Oops

I haven't posted in over a week - that's because I haven't knitted in all that time. I started my new job on Monday, and it's awful. I don't have any spare time during the week, so I haven't had the chance to do anything. And at the weekend, me and my boyfriend were geeking it up playing World of Warcraft, so again, I didn't knit.

I'm going to change this.

I've been on ravelry for an hour or so, looking for ideas for things to knit. I wanna make a hat/beret for my mum, and some knitted toys for my siblings. Also, I've been looking for squares to make for my Refuge blanket; my total is still at five. I want to design a pattern for my squares to be honest - as in, decide what squares I'm going to have and where they're going to go, etc. I might go do that now actually.

Oh! Wait, I lied. I have knitted this week; I knitted a bit further with one of my socks. I managed to get to the heel, make the heel, then got stuck and stopped because I didn't know what 'slip slip knit' was and didn't look it up. I ought to carry on with that tbh.

Pretty pointless post today, but it was just an update to show that I'm still alive and well. Hopefully I shall carry on posting regularly.

Socks!

Yes, I have finally started on my pair of socks. Yesterday, I went along to the knitting group at Nest (which is between 2pm and 6pm) and took my casted on sock, and managed to finish the ribbing and start on the main ..leg part. I made a couple of mistakes, but I'm not going back to correct it because I'll never get it done if I do. I'll just power through and hope that they're not noticeable! Here's my work so far:

(Cue bad picture quality, as always). Yep, I've done 2-3" of the first sock, and you can kinda see the lacey pattern that's forming. I love love love the colours of the wool. I am looking forward to finishing this, because I want to see what they turn out like.

Anyway, just a quick one today. I've gotta go do housework, and get ready to leave at 2pm because I have an interview at 3pm to work with a charity that supports St John's Ambulance. Very excited, and nervous. So, I've gotta go get sorted. Will keep updated about my socks.

Cabled headband

Yay! I've learnt how to do a simple cable! I picked a pattern off ravelry, which can be found here and here. And here is my headband:

The pattern asked to use 4mm needles, and create 19 cables. I, stupidly, used 3mm needles, and ended up needing to make 25 cables. Longgg. It was tedious, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'm keeping this one as a prototype, and will create one in a different colour that I'd actually wear - I'm thinking a reddy-purple.

Next up, is going to be a pair of socks (just need to find a nice pattern), and then some more chubby chirps out of my scrap yarns from the sock wool.

Also, yesterday, I had a go at crochet, and managed a chain stitch and a double crochet - I was trying to make a mini scarf for my boyfriend's teddy; I made a really long chain stitch, but by the time I'd finished the double crochet, it was a lot smaller as it twists etc., so I've gotta go back and make an even longer one! Ah well. It's quite cool that I can kinda crochet. I'd like to try and make something, now.

But today, I am having a duvet-day so will not be knitting very much.

Completed Chubby Chirp!

I finished my little chubby chirp! (You can find the pattern here) It didn't take long to make up, and it looks sooo cute!

How adorable is he?!

I also got some more wool today:

(The colours look better than in the pic). The reddy ones are for a pair of socks that I want to try, as I've never made socks before, and the blue is to make the little elephant I said about two days ago - only the pattern says 1 ball of 100g wool, and I bought a 50g ball and didn't notice until I got home. Damn. Oh well, I can start on the socks next.

So excited about all the knitting I'm doing at the minute. And, when I went to Nest today, I found out that there's a knitting group that meets on Mondays and Fridays 2pm-6pm and I think I'm going to go along on Monday, providing I have a project on the go.

Anyhoo, off to apply for agencies and jobs. I applied for a charity door-to-door job, and I have an interview for next Tuesday, to work in local areas in London. I'm so excited, I really, really, really hope I get it.

Chubby chirps and refuge squares!

I need to get into the habit of posting what I've made on the day that I actually made it, rather than the next day. So, yesterday, I almost finished off my Chubby Chirp (I just need stuffing, and need to put it all together). I love using dpns, and I'm so chuffed that I've managed to make it all right, without messing it up.

You can kinda see the pieces, through the awful-quality pictures from my phone.The little wings at the sides look like tiny mittens, they're so cute. So, I'm going to Nest today to get some wool to make that elephant that I mentioned yesterday, and get started on that, and fingers crossed, get some stuffing as well so I can finish off my Chubby Chirp.

Also, I made a blanket square for my Refuge blanket. I'm going to aim to get one done every few days, so I should have it done by the end of the summer, hopefully. This is the one I made:

 It needs stretching around a bit, to make it square shaped. It's knitted diagonally; instead of casting on about 48 stitches, you start with one and increase steadily then decrease. It was quite fun to make.

Here's a close-up of one of the hearts on the square. I think they're really cute. (And, the squares are actually bright red, just my phone's silly with pictures - need to get some batteries for my camera).

So that was yesterday's work, now I've gotta waste 15mins until Nest opens to go get more stuff for today. Everybody Loves Raymond it is, then.

Chubby Chirps

Yesterday I started to make a 'chubby chirp'. I've just found the link where I found the pattern from, and you can find it here. It was my first time using dpns, and I was so chuffed with what work I'd done.

I used some old wool that I had sitting around. I need to stuff it and then sew up the top, but alas, I have no stuffing! I need to go buy some. I'd go right now, but I'm house sitting waiting for a parcel, so I can't go anywhere yet.

I want to create a page of all my projects that I have to do, to see what I need to finish, etc. I have a habit of starting a project and not finishing it, because I get sidetracked by other projects - typical, I suppose.

But yeah. I'm so pleased with my work with dpns and want to make something else, now. That little thing up there that I made took me about 3-4 hrs! Very long process (and to be honest I was watching tv at the same time as knitting) but very rewarding. I look forward to finishing it. For now, I'm off to start on another square of my Refuge blanket.

Knitting supplies

I haven't posted in a few days because I've been so busy. It was my birthday on Monday, and yesterday I moved to London and went out for the whole day, so today's the first time that I've been able to sit down and blog. In the past few days, I've discovered an amazing knitting magazine called Simply Knitting - I've got two issues of it already (as I got them at the end and start of the issue's month, yay!) and there's so many things to do.

One of the things in both of the magazines was this charity called Refuge; it's a charity for women and children subjected to domestic violence. The magazine is asking for knitters to created blankets to give to the women and children; you can knit 6x6" squares, and join them together to create a 6x5 blanket - that's 30 aquares in total! I already have about four squares from when I was making little testers when beginning knitting. I've decided that I'm going to do it - you have until December to make and send in your blankets; hopefully I can get it done a lot earlier than that.

Also, with the first magazine, was this free mini knitting kit to create a corsage. I made it on Monday and think it's so cute!

Above is the pattern, and below is my corsage, on my knitting bag. So chuffed.

Apart from that, I haven't done any knitting this week. Yesterday I went shopping in Covent Garden with my boyfriend, and bought this really cute little notebook:

It's adorable. It cost £10, and I have absolutely no idea what I want to use it for - it's almost too cute to use. But I'll find some use.

Also, I found the most amazing knitting shop ever, in Crouch End in London, called Nest. It's so cute - I bough £20's worth of knitting needles, dpns, etc. but didn't buy any wool - I'm waiting until I know what I want to knit before buying any more. 

I've never used dpns before (I bought 3mm and 4mm ones) so it'll be really interesting to learn to use them. 

I've got my eye on making these things called Chubby Chirps, I found them on another blog, and I'll repost the link once I find it again.

But I've also got a list of things I want to make out of these magazines, such as crochet squares, a square for my Refuge blanket, and this little adorable elephant:

How cute is that?! I can't wait to get started, but I need some wool for it, so I think I'll be making another trip to Nest within the next two days. I think I'm going to be spending a lot of my time and money in that place.

So, for now, I think I'm going to practice with my dpns - maybe make a chubby chirp, and then get some wool to make that elephant. So excited to have loads of ideas for projects!

Knitting!

I've been knitting on and off for years, but I've decided to make a blog, in the hope that it'll inspire me to knit more, and share my creations. At the minute, I've been making these teddies of my own design:

This is my first one that I made; I've made several since this. I make these by making two identical sides of the teddy, by doing a simple garter stitch pattern, and casting on and binding off stitches to make the arms.

This is one I created for my Mum for Mother's Day one year:

I made the back half of the body with longer arms and legs, so that when I sewed it all together, the arms and legs bent around, so it would look like it was sitting. It kinda worked; it usually just flops over - something I need to work on.

I went on a photo-taking spree, and took pictures of all my knitting stuff, to show the start of my collection, which I'll hopefully build up as I carry on knitting. These are my boxes of knitting stuff:

The one on the left is FULL of wool, and the one on the right is all my knitting/cross-stitch books (I lovee cross-stitch, just have hardly any materials for it) and also all my mini things that I've made; I've made little swatches of patterns, and kept them all - really they were just testers to practice my knitting, a few years ago. But anyway. My favourite thing that I've made is the little grey cardigan that you can see in the bottom of the box. It's a properly proportioned cardigan, and it's uber cute. Only problem is, it doesn't fit any of my teddies:

^ Here you can see Eddy (the teddy) sporting the cardigan with the too-long sleeves. It'd be perfect for a little doll, or perfect proportions to template making a larger cardigan for actual people, but alas, it is useless for my teddies. Oh well, it's cute.

For the past few days, I've been knitting a teddy for my boyfriend, as he's seen my pink one and wanted one himself. I used the same pattern that I used for my one, only this time I used a stockinette stitch, and it looks a lot better when it's stitched and stuffed. I uh, got impatient when wanting to finish this - I didn't have any stuffing, so I ripped open an old cushion out of my room (nobody was using it, anyway - put it to better use!) to be able to stuff this little thing. It took me two days to finish, as I was babysitting in between making it, and this is the final product:

He looks all funny. I love his cute lil' face. I think his body is a bit too long (looked fine when I used the same pattern before, with my pink teddy, so it must be the gauge) but my boyfriend says it looks fine, and he loves it. He's named it KaL. I'm gonna make it a little jumper like my one, too.

So yeah. I've got a few ideas of things I want to make, and I want to find sources of inspiration in new projects. It's my birthday on Monday, and on Tuesday my boyfriend's taking me to London (so I can go to build-a-bear!) and I'm gonna get some more knitting stuff; needles, buttons, etc. I need ideas of things to make, so I can keep busy through the summer. I'm also quite interested in learning how to crochet, and how to do quilting as I'd love to make a big blanket.

But that's enough for now - and this post has taken FOREVER to write as the pictures have taken aaages to load as I'm using a dongle - and I'm off to find ideas of things to make next.