Christmas Lurgie :(

Just a quick post to let you know I've not been posting as we've all been hit with the dreaded winter cold & flu for Christmas. F & I missed going to all the toddler parties and until today neither of us have been remotely fit enough to leave the house since our trip to the doctors on the 17th December.  F fortunately was prescribed some anti-biotics which really made a difference but I wasn't so lucky due to being pregnant and it's taken until today for me to feel a glimmer of my normal self.  Paul eventually succumbed to the germs yesterday and has been in bed since with a temperature of over 100. All this illness has seriously hampered my scarf progress but I must be feeling a bit better now as i'm starting to get twitchy hands again! I hope you all had a great Christmas & I wish you a wonderful New Year/Hogmanay if I don't make it on again before then. Fi xxx

Scarf progress :)

I'm off to a good start with the scarf. The Elenya yarn is delightful to use and the pattern is easy to remember. I'm working alternate stripes of each colour and they're blending very nicely.

Three Irish Girls Elenya

My Three Irish Girls Stash of Elenya 50%Alpaca/50%Merino. When I saw the Multi-colourway was called Fiona I just had to have it :)

I also ordered a matching cerise and pumpkin orange.

My plan was to use it for a felted project... but it's absolutely perfect for the Feather & Fan scarf I'm trying out from the Beautiful Knits for Heads, Hands & Toes book... my December book review.

So now I've 3 projects on the go... Haggis the highland cow, Finn's Christmas stocking & the Feather & Fan scarf. The scarf is knitted... which is something I've not done in years!

I've always been an extremely slow knitter so it will be interesting to see if I'm any faster these days. I'll post my review at the end of the month with photos of how far I've got... as somehow I don't think it will be finished in 3 wks :)

Felted stocking

Felted stocking

Originally uploaded by fiona-kelly

Eek! Slightly more of a colour run when it felted than I expected. The red isn't so Christmassy and the cream... well it's now more of a definite pink... even the snowman is the same shade (i'm not even going to bother photographing that). On the plus side the fringing felted extremely well and if this was done in a single colour it could work. But this wasn't exactly the overall look I was going for so I think this time it'll have to be a non felted pattern.

Stocking snowman

This is the snowman so far for our F's stocking. It's also in the machine and I'll add the rest of his details when I sew him into place.

F's stocking almost finished!

Just a bit more to do. I re-did the toe section and I'm now doing some fringing around the top plus a little snowman decoration next before felting..

F's Christmas Stocking progress...

 I'm making fast progress with F's Christmas Stocking now... Just a bit more to do height wise, then the fringed top and I think the toe section is a bit short so I need to re-do that part. 

I just have to untangle my ball of cream merino DK that he got hold of before I realized.... it's amazing how a toddler can turn a simple doughnut of yarn into a tangled heap in minutes. I should have guessed as soon as he got very quiet! Anyway I've not long to go at all & I might even have it in the machine to felt by Wednesday. Looks like F is into Snowmen at the moment so that's what I'm going to decorate it with... more updates to come :)

F's 1st Christmas Stocking... a WIP

After starting and unravelling a quite a few attempts already... I've eventually got the start of the look I was endeavouring to achieve YAY! In the end I decided to go with starting at the heel, work my way along to the toe and then rejoin the yarn & head up the body of the stocking. I wanted to make the stocking  in rounds with very little in the way of visable seams/joins etc. The shaping has been a bit tricky so far but I think I've got the worst bit worked out...

I'm being good and using up some of my stash too... some lovely bright red Jaeger Merino DK wool. I have some cream & black Jaeger merino too so I might do a fancy fringed top? My plan was to felt this afterwards but It's looking so nice as it is I'm now not sure... the fringing will definitely be better felted so maybe i'll have to take the plunge and just give it a go! If it doesn't work I can always crochet another and leave it be as I don't think the finished stocking will be using very much yarn :)

I'll keep you updated on my progress & I've just got to decide what to decorate it with apart from his name... a santa, a reindeer, an Xmas tree... what do you think I should put on it?