Fetching for Me

Last year Glittr gave me two balls of Frog Tree Alpaca with a note suggesting I make myself a pair of Fetching wrist warmers. Though I have knitted 6+ pairs of them for other people it wasn't until it started to get cold that I realised I'd never made any for myself. So, on Saturday I cast on a pair at the Centurion and finished them on Sunday morning. I forgot what a quick knit they are.

Pigiphant?

After a trip to Hobbycraft on my way home from work I finally got to finish a couple of my animal creations. I can't help feeling a bit like Dr Frakenstein as I sew on the legs and head, cackling to myself. Mu, ha ha ha!

Firstly there's Lion, who is a present for the new baby son, Matthew of our friends Helen and Phil, born last week. I managed to snap a photo when he was out exploring the garden this morning.

"Roar!"

Then there's this beasty which I was referring to as an elephant right up until friday night, when I put on the ears and it took on a more piggy look. It has now been rechristened Pigiphant.

Pigiphant is made from the remnants of a ball of regia. Lion is made out of remnants of DB baby cashmerino (yellow), baby alpaca (off white), yellow handspun (not by me) and scraps of black.

On the bright side....

I've been feeling quite sorry for myself for the past week or so. I have a horrible cold. I've managed to keep going at work but I spent last weekend just sitting on the sofa, or laying in bed. I thought I needed something simple and chunky to occupy myslef with. I found this Drops pattern for a cardigan on Ravelry. I happened to have some yarn I bought a few years ago in Boyes, Chester-le-Street in the correct weight. The yarn was for the first cardigan I had ever knitted for myself and when I finished it it was huge and ugly, so I frogged it. The yarn has been in my stash ever since. I finished the cardigan last night (I would have finished it on Wednesday night if I hadn't misread the pattern). Here it is (apologies for the fuzzy photo taken at 6am on timer):

I used some elephant buttons I bought at the 2006 woolfest. I spent some time trying to decide whether the use of the elephant buttons made it look like a child's cardigan. I'm still undecided. I welcome oppinions.

Animals

I was feeling a bit off my knitting a couple of weeks ago and I've been having a serious urge to crochet for a while now. I borrowed some Japanese crochet books from Lucy and thought I'd use up some odds and ends. Here's the first of my creations. Graeme has cristened him Fiver.

I've since made a lion, a bear with a frog hat on and am half way through an elephant. Unfortunately I somehow lost my sewing needles this weekend and the poor elephant is in pieces on the living room table. I can't order any more and I won't have time to go anywhere that sells them during the week. Oh for a truly local yarn store.

I was listening to Cast On yesterday morning and Brenda was discussing how difficult it is to get dress making supplies in this country. This struck a chord with me, following the demise of Fenwick's craft section during the last few weeks. I've been thinking about how it happened. I don't think it's because there's no demand for that sort of thing. If there weren't places like Hobbycraft would go out of business. I think it's the perceptions of people higher up the company that it's not worth bothing with. They've been running the section into the ground for a while. No wonder the customers stopped coming so much. What makes me feel doubly sad about it this week is that because there's no post I can't get internet supplies at the moment either.