well, it's been a while!

Ugh, it's been so long since I blogged that blogger's forgotten me! I had to username and password like a normal person! Woe!

Apologies to my loyal readers (all like 2 of you lol!) but life's been a bit of a poop storm recently. Everything's getting in the way of me doing the things this blog's about.

I have been finding time to do some crochet and felting (and also art now too, since the IME has rekindled my love of putting pencil to paper) so it's not a complete bust.

This post is gonna be full of photos...

Here's some things I've been working on:A felted cuff! Made from merino tops in yummy berry colours!My stripey hat- I'm so proud I can do stripes all by my self now! I only had to undo two rows twice to correct a mistake, so it's not too bad!RY Lux beanie for Martina (at last) to match her christmas scarf.This is Tinkerbell destroying a needled felted ball I made for her. It's ok though, it was a test run. I think I know how to make them more dog-proof!

So that's what I've been doing lately, as well as some art and moleskine doodles. I spose I could show you all one or two of my roughs...Old English/Celtic stule horse heads. I love to draw these, have been doing it for years. They're like MY symbol now!This is a crysanthemum believe it or not! It's Chinese style, and since my Chinese painting stuff is somewhere I'm not, it's in pencil, trying to look like brushwork lol!Lotus bud, also vaguely Chinese style.Horsie in the style of George Stubbs (one of my favourite painters)- actually modeled on 'Whistlejacket' (said painter's best painting imho)

Well, there we are, all caught up.
As I say on my dA (where my subscription has run out and I'm too poor to renew atm!) "constructive criticism appreciated, flames will be laughed at"

...bad Lini!

Yes, I know I said I'd be here every day this week, but due to unforseen Mark related circumstances, I couldn't be here yesterday. He has man-flu, and since I had nothing better to do, I thought I'd spend the day looking after him because I AM the best girlfriend in the world.
I think he's feeling a little better today, but is still off work because he's trying to be better for tomorrow- he has a union training day that won't be available for another six months if he misses this one, and we've got tickets to go see Roots Manuva at the Camden Koko that night too! Everyone send healing vibes his way.

As a gift for my knitty friends, here's a lovely pattern. If you're feeling generous, you can make one for me, lol! ;)
I don't know if you have to be registered or not... sorry. Yes I know it's strange me getting the Knitting Daily newsletter, but ocasionally they do have crochet stuff!

I'm making a new collarette at the moment from wool that used to be a poncho mother made me. I decided that since I never wear it, I'd rather pull it out and remake it. She was a bit miffed at first (I think she thought I didn't like it anymore) but she kinda got my logic after a bit of explaining. I think it's a Rowan wool... bearing in mind it was bought and poncho-d about three years ago, I could be wrong...

Anyway, I've got something on the hook again (not including my half done armlets- I'm going to run out of wool at any minute and I don't want to go buy more) so I don't need new patterns for a while, woo! Although I could do with some ideas as to what to make from the lovely red/purple wool I got from Caroline in my red RAK... anyone?

a late update...

Sorry y'all- I have a month's temping work (woo!) and was doing orientation today.
I start for real on Thursday 26th, so I'll still be updating every day until then, and from then, as often as I can.

So I guess I'll be crocheting on my morning and evening commute now then... if I can find any space... see this link for what I mean! This is typical, not unusual. Sigh.

So, I'll be here tomorrow searching for a new pattern or two... doo doo doo... :D

quick update- again

I'm not feeling brilliant today... blugh. For some reason I've come over all sweaty, as well as having the tail end of my eyeball headache to contend with. Joys.

I want to make this hat (pattern). It's a bit awesome. I need a new earflap hat... well, I don't, but I WANT one! I think the boy would laugh until he had an aneurism if he saw me in it though... and possibly disown me if I went out in it... oh well.

Just need to learn how to crochet "stripes" without making a mess now... le sigh.

Hope everyone's good, I'll be back Monday.

the London Hooker

Ok, so I survived my trip on the London Eye. Woot!
We went and had coffee and pastries, bought oriental goodies in China Town and then went to Forbidden Planet to ogle comics merch. Then we went home and had Indian. YUM!
So a good day had by all really.

Here's a couple of pics from the Eye, and one of my newest needlefelt thingy, the mini Metroid, which is incidentally Mark's handmade Valentine's present.



Things will be getting back to normal(ish) as of Monday when the boy is back at work, and I've got lots of unemployed bum time to make things from wool in it's many iterations.
I hope you enjoyed the welcome distraction from reality!

25 Things About Me

Or, I'm making up for not posting tomorrow and Weds maybe!

If you're tagged, I want you to do one too. No pressure though. If you've done one already, link me instead.
LESLIE, HOPE, FREWEN, MARTHA, ANYONE WHO WANTS TO; DO IT! :D
(also on my facebook)

1. I've been a vegetarian since I was 15/16.

2. I'm a published poet- have had three poems published by Zodiac Young Authors.

3. I love to cook, and having a big knife in my hand makes me smiley.

4. I prefer to cook for others, and just eat simple stuff when I'm alone.

5. I try hard to know the provenance of what I buy.

6. I prefer green tea to black.

7. I want to go to Santorini, Akrotiri, Canada (but I might not come back), New Zealand and Japan on holiday.

8. I love/hate the Jeremy Kyle show and think that the people who appear on it should be taken off the stage afterwards and shot in the head at point blank range. Whammy.

9. I just plain DON'T LIKE KIDS. It's nothing personal, your kids are probably great, I just plain don't like 'em. Don't bring them near me, because I WILL say something insensitive. Do not expect me to go gooey over your icky baby photos that wouldn't look out of place in a paedophile's spank bank and then tell me that one day I'll change my mind. I won't.

10. I love dogs. If I ever see someone abusing a dog or mistreating one in a park, I always go wade in. Even if there's a chance I'll get stabbed...

11. I hate living in Romford. The town is fine, the people are what makes it hell. So many lazy lazy people who make a living breeding child after child, don't vote and just leech off taxpayers. If you're not going to contribute to the economy (we are in a recession you know) then eff off out of the country. Go live in France.

12. I spend far too much money on wool and yarn products and do not think that £3 for a 50g ball of 100% wool is extravagant at all.

13. I love unusual and impractical shoes. I buy them and hardly wear them as they are too pretty to go out and get drunk in.

14. I would crawl over broken glass on my belly for my best friends and selsct members of my close family. I would gladly take a beating or a bullet if it meant that someone I love didn't have to.

15. I don't really class England as a top holiday destination, with the exception of beautiful beautiful Derby. And possibly Dorset.

16. It's been my dream since I was seven to emigrate to Canada, possibly to NS, Quebec or some small town with a silly name by a lake.

17. If I don't live within an hour of water I get very depressed BUT have serious drowning issues, and shy away from rivers wider than my leg-span and oceans you can't see the bottom of.

18. I have come close to drowning twice in my life. I slipped into a paddling pool when I was a wee chit of a girl and nobody noticed for about a minute. My ma was indoors sorting me a snack, nana was taking care of cousins, uncle should hae been watching but he was too busy sunbathing. My ma was so angry I thought she was gonna kill someone. My ears were clangy, I was spitting up water (and grass, and bugs) and I had a bump on my head. It was terrifying. The other time I got cramp in a swimming pool... that was less terrifying as I could walk to the shallow end.

19. I wish I could ride horses still. It's one of my big ambitions in life. I WILL re-learn how to ride!

20. My two biggest achievements in life are never having puked from drinking and never having gotten a detention at school- not even for eating sweets in Mme. Bayat's French class. Bonjour la classe indeed!

21. I used to be ginger but I got better... sometimes I wish I hadn't!

22. If more people had silk panties, there would be less stressed people in the world.

23. If more people in power had more orgasms, more often, the world would be a happier place.

24. I have a crippling phobia of heights over 10 feet. They make me all rigid with fear, hyperventilatey and about to throw up feeling. I'm going on the London Eye on Wednesday (11th Feb) so it'll either cure or kill me...

25. I am now completely addicted to wet felting, and needle felting. Another skill set!

My Red RAK

THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU CAROLINE!
(craftyfox on Ravelry)

My RED RAK is absolutely wonderful!
I got:
Red Quality Street sweeties (on nom nom strawberry cremes)
A bag o'Skittles (luuuuuuuuuv Skittles!)
A dotty red pen
Red teabags
Red-purple fyberspates wool
A lickle red sock keyring
A heart cushion thingamajig that is now by my bed, holding on to my mini moleskine and phone of a night
The leftover wool from making said cushion dooberry
And a lovely thoughtful card!

FANX!

the essex cooker, ha ha...

Yep, I had another nummy cooking triumph. And here it is:
Caramelised red onion tarts with goat's cheese and toasted pine nuts. I was amazed how easily it just came out of my head, and how good it tasted. Need to probably slice the cheese a bit thinner next time though. I bought the puff pastry for the first time ever (I like making pastry, but Mark's kitchen is not good for doing it- 5 boys, and only 2 know how to be hygienic!) and it turned out ok. Jus-Roll, I will purchase your goods again!

I did make some more felt, but it's going in the IME E= and CCC moleskines I'm working on... so no spoilers!

IN ADVANCE:
Probably no blog on Wednesday as that's gonna be me and Mark's fake Valentines.

Clan Doggett- not!

As you may or may not know, my surname is Doggett. Yeah feel free to laugh. Whatever. I've heard all the taunts before. And yes, the guy in the XFiles is called John Doggett- so what? All I know is he makes my genealogy searches really hard.

So I enjoyed Leslie's Clan Blair update, it made me wish I had a clan Doggett of my own. But alas, it's just my family. And I've severed contact with one side of them, mainly because they're pigs. Not literally, because I love pigs. I mean pig in the offensive sense.

So instead, I thought I'd let you all see my direct great-great(add a load more greats here) grandad, who was famous! And from Dublin, so all of you who thought I was a Plastic Paddy- ner! I do have Irish blood in me... it may be well watered down, but that's not the point, is it?

So here you go, a link to Sir. Thomas Doggett (or Dogget as they sometimes spelled it- even he had problems with people spelling his name right, things never change!).

And here's another link to the Doggett's Coat & Badge Race. You'll have to click on the 'history' tab as the site is about a pub. One I've never been to- shock horror! Will have to look for it when I'm in London next week...

So I'm really going now... promise!

snow is melting away...

Yep, there's nearly no more snow. Sad. I love the snow, I do.

I'm back onto the felting again, have done a couple of wet felts this morning, and am waiting for them to dry off a bit before I can take a pic.

I got a Red February RAK from Caroline (craftyfox on ravelry) but I haven't opened it yet because I'm saving it as a treat for when I've done these horrible job applications. Blugh- I swear I'm getting RSI!

Mark's on holiday this coming week, so I get to sort of live at his, yay! But that means I need to think up/look up some cheap easy recipes for dinner every night as we can't (but could very easily!) live on stir-fry, Chinese/Indian take-away and pizza for a week!
I was thinking of doing a roasted butternut squash risotto, but then realised that he hates risotto. I'm sure he wouldn't mind it if it was ME making it... surely?

I woke up in the middle of the night with 'Ae Fond Kiss' by Robbie Burns going through my head... I have no idea why. "Had we ne'er loved sae blindly" indeed...

itchy hooker

I'm skritching away in a 30% alpaca sweater... I didn't realise alpaca made me itch (my alpaca collarette doesn't) but I'm not taking it back to the shop. It's too nice.

I may only be online sporadically for the next I don't know how long, so I apologise in advance. I'm having a few problems at home (nothing to do with the boy), so that impacts on the internet. Don't ask me how, it just does.

As requested, here are some pics of the felty fun I've been having over the last few days. The cuffs are recovered from my first two attempts to make a 3-D felted bowl, so my failures aren't all utterly hopeless, yay!Both cuffs.Claret and teal cuff... needs a name.Blue and green cuff... also needs naming!"Seafoam" felt square (part of a diptych if that's the right word?)"Firedancer" felt rectangle (still wet in this pic, looks a lot better now!)

Offtopic, I'd just like to bring this >LINK< to your attention. As a horse lover, I get the fugly horse of the day to my igoogle every day, and this link to Tessa's Ordeal really upset me. I'm not going to lie, there are some horrible pictures of a mule with human-inflicted injuries, but it really is worth reading. Horse-loving friends across the pond, please read FHOTD and don't buy a horse from any of the people she rants about!

Sorry to be maudlin, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

felty fun- again

I spent most of yesterday needling and smooshing wool. I had lots of fun :D

I'll get some pics of the things I made, and hopfully you'll all like them.
I'm trying to make fangs for one of Mark's handmade V-day presents, but it's not working. Damn head sucking Metroids.

The snow in the back garden is still extant but most of the stuff out front and in the roads is gone or has turned to slush and ice. Urgh, great!

And I need to go out in it to go supermarket... yuckles. Thank the gods for wellies. My wellies are v. boring though- how to rectify this? I have a pair of boring navy shiny ones and even more boring hunter green matt ones. I was thinking of graffiti-ing them with permanent pen, but it might not last? Ideas? And not "felt them" because that won't work! :P

essex snow: day 2

It hasn't gone, but not a lot more has fallen. Mark had to go to work today, the best we can hope for now is him getting to leave early in case the buses and trains stop running again. Everyone cross your fingers!

I'm having a good old woogle round the interwebs today, managing to find lots of lovely things!

The wool I was going on about a few days ago, turns out to be Wendy Happy, a blend of 75% bamboo and 25% nylon in a 4-ply weight. A 100g ball is about £5-something anywhere I look, so I will have to keep it in the back of my mind for now. I want someone to knit me some socks in the 'Scorpio' colourway. I think the 'Aries' is quite pretty too. I'm slightly miffed that there's no Virgo (me) or Cancer (Marko) though, how rude! So far, this link has the best pictures of colourways- there's only 8, but nowhere seems to stock them all! I want to see!

I found another nice pattern, but alas I cannot knit, so someone else will have to have them. Cabled wrist warmers anyone? People in cold climates, I'm looking at you!

I found a list of the gorgeous shades of Twilley's Spirit- YUM! It seems strange that a US site would have a full(ish) range of a UK brand. Weirdness...
The list of desired colours grows!
Essence, Bliss, Verve, Nature, Earth, Destiny... mmm! Already have things made of Air and Desire, and the only other colours I can get easily are Fire, Dignity and Promise which are a bit... well... dull in comparison lol!

The colours of fluff I bought for felting are limiting me to certain colour combinations... poo. I feel I need to buy a couple more colours, maybe ones I wouldn't necessarily get for myself like pinks or anything in the yellow family. At the moment my colourways seem to be 'fire' (orange, red, yellow), 'sea' (greens, blue, turquoise), 'land' (green, yellow, brown), 'sky' (blues, 'whites') or 'wine' (claret, purple, red) and I think I need to expand in order to make things that will actually sell. I know my misi site isn't actually functional yet due to in part my laziness and propensity for sitting on ravelry for hours, and in part because I'm scrutinising anything I've made so much.

I don't know what to get/make Mark for Valentine's. He always whinges that it's commercial and stuff, but I'd feel like a negligent girlfriend if I didn't get him a present. We're going on the London Eye before actual "V-Day" so there hopefully won't be as much of a queue. I'm terrified of heights over the 8 foot mark, so this will either cure or kill me. Joy.
I was thinking of making something for him. Not crochet because he's got hats and scarves etc aplenty and there's no time to make a jumper that he won't wear! Maybe something foodie instead, as I am (without being big headed) a good cook, and he's aspiring to be too.

• After translating from American 'cups', these nuts sounds just up his street. Might amend the mix a little and make it spicier, but who knows. I think I've got all the spices in the spice cupboard too, so all I need to buy is nuts and something to keep said nuts in. Maybe one of those jars with the metal lid release thingy? I know what I'm talking about... maybe Wilko has some.
• Then again, he likes toffee, and nuts, so maybe this would work, if I translate it?

So maybe I will be able to whip something up afterall? Phew.

Today I forsee wet felting in the bath, yippee!

essex snow

Yeah, because we don't see snow here very often on the outskirts of London literally everything stops. Buses, trains, jobs... Mark didn't go to work in the end (yay!)

So here's some Essex Snow Pics for you all to enjoy:
Tree by the slightly frozey lake.
View across the lakey thingy.
I am such a spaz for snow.

proper snow!

Ok, so there's about 4" of snow here.
Mark's not going to work because it'd take him ages, and his team leader said it was ok, so it's all ok. Mum still struggled in bless her. I want to get my wellies on and go play...
Mark's stupid housemate has loads of people over from Aus for some reason and apparently they're acting like "special" kids because they've never seen snow...

I finished my collarette, and managed to get a matching hat done last night, so it looks like I might be able to test them out in the snow! Woo!
Here's a pic of the lovely purple woollyness:
I will get a better pic of both hat and collarette, but at the moment I wish to get winter attired and play in the snow.

Also, some snow.