Man monster and cat monster

Hey friends. I have not updated my blog in so long that Blogger has changed its interface and now I don't understand how to use anything. Gulp! Well here goes, if it all publishes upside down or whatever, you will know why.

 So I have been really busy in the last few months and that, and I've made tons of stuff, but I have either not taken photos of it or been sworn to secrecy. So I now have TWO monsters to show you. You lahcky people! Number one: this is Maddern. He turned thirty in February and I made him a monster to commemorate this wondrous time-passing. He makes a wicked monster because he is so very knitted anyway (he wears a lot of cardigans) and fuzzy-faced that I felt half my work was done for me, by NATURE.

 Here he is.

I had a hard time thinking of something to put on his t shirt, because 1) he wears a lot of cool graphicky t shirts anyway 2) he loves a zillion things and I couldn't decide which would be best. For a while I was trying to construct a tiny felt Green Lantern, because Maddern really hates Ryan Reynolds and I thought it might be fun, but the microscopic scale proved too difficult for me on this occasion (normally I am WELL all over the tiny work, honest mum!) so I went with the easy cover-all BANDS. Maddern sure likes a lot of bands.

So finally yesterday we managed to do a photo shoot of sorts, just before it started tipping down.

Inside.

Outside. We had fun doing this. Just after we finished up, Maddern's neighbour came over to ask if we were doing a 'sun dance'. We said yes.

Okay so second up, this is not the first knitosity made in the image of someone's pet, but I think it might be the first monster I actually made of somebody of a non-human persuasion.

Hello Fudge!

Fudge is Sarah's cat. He's the biggest, roundest cat I have ever seen, and he is beautiful. He's a bit temperamental though and doesn't like me much, he tends to bite me more than anything else, but maybe I just smell funny. 

Ages ago I made lots and lots of maneki neko(s?) in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep and randomly developed an obsession with them. I thought Fudge would make a special one, because he's so round and handsome. Fudge has a special relationship with a big blanket, and so I thought it would make a good talisman for him. He just loves that blanket!

I did a photo shoot with Fudgy yesterday as well, and he was unusually friendly, possibly because I was putting food in his bowl. Just look at that face. He's a dreamboat.

I tried to take more pictures but he either had his head firmly jammed in the food bowl, or he was wandering around the place entirely refusing to co-operate. Cats eh! Well, I like this photo, the look on his face is pretty good. 

So that's just a mere taster of what I have been doing for the past seventy months, how do you like it? I am starting a new job soon which may render me too busy to update again for ages, but I will try my damn hardest.

love you, xxx

special offer ooooohhh

Hi guys, just to let you know that I have gone all business-like and will be doing a SPECIAL FREE GIFT with my next order! Aren't you spoilt!



Here is the wonderous prize which you will receive: a t-shirt for a beautiful lady, in delectable lemon yellow, with a cool hippo/donkey motif handpainted by ME. That's right, no one else in the world has one like this. It's OOAK (as they say on Etsy).

The t-shirt is secondhand, clean and in good condition. It's painted with Dylon fabric paint and sealed so the image should stay put. It's pretty bold and bright, I really like it. Oh and it's cotton jersey, in ladies' size 14. Here, have a close-up of the hippo donkey fellow. Int he a beaut!



So! If you want this fantabulous and unique garment, be quick smart and order a monster from me NOW! The first order I get will get the t-shirt free with their monster, what a postal treat that will be! Skates on, then.

My Hudders Field Trip

Hey lovelies. Just a v quick post today, I am going to Wigan in a bit. Hooray! I went to Huddersfield yesterday to see my buddy Phoebe, and photographed her in a pair of gloves that I made as a late Christmas prez. See, I went to visit her just after Chrimbo and she happened to mention that she had a new job in a VERY cold shop in town, and she admired my long fingerless gloves and wished she had some to wear at work so she could be a bit warmer whilst still being able to type. RIGHT! I thought, since I am rubbish and never get anyone presents, I will knit her some. So I did. Luckily it's still really cold so she will get some use out of them before it warms up a bit.

Here is a photo of Phoebe wearing the gloves whilst drinking a frothy drink of some description.



She doesn't really look like that, but I took a picture of her while she was talking and it wasn't very flattering so I doctored it so she wouldn't be upset. Although now I'm not sure if this is more upsetting. I'm sorry Phoebe.

I decided a plain black glove would be most suitable for wearing at work, and her work uniform is black so it would be pretty subtle, but how BORING, am I right? So I gave the dreaded cable knitting a go. I never do cable because I can't be bothered to count stitches properly and it always ends up wrong. Made a proper effort here though.



They look really nice and she seemed happy about having slightly warmer arms, so I'm pleased with my decision to make them. After our coffee, Phoebe took me to a fancypants shop in the Byram Arcade called Spun.



They have lots of lovely yarn that I rubbed all over my face. Also they do workshops and stuff there by the looks of it, so if you live in West Yorkshire and fancy a spot of communal knitting, you should totally go.

Phoebe is a member of the Intellectual Dinner Club in Huddersfield. I think this is a fantastic idea and am trying to think of my own '12 in 2012' goals for this year. So far I have 2: learn to knit socks and leave the country. How ambitious I am!

Anyway I best be off, hope you enjoyed my blog post today. Have a nice Sunday xxx

Lovehats (so wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully pretty)

Good pun there I thought. Look, I am posting again within a week! Shocker. I wanted to tell you about this the other day but I couldn't because I promised. However, all can be revealed now, much to everyone's delight, I'm sure.

I got an email from Sarah a few weeks ago, asking if I could make two ski hats in a hurry, for a wedding present. I don't normally take commissions for things other than monsters any more, but I thought, why not? It would make a change and I thought it was a cute idea.

The happy couple are going skiing for their honeymoon you see, so Sarah wanted their hats to be personalised. I am playing the parts of both Mr and Mrs Castles in these photos.


Mrs.


Mr.

Aw nice! I was glad to hear that they liked the hats and I wish them all the best. I was reminded of these this morning after a tweet from Sarah with a photo that warmed my cockles! I'm always so pleased when people like their stuff.

Anyway that's that for now, I've got to go, I had the most fabulous idea ever before and I'm trying to get it off the ground. Just you wait and see! Laters, h xx

Sammy and Other Beauties

Hello! HAPPY NEW YEAR you guys! It's been a very VERY long time since I last posted anything, but you know what, I've been as busy as a bee. It breaks my heart that I can't always post things that I'm dead excited about straight away, but if people have ordered things as presents, which they often do, it's better that I don't give the game away. Even though no one probably is likely to look at my little blog anyway. But just to be sure.

So I have a little round up of bits. I will try and be a bit less scatty about things this year, and post regularly, and all that business. I think I did all right last year. But if I'm as busy for the rest of 2012 as I have been this January, phewf! I will be delighted.

Anyway. First up, do you remember the graceful beauty of Sammy? He is my friend Catherine's dog, he lives in a youth hostel, he is a lucky boy. He enjoys dancing and lying in the middle of the floor and going to the pub. After I knitted his royal portrait, Catherine tried to coerce Sammy into posing with it, like a true aristocrat.



So handsome.

Here you can see Sammy a bit better but the knitted drawing is slightly out of view.



Looking good there Sammy. I can't wait to see this now that it's been framed, I don't think I have ever had a piece of work framed before. A milestone!

Right, some monsters next. I hardly did any monsters before Christmas, but the ones I did make I was very proud of.

This one turned out wicked but I can't tell you who it is or anything about it because I'm paranoid so I'm keeping it on the DL... ssshhhh.







All very covert. I like him though! Looka them pointy toes!

This next one was a commission for Ruth, for her cousin in the USA. I enjoyed making her but as usual I have failed to take a very good quality photo. Oh well.





Both of those photos missing a foot off, nice one Helen. You get the general idea. She's lovely and purple/blue/yellow, a colour combo I can get on board with. She's sitting on the back of my sofa here in the absence of a proper set-up. It's REAL velour.

Finally I did a couple of craft fairs in December, which I have already waffled about slightly. I like to knit at craft fairs and generally end up with a load of hats and stuff. This year I came out of my craft fair experience with these beauties:





And gloves:







I have chucked all these lovely things in my Folksy shop if you know anyone in the market for a lurid technicolour bit of knitwear, except the Russian doll mittens which Emily snaffled off me the other day. Just a little plugette there.

So that's what I've been making the last month or so, hope you liked it. I have other things too but this is getting quite boringly long now, plus it's taking me ages to root through every blimmin' folder on my computer looking for photos that I have hidden somewhere in error. So I will leave it here for now. Bye bye, bye bye, bye bye. xx

Oh, knitting.

Hello. I am writing a post because I am supposed to be doing interview prep, but it's Saturday night and you can't make me, you're not my real mum. Also, I haven't got anything else to do. Hooray, I'm really cool.

So it's nearly Christmas, oh boy. I have done two craft fairs in the past couple of weeks, and by 'done' I mean I have sat behind tables and occasionally smiled at people. I'm really good at that, I've been a receptionist for ages now which gives me the practice. I was supposed to take photos of my craft stalls, but they always look the same. I did the Chorlton Arts Festival one, at St Clements Church, and I did actually take some pictures but they're useless. Look.



Sigh. Here's some pairs of mittens I made.



Forgot to put the flash on.

I didn't even bother to take any photos at the craft fair I was at today, at the Zion Arts Centre in Hulme (there's no place like Hulme). It was really fun though, I met some lovely craftspeople and there was all sorts going on for the kiddies, like screenprinting t-shirts and general chucking paint about and making a nice mess. So instead I'm going to show you some gloves that I found at my mum's house. You ready?

These are gloves me and my sister used to wear as littluns, fascinating. I have taken these photos Facebook style in the mirror, because there was no one else there apart from my dad and he didn't seem very interested. I don't know why.



I like the second one from the left with his bleeding eye. I wish these fitted me.

Thumb:



Second: interesting design here, they have a miniature glove in the same colours, attached to the back of the glove by a string. Why? Also, in this (crap) photo you can see how my massive hand won't fit in the glove at all.



Third: the best glove/mitten I have ever seen. You couldn't do anything with these on, and why should you? You've got LIONS for hands!! I pretended that the lion was going to bite the cat's face, but he wasn't scared. My mum's cats are hardcore.



Right well, I have done that now, so I best get back to whatever I was supposed to be doing. Eating everyone's Christmas presents in my pyjamas. Bye! Happy Christmas if I don't see you before! Bye! xx

Bugs and flowers

How do. Today I have old work to show you. VERY old work. This dates back to about 2007 when I lived in a horrible rancid flat in Whalley Range which had A LOT of problems. Among them were an assortment of bugs, or 'insects' as they are usually known in the UK. Specifically, cockroaches. Ughhhh. Are they even insects? I think I considered them to be a robot army of diseased vermin GIANTS, even though they were just going about their business. In my kitchen.

They made me cry. The only thing I could think of to do was to make some beautiful bugs (I'm just going to call them bugs ALL RIGHT) out of old carrier bags, sequins, wire and things. The beautiful bugs will win, I thought.



In actual fact they DID turn out rather beautiful, and I am proud of them. This was a time when I wasn't really up for showing my work to people, but I wish I had now.



I took these photos in my parents' back garden, with my old camera which had a wicked macro function. The cats kept getting in the way and I even had a visit from a butterfly who stuck around to have his picture taken! Sweet!







So I still have some of these bugs, I made zillions and gave a lot of them away. They are coming to the craft fair with me on Saturday, if you'd like to have a peep. Don't forget guys! St Clements Church in Chorlton, 10am til 4. Yayyyyyy! I am getting hysterical now because I'm in a hurry. Just COME, all right. I will see you there.