Archives for 2015

Market Day

November 8, 2015 by Tessa Leave a Comment

Today myself and Aspen from Baby Bears Blankie https://m.facebook.com/Baby-Bears-Blankie-719809918123983/ ran a market stall in at Bundoora Extended Care Centre, for once we each earned more than we spent on the stall hire (yay) so you could say it was a successful day, not as successful as we would have liked but it wasn’t bad for a non craft market, I’m not sure when we’ll hold another, some time next year.

I took the stall as a good opportunity to work through more of my acrylic yarn, I’ve now whittled down my single colour acrylic to one shelf, which is definitely a positive.

Overall it was a good day out, extremely exhausting but good.

Tessa

Shredder’s New Jumper

August 30, 2015 by Tessa Leave a Comment

I apologies for my absence, working has been eating into my crafting time I have a fair few projects on the go at the moment but I have had very little drive to finish any of them.

Here’s some thing that I finished recently.

Shredder in her glorious new knitted jumper.

This jumper was made using Bendigo Woollen Mills – Murano 100% pure new wool

I’m not much of a knitter but when I found a pattern designed for pugs I couldn’t resist especially when I had such pretty yarn to work with. The pattern was relatively easy and worked up fairly fast for a slow knitter.

Mama I’m too warm now, also can we go for a walk now?

Treats?

Shredder’s tale

I’ve had Shredder since my previous dog passed when I was 17. When my parents split (the following year) I couldn’t keep her when I moved with my mum, my dad couldn’t handle 4 dogs on his own, so she unfortunately became a breeding dog for the place we got her, she was a breeding dog for 2.5 – 3 years, when the chance arose for me to get her back I couldn’t have said yes fast enough, my partner and I got a house which allowed pets and Shredder had finished being in her ‘breeding prime’. When I got her back it was time for some serious TLC and lots of walks. Shredder had always been a human orientated dog (her favourite part of the day was when I got home from school, now her favourite part of the day is when we get home from work), when I got her back she had been staved for attention but not for food, (she was a little overweight – 2kg to be exact – she still has excess skin from being larger) slowly we got her back to her safe weight range and back to her normal self. She’s now 6.5 years old and she’s starting to show signs of aging which is a bit premature for a small dog, but it could just be due to being breed too many times. As soon as we were able to we got her de-sexed, she’s never going to have to go through that again, I believe she’s happy, but I don’t know exactly what she’s thinking.

Shredder you’re always going to have my love, hugs and pats.

Tessa

Sleeping baby Shredder

A little startled

Thank you for reading

Here’s a link to the pattern on ravelry http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pug-dog-sweater

New Toy

May 16, 2015 by Tessa Leave a Comment

So recently I have been super busy working my arse off, so I’ve had no time to blog, but I’ve still been pottering away with crafty things. I bought a new toy recently.

This is Aggie my most recent addition to my craft room, she is a Tarra Agnes spinning wheel, production year prior to 1984 due to Tarra shutting down. The poor thing was looking rather worn when I purchased her from ebay, but she’s looking much healthier since I cleaned and oil her old bones.

She still requires a few repairs but in general for the price I paid it’s totally worth it, I got some lovely help from the Weavers and Spinner Guild Victoria on how to use her as I had no idea even with the help from my crafter friends.

Hopefully I get time to make good use of her soon now that she’s in a reasonable condition and is running smoothly. I got a lovely big bag of fleece so who knows I might be going to have lots of lovely home spun to work with in the near future.

Here’s some Fleece That I picked up at the guild I can’t wait to start spinning it

Tessa

Hooded Cloak

February 15, 2015 by Tessa Leave a Comment

So a long time ago I said to myself ‘do you know what I need, I need a hooded cloak.’ So I went searching for a pattern on ravelry and found this one http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hooded-cloak I fell in love with it instantly. Next I had to find a yarn that I like the sort of matched the weight required, I found a yarn called Moda Vera – Jester – 50grams, composition 70% acrylic, 30% Wool, which had a purple mix (yay)

This is the primary yarn I used for the cloak, I edged it with a turquoise mix of the same brand which you can’t quite see in the pictures.

I had to buy over 40 balls of this yarn to complete the project which was rather costly, but completely worth it. The pattern worked up surprisingly quickly for how large the project was, it came out to be 2 kilograms which makes it a really heavy wearable blanket, which is so warm that it makes Australian winter feel like summer. when you wear it because it is so heavy it fells like a big warm cozy hug, I wear it when I need comforting or when it is super cold. I did have a bit of trouble hiding ends as the weave is a little loose so the ends pop out sometimes making it look a little dishevelled at times. Overall this was a beautiful project to make and wear, I don’t have many places to wear it to, but I’m glad I made it.

If you look hard enough you can see me sporting my favourite pug pyjamas

The cloak comes out to being about 3.5metres wide and 1.6metres tall not including the hood. I apologize for my dirty kitchen floor, it’s the only room in my house with enough floor space to lay the cloak flat.

Happy hooking – Tessa

Infinity Scarf

January 27, 2015 by Tessa Leave a Comment

Recently a new idea popped up on my news feed and I couldn’t resist trying it, the concept of using your arms as knitting needles is intriguing as it is not something I had seen before, So a friend and myself set out to try it, initially it was hard to work out and it was a little fiddly, but once you get going it was fun and easy, the cast on and the first rows are probably the hardest parts as it’s not traditional knitting. The weave is very loose and it all most looks like a knotty mess, but after five rows it starts to make sense. the scarf took about 30 minutes – an hour to make and sew together to make an infinity scarf, the join looks rather messy as well, but it can easily be hidden whilst wearing.

I used Lincraft – Air yarn to make this scarf – Composition – 78% acrylic, 17% Nylon, 5% Wool. I double stranded this yarn when I was working up the scarf, i used 3/4 of both balls. The yarn I used was much thinner than used in the tutorial, so mine was much looser but I like it simply because it’s not too bulky to wear, it doesn’t get as cold in Australia, no snow 🙁 so it doesn’t need to be as warm

This is one of the most cozy comforting things I have ever worn, I get irritated by yarn easily, after about an hour or so it can get a little itchy, but it’s not to extreme to really annoy me.

The tutorial for the scarf can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPer3Xv2QSM

In the process of making the scarf

Not wrapped

Wrapped once

Wrapped twice

Woo wee woo update

January 1, 2015 by Tessa Leave a Comment

So it appears that this infrequent posting is becoming a thing which I apologise for.

I’ve been working on Christmas projects and stress out napping. Since the 4th doctor scarf was such a large project it’s on my list of projects that are for next years Christmas. So here’s a little update on it’s progress. This is the first time that I have to be in the photo of an item, it’s just so long and it’s only going to get longer 😛

Currently I’m about 470 rows in, which means only 600 to go woo, I’ve probably spent 40-50 hours on it already. This is certainly an insanely lengthy project, I’m slowly getting better at knitting, my speed is improving and I’m not quite so fish out of water/knitting like a crocheter. At least I have another whole year to finish this project.

Happy new years all. Have a great year 🙂