Palette

The best - and certainly the tastiest - birthday present a girl could ask for!

Goodies

Lovely Ai sent me another package recently, full of new goodies. The blue packet of 'cigarettes' actually contains candy - I haven't tried them yet, but I think they may be similar to 'Fads' back in Australia (once known as 'Fags'). 

Well-Made cheese crackers, in Quattro Formaggio flavour - you know what, they really are well-made. Crunchy and intensely buttery, and pretty much perfect.

An Exchange

Ai of the delicious blog it will stop raining put out a call a few weeks ago about having a food swap. Having been a fan of the blog for a while, I was only too glad to take part in it and send her a package. This was the package I received from her on Saturday.

 Hello Kitty stamp! And that cute little bumblebee-dude on the right is just so happy!

 This photo is making me want an ice-cream so badly - who cares if it's freezing over here right now?!

 Goodies - chocolate biscuits, shiruko biscuits, and grape flavoured chewing gum.

 My favourite flavour of gum, and pretty much the only flavour I'll eat (I'll take apple flavoured gum too).

The shiruko biscuits come individually packaged. Inside each one is a sweet cracker, with a layer of red bean sandwiched inside. They are so delicious and more-ish, but I'm trying to ration them so they last longer.

Pendulum

Check out what was laying in wait in the mailbox yesterday evening!

This sweet little package came from Julia of Rennes, who did a little giveaway a couple of weeks back.  Yours truly happened to be one of the lucky winners, which is how I came to possess this sweet little necklace below. 

Anyway, if you're interested in something similar, go check out her lovely Etsy shop, where she's got a range of fantastic brass necklaces. As for me, I'm still saving up for one of her little gables satchels. 

Horsin' Around

At the Geffrye Museum. Possibly the longest, most disproportionate horsie ever! I kinda love it. 

By the way, I totally recommend a visit to the Geffrye Museum if you're in London. It's really unpretentious, and has lots of pretty furniture and fantastic gardens. 

A  little handmade unicorn for a new little baby named Marcel. It was having a frolic around the Geffrye's fragrant herb gardens before galloping into a mass of baby poo.

Hybrid

It's been about a year since I made my first giraffe, and I don't know why I haven't made any more since. But a friend's birthday was coming up, so I thought it might be fun to make her one. I added some glamourous blonde fringing to it this time, and I thought it turned out more like a hybrid between a unicorn and a giraffe. What do you reckon? Is it a uni-raffe, or a giracorn?

Animal Antics

My friends A+B got married last Wednesday, and requested that guests bring their 'own picnic and giraffe'. So, being the dutiful wedding guest that I am, I made a giraffe and brought it to the wedding.

It was excited at being allowed out of the house, and proceeded to go a little wild. Here's the visual evidence -

Even a giraffe needs to rest after all that excessive drinking and partying.


He even managed to persuade the bride to take him home at the end of the night. I think he might stowaway in their baggage and join them in their Spanish honeymoon.

And The Winner Is...

Ana!

Congratulations, your tardigrade brooch will be on it's way to you soon.

Thanks for all the entries for the tardigrade brooch giveaway. If you haven't won this time, don't cry, just keep an eye out for other giveaways I'll be holding in the future!

Powermetal Gauntlets

...are the secret name for the pair of armwarmers I just finished for Ari. Why? Because I was listening to these guys -


over and over again, while knitting the armwarmers/gauntlets. (I can't be sure, but it looks like the dude on the end has fake blood on his keytar?)

I think power metal may just be the most effective music for knitting...well, for me at least. It just makes me knit so much faster. I'm a knitting machine when Dragonforce are playing. Sweatshop owners should play them constantly to ensure higher productivity.

Oh, for those interesting in the actual knitting deets - the pattern is based on a wave stitch that I modified occasionally*.

Wave stitch goes like this: Cast on multiples of 12 plus 1
Row 1 - *k1, (k2tog) twice, (yfwd, k1) three times, yfwd, (slip 1, k1, psso) twice, rep from * to last stitch, k1

Row 2 - p

Row 3 - k

Row 4 - p

The way I did it on my armwarmers - start with an inch of 2x2 ribbing, and then *follow the whole pattern once through, then do four repeats of rows 1 and 2 alternately (cutting out rows 3 and 4 - the knit and purl rows), then do another repeat of all four rows after that.

Do that till you're at your desired length (I ended by doing 2 repeats of rows 1 -4) then cast on an extra 6 stitches and finished with an inch of garter stitch. The extra 6 stitches form a tab so you can add a button and close it.

If you like, you can do the whole thing on double-points or just omit the extra 6 stitches altogether. I did it because I like buttons. And dpns make me nervous so I knit it flat then seamed it to just under the garter stitch edge.

Oh, these ones are made to be fitted on the arm - I started with 3mm needles, did a third of the thing, then swapped to 4mm needles, did another third, then finished off the rest with 5mm needles. You can always make them on different sized needles for a bagger/tighter fit, or even just use one size of needles for the whole thing.

I might do another pair on dpns just to get over my fear of them. While listening to Dragonforce, of course. Or maybe even Manowar.

\m/

Bounty!

Had to trudge all the way to the Post Office and walk home with this HUGE parcel under my arm the other day, but it was worth it when I finally got to open it. Even if my arm hurt after that. It was frakkin' heavy! Like, over a kilo of yarn heavy!

I think I actually looked a little surprised when the postie gave me the parcel, coz he grinned at me before hefting it over the counter to me. But it's worth the achy arm coz look what I got!

Ari spent over $40 in postage alone. I think it cost her more to post the damnned thing than to actually buy the wool.

And look what else was in the package? Glittery knitting needles! Look at them there glinting in the sunlight!
So many exclamation marks! Because I'm so excited!

But these ain't all just for me. Ari actually bought these so I could make her two beanies and a pair of armwarmers. Which is totally fine by me, coz I hardly ever wear anything I make anyway, and it's all just taking up space, so this gives me an excuse to knit more coz they'll actually be going to someone else.

Well, time to get to work, I guess...