It's Going to be a Slobberknocker!

For those of you waiting to find out (I know that there's nobody actually waiting for these posts but it's nice to pretend), the Pop in a Box I mentioned last week, turned out to be Thunder from Big Trouble in Little China. The husband was over the moon as he loves that film - I've never seen it but lets keep that quiet ;)

In more craft-related real time events, the wool fairy came back from holiday sent me the grey wool I needed to finish the Blanket of Doom and then went on holiday again (seriously, my parents somehow managed to book themselves two holidays separated by a fortnight). So I've added the final row of squares to the blanket and am now working on the edging. I've had some issues with the joining and edging on this project but that was down to my knitting style no the pattern and I'll go into that more when I post that particular blog entry.

While I was stuck without the wool I needed, I turned my attention to the cross stitch project that I mentioned in passing a while back. I wanted to make something for my new niece and nephew's nursery and decided to go with a Star Wars baby sampler, with a different Star Wars character for each letter of the alphabet. I started off well with J is for Jabba in the centre of the aida but the more I worked on it, the more doubts began to creep in. My main issue was that I was having to use some pretty obscure characters or races for some of the letters (K is for Klaatu, anyone?). By the time I reached M is for Maul I came to the conclusion that a sampler was the wrong way to go. I like the Star Wars element because there is no doubt in my mind that the twins will be watching those films with their parents (and their favourite uncle) as soon as they're old enough but by that time, there will also be a whole new group of Star Wars films for them to love and they're not going to be fussed by a character that appears in the background of Episode V.

I think I have an idea of what to stitch instead but first there's the unstitching to do. If anyone knows how to get the marks left behind by unstitched thread on the aida, please let me know.

In Blog-time events, I'm still posting the squares for the Blanket of Doom so here's the next one. It is no secret that me and the husband love to watch wrestling. We probably watch more from the WWE Network than we do from Netflix these days and are loving the fact we can pull up shows that we both watched as kids in completely different parts of the country. For the inevitable WWE square, I was going to use the WWE logo (the scribble one that's just been retired) but the husband insisted that I went old-school with the 90s WWF logo instead and he was right, it looks far better than the original chart I drew up (also, it was way easier to do).

Square number 38: WWF (now called the WWE)

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.

Breaking Rocks in the Hot Sun

I got a new tattoo yesterday and experienced something that I've decided to call 'tattoo-drunk'. The tattoo took about four hours, which is a bit unusual for a small piece, but it was an apprentice tattoo. That means that I was essentially getting inked by two tattoo artists; the apprentice and then the artist teaching her and who would step in to demonstrate certain techniques or help with problem areas. The tattoo itself is the Elven Leaf Brooch from Lord of the Rings and sits just under my ankle on the inside of my foot. Not the most pain-free part at the best of times and by the end of the session the endorphins were flowing freely and I was babbling away about anything and everything. I even have what feels like a mild hangover today.
I'm really happy with the finished result though and I will be going back for more work (from both apprentice and teacher - just at separate times, hopefully).

Time for the next square in the music block and no blanket of any self-respecting music snob (the husband's description of himself, not mine) would be complete without a square for The Clash - well, any british music snob anyway. I just had to attempt a chart for the iconic sleeve of their London Calling album and decided to experiment a little. Instead of copying it exactly, I used the colours of the writing as the background so as to make the main silhouette stand out more.

Square number 35: The Clash - London Calling.

I'm really pleased with this one. Yeah, the silhouette looks a little like a stick figure but that was unavoidable and I think it's still very clear what this square is; everyone I've shown it too has guessed correctly  :)

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.

Take Me Away to Nowhere Plains

I hope you've all had a good week. Mine's been great. The vouchers that I mentioned in the last entry arrived in a swanky little tin and it turns out that I won £200. Thank you SFX! Me and the husband have happily spent that and I'll post a pic of our purchases once they all arrive.

Beside the unexpected spending spree, we've had a wrestle-tastic week. On Friday we went to a live show in Bristol run by Attack! Pro Wrestling. It was an awesome night and we had so much fun that we're definitely going to go again.

The Brothers of Construction vs Big Poppa Sunflower and the Love Making Demon

Eddie Dennis vs Daft Bump

Then Sunday was Wrestlemania. The husband booked Monday off work so that we could stay up and watch it live. We've got the WWE Network streaming on our PS3, so we could watch all the build-up as well this year.

If I'd thought more about it, I would've posted the wrestling square I made for the Blanket of Doom in this entry but I still haven't copied the chart to the computer yet. So we'll have to continue with the music block we've hit.The next band I've made a square for is The Pixies.

When I was in school, I was pretty obsessed with a Christian Slater film called 'Pump Up The Volume'; I can clearly remember listening to the soundtrack on my walkman during my art GCSE [with one side of the tape as the official soundtrack and the other side was songs that appeared in the film but weren't on the released soundtrack - yes, I was just that geeky] and The Pixies featured pretty heavily. But until I met my husband, I didn't know anyone else who listened to that type of music; my hometown splits pretty evenly into pop and heavy metal so grunge didn't really make an appearance, not even in my parents' shop. Since then we've seen then play live and in my soppier moments, I like to think that it's one of those things that shows me and my husband were meant to be together. Obviously, I had to make a Pixies square for his blanket.

Square number 34 - The Pixies.

The Pixies don't have an official logo but most fans use the flying 'P' as an unofficial one - and who am I to argue with fans? Anyway, it was either this or a monkey with angel wings ;)

I'm really pleased with how this one turned out; it's simple but effective and the yellow and black really pops.

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.

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.

Not So Frolicking Reindeer (Or The Family Friendly Version)

Wow, it's been a couple of weeks since I last blogged; time really flies when you're ill and then super busy with other stuff. Yep, I got that whole flu bug that's immune to the flu jab lurgy again and this time passed it on to my dad, who passed it on to my mum etc... It's a nasty little bug and I hope you've managed to avoid it.

But in far nicer news, my new sublimation printer is here! My new mug heat press is here! It's time for a whole new venture! It'll be sad to move away from having t-shirt printing as my main business but big sites like Qwertee and Teefury have knocked my little Ebay shop for six and I've been really struggling for the past year. A new direction was needed and I hope my sublimation printer will lead the way. I'll be overhauling my Ebay shop and building up my Etsy shop and I'll keep you updated on that.

In my last post, I mentioned knitting another Reindeer hat (this is the third one I've made so they're pretty popular this winter). This particular version was for my father-in-law who didn't want the naughty reindeer side to his hat so I had to try and find a new design that he'd like. I eventually found a lovely little cottage design that would work nicely with the trees that were already in the reindeer pattern. This time I worked the hat up in navy and dusky blue colours and I think it looks great; the alien from Toy Story agrees...

With the two sides to the hat, the width is the perfect size but it's a very long hat which works well for my husband but I did remove some of the pattern to make it a little smaller for my father-in-law. It still looks great though and it'll definitely keep him warm on his early morning milk round.

London Calling

I haven't posted much this week as we've been away. We went to London for my husband's 40th (yes, the birthday's here and the blanket's nowhere near done; at this rate he'll be lucky to get it for his 41st, lol).

London was amazing. I've only been a few times before, usually on a day trip with my mum, so it was really fun to stay there for a few days. We got to be really touristy and walked around until my feet threatened to give up and leave me.

As you know, we're big fans of WWE here and when I was researching the area our hotel was in, I discovered that there was an independent wrestling show being held around the corner on our first night there. So that was the first night sorted and it was amazing! We've never been to a live wrestling show before and it was so much fun. The crowd were so into it and yelling the most hilarious chants. We're definitely going to keep an eye out for more independent shows in the Bristol area.

The next day was the real touristy one. We went to Covent Garden to check out the market and all the Christmas regalia.

A giant silver reindeer to match the silver glittery one on my desk but then we spotted...real mini reindeer!

Seriously, how adorable are they? I wanted to feed them but they were only letting the kids do that; foiled again by those pesky kids ;)

Our final night was my husband's big birthday present; his favourite band, Carter USM, had their last ever gig at Brixton Academy. I don't have any photos from that because the last time my husband went to a gig there, he got pickpocketed, so this time we didn't take anything but our tickets, enough cash for a couple of drinks and ourselves. It was possibly the craziest concert I've ever been to and that's saying something.

So that was our trip away. We had a great time and will definitely doing it again.