The Anonymous Blueberry Muffin Thief Sews...

I just want to hibernate. Do you have those days? I do, a lot (thanks depression). I'm upping my vitamin D intake and cranking up the sunlight lamp, but it takes a lot longer for me to get going in the mornings this time of year. I feel like I never have enough time for anything at the moment either. I get up, I work, I go home, I do not enough crafting and then go to bed to repeat it all again the next day. I'm slogging through a couple of commissions at the moment that aren't quite catching my attention the way that they should be. They're slow and complicated and more than my tired brain can handle in the evenings. But they're getting there. Before I get to the good stuff, I have a wee cheeky favour to ask... if you enjoy this inane rambling, could you throw a couple of quid at my ko-fi ? I had to buy a new washing machine and new glasses last month, and that kind of ate through any spare money I had, and then some. (alternatively, go have a peruse of my shop...

This is the last of my FALQ1 catch up blogs! I'm exhausted, so this is probably going to be a short one unless I start rambling! These are Astra Mitts , pattern by Ambah O'Brien, part of the Astra set of hat (made over xmas), mitts and cowl (yet to be cast on) The yarn is DK in Towpath (green) and Cairn (grey) from RiverKnits , whose yarns are gorgeous.

This is one of those hellish projects that has been sitting around for AGES for no reason other than procrastination. This is the small version of the Heidi clutch from Swoon patterns , and I have a bit of a love hate relationship with it. It's a great, fairly simple pattern, right up until you get to the top stitching around the zip.

It's another Finish Along quarter 1 finish! And it's a knitted thing that has been on my list to finish for fucking ever! It's a Hitchhiker :D Despite what some people I know might think, this is only the second one of these I've made. But it's a good pattern, and as someone addicted to pretty sock yarn but who hates wearing socks, pretty shawls like this are the way forwards!

Good morning! The sun is shining and I know full well the weather is going to turn again this weekend, because it's England, but stuff it, I shall rejoice in the sun, however brief it is! This is actually a Finish Along Finish! Bet you thought there wouldn't be any of those! (I wasn't sure...) This is the Triple Pouch from Aneela Hoey's Stitched Sewing Organisers book. And it's terrifying! But it looks really cool.

More stuff! This was a swap quilt, which I was obscenely proud of, and which went down well with its recipient! If you're coming here from IG, you probably know about the #saturdaynightcraftalong, in which everyone gets together in the tag and posts what they're doing on a saturday evening, and cheerleads each other and drools over other people's projects. It's good, laid back crafty fun, and at the tail end of last year, the organisers of the tag set up a swap.

This was probably finished in time for the last quarter of last year's FAL, but because I'm me, I couldn't be bothered to post it. This is the Rune Shawl , from last year's Shawl Society, and this is the 4th pattern from that collection that I've finished. The Vila and the Sprite's Fen are still in progress! This post is also the introduction of my new little helper, Jazz. I've been talking about getting a cat for AGES, and at the tail end of last year, while perusing the Cat's Protection League pages, I fell in love with a little tortie. After fighting my housing association (who hate answering their phones and giving straight answers) and her having an ongoing case of stress induced cystitis, I finally picked her up just after christmas, and she has been treading on things, jumping on my ironing board and chewing my circular needle cables ever since!

I've got to that annoying point where I've ended up with LOADS of stuff I feel I should blog, and no enthusiasm or time to actually blog them. But, since I am trying to keep track of these things, and since some of them are Finish-Along projects, I should probably get my arse in gear. So... first off, some xmas catch up! First project was a plushie bat. I love bats, most of my friends do, and my bff's housemate/landlady has recently had a bit of a time of it. So while she's not someone I'd usually gift to, I found her a really cool gothy print, and made her a bat.

I've got a bunch of short posts of stuff wot I 'ave finished recently to post, that have been sat with the photos prepped and nothing else for a while. First off, is the Wishmaker Shawl , pattern number 5 from the Shawl Society season 2. This is the second of the shawls from this set that I've finished, and while I do like the pattern, I ruined it with poor yarn choices.

I've not had the photos for this sitting on my computer for about a month, honest. I really hate writing blog posts sometimes, but I've got nothing better to do at work today. These are the finished bits I made for my #seamonsterswap partner over on instagram. And a needle cosy I made because I had some scraps. After this there'll be a vague "this is how I made it" post that isn't really a tutorial, but some pictures and some swearing. Also apparently I didn't take a photo of the back of the miniquilt when it was finished. It wasn't very interesting so you're not really missing out much there. Portholes, tentacles and seahorses were the aims here, which I think this hits. Nothing massively "sea monster" but definitely deep sea and a bit weird. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do, and then had to work out if I had the skills to match! Thankfully, the issue of Quilt Now that came out around the time I was pl...

These were originally on the FAL Q2 list, but unfortunately got done in that weird period between linking up my finishes and linking up the new quarter, so they didn't count for Q2 and they're not on the Q3 list. Hey ho. I don't appear to have photos of all of them either, which is a wee bit irksome. There's another fox with a darker blue background, and a Starfleet symbol on blue. The pi and the fox patterns are by Stars and Sunshine  and are both free patterns on her craftsy store. I love foxes, and I'm a math nerd, so of course I'm going to use them. I might put these up for sale, I'm not sure. They're quilted and stuffed with polyfil, which I'm not too fond of for pincushions, but is at least light, and easy to get hold of. They're a fun way to use up odd blocks I make here and there, so I suspect there will be more of them in the future.

This err, wasn't on the Finish Along list. Actually, a lot of what I'm working on at the moment wasn't. Oops?

In my vague attempt to keep up with this whole blogging thing, and because I'm currently bored at work, here's a blog post. My Star Wars maythe4thsquiltswap package went off to it's new home on Saturday, although thanks to traffic and the bank holiday, it's not going to get there until tomorrow. I'm pleased with it, and when my partner has received it, I'll post it up here. In the mean time, this is my first attempt at the Zip Up Tray Pouch by Aneela Hoey. It's a great, clever pattern, and I think it would be perfect for tabletop gaming, as well as the obvious craft uses. It would be even better if I could read instructions properly.

There is no nudity in this post! Just sea slug awesomeness :D My first finish for the second quarter of the 2017 Finish-A-Long is my Nudibranch March Mini Madness shawl. Found here on Ravelry , this was an excellently quick and brainless knit, which I've managed to make obscenely colourful thanks to Mothy and the Squid's excellent nudibranch colourways. I'm trying to make an effort to have a bit more colour in my outfits, and this will brighten up anything I wear! It has a slight curvature where I bodged the tension adding the second mini skein of yarn, which I also added too early, but otherwise, a pleasing, lazy knit for lunchbreaks and evenings watching TV. I've been knitting a lot more recently; my sewing room is a mess and getting home in the evenings I just want to flake in front of trashy tv and not think too hard, rather than work around the piles of stuff lying around upstairs. I've spent a chunk of this bank holiday weekend trying to tidy up, ...

I'm still reeling at this week. It's sucked. First David Bowie and now Alan Rickman. Words can't express the loss. Work is driving me into the ground as well; we're just starting to deliver on a project 2 years overdue and it's all going mad. I've not got a lot of words, but I want to try and blog the backlog of christmas presents I made. This is a Falling Water scarf I made for my step-mum.

I hope everyone had an excellent festive season! I'm a dirty atheist with pagan leanings, so christmas is about spoiling my friends and family and eating too much food, which is basically what I did. New Year was quiet due to everyone else being off doing stuff, but I spent it with a pile of pizza, a pile of books and a pot of tea (I was sadly asleep before midnight due to food allergies, but c'est la vie) Anyway, you're here for me making stuff, so Christmas present posts! I made most of my gifts this year, and am absolutely not still trying to finish the quilt I started for one friend. It will be a christmas/birthday/house moving gift and all will be well. But let's start with something small... ties! I do wear ties occasionally. Once I'd got over the horror of wearing them to school, I used to wear them to the goth club I used to frequent at university, and now I do wear them, very occasionally, at work. It confuses people so I don't do it too often....

I've got a bunch of stuff that I keep meaning to post, but work is manic and when I'm at home I'm trying to get all of my Christmas making done (lots of making, the obviously I can't blog about yet) A few weeks ago I finally bit the bullet, cleared off the living room floor and cut out the Sewaholic Hollyburn that has been sat, pattern cut, on my living room table for months. There was an issue with the fabric I was originally going to use, which turned out to have a directional print, which would have been fine but I didn't quite have enough of it, so the pattern languished, as did the fabric I'd bought as a replacement. The photos are pretty awful, because err, there's me, and I need some kind of tripod like thing for my phone so I can take decent photos (asking my dad to take pictures never ends well; he sulks and they end up with oil tanks or lorries in the background thanks to the work yard)

I'm hoarding posts at the moment. There;s been plenty of making, but I'm not feeling the enthusiasm to write them up.  Plus some of them aren't finished, some of them aren't photographed and some are xmas presents that have to stay hidden. This post is a mishmash of quilting experiments, all set in motion by me recklessly signing up for the Schnitzelandboo Mini Quilt Swap on instagram. I've barely been quilting 6 months, and I've never done any kind of craft swap, but the opportunity was there so I went for it, and it was a blast. I made myself learn so much, and while I haven't received my package yet, the one I sent out has been gladly received. So without further ado... stuff I have made in preparation, and to send with my mini-quilt swap.

  Another overdue blog post. Oops. My first foray into mini-quilt making which didn't quite go as planned when it ended up being larger than intended. This was a gift for a couple I know who were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary, and the 10th anniversary of their meeting (which is terrifying as we were at university together, it can't have been that long ago!) I didn't have a clue what to get them, as their interests diverge quite a bit from mine, but they both love cats, so I thought a wall hanging quilt with some personality would be a nice thing. I chose the Kittens Quilt pattern from Elizabeth Hartman, because it was a reasonable sized block, and I might be planning to make myself a kitten quilt with some of the many fat quarters I have stashed :D

*the Purple Marauder does no such thing, nyarrr This is mostly a very boring post about a skirt I have made WAY too many times now. This is my 3rd Imagine Gnats Alder skirt (previous ones here and here ). It's a quick easy make that doesn't use up masses of fabric, and most importantly for me, has excellent pockets that can hold tissues, both my phones (work handset and mobile), random bits of stuff I have to lug around the workshop and my kindle *not all at the same time, but that's a test I haven't quite put any of these through. This was part of my MadeUp pledge (the other half being the banner that I plan to spend the evening embroidering), which was to make a skirt that was actually suitable and sensible for work. I wear my other two Alders fairly regularly, but they're both quilting cotton and so quite stiff. They're also garish as fuck, and while my workplace is pretty lax, I sometimes feel like they're humouring me (to say nothing of the...