Baby shoes blue/grey

Baby shoes blue/grey
Originally uploaded by aishakenza

Here's my second attempt of the baby shoes. They are very small - 0-3 months, perfect for a summer baby! I have simplified and shortened the pattern but haven't had time to write it up yet, so you'll have to be patient for a little longer. I'm presuming that you do want this pattern, or are you willing to wait for mk III?

A weekend in orange and yellow

Baby shoes
Originally uploaded by aishakenza

I have had (and am still having!) a lovely hooky weekend - and a long one too. I didn't work on Friday and I've had plenty of time to finish off some crochet and sewing.
First of all, these little tiny shoes for my newest great-niece. I wrote the pattern as I went along, but I'm not going to reproduce it here yet, because first of all I would like to simplify it a bit (and I also want to make a similar pair in DK wool). I think they look so joyful in these bright colours.

In the same yellow/orange theme, I've made an addition to my collection of owl brooches with their cousin, Little Yellow Chick.
You may have noticed the green woolly background to the little chick. Guess what it is? I'm going to tell you: it's part of the planned Jolly Green Giant socks for my OH. But bad news, I'm afraid. I've decided not to finish them. They were becoming very thick and fluffy, and I was worried they would end up on this blog. So OH isn't going to look like the Jolly Green Giant any time soon. Actually, he doesn't really mind :D.

Just a little word about comments

I'm so thrilled by the springtime sunshine and my latest projects, but before I post about them I just wanted to add a special post on ... comments.
I know (hope!) there are lots of people who read my blog but who choose not to make any comments, and that's fine. But if you would like to leave a comment but haven' t been able to, now you can!
Thanks to the kind advice of a friend and fellow blogger, I have enabled the comments so you can use them, even if you don't own a google, yahoo, etc, account. Just click on the comments link below, and in the drop-down list "Comment as" select Name/URL. If you don' t have a URL it doesn't matter, it will still work. You can also comment anonymously, but I would love to know at least what your name is.
AND you can also tell me with a simple click what you think of each post.
More exciting stuff coming soon, I promise :-)

What a busy week!

I've not posted for a while because I've been away on a trip as part of my job, travelling to Brussels and London. It really was a whirlwind trip, starting with a meeting in Brussels on Thursday. I went with my great friend and colleague, H, and we had a very good time, especially in the evening when we visited the Grand Place in Brussels and went for the iconic Belgian meal of mussels and chips. If ever you go to Brussels, eating mussels and chips is a MUST. We then went on to see the Mannekin Pis, another Brussels icon. The poor little guy has people staring at him while he pees all day and all night! He is really quite small, no bigger than a doll, but for some reason he is a very big tourist attraction. We went in the evening so the pictures are a bit dark, sorry about that! Lastly we bought Belgian chocolate, yet another Belgian tradtion, and a very delicious one at that.  Yum yum yum!

And I almost forgot - how could I ?! -  just after the meeting and before the shops had closed, we found... a craft shop! Where they had my favourite Catania yarn in colours I hadn't yet acquired: a lovely dark elephant grey, and Catania color, a gorgeous variegated yarn that I just HAD to buy too. And I found boxes and boxes of the faceted beads that I use for my owl eyes and that the lady on the market I normally buy them from had completely run out of. So I came home with two boxes of beads too (containing 130 beads each) - that's enough for 130 owls!

On Friday, we took the Eurostar from Brussels to London. It was the first time I've been through the Chunnel and it was a doddle! So much easier than flying! We had to be at the station half an hour beforehand for check in, but it was very easy and straightforward. We were served (a second) breakfast on the train, and the trip only took two hours. You know how tired you feel after flying? Well, I do. But travelling by train is so much more peaceful and feels more natural. And when you travel by train your carbon footprint is neutral. Otherwise said, zero. For me, that's a simple enough reason to prefer the train, when you have the choice.

The London leg of the trip was very interesting and exciting too. We were there to report on the March for the Alternative, which I'm sure all the UK readers on here had heard about, and maybe some of the others too (I hope so!). It was a HUGE, very impressive and very hopeful march with hundreds of thousands of protesters demonstrating against the cuts imposed by the UK government. We walked all through central London, from Embankment to Hyde Park. We went past lots of landmarks: Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. On the photo you can see the London Eye just visible on the right. It was a wonderful, peaceful, collective gathering of ordinary people marching together for a better world. Let's just hope we'll be listened to.

Felt owl brooches

Another thing to tick off my list! Today I finished off the fourth owl brooch, it was the little blue one. Do you remember when they looked like this? I call this group my English owls because I bought the felt and the gingham ribbon on my last trip to the UK. The ribbon was a very good bargain from the local market, I couldn't believe how cheap it was! And the felt was from my hobbycraft trip. I think I now have enough felt to make a couple of hundred owls! I also made another little brooch, but I'll show that one to you another day because I've not taken its photo yet.
Today I went to the local (French) market and tried to get some more of the shiny faceted beads I use for my owls' eyes. But there weren't any! The lady who I buy from in the market didn't have any left, what a disappointment... I did buy a different kind, but I'm not really convinced they'll look as good. We'll see.
My craft supplies have been getting a bit out of hand and taking over my life and my bedroom! I've emptied out the top drawer of the chest of drawers in the hall and I'm sorting out my stuff and moving it in there. I've started with my ribbon stash and I'm quite pleased with myself - instead of having all the ribbon in a bag getting mixed up it is now neatly arranged in an old watch box.

How do you managed to keep your stuff in order? Please do let me know, I need as many ideas as I can get!
Have a great Sunday!

Llama worm

After Manuel la llama, here's llama worm! If you've never seen the "real" llama worm, here it is:

The llama worm is going to a new home in Britanny, where it will be adopted by my son's friend. They spend time look at this kind of thing on the internet and judging by the number of times this image appears on any search engine, they're not the only ones... Anyway my son agreed that it would be funny to make one for his friend, so here it is.

That's another item off my list.

While I was wandering through our small town this afternoon, I came across this:

Naturally, my first thought was, "Why is there a stegosaurus on the back of that truck?"... but then I moved on a bit and on the side of the truck it said:

And sure enough, around the corner, there it was!

A dinosaur exhibition!  But I couldn't visit because it was closed. So the photos will have to do. Anyway they've got something a bit wrong. According to my expert son, neither tyrannosaurus nor pterandons lived during the Jurassic period, they're from the Cretaceous. Stegosaurus was a Jurassic dinosaur, but when he was around the other two didn't exist yet. It did make me think that I've not tried to make an amigurumi dinosaur yet. Hmmm...

Manuel la llama

Anyone who knows me through flickr may have already seen my llama on there, and his flickr name is Miguel. However, he has now been given to his rightful owner and his name is Manuel. "You'll have to forgive him, he's from Barcelona". I'm sure the English amongst you recognise the quote :D

Manuel is going to Norway with his new owner, Maria. I'm very sad that Maria is leaving. She has worked alongside me for the past six months and we shared so much. We had lots of fun, and some serious times too, and there's going to be a big empty space in my life now that she's gone. On the other hand, I'm happy for her that she's going back to her family, and Maria, if you're reading this, I'm counting on you to come back very soon.

To make Manuel I used the same basic pattern as I used for the blue stripy giraffe:

Spot the similar legs and arms, and body shape? However, Manuel's head is a different shape and the ears are different, of course. Well they would be for a llama, wouldn't they? I also used hairy yarn for the body, for the top parts of the arms and legs, and for the back of Manuel's head.

I'm sorry I haven't yet had time to write up the pattern, but I'll do it eventually, I promise!

So that's one item off my list. I've also finished one of my felt owls and I've done some more work on llama-worm, so things are chugging along nicely.