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

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