Catching Up

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

The problem with (unintentionally) taking a break from blogging is that each day missed makes it more difficult to catch up. I don’t want to miss out anything fun or important, but most of my thoughts fade pretty quickly… nevertheless, a few bullet points:

Willow and I had dinner with Joanna and Nikki and friends last Friday, at Canton in Kingsland. I hadn’t been there before and it was so good. Willow was well-behaved and adorable as usual, though it’s lucky Nikki’s friend who was sitting on the other side of her was happy to be on the receiving end of baby antics. She grabbed the end of his chopsticks, mlurbled away to him, fed him some of her beans, all very sweet. We’re so lucky to have a child who can go out without fussing (at least for now). It was lovely to see Joanna again as I think it’s been a couple of years since we last saw each other, I really should try and get to Wellington every now and then.
Wil and I also went to lunch with Amy on Saturday, at Mexican Specialties in Ellerslie. I hadn’t been there before either, and it was also extremely tasty, though very busy and a little small on the portion sizes. (Take that with a grain of salt, remembering that I am quite greedy). I would have liked to browse their grocery section too but it was just too crowded, I’ll have to go back one day outside meal times and buy some Mexican cooking supplies. Amy did get a bottle of their “Magic Powder” seasoning for me, which I have been using on grilled chicken with great success.
I’ve been doing a lot of yarn crafting lately. I cast on a few days ago for my first proper knitting project in years, these cute Lepidoptera Mitts to practice my new lace skills, and I’m getting very keen on the idea of trying my hand at a sweater. I’ll probably do a baby one first, but I’ve got a handful of patterns bookmarked for me too. I hope I am good enough, I’m oddly shaped and could really use some custom-fitted clothing.
I’ve also been making a few crochet scarves for Foxes. I don’t plan on doing crochet to sell regularly, but Jessica floated the idea when we were having coffee last week and some simple, soothing work to do while I was waiting for the last yarn for my African Flower blanket sounded fun. That order arrived today, so I’ll be back to finishing the blanket very soon.
Willow is getting more steady on her feet every day. I’m not over the novelty of a walking baby, and squee inside every time I see her little drunken-Frankenstein gait. Too, too charming. She’s also got her 15th tooth!
I’ve been having a bit of a bad week again, business hassles and money worries and not feeling very good about myself. It’s so tiresome, and I have had several mouth ulcers from the stress. Not sure what to do at this point, since nothing is really wrong. Soldiering on.

Blanket Cats

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

My flower blanket is coming along. Last photo I posted had 19 joined hexagons, now I’ve got 37 joined hexagons and another 24 that just need their final round before being added on. 18 more once they’re done, and a border, and it will be finished.

The cats are already making use of it! A couple of nights ago I had the first four rounds laid on the table to assess the size and Monty had to get in on the action…

… then half an hour later his spot was taken by Pippin…

… and yesterday when the blanket was sitting on the couch Otto came in for a snuggle.

Here is Otto sleeping again, which has nothing to do with my blanket but look at his little face! He is keeping his nose warm!

We’ve had a busy Easter weekend (by our standards) and today was also quite full-on. I had to catch up with orders from the last few days, and I’d let the house slip a bit so there was lots of laundry to put away, scattered toys to corral, paperwork to sort, recycling to handle… it’s important to keep up with these little jobs because I find mess can throw me very easily into despair these days.

Things are sufficiently back in place now that I think I can justify some relaxation in bed before I go to sleep. I will read a little, then play some Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box on my DS.

That reminds me, must note down things I’ve bought recently…

I rented the Professor Layton game from the library, which cost $5. I’ll have it finished before it needs to go back, so that’s a pretty good deal. I loved the first game, and this one is very similar – point and click exploring with dozens and dozens of puzzles to solve. Plus the art style is beautiful, and I often find myself studying the screens in great detail.

A late night search on eBay last week found an inexpensive swift for yarn winding, and I couldn’t resist buying it, since so much of the yarn I like comes in hanks. It was ~$40 including postage, which is less than half the price I usually see. I don’t have a wool winder, but I think the swift will make hand winding much faster, and if it’s still frustrating there are often second hand ones for about $25 on TradeMe. (I wonder why swifts never seem to come up there? Weird. Maybe people just buy winders and sell them again because they’re awkward to use without a swift?)

I bought two pairs of socks from the supermarket because I had to throw out some old holey ones, I think they were $10 or $11. Thrilling stuff :)

Finally, I splashed out and chose some 5ml bottles of perfume oil from the Possets spring collection. There are a lot of niche perfumeries I like, but I can’t afford to keep up with them all, and Possets is both well priced and wearable so that’s where I tend to buy from. Five bottles come to ~$60 and qualify for free worldwide shipping, so it would be silly to buy less, right?!

My choices were:
Opulentia – Peach, carnation, crystal musk and ginger.
Silver Lavender – Sweet ‘silver’ base, lavender and sandalwood.
Terra Diurna – Strawberry, pinks, greenery and water.
Terra Incognita – Five black musks, pink pepper and black pepper.
The Great Actuary of Babylon – Black musk, copal incense, black cherry, cherry blossom and wood resin.

I’ll report back once they arrive… I’m really looking forward to the last two in particular, they sound deliciously dark and interesting. I should write some reviews of my current collection too, I used to do that as a matter of course and really enjoyed it. On the to-do list it goes!

African Flower blanket, the Second

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

The new version of my African Flower blanket is coming along well!

It took a long time to decide what to do once I took the deep pink hexagons out. I tried lots of other colour combinations, but nothing looked quite right with the yellow. Yarn comes in a relatively limited number of shades, so sometimes it can be frustrating trying to make a combination that clicks! I had extra constraints in this case too, since I needed three shades that worked together to make each flower, and of course they needed to be flower-y colours.

After a dozen failed trials I changed tack and decided to experiment with using more texture instead. Adding an extra final row of alternating dc and FPtrc turned out to give a lovely raised effect, a little like knitted ribbing, but also reminiscent of the veins on leaves. Additional colours became unnecessary, and I am now working with just two yellow variations, the marigold-edged original and a lighter version with a creamy ivory centre.

I blocked the blanket once I had assembled the first three rounds (19 hexagons) to see how it looked flattened out, and I really love the result, it’s subtle but so pretty, and definitely worth all the effort to make it work! The shape I’m planning will require 79 hexagons in total, but I’ve already made all of the darker flowers, so the assembly seems to be flying along.

Additional Willow milestones: in the last couple of weeks (12.5 months) she has cut her 14th tooth and learned to wiggle backwards down stairs, and yesterday (13 months) she took a few lurching steps! It wasn’t exactly walking, but she did travel some horizontal distance on her feet. I think we’re very close.

Snuggling and Blankets

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Thank you so much for all the kind and supportive comments on my last entry. I know that the size of our family is something we don’t need to justify to anyone but trying to express these feelings coherently helps me a lot!

I’ve just put my beautiful baby to bed. Seeing her snuggled there warm and safe and sleepy is one of the most comforting experiences I know, and every night it makes me want to jump straight into bed myself :) She’s never been interested in co-sleeping but I hope that one day she will take her afternoon nap next to me, so I can watch her sleeping face as I drift off.

I’ve made 36 yellow African Flower motifs over the last couple of weeks, while waiting for the rest of the yarn for my new colour scheme to arrive. I had been planning on combining these with a paler yellow combination and some light pinks for the second attempt, but now I’ve made a few hexagons using the new yarn that arrived yesterday I’m not sure about them either! This project is driving me bananas! I’m going to make a handful more and try different arrangements before I join anything together, or start dreaming up a third plan.

For now, the stacks look rather handsome. And I WILL figure out how to make this work!

Monty on the beanbag, where he spends approximately 23 hours a day. The last hour is reserved for running, flailing and skittering about as though possessed. He is a cat of extremes! I feel a little bad because his tag is smaller in the cloud than Otto or Pippin, even though it’s just because Otto is new and Pippin runs away so darned much. They are all special in their own ways :)

Kibble Escape

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

I was so incensed this morning about finding some of my artwork used without permission on a major commercial site that I forgot about closing the baby gate to the cats’ room, and this happened:

At least there wasn’t any wet food out for her to eat. If only Pippin didn’t refuse to jump over the baby gate, we could leave it closed and this wouldn’t happen. She jumps onto benches and tables that are twice as high. Even Otto leaps the gate, and he is essentially a pillow with feet! But Pippin steadfastly refuses, so we have to open it whenever Willow is in bed and give Pip a chance to move around.

The site in question responded quickly and we sorted the issue out, so that’s OK now too.

Willow has been quite challenging lately. I was having so much trouble settling her when she was obviously tired this morning I decided to try putting her down with me in our bed. First she pulled my eyelashes (ow), then she jumped up and stood on my head to get a better view out the window (ow), and finally she climbed off the bed altogether and wombled off down the hallway – still yawning and rubbing her eyes, mind you. Nap fail! She’s missed at least one sleep every day this week and she really needs them.

I may have to scale back my work activities even further as Wil occupies more of my time. It’s certainly not a chore, I love to play with her and cuddle and read books about colours and opposites and brushing your teeth, but I do feel bad about how little money I’m earning. Still, I hope JSR understands, and it’s not permanent, just for a few years. No matter how much I enjoy N&B I can’t put myself in a position where I’m ignoring my baby to get the work done!

Ah, that’s enough talking about my minor troubles, here’s Otto’s snowy tum.

I pulled apart the African Flower blanket I was working on because the colour combination really wasn’t working for me. But never fear, no work was wasted, as I made the 14 deep pink motifs I had made into Christmas ornaments by placing them in pairs back to back and crocheting a join around the outside. I also added a loop to each one with a length of chain stitch worked over with single crochet. I’m planning to make a tree worth of crochet ornaments over the year, so this is a good start!

All of the yellow motifs will be incorporated into version two of the blanket, which I’m working on now.

African Flower Blanket update

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

I’ve done three rounds of my African flower blanket. That’s only ~10% of it, but since I’m attaching the hexagons together as I go I couldn’t resist blocking this bit and previewing the finished effect:

Blocking is quite magical to me, here’s how it looked beforehand:

The colours, however, are not magical. The pinks are reading much darker than I had hoped, and the effect is getting a bit… er… fast food-y. I don’t much care for red and yellow together! So I’m going to add in a third colour flower for the next round, a lighter peach, and see if that helps – if not I might stop, turn this first bit into a cushion or something, and start again with different yarn. We will see.

Amigurumi Dinosaur Skeleton

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

I’ve just finished a craft project that’s been a long time in the making: a 120cm (4′) long amigurumi dinosaur skeleton, now suspended museum-style from our lounge ceiling.

It has 47 pieces and took 14 balls of wool!

I started it about three years ago, when we lived in the Emily Place apartment, inspired by the lovely high ceilings there. I took a long break after the body and head were done, because I got frustrated trying to make the legs, and just sat down recently determined to finish it. I had a couple more enforced breaks caused by yarn shortages, but finally it is DONE!

Another angle, with Pippin for scale.

It was all made freehand without a pattern, just a diagram of a Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus skeleton I printed from Google Image Search and a very rough scale, where 1cm on the printout = 8cm of crochet. I took a lot of anatomical liberties, some for aesthetics (e.g. the legs, my first try had more accurate shapes but didn’t look right) and some for practicality (e.g. the nodules on the vertebrae, which were too numerous to make individually and turned into a ruffle to give the appearance of nodules).

It’s composed of single crochet worked in spirals, with a few bits of slip stitching and half double crochet to make curves. The eye sockets are supported by a ping pong ball cut in half, to keep them concave, otherwise it’s all just yarn (Cleckheaton Country 8-ply in shade 2234) and stuffing. I hung it from a few tiny hooks with invisible mending thread, and I think the result is very handsome :)

Pippin Comes Home

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

I didn’t post over the weekend because Pippin was missing and I was too anxious to talk about it, but after more than two days away she showed up at lunchtime today, strolling in as though she had only been out for half an hour. She isn’t hurt, didn’t seem particularly hungry, hasn’t been acting strangely since she returned… all rather mysterious. I was so worried about her and barely slept last night, so the relief when her little shadow showed up at the door was like a weight off my chest. I am looking forward to more restful slumber tonight, perhaps even with Pippin curled up by my feet.

My favourite photo of Pippin, it’s from last year but I can’t resist posting it!

Now that situation is over I can get back to the nice things I’d rather be telling you about!

I’m pleasantly surprised by how fast my African Flower blanket is growing. I made 13 hexagons between last Monday and Friday! It will be 127 altogether (plus a border) so there’s a long way to go, but I don’t get to sit down and focus on crochet very often, I usually squeeze in a little bit here and there while drinking my coffee after dinner or waiting for the washing machine to finish. I haven’t timed myself but I must be making these in about 15 minutes each. It should be finished in a couple of months!

This piece looks rumpled because I’m waiting to block the blanket in one go when it’s completed. It will become lovely and smooth!

I haven’t been working on the blanket since Friday, as I went on a ridiculously long drive on Saturday morning to get the last of the yarn I need to finish off my previous project. It’s been something of a trial, with local shops no longer stocking the right shade (grrr!) and fake-outs from online stores that have ceased trading but left their storefronts up (double grrr!) but I have what I need now. I haven’t talked about that project yet because it’s quite exciting and I’ve been waiting to do a big finishing-reveal. Now I have the final supplies I should have photos of it posted in another few days :)

Hello Otto!

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Annette / Soft Like Kittens

Otto is here!

I picked him up on Monday afternoon, after being so excited I could barely sit still all day :)

He’s such a lovely cat, happy to explore the house and already very friendly and affectionate with JSR and me, though of course things are a little trickier with Monty and Pippin. We’ve had lots of lashing tails and some growling, mostly from Monty, but no actual fights which is encouraging. I am sure they will all get used to each other soon.

I have been thinking of him as a light ginger cat, but according to his vet card he is “cameo” which I had to look up – an ivory undercoat with red tips, sounds about right, and very fancy. He’s also rather large. I may have to stop calling Pippin the Pippopotamus, and Monty looks like a silky handkerchief in the breeze in comparison. Hee!

In the last couple of days I’ve also started my next crochet blanket. This one is pushing out of my comfort zone with the bright colour choices, but I think I’m going to like the result.

Here’s the yarn, mostly Cascade 220 with a bit of Ella Rae Classics and Valley Yarns Goshen.

And here are the first couple of hexagons. I’m using the African Flower pattern, with some minor modifications. All of the hexes will be in these colour combinations, arranged in alternating rings – so a pink flower in the centre, surrounded by six yellow flowers, surrounded by twelve pink flowers, and so on.

I’ve got more details about the exact yarns and my pattern changes over on Ravelry for crochet enthusiasts :)

Soft Like Kittens

Idle life with yarn, cats and a small hu-man.

Tag Archives: crochet