elephant in the room

Look out! What's this, emerging from the depths of the savannah?! It's Elijah the elephant. I enjoyed making this, although if I made it again, I think I would make the limbs separately and sew them on. Making it in one piece is nice in some ways but the picking up of stitches involves levels of contortionism and wrist acrobatics that isn't really my thing. I know it's not really fashionable to say this, but I'm not sure I subscribe to the anti-seaming-at-any-costs school of thought which appears to be the general consensus amongst knitters these days. Don't Phear the Needle, I say. I'm a bit old skool, I know. Retires to rocking chair with pipe.


In other news, I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at the GMex Manchester Central at the weekend. I had intended to buy yarn but there seemed to be a preponderance of variegated and/or sock yarn, and less of the dk solid colours I was after. Or massive bulk packets of the stuff, which I am not really looking for right now. Well, not the the stuff I saw anyway. Ah well. Instead of buying yarn I appear to have been sucked in by the many patchwork / quilting type stalls. Bit silly as I live next to a really cheap fabric shop. But look! Mmmm... pretty... colours... I just need to learn how to make a rubbish quilt now. Lordy!

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rroOOAArr

Pretty scary isn't he! Pattern is norberta from knitty. At one point he was actually starting to look a bit frightening, so in the interests of not giving its owner nightmares, I left off the fangs and added a comedy felt tongue instead. The intended recipient hasn't actually been born yet so the eyes are embroidered on to improve batterability. This was the trickiest bit... I am no expert at embroidery and made a test swatch of eyes before attempting them on the actual toy. (I then left this around the lounge in unexpected places to scare people). From this swatch I learned that it's really worth spending 20p on a couple of skeins of proper embroidery thread rather than attempting to embroider with leftover scraps of sock yarn; it just stands out better against a woolly background.

Many would be put off this pattern by the amount of sewing up involved, but I didn't really mind that. It's nice to see the thing slowly taking shape. Although I would say that this was made unnecessarily tricky by my choice of boucle yarn.




It's made with two strands of yarn held throughout, and two different boucle yarns for the green bits. I thought this would make it look a bit more scaly but in retrospect just turning it purl side out, as suggested in the pattern, would have done the job with a lot less hassle.

Some things that I have learned are well-nigh impossible with boucle yarn:

• Frogging


• Seaming


• Shaping


• Pretty much making anything that isn't a garter stitch scarf

It's all my sister's fault for describing Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan as ideal cuddly dragon yarn. It does feel nice and soft though so I can kind of see her point. The rest is all leftover bits and bobs of yarn from the cupboard though, so it was a nice cheap project. And thanks to Catr for the loan of felt for the tongue!

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nimbostratus

Oh noes - what is this strange meteorological phenomenon looming on the horizon!? Sheep, you'd better run and take cover!

*whistles* Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place, come on with the rain, I've a smiiiiile on my face......

It's a Christmas present for my niece. The pattern is from mochimochiland. I made it from Jaeger matchmaker DK and some leftover scraps of blue wool that were lurking in the bottom of the cupboard. I can now confirm, after extensive tests, that the Jaeger yarn is machine washable and really doesn't felt. Even after battering the bejaysus out of it and putting it through a hot wash with a few pairs of trainers, it just looked slightly well-loved, so in the end i gave up. The raindrops felted nicely though after shaking them around in a large screw top jar with a bit of boiling water.

I gave it a smile because it looked a bit threatening without one.


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cthulhu fhtagn!!

A friend of mine likes Cthulhu so I thought I'd make this for his kid. I thought it would be more fun to make it up myself so resisted the temptation to google image excessively and only really looked at this picture. Not the easiest of starting points for woolly creativity. I sort of made it up as i went along. May have been partially inspired by The Host which i was watching while i did the head (ace film!!). I hope it doesn't give the kid nightmares.



The yarn i used had been nicked out of my mums haberdashery cupboard about 15 years ago so I couldn't tell you what is was - some sort of dodgy cheapo DK boucle acrylic, which was a bit of a nightmare to work with - you can't really see what you're doing and I used finger-wreckingly small 3mm needles to get a tight knit, so hopefully the stuffing will be resistant to battering by small children.

From the side you can see the wings and slightly silly pointy head. I used my new-found rubbish crochet skills to do a knobbly edge round the bottom part of the wings, so it looks a bit like the wings you used to draw on dragons when you were a kid - doesn't show up particularly clearly in this yarn though.

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christmas presentfest

I've been busy as a bee making some rubbish gifts for people for chrimbo. Including biiiiig socks for my fella, and a small rupert the bear. He'll look more like him when i've finished the obligatory yellow checky scarf, honest.


Sock pattern is universal toe up sock from knitty. He likes dark boring plain socks so i made them ribbed to try and prevent myself falling asleep knitting them and accidentally poking my eye out with the needles in a freak accident. Rupert is out of the Debbie Bliss Toy Knits book. The bear looks easy cos it's so small but it was knitted in the flat and there was soooooo much fiddly sewing i got a bit scunnered by the end. He's the wee bear on the front cover without the wellies on. The little jumper is from merino wool and is so snuggly warm i am quite jealous. The middle stripy sock is one for me that i started making several millennia ago but am awaiting the post-festive season knitting lull to be able to make a friend for it.

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Mr. McGregg

It's for my friend's as-yet-unborn baby, so made out of a robust acrylic yarn out of this pattern. I have a sneaking suspicion i may have inadvertantly interchanged limbs from the arms and legs piles whilst entranced by an episode of the day of the triffids on telly last night, so it is a little wonky.

*sings in Dr Nick Riviera voice* Well, if it isn't my old friend, Mr McGregg: With a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg.



Here he is, standing up and ready to take over the world.

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