Knitting Pretty

On and off for the past couple of days I have been knitting little acorns. I think they are adorable, and I am still playing with the pattern to find the exact right way for me. The original acorn on Pea Soup's blog  looked fantastic, but my yarn stash is a little limited so I have to alter the pattern just a little bit here and there to get the right effect.

I have also really been wanting to try out the Bunny Nuggets that can be found over on Mochimochi Blog, but I have been telling myself I have to get more of the acorns done before I can move onto something else. Plus I am still a little confused about the magic cast on, and I know Knitting Help can help me... because it says it in their title! But seriously, there is a video on there about it, but for some reason the other day when I went to play it there was no sound, so I have just been too lazy to go back since. I will get to it, though, right after my next few acorns...

Anyway, this has gotten me rather excited to try my hand at knitted toys. But what to knit? I mean, I don't want some honking toy hanging about, because I won't actually play with it, so it has to be small and unobtrusive so it can sit on my desk somewhere. Or I can place it in funny locales around the house... Last Easter my fiance and I got little egg baskets from his mother, she had gone to the trouble to put cute little yellow fuzzy chicks on them, so I got into the habit of putting them in different places in the house, and seeing when my fiance noticed them. I used Blu-tack to stick them on the walls, under arch-ways, on top of the television, pretty much anywhere I thought they would eventually be noticed and laughed at.

I am going to link to a few cute toy patterns, ones that I can either see myself making, or think are odd and cool enough to be here. First off, back to Mochimochi's blog for some Grass, because it is just so cute. I want to knit a few of these up and just place them around the edges of my desk. I have always thought this little storm cloud is cute, and think he could be part of a great mobile for a baby's room. A white version without the lightning, and then this one, and two other variants, like a grey one, and a white one with snowflakes. This little milk and cookie pattern is cute, if completely useless. I don't know, I think it would just be nice to have on one's desk. Continuing with food, I think knitted onigiri (Japanese rice-ball) would be nice to have around. You could even put a rock in it and use it as a paper weight. Lastly, I want to link to this pattern just because I have mentioned the book that inspired it here before, The Stinky Cheese Man.

So those are the toy patterns that appeal to me today. But as I said, many more acorns to go, and a horde of Bunny Nuggets too!

I recently found an absolutely adorable photo blog that happened to be linked on Cute Overload - one of my favorite cute sites. Well, this photo blog is now amongst my favorite cute sites too. It is called My Milk Toof and is done by an artist who puts together these gorgeous little stories involving a couple of baby teeth that have come back to her years after they left via being put under her pillow.

Two of the entries in particular have left an impression on me, in two separate ways. One, called Toof Cleaning, has left me childishly declaring 'Don't wanna' whenever I have to do something vaguely unpleasant. Though, proclaiming loudly through the house 'Don't wanna' actually helps me to get whatever I don't want to do done. Follow me there? By saying something so childish, and a little bit silly, I make myself giggle and feel just a little bit happier. So if I have to go and do dishes, and I announce that I 'Don't wanna' I feel much more amicable to just going and getting started.

The other post which has left an impression, I think mostly because I was already inclined towards this, is titled My Sweet Wilting Tree. In this one, Lardee - he's the sweet tooth, I think, because he's a little bigger than Ickle and likes sweet things - prescibes a rather sorry looking little plant some warm milk tea with lots of sugar. He also gives the little plant a warm blanket and sings to it. Yeah, that's almost painfully cute. Back to what I was saying, that whole sweet tea making you feel better thing really does work for me. If I am feeling a bit on the nauseous side, or a bit tired and grumpy, or whatever, sweet tea makes me feel better. So check out that blog, because it really is delightfully cute! 

Of course it is now time for today's pattern... I think we have to go with a tooth faerie pillow today, don't we? Yes, yes we do! So here is a cute little tooth pillow to knit up. But I think I would make this one with a cute little stitched on face on the front, too. I just think it would have more character that way.

I know I've mentioned this before, but here is again because I like saying it. I'm engaged.  Getting married with all that economic brouhaha going on may sound like a bad idea, unless of course, you are planning to elope. Which is exactly what we had decided to do years ago; being private people it always made sense to us. Now it makes even better sense!

There are still certain costs associated with our getting married, but mostly just revolving around the holiday we plan to take during that period. We will be eloping early next year, and with it being something I am really looking forward to, I am actually planning ahead of time.

I have a list of what I need to have organised, such as the paperwork for the marriage, the hotel reservation, the activities we plan to do on our holiday, find and buying the rings, and what all that will come to in the end so we have specific goal in mind for saving towards this. When I was planning this, I actually thought the very first thing to do was to get a joint savings account. We both already bank with Nationwide Building Society, so it made sense to get a savings account with them, which makes it extremely easy to transfer our savings in there when we get our pay each month. I think online banking is the best!

I am more than a little excited, really. I am having a great time thinking about having a day that we can spoil ourselves on, go and do anything we want, take in a show, visit places we have been meaning to visit for such a long time, and of course, best of all, finally being married to the man I love. 

Getting this all prepared truly is a labor of love, one that I am really excited to be in charge of, and really happy that we are doing it our own way! I am very much looking forward to our holiday too! 

We are all different. We all handle each and every situation that life throws in our direction in unique ways. We all cope, handle, or buckle and break in our own, personal, way. Tonight I am a little down, so I will write of something sad.

When I was growing up, it was just my mother and I. No father in the picture, and my mother didn't have very good luck with men, so there wasn't really anyone else about. Oh she had friends, for a while, but they would come and go nearly with the seasons. She didn't keep friends, she was the black sheep of the family too, so they weren't close. The only person who stayed around was her sister, my beloved aunt, who lived about a ninety-minute drive away. They weren't really super close, either, because my mother didn't really respect her sister.

You see, my mother has rage issues. She had a very, very, awful childhood, and hasn't really processed it properly. She believes that her anger is a defense against all the ills of the world, that she is protected by being angry, she believes it makes her strong. With what she has been through, feeling like a victim is always close on her heels, and she uses anger as a way to keep that feeling at bay.

When I was very young, I was mostly safe from this rage. A few times she was violent with me, breaking wooden spoons over my backside when I had been naughty. She justifies this action to this day, saying she deliberately bought spoons that would break. She stopped, though, when I was four or five.

I suppose the rageful outbursts became directed towards me when I was about nine. It could be the most trivial of things, I had forgotten where I had placed my shoes, and she tore my room apart looking for them. Only to realise she had them all along in her own room. She didn't apologise, or help me right my room. She would become so enraged with me, should she ask something that I would have trouble doing. Finding some crafting items she kept in a cupboard, so she stormed in and got them herself, and shoved me against a wall with the craft items in my face, as if to show it wasn't difficult to find them.

When I was eleven or so, it became much worse. We moved a lot - she always made poor friendships that turned very nasty, so she fled from them - and at that point, we moved into a very run down horrid house, in a town I didn't care for. I hated it, I was so very unhappy. This made her very angry with me. Now mind you, I woulnd't change it at all, because it is in that town that I met my fiance, but at that point, I didn't know him, and I was not well liked in the area. I was short, fat, strange, shy, self-conscious, poor, and the daughter of someone the town assumed was a witch - of all things!? - and was generally an outcast. Her rageful outbursts at my school didn't help, either.

Good evening! This is my brand new blog. This is a new place for me to potter around (I am actually a Harry Potter fan, so that particular turn of phrase always makes me want to gigglesnort at myself... hehehehe) and share my creative outbursts. I have to, you see, I find that I just natter on at my fiance about all things craft related for much longer than is seemly. :)

I suppose I should introduce myself, shouldn't I? I'm Elle, the author of Knitting Pretty. Now I'll tell you a little about myself. I am engaged to the man of my dreams, who I live with in a snug little house with our two little cats. Along with reading, I love to knit, sew, and generally try my hand at any handcraft I come across. I'm a terrible mess when it comes to my craft areas though, so don't be overly bothered if some of my posts are craft related and others are entirely unrelated. I am also an avid lover of cartoons and anime. Good cartoons and anime, mind you, not those terrible CGI ones children have to deal with these days, no, I am talking of Powerpuff Girls, Ah My Goddess, Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.

With me being so crafty, it may come as no small surprise that I am currently at University studying to become a Web Designer. I adore building a website from the ground, well code actually, up. Seeing it take form, and become a live, useful medium.

Ah, and yet another defining characteristic about me... I love food! Occasionally I will post recipes, because let's face it, when can't you use another recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies? Never, that's when!

I will also be including a link to a knitting pattern with each of my posts, only free ones, though, so anyone can print them out and have a go. Today's pattern is actually meant to be knit now, and worn later. Pretty little gloves called Kingdom from over on Knitty.com I can't wait to give these a go myself, though I am an extraordinary procrastinator, so we will see.

So, as I said, a bit of a mess, really... I mean look at my first post there... I don't even stay on track for that! What hope have I for an entire blog of cohesive posts!? I have no hope, I give up now, prepare for me to ramble whenever I like. Much like a pet rabbit, you are never quite sure which way it is going to go, it can be still for a while, seemingly about to nap, but out of no where it is across the room and chomping on your wellies! Bye for now!