Simone sweater. (pattern: simone by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes, from the book "French Girl Knits". Yarn: Stylecraft Special Aran with Wool, about 500g. Needles: 4.5mm, 5mm, 5.5mm, 6mm) It's no exageration to say that I got the book specifically for this pattern, I just love it! I'm really pleased with the finished object too, except that the sleeves are a bit short (they've been pulled and tugged quite a bit to get the photo). But I figure it won't be too hard to snip above the lace, knit some rows, then graft together again.

I have to stress that I love this jumper!!!! I love the flarey sleeves and the lacey cowl neck, two things that I'm really into right now!





This is my 9 to 5 Shrug, a test crochet for Nicole Carmen. It's taken me absolutely ages to get these photos up, which I feel really bad about :< beats self over head with ball of yarn in penitence The shrug is fantastic, and the pattern is very easy to follow. My gauge was a bit off, which was totally my fault, either my gauge or much more likely, I’m a bit larger than Nicole! So I substituted trebles for doubles, and all was well :) I love this shrug, it's definitely going to get a lot of wear!




And finally, I learned a whole new knitting technique for this one, double knitting!! For the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup over on ravelry, this month's arithmancy class task was to make something showing binary. One of the options was to knit something reversible, so double knitting immediately came to mind with that one. This pattern (which is the Double Knit Headband from Knit Hats!) seemed like it had the easiest to follow instructions out of all the ones I had, so I decided to make that. I would normally have made the large size because of my huge head, but I was using thicker yarn, so I made the medium (and I liked the leaf pattern better than the ones given for the large size).

The first row where you put the front and back stitches together on the same needle was quite hard and fiddly, and so was seperating them at the end of the leaf pattern. The actual double knitting didn't go too badly, although my balls of yarn kept getting twisted round each other. I'm sure there's a tutorial somewhere for how to avoid that, but I just untwisted them at the end of each round, and it wasn't too bad. I'd like to try more double knitting, it seems like a really good technique for making these picture, almost intarsia-like, images on a thick warm fabric. And I'm counting this towards my Year of Colour, as it's a colourwork technique! :D

And now after all that, here's funny pictures of Tupac wearing my headband :D He normally hates wearing anything knitted, but he doesn't seem to mind this. Especially if he's being bribed with a treat for posing!

Some Actual FOs!!

It feels like ages since I posted much about knitting here. I have been doing lots of it, I've just been really lazy about taking and posting photos. But now that autumn is officially here, I'm feeling much more motivated. I always feel more lethargic during the summer, and pick up again as soon as the weather turns colder. And now it's time for my picking up, yay!

My ravelry profile page still seems to be full of photoless entries, but I've been catching up a little at a time. Firstly, I got photos of my feather and fan shawlette




Pattern: feather and fan comfort shawl by Sarah Bradberry. This has been waiting for months to get photographed. It's kind of small to wear around the neck, but it is wearable (I was getting a bit fed up with knitting laceweight on 2.5mm needles, and just bound off when I felt like it). It's really good as a headscarf though, I should get some photos of it like that . . .

Next up, my sparkly white snake amigurumi:




Pattern: Ayame The Snake by Mary E. Smith I used a sparkly white boucle that I got off ebay. I actually wanted the black sparkly boucle, but it came with a ball of white as well, but it turned out fabulous for this project! I love this pattern, it goes so quickly, and as you're stuffing it as you go, there's hardly any finishing at all! It's a really good stashbuster, and I totally want to make more. I want stripey ones, and different coloured ones. My house is going to be filled with amigurumi snakes if I'm not careful!

I also got a photo of my Berry Hill fingerless mittens



Pattern: Berry Hill fingerless mittens by Liz Thompson. I love this pattern! It's one of those ones that I got obsessed with as soon as I saw it on the recently added patterns page on ravelry. I "fixed" by BPT jacket, which deserves a whole other post (I cropped it and added ribbing, it's now perfect for me!), and this is what I used the leftover yarn for. The pattern is really well written and easy to follow, and these are now my favourite pair of gloves. I've been wearing them loads because the weather has turned so cold so quickly!

There are a few more FOs that require photos being taken, but that's plenty for just now! And here's some pics of my latest WIP




Pattern: Owlmittens by SpillyJane.

I LOVE this pattern! I thought I would manage to resist the whole owl craze thing that's going through the knitting world right now, but it turns out I couldn't after all! I saw this pattern on her blog (link above), and just went nuts over it! The little owls are so cute! It's a good re-introduction to my Year of Colour 2009 (that kind of fell by the wayside over the summer. I don't think that's a good time of year for me to be knitting colourwork. It's too fiddly when I lost concentration like that).

I can't believe I'm knitting something so pretty! I keep looking down at it and marvelling. Colourwork seems like some kind of magic to me, it's just amazing to follow the chart mechanically then look down and see THAT! I want to make another pair already, this time with a white background and black owls. I want to experiment and see how the colours change and how the owls will change. I'm interested to learn more about the way the colours change when they're on top or bottom. But first I'll have to finish these ones! I started them yesterday, and that's how much I did in one evening! I would have done more, but my left hand started to get sore. I remember that happening when I first started doing stranded colourwork at the beginning of the year. It's just because my hand isn't used to that type of motion, but it's very inconvenient having to stop! If it wasn't for that, I think I would have kept going till I finished the whole first mitten, it's very addictive!

New Blogs!

I've started a couple of new blogs, because I have some things that I want to write about, but I don't want to clutter up this page with lots of random stuff. I've been getting way back into non-fibery arts, like drawing and photography, so I'll be writing about that over on Yarndancer's Art Blog.

I also decided to make a seperate page for my 101 in 1001 project. I've actually done a few things off my list, but I kind of feel that they don't belong here, so they never end up getting written about, and it's kind of like they don't exist any more. So I'm giving it its own space on the web :) I know I'm like, halfway through my 1001 days already, but I figure I'll probably do another after this one, so it'll be good to have the site for that. And I'll be going through the things I've already done and writing about them over at Yarndancer's 101 in 1001.

Come over and join me on the new sites! I'll still be posting here just as much as I do now, because these are totally seperate subjects that I want to write about, but I'd love to see you all over there too :)

Jewel Of Yorkshire Time Again!!

Quick post before I set off for Jewel of Yorkshire, the fantastic belly dance weekend!!! I'm doing 3 workshops this time, 2 with Ava Fleming (very excited about these, I love her dancing) and one with Ozgen Ozgec. I'm also very excited about this one. It's a drum solo masterclass, yay!! I did a class with Ozgen last year, and he was fantastic, broke everything down, even though it was a masterclass, and was very clear about everything. And he's an awesome dancer, so it's always good to get classes from him. I just wish I could go to more! I'm doing a 3D moves class with Ava, and an Isis Wings class, very interested to see what she does with the wings!

I'm all packed, but my bag seems surprisingly empty :/ Don't know what's going on there, it's usually bursting at the seams! But I've checked everything off the big list of things to pack, so I think I've got everything. Hope so, it's too late now! :D

See you all when I get back!