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!

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!

Winning Prizes!!

The good thing about not blogging properly for a couple of months is that when you get back to it, there's so much to write about ;) This post is a bit image-heavy, but I couldn't pick the best one or two to show, so I just put them all up ;)

Recently, we had the local town "flower show", where people enter their flowers (obviously), handcrafts, baking and photos. Last year, my bf's mother, aka the MIL for short even though it's not technically correct, but never mind, went to look at the entries, and saw that they had this years handcrafts section list. So she got me a copy in case I'd be interested in putting something in. Well, at the beginning I wasn't so much (it seems like a very "old person" kind of thing to do, even more than knitting itself!), but then I saw they had a toilet roll cover section, and I had seen the perfect pattern on Ravelry (insert mischievous grin here!)






Bender, Guardian of the Bum Fodder!!

The pattern is by Elizabeth Jarvis, available here for free on Ravelry. And it is teh awesome!!!! It's very well written, easy to follow, and makes a fab Bender from Futurama toilet roll cover. What more could any household require????

I had to make it and put it in. I just had to! I had visions of rows of crinoline ladies, barbies with flouncy dresses on top of toilet rolls, and I couldn't resist putting a Bender cover in there. I know, I'm thoroughly evil and naughty!

But he won first prize!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of the ladies running the event didn't know what it was, he even got called a monster, but I thought it was awesome when an older lady told me she loved the Bender cover and started talking to me about Futurama. Talk about blowing stereotypes out the water, I loved that.



I also entered a Hello Kitty amigurumi I made a while ago, in the soft toy section, and she won third prize!!!



Prize-winning Buddies!!

The Hello Kitty pattern is by Armina Parnagian and is another free pattern from Ravelry, available here. It's another really cool pattern, very cute!

I was so chuffed when I went in an saw that they had both won a prize. The prize is little more than bits of paper with "First Prize" and "Third Prize" on them, but it's the fact that they won that I'm pleased with. I didn't enter them to win a huge monetary award or nothing! (OK, so I entered them to beat the crinoline ladies, which isn't exactly the nicest reason, and I'm sure I lost major karma points for that reason, which I feel kind of guilty about. Must go do something nice to make up for it)

Anyway, I just thought I'd post here and brag. I have next years list of handcraft sections, and I already have a few things lined up. But next time I'll be entering just for the competition. Even though it's seen as a bit of an "old lady" event, it was kind of fun. There was a really nice atmosphere, and it was nice to see other people's creative endeavours too. There were some fab soft toys and quilted pieces!!!! And there was only one crinoline lady ;)

Hello Kitty Witch!

I have completed tons of projects recently! I've been going crazy for small quick projects like hats and scarves, and since I've had a lot of time to knit while other stuff has been going on, I've completed stuff at an average of one every two days for a little while now! I've added the projects to ravelry, but not all of them have photos yet. I'm too busy knitting and crocheting to take photos! ;)

I've got photos of some, so I figure to give myself time to take more photos, (and so I can get back to knitting soon. Obsessed, me? Nooooooo!) I'll blog about each of my FOs individually, or maybe two at a time. That way I can focus on each of them and give them the attention they deserve, and it also gives me blog fodder for a few days instead of cramming it all in one post then having nothing to say for ages :)

First off is my Hello Kitty Witch amigurumi, which I started on Halloween this year, thinking it would be super fast and it'd be done in one night (yeah, I think my brain was not quite engaged with that thought process!). I finished it today, three days before Christmas ;/

I was inspired to make it by seeing MandaR's one on ravelry, which actually did take her only one day!!!!! Very impressive!

But even though mine took ages, she's so cuuuuuute!



I totally love her! It was well worth the fiddliness, and sewing in of small bits ;) She's not very Christmasy, but she's up on the bookshelf in the living room regardless.

Oh, pattern details! It's the Amigurumi Kitty Witch by Armina Parnagian and it's available as a free Ravelry download.

Amigurumi are so obviously a Japanese thing! They're so small and fiddly, and you have to be so precise to get good results. I totally had to put myself in almost a zen mind state, deliberately slowing down every action to get it right. If I hurried, it looked bad, so I had to keeeep goooing veeeery sloooowly.

I had to change a couple of bits of the pattern. I couldn’t understand the instrucitions for the bow at all, so I just made some stitches till they looked vaguely bow-shaped. Don’t ask me what I did, I have no idea ;) It was definitely not what was written down anyway! I also had to miss out one of the 2sc-in-each-st increase rows for the gown, cos it came out looking too wonky with it in. I didn’t have any pipe cleaners for the broomstick, so I made three chains and twisted them together instead. Oh, and I didn#t have pre-made eyes, so I just stitched them on. And that's all my mods.

(Just as an aside, I was looking at the rav page for this pattern, and there's only 6 projects, including mine. Strange for such a cute pattern!)