The warm fuzzies

I love the feeling you get when you do nice things for people and make them happy.

I sent out a whole load of cards to people on Thursday. I filled the inside with little observations and thoughts like a proper letter then doodled pictures and wrote little quotes and sentiments all over the envelopes personalised to whoever I was sending it to. My sister got An Cafe, teen wolf, and tumblr silliness, my friend got flowers and My other friend got a Dr Who style crack and representations of some of her fandoms, my Mum got little sentiments on hers because she is sensible. I sent them because who doesn't like getting nice things in the post? They should be getting them today! (maybe tomorrow of the post is being slow)

I have also been sending out buckets of anonymous love on tumblr to anyone and everyone I can think of (I just love seeing how happy it make them in their replies).

Film Music

Recently I have bought a lot of movie soundtracks. It started with my sister giving me the X-men First Class soundtrack last year. I found it good to listen to while revising for exams and when I wanted sound but not vocals to do my coursework to.

When I first watch a film I tend not to notice the music but I have found that recently when I watch XMFC I can name each piece of music as it plays. The only exception to this is the beach scene where I fall to bits and start shouting at Magneto while trying (and failing) not to cry (I cannot watch this film with other people or I just embarrass myself).

I got the soundtracks for Avengers Assemble, Thor, and Captain America. The Avengers OST was a download album and I have been listening to it a lot while waiting for the other two to arrive. Listening to "The Avengers" (here on youtube) makes you feel like you are being incredibly epic at whatever you are doing (and I wrote that while listening to it) even if you are, as the tumblr people suggest, just folding laundry or scrolling through your dashboard.

The same phenomenon that has happened with the music of XMFC is probably going to happen with these three too but I find I don't mind that at all. Bring on the music! I'll add to this post about the Captain America and Thor when they come (which should be pretty soon as they were dispatched this morning).

If anyone has any opinions on these albums or suggestions for other soundtracks that would be good to listen to don't keep quiet about it!

Postcards

I really enjoy collecting postcards from all over the place and adding them to the collage on my wall

Like this!

The collage is a mix of photographs, postcards, card fronts and small art prints. I keep getting told that I should take them down and arrange them in a frame but I don't want to. Isn't it infinately more fun to arrange them on the wall and test yourself to get as few spaces and overlaps as possible?

I often feel guilty buying postcards now as I'm running out of room the I can reach on the wall to put them up but because I'm home for the summer I have access to postcards other than veiws of the scottish higlands I feel I have to buy a lot while I can.

I get my postcards from all over the place. Most commonly they come from gift shops in museums or other visitor attractions and prints I buy when I'm at conventions. I'm always on the look out for more from different palces, especially from outwith the UK (if you feel like sending me any you're completly welcome to).

Book Reveiw: Knitting Vintage

Knitting Vintage by Claire Montgomerie contains 30 knitting projects inspired by the fashions of the 20th century.

The Patterns are split into the decades from which they draw their main inspiration from. These range from the "Roaring Twenties" to the "Dramatic Eighties".  Each segment has several pages at the start describing the main changes in fashion, how knitting was affected by it and a mood board showing the inspiration used for the designs in that segment.

All the designs featured in the book are very much wearable in a modern setting and some of the really awful designs that appeared in the 70s and 80s have been wisely left out (this is my opinion however so don't take it too seriously).

The patterns are mostly for clothes but there are several accessories as well such as a string of beads inspired by the flapper styles of the twenties or a lacy collar from the fifties.

Knitting Vintage retails for £16.99 but I got my copy in the Works (a book and art supplies shop) for £3.99.

Book Reveiw: Knitted Mug Hugs

Knitted Mug Hugs by Val Pierce is part of the 20 to Make series of books. I reviewed others of this series in this post (knitted fast food) and this post (eco-friendly knits).

The purpose of these mug hugs is to insulate your hands against the heat given off by hot drinks and to decorate your mug with a personalised cover saving you from muddling up mugs from a set and getting Earl Gray tea instead of coffee (this hasn't happened to me yet but knowing my luck it probably will).

Several of the patterns have variant designs for the decoration to achieve a different look for the same mug hug such as the hug with a fluffy sheep on it can be transformed into a hug with sophisticated rose instead.

All the patterns use either DK or 4ply yarns with 3.25-4mm sized needles.

Knitted mug hugs retails for £4.99

apologies and updates

I've been feeling a lot of blogging guilt this summer as I've not been posting as much as I would have liked.
I had an excuse up until two weeks ago with an exam resit for Uni but now I have nothing to do until September.

Sorry guys, blame tumblr.

I will be posting later today about stuff and I'm just going to throw some of my book review posts out even though I'm not completely happy with them.

crafty day

I got my own sewing machine at the beggining of the month. I havent had the time or the space to be able to get it set up and actually do somthig with it. I finally found some time today and I've been sewing and crafting since midday.

I started with trying to fix a little bag I had bought at D-con 2011 that was put together very strangly...

It's lined but the seams are not inbetween the layers

I unpicked all the stitching and then pinned it all together ready to sew then promptly got confused and forgot what I was supposed to do to sew it up without sewing the top up.

While waiting for that knowlage to return I did some work on a skirt I have been wanting to make for a while but haven't had either the time or access to a sewing machine. The only thing I don't like about doing these is he level of gathering that needs to be done. I also find the hems on thse skirts to be a bit dunting as they just go on and on for several meters all of which needs to be pinned and pressed to make sure it is all straight and it doesnt come apart when under the sewing machine.

after puttting in the stitches for the gathrs I had a look at the bag again and had another go at it. three hours and numerous mistakes later I decided that it should be left until tomorrow (it is currently inside out and sewn up in such a way as it is impossible to turn it out).

I'm probably just going to knit for the rest of today (and watch The Hollow Crown). Currently I'm working on a light but really warm scarf.

The yarn is Wendy Wisp in Cinder and Carbon

  It knits up so quickly but it is very easy to drop stitches when using a very loose tension (I somehow managed to go from the twenty stitches I cast on to sixteen stitches less than half a meter into a project with a single ball of this).

Book Reveiw: Keep Calm and Cast On

Keep Calm and Cast On is a pocket sized compilation of quotes, facts and generally good advice put together by Erika Knight. It is published by Quadrille and is part of a series of books in a similar style. The others in the series to my knowledge cover gardening and cooking.

"knitting is the saving of a life" Virginia Wolf (1882-1941)

The book is hardback bound in fabric giving it a very vintage feel similar to the other things in the "Keep Calm" style it also has a built in ribbon page marker.

"You don't knit because you are patient. You are patient because you knit" Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee, 2008

I find it good just to have on hand so when I'm bored or looking for inspiration or people have been telling me I shouldn't be knitting I can just pick it up and flick through it and find quote or pointer to make me take up my needles again and lose myself in the stitches.

"I like making a piece of string into something I can wear." Anonymous

The book also contains quotes and information about Stitchlinks, an online group who aim to utilise knitting and other similar activities as a form of heathcare. They mainly target mental and emotional problems such as depression and have been researching the idea that knitting can help with delaying the onset of dementia. More information can be found on their website.

"I was a foolhardy lover who has always been prepare to throw his loyalty and devotion at the feet of Mistress Knitting." James Norbury, 1904-1972

I got my copy from waterstones. It can be found on amazon here (ISBN: 978 184949 095 5).

"Remember It's only yarn and yarn can be reknitted. So you can always rip out a few stitches or rows, trace back to where you were in the pattern and start knitting again."

Polar Bears and Other Such Things

Over my winter break I went to the highland wildlife park. I saw a polar bear there and got closer than would be safely possible with one in the wild/a town in the Arctic circle. 

The bear who is currently there is called walker and his favourite toys are hard hats like this one

the bear that was there before was called Mercedes and she was a repeat offender in the act of coming into the town of Churchill in Canada where they have a polar bear prison

the prison operates in a three strike rule. if they catch a bear in town they knock it out and take it to their detention building where they are released when winter starts and they can hunt on the ice again.  if a bear is caught a third time they are put down as it means the prison is not working as a deterrent to them entering the human settlement.

Mercedes had been caught a third time in the town and either had to be put down or sent to a zoo. Edinburgh zoo had a lone male at the time and offered to take her as a companion for him.  The car company Mercedes sponsored her travel from Churchill in Canada to Edinburgh in Scotland so her name was changed from "number 39" to Mercedes.

Mercedes stayed in Edinburgh for many years before coming to the highland wildlife park in 2009. The first winter she was there she saw snow for the first time since coming to Scotland and was apparently very confused by it.

Unfortunately Mercedes had to be put down last year because she was in severe pain from arthritis but the other polar bear, walker who joined Mercedes from a zoo in the Netherlands in November 2010 is still up there but many visitors call him Mercedes because they don't know that it's not her.

The wildlife park has other animal such as tigers, wolves (who were displaced by Mercedes), Arctic foxes, wildcats, monkeys, beavers, a capercallie, three types of owl and red pandas (who were sooooo adorable!). 

Polar bears (Ursus Maritimus) are mostly found within the Arctic circle and are the only bears who will actively hunt and kill humans for food. This is one of the reasons they are so dangerous when they come into towns and villages.  People living in areas with polar bears all carry rifles when going anywhere near the edge of town and are completely prepared to shoot a bear.  The reason polar bears are endangered is not as a result of hunting but rather from a loss of habitat as they can only hunt when there is sea ice covering the majority of the Artic Ocean.


You can find out more about the Highland Wildlife Park here and more about polar bears in general here.

I feel really bad for not taking more pictures but the SD card in my camera was completely full up by the time I got round to the tigers.

I got most of my information from these sites:
BBC News article Mercedes death
STV News on the same story
Mercedes' Life story

Some nice pictures can be found at:
Guardian Newspaper website Walker Joining Mercedes
A Flikr users shots of Mercedes first snow

How to Make a Star Jar

These look really pretty sitting on a shelf or on a table ready to be tipped out and played with when you feel blue.

First of all, Assemble your materials!

You will need
Paper (I like it best if there is a selection of colours but single colour jars could work)
A jar or bottle or your choice (smaller ones are easier to finish but bigger ones look very impressive) Charity shops can sometimes yield real gems for these so keep your eyes open (the bottle I use here came from from an Oxfam shop for 99p).

A pair of scissors (optional but I think you get a better look using them)
Glue (again, optional. It can be any sort but I find the tippex mouse style dry glue dispensers work best here)

If you don't know how to make origami lucky stars this video is good (it's not in English but there is subtitles)

For my bottle I used two sheets of A4 printer paper cut into 1cm and 1.2cm strips which I then coloured in with promarkers.

The 1cm strips worked well when cut both length and width ways whereas the 1.2cm strips worked best when they were cut length ways but were manageable when cut width ways (It is good to remember with this is that the wider they are the longer your strip will have to be).

Fold your paper strips into the stars and 'puff' them up (you may want to have a pin on hand in case some don't puff up and instead crush themselves into oblivion).

like this!

Fill your jar with the stars but make sure youhave room for the lid if you are using a cork. Sit the jar in a place where you can see it and feel proud at what you have done.

A lot of the time I dislike simple origami as they tend not to look very good but the lucky star model is very simple and looks very nice.  I got the idea for this after seeing it online and I wondered if it would work as well in real life.  I think it did but what do you think?

I'm so very sorry

I have been woefully neglegting this blog for the last few weeks. My whole course at uni went a little crazy because of the assesment load that ment there was five assesments due in the last two weeks of term before the exams.

I have been more active on tumblr by doing live blogging revision and being caught up in the fangasm that has been the Avengers. I was so happy I got to see it before it came out in America and I will not spoil it for anyone (other than the fact you should go see it, like, right now). What I am even more happy about is the fact that I'm going to see it again tomorrow and possibly in IMAX... (insert uncomrehensable high pitched fangirl noise here) I can't stop grinning when I think about it.

I have got an idea for a post in the very near future: a star jar tutorial and maybe I'll finish the Dublin trip post that has been sitting in draft form since november...

I just realised as I was typing this I have ben blogging here for over a year!

Happy (very belated) birthday to surrounded by pretty things!

I will be doing more posts in the next few months as I have some projects that I want to do and several book reveiws that need finishing.

Dee-con report

sorry this has taken so long I've had an assessment avalanche at uni but I finally found some time to sit down and write this post.

I didn't take many pictures because I was in a really crowded area of the dealers room/artist alley so I couldn't stop people without causing a huge blockage.

I did however get a picture of my table (but then again this was a little difficult because the table opposite me was incredibly popular even before the doors opened)

you can see my battalion of cream egg chicks on the right

 
I managed to sell the Knives chau scarf (don't look at me like that, I was never going to wear the thing) I also know for a fact it's gone to a very loving home.

I think I made a couple of mistakes with my table layout as people tended not to buy things from the stands I had... which I felt was kind of a shame as when I showed people the things from them they generally reacted positively rather than with polite disinterest.

I bought a little red octopus keyring from sakurasweetcake (It's just too cute!) she then bought one of my rose headbands.

I had so much fun doing it and I have already got ideas for stuff I want to do for next year (I'm gonna be diversifying).

Dee-con

I'm going to Dee-con on the 7th of April (this Saturday!).  I have a table in artist alley again this year selling similar things and a few new things.  Please come by to say Hi and buy some knitted accessories.

I will also be doing quick repairs for things bought last year (things like buttons or pins coming off or snags in the knitting).

There will be a lot more of the cream egg chicks and some more flower headbands but no bow headbands as well as a selection of fingerless gloves.

I'd love it if people who got something last year tell me what you think of yours a year on.

Maybe see you there?

Book Reveiw: Eco-Friendly Knits

Eco-friendly knits by Emily Blades is one of the twenty to make series and contains patterns that are knitted with yarn (or plarn as the book calls it) made from plastic bags.

This is an interesting form of recycling that takes an item that is known for being a visible pollutant and dangerous to animals and turns it into a much nicer looking, easier to store and useful item.  I find plastic bags an irritating thing to store as they just fill up drawers and are never taken out to use again. The 'Plarn' made from the bags is a little difficult to knit with (I have yet to attempt crochet with it) as it has a tendency to stick a little when being fed through your fingers but it creates a firm 'fabric' that can be ironed to fuse it into a ridged structure without completely loosing the texture of the knitting.

I haven't done any of the projects in the book as of yet but I'm finding it fun just to make plarn (especially in public) from as many different bags as I can (so far there's been bags from tesco, co-op, Superdrug, boots, the factory shop and several coloured bags from independent shops). One of my main problems is that from a regular sized carrier bag you only get a tiny ball of plarn and to do anything remotely big you need a lot of bags.

Some of the projects given in the book are a little weird such as the heart necklace. It is far too bulky and looks clumsy when worn in the pictures for the pattern. A lot of the projects are nice and I could see them being put to use. The drinks mat and waste paper basket are just some of these.  Then some of them are a nice idea but would be as good at their given purpose as a chocolate teapot. The electronics cosies fall into this category because for me the purpose of those would be to protect the item from scratches while it's being carried about but all I can see is them causing more scratchies than they would have prevented.

Bloggers Block?

Recently I have found that I start blog entries and then after writing a little I leave it in draft form and can't seem to finish it. I currently have seven posts that are sitting in draft form waiting to be finished.

Five of those are book reveiws as well as the Dublin post that has been mentiond more than once.

In other news since I get the first two zelda games and Four swords for my 3DS I have been trying to at least play every game in the zelda series (except the cdi games *shudder* if you dont understand why they provike that response watch this video).  So far I have managed to play all of them apart from the oracle games and I have finished Four Swords (the main quest at least).  I have made it a large chunk of the way thorugh the Minish Cap, Wind Waker (I like to think so) and Ocarina of Time. I haven't played very much of Majoras Mask and I keep dying in A Link to the Past.  Skyward Sword has been severly neglected (Scaldera scares me)

Crafty news! the knives chau inspired scarf is finished! it comes in at just over 3m.  My knitting for Dee-con is going good and I will definatly have more headbands than last year.  I'm also knitting a variety of chunky mug hugs and travel cup sleaves in coffee clolours so my table isn't all girly accessories.
The chicks are comming back big time (as in more than twenty of them). I might have acutual jewelry that's not knitted.

I'm amazed that this post has made it out of the draft stage.

Tumblin Over Pretty Things

I got a Tumblr account!  I'm still going to be using this as my main blog with everything being original content by me.  The tumblr blog I'm going to use for reblogging and the random nonsense tht pops into my head from various sources.

You can find it here.

D-con comissions are open! (again)

D-con is actually happening this year so any commissions are most welcome to collect there (I haven't got a table yet but that will be fixed soon enough).

I think I'm also going to try and have accessories that are made of fabric as well as the knitted stuff.

The Easter Chicks are coming back too and (maybe) in greater numbers this year because they sold so fast last year.

More details are in this post.

 

Just a quick question....

Would anybody be interested in commisioning one of my knitted accessories?

I have created a second blog for commissions that can be accessed through my profile where I can post images of completed commissions and other things I can't keep but have made.

I've been told it's a good way to create or supplement an income and with a dangerously big obsession with Lolita clothes I may need that.  It would obviously depend on how much free time I had and if there were any deadlines for course work with Uni but during down time I would be able to do commission's like the knitted accessories in this post and during the holidays things like those found in this post.

If so, is there anybody out there who can help me by being my commission mentor? (help me with pricing, shipping, payments and just how to deal with stuff).

Another idea is that I open an Etsy shop to sell the things I make out of boredom or procrastination (there's only so many mug hugs you can knit and keep before people start thinking you're a loon) but for a lower price than the commissions.

First post of the year

This is my first post the year (Hooray!) and I want to thank anybody who has been reading my blog that I haven't (literally) prodded into doing so.

I've been meaning to write a post since the first of the month but I have had no idea what to write about.

I have several posts in draft form that I need to finish for this blog and my other blog. These include posts covering my trip to Dublin in early November (I think I might split that into two posts rather than keeping it just as one), several knitting projects (like an accidentally mobius snood), cross stitch, the finishing of my Knives Chau inspired scarf (I'm on the last section), and weather or not I will be going ahead with D-con knitting as it seems it might not be happening this year (I may just start knitting anyway and try to get a table at Auchinawa instead).

I spent my new year in with my sister in Stirling we were originally going to go to the top of the Wallace Monument to watch the fireworks from the castle but we got scared halfway up and on our way down we realised there was just as good a view from the bottom of the hill so we just sat on a wall and watched the fireworks from there.
I hope that all of your celebrations of the mid-winter and new year/hogmany sort went well (that is, if you can remember them)