Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve at last! I love how busy and exciting it is, squeal!

It's also FO Friday with Tami, and this week I have a couple of things to share :)

This is the Lupo beret that I was recently knitting for my youngest sister, at her request. I finally finished the decrease rounds using magic loop and got it blocked and wrapped ready for Christmas Day.

Next up is this lovely baby blanket for my sister and soon-to-be nephew. I started this yonks ago as a bed runner, but it was taking so long I decided to make it into a blanket for my then niece or nephew. It turns out he's a he, but the pink stripes are fine as he will be sharing a bedroom with his big sister.

And finally, a couple of last photos of my MIL's scarf now it has been blocked and has the brooch and gift tag attached.

Going back to the subject of babies, look at this handsome little chappie that I got to have squidgy cuddles with!

He is the beautiful son of my lovely knitting friend Naomi - hence the lovely knitted blanket. And soon he will also be wearing this knitted gift from me, which I finished a while back and was a really good and easy first top project.

Congrats Naomi, he is just gorgeous, well done.

And so all that's left to say is to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hopefully I'll be back before the end of 2010 to wish you a Happy New Year. Enjoy !

xXx

Randoms on the countdown

Eeeeeek, only three days left til Christmas! Are you ready? I thought I was ready and had been wishing it was here already, but this week my to-do list just keeps on growing and now I'm starting to panic. At least I have now finished the Lupo beret for my sister, and thats the last knitted gift done (except for blocking a few things) thank goodness! I do not enjoy the decreasing rounds in the Lupo pattern - good job I love the finished item!






That's it blocking on a dinner plate and waiting to go in my airing cupboard. I want to keep it! I won't though (I think lol!).

It is so cold up here and I'm sure it's getting colder, so we're bound to be in for a White Christmas (can't see the snow we've had for weeks now vanishing before the big day). Look!



Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Our heating is making some funny noises trying to keep us warm, which is bad news for our first real Christmas tree. It's really starting to wilt now and feels a bit dry, despite us watering it. I blame the nearby radiator, but we had no choice but to put it there and actually I don't think it's doing too bad considering we bought it almost four weeks ago (where has the time flown?!). And if it totally dies I'll just have to haul out the trusty artificial one lol!

One thing that is lasting (fingers crossed it doesn't get stolen!) is my wreath, which came all plain and has been decorated to look, well, a little prettier.



Right, bed time me thinks. I have a million things to do tomorrow so might not be able to make a WIP Wednesday post, but i will try to get some better daylight shots of the beret for a nice Christmas Eve FO Friday post.

xXx

WIP Wednesday already?!

Yikes, I haven't got much more done since the last time I made a WIP Wednesday post a whole week ago. Where has the time gone?! To be honest I have been so busy with family, sorting Christmas and seeking jobs to knit (shame on me I know).





So last night I cast on my next project, the From Norway With Love hat - another superb creation by the massively talented Anna and Heidi Pickles. This had been in my Ravelry queue for ever, but having seen the two my good friend Rachel has made recently and how gorgeous they are I just had to bump it up to the top and cast on finally.

So far I am loving the colours (the blue is more greeney-blue in real life, darn you wintery lack of daylight), and the yarn is lovely too (I'm using up some lovely but sadly discontinued Rowan pure wool dk that I got at a steal price during a closing down sale earlier this year, plus a couple of random leftover balls for the pattern). I just hope it turns out the right size and that the fair isle is flexible enough to stretch to fit my head (this is only my second attempt at fair isle, the first being a but more miss than hit - but I have been carefully watching YouTube tutorials this time so fingers crossed it pays off). In the meantime it's fun and quite therapeutic to watch the pattern gradually emerge round after round.

Anyway, that's pretty much me for now. Hopefully I'll be able to show you a FO or two on Friday, if I can grab an hour or so to finish them in between the crazy week of interviews and Christmas events I have scheduled! It never rains eh?!

xXx


xXx

FO Friday

Today is FO (Finished Object) Friday with Tami

And today I have a lovely FO to show you... my MIL's Juliet scarf, at long last!

(Apologies for the poorly-lit iPhone photos, getting nice pictures in the daylight is tricky in winter - I will re-take them once blocked this weekend with some natural daylight)

Actually, it worked up quite quickly once I really pressed ahead with it. I had been putting it off because the 12-row pattern was so intensive and required a lot of concentration - not ideal for TV knitting at all, which meant I kept losing track and going wrong. And it was so difficult to undo.

But now it's completed (just needs blocking before wrapping and placing under the tree) I'm really pleased with it. It's so soft (I used Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora Pure, which is luscious) and the pattern has turned out well despite some hiccups. And I actually managed to finish something that took me longer than a hat, hurrah!

So, what's next? Just my sister's beret to finish and then I think I'm done on the Christmas present front. I could think of another gift, but it's not vital and I don't want to be under pressure to finish in time, and possibly fail miserably! So I think I might cast on my own cabled fingerless gloves, just for me. :)

Back soon.

xXx

Getting sidetracked

With only 23 days left to go, and us stuck at home again today, I should really be getting on with knitting my last two Christmas presents. But instead I have been out playing in the snow with the boys. Here's the result:































And yes, I've also been scrapping, shock horror, two nights in a row now! I have the new Sketch2Scrap iPhone app to thank for reviving my mojo. It must be good as I even scrapped a Christmas-themed layout for the first time in a long long time, if not ever and used up some old supplies in the process:























I have vowed to get some layouts done this month, not only to document Christmas now the boys are both old enough to really get into and enjoy it, but also because they are growing up so fast and these huge breaks from scrapping are missing out chunks of it. Not good.

I probably won't be completing a 12x12 layout every day this month, even if my life were so interesting I think my mojo would have run out long before the end. But if I can even get a handful done I'll be more than happy. But for now, well I better get back to my needles!

xXx

Snow WIP Wednesday

The snow here refuses to stop and we are now snowed in - both cars are stuck and the schools/work are closed. This was earlier (it's even worse now!)



So, I thought we might as well decorate our Christmas tree - my first ever real one. I'm so excited!








It's a bit on the small side, compared to our usual 6ft fake one, but actually it's nice to be able to see the tv without having to crane our necks lol!





So, it's WIP progress Wednesday, and currently I am working on another lovely Lupo beret (a fab and free Ravelry pattern). My sister, having eyed up my raspberry-coloured version, now wants a cream one. And with both her birthday and Christmas coming up, well I couldn't refuse could I?! It's not one I particularly enjoy knitting, the seed stitch is annoying and I can't seem to keep the yarn over swirl pattern going properly, but the result makes it worthwhile. Here's mine.




And here's another Shroom (another free Ravelry pattern) I finished just in time for the snow.








Catch you soon :)

xXx

And the winner is...

Thank you for all the comments/entries into my fab prize giveaway. One of you lovely ladies has won a £50 Mothercare voucher and a month's supply of Fairy goodness.

And that winner is......... (drum roll please!) ...........

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:5Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Danni...

 Danni said...

I love your knitting, I wish I had the patience, when I go on maternity leave I think I will give it a go. I really enjoy reading your blog, I am creative but usually struggle to find the time for projects like these. I look forward to your future posts.

Please enter me for the prize draw. xx

9:23 PM

Congratulations to you! Please forward your address to me and I will contact the lovely people at Fairy, and hopefully your prize will be winging its way to you very soon :)

And that's not all, there's a runner-up prize that's not to be sniffed at (actually it is, because it smells lovely!). Another entrant will win a month's supply of Fairy products. 

Here we go...

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:2Powered by RANDOM.ORG

P.S. I don't know why it keeps reading max 100 as I definitely entered max 5! So please kinda ignore that bit, it's not showing accurately when I copy and paste!

 Jo said...

Oh I love the wrist warmers I like the black ones especially, bet they will keep you snuggly in the bitter cold.

I would love to be entered into the giveaway please

10:56 PM

Jo, please let me have your address and I'll make sure your prize reaches you shortly. :)

Congratulations to both winner and runner-up, and really sorry to those of you who didn't win this time. I will try and sort another little giveaway of some sort very soon.

And I'll be back later on with a little crafty update.

xXx

Keep calm (holidays are coming!)

Hi again all, and a (slightly belated) Happy Thanksgiving if you are reading this from the US. I expect by now many of you are trying to snap up some Black Friday bargains in preparation for Christmas. Me too lol! I normally try to have most of my Christmas present shopping done by now, but this year I am failing miserably. I'm meant to be knitting a few, but that's going slower than I'd hoped and I'm just out of ideas for the usual suspects. What do buy someone who has everything? And what on earth do you do if you know several of these people?!

Anyway, in between the Christmas knitting and the job hunting I managed to steal an hour and make these replica Second World War poster prints, which I'm happy to share with you. I want to re-decorate our downstairs toilet in a similar theme/scheme and I'd love to get one of these printed up, framed and hung in there somewhere - or even a few smaller prints hung in a row. And they were so easy to do, just a free Photoshop brush, a free font and a background colour, each in their own layer.

Then I altered the wording to get these. Oh how I wish I still had my own craft room, sigh.

They also make great gifts if you order them as photo products - like my favourite mug here. The image was made for me by a friend earlier this year, then I ordered it as a photo mug.

All the files I've shared in this blog post are about 1 meg each, so should be suitable for right clicking and saving and printing at up to about A4 size - go ahead, they are yours if you want them. Or if you're desperate for a particular colour just shout and I'll see what I can do. :)

Back soon.

xXx

P.S. Don't forget you only have two more days to enter my fab giveaway to win £50 of Mothercare vouchers and free Fairy goodness. See here.