A Stitch In Time

Anyone For Blue String Pudding?

Those of you afraid of visitors from outer space, and I'm thinking of Miss Kitty Thimble, look away now, I don't want to be responsible for giving you nightmares!



I whipped up some clothes for Mother Clanger and she agreed to come out from behind the bushes! Apparently Mother Clanger  "...looks after them all. She is kind and loving, like all mothers, but is sometimes worried and cross when the small Clangers misbehave."



Thanks to Desiree for sending me the link to www.CliveBanks.co.uk for instructions so that I could bring to life one of my favourite childhood tv shows. You can also find some here. I followed the first pattern just adapting the feet/shoes and I did a bit of sculpting to make her tummy more matronly and to pull down her, very long, nose a bit.



She was fun to make and Annie and Eliza love her: I heard Eliza whispering proudly to Annie in bed last night; "Mummy says I can play with the Clanger when she's finished!" They now both want their own small and tiny Clangers. I don't know if I can bring myself to make more though. I was amazed at how involved and time-consuming such a tiny thing can be. I have a renewed respect for all you softie makers out there!

I personally like the sound of Granny Clanger: "She lives a quiet life in her little cave. She likes to collect the silver threads of frost that catch on the edges of craters and knit them into tinsel string." Now there's a glimpse of a future worth looking forward to!

PS Thanks to Clive Banks for putting her in amongst his home-made Clangers gallery!

Revealing...

Here's a photo of Mother Clanger:



I'm helping to protect her modesty as her clothes aren't finished yet.

Or is this just a pathetic ruse to show off my ENGAGEMENT RING?!!

Taking Orders Part Two

You may (or may not) remember me writing before Christmas that I wasn't going to take orders any more. Well, in retrospect, this may have been a little hasty and more than a little conceited.



Anyway, for some reason I was feeling at a bit of a loose end last week when David's sister called and I did a U-turn and took an order for a baby blanket for a little girl called Kaia.

I dutifully checked my stash of fleece to see what I had before I offered a choice of colours. But after the  choice was made and I took down my apparently large piece of yellow fleece, it turned out to be very long but also very narrow. The kind of size you would need for a Dr. Who type scarf, say, not a baby blanket, however small and new the babe!



Nevertheless, (after an essential trip to a local craft shop for supplies),I really enjoyed making it. Maybe because I got onto it instantly instead of letting it hang over me for a week or two, gradually loosing interest and turning the whole thing into a chore. I was able to take my time with it and appreciate every step of the process. I didn't have to rush or get frustrated when I made mistakes and then had to undo them, because I had two weeks at my disposal.
So I took a lot of care with it. As a result it's probably my favourite of all the baby blankets I've made. And  I learned a valuable lesson in the process... although, I must admit, I'm sure I've learned this lesson more than once before!

Flat Out

This is how I felt for much of the Easter school holiday:

I wasn't ill, I just found this 'break' a bit intense (relentless is the word that actually comes to mind).



Now Annie and Eliza are back to school/play school I've been able to indulge in a little crafting and I'm slowly coming round!



I've nothing finished to show, but several nearly completed projects...



... just to prove I'm still a crafter!
 

Happy Birthday Dad!

Look!

 


(Who'd have known the Easter Bunny shops at Small Fox's Etsy store?!)

Happy Easter!

Fair Isle, Intarsia and more Blocking Fever!

I'm still plodding on with my blanket. 

     

In order to maintain interest I borrowed this book from the library:

    
I was after a heart motif which I found:

I also found lots of other designs which I wanted to try out. The graphs are easy to follow and there's a wealth of inspiration between the pages.

The book's also really good for advice on techniques such as weaving yarn in, in order to carry it across the back of the work and for twisting the yarns together when changing from one colour to another.

It's not what you'd call a coffee table book though, you wouldn't idly flick through it dreaming of one day having the time and resources to make the beauties within. This is mainly because there are actually no pictures of any knitting within the pages: I know; crazy!

It's crammed full of coloured graphs of motifs but there is not one single picture showing you what a design actually looks like knitted up. So I've obliged here and provided knitted samples!

If you are bored with the whole blocking story then look away now. My fascination continues and I noticed in the response to Alicia's post on the subject, there were requests to see before and after pictures. So here we go:

Before:

During:

And after:

Unfortunately, blocking can't disguise terribly ropey edges and the odd hole, but other than that it's fairly miraculous, you end up with a lovely pile of beauties like this: