Apples and Pears

I got this beautiful pincushion in the post yesterday. It was made by Carli over at Simply Notable and I won it in their October giveaway. I love it! It's a lot larger than I thought it would be, though I'm not sure why I thought it would be small, and so is the perfect size to put next to my sewing machine to try and cure me of the habit of sticking my pins in my mouth when I'm sewing. Since I tend to stab myself, and I don't want to accidentally swallow a pin, I think that's a really bad habit to have. I also goes perfectly with my pink sewing machine and is now on display with my sewing machine in the living room.

Also, I've been playing around with photo editing software, in an attempt to make my pictures slightly better/ Originally the first picture looked like this:

Does the new one look better? And any hints or tips for making my picture look better? Also, any idea if I do choose to have rounded edges, how I can make the blogger frames rounded to match?

I do know about taking them outside or in sunlight, but I'm a bit restricted in that respect because it's dark when I get home most days. Even if it is still light, my garden is an overgrown mess the landlord hasn't mowed in months and doesn't get much sunlight (and none in the afternoon). And the living room gets no direct sunlight at all!

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes about my family. My Gran's surgery was successful so she's all OK now, though on crutches for 6 weeks, and the dog was well enough to pull her plaster cast off entirely yesterday, and now has to suffer the indignity of a cone collar.

Tuesday Tunes

I forgot it was Tuesday!

Something to do with all the revision and Uni work causing the days to blend together into one endless stretch of boredom. At least until next Monday when I'm back in labs, then it'll be stress, stress, stress again!

But anyway, here's the soundtrack to my revision:

I've also been listening to a lot of Butch Walker, and I wanted to play Race Cars and Goth Rock, which is one of my favourite songs, but unfortunately there are only live videos of it on youtube. But if you get a chance, I would recommend you check it out!

PDFs are amazing things

I'm so excited, I finally figured out how to upload my patterns to Ravelry as free PDFs (yes, I'm slow I know).

So if anyone's interested, they can now be downloaded here:

Hair Bow
Pug Dog Washcloth

ETA: If anyone else want to learn,  then just write (or copy your patterns into) a word document. You can then save the word document as a PDF, then follow these instructions to upload them to Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/wiki/pages/FreeRavPatternDownloads

You also get a link to put on your blog where they can be directly downloaded

Year of Projects Week 18 & 19

Well, it's been a week of traumas and dramas with knitting... OK I exaggerate slightly, but it certainly felt like that! You might remember that last week I was worried about the gauge on my socks, and whether they were going to fit/whether I was going to have enough yarn. Well I continued regardless, turned the heel, and guess what? They don't fit on my foot!

Well just for a comparison, here's the sock next to my foot:

My ankles are never going to fit in that, no matter what I do!

So I frogged all that work and started again:

Doesn't look any different  right?

But look at it on my foot (I'll spare you the naked foot pictures this time!)

I think this one might actually fit me!

I have to say, I learnt a lot the first time around, especially magic cast on and wrap and turn heels, and I did make some mistakes in them. At least this one should (hopefully) have less mistakes. And it only took me one try to do the magic cast on, rather than the eight it took last time!

Hopefully, I won't get stuck with third sock syndrome...

Not much knitting time this week, as I have an exam on Wednesday, and as usual, Uni work is piling up, but hopefully, I might get at least one of these finished this month!

Tuesday Tunes

This song sums up how I felt this afternoon. I went to a brownies group to teach small girls how to knit. I was in charge of 4 girls aged 7-9, though one of them already knew how to knit, so she just needed starting off. We had knots everywhere and dropped stitches, but I though, whatever happens, happens. I just knitted a new row on whatever stitches they had on their needles and started them off again. They loved it, and so did I!

And they got so much better, and by the end were able to make the stitches. they all took their knitting home with them, and were hoping to make baby blankets for the preemie babies in the NICU. Plus we got to join in a brownie ring, which was great fun.

The leaders of the group said they had never seen the girls so quiet and attentive for so long, so hopefully we've inspired some new knitters!

Squee Sunday - Success!

We had our first trampolining competition of the year today and it was a roaring success!

I was so proud of myself, as I came 9th out of 51, whereas in ever other competition I've struggled to be in the top half. I've worked really hard for it and was aiming for top third, so I totally surprised myself.

Here's my amazing team, from left to right they placed 9th, 5th, 11th, 9th (me), 3rd, 26th (she fell over, but still did really well despite that) and 11th in their respective catagories. We did really well as a team and E was thrilled to get her first ever trophy for 3rd place.

And a very silly picture of me being eaten by a trampoline...

I did find out today that my dog has ripped 80% of the ligaments in her leg, and has to be in a cast for 2-3 months, and my gran has to have minor surgery on her foot and will also be in a cast, so good wishes sent their way will be very appreciated.

For more squees click here

Year of Projects Week 17

So this is how my sock is going. It would be much longer if I hadn't decided that I couldn't live with a (to me, glaringly obvious) mistake in the first pattern repeat. I'd finished 4 pattern repeats by that point, but I bit the bullet and frogged it back to the start of the pattern, and started again. I'm now on the 5th repeat, and it's looking good. I seem to have more repeats in my pattern than the projects on Ravelry, the average seems to be 6 before turning the heel, and I think I'm going to need nine, so I'm worried my gauge is wrong... I hope I have enough yarn to finish the pair.

I wasn't sure about this yarn for the pattern, because the toe turned out pretty stripey, but I've decided I like it, as the purl parts break up the stripes and I love the leafy vine parts in these autumnal colours

I also decided I needed a quick gratification project this week, so I decided to finish on of the WIPs on my list.

Meet Betty the Blob:

She's a monster blob from the Monster Chunks pattern by Rebecca Danger.

Last time she featured on this blog, she looked like this:

I did frog that foot though and knit it again, as when I came back to it, it looked like a mess

According to Ravelry, I started this project in March 2010, so it's well overdue to be finished. It's made with scrap acrylic which came from my Gran's knitting stash and must be about 20 years old, as it's left over from the baby clothes that she made me. I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of embroidering toy faces, and I'm also not very good at it, so her face does look a little strange. I think I achieved the pouty effect I wanted though.

And here she is with her boyfriend Bob, who is thrilled that she's finally finished! Don't they make a cute couple?

You can check out more updates here

FO Friday - Cross Stitch Card

Since this has now definitely been received, I can post it up as an FO

Just a little thank you card, but I think it looks pretty nice. And I had a revelation whilst working on it, about how amazing double sided sticky tape is! I've never used it for cards before, and I've always been pretty unimpressed with the crinkly effect you get with glue, so I bit the bullet and bought some. It makes life so much easier, and makes the cards look really nice!

For more FOs, check out Tami's blog here

Tuesday Tunes

Ok, that picture looks quite dodgy, so I apologise, it's not a dirty song at all, though there are a few rude words, so maybe not suitable for small children

This is a song by the Amateur Transplants called Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin. I'm sure people know that I'm a medical student, and this is a band consisting of two doctors who write parody song on the subject of medicine. It's about a made up drug and it's absolutely hilarious. Well worth a watch, it'll make you giggle and be stuck in your head for days.See if you recognise the tune (I'm sure you will!)