Knitting Developments & Discovering a Theme...

In keeping with my recent knitting developments, I took the challenge to find a pattern and make a whole animal. So far I've only knitted things as a whole, but thought it would be quite fun to knit lots of parts and then sew them together.

Over the years that I've been sewing and creating, I didn't really think I had a theme in my creations, but slowly one has seemed to develop. Elephants. Loads of my recent creations involve elephants - whether it's in the print of the fabric, appliquéd on, or in the actual shape, elephants feature in a lot of my creations. So I decided it was only appropriate to knit an elephant!

It was a fairly simple pattern stitch wise, more just a case of concentrating and keeping count, and adding a lovely ribbed texture into the trunk and here he is. I am so proud! (And glad that he can keep Malcolm the dinosaur company)

Knitting Hexagons

So on my various knitting googles over the last few months, I found a really cool looking blog about knitting hexagons, and thought oooh that looks fun. I'm still fascinated by how you can knit such intricate shapes and patterns just with a combination of a few simple stitches.

This is the blog: http://knitshearbliss.typepad.com/knit_shear_bliss/2012/04/hexagon-blanket.html with brilliant instructions on how to knit the hexagons and also how to fasten them together to make a blanket.

Below is my first attempt, and I'm quite proud. It has been knitted on 2.75mm straight needles, with Merino wool. 

My next challenge is to follow this blog: http://craftlover.wordpress.com/2007/03/09/hexagon-knitting/ and try and knit them on double pointed needles....a scary thought as I've never knitted with double pointed needles before, but I'm excited for a challenge!

Buttons Having Adventures

I found this amazing video today on facebook, which my friend had sent me in 2010 and I forgot how much I love it!

It is a video made from all of the buttons which have been lost on the Russian Underground and it makes me laugh how happy the buttons seem and people like they are....watch it and see!

Unfortunately, as it's on Russian Youtube, I can't add the video directly here, but here is the link, please watch it: http://rutube.ru/video/a4435d4295e2ec93f96793bf33f5db30/

Some Spotty Dress Alterations

It's usually about this time of year that I get a bit sick of my clothes. I tend to only wear summer clothes, and just layer them up in the Winter, so now when it's hot and sunny, I always feel that some of my summer dresses have a bit of a wintry vibe. That and although I'd wear any of them over tights, quite a few are really too short to wear out bare legged - unless on the beach.

I bought this dress over a year ago, and at the time loved it. However, when I got it home and tried to wear it, I found that as soon as I moved, it really was too short and my knickers were pretty much on show. I also decided that the neckline was too frumpy, and so undid the top 2 buttons and tacked the collar inside so that it had a fairly low cut v neck. 

As I only wore it once, it went in to my bag of things to go to a charity shop. But something stopped me and I realised that I was actually very attached to it, and so couldn't bear to part with it. 

So I cut the sleeves off, thinking this would help with the whole riding up issue. It didn't but the dress did now fit better. So it nearly made it to being worn on a fair few occasions, but I still felt it was just too short!

So I thought 'what colour do I love a lot at the moment...?' and went out and bought some fabric to sew on the bottom to make it longer (letting down the hem as well in the process).

Voilà! So now it's not too short and I love it with this orange hem!! The only thing now is to decide whether to add a tough of orange binding to the sleeves or leave it as it is...? Hmmm...

Beautiful Beach Huts

I love the beach, the sea and would happily live by the seaside for the rest of my life. However, when a beach hut recently sold on Mudeford Sandbank for £180,000 I was a little disheartened - it will be a while longer before I can afford a beach hut in that area!!

Still for the meantime, I love looking at them and taking pictures of my favourite painted ones so here are some pictures from this years adventures...

The top 3 are at Southwold, then the long terrace of concrete ones are at Milford on Sea, and the rest along the beach between Milford & Barton on Sea. 

I had a lot of fun, as you can see finding the ones which best coordinated with my outfit that day!