Crafty Little Rat

  It’s been a long time since I last blogged. Technical errors here at Chez Rat involving my new HP going away for treatment. It wasn’t registering the external Graphics card and that was causing no end of problems with crashes and the Mr Crafty’s games. My back up PC only runs Linux and getting photographs and blogging from there was more hassle and with Christmas who needs hassle! We had a lovely Christmas and I hope you did too. Very whistle stop tour of my family up in Lincolnshire and still some Festivities to come with the Welsh lot over new year. I’m just going to put in pictures of my work this year. The later few I’ve not blogged about I’ll expand on a little. January-May Top Row – Granny Mandala Dishcloth, From Norway with Love Hat, Heart Mittens Row 2 – Dr Who Socks, Create your own Dragon Adventure, Avatrix Hat, Bottom Row – Lizard Socks, Rose’s Wrist Warmers and Adams Rib Vest May- August Top row – Yellow, Blue and Grey Gemutlich, Morgans Pop Inspired Blanket,

Sorry I’ve not been posting recently. I’ve been dealing with some personal feelings; and not very well at that. Long and short of it is I’m sad; incredibly incredibly sad. That looks so very stupid written out but there it is. It’s mostly health related. We’re entering the 5th month of waiting for a specialist referral for me and the same amount of time for my liver ultrasound. It all came to a head today as we sold my trike. Over a year ago when I got my full time job and we moved down here I was convinced that I would be able to cycle into work, convinced that I could hold down a full time job and convinced that everything would now be sunshine and roses. Please don’t see me as ungrateful, my life is so much easier now, I love my job I can treat myself occasionally and we don’t always have to wonder how we’ll pay the bills; but my health hasn’t improved. It’s getting worse and the NHS don’t seem interested in helping. My GP is worth is weight in gold, but it’s very saddening to be st

  It’s HORRIBLE here at the moment. Windy, Rainy and cold cold cold. I’ve been crafting up a storm – 3 finished objects since I last blogged but sadly none I can show you. They’re all for friends who might possibly look at my blog so I’ll be able to post them when they’ve all received them. The great news is that I am so very nearly done! We have some cash to get out of the bank and a few bottles of beer to buy next month and that’s it. Well, and a load of bags to sew but who’s counting those? I managed to get all of them cut out today and 4 more sewn for a total of 7. Only 9 more to go, but now the tricky part is done I’m aiming to sew 2 or 3 a night which should mean I’m done by the end of the week. Just so this isn’t a pictureless post I’ll show you two hampers I’ve made up for Christmas. This one is for Rhys’ Nanny G. It has Shortbread Biscuits, Posh Tea, a Foamburst shower gell, Scented Candle, Hot Chocolate Syrup, 2 knitted facecloths, a sewn bag, some fancy hand wash, a bod

  Phew – It’s only MONDAY in my week off work and already it’s been a busy one.   Saturday Morning we went to the local sewing machine shop and came out with this box! It’s not the model I thought I would get; but there was apparently problems with the one I wanted regarding the bobbin case. This one – no problems reported so happily on my way. Here’s what he looks like straight out of the box. I’m calling him Jaffa because of the orange colour and the fact it’s a Janome. I’m loving him so far. So much easier than my Dunelm sewing machine and it’s a joy to work with him. Far more modern than any machine I’ve used before; you don’t even need to use a foot pedal it can be just button controlled along with an automatic thread cutter that I love. Putting the bobbin in the bottom is so easy on this machine I just am so in love!   Testing out some stitches on two scrap pieces of material. It’s now hung up in the rat cage! The squares weren’t properly cut out as I didn’t have fabric

  There’s not a lot on the Needles at the moment I must say   I’m a bit further on by now – these pictures were taken on Sunday. I finished off the button bands and was knitting the collar here. I’ve now finished the collar; and I’ve removed the bind off from the front borders. Look how tight it is! I used JJSBO; which I’m still not thrilled at. It flares a little too much for my liking but better than a tight bind off. Friday evening I cast on something new; the yarn is SquashBottom Fibres; yarn spun and dyed by a Gloucestershire dyer. It’s a feather and fan lace pattern and will be a cowl when it’s done. 4 row repeat and easy to memorise so this has been my bus knitting this week. Someone is happy too because he bought a new bike to replace the one that was stolen the other week. It’s now tripple locked outside his place of work; fingers crossed that people won’t be so light fingered with this one. I’m off work next week and I’ve ordered a big parcel of craft supplies to

  We’ve been having a rough week. It started out on Monday with our boy rat showing a large head tilt and a bit of weakness. Two vets visits later and he seems to be a whole lot better; even if he still hates the taste of Baytrill (I don’t blame him!) Work has been frustrating this week with my visual basic code throwing weird bugs at me; and finding out I’m not eligible for a program that would train me properly on how to write above vba code. Then to top it all off Rhys got his bike stolen Friday. Chained up with a bike lock outside of work; in front of a supposedly working CCTV camera. The bike wasn’t worth a huge amount of money, but enabled Rhys to get backwards and forwards to work quickly and efficiently. You do everything right and chain it up and some sods still come along and take what isn’t theirs. It makes you sick; so a good chunk of our time on Friday was spent talking to Gwent police and to our home insurance. So he now has 2 new bike locks with different style chains

  Another week has passed and Christmas is drawing near. I’m starting to get legitimately worried about my workload and the chances of achieving it! This week however I’ve made incredible progress and finished 2 things! First we have Fatty Lumpkin who I’ve taken to calling Shaddowfax after Gandalf’s horse in Lord of The Rings. It’s a Heidi Bears pattern which are wonderful as usual. He’s made in Stylecraft special a 100% acrylic yarn. It’s affordable but not cheap and nasty. This time I used all of the beige ball (100g) and part of each colour. This design obviously takes up a lot because of the mane and tail. Maggie loves him as well <3 The 4 other colours (Red, Yellow, Blue and Green) are the colours of the Lincolnshire flag. I used a 3.5mm hook for the DK yarn to ensure he came out a little bigger. I used the traditional African Flower design but used a magic circle in the centre. Secondly I finished the Francie socks. These are going to be for my sister for Christmas. T

  Short and sweet today. I feel like I made no progress last week at all. There were nights when I came in and I didn’t even want to craft. I’ve been having a lot of pain lately; in my wrists and elbows especially and crafting makes it worse so some nights I try and hide from the pain. Anyway; Fatty is making progress. This week I’ve decided I am going to concentrate on him and him alone. Horrible photo but as you can see he now has front legs! Last week I also quickly whipped up some Baby Booties

  Is anyone else struggling to believe we’re in SEPTEMBER already? I’ve been feeling awful these past few weeks (still no consultant referral in sight though!) and I’ve been really busy with non knitting things. I’m starting an A/S level Maths course next week. It’s been 7 years since I studied maths at school and to say I’m a bit fuzzy on some of the details is an understatement. Lots of practice going on here; my study guides will hopefully be here by Saturday so I can get swotting up a bit before Class starts next Thursday.   Lets play Horribly lit Kitchen Table photo time! I’ve been doing a few rounds on the socks here and there; even though the pattern is interesting second socks always seem to go slower for me. I’m nearly up to the Shoulders on Fatty Lumpkin. I’m really hoping to crack on with him this weekend. Get at least one thing finished and off the hook/needles. Too many WIPs for me at the moment is annoying. This is the only one I’m likely to finish soon. Well, th

  The long bank holiday weekend thankfully gave me a nice break and a bit more crafting time which I was desperate for. Last week I knit pretty exclusively on Dad’s jumper. I managed to finish off the body – It’s hanging awkwardly here as it’s held together with clip stitch markers. I’m planning on sewing the shoulder seams together when I put the arms in. Speaking of which I managed to get a start on the sleeves before going to knit and natter on Saturday. Annoyingly you need to increase every 8 rows which means I still have to have my piece of paper handy when I knit on these but they’re a mindless knit as long as I remember to increase! We went to Cardiff yesterday and I stopped at The Button Shop. I’ve never been before bit it’s wonderful. I managed to stock up a little and once again shocked Rhys at how expensive buttons actually are! I’m building up a nice button box which is wonderful. The little hamster in the middle is an eraser/rubber from Blott ; no rat ones but ha

This week I’ve been trying to fight with my inner monogamous knitter. Admitedly; she doesn’t rear her head very often. I’m flighty and indescisive by nature with my knitting and I’m definitly more of a process knitter than a product one. Of course the things I want to knit are not the things I should be knitting. These last few days I’ve been forcing myself to work on my Dads jumper. I have about 30 more rows before I can bind off for the body. My aim is to have that and the cuffs for the sleeves done before Saturday so I can knit them at knit and natter. Marathoning Supernatural while knitting this makes it barely tolerable! It looks about as boring as it is to make it! In other news my final skein of Fyberspates arrived and I finished off the leaf edging. It used just under 20g of yarn to finish it off; but I think it was well worth it. Added bonus being I have most of a ball to make something for myself. Pattern: Wrapped in Leaves by Alana Dakos Yarn: Fyberspates High Twist

  When I ordered the yarn for Wrapped in Leaves I was a little bit short. I imagined being able to make it smaller and the thought that “Well you have to round up to a full ball” crossed my mind. This week I’ve not been able to put this shawl down and I made it onto the leaf edging on Monday. I still had 50g left and at that point I did start to doubt myself. Well last night I got to here. Uh oh! I had two options. Rip back the whole edging, rip back the shawl until I had enough yarn to finish or buy a new ball at £14.50. I bought the new ball. This is a Christmas present and ripping it back that far would just have made it far too small. So while I wait I’m working on some things I totally neglected this week. I have about 5cm to go before dividing for the arms on Dad’s Cardigan. I’d show a picture but it’s no more exciting than the last one you saw. Miles of stocking stitch. I found this cute ribbon in a knitting shop in town and had to have it. My aim is to sew one on the ba