I Used to be an Adventurer Like You, Then I Took an Arrow in the Knee!

I was wrong about Pop in the Box again! I guessed something from Star Wars and got Captain America; not that I'm complaining, I love Captain America and Star Wars is more the husband's thing :D

Our Pop collection is definitely growing (they really are addictive little buggers) so we've had to put up a couple of new shelves to move stuff around and make room. The first shelf is a very narrow one which we bought specifically for some pops and I think it looks great.

The second shelf is a much bigger one that we've bought to display part of our comic book collection and free up some of our bookshelves. Unfortunately because the shelf is so much bigger, the cats have decided that it's their shelf and have claimed it in the name of kittydom!

God help us when the new bookends arrive and we actually do try and move our comics up there, lol. I'd probably better hide my shoes before they're peed on as revenge.

 My new cross stitch is coming along well. I've passed that horrible stage where you're just putting random dots at random points inside the hoop and you think it's going nowhere. Now it's beginning to look like something. I've still got a very long way to go but I can see it start to take shape which is far more fun. I will start posting pics of my progress when all the Blanket of Doom stuff has been posted.

Speaking of which, it's onto the next square.

I only really got into gaming a few years ago, before that it was just Katamari and a few tries of Guitar Hero. I've always enjoyed watching other people play so never really felt the need to play myself;, even now I'm happy to spend the evening watching my husband fighting Feral Ghouls in the Mojave Wasteland while I craft on the sofa. Then I randomly watched a Youtube video of Day9 and Felicia Day playing Kingdom of Amalur and loved the idea of exploring and collecting treasure...but I really didn't want to have to fight big giant spiders. I mentioned this to my best friend and she told me to try Elder Scrolls: Skyrim because there's lots of exploring and definitely no spiders in that. Those of you who have played Skyrim, you will know that not only are there loads and loads of spiders in it but they actually appear within the first ten minutes of the game. Needless to say, the husband was forced to have a go at Skyrim too when I ran screaming into the kitchen and left my poor character to fend for herself. It was while he was battling on my behalf that he discovered that he was quite enjoying the game, decided to play it himself and got completely hooked.

For those that are interested, I am still happily playing Skyrim and have no problem with the giant spiders anymore (that first time was just a really big shock). And riding high on that success, I've also bought Kingdom of Amalur and kick arse in that game too. Oh! And when questioned, my best friend replied 'I've no idea why I said that, there's lots of spiders in Skyrim'. *sigh*

Square number 41: Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

I got the chart from Tanya's Knits and it was great; it knit up very quickly and I think it looks brilliant. I'm actually a bit jealous and wish I'd kept the design back for my own blanket, whenever I actually get around to that.


This is a design that I found on Pinterest 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 of the blanket. 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.

That's How I Roll

Many years ago, when we first got together, I made a meal so horrible that my husband banned me from cooking. True story. But lately I've had a hankering to bake stuff - I blame The Great British Bake Off for this.I've made a few batches of biscuits and some mince pies in December then we received a food mixer for Christmas from my in-laws so I wanted to break it in by baking an actual cake. My husband's been hogging the mixer to make bread (not that I'm complaining about that) but I finally got a chance to use it Monday night while he was distracted by The Walking Dead. Armed with this recipe for Lemon Drizzle Cake I took over the kitchen and here's my result:

It rose loads so I probably need a bigger tin to bake it in and I had to cook it for 20 minutes longer than the recipe stated before the inside was cooked which meant that the outside burned a little bit...but, man, it tastes amazing! I'm so proud of this, it's the first cake I've baked since I was in school.

On the crafting front, I'm still awaiting new wool to complete the two remaining squares on the Blanket of Doom so the knitting has been put on hold until Monday when the wool fairy (otherwise known as my mum) visits. In the meantime, I've started a cross stitch project that I've been wanting to do for a while. It pointless me posting any pics of it yet as I've only just started and I doubt anyone wants to look at random dots on a big expanse of white but I'll post some when I'm further along.

Even though the blanket's on hold for now, I still have a load of squares that I haven't posted yet so here's the next one. This square is taken from a game that's a huge favourite of me and my husband and is one of the first games I ever played (he talked me into it when we first got a PS2). I'm talking about Katamari Damacy. It's an insane and addictive game with a soundtrack that worms it's way into your brain and stays there for weeks. We love it! So it had to go onto the blanket.

Square 32: Katamari Damacy

I originally knitted this up in purple with the katamari in a pink, blue and white colourway wool in order to try and sum up just how bright and colourful the game is. But it was just too busy and you couldn't see the pattern, just an multi-coloured blob on a purple background. So I frogged that one and grabbed my bright orange instead which I paired with a more sedate green to accentuate the brightness of the orange. I really like this combination, it clashes but in a good way.

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.

You Just Keep on Trying 'Til You Run Out of Cake

I pulled a mini disappearing act, sorry about that. Things have been a little busy here; me and the husband just had our eleventh wedding anniversary so we've been doing romantic things likes watching Robocop (the proper 80s version, of course). Also the mugs are selling well and I've been working hard on new designs.

To make up for not posting for over a week, I'm going to post two of the squares on the Blanket of Doom. But before I do that, the lovely Megan-Anne from the Geek-a-long has pointed out to me that I haven't mentioned the most important part of the entire Geek-a-long project, the fact that they have done this to raise money for charity. The GAL girls have created this awesome project and made all the charts available for free so if you would like to show your appreciation then donate a little something to the Child's Play Charity at this page.

Square 29 of the BoD came about purely because I was looking at various charts on Pinterest, saw this a Transformers chart and thought 'Of course! How could I have forgotten that?'. My husband used to have a Transformers t-shirt that he wore all the time with the Autobot logo wearing Groucho Marx glasses, a fake nose and moustache (Robots in disguise :P ) and I bought him one years ago that had LED lights that lit up - that one didn't last past a couple of washes before the battery pack got ruined, it was great while it lasted though. So  Transformers square had to be done.

Square 29: Transformers.

I'm so happy that I found Elizabeth Thomas' design. It's the prefect size, it was great fun to knit up and I am over the moon with the finished result.

The next square is one that I knew I was going to do right from the beginning. There are a fair few squares representing video games on this blanket but I definitely had to get Portal in there. I originally planned to do the warning sign that shows the stick man jumping off a ledge into a portal but when it came down to it, I just had to do the cake - that image sums up the entire game for me.

Again I was lucky enough to find a chart online and as with the Autobot one, mirukukeki's Portal chart was the perfect fit.

Square 30: Portal.

Don't forget, to access a link, just click on the blue writing and, if you have the time, I'd love to know what you think of the blog so far.

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.

Did you know that the original name for Pac-Man was Puck-Man?

Woo! It's almost Christmas! Which means that it's time to catch-up with any TV series we're behind on so that we can make room in our Sky+ planner for all the Christmas shows and films we want to record. So I'm now completely up to date on Doctor Who (how amazing were Capaldi and Michelle Gomez in those last two episodes? It's a shame the story let them down a bit) and I believe that we're going to tackle American Horror Story tonight and tomorrow.

In non-fandom related life, I'm surprised by how on top of things I am. The Christmas gifts shopping is almost done and the food is completely done. There is a turkey in my fridge as we speak and I am in no way terrified of cooking it because it's the first time I'm doing it all by myself. I'm armed with my mum's stuffing recipe and I'm pretty sure that I'll only have to call her once, in tears because "the turkey doesn't look right and I've ruined it!".

Maybe twice.

Seeing as my shop closed a week ago, I thought I'd be raring ahead with the knitting in all this free time but I've decided to give the shop an overhaul in the new year so I've been busy coming up with new designs. So the knitting has been plodding along at the same old pace.

I really enjoyed knitted the striped colours design for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles square so when I saw that GAL had done a similar one but for the much beloved Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde I knew that I had to do that one too.

Square number 16: Pac-man

I'm really pleased with this square and I love the 'wrong' side just as much as the 'right' side.

I hope to get another post in on Christmas Eve but just in case I don't get a chance (in between all the crying and attempting to cook), have a great Christmas and I hope Santa brings you everything you want <3

Hey, listen!

I went back to the Geek-a-long blanket for the next square. I was in a videogame kind of mood because we'd just been writing our Christmas lists and I was getting all excited about Santa maybe bringing me Kingdom Hearts 1.5. So I went straight for the vidogame squares and zoomed on the Legend of Zelda one.

Funny story, me and my husband almost got Zelda tattoos this year. It was our 10th wedding anniversary and we wanted to do something special and meaningful and came up with the idea of tattoos. We didn't want actual matching ones but liked the idea of tattoos that were different but linked so our first idea was him getting an 8 bit Link while I got the heart containers. Then we toyed around with each having a different Katamari Cousin pushing a different katamari and eventually settled on and got Princess Bride tattoos (I got The Revenge with 'Inconceivable' and he got the Dread Pirate Roberts mask and crossed swords and 'As you wish'). But it all started with that Zelda idea.

Square number 12: Triforce

I love how bright this square is knitted up in golden yellow and kelly green. It's also nice to have a Triforce chart that's more than just the three triangles that you usually find. Good job, GAL.

Our Princess is in Another Castle

A double post today, one personal and one stitchy.

On the Geek-a-long they have a Mario mushroom square. I know that Simon would love a mushroom square but, as great as the Geek-a-long one is, I think he'd prefer a more traditional, rounder mushroom from the earlier Mario games. So I researched a few different types of cross stich patterns and made a chart which should work for both knitting and cross stitch. It's a lot smaller than the designs in the other squares but I think that it looks right for Mario.

Square number 9: Mario Mushroom.

I'm very happy with the way this turned out. I wasn't sure how it would look with a white face rather than beige but it looks good.

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.

Instead of Shooting Where I Was, You Should Have Shot Where I Was Going to Be

Today's post is going to be a short one as my parents are visiting and I get to go shopping and pick out our Christmas present - I just hope The Range still has the Odessa Baskets in stock or I'm going to cry and it won't be pretty.

Time for the next square on The Blanket of Doom. We've had sports, TV shows, books and an RPG so it's time for a video game and I had to go old school. I found the exact chart I need on Molina's blog although she has since moved to this site and you should really check both out because she has some great charts, especially if, like me, you're a Supernatural and Stargate fan (I will be using loads of her charts if I ever get around to making my own blanket).

Square number 6: Space Invaders

Obviously I have chosen not to use the borders, mostly so that I could get the design to fit the 45x57 square but I still think it looks great. Despite my camera making the square look like it was knitted up in black and yellow, it is in fact a gorgeous lime green (also I know the first pic makes the square look out of shape, that's just the weird placement I apparently put it in when I took the photos).

Okay, I'm going shopping for goodies, wish me luck.
xxx