Waterstone's Christmas

I've had my blog for nearly a year now! I can't really believe it. I've hardly posted, thanks to the Mega Monster Illness that took me out from January to about October. That's one of my New Year's Resolutions, which I'm slowly starting to build into a do-able list.

Now that Plutonium Muffins is on it's way, I'm going to expand this blog into other things that I want to enthuse about. It's not going to go all personal and weird, because I hate that, but it's not really only going to be about knitting anymore.

Today, my topic of choice is music and nails... Our string quartet is playing at a Waterstone's Christmas gig tonight, and Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, is going to be there. Our normal uniform is black and red, and I normally do my nails red. Tonight, I've gone Christmassy!

Red and green nails! (Photo copyright Coranda B)

I'm looking forward to the gig, even though we haven't really done very much practice. It'll be fine.

I have about another foot left to go on a mega-scarf left that I'm knitting -- I'll post pictures soon. I'm trying to start getting proper photos of all my projects with JS' camera, but for now I've just started using Instagram on my iPad, which will do until we can get our acts together for SLR stuff.

Bye for now!

Corrie xx

Christmas and blogging!

Hi all!

Christmas is fast approaching and I have so many projects on the go - I'm mid-way through my mum's present, planned my dad's and cousins, and have yet to decide what to do for the brother and both Gran's. Things for my boss and friends are going well - my Secret Santa is going to get a proper surprise this year! I'll do a post on Christmas Day (or possibly after depending on how much brandy is consumed...) with the big reveal, as I obviously can't do it for risk of everyone finding out what I'm making! For now, have a sneak peek of the Christmas tree decorations for this year...

Tiny stocking (Photo copyright Coranda B)

I can make the announcement that the wonderful JS bought my domain last night - www.plutoniummuffins.com and also www.plutoniummuffins.co.uk. We are busily deciding how it's going to look, planning photos and blog posts, and I'm going to get one of my work colleagues in on the graphic design. JS is going to build it for me - our deadline is the 13th (next week, eek!) because that is when my Gran arrives from South Africa, so watch this space. I'm really excited, I've been planning this for about three years!

Much love,

Corrie

Crimbo, and all that jazz!

[Uploaded late!]

Long time no update. It's Christmas Day - Happy Christmas! It's a bit unusual blogging on this festive day (my family certainly probably aren't impressed), but hey, I'm an adult now and can do what I want, right? And anyway, the men are all off in the pub between the main course and Christmas pudding. I have over-indulged a bit on mulled wine and am feeling incredibly sick, with the meal sitting like lead in my tummy. Yuck.

It was a very Crafty Christmas, and I went a bit Camera Crazy (my Facebook photo album was going to be called "Corrie's Camera Crazy Christmas Captures" but I decided that was lame). Anyway, I unveiled the pillow case and scarf I've been knitting for Gran and Dad respectively. The pillow took like three months to make, and I started the scarf last night at 8 pm. It took six hours. Ouch.

The others that I made for Christmas that I haven't blogged about yet are a Harry Potter illusion wall-hanging for Lucia, and a hot-water bottle cover for Kathy. These were completed over a period of about 3 months, which was intense, especially the Harry Potter thing.

I got back from Finland and Denmark a few days ago, and will write a blog all about it from the diary I kept at some point.

Tiger Scarves

I'm pretty pissed off at the moment, but I swore to myself when I started this one that I wouldn't turn it into a rant machine. So I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to share a photo of the tiger scarves I knitted for my boys. They took a long time, but it was worth it.

I got the pattern free on Ravelry and I recommend it, it's really good. The reason the scarves took me so long to make is because of the stripes - sewing in all those ends was a real pain in the backside. I did the pattern to match the hats shown below. Tom is on the left and John on the right. They want me to do a penguin one with flippers and a bow-tie so that I match them. I might well do it.

I'm meant to be knitting a hat for Ben's cello, to match our Innocent Smoothies hat. Will be doing that soon, but I have to work out how to use DPN's first, and I'm not sure how I'm going to fit everything in.

The layout of this blog sucks at the moment, but there isn't a lot I can do about it. I'm meant to be revising for an exam in a couple of weeks. Just wanted to talk.

I'm going to Copenhagen on Friday, followed by Helsinki. Excited! This is also the last day of term. I'm not sure when I'll be back to London - almost certainly before New Year. Christmas is generally a creative time of year for me, so I'm going to be kept very busy at home, returning to London to get my revision cap on.

Ciao for now.