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).

Corrie needs you!

I need your help to figure out what my new website is going to be called. Please go to the following online form and let me know what you think of the ideas I've had so far!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFpoWWpFeklZdW5KMUw4Ymc4NFRSYmc6MQ

Any information you submit will be entirely confidential.

Thanks!

Corrie xx

Logo and website transfer...

I've been very busily making plans for my crafting, with the arrival of all my crafting stuff in London following a visit from the Mothership this weekend. I've been sketching ideas for my logo, and fallen back on the one I've been using since I was 11 years old:

Copyright Coranda B

There's quite a story in this -- which will make it to my new website, when I've set it up! This will be public soon, hopefully. Watch this space!

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