Loss

Indra, the heart of my heart, died on Thursday evening. She went into kidney failure quite suddenly, and in the evening had a massive seizure that they couldn't get her back from. I wasn't there.

I seem to lose her again at least 100 times a day. Every time I stand up and wait for her to come get under my feet as she follows me from room to room, every time I turn to look for her to see how she's doing, every time I cry and she' not there insistently trying to hug me like she always did when I cried. Coming home is the worst part - I always loved coming home, I'd walk in and she'd be in the hallway, or at least blinking sleepily when I turned the corner into the living room. She'd miaow at me and I'd miaow back, and then she'd pad over to me and insist on a hug and some scratches before I did anything else. Now she's not there when I come in, and I say hello to an empty room. When I look down to her sleeping spot, she's not there, and never will be again.

Bellatrix the Bat

Eep! I just put my first pattern up on Etsy for all to see (and hopefully buy!). She is Bellatrix the Bat - a pattern I created around Halloween but forgot to write notes for, so when Jo tried to steal my one I had to make another one and wrote the pattern as I went along!

The pattern is 10 pages long (?!) with lots of how-to photos, and can be bought from my etsy store at : Etsy

Here are some pics for your perusal - if you'd like the pattern and it's disappeared from the shop, please do email me and we'll sort something out :-)

For Sheena

Sheena (Antoinette)and I are both fishy Pisceans - and we share a lot of artistic swimminess. She gave me a beautiful turquoise glass and hematite star bracelet that she had made, and I gave her these seahorses. As soon as I saw them on Craft Magazine's blog, I knew they had to be made for her, and I'm going to have to make some for me now too... It was hard finding felt without wool in it that I could use, but finally found some great colours. The pattern is at Futuregirl, and she has some fantastic things in her store - I also bought the octopus pattern for future makings.... I was going to make these into a wee mobile for her, but decided she'd probably end up using them as necklaces or something so I left them for her to decide :-)

For Geraldine

Geraldine saw the hair falls I'd made for myself one night - I was wearing them for a poker night for some reason (I think all the boys were wearing cowboy hats and I felt left out) - and she loved them. Mine are turquoise and silver, but I asked her bloke what colours she'd like and made a pair for her for Christmas. They're shades of purple and dark red, and she loved them (I hope!). Here's them on their own and me wearing them...

For Andrew

My brother is a DJ - old style vinyl and turntables and everything. He recently moved into his girlfriend's house, and although he'd slimmed down his record collection by about 9/10ths, they still moved a Defender's worth of records in. He collects records like I collect yarn, but yarn is lighter....

So I made this - it's a little rough around the edges because I was making it in secret on Christmas Eve and rushing! It's a stress record - for him when his music isn't working out right, and for his girlfriend, when he drives her mental. She liked the idea, but said it didn't have a brick in it, so wouldn't work quite as well as she'd like ;-)

For Elana

Elana is wonderful and I'm very lucky to have her alongside me on our knitting journey. We both learn different things about all kinds of crafts, and then teach each other our newfound skills. We both like to experiment and see what we can do with yarn and material and clay and glass and card and paper and silver and wire and anything else that inspires us. For her pure silk, I chose leafy greens and some dashes of turquoise, and the resulting yarn is called Forest Witch, for that is what Elana is at heart, and it's as beautiful as she is :-)

For Andy

My friend Elana has a boyfriend, 9 rats, a mouse and a cat. The boyfriend got this for Christmas. I kind of just started crocheting and wanted to see what it ended up as... and it became this strange purple thing that I called a R-at. It has rabbit ears and a cat tail, so figured a R-at (or C-abbit) would be as appropriate as anything....





As far as I know, the actual rats and cats etc haven't killed it yet, so yay :-)

For Rob

Jo's bloke was a hard one to make for, I was going to attempt to design Appa from Avatar, but didn't have the time and haven't watched enough of it. So, instead, he got a hentai tentacle monster (if you don't know, you really don't want to). I wanted it to be cute and innocuous in case of visiting parents etc, so it looks kind of like a four limbed octopus until you notice the strangely shaped protrusions.... Here it is on his head, sadly, it was the only pic I got before he ran off with it :

For Chris

The Rum King himself got a Pirate flag for his Birthday in July, a huge one, but he still wanted a hand-knitted one... awwww.... I just used big chunky yarn for this one, and backed it with fleecy stockinette :-)

I think I'm going to nab it back from him and put some garden wire through the edges and wrap it onto a stick, so he can plant his pirate flag somewhere :-)

For Ross

For my fiance's twin brother, Ross, I made his dreams come true ;-) They're quite perverted dreams, unfortunately. I found a few patterns for daleks online, but they weren't quite what I was looking for, so I improvised. I started the amigurumi ring, and just went from there. He'd mentioned dark purple daleks at one point (a sign of sexual frustration...? ;-)) so I made it purple and black. Along with this, he got a poseable Billie Piper doll, which is were the dreams come in. Sometimes it's best not to ask, but he seemed ecstatic with it... It now has pride of place on top of his computer :-)

Jo's Presents

For my friend Jo, a very cute perky goth girl with a job that drives her crazy, I made two things. One is a purple and black double knitted pirate flag, for those times when she believes that she is, indeed, the Black Pearl (usually a bottle of rum or so after she should have stopped drinking!). It's smooshy fleecy yarn, so if she passes out on it it will be comfortable:

Having only just managed to assimilate her into our knitting cartel, she's making amazing progress and has even started designing her own patterns. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with this! :-)

Christmas Makes! Eek!

There are a lot of them, so I'll give each one a post of its own. I started in September, and had a great time making everything. I love being able to give my friends something I've made myself and is personal to them. Most things I designed myself, where I didn't I'll give credit. I'm looking forward to doing some making for me now, but still have all the patterns to write out!

Companion Cube

As soon as I completed Portal, the first thing that came to mind was obviously, 'I must make a Companion Cube'. Somehow, this totally inanimate object has captured the hearts of every gamer I know (and I know a lot of them!). So I immediately set to working out patterns for it - with the main hindrance that I can't felt anything because I'm allergic to animal fibers. So I found some cheapish yarn to experiment with, and knitted and ripped and crocheted and ripped and so on until I got something I liked. This one is a mixture of knitting and crochet - knitting for the main piece, crochet to add the dimensions. I know it's missing the central 'bumps' - that's coming in the next revision, and it's a little rounded, but it's very smooshy and I keep having to pat down my friends as they leave my flat because they keep attempting to smuggle it out. That's a sure sign of success to me ;-) I'll put the pattern up as soon as I've got it right :-) I tried doing a knitted flat one - so I can give out the chart for that, but I didn't like it not having the dimensionality of the cube itself. So here you are - some really crappy pictures - will get better ones as soon as photographer boy stops playing Guitar Hero ...








Hope you like ... will post updates as it's revised....

Many updates coming!

I have so much to update! Going to do it all over the next few days....

In the mean time, here's some fun ;-)