roman sock

Christmas on the mind...

I have been totally waylaid by my entries for the Holiday Softie Awards http://softiescentral.typepad.com/blog/. All the entries are absolutely stunning, I just marvel at the creativity of people. The whole thing has got me feeling all Christmasy, and the nights really feel like they are drawing in.

Tonight we went for a walk down the Royal Mile (The street that links Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace) and in the soft night it could easily have been a couple of hundred years ago. We then headed into Arthur's seat and just gloried in the night air. Sometimes the world still seems magical.

and a little robin

 

All this means I have neglected the Instant Gratification Crochet page... I am a very bad girl. The good news is that the Robin will be included in the set. I am writing up the patterns and they should be on-line in the next couple of days. So keep an eye out!

not the smartest giraffe in the herd

I have been beavering away all of last week on this little creature. He is very silly and a bit daft, but I like him the better for it. Out of all the creatures on the planet, in some way the giraffe seems the most unlikely. Like something a child has drawn, that should have been a horse or a deer and ended up all out of proportion.

up for some fun!

handsome darling

isn't he eager

reaching...

posing

silly in search of a leaf

When I was little I was lucky enough to live in Africa, and coming face to face with these creatures makes you realise they are not a joke. They are beautiful.  Elegant, gentle and soft. I have amazing memories of playing in Great Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe with my granddad running between the ruins and climbing as high as I could. Those days are full of desert and laughter for me.I don't know if it was the dust that made them seem golden in my mind, or some trick of memory. We also saw Victoria Falls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Falls I just have a few memories of what it looked like. But when I shut my eyes I can remember the sound, like the whole earth was roaring.

I am hoping to get the Instant Gratification part of the website done over the weekend. It will have a loads of super quick patterns. I will start with the elephant and hedgehog as well as a robin, I have almost finished. I have a long list of other things to include! 

A quickie - Elephant

It felt so good, yesterday, holding the little hedgehog after just a little while of work, I thought I would try another super quick softie. I think I am going to start a page of patterns for these tiny little things that can be made quickly from scraps.

I wanted something a little more challenging, so he is made all in one piece, apart from the ears. The wool is alpaca silk - to my mind the best combination on the planet - and he settles in your hand with a satisfying weight.

Showing his lines

diva moment

I am having one of those times again, the wanderlust is hitting me. As a child I moved around every two years or so, and now every two years I feel the urge to flutter off and find a new life. Although, deep down, I am sick of fluttering. I want a home - a proper home, with a garden, and birds, with grass and trees, filled with books and wool. Somewhere that feels safe and mine.

Because we moved so often, a bit like elephants, I suppose, I don't have a 'home village' or even, for that matter, a 'home'.  We always lived in a house, rather than a home: it was always temporary. I wonder if a home is something you can acquire if you've never had one? Anyway, this sounds very morose and I don't mean it to. I am listening to some students, that live across the lane, singing their hearts out to "unbreak my heart". Long live karaoke! As long as they stop soon so I can sleep.

Hedgehogitis

I have far too many crochet projects on the go at the moment. So tonight I just wanted to make something small, simple and cute.

Hedgehogs are becoming rarer in the UK, because there is less habitat for them and road sense isn't their strong suit. I never get to see them, living in a flat high up in central Edinburgh, but they always remind me of simpler times, when I would stay with my Oma in the Netherlands.

Oma adored hedgehogs and had many in her garden. She loved to feed them, and made small ponds for them to drink from. To me they always seemed like fairy ponds. Oma and I would watch from the window as they came out from under the shrubs and sipped at the water. The list of things I associate with Oma is strange and long, lemon balm, budgies, fleeces, silk, Oma cream, books and lempers...So in a sense, I suppose this is a nostalgia hedgehog.

He is made from Sirdar Baby Bamboo, which I find brushes out to fluff really well, as well as some brown wool scraps, and my very favorite Paton's Spirit.

I really love this picture of him, he looks like he is scampering.

Now climbing: a real adventure hog!

A hedgehog in the hand isn't worth two in the bush, but he looks cute anyway.

I have lived in Scotland for a long time now, and absolutely love it. I never usually feel like an outsider, except when England is playing sport. When England plays, Scottish people tend to furiously support the opposite team ( whereas, in England, within my experience, when England bows out we support any other members of the UK). It always slightly upsets me because I wish we could support each other, if we cant play together. It makes you remember how tenuous the union is.

The bag is coming along too...

Grimsby Towers

I am back from my business trip and waiting for me was a parcel of wool I had ordered from my favorite wool shop http://www.angelyarns.com/. Ahhhh nothing beats wool rush, it gives me the same feeling I used to get from an ice cream on a summers day.

I am using the purple wool on a new bag design. The blue is for a poison dart frog and the white mohair for a little arctic fox cub and the alpaca for a giraffe.

I have spent the last two days in Grimsby, a place that used to be thriving and successful, which now has very little industry, with what it does have ever-diminishing. It was voted the UK's sixth worse place to live, and its next door neighbour Hull the second worst, last night on Location, Location, Location. I love Kirsty and Phil http://www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/best&worst/index.html.

I stayed at an old hotel in the middle of nowhere, which was very Fawlty Towers. It had an amazing old facade, but underneath it was all 70's. The carpets smelled of many nights of spilled beer. (I didn't bend down to smell it, trust me, the smell found its way up!)

I was very relieved to get back to Edinburgh. (Best place to live!! I am not sure I totally agree, I prefered Surrey, but I am pleased for the city.)

This is a photo I took at the weekend:

I have been so impressed by the entries for the Holiday Softie Awards http://www.flickr.com/groups/530820@N23/  it has kind of paralyzed me. I wanted to put the crazy evil kitty in, but now I am in two minds. I made it for the creepy cute category, and it certainly is creepy, but is it cute enough!

This lady's work totally astounds me http://www.sotosofties.blogspot.com/. She has some of the most amazing softies I have ever seen.

A final quirky thought - Coming home on the train today, I saw part of a magazine, that a lady was reading, with a true-life headline "He would cry from loneliness, IF HE HAD EYES." A very serious subject, I'm sure, but quite incredible sensationalism. I hate to admit it, but I couldn't help myself, I had to stifle a laugh.

Tabby Cyclops Kitty

This is an idea I have had for a while, I wanted to make a cyclops kitty but wanted him to be a tabby...

Snuggled...

shy...or evil

 

The stare...

playing...

I have also been tracing my family tree and found out that four generations of my ancestors were lace makers, and my Gran's mother was a crochet addict! So I guess the crafting bug comes down through the ages... I am away on business for a couple of days and hope to come back with a new bag pattern I have been working on!

A bit of a damp squib and a x-mas Meerkat

Back at last ... but the trip was a bit of a wash out.

The location was gorgeous but the accommodation was damp and cold so we left early... It is so disappointing when you look forward to your holiday for ages, take time off, pack, sort out your house and then arrive and it is horrible. Anyway I won't dwell on it...

To cheer myself up I gave Monty the Meerkat a Christmas outfit for the Holiday Softie Awards.

And the close up...

A look at the decorations...

The scenery was stunning,

particularly at dusk, 

but I am really glad to be back.

byebye edinburgh

I'm finally off for a lovely highland break. We are actually hoping for every variation of rain and wind and moody fog. We are looking for atmosphere!

So, byebye edinburgh...

byebye busy streets...

byebye tourists with big smiles and flashy cameras...

Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments about my patterns. I'm hoping to return, refreshed, and with more patterns in my pocket.

byebye blog.

The meerkats have landed

This was a bit of a hard slog, but Monty has a missus!!!!!!!............and here is the pattern Download meerkat.pdf .

Making a meerkat is deceptively simple and because these two look lonely by themselves - I think I am going to need to give them some more meerkat friends and meerkat babies. They are a little more time consuming than the pom or frog, but just because they are bigger

I hope you enjoy making your meerkat, and maybe you can let me see a picture when you are done, so that monty can see his relatives. I'd really love that!

I am very much looking forward to my holiday next week...crochet time only interrupted by long walks by the lochs...perfect. I will take lots of pics, and maybe the meerkats will get an outing or two.

we look up to you

 

the look of love

lament of the granny square

I am working hard on the meerkat pattern and it should be ready extremely soon. I am loathe to say tomorrow because I keep saying that, but really I promise...very soon...probably tomorrow. See I have wrestled him down already!

I had a grand idea for a carpet-bag-inspired, granny-square bag and now I have the wool and have started. I am just not sure about the colours or the design!

This is the carpet it was inspired by.

And this is what I have come up with! They just don't feel right. I am not sure if I should just give it up now and frog it or if I should try to make the whole bag and see if it works...I am so confused.

It is starting to feel more wintery now, and at the weekend we went for a winter walk. It was muddy but gorgeous with high pine trees and falling leaves, but me being me..I slipped in the mud and fell flat on back! The mud was just so muddy that I kind of sunk... and I couldn't get up because I was laughing so hard. I love it when that happens, it makes me feel...real, somehow, if that makes sense. More alive.