Me and my Knitted Bunny

I had to get dressed up for work :D So this is my idea of dressing nice to impress. I think I managed it but still in a very me way. I don't do fancy fancy. But I even managed lipstick and mascara. I did feel good all day. I've also been doing some work trying to get my hair to curl more. I have hair that is naturally wavy and I'm trying to bring that out rather than making it straight. It is a bit of a process but I'm liking how my hair is reacting. 

My bunny is all finished. Except for a few threads to sew in. She's all wonky and weird but I love how she turned out. I have been working on this project since 2015... so it has been WAAAY too long for such a simple finish. Particularly since all I had left to do were the arms! 

No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the eyes to look the same but it still works. Now all I need to do is make a little pinafore dress for her and it will be perfect :D 

I hope you don't mind the lack of cross stitch at the moment. I haven't been settled enough to do much stitching and I find either knitting or crochet helps when I'm in this mood. I do have some designs that I have been playing with though ... I'm kinda excited to see how they turn out! 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

Knitting Progress and Board Games

My friend had her birthday over the weekend and it was kinda awesome to see her again. We played board games and had yummy cake! It was nice to enjoy games again. I realised how much I missed my monthly board game nights. 

I forgot to get photos of the games I made for the night but I have been having some fun and finding board games to print and play. It is awesome how many games are available to be printed at the moment. Some you have to buy some you don't.

This is unstable unicorns, this is a copy a friend had but I managed to download and make up a copy as well from the tee turtle website. 

No candles so we had sparklers :D 

Rainbow cake :D

And now to the knitting! I have done all the parts for my bunny and now I'm in the process of sewing it together. 

It looks so cute :D and very lopsided. I couldn't manage to get the eyes to look right.... I've never been good at embroidering eyes on. 

I think I have the legs in the right spot? They're just pinned at the moment. 

Last night the kids wanted to play games with us so we played Bananagrams ... James won which isn't really that surprising. Though I wasn't far off. It's kinda a scrabble type game. 

And also Princess UNO. Because who wants to play with normal UNO cards?

I'm down to just the last two exams and then I'm done with my Master's degree. I will have a lot more time. But I am going to plan another games night with my friends sooner rather than later because I am realising that I have missed this so much. I miss talking with my friends and the interactions that come from playing games together. The reasoning and the ruthlessness .... and losing. I seem to have an innate ability to lose games but I enjoy playing them still. 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

Crochet and Knitting Fun (also craft room sorting)

So it turned FREEZING this weekend across Australia! We're not even in winter yet and some areas of Queensland recorded their coldest days EVER! So the ability to actually stay warm was even more important and I cuddled up under my crochet blanket with my owl beanie on and I stayed there for most of the weekend! 

Comfy Blanket Anyone?? 

With a little break in the middle of the day so I could clean the craft room a little. Not being able to even WALK into the room was starting to make me feel bad but it had become the box dumping site... So NOT entirely surprising. 

This was at the start of Saturday afternoon...I was standing in the doorway of the craft room! 

By the end of a couple of hours I manged to get the room like this. Still a HUGE amount to do but I am currently happy with how it stands. I can walk in and out of the room and I can see the potential even if I can't currently get to everything because it's still in relatively neat boxes. 

But my bookcase is looking particularly neat and I love the cross stitches on top. They are a Faye Whittaker design that I stitched YEARS ago. They came from a magazine I bought not long after I first started stitching. I will probably move those from there and put some sort of hanger system down the side of the bookcase so I can have the three designs sitting there so you can see them as you walk up the hall. 

I made a promise when we moved to start being truly honest with myself about why I am keeping certain craft stuff and just because I spent money on it is no longer an acceptable excuse. Actually I'm making that promise with a lot of stuff around the house as we slowly go through stuff and sort it. Let's be real... if I haven't touched a craft for 5 years not just because I work and do uni but because in the small breaks I do have that craft is something I have no interest in spending my time on ... WHY am I keeping it? It's a hard question to answer because I spent money on that stuff and obviously I felt it was important at the time but now, it's really not. 

But ... it's not all doom and gloom

I was searching through the drawers and came across this toy... it's a knitables pattern for her bunny and honestly I'm shocked that it's still there. I found I had ONLY two arms to do then some sewing and stuffing and I'll have a finished toy! So I settled down to watch a movie with my knitting in my lap and off I went. I'm sure as I continue to sort boxes and drawers I'll find more projects like this that I started. Some I WILL finish because I still like them but some I know I need to frog or bin all the work I have done and start a different project because it's not my style or my interest anymore. 

I also found a new crochet technique that I wanted to try (well not a new technique .. just new to me!) and I started testing out some squares. It's called Mosaic Crochet and this pattern is the square from the Terrazzo Afghan by Tinna

I I really like how this square looks though it isn't finished in this photo. It is just a tester to try out the pattern and I found for this one at least I used slightly too small a hook for the yarn and it's a little too tight. I don't know if I am going to make a whole blanket but I think I will. It will be a great project to work on through the winter as it will be highly portable. 

So that is my weekend update... I'm hoping to finish the bunny this week and then also work out what I am going to actually do about making a blanket as I would need to go yarn shopping to make it actually happen. Hope you stuck with me this far :D 

Happy Stitching,

Caitlin