On the needles...

The ten stitch blanket is getting dangerously close to being finished.

Plus I am also knitting a bonsai tree.

This is for the Botanica Mathematica project; combining nature, knitting and numbers. Also whilst walking home I noticed that this mysterious owl has appeared on a wall nearby and is brightening up the area.

How cute!

Eggcellent!

With the ten-stitch blanket still being worked on, I was looking for smaller, more portable projects. I picked a variety of toppers for Easter eggs and started to knit.  Firstly, Eggheads by Emily Ivey.

These are very cute, and very quick to knit.  There are three different hats to knit, and they look great topped with a tiny pompom.  These fit a Cadbury cream egg, or a medium hens egg.  Next I knitted a rabbit egg cozy by Linda Dawkins.  The ears are adorable.  The finished cozy is slightly bigger that the Eggheads pattern, and will fit a large hens egg or a Kinder egg.

They will also fit a guinea pig.  Here is Jeremy auditioning for a role as the Easter Bunny.

Finally, I knitted fuzzy Easter bunny egg warmers from Drops. These are knitted using two strands, scrap acrylic and a mohair-look yarn.

I then added felt eyes and nose.  They are very sweet!  These toppers with cover an egg completely, and they will stand up by themselves.

Are you knitting anything for Easter?

Where is the bear?

Back in November I had a try at illusion knitting.  I had thought it was going to be very complex, but was much easier that I thought.  That is thanks to the excellent tutorial from Woolly Thoughts and some stitch markets (stitch markers are your friend in illusion knitting).  I chose a teddy bear pattern from Woolly Thoughts for a friends baby, some Sirdar Snuggly, and got to work.

The blanket took about 3 weeks, including the border.  Full details on how I did the border my ravelry project page.  The blanket is very cute, who would have thought that knit and purl could create such a great illusion.  And the bear will be perfectly seen from a baby's-eye-view.  I had a little yarn spare, so added a simple baby hat by Allison Williams, with added teddy bear ears (obviously!).

And also some cute booties.  These are Seamless Baby Booties by Laura Yarnthrower.

These were all good fun to knit, and I would certainly like to try more illusion knits.  Ps) Apologies for the dull lighting in the photographs, roll on Spring!

Ten stitch...

My ten stitch blanket is now just over a metre wide, and I still have a lot of yarn to destatsh.  

I have been enjoying some of the yarn labels.

The very 70s looking sugar and spice.

The twee superstar DK.

And the cute cool as cotton.  I've always thought of yarn labels as informative rather than decorative.  Maybe I will start to pay a little more attention!

Holiday crafting...

January is coming to a close, and I am only just sharing my holiday crafting... A squishy red festive hat for a friend, using the Farm Beanie pattern by Allison Britt and drops merino extra fine.

Wingspan for my mum, using drops delight.  I really like the long colour changes in this yarn, it works really well with this pattern.

And more freezer paper stencils, I love Fenny bags, for friends who just love Fenny Stratford.

I still have some other rather fabulous knitted gifts, but can't share them just yet!  In the meantime, have you seen this wonderful knitted Black Forest cake? 

Progress...

Repetitive movements are slowly making the blanket bigger, and my lap warmer.

Well hello 2013!

The start of any year is always full of good intentions, and this year is no different.  One of my resolutions is to de-stash.  I have a lot of yarn.  I have yarn that I've brought, yarn that I've been given, yarn without labels, tiny balls of yarn that I'm saving for a mystery occasion, yarn that seems to have appeared (maybe it multiplies?) and more sadly, yarn that I will probably never use.  I have a long list of projects that I want to make, however this generally involves buying more yarn (as there is never quite right yarn in the stash).  To try to combat this, I have cast on a ten-stitch blanket by Frankie Brown.

My aim is to use all the acrylic DK yarn that I have to create a big blanket.  The great thing about this blanket, is that there is no sewing up - hurrah!  I suspect that the random bright colours will create quite a kitsch finished piece, which is all good!  I just hope it doesn't take me seven years like the last blanket I made...  What are your crafty resolutions for 2013?