Happy World Penguin Day!

Happy World Penguin Today! It's today! Well yesterday by the time I write this but still happiness to all penguins!!

I was informed of this day by a colleague at work who seems to know what day it is every single day (and I don't just mean the day/date but things like 'Bring your Mum to work day'). She informed me it was World Penguin Day today and so I thought it was only right to share pictures of my latest zoo creation Percival.

So, over to Percival, what do Penguins do on World Penguin Day? Well aside from the usual splashing and fish eating....Penguin Planking is the new 'cool' Penguin activity. As demonstrated below...

Brian Needs A Friend In The Zoo

So time for another knitting project from my beautiful book! At the moment I've been so busy so haven't had time to go out and buy any specific wool so I'm literally picking projects by what colours and types of wool I have in my knitting basket at the moment. 

The feet! Can you guess what he is yet?

Now I can very successfully chat and knit plain st stitch, but I am terrible at talking or even listening and following a pattern. I need complete silence or it all goes terribly wrong! So I was trying to concentrate on my wings and my boyfriend wouldn't stop talking to me, however much I shushed him and so this is what happened. Somewhere along the way wing number 2 skipped a fair few rows of stitches!!

I was very annoyed as this was already really wing number 3, as I'd absent mindedly slipped into st stitch rather than garter so had had to start again. 

But these were just too different so I made a start on wing number 4!

All ready to be sewn up!

 

And so here he is. Percival the Penguin. Photographed in his natural habitat so he'd be more comfortable with the photoshoot - he looks quite at home amongst the ice cubes!

New Year - New Knitting Challenges

So here is my first knitting project from my beautiful new book. Can you guess what it is....?

Front Legs

Back Legs

Legs

Half of right side

Finished right side

Both sides

Big mane

Now looking like one of those skin rugs!

And finished! I'm so proud of Brian the Lion!

Best Presents Ever!

I always get very excited at Christmas. I love the traditions, the food, the terrible films and seeing as many people as possible whilst indulging in lots of alcoholic beverages. Mmmmm.

Well on top of this, I got incredibly excited as I got some amazing presents this year. Whilst others were comparing fancy jewellery, watches etc, I got 2 absolutely incredible, if slightly unusual presents.

The first - dinosaur cake moulds! What can possibly be cooler than these! I love baking and I love dinosaurs so what can be better than dinosaur shaped cakes! Once I've made my way through all of the Christmas cakes my Mum sent me home with, I will definitely be baking some. 

The second - knit your own zoo! I love knitting and I love zoo animals so I can't think of a cooler combination of knitting zoo animals. This is my first attempt (obviously not finished yet) at one of my favourite animals. Can you guess what it is?

Hot Christmas?

I've just got back from a week in Cape Town and did not feel Christmassy at all. Once. The whole time I was there, which was strange as I've been feeling Christmassy since mid October! There were Christmas decorations everywhere, so it wasn't that, it was purely because Christmas should be cold, and so to me it felt like July or August so ages away from Christmas.

This was the Christmas tree at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. Beautiful, and very traditional, but it's not right that the people standing next to it are in sundresses and shorts and T-shirts!!

I've only spent one Christmas away from home, and that was when I was in Namibia in 2009. We went to the beach, we drank cider, and Father Christmas skydived into the bar on the beach, It was weird. It didn't feel the slightest bit like Christmas, more that we were just acting out Christmas. 

Christmas in Swakopmund

So although I was sad when I got back yesterday, and it was drizzly and horrible, I am now very much back in the wrapped up warm mulled wine Christmas spirit! Yay!

I Love To Wear...

I'm quite fussy about my clothes. Not that anyone would think it given the bright, colourful array of bright patterns that I do wear, but I am definitely not a shopaholic, and often when I do go out shopping, I come home with nothing, as everything I find is just not quite right.

My two main things I focus on when shopping are: I don't want to be wearing the same thing as anyone else, and also I hate clothes which look cheap, so am very fussy about the sort of fabrics I buy.

My one exception to the first rule is that I have loved some of the recent collections by Designers for H&M. So whilst this often means I see someone else wearing the same outfit, it does mean I get some beautifully designed clothes, from some of my favourite designers, at a price I can afford.

I remember lovingly looking at the entire Isabel Marant Etoile collection in Liberty's when I first moved to London, wondering if I'd ever get a job that was well paid enough to afford even just one item, and had the same feeling in the Marni outlet shop in Bicester Village.

So I was very, very excited to finally get my hands on a pair of Isabel Marant quilted sneakers. They are beautiful, so beautiful I can't take them off! And very festive at the same time. And hopefully as they were in the Kids Boys range not quite so many people will have them....?

Double Pointed Knitting = Argh

This is not my knitting. This is what I though of double pointed knitting. Even though I really wanted to learn, and the concept seemed quite simple, I was terrified of the thought of Double Pointed Knitting. 

As someone who is only a fairly recent knitter, grasping increasing and decreasing seemed like a massive achievement to me, enabling me to follow more difficult patterns and make shapes. So I've been happily knitting away, knitting hats, elephants, anything I take my fancy to really. But all the time aware of the fact that I have a beautiful set of shiny new unwrapped bamboo double pointed knitting needles sitting next to me on the shelf in my living room. Which given the size of my living room (2.25m wide) means that they are never very far away from me. 

So last night I took a deep breath, I googled, I got out my fabulous retro 'Good Housekeeping Guide to Knitting', I you-tubed and went for it. I tried to knit a flat circle on my double points. The first attempt was awful. I didn't even have a change to take a photo of my congealed mess before it fell from the needles. Fail. But I tried a different wool and started again, and after a few slipped stitches (the middle is quite messy) I got there. Below is my attempt. Not bad. I'll see how I get on with an actual pattern. So watch this space.