Just Another Miffy Monday #3

It's been over a week since I last posted, I have been reallllly busy finishing at work, going to London with Miffy to assist on her buying trip, saying all of my goodbyes to my true Jersey friends and then packing, traveling, arriving and unpacking in DURHAM. So...! Without further ado I am back on the blog scene and what better way to return than with a Miffy Monday?

Sadly last week we attended the funeral of Miffy's uncle Roger, so for Roger's wife, Aunty Wendy, Miffy made her a blanket. It was the fastest I have ever seen her crochet! She just got straight onto it and spent every free minute for the 7 days she had crocheting. By the end of it she had repetitive strain injury.. well, not quite.

What a beautiful stitch.

I love the border too, she really is a perfectionist.

It's so big! Not bad for a week's work.

Here she is, crazy woman.

Combining Arts

I have recently been inspired by things I've found on Pinterest and other blogs to combine embroidery over other things. I have never done embroidery before, so despite wanting to go straight in at the deep end and achieve something like this:

Or this:

Or even this:

I decided to hold back and try something more simple, as inspired by my favourite blogger One Sheepish Girl. I had a couple of cards to write, one was a thank you card, the other a birthday card, so I thought I'd put my skills to the test and use them for these two occasions.

The birthday card was for my driving instructor. I took my test on her birthday and I passed!!!!! She was pleased with the card, despite my perfectionist self not being happy with the fact it isn't very neat:

To do this I write out the words in pencil, then stab holes through with my needle:

And then I stitch over it. Here's the second one, for the thank you card:

I went for a French style writing which I prefer as well.

I've really got the embroidery bug and if I find time this weekend I intend to try some 'proper' embroidery and practice all the different stitches. I have ordered an embroidery hoop, it will arrive on Tuesday.

The other great thing about this is that I'm using wool (rather than cotton) and it is using up my stash and getting me one step closer to completing my wool-athon!

Knit News

Look at that sheepish face. She takes any opportunity to lie on something comfy, even if that's my clothes.

I have begun the jumper that I have been commissioned to make. It's looking great! However when I go home tonight I'm going to unravel it all...

The reason I'm unravelling it is because the pattern and the wool don't work together. This pattern needs aron weight wool and although this wool is advertised as such it is definitely far too skinny, it looks and feels like a double knit to me, so I have found a new pattern that will work much better. The lady I'm making it for wants it to be a cozy, baggy jumper for the winter, so too small will not do.

Look how much work I've done already... it's going to be painful to unravel all of those rows... 

In other knit news: I've started Emily's headband. The one I made her wasn't good enough apparently, so now I'm using this wool that she's chosen from my stash and I've made the pattern even better.

It never looks that neat until it's stitched up and made into the proper headband, but I'm pleased with it so far.

That's it for today's update, I can't wait to get home and unravel all of my hard work and start again.....

Hearts and Shoes

I have completed Emily's head band:

 Modelling it two ways: hair down (the pale pink doesn't go with my new hair colour, but it looks fabulous with Emily's dark hair)

Hair up and silly face! Earrings are from Miffy's shop, the make is called Ayala Bar.

I googled different cable patterns, this particular technique is called a braided cable. I knew the look I wanted to achieve so I made the pattern up using the braided cable technique. I made this one a tiny bit too big for Ems, so she's asked me to make her another one and she's chosen the wool from my stash (it's the dove grey that I used on Mini Fox). Because that wool is a bit thinner and not as stretchy I think I will adapt the pattern again, maybe even do two cable braids side-by-side. I will post my progress.

 In other news:

I benefited from Miffy's sale and generosity last night: she bought me three pairs of shoes!Here we have a little pair of mid-height espadrilles which will go with everything: jeans, cut-offs, skirts, perfect. The middle pair are Mephisto lace-ups. Mephisto is a make which focuses on comfort over style, but I think theses bad boys are pretty stylish too. Mephisto is worn by celebs such as Jennifer Aniston and Robert De Niro. The third pair are sweet little loafers, I love them because they're so Euro-Sloan.

More knitting news:

I want to find the perfect heart pattern. I think it's a really good way to use up my wool because I can make little cushions, keyrings and Christmas tree decorations with that and give them away as gifts. I prefer the one on the right because it's flatter and rounder. The one on the left is too pointy but I like the use of stockinette stitch rather than garter stitch. I have two more patterns to try out later.

Just Another Miffy Monday #2

Everyone's favourite feature is back, let's see what Miffy has been up to since the last Miffy Monday...

Miffy has been making lots of puddings lately, this one is my absolute, hands-down, without-a-doubt favourite so far: lemon tiramisu.  She topped it off with popping candy and amoretti biscuits... YUM. It was so much better than real tiramisu, the flavours were rich and refreshing. I am taking the recipe back to university with me, that's for sure.

The more I stare at that picture, the more I want to eat it... I'm craving it now. Great.

 Just to make me even hungrier, here's another photo of it, from a different angle.

Time for something less edible, but equally delicious: Miffy's completed baby blanket. She seems to constantly be making them for people. This one is knitted and so perfect for a little baby girl. It's in the softest wool too. I love the colours, they're so soft.

 Perfect tension.

 What else is Miffy up to? She's just gone mad online and bought three new crochet books...

I love the look of Geek Chic Crochet, I want that one please.

These two look so cool, there may be some good Christmas presents ideas in here that I might sneakily photocopy before I head up to uni...

What's she up to at the moment then? Look at these lovely colours, she loves Debbie Bliss, and who can blame her? 

Surprise, surprise! Miffy is making another baby blanket! This is for a little one on his or her way, I guess she knows it's going to be a girl because of the colour scheme, but hey - there's nothing wrong with boys liking pink.

That's all for this Miffy Monday, I have just been commissioned to make someone a mohair jumper, she'll buy me the wool and pay me for my time too - I love it when a plan comes together.

Favourite Things #2

In today's Favourite Things post I am going to talk about my favourite singers.

She's controversial and pretty strange, and there are times when I wonder why I like her, but I do. I've done a four year degree with this poster on my wall, and I will be putting it up straight away when I move into my house for my Masters:

She's so bizarre! I love it.

So she's back, with her latest single 'Applause' giving us a taster for her new album. I literally can't wait for it, I love all of her songs and my iTunes playcount for Lady Gaga is second only to one artist:

I've seen him live twice with one of my best friends, Sarah, and we made a banner and it was filmed on the big screen!

That's me on the left and Sarah on the right. Afterwards people kept coming up to us and saying "you're the girls with the banner! can we have a photo?" #FeltLikeCelebs

I guess you could say I have a wide range of tastes... If I had to choose one genre of music to listen to for the rest of my life it would definitely be country music. I will always love country. I love the fact it isn't old or new, the fact it's sad and happy, I love Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Shania Twain, Old Crow Medicine Show, Jake Bugg, the list goes on.

So those are my two favourite artists, who are yours? 

Finished!

I have finished both of my projects! Woo!

That's right, I finally made up Mini Fox:

Foxes everywhere... I got that notebook from Bloomsbury and the fox badge was a present from my friend (and first-year room mate) Emma; I wear it lovingly.

I've started playing around with the settings on my dad's Olympus camera, the above picture was taking using a lighter tone setting, I think it looks quite nice for this close-up.

I saw a T-shirt with these Doctor Who owls on it once, I really love it! This is the section with Tom Baker Owl on it and he's represented with his stripey (and longggg) scarf, it's almost like mine...

Ems being an amazing model: in this photo we went for the 'at one with nature' look. In this photo I used the 'pop art' setting which makes the colours really vivid. I don't know if it was necessary in the evening sunlight, but hey-ho it doesn't look too bad.

Here she is again (looking fabulous with her recently done hair) going for the 'classic knitter magazine model' pose (with added Spaniel).

I like this one, although Binkie looks like she's ready to attack the scarf (which she did later, but don't worry we saved it).

And finally, Emma looking her best, going for the 'scarf on face' look. Brilliant.

Next project?? Any ideas??

I was really inspired by a photo from my first knitspiration post (#appropriate, it is called knitspiration after all). 

This photo, to be precise. I downloaded some simple instructions for cable knitting last night, but it was not the right type of cable for this headband. I dug out an old Rowan pattern book that I had with a cable knit scarf in it, the scarf had two types of cable in and one of them was pretty close to this style, so I'm going to trial and error until I come up with the right look. 

If you have any ideas for some projects that I could make then please comment below!