Minxxy

Balls Up!

I found these adorable christmas baubles on ravelry and had to knit some for my Christmas tree. In recent years, I have stuck to a theme. Gold and red. I have never strayed from this but I have been looking at and comparing trees this year and have to say, I prefer the "multi coloured, hotch potch of decorations, looking like a riot trees." They fit in perfectly with the ever increasing collection of ornaments I have received from friends and family, which have caused me a dilema - where do they fit in with my  'themed tree'?

So what is more important to me? Sticking with the coiffured, ten a penny, the mainstream big gun retailers tell me to do it this way tree..... or create a tree that is bright, colourful, unique and is full of memories of Christmases past and loved ones? I will give you one guess.... yes, you are right. Bye bye oh perfect tree. My memories and the gifts from others are way more important than picture perfect. I do not live in a biege , Stepford life and that is what my tree has become. No longer!

Completed knit report
Pattern	Balls Up!
Designer	General Hogbuffer
Sourced from	Ravelry search
Knitted for	My Christmas tree
Wool used	Jamieson and Smith 2ply Shetland, off white sock wool and some shimmery silver thread stuff
Purchased from	McArees and some from stash
Any problems with the pattern?	None at all, very simple and straight forward
Any modifications made	Yes, made the i-cord hanging loop longer so it could fit over the branches/needles of a real tree
Washing and wearing	Will not be washing these as they will only hang on the tree for two weeks a year. I might give them a hoover every other year
Knit again?	Absolutely! These little baubles are moreish! Great way to try out fair isle , colour work and pattern design as patterned section is only 13 rows wide
Any changed to be made next time?	Yeah but I will change them at the time.
Skills learned?	Patience… the decrease rounds at the end after you insert the polystyrene ball is very, very tricky. Not difficult, just tricky but the pattern warned you about that.
General comments	You must make some of these.. uses very little wool and your own imagination sets your design limits.

 

 

Great Expectations ( why could her favourite book not be "It" by Stephen King?)

 



Pattern blurb

Pattern: Penguin book scarf

 Designer: Minxxy

Sourced from: Kerry wanted a penguin book inspired scarf, reflecting her favourite novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. There are no patterns out there so made my own, assisted by http://www.microrevolt.org/ knit pro programme for penguin graphic and good old fashioned graph paper and a biro to plot out the text

 Knitted for?: Kerry

Wool used: King Cole Merino DK

 Purchased from:- Clare at Wee County yarns http://www.wee-county-yarns.co.uk/ Excellent service as always

 Any problems with the pattern? Misspelled Dickens (DickenE) but noticed before I had secured the end of the Swiss darning, other than that, no hassles.

 Any modifications made?: Probably but since there was no pattern to follow there was no mods made…adjustments were ongoing throughout it all

 Washing and wearing: Should be alright according to the ball band BUT Kerry is in charge of washing… GULP!

Knit again?: No way, this is a one off original!

Next time, any changes to be made?: I would have liked it longer and narrower but time and yardage was against me. Kerry wanted it for the end of her placement at school.. I made it by to two days.

 Skills learned?: None but I did brush up on my Swiss darning. I should have knitted that text in as I went along……

General comments. I added a fleece backing as I didn’t want the intarsia back showing. In general, I am well chuffed with this…. But I don’t know how pleased Penguin books would be. **smiles nicely at the publisher**

Merry Christmas to you all/some/one/none* (*delete as applicable) readers of this blog. I hope you all had a great time and made the most of it all. I have been trying to declutter this computer and have contemplated deleteing this blog (again) but I do like reading over the srchives and reminding myself what I have been up to over the months. I have also been inspired to continue to chronical my shennanigans by the google chrome advert. You know the one where the adult begins to e mail the new born daughter and continues to do so as she grows up and is looking forward to sharing the emails with her when she is older. What a fab idea. Get my drift? Anyway, what better way to start than to catch up with some projects that have been going on here..... see above for details (I should have made this my last post!!