she knits, too!

it seems that the gods of blogging (bloggods?) have decided this should not be a knitting blog. having stopped letting me post photos the last two times i wanted to show knitting related stuff, yesterday came the final straw... after 40 minutes of writing a post about knitting i went to click publish post and - the computer froze. good bye entertaining knitting content! hello very frustrated blogger...

i have been trying to think about how to get around this. one thought i had was to replace 'knit' with something completely unrelated, to try and fox those bloggods. perhaps... jelly. so i would have some completed jelly objects to show you today, for example. but then i thought that would most likely also confuse me and you, so in the end i've decided to say a little prayer that it won't happen again, save as drafts repeatedly, and just get on with the post.

so here goes!

today i finally have two finished objects!! hooray hooray hooray! for someone stuck in a knitting rut, this is exactly what was needed. yes, they are simple items, and yes, they were quick knits, but i finished some things and i like them and that is, essentially, what matters.

here's the first FO (it's the least impressive) but firstly, to show you that i wasn't lying when i told you that i had one knitting related photo from my holidays, here's the thing that inspired it:
ok, i think this is a crochet version, and it was one of 2, the other was dark blue. they lived in the little house we stayed in in tuscany.

now i'm going to show you my slightly less pretty and clumsier knitted versions. i feel like rolf harris - can you guess what it is yet???





ok, these are my versions. the orange one is now finished, i cast off whilst watching dead poet's society for the first time last night (raised a whole load more questions - what am i doing to make my life extraordinary??)

clues on what they are...

1. they are made with double knit cotton - thick enough to be... thick! but still flexible.

2. they are knit in seed stitch, making them quite thick and bulky.

3. they are flame coloured!

again - can you guess what it is yet?? yes, i know they are just 15cm squares of seed stitch, but they are my new pan handle grabbers. i have a huge pasta pan that is metal and unhelpfully has metal handles (who designed that??!) and i have burned so many fingers and tea towels moving it off the hob. not any more! hoorah. they were also super quick to knit, perfect for knitting on the tube (and a perfect distraction to the horrible heat down there) and i like the clashing colours. yey.

but, since they are actually just 15cm squares of seed stitch (don't worry, i'm not deceiving myself!) i also need to present a proper FO... meet ellie's bear:

i sewed her face yesterday to finish it off. three attempts. sewing on faces is HARD. remind me never to go into plastic surgery. seriously. ever. the eyes were the wrong size, the nose would have been bigger than the baby, the smile was VERY wonky... the baby would have had nightmares! but i think it got there in the end.

i like this bear, not quite as much as i liked leo's rabbit but quite a lot. some flaws are my fault - i only noticed that i made the sweater too short once it was finished and i just couldn't get the enthusiasm to make it again. but generally i think it turned out quite well. i'll be giving it to baby ellie on thursday. she's only about a month old, so i'm not expecting a huge response! but hopefully her mum will like it.

these two sets of fos were just what i needed. i have been struggling to be inspired with knitting recently, last weekend i was allowing myself a chance to indulge in john lewis and i spent an hour struggling over what i was going to knit. it was VERY scary. i was sat looking at patterns and the thought actually flitted through my head: 'what if i've lost my knitting mojo??'

and then i found something that made me happy - noro. i have never seriously knit with noro before, just completing a couple of booga bags a long long time ago. but i was just wandering around the aisles and i saw this book with Gloria on the front:

and my knitting mojo came back. yey! i know it's very hot right now. i know it will end up being a very expensive knit (despite managing to save money on the noro on ebay). i know it might even not look that good... but still, i really like it, i like the colours, and i like the simplicity of the pattern. so i'm knitting it and i'm happy. i'm off to get the debbie bliss yarn needed today!

alright, it seems the bloggods have forgiven me (perhaps for my lack of recent content and knitting content???) and i'll make it to a proper post. phew!

will be back again soon!

becks x