Elfs on the Shelf: Week Three

Hello!! Happy Monday to you all, the countdown is beginning in the final few days! The Elves are beside themselves with excitement and keep coming up with alternately funny, naughty and sweet things to occupy their time with, and entertaining us at the same time.

Day Twelve: The Elves are starting their present wrapping...as soon as they've finished making dens with the paper!

Day Thirteen: Oh no! The Elves have got into the Christmas booze and are utterly sozzled! Angus's carol singing is a little off key too!

Day Fourteen: Snowball figggghhhttttt!!!!!

Day Fifteen: Angus and Flora seem to be getting themselves in a slight tangle putting up the fairy lights.

Day Sixteen: Angus and Flora are casually chatting to the cat, making sure that he will also be on Santa's nice list, and taking notes on what he would like in his stocking. (Catnip, Dreamies, Lots of Mice...)

Day Seventeen: Angus and Flora have decided to add some extra sparkle to the Elf sized Christmas tree before we start decorating the big one today!

Day Eighteen: What's this? The Elves have been upgraded to Angels? What sparkly halos they have!

Angus and Flora had lots of fun this week- the Cat wasn't overly happy about the Elves invading his personal space (you can probably tell from his expression), and there was a small incident where an arm might have been not so lightly nibbled... But it's all been made up now so we're fine.

I Want To See The Moon

When I was little we had a book on our shelf called 'I Want To See The Moon' written by Louis Baum and illustrated by Niki Daly. It was one of my all time favourite books and if I remember correctly is about a little boy whose Dad is trying to get him to go to sleep with warm milk and bedtime stories and cuddles, but all the little boy wants is to see the moon; "But Daddy! I want to see the moon!!"
I think I'm a little bit like that, I love looking out for the moon in the evenings when walking home from the bus, and it often casts a silver light into my bedroom like a little nightlight keeping watch. Only a matter of time, then, before it starred in one of my stitchscapes!!

I think the moon must have approved of my choice as the day after I started it was a whopping supermoon!!! This piece is using a lot of my dark blue fabric prints and naturally I've had to specially buy some more DMC threads.... I've also taken inspiration from the silvery light the moon reflects and have been using some glittery metallic crochet yarn to embellish and stitch with which I think is working really well.

The sky is clear and starry, which I hope you can tell from all of the polka dot and spotty fabrics up there. I'm hoping to do something special to enhance the stars- glittery french knots perhaps?? I've also got a little town for the moon to watch over which I'm very excited about as it means I get to use my houses print which is really sweet. I'm so looking forwards to seeing how this one turns out!

Weekend Pottering

I do cherish my weekends, they are truly the highlight of the week and I wish they went on forever! Especially at this time of the year when you end up doing so many festive things; partying, decorating, meeting rarely seen friends and relatives, eating, wrapping and giving presents, writing cards, lighting candles, singing along to the radio.... it's just lovely.

This weekend has been full of festive feel-good. We aren't allowed to put up the 'big tree' yet as The Brother wants to do it with us when he gets back from university next weekend (we are squeezing that into a tiny window of opportunity when the whole family is in the same house for about three hours before going off in different directions again), but I am allowed to put up my little 3 foot tall tree as it is my own one; as well as decorating the kitchen.

I have made paper chains, and we have the addition of lovely tissue paper shaped decorations to hang from the ceiling along with glittery card stars. At some point I must get out the big honeycomb paper red pom poms to put up- if I can find where they were packed away too!

On Saturday my wreath base arrived in the post from Hobbycraft. I wandered around the garden collecting greenery to put onto the rattan wood base, and gathered a bucketful of Rosemary and Ivy which was partly pushed into the wood and partly stitched on to hold it in places. (I did feel a little lightheaded at the fumes coming from all that Rosemary!!) On top of that I added some lovely mini red plastic apples, dried fruits leftover from last Christmas, cinnamon sticks and plastic red berries which give it a beautifully festive appearance, along with the most amazing smells.

I did take a little time out from present wrapping and card writing as I had booked a friend of mine with a posh camera to come and take photos of my stitchscapes. It was all very glamorous wrapped up in our coats in my Grandmother's garden, making makeshift screens from old bed sheets and a ladder. The morning started out with thick fog but the sun soon burnt through and I had to help create an even lighting by casting a shadow over the stitchscapes- high tech stuff!! Hopefully I will be able to edit the images and send them off to be made into prints for my Etsy shop.

After taking my personal photographer out for a long and very filling lunch with some other friends and family, we settled down for an evening of early present swapping which has made us all feel rather festive, even though there are two weeks to go yet! The Mother is burning her advent candle every night which she finds very exciting, and we are starting to receive lots of Christmas cards to hang along a string. It's definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Elfs On The Shelf: Week Two

Good Evening All! And welcome to our weekly round-up of the antics of Angus and Flora as they 'help' us get ready for Christmas. I am releasing one photograph a day onto Instagram (which is why these photos are slightly fuzzy) and have been enjoying the comments and interest they have received. There are so many ideas for things that they could get up to next!
In the above photo we have....

Day Five: The Elves seem to be getting themselves into somewhat of a tangle putting up the paper chains.

Day Six: It's very handy that Flora and Angus each like a different colour of marshmallow. It helps keep down the squabbling as they toast them over a makeshift campfire.

Day Seven: Candy cane sledge racing down the stairs! Oo I can't watch, they are going so fast! (Do note the string seat belts the Elves are wearing- safety first!)

Day Eight: Woo! Penguin ice pool party! Angus, stop being so silly!

Day Nine: It's Christmas card time! Angus is leaving Flora to do all the hard work writing them out whilst he has a cheeky snooze.

Day Ten: I think the Elves are under the impression that there are real sweets and gingerbread people glued to this felt wreath?

Day Eleven: "Notice. All sleighs are delayed until further notice due to a reindeer collision on the NP25. Apologies."

They are such naughty Elves! The Mother wasn't impressed at Day Ten's attack on her felt wreath so hopefully they can make it up to her with an extra special present request to Santa on their return to the North Pole. I have finally finished my little present for Flora which you can just see in the photo for Day Eleven. It's a granny square style crochet poncho!! Made using the same wool combination as Angus's scarf so that they match, the poncho also has tassles on the bottom and a little bit of a collar at the top. I think she is really chuffed with it, as am I!

Elfs on The Shelf: Week One

My two Christmas Elves, Angus and Flora have settled into our household really nicely, and so far, haven't done anything too mischievous! I made Angus a little present to help keep him warm as he looked a little chilly at times. Do you like his crocheted scarf?

The scarf is made from a combination of DMC Natura Just Cotton, and Rowan Siena 4 ply which I had lying around in my wool basket. I used a 2.5mm crochet hook and made some simple striped double crochet rows, 10 stitches across. I couldn't decide on what colour I wanted to use and ended up using all seven colours, three in the DMC yarn, and four in the Siena. Once I had done each colour twice, except for the green which appears three times so I could start and end on it, I added some simple tassels either end and voila! Extra detailing was added when the colours changed as I alternated colours from the old to the new which has made it a more special stripe I think. Hopefully Flora doesn't feel too left out, although I am sure I will be making something just for her rather soon.

I am absolutely loving the challenge of the Elf on the Shelf. They move overnight you know and in the morning you have to try and find them wherever they may be in the house (lets hope they don't discover the attic!!). I am taking a photograph a day to show everyone what they have been up to and plan to post about the events on my blog at the end of each week so that you can see what they have been doing too! Here are last week's photos.

Day One: Flora and Angus are wrapping up warm in Angus' scarf- who knew it could fit two(?!), and choosing the very best mini Christmas trees. I think Flora has found her favourite.

Day Two: Only Flora is allowed to use the big scissors for cutting out paper snowflakes. Angus can't be trusted to not cut off a pigtail!

Day Three: Testing out the Christmas socks! A highly important job that one should take very seriously...Angus!

Day Four: Who ate all of the mince pies?!?!!

These Elves are very very naughty, and I expect they will get up to all sorts of trouble and mischief. Flora is definitely the more grown up of the two, but with Angus egging her on, they could do anything!!

Simply Stripes

After spending so long on a complicated crochet blanket made up of hundreds of tiny pieces made into slightly less tiny pieces and then into slightly less tiny pieces again before being attached together, I was craving a really simple project which wouldn't require planning or much thought and would just roll off the hook in a straightforward sort of manner. Stripes! I thought, stripes are nice and easy going, versatile, colourful and beautiful, just what I needed.

The colour palette for this new blanket was picked off of the Wool Warehouse website from their coloured images- a dangerous game I know but the sudden urgent need to purchase wool was quite demanding and I couldn't find my wool colour chart in time. Some colours I remembered from the Log Cabin blanket so I chose favourites from there, mingled with some new colours I thought I would try. It's a very sweet colour scheme, nothing offensive (this time), with some colours teetering on the edge of pastel, contrasted with bright, bold, berry colours. The mental image for this one is a stripe of beautiful colour, separated with lashings of cream. Yes I saw this blanket quite vividly in my mind and the excitement, whilst waiting for the wool to arrive, was huge!!

The wool is my favourite 100% acrylic Stylecraft Special DK which is soft and versatile, not scratchy like various other brands of acrylic yarn, plus in comes in the most amazing, intense colours. The chosen colours are:
Top row from left: Boysenberry * Cream * Parchment * Apricot *
Bottom row from left: Soft Rose * Fuchsia Purple * Sage * Duck Egg *

The plan was simple, a starting chain of 198 stitches plus 2 for turning, followed by a row of double crochet, and then an initial row of treble clusters separated by chain stitches to start off... the granny stripe blanket! All further rows from now on are worked in the chain gaps and you can simply glide along the blanket adding colour after colour until you wish to stop. There really is nothing stopping you from making this blanket as long as you wish, you could keep going until you can wrap a house in it, or maybe when it fits a single bed.

In my experience of making striped blankets before, the first 30 or so rows seem to fly by and work up really quickly, but when you get further into it, there is an illusion that makes it look like you aren't adding any fullness until you have crocheted past that point, and suddenly, it is a full size blanket!

Each colour is worked up in two neat rows, seperated each time by two rows of cream which is giving it a very girly effect. I still haven't decided whether these colours should randomly appear, or if once I have used all of my colours, I should go back to the beginning and follow the initial order all the way through. I shall cross that bridge when I get to it, although my instinct is saying to go random.

It is currently joining the cat, the geometric blanket and myself on the chair in the evenings, all snuggled peaceably together in front of the laptop watching DVDs or The Crown on Netflix, have any of you been watching that? It's fascinating!
So this is what I shall be doing in the run up to Christmas, snuggling down and striping away!

WPLUP:: Geometric Ta-Daah!!

I think last time I updated you all on my geometric blanket, I had just finished the centre panel and was trying to plan how to finish it off with a border. I did toy with the idea of creating my own border pattern to include triangular shapes, mirroring the shapes in the blanket, but in the end I stuck with the simple; working rounds of double and treble crochet stitches. 

One weekend we drove up to visit The Brother in his university halls in Guildford, and as I find crochet a soothing way to occupy a journey, the blanket came with me and I managed to finish the border in the several hours worth of driving! Such an excellent way to pass the time when you can't really be doing anything else.
The curves and points of the edge were quite difficult to navigate as they weren't true and precise turning points, just gentle curving arches. They did still need an increase in stitches but it wasn't really clear on where to put them, and in hindsight I should have put more in, especially on the very corners of the blanket as they do curl over slightly where it's tight. The 'trough's of the curve were worked with trebles and doubles worked together to create a lovely 'v' shape.

I have to say that the cat really excelled himself in the testing of this blanket. Never has a blanket been so rigorously tested for comfyness, durability and the ability for easy removal of cat hair after a long nap. Such wiggling and wriggling, kneading and clawing, dribbling and cleaning went on both during the creation of the blanket and in the final quality control checks after completion. We spent many an evening snuggled together; the cat, the blanket and I.

It was finished just in time for the sudden cold snap which has descended upon us. The days are beautiful, sunny and clear but with that brisk freezing wind whisking away any warmth the sun may be sending our way, and the nights are gorgeously starry and bright but oh, so cold! You lose all feeling in your face, which is the only thing that isn't wrapped up under layers and layers of woolly knitwear. The blanket and various others have been in constant use, building little nests from which you can safely sip hot chocolate and eat mince pies (still in the testing stage), wishing never to emerge from the colourful safe haven created.

But go about our daily routine we must, and today I found myself wrapped in said various layers, draping the blanket around the garden and frantically taking photos whilst my fingers still had the ability to do so. I love how these colours zing together in the sunshine, it is truly the best weather to view this blanket in, the gold and yellows really sing loudly, and that gorgeous bright blue is simply marvellous!

The finished edging ends on my love/hate mustard colour, as I think is fitting seeing as how it is the whole reason for the blanket to be in this colour scheme in the first place, and I used Attic 24's spot on edging as I really love the effect it gives. It isn't a wide border as it only has five rounds, but is enough I think to finish the blanket nicely.

So here we go then, a ta-daah moment. Are you ready to see my full, finished blanket?

TA....


DAAAH.......!!

The cat is still feeling a little possessive over the blanket I think as he decided to brave the cold with me to view the ta-daah moment taking place (he is now fast asleep and slowly sliding off my lap as I type this blog post), and as he worked so hard as well it seemed only fitting for him to photobomb.

Don't you just love where the light has landed on the corner of the blanket there? Talk about a sucker-punch for colour and pattern! The finished and overall effect really reminds me of an artist's painting I saw in the Tate Modern once several years ago, it was very similar in terms of a regimented structure across the canvas, but the colours together were amazing; the light and dark, swirling around and creating their own story and effect.
So, I hope you have enjoyed this latest installment of the Winter Project Link Up Party hosted, as always, by the lovely Jen over at Thistle Bear. If you are interested in seeing what the other members of the party have been up to, do click on the link here to go to the relevant blog post, or click on the button on the right hand side of my page. xx