So Pingu wanted pawn...

And therefore he got it!  Now I only have 31 pieces to go....:|

Angry Birds

Technology.. meet craft! I've just finished an amigurumi of a character (the pig) from an iPhone / iPad game. It's quite a success I think!

I found the pattern at Ravelry (and you can find all about the 'real' pig here but resist the temptation to be drawn into the game, you may never return!)

I also finished the new born niece's dress but unfortunately winter just seems to have up and disappeared. That's really quite annoying as I'm enjoying knitting and crochet at the moment. The amigurumi's don't seem to be too hot to work with and I'm hoping to get good enough to design my own soon enough!

Here's the dress:

Cushion

Well it's only taken me a year but I've finally finished the cushion! (don't tell Mum that short cut the edging... it's very very dodgy!). 

Now all I have to do is finish the rest of them.  Oops!

Busy busy busy...

Unfortuately work has been getting in the road of my blogging lately! Here's an update on what I've been up to over the last couple of months.

1. Crochet squares - lots of them!  Pingu bought me a lovely book for my birthday and I was inspired by Carissa's work, so of course am now drowning in unfinished rugs. Oops! Still they're lots of fun and they'll be finished one day. So here's a sample...

 

2. Dolls - I finally started the rather cute (albeit slighty politically incorrect!) "Mr Dappper" which I got from Katins Designs. I've managed to get the face done and clothes cut out. I was quite happy with the face, given that it's the first time I've done machine applique.

 

3. Fascinators - one very overdue project (was supposed to finished for races season  - oops again!). That was lots of fun, and I think with a bit of practice could be quite a successful hobby.  Certainly didn't cost anywhere NEAR as much to make as what they sell for! And lots of fun to make!

And of course there are sundry projects for babies - but I don't have pictures for those. Will have to post them later!

Long weekend ... where did that go?

Well I'm afraid the long weekend was a bit of a blur. I think that I must have started feeling sick on Thurs but was trying to convince myself it was hayfever. I sneezed my way through the next few days and by Sunday was no longer able to deny that I had succumbed to the dreaded lurgy. I'm starting to feel better today but urgh, what a shocker! My face feels like someone has punched it.

However, apart from that the weekend was lovely! Had my parents here (*waves to Mum and Dad* - being part of a very small group of loyal fans haha) and we visited the Textiles Art Fair as planned. We dropped of our deposit off owls and I grabbed some wool that was kindly donated by some organisation (I've just unfortunately forgot who that was!) to make another one.  Not sure I liked the end result but everyone else seems pleased enough. It was certainly a much harder pattern than I thought it was going to be, and I had trouble working out how it was all supposed to fit together. In the end I just made my own version.  The feathers are cute though!  So here's mine (front and back)...

To give you an idea on what the original looked like - the link can be found on Nicky Epstein's web site, which you can get from the Give a Hoot facebook page here.

Mine doesn't look quite the same! I blame the flu!

I spent the rest of the weekend dosed up on cold and flu tablets and enjoying the sun when I could. The dogs were also making the most of the sun when it came shining through. They look so cosy, I'm almost jealous.

Give a hoot

In preparation for next weekend's Textile Art Fair, I've spent the day making a Jenny King "Give a Hoot" owl which is basically a donation for kids in hospital, the idea being to give the children a Guardian Owl to watch over them. It's part of the World-Wide Knit in Public Day, which I never knew existed until now. And a tad ironic as the owl is actually crocheted. But any excuse to knit and/or crochet is fine by me! 

Anyway, the pattern is really quite easy, fun to make and can be found here. I thought I'd make a couple and than I can just hand them over at the fair. But I might not get past this one as there is another busy week ahead.

Amigurumi

Well having had myself confirmed - my darling Pingu bought me flowers.  Though 'darling' and Pingu don't seem to go together in a sentence....

Anyway, after that I had a lovely weekend in Lismore and finished the amigurumi cat I was working on. The pattern was from a book, but the colour scheme was cooked up by my niece, who wound up being the owner of this one. It was a bit of a pose though, as you can see from the pics!

And the other success I've had this week is my African Violet, which is flurishing and flowering! Who said I killed every plant I touch (yeah, yeah, I know I didn't have much luck with lemon grass blah blah blah). Anyway, I feel quite domestic when I look at that plant. Good thing I didn't take a pic of the rest of the house!

On a completely different note - I wish I could figure out how to get pics uploaded to this blog by my iPad. That would make life MUCH easier.  And now.. I must crash!

It's official

I'm confirmed. That means that I have been completely accepted into the doctorate zone. Big milestone for me, having dithered with several failed topics over the last 10 or so years. It feels good to be heading in the right direction.

All I have to do now is work out how I can justify the inclusion of craft into my methodology!!

It's Tuesday again...

God save me from Tuesdays!  I would breathe a sigh of relief as there are only 2 more weeks of semester if not for the fact that my lectures for next semester are also on Tuesday evening!  I am cursed.

Slack slack slack...

That's me, the slack blogger! However, in my defence, the fact that I have not been blogging does not necessarily mean I have not been crafting! This month's theme (well April / May) appears to be jumpers and Amigurumi. What's Amigurumi?... Gee I'm soooooooooooo glad you asked. In short, it's a form of Japanese crochet, more precisely the art of crocheting dolls. Very cute! It all started because I was looking for something to make Ben for Easter and found a pattern for an Ewok (as he's a serious Star Wars fan) but I couldn't understand the instructions so he wound up with a bunny instead. Well Ben hasn't actually got custody of the bunny yet, as I still have to sew his nose and tail on. However, here he is so far. I actually think he wound up being the cutest of the easter toys! And he was certainly the easiest of the lot.

But I digress. I was talking about the Amigurumi fettish. So not to be put off by the strange instructions, I decided I first had to get suitable instructions. Thank goodness we have a fabulous library, so that was fairly straightforward.  In fact, much more straightforward than me trying to work out how to get this picture the right way up!! (clearly I've given up on that task).

Then I started working on a project - which is a cat pattern that I don't think the pattern is overly complicated once you get the overall gist of it, and I'm sure it will look cute when it's finished. At this stage it's just a few bits so doesn't look like much.

And the other project this month has been slippers! I've been a bit slipper mad since the cooler weather set in. I haven't taken many pics but I do have the mother-in-law's set. They were dead easy to make, but I had to adjust the pattern a fair bit. Seems to be a popular theme with slipper patterns, as I haven't yet found a pattern that didn't have mistakes in it. Still, that is how we learn!

So anyway, that's a few of the projects for the last 3 or 4 weeks. Now I'm afraid, it's time to return to marking. Urgh.

Final dolls

Well - here are the finalised 'Graham dolls'. 

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the bunny... but that's life. So now I'm having a bit of a craft brain freeze, I have too many things to finish and not sure which to tackle first!  Probably tomorrow will be a sewing day though, as I haven't had one of those in a while. And I would like to get my quilt cushions finished.

Course I may just stay in bed with a book!

One down....

Three to go. Busy busy busy!

Easter!

I have been a very slack blogger. Bad me! (as opposed to 'my bad', an expression that I just cannot, CANNOT, stand!).

In honour of the 5 day weekend that lies ahead, I have decided (with some encouragement of my learned colleague J!) that I shall give myself a 5 day challenge.  So I hereby forthwith declare this weekend PJ easter.  I will wear my PJs for the whole 5 days.  I will wear my PJs until they are so smelly that I must change them, and then I will change into another set of PJs.  I will wear my PJs until I am so sick of PJs that I never want to wear PJs again!  The only exception I will make is when I have to leave the house to drop eggs off / shop and then I will wear tracky dackies, which as far as I'm concerned equate to PJs anyway.

Well............ I'll at least stay in my PJs this morning ;-)

And now, I must return to the dolls which are really very nearly complete! Watch this space...

Spotlight

I think that I should be banned from Spotlight. Either that, or be given a special VIP card - one that says "this customer has a problem - treat her with extra special care!"  However, addictions aside, I did have fun with my latest wool purchase. I found a very lovely pattern book (yes I know I don't need those, but hey - I didn't need the wool either!) and this is the colour scheme I have for a baby's blanket for the birth of my brother's 3rd child.  It covers all gender possibilities, I think.

So yes, despite not really needing to purchase this, it's a good project as the pattern is made of small crocheted squares that have a coloured circle in the middle and an edge in cream. And it's a good train activity. Plus the advantage of making squares is that if I do get distracted, as I'm prone to doing now and then, I can make it a pram blanket rather than a full one.

Friday hurrah!

I do love Fridays. They are a much better day than Tuesdays. Fridays have promise!

Though this evening was a bit unfortunate as poor Pingu fell over and is now limping around like the old man I'm sure I was meant to marry. I don't know how I'm going to get him to slave in the garden now!

Anyway it was still a lovely evening (up till the injury part, that is) and I do love West End, it reminds me so much of Lismore. Course I also hate West End as it reminds me of Lismore. But now I'm quite looking forward to going home and watching a movie, of which I have a few! And knitting. Knitting is always good for the soul. Or the arthritis. Probably both.

Current project #765 is unpicking and re-knitting a jumper for a former neighour. I said I'd do that last April but wound up with some weird gastric thing, so promptly forgot that project and it's been sitting around ever since. I've done the unpacking part which was really unpleasant, so now able to do the fun part.

So that's the end of my week. Who knows what next week will bring!

Oh and...

It is a Tuesday! Need I say more!

Crappy day

Today was one of those days for reasons that cannot be stated, lest they turn around and bite me on the backside. Suffice it to say, I wish I was in some other space. One that didn't involve work.

Sashuki

Hurrah I finished something! I swear this is the year of finishing projects.  And this blog will be my evidence!

I started this little project at the craft expo, where I did a workshop on sashuki.  Most of the stitching was finished in the workshop, and I finished the rest the next morning. It is without a doubt the easiest stitching I've done! And looks very effective.

Course than I had to actually sew it into the coaster it was supposed to be, so it sat on the sewing desk for a while. (I really hate finishing!) Anyway, I forced myself to finish it this morning. Course that also meant that I made a mistake (yes, I somehow mananged to sew the lining on the outside!) and that made finishing all the more painful. But it's done now, and I'm well proud of myself.

Now all I have to do is finish the few hundred other things I have lying around.... hrmmm.

Lifeless blobs

Ok - here's what I'm working on at the moment....

I'm really into stuffed toys at the moment. Probably due to lack of small children in my life. However, my grown children are getting these whether they like it or not!  The best part of making toys is watching how they turn from lifeless blobs to unique characters. And never by plan!!  I don't think I've made anything that ever turned out the way I pictured it to turn out.

Watch this space... I'll put the finished products up when done.

Tuesdays

Not my favourite day of the week. Actually my non favourite day tends to vary depending on the semester timetable, but this semester it's Tuesday's. First, it's too long. Second, I spend all day working myself into a state about whether I will be able to perform or not. By 5pm (the pre-determined performance hour) I'm so tired I almost don't care.

...but I really do.

All in all it's a very draining experience and by the time I get home I can't even manage knitting garter stitch without dropping stitches. Quite pathetic really.

So really that was all just a very long winded way of saying that I still do not have a craft update, nor do I have any pics of any non-completed projects (which are quite substantial in amount!)

But I did at least blog so that must count for something!

AND most importantly I found the saved drafts page for future reference (as this was the missing blog post). So I clearly have much to learn!

So anyway....

I just typed a long blog and lost it. I clearly need to tame the iPad beast!

Suffice it to say, I will not repost. Which is probably best as all comments that are work related are best avoided. As are all comments on non-completed projects (which I specifically hereby refuse to confess on having).

I will, I will' I really truly will do something serious and craft like soon. I promise !!

Lack of progress

Ok, so I remember why I never blog:

1. I can't remember my blog page

2. I can't remember my email account

3. I can't remember my password

4. By the time I've sorted all that out, I can't remember what it was I was going to say anyway. And it's usually time for bed.

So basically - what it all boils down to is that I'm just too old for this [insert appropriate expletive here]!!

Wellll.......

Not much can be said of the last few days. I have resorted to comfort food (risotto) and wine. It's not good for me. I know... I know.. I know! A sensible person would just get more sleep.

I have two comfort events approaching, visit to no. 1 step daughter and bi-annual craft fair event. Neither of those involve calories (hurrah!). Other than that, life is just plodding along.

Rediscover

Poor dead blog. I hope I can breathe life into you again. Though you were barely alive to begin with!

2011 is the year of completed projects. Because I just looked at my completed to started project ratio, and it's a pretty poor effort! I will commit to completing my projects by posting here. Well, I'll at least aim for 1 completed to every 10 started. That seems reasonable. And while I'm at it, I will keep the house clean (or at least, I'll try to clean it once a month). And I will lose weight (which means I'll at least try to eat more vegies). And I will remember to blog (assuming, of course, I can remember how to use this thing). And I WILL make progress on that darn SJD (filing papers constitutes progress, doesn't it??).

Blogging done. So that's a good start!