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

Tiny tiny fishes

I'm knitting a scarf at the moment, which I'm going to decorate with tiny fish. You'll see the completed scarf at a later point, but I have my friends special camera with me today and I wanted to take a photo of something!

Tiny tiny fishy (Photo Copyright Coranda B)

It takes about ten minutes to knit these little guys. I have a skein of unknown, yellow yarn, which I'm trying to finish up. I knit on the tube -- and am rather proficient at doing it standing up now!

The pattern for this one can be found here -- I have edited it quite a lot for some of the others though, and am excited about finishing the scarf!

"It Looks Like the Sea"

I saw my friend for the first time in months on Sunday. Before heading off to see him, I suddenly remembered I'd bought the yarn for his birthday present and had never actually done anything with it. So, Saturday night found me desperately thinking of things to make, with a party and illness to contend with at the same time.

I recently made a foray into hat knitting (I made another friend a beard hat in September, as shown below...more on that later) so I decided to improvise my own hat pattern.

JS, rocking the bearded look (Photo Copyright Lucia P)

It took about four hours in Patons' Colourful Twist Ultimate Mix yarn. I'd been on the vodka orange for a couple hours when I finished it, so my sewing in of the ends was a bit messier than I wanted it to be, and the binding off was rather tight. It's fair to say the hat is a snug fit!

Just a note on the yarn - I absolutely LOVED it, but I will never knit with it again when I'm in the throes of a respiratory illness. I have a really severe cough at the moment, and the fibres that it threw up while I was knitting lead to a sleepless night because they all lodged in my airways and irritated them for about six hours after I went to bed. I have five more skeins of it, but as eager as I am to make something else with it, I'm going to wait until I'm totally better before digging it out again.

We headed off to Bath and presented him with the gift. It didn't really fit at first, but he seemed pleased once it had stretched a little - here he is modelling it in Wetherspoons. We took along the proper camera intending to do a proper stylish photo-shoot, but failed on that and had to do it with iPhone camera, so excuse quality!

Modelling his new hat (Photo Copyright Coranda B)

The "It Looks Like the Sea" Hat (Photo Copyright Coranda B)

The hat was named by another friend in a moment of hungover idiocy, commenting on the colours, which I was panicking about a bit!

Overall though, I'm pleased with it - and will be publishing the pattern as my first in my new blog, Plutonium Muffins, which will be launched sometime before Christmas (hopefully).

Bee Happy

My friend had a birthday last Wednesday, and John and I decided to give her a joint present. We spent ages browsing the card collection in the coolest shop in Beauly, Scotland, and eventually settled on one which had a picture of knitted bees on it - on the proviso that I knitted some accompanying bees to give her in person.

I spent my lunchbreak yesterday doing them - I adapted this pattern on Ravelry because I didn't have any needles with me and wasn't able to sew any loose ends in. I'm quite pleased with the results - they are cute!

One bee, the bee card, and the cherry brandy! Photo Copyright John S

Both bees post-completion. Photo Copyright Coranda B

The first bee. Photo Copyright Coranda B

Used as a hair ornament. Photo Copyright John S

Dream Kitten

I had a dream a few weeks ago that I was at a music festival and they were selling boxes of little white kittens. It excited me a lot, and I decided to knit what I called "The Dream Kitten". It turned out bigger than it was supposed to, so I gave it to my boss as a thank-you for letting me live in his flat while he was on holiday - I have modified the pattern I used (found here) and am going to knit a smaller version any day now!

From the back. Photo Copyright Coranda B

Front view. Photo Copyright Coranda B

Penguin Archie

It's been a long time since I did anything crafty, unless you count making one wire flower for a depressed friend. My illness hasn't really improved, but I've moved back to London and am in the process of sorting myself out - I have a job now! - so hopefully things are on the up.

My friend inherited a rabbit at the beginning of the summer - his/her name is Archie (we aren't sure and can't pick him/her up) - and had a dream that he got dressed in a penguin suit a few days ago. I have a freakishly unhealthy obsession with penguins, and when I was asked to make the penguin suit via text (the friend was in Poland) I jumped to it. I had to go buy a load more wool and needles, cos all of mine are in the chest I talked about in the last post - 300 miles away - and when I'd knitted the penguin part, I decided that, as we were clearly never going to dress the rabbit (you can't even pick him up!), it needed a bunny head as well.

I used a pattern from Knitty for the penguin, and a pattern from Knitted Toy Box for the bunny portion. I modified the head a bit - I added a few extra rows of stockinette to make it fit slightly better.

I didn't put enough stuffing!

I had 24 hours to do it, combined with a really tight schedule at work, and here are the (slightly creepy!) results:

The original bunny

Penguin-Archie - side view

Front view - creepy eyes and all

Reepicheep completed

I completed Reepicheep a while ago - here he is in all of his glory, with sun shining on him artistically.

I've moved back home after a few months of illness at university. My mom has bought me a wicker basket bench-type thing for my room which is going to be perfect for all the knitting. I've spent the day cleaning and painting it. I will re-cover the top of it with some fabric that will fit my pretty pink room.

I've got a thousand projects planned and on the go at the moment, so it's keeping me all busy.

The Bolero...again

I found this on my camera - it's the Bolero again, modelled by Lucia. I ordered some more Rowan Cocoon in "Seascape" so I can make one for her birthday which is in a couple of weeks.

Bolero for Me :)

I've spent the last two days trying out a new pattern for myself - it's on Ravelry here. I love the pattern but it's a bit small for me. It did only take up one ball of yarn, which was Rowan Cocoon. I hate this yarn. It sheds, it is bulky and black, and difficult to find a pattern which is nice.

Knitting this was only bearable because I love the pattern, and I will be doing it again in medium size.

Happy Mother's Day!

I haven't given it to her yet, cos she is in Africa at the moment - but will give it to her on Sunday when she gets back :) On Ravelry here.

Pattern came from "Knit Today" booklet "The book of Bedtime knits", Issue 55 of the magazine.

Knithacking in Brighton

The boys spotted this in Brighton last weekend and took a photo for me. So many different types of love for it.

No knitting done this week. Project is going at full speed, and I can't even go to KnitSoc tonight. Le Sigh. I'm also feeling all sorts of hungover right now. Someone decided it was a brilliant idea to make me have the biggest shot of vodka I've ever had last night. I feel sick just thinking about it.

Reepicheep and all

I went to see "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" with the boys last week. They both loved Reepicheep, so I decided to give them each a little token. The pattern was really easy to follow, found here, and it took about an hour to make each mouse. I only have a photo of the first half-complete, bear with me while I try get more sorted out. And yes, he was made using stash yarn. Hurrah!

Half-done Reepicheep

I brought most of my crafty stuff home this weekend (I'm currently in my parents kitchen writing up lecture notes), so I only have knitting and unicycling to keep me going in London. I will have to learn to cope with it!

New Years Resolution Part 1

My New Years resolution this year was to only knit using my stash, and buy no more yarn until I have reduced the amount I already have. To do this, I rearranged my stash into a set of canvas pockets which I bought a few months ago. Observe:

Enough yarn to last a lifetime. Or a year, at least.

I've got so many plans for what I'm going to knit that I'm on the verge of casting on about twenty projects at a time. For now, just the gloves still going. To make it a million times more exciting, Simon gave me my Christmas present yesterday. I'm so excited that I might just go crazy.

SQUEEEEEAL

My exam was on Wednesday. It went OK. Afterwards, I went to Hamley's and bought some stuff for the tutoring job I started last week - a six year old who needs to learn piano and maths. I've got some plans which will hopefully go really well and her parents will love me. That's the idea, anyway.
 

I'm going back to basics. Who says engineers are good at maths?

I'm now on full speed ahead for my final project, and as this weekend is the only one I've really got this term to fully let my hair down (which, by the way, I got cut on Wednesday and nobody noticed), I'm keen to do something fun. We will see what happens.

Shorter hair and all.

More revision and a delivery

I've spent the last two days revising hard with Carlos and Saj, and the results can be seen below. Carlos bought coloured chalk, and it INSPIRED me. 

Apart from that, my beads for the scarves I'm planning to make arrived today. They were ordered off Ebay, and the last time we tried it, it took a month for the product (800 buttons!) to arrive.

Short, but sweet - back to revising! Exam is tomorrow, then I will be all set to relax and recover.

Glovepdate

My exam is in three days and I'm finding it INCREDIBLY hard to focus. I spent about six hours last night knitting, and have done quite well with this lace-weight yarn. My biggest problem has been tension - it is going to be misshapen at the arm-hole end, because it was a lot more loose when I started. I don't really know how to correct this - I think it's my method of casting on. I will check out some YouTube videos and try sort it out for the next one.

Right side of the first glove.

I also dropped a stitch which I then picked up over about five centimetres of knitting, messing up the rib pattern and just generally making a mess. I don't think anybody except me will be able to see it, but I'm a perfectionist, what can I say?

Close-up of the section that I messed up really badly.

The gloves have a companion scarf from "Beautiful Knits for Heads, Hands and Toes", and I ordered the beads required last night. I actually have the yarn in green and red as well, so I ordered beads in those colours as well, in case I decide to make that scarf. I'm not sure I will, but you can never have enough beads, right? They should arrive on Wednesday (I've ordered SIX HUNDRED! Thank God for Ebay and cheap resources), just in time for the end of this batch of revision. Yay!

Tom's mum gave me a new Edward Monkton coaster for Christmas (The POWER of CAKE) and it insinuates that I'm mad. I'm not mad. Really.

My (rather small) collection of Edward Monkton coasters

I can't figure out this Blogger template. I hate the one I have at the moment, but I don't think anybody is reading this, so it doesn't matter so much. I will work it out at some point post-exam. John is coming round on Tuesday to make dinner pre-exam, and we are going out for drinky-poos on Wednesday. I also start a piano-and-maths tutoring thing tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.

New books!

John recommended that I reward myself for the amount of revision that I've done, so I made a trip to Foyles this afternoon. I bought this, so now I just need patterns and I'm all set!

On my way back from South Ken after picking up a prescription (I have bilharzia, and have found out after five years of ignorance. Lovely.) I popped into Book Thrift on my way back and they had a massive sale on! So I got these three books for £5 total. They're worth £20 each. Score!

Luxury Gloves and a Diagram of a Heart

Mum and Dad gave me some really cool yarn for Christmas and I've started on a pattern from "Beautiful Knits for Heads, Hands and Toes" which I've wanted to try ever since I got the book. It's not much, but I'm working in between times while I'm revising.

I've been getting creative with my revision as well. I had friends round last night who loved my diagram of the heart.

I'm going to their house for New Year tonight. It'll be the first year I bring in without at least one family member. Last year I was at Bigbury-on-Sea with Tommo. The fireworks we see this year will probably be a lot less special, because we are expecting them. The ones last year were impromptu and amazing.

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.