I didn’t think I’d be able to keep this a secret, but I have!
I am this weeks featured blogger on Cut Out and Keep!!!!
If you’ve never visited cutoutandkeep.net before it’s chock full of patterns and tutorials of everything from knitting and crochet to jewellery making, embroidery, and sewing.
This week will feature some of my patterns and a couple of tutorials as well!!
My first pattern is a cabled tea cozy so go and check it out.
Do I need to warn you that this contains lots of pictures of cats??? Adorable adorable cats. 
Oh and I finished a book! With two cats at my feet. 
Remember that shawl that I posted without taking a good picture of first?
Well I have my photo!
Isn’t it just lovely??? Megs of course but also my shawl!!!
The pattern is nurmilintu and I just finished another, this time for myself and also in my own hand dyed yarn.
Blocking it made such a difference. But blocking with cats? When they’ve taken one of your blocking mats to be their new scratching post? Not fun.
At one point Tina ran off with a pin in her mouth and I had to chase her through the house so she didn’t hurt herself. In the end I locked them in their room (formerly the spare room) pinned it all out and then put it outside and once it got dark then put it into our bedroom and closed the door.
That’s the problem with open plan houses. No place to block your shawl with two nosy kittens.
I’m still not entirely convinced that the lace panels are correct. Either due to me not being able to count or the chart being wrong, but I don’t really care.
It’s colourful and warm and soft and it won’t leave my neck for at least until I finish the picot scarf that’s nearly off my needles.
I hated knitting these socks.
Sure the yarn was squishy, the colours were pretty and the pattern was simple enough.
But the yarn was low twist so it kept a splitting, the colours pooled badly, and I stuffed up the pattern really early on in the sock and didn’t want to go back and change it.
So they’d been languishing on the needles for a while as I worked on other projects. 
Then the needle I was using for Olivia broke (4th needle that has broken on that project!), the stitch pattern on the shawl I had on the needles wasn’t working for me, I didn’t feel like crochet and I didn’t want to start a new project.
I had already turned the heel (fish lips kiss style) so I picked them up again. Told myself that I would knit until the end of the football game and then bind off. By the end of the game they weren’t really long enough when I tried them on my foot but I was so sick of the bloody things I just wanted them finished and was not at all prepared to spend any time doing the usual ribbing required of a sock.
So on a whim I figured an I-cord bind off would add some extra length, plus give them a bit of extra stretch and stability around the ankle.
(The socks have been strategically photographed to not show off my giant pattern fail!)
I freakin LOVE these socks now!!!!
The fit perfectly under low topped converse which I practically live in.
I don’t mind the mistakes because they’re under a shoe, and the icord bind off makes the yarn colours look great.
I am definitely going to use this bind off for socks more often now. Plus no time consuming ribbing.
I was gifted the most special of yarns.
Keri (of whendidibecomeaknitter) sent me a skein of her hand spun.
It was sent with a knitted dalek and a Canada Mug (which I use most mornings and I now know most of the words to Oh Canada) and a very precious skein of her own hand spun yarn! From the date on the original photo it has been in my stash since 2013 just waiting for the right pattern to come along.
Well in the end I devised the right pattern.
After casting on 5 stitches I repeated the following two rows.
Row 1: Knit 1, Knit front & back, knit til last 3, knit 2 together, knit 1
Row 2: Knit til last 2 stitches. Knit front & back, knit 1.
Then every now and again I would do a row of yarn over knit 2 together (while following the increase at one end, decrease at the other pattern).
It still needs blocking to even out the 4 rows of yarn over-knit 2 together to end the shawl. But the kittens have stolen my craft room and so now I don’t know where to block anything.
It’s also awkward given my blocking matts have become their scratching pads.
I really don’t want to put such a pretty shawl onto a cat scratching pad!!!
Firstly it was awesome to be gifted some hand spun yarn! It must have taken so long to spin and ply and wind. Seriously just the effort alone is awesome and a wonderful gift.
Secondly as a novice spinner it was really interesting to see the imperfections, the quirks, and idiosyncrasies of yarn that has been hand spun. This isn’t to say that it wasn’t fantastic quality, because it was and is! But seeing hand spun up close is going to help my own spinning (once a part is fixed on my wheel). 
So not only did I get a lovely gift which resulted in a fantastic finished object, but I got a lesson in working with hand spun yarn.
Reason #7482929 knitters are brilliant people.
THANK YOU KERI!!! You’re the best!!!!
This week – I can’t even begin.
There’s just been so much going on.
If you want a better articulated version of my week visit TeaTimeTails.
The one thing that’s kept me slightly sane has been the prospect of a long weekend (which means football!!!) and the sage advice from the latest Tina Fey produced TV show ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’.
Like nearly every other person who’s written about this series on the Internet, I watched it all in one night and have a really strong desire to watch it all again.
If you don’t live in the US, or pretend you live in 90210 like we do to watch US Netflix you may have not have seen Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt but the basic premise is this. After 15 years of living in a hole with a cult leader, they’re rescued and instead of returning her life before, Kimmy takes her Unbreakable spirit and starts a life in New York.
It’s not all smooth sailing. It is a television show and there is a narrative to drive. Naturally there’s conflict and hard times and Kimmys strategy is one that I’ve employed this week.
“You can handle anything for 10 seconds.”
10 seconds at a time. Then another 10 seconds. Then another 10 seconds.
That’s been this week. 10 seconds at a time.
The theme song is also catchy as anything. So that absolutely had to go on a cuff. With a little 10 as a secret reminder to take things 10 seconds at a time.
But if you can watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt – do so immediately!
There are some things you just can’t do when you’re a cat owner.
One of these things is having a tea cup on your bed side table as a jewelry holder.
Cats will jump on it causing the clinking of China to wake you up at 4am on a Saturday. It may be pretty but sleep does come first.
So I needed to hang my jewelry out of cats reach.
I am pretty obsessed with embroidery hoops so I picked out a couple in my crafty stash which I had painted and put away for future use.
I took some fabric also from stash, secured it in the hoop, cut around the back, and poked some earrings into it!
Then I screwed a couple of hooks into the wall and hung them.
Then I screwed a couple more hooks behind the embroider hoop to hang some of my necklaces on. (If you’re renting or don’t have walls that you can put holes into, 3M command hooks work as well.)
This has got to be one of easiest DIY I’ve ever done.
I now know that I’m missing some earrings which I’ll have to track down. And I found some that I need to return to their original owner!
It also has the added bonus of being almost entirely from stash, keeps my necklaces untangled, and looks pretty cute to boot. That makes it a winner in my book. And the cats aren’t really all the interested!
Possibly my favourite part of grocery shopping is checking out the stationery section.
It’s not even a whole aisle but depending on what’s in stock you can usually find something interesting, new, or pretty.
Recently I spotted some metallic sharpies and they somehow slipped and found their way into my basket!
I sat down on the couch with some glass jars, some coloured permanent markers, got comfy and started experimenting.
My drawing didn’t go too well. The glass was slippery, my drawing skills are limited, and once you draw on the glass it doesn’t come off!
I experimented with text by taping the design on paper and sticking it to the inside of the jar.
That was not easy. It was fiddly, I didn’t have enough light, and half way through the paper moved.
I had the most success when I went to basics. Horizontal lines and geometric patterns. They’re my strong suits. Nothing too tricky but striking.
I then ran out of jars, so I moved on to the pot I use as a yarn bowl. I had bought it from the hardware store with a little plant because I thought I’d try my hand at keeping 1 solitary plan alive.
I was quickly informed by the gardener in the relationship that the pot was too small for the plant.
So it’s been holding my yarn ever since.
Using the gold metallic sharpie I gave it a scalloped top.
It was exactly how I thought I’d spend my friday night, but there you go.
Oh and naturally I filled the jars with pompoms because that’s how I roll.
PS for those readers who use feedly or by email. I’ve redecorated! Come have a look and tell me what you think?
It started off so well.
– The colour is beautiful (why thank you I dyed it myself),
– The cat photobombing is freakin adorable
– The mindless garter is perfect watching all of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in one night,
and then came the lace……. (use your most ominous tone. I suggest the voice of Cecil Baldwin)
The pattern is Nurmilintu by Heidi Alandar and it’s lovely. The pattern is well set out, the finished pictures look great, and even the finished items from other people look great.
So why oh why am I having so much trouble with this?
There’s only one answer I can come up with.
I can’t count.
Maybe my pre-primary teacher felt sorry for me and passed me instead of holding me back.
Perhaps by the time I was in high school doing calculus my parents had written letters to my teachers warning them to not shatter my illusions of being able to count.
Is this like my colour vision and I’m just suddenly realising that actually there is no such number as the number 7 and it’s all a figment of my imagination?
I honestly believed I could count, but for some bizarre unknown reason whenever I do any kind of counting in this pattern it doesn’t add up. (Pun well and truly intended.)
I counted 3 times (if there even is a number three) that I had the correct number of stitches before starting the first lace part.
Even after the first row I had the right number of stitches left and followed the chart exactly.
But the lace section just does not look right. It’s nothing like the pictures and I can’t work out how.
Then (and this is some seriously wack shit…. ) I counted the number of stitches I had AFTER completely the lace section and I had LESS than what the pattern said I should have had BEFORE I started the lace section?? But I still have increased the pattern????? (All my twitter followers have just had a collective moment of ‘OHHH!!! That’s what Bek was yelling about last night!”)
I just don’t know. I really don’t. I’m flummoxed.
It’s definitely not getting frogged. In spite of my inability to count I’m still in love with it already.
I shall call it a design feature and flaunt it.
Here’s hoping that we can work it out for the second repeat!
Well it’s actually finished object 6 but as finished object 5 is currently winging its way overseas and I stupidly don’t have any proper photos of it, I’m calling this finished object 5.
It will need a good blocking but my blocking mats are currently play toys for the two (yes two) kitten shaped ratbags that have decided they now own our house.
Say hello to Snow.
He and Tina are sort of playing nicely with each other. Currently they’re both resting at my feet while I’m writing this in between trying to defeat a boss in Dragon Age 2. (Which hell yes I just beat!! Last quest and I’ve been battling this Blood Mage, a Pride Demon and a fuckton of Shades for what seems like hours but yeh I finally beat them!!!)
Tina just blends in with everything in our house. But trust me she is there.
So there are plenty of kitty hugs to go round at the moment.
I wound my cling wrap dyed yarn into a ball and it looks just as gorgeous as it did in the skein.
However both kitten shaped ratbags were utterly captivated by the swift and ball winder. Plus Snow photo bombed my yarn shot.
I think I can expect more of that in the future!!! As a friend said, I’ve just invited two cats into a yarn palace!!! What have I done.
polka-dots & sparkles 