Baby Things!

If you ask any of my friends and family, they'll tell you that I don't have a maternal bone in my body. And they're quite right but that doesn't mean that I don't have a little bit of a squee over teeny tiny baby clothes and toys. Also, I will admit that I did melt more than a little when I saw my new niece and nephew at the weekend - they are adorable.

Obviously, I just had to make stuff for them. I'm so going to be that random aunt who knits clothes for their toys when they want the proper bought stuff, lol. But I don't mind that, I have very fond memories of toys my Nana made me when I was a kid.

The first things I made, I didn't actually end up giving to the babies because they were far too small. The twins were premature and even smaller again because they are twins so I made a pair of hats in the 'premmie' size but by the time we managed to go to Dorset and see them, they'd grown to 'new born' size and the hats I made were comically small. That's okay though, I have brought them back home and put them on a couple of our Funko figures instead.

The pattern I used was this one from AlliCrafts. I'm definitely going to make them again because they are so cute but this time, I'll make them in the correct size.

The next couple of things I made were far more successful, to the point that my sister-in-law claimed that she wanted to keep them for herself, lol. Cuddly toys, they're always a winner.

The first toy I made was one that I'd made before for a my mum's friend's baby. So I already knew how easy the pattern is and just how adorable the finished product is. I'm talking about Rachel H's L'il Baby Unicorn I love this toy so much, it's really to fun to make and looks great; I highly recommend giving it a try. The first time I made it, I stuck Rachel H's colours of pink and red because it was for a little girl and the colours were one of the reasons I wanted to try it in the first place. This time, even though it's a unicorn I wanted it to be something both the twins could play with if they wanted. I had a ball of Robin DK in bright pink, blue and white in my stash that I've been looking for a good project to use it on and I thought this would be perfect, especially if I used plain blue as the contrast colour to offset the pink even more.

The original L'il Unicorn I made a couple of years ago.

The second toy I decided to make was Emma's Crochet Stripy Giraffe. Just look at it, I could not resist something that cute. Again I wanted both twins to be able to play with and cuddle it so I tried to use colours that would appeal to both boys and girls. This was a great pattern; I know that there have been some negative comments on Emma's page but I didn't have any problems at all and would definitely recommend giving it a go. In fact I'm planning on making a couple more for my friends because I had lots of fun making this [and so did my cat who discovered a fun new game of stealing a leg and making me chase him to get it back].

War. War Never Changes

Lots to do today so just a quick post of the next square on the Blanket of Doom.

I got into playing video games about 2 years ago and since then, there have been a few games that me and my husband both love to spend an evening playing. One of our favourites is Fallout: New Vegas. Although we disagree about how to play it; I love doing actual quests whereas he will randomly scour the map and investigate every shack or cave he finds.

I wanted to do a Fallout: New Vegas square and initially was going to a Nuka Cola logo [actually, I first wanted to do Vault Boy but the square's just too small for that]. But when I was looking for a decent picture of the logo on Google, I stumbled across a picture of the sign for The Tops Casino and I far preferred that idea.

Square 28: Fallout: New Vegas

This is a design that I made for my own personal use and is not endorsed by or being used by Lamas and Lattes or the official Geek-a-long blanket. I am merely a fan of their project and have decided to make my own version. Don't forget to visit the Geek-a-long page to show your support for the official Geek-a-long blanket project which is raising money for a great cause and if you'd like to donate to that cause then please visit The Child's Play Charity here.

Either a green unicorn just raced across the lab, or I accidentally took some LSD.

This week, I'm taking a little bit of a break from the blanket to crochet some stuff for the baby twins my in-laws just had. Baby things are so adorable, even my husband's got involved and bought some teeny tiny baby clothes for them. I'm going to take pics of the things I'm making and post them next week so for now, let's go back to the squares for the Blanket of Doom.

For the next square, we're back to TV shows because I wanted to make a 'Fringe' square. It turned out to be a lot trickier than I expected. My first idea was to do one of the logos that appear on the opening credits, like the seahorse or the apple but I really wanted something more related to Walter because he's my husband's favourite character. So I thought I'd make a pattern with Gene, Walter's cow from the lab but quickly realised that it would end up just being a square with a cow on and no real relation to the show at all. Then I remembered the episode where Walter tells a detective noir story involving all the main characters and in it Gene the cow has bright multi-coloured spots. Perfect because I'd just learned the double knitting with more than two colours technique I talked about in the last post.

I didn't want a cartoony looking cow and most of the more realistic looking cow charts online were too big for the square. I did find a smaller cow chart which I used as a base for Gene but it looks like I forgot to save it and now I can't find it again. If it belongs to you, please let me know so that I can credit you. But because I did alter the base to make it more Gene-like, I have posted the final chart I made. 

Square 27: Fringe.

I really did struggle with this square. At one point I was working with five different colours of wool at the same time and it was so difficult; it tangled really easily and took ages to complete (about twice as long as a normal square). I'm sticking to three colours only from this point on, lol.

Also, I might have run out of purple before I managed to finish *ahem*. I think I would have cried if I had to unravel everything I'd already done but I came up with the brilliant idea of adding stripes to the top of the square to represent the different coloured universes on the show. Okay, so it was a bit of a bandaid fix-it but I don't think it looks too bad at all; the stripes kind of go with the spots so it works.

This is a design that I made for my own personal use and is not endorsed by or being used by Lamas and Lattes or the official Geek-a-long blanket. I am merely a fan of their project and have decided to make my own version. Don't forget to visit the Geek-a-long page to show your support for the official Geek-a-long blanket project which is raising money for a great cause and if you'd like to donate to that cause then please visit The Child's Play Charity here.

Alpha Waves

Back to the Blanket of Doom and it's about time for some comic book representation, I think.

We have a definite comic book divide in our house; I love Marvel and DC so they take up the majority of my comic shelves [I do have some others, such as Preacher, Freshmen and Hellboy but Deadpool, Hawkeye, Red Hood et al rule my heart]. My husband, on the other hand, far prefers indie comics; so give him The Walking Dead, We3 or Grandville and he's a happy bunny. But the majority of his comic shelves are taken up by 2000AD. So when it came to picking comic book squares for his blanket, that was obviously the way to go and I had to start with his favourite character; Strontium Dog.

It came as no surprise whatsoever to come up empty when looking for Strontium Dog charts online, I pretty much knew going in that I would be making this chart myself. I decided to keep it simple and go for a Search/Destroy Agency badge and disguise the gold on the edging by making the black outline thicker. Then I went browsing on the Geek-a-long Ravelry group...

I was on the 'Alternative Geekery' thread [because that's obviously where I belong] and a member called Whistler42 posted a photo of squares she'd made using more than two colours. Double knitting with more than two colours? It blew my mind! Thankfully, she also posted links to the video tutorial's she'd used to learn how to do that and I already had a candidate ready and waiting; I could add the gold edging to the S/D badge after all.

The video tutorials were made by Alasdair Post-Quinn and the ones I found most helpful were:
How to follow a three-colour two-pattern double-knit chart  and How to do a three-colour double-knit selvedge

Square number 26: Strontium Dog.

I'm pretty pleased with how this came out. I like that the badge is a bit grungy; perfect for a post-apocalyptic UK [although I'm sure that with a little bit of playing around with the chart, you could get a smoother outline if that's what you'd prefer].

Knitting with three colours is definitely fiddly and the yarns get tangled very quickly. Also, the extra wool being carried along means that the square is a lot bigger lengthwise than my other squares. I've decided to deal with that by having one row of the taller squares along the middle of the blanket; that way, I won't be trying to fit a bigger square in a row with smaller ones and throwing the whole aesthetic out of the window.

Overall, I think that double knitting with more than two colours is something you could only do in small doses - I definitely couldn't have done a whole blanket that way; I'd have thrown in the towel after just two or three squares, lol. I'm glad that I tried it though and I do think that my row of multicoloured squares will look great.

This is a design that I made for my own personal use and is not endorsed by or being used by Lamas and Lattes or the official Geek-a-long blanket. I am merely a fan of their project and have decided to make my own version. Don't forget to visit the Geek-a-long page to show your support for the official Geek-a-long blanket project which is raising money for a great cause and if you'd like to donate to that cause then please visit The Child's Play Charity here.

Na na - na na - na na - na na - Slippers!

I named this blog the Stitchy Nook because I wanted it to cover most of the crafts I like doing but so far, it's been very knit-heavy. Obviously, this is because I'm currently working on the Blanket of Doom. Usually, though, knitting is a lot lower down in the favourite crafts list because I much prefer crochet and cross stitch. So even though, I'm still working on the blanket, I'm going to try and drop in details of other things I've made that aren't knitted, every here and there.

The first thing I want to show you, purely because I'd completely forgotten about them until a few days ago, are my Batman slippers. I'd been meaning to crochet a pair of slippers for a while and finally gave it a go. The link to the exact pattern I used has died and, having looked through the other posts on that particular blog, I think the creator has taken the pattern down completely. But if you wanted to recreate these slippers then any pattern for a basic slipper will work, as long as it's for a slipper that will cover the top of your foot rather than a strappy or Mary Jane slipper. Zoom yummy's slippers or Mammy Made's slippers look to be similar to the ones I made.

I crocheted the actual slipper in a shimmery black wool that I have in my stash and then I used the Batman applique pattern from the amazing Louie's Loops site [seriously, you need to check this site out, it's fab!]. And ta da! Batman slippers!

Looking for Love in Alderaan Places!

I love fair isle knitting, I think it looks fab and it's really fun to knit up. That's why I enjoyed making the Frolicking Reindeer hats so much.

[Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the first one I made before I gifted it to a friend]

 

 

 

 When I was trawling the internet, looking for a pattern to use on the inside of the blue reindeer hat, I happened upon a bunch of geeky fair isle patterns - Doctor Who, Star Wars, Zelda etc. and I pinned  them on my Pinterest account for future use. A few weeks later, I was looking for something to put in the square allocated to another Star Wars pattern and I suddenly had a brilliant thought; why not use part of that fair isle pattern I'd put away for a rainy day [or to make a scarf next winter]?

So I headed over to Doodlewhale's site and grabbed the chart, which turned out not to be a knitting chart at all but a design for a fair isle style t-shirt; it worked brilliantly anyway. I picked out my favourite bit - the AT AT Walker getting all tied up - and set to work.

Square number 25: Star Wars: AT AT Walker

I think that this is my favourite square yet, it looks great and I'm happy that I decided to go with navy and white rather than black and white - it feels more snowy and wintery.

Weirdly enough, when I was half way through knitting this square, the lovely Kaleidiscope  on Ravelry.com noticed that I'd made some Star Wars projects and linked me to another Star Wars fair isle scarf pattern that also has an AT AT on it. Such a cool coincidence. Plus I loved the pattern she linked me to so keep an eye out for that, I'm hoping to make it later this year.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I've mentioned before that my husband and I got tattoos this time last year to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. I'd mentioned it because originally we were going to get something from the Zelda games (I was going to get the heart containers and he wanted an 8bit Link) but we actually ended up getting tattoos from one of our favourite films; The Princess Bride.

So, we have tattoos from The Princess Bride and one of our cats is named after a character from it; obviously I had to make a Princess Bride square for the Blanket of Doom too.

Luckily, the girls at Geek-a-long were way ahead of me and had come up with a Dread Pirate Roberts square for their blanket. Finally, I could join in with the Geek-a-long again! And it's a freakishly similar design to my husband's tattoo - it's like fate :D

Square number 24: The Princess Bride

I didn't go very adventurous with the colours on this one, just cream and black. It's a lovely design though and knitted up very quickly.

One last thing; wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva… So tweasure your wuv. <3

We do not Sow!

After the epically long post about my cats, I know have a pretty short post about the new square on The Blanket of Doom.

I decided to go back to the Game of Thrones-verse because my husband really does love that show and the books. I originally intended to do the Targaryen symbol with the three headed dragon because that seems to be a popular choice. But then my husband started mentioning the Greyjoys and how much he liked them. So I looked them up and discovered that their symbol is a kraken. A kraken! That's awesome! It's almost good enough to get me watching the show.

I went back to i crochet things who had made the amazing Stark direwolf chart I used earlier in the blanket and, lo and behold, she had also made a Greyjoy's one - on the very same page as the Stark one. So the kraken had to be done.

Square number 23: Game of Thrones: The Greyjoy's symbol.

As ever, just click on the light blue links to take you to the correct page for the chart. And while you're there, check out the other great crochet patterns. It's definitely worth a look.

Check Meowt!

In the last entry of this blog, I posted a picture of one of my cats with The Blanket of Doom. So I thought I would introduce you to them all.

If you'd asked me 5 years ago if I liked cats, I would've laughed and insisted that I was more of a dog person. Then my husband had a couple of pints too many on a Saturday afternoon watching while football down the pub. Apparently he started getting worried on the walk home, that I might be angry with him for staying out longer than promised then he passed a sign in a house window that said 'free kittens to a good home' and a tipsy light bulb went off in his head - I couldn't get mad at him if he had got an adorable kitten for me, right? To be fair, she was and still is very adorable and she was definitely a better drunken gift than the time he bought me a loaf of bread.

So that's how Captain Americat - or Merry, for short - was added to our family and how I became a definite cat person.

Baby Merry

Merry now - 'helping' me with my knitting

About 6 months after we had Merry, my mother-in-law discovered her cat was pregnant and asked if we wanted one of the kittens. Of course we did! When they were born there was a little gray tabby among the other black and brown kittens in the litter that was definitely the kitten for us. And we named her Purrlock Holmes.

Purrlock when we first met her

Purrlock now - definitely not stealing things off the Christmas tree

When we visited the in-laws' to meet Purrlock, there was this other kitten who, when the other kittens were playing, would just sit and stare at my husband with these huge, sad eyes like Puss-in-boots from the Shrek films. I swear, my husband fell in love with that kitten quicker than he did with me, lol. So we suddenly went from having one cat to having three. My husband named his kitten Inigo Meowtoya after the Princess Bride film and those two are pretty much inseparable these days.

Inigo winning my husband over

Inigo now in all his fluffy glory

So those are my cats and I love them all to bits even though they're obviously plotting world domination. Seriously, I finished brushing my teeth last night and turned around to find this:

You can't tell me they aren't up to something.

Everything is Awesome!

I forgot to post this on the last entry but I took a photo of all the squares I had up to the Donnie Darko one so that I could get an idea of how big this thing is going to be when it's finished. I just wanted to see the size so far so a few of the squares are the wrong way around but it does give an idea of how it's going to look when it's finished.

And here is one of our cats, Inigo Meowtoya, staking his claim on the blanket before anyone else can. Sorry, husband of mine, looks like you were just too slow ;)

If I show you this photo of my husband and a birthday present he received last year...

...you will understand why one of the squares on this blanket had to represent Lego - I mean, look how happy he is with that Lego starship!

At the time, I couldn't find any Lego charts online so made my own. Then about a week later, Geek-a-long published their Lego pattern and I've since found a few others on Pinterest too. Sod's law! Never mind, there can't be too many Lego related knitting patterns out there, that's what I say.

Square number 22: Lego

I went with yellow to get the really iconic Lego brick and obviously needed white for the highlights but I find the pattern a hard to see in these colours. Maybe I should have gone with more of a mustard yellow instead.

This is a design that I made for my own personal use and is not endorsed by or being used by Lamas and Lattes or the official Geek-a-long blanket. I am merely a fan of their project and have decided to make my own version. Don't forget to visit the Geek-a-long page to show your support for the official Geek-a-long blanket project which is raising money for a great cause and if you'd like to donate to that cause then please visit The Child's Play Charity here.