Mmm, Foxy Craig.

First up, please excuse the makeshift hat display thingies. I don't have an actual one, so this was the best I could do to get some quick photos to email, showing what the hats looked like.

The girl that I made Mr. Otter for emailed me and asked if I would be able to knit another two hats for her, one for her flatmate, the other for a friend of hers. She attatched to pictures to the email;

Craig from South Park

Red Fox, sewn from fleece

She wanted the fox ideally knitting. So, armed with these two pictures, I set off to my LYS, armed myself with wool, and a fortnight later the hats were ready to post.

'Scuse Momma photobombing. Although, I did encourage her...

Foxy is up there with Mr. Otter in my 'Jeebus, that's so awesome that I made that' stakes. The ears were devised by myself, the insides were two strands of DK, and one of fun furry stuff held together. I wasn't sure about whether they would stand up on their own, so considered using thin gauge wire to support them, but luckily they didn't need it.

Back of Foxy

The other hat was pretty straight forward. In fact, it was incredibly straight forward. The hardest bit about it was having to explain to people that I wasn't making it for Craig The Butcher, (someone I fancied at the time), but that it was called Craig's hat because it was the hat the character Craig wore in South Park.

Craig's Hat

The hats aren't that long in real life, it's because it's on one of those mahoosive balls of aran.

Craig and Foxy, chillin'

I have it on good authority that the hats were well received, which I'm very pleased about. 

Book Bag

I'm pretty sure I'm behind on the whole bags from books thing, but I finally got round to making one. I've been looking at them on the internets for a couple of years now, thinking, "I could make one of those. I'm crafty enough. I haz teh skillz". Turns out, I do!

I couldn't find a tutorial anywhere, so I looked at as many photos from as many different angles as I could, so that I could try to work it out in my head. I almost went so far as to write myself a little step by step, but in the end I though "Bah, lets just wing it"

I kinda wish I'd got photos of the book before hand, it was a nice copy of Little Women, by Lousie May Alcott. It didn't have a date in it, but I Googled the publishing house and managed to decided it was pre 1960's, but I don't feel to bad about cutting it up. It was complete, and had some really nice plates in it which might get reused, but honestly, it was bought specifically for the purpose, was nice and cheap, so I don't feel bad.

Front

I did reinforce the spine with some scrap mount board from the Sister, as it was quite weak, but other than that, the cover was in lovely nick.

Sides

The sides I made from calico, in an attempt to make them look like book pages, but it's not really worked. You can also see on the bottom left corner where it hasn't stuck properly.

Back

The closure was made from a large button, and some elastic. I'm REALLY not happy with it. Originally I wanted to use a zip, then realised that it wouldn't really be practical, so this was the best I could come up with. I'll defiantly be rethinking this next time.

Bah

The lining has Mr Men and Little Misses on it, because where you get Little Women Misses, you get Mr Men, right?

I knew that fabric would come in handy at some point!

The handles were some that I got free with a magazine months back that never got used, but came in handy for this. I have to say, while it's not come out perfectly, it does the job, and I am really impressed with it.

Never change a drink order when you're a regular.

I have been warned multiple times to never change my drink order at through Costa Coffee I frequent on a regular basis. We are known there now, and more often than not by the time we have ordered and paid, our drinks are waiting for us at the end. Yesterday I wanted to add an extra coffee shot to my drink, I asked for on when we ordered our drinks, but the cashier didn't charge me for it. Luckily. Our drinks were ready for us, with no extra shot for me. Oh well.

In other news, they have FINALLY opened a Costa in Town. They have been working on it for a couple of months, but on Friday when I went into town this was waiting -

So if course I had to get one. Not as good as one from my usual, but it will suffice!

Rose Cake!

First up, I should apologise for the photos. It didn't occur to me until we we're about to cut the cake that it might be a good idea to get photos of it. Which is why there really is only one good photo. The other one was a top down photo that I took for the sister to show her what I had been up too.

I love how this cake looks. Sort of. As long as you don't look too closely at one part of the upper layer. Where it caught slightly. The damn thing raised unevenly. I don't understand why. Also, ignore that the roses seem to have silver on top. It was supposed to be shimmer spray, but it was 11pm at night, the night before, and I wasn't overly sure how to use it. No-one complained though. In fact just about everyone loved it.

It was made for a dinner party a friend was having. I love to make cake, but when I make it generally, I don't really have much scope to play, as the cake tends to be the same, (chocolate, with the same topping as Momma used to put on), and buns are usually one or the other of two standard flavours. So the reason I offered to make cake was kinda selfish, so that I could PLAY! (Also, I totes love to bake cake)

It's a plain Victoria sponge, and the roses are plain sponge with red food colouring. I really wanted to do something kinda classy, and this idea was an amalgamation of an idea of mine, (the coloured roses), and one of Mommas, (putting the roses on to a cake) I have a silicon mould for the roses, but it seems to be hard to get them out intact. More practise is needed there methinks

The roses are held on the cocktail sticks, the leaves are placed on, or in some cases wedged under the roses. For some reason I also had to use cocktail sticks to hold the top layer onto the bottom, as it kept wanting to slide of. No more will that be a problem, as I have a cake leveller now! YEY! Ok, I might be more excited over that than I should be.

Mr. Otter Moves House

A while ago, okay, maybe 6 months back, when I knitted my Cunning Hat, I asked on Twitter if anyone else wanted something knitting, totally not expecting a response. Two of my friends on there responded along the lines of, "Oooh go on then". One asked for a Cunning Linguist hat, (go on, say that one fast), the other didn't know what she wanted, but knowing that she loved otters, I offered to knit an Otter hat. 

I had an idea of what Mr. Otter would look like, but no idea of how to go about making him. I knitted a basic hat with ear flaps, using the same pattern as for my Cunning hat, then knitted ears doing a really simple decrease to make semi circle. The muzzle was what was concerning me the most. I didn't want to knit it directly in the hat as I went along, as I've never done intarsia before, and didn't want to risk screwing it up.

I tried lots of ways, knitting it as a shape from the top, from the bottom, as two halves, each time it was lopsided, or just wrong. In the end I knitted a rectangle in stocking stitch, then drew the shape I wanted onto a piece of paper, pinned that onto the rectangle, then sewed over it with my sewing machine, using a tight zigzag. I then Swiss darned that onto the front of the hat. The nose and mouth were Swiss darned on top of that, and the eyes are buttons.

Mr. Otter, pre-journey

Everything was sewn together, the ends darned in, then Mr. Otter was ready for his Trans-Atlantic flight to his new home, in NY State, USA.

I waited with bated breath for the day that he'd arrive, and for the reaction of his new owner. She had seen pictures already, but I was still nervous. He arrived safely (phew), and his new owner was positively ecstatic. 

Mr. Otter in use

 He is by far one of my favouritest things that I have knitted so far, and I'm so glad that he is loved.