Lots to do, lots to do! Update of the past week

I've got so many new projects lined up, and have a fair few things to update you on. Fortunately, my projects aren't large as I'm going to make house-warming gifts for my house mates in September, so they're little teddies. Unfortunately, I don't have the right colours of wool for them, so I can't get them done quickly anyway. The 'queue' function on Ravelry is a god-sent to be honest, I don't bother writing my projects down now, I just save it all on there and can access it whenever.

Firstly, I'll update you on my socks. I had a mad knitting spree when I finished the first one, and knit about 2/3rds of the second one in about two days. Then stopped. No idea why, but I didn't feel like it, and I'm so close to finishing:

I need to knit another half an inch or so before decreasing for the toe. I need to give myself a kick to finish these, then I can wear them in bed when it's quite cold. :)

I absolutely loev the colour of this wool. I'll definitely be buying some more of this wool (DROPS Fabel, I think?) To make other stuff in the future. ...or just make more pairs of socks with it!

I also started designing my own blanket squares. I'm making a charity blanket as I've mentioned before, and I've made notes on the design for it. I need three different kinds of squares, and I was making notes to design my own. This is how far I've got:

 Above are my notes and general scribblings and the start of the square. It's a basic "YO, K2tog" pattern but it looks pretty cool. I did a little test-knit, and I should've taken a picture before I unravelled it all. But yes, hopefully it'll be good enough to make as part of a blanket. But I'm not sure about the colour, because the wool is horrible cheap stuff that doesn't feel nice at all, but I use the wool for test knits, or making teddies, as they don't have to be softy soft.

Speaking of teddies, I've started making a 'Miffy' bunny for my house mate, but encountered a problem. I ran out of wool. I've made the head:

...which needs stuffing and the face, but, I don't have enough wool to start on the body:

This isn't enough for the body. Plus, I bought the wool years ago and have no idea what it is, so I've got to go to my local knitting shop and ask them if they can help me get something similar. So this project is on standby until after the bank holiday.

So, I don't have many projects that I can do at the moment, other than finish the socks, which I'm going to crack on with right now.

Oh, one final thing, I was reading through some blogs earlier and they mentioned wordle. I used this ages ago, but now they've introduced a feature which lets you add your blog URL. I did this, and created one from this blog:

They're so fun to make, and you can sit tweaking them for ages, changing the colours, angles, etc. I've been playing with it for quite a while now. It's very interesting. And of course, the largest words would be knitting and socks and patterns. So yeah. That's about it from me today. Happy Knitting! ♥

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.

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!