Happy Holidays!

Well, this is it. I'm officially taking the rest of the year off. All orders are completed and have been shipped off. My shops are now closed (except my Ravelry and Craftsy shops, where my patterns will continue to be available throughout the break). I've even finished a few knitted presents of my own as well. Time to take a deep breath, relax with some nice mulled wine and get into the spirit of the season.

For once I thought ahead and planned for the holiday rush, preparing what I could in advance and scheduling the rest to be as efficient and stress-free as possible. (I even had almost all gifts ready by November!) You know, I'm actually looking forward to Christmas and New Year's now. Coincidence? I think not. ;)

The year 2012 has been a really good one and not the least thanks to my lovely customers. A big thank you goes out to each and every one of you!

Happy Holidays!

Tiny Dragons - The 23rd Batch

While the previous batch was likely the last one of the year, this one definitely is. Say hi to batch 23, the last dragons of 2012!

From left to right:

#111. Magdalena - antique pink and light purple
#112. Phineas - cobalt blue and sky blue
#113. Ethan - mint and light green
#114. Perrin - brown and dark indigo
#115. Lisbeth - teal and dark blue

Here's how it works: Every now and then I make a batch of 5 dragons. Each dragon has a unique set of colours and they get a signed hatching certificate with their name, number and date.

When they're ready to list, I post an introduction on this blog like the one above. During the following few days, I'll list them in numerical order in my Etsy shop. Should you happen to spot one you must have, let me know and I can reserve it for you.

Introducing Claptrap of Borderlands fame!

Greetings traveller! I am CL4P-TP; you may call me by my locally designated name, 'Claptrap'.

Claptraps are fun little robots you encounter in the Borderlands games. The poor things are often used for target practice and abused in other ways by the bandits of the Borderlands, so I spent much of my playthroughs wanting to give these poor guys a hug. Well, now I can!

Knitted Claptrap and Game Claptrap.

Work on Knitted Claptrap started in 2010. I made decent progress for about two weeks, then Christmas season kicked in in full force and I had little time for extra projects. Alas, after that poor Clapson had to sit on my desk in a semi-finished state for almost two years. When Borderlands 2 was released earlier this year, it inspired me to finish my own little robot!

Then for some oh-so-important numbers and other facts.

• Mr. Claptrap is knitted both flat and in the round, from various DK weight wool blends.
• Special techniques used include intarsia and i-cord knitting.
• He needed a ridiculous total of 40 separate pieces, if I counted correctly.
• He's a respectable 40 cm / 16" tall, making him the perfect size for hugs.
• Working on him gave me a really sore neck on three occasions.

I wanted Claptrap as detailed as I could make him by knitting alone (plus a wee bit of embroidery). I could add a few more details, I suppose, but then I might go insane, so I say he's ready now.

So, what do you think?

Tiny Dragons - The 22nd Batch

A second bunch of tiny dragons follows hot on the heels of the previous one, this one just as colourful. Say hi to batch 22!

This is likely the last batch of dragons this year, but there will be more next year, I'm sure.

From left to right:

#106. Hector - teal and rusty orange
#107. Fiona - violet and dark indigo
#108. Nina - moss green and pale green
#109. Justin - sky blue and dark blue
#110. Jaune - orange and bright yellow

Here's how it works: Every now and then I make a batch of 5 dragons. Each dragon has a unique set of colours and they get a signed hatching certificate with their name, number and date.

When they're ready to list, I post an introduction on this blog like the one above. During the following few days, I'll list them in numerical order in my Etsy shop. Should you happen to spot one you must have, let me know and I can reserve it for you.

Tiny Dragons - The 21st Batch

My fingers decided they'd had a long enough break from making tiny dragons and were just itching to make a few. Say hello to the colourful batch 21!

From left to right:

#101. Roberta - hot pink and dark pink
#102. Periwinkle - mint and light purple
#103. Ruska - bright yellow and red
#104. Neptune - bright turquoise and light green
#105. Trevor - brown and dark magenta

Here's how it works: Every now and then I make a batch of 5 dragons. Each dragon has a unique set of colours and they get a signed hatching certificate with their name, number and date.

When they're ready to list, I post an introduction on this blog like the one above. During the following few days, I'll list them in numerical order in my Etsy shop. Should you happen to spot one you must have, let me know and I can reserve it for you.

Introducing Sophie the Sleepy Snake

Sophie is a pretty laid-back snake lady. Give her a warm place to sleep and a hug now and then and she’ll be as happy as can be!

There's a little doodle in my notebook, a few years old by now. I'm pleased to say it looks pretty much exactly like the photo above. There are few things more satisfying than being able to create a design exactly as I've seen it in my mind's eye.

After the Humboldt pattern was ready, with its many pieces to knit and sew together into a fancy bunny, I knew that I wanted to make something simpler for my next project. Something with few parts and straightforward knitwork. With this in mind, I browsed through my idea notebook and came upon the drawing mentioned above. Perfect!

At the time I had also been working on other small knitted projects and had ended up with quite a pile of yarn ends on my desk, in many different colours. Playing with this colourful pile brought forward a delicious combo of moss green, yellow and rusty orange. I knew that whatever I made next, it had to have these colours. Thus, Sophie's colour scheme was decided.

Sophie is available as a pattern via Ravelry (or click here to buy now - no Ravelry account needed) and from my Etsy shop.

Want to see more creature introductions?

Most excellent brownies (wheat & gluten free)

I love baking. However, as I've discovered I can no longer eat grains, I can't use wheat flour or rye flour etc. If I want to eat what I've baked myself, that is.

This has meant quite a few adjustments in the kitchen and much experimenting with other flours, such as coconut and almond flours. They behave quite differently from the usual grain ones and there have been many sad baking failures during the past year or two. However, I've been pleasantly surprised to find that once you get the hang of how to use these other flours, many baked goods turn out even better than the usual wheat versions!

Make thin slices...

My latest triumph was this recipe for brownies. It uses ground almond flour, which not only gives them a delicious nutty flavour and texture, but it's also easier to get the moist texture that is vital for brownies. This recipe can be used for the usual thicker brownies, but you can also make thin slices less than one cm (about 3/8 in) thick and they'll still have that moistness about them.

...or proper brownies!

Most excellent brownies, wheat and gluten free
(makes 12 brownies or 25-50 thin slices depending on cut size)

• 100 g (3 1/2 oz) dark chocolate (I use 60-70%)
• 150 g (5 1/4 oz) butter
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 dl (about 1/4 cup) raw cane sugar (note: I don't like very sweet stuff, so double or triple if you have more of a sweet tooth than I do)
• 2 1/2 dl (1 cup) almond flour
• 2 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1-1.5 dl (about 1/4-5/8 cup) crushed hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts or other nuts of your choice. 
• Optional: you can also add about 1 dl (1/4 cup) of peanut butter (unsalted and unsweetened), raspberries or some other suitable flavour variation you might like

Melt dark chocolate and butter together on a low heat. Let cool a bit.

Whisk eggs and sugar until white and fluffy. Combine with somewhat cooled choco mixture.

Mix together the dry ingredients (add a pinch of salt if you're using unsalted butter), then stir into the batter.

Pour onto a baking tray lined with paper. For brownies, use one about 33x27 cm (13x10 1/2 in). For thin slices, use 40x33 cm (16x13 in).

Bake at 180°C (356°F) for 15-20 min. Be careful not to bake them too long!

Let them cool completely, before cutting into slices and devouring.

New in October: Persnickety Penguin Magnet

 

Birds lend themselves well to knitted form, for some reason. I've always had a fun time making them. The magnetic creature family includes ravens, owls, kiwi birds, eagles... and now, penguins!

This persnickety little guy is as tiny as the rest, measuring a mere 4.5 cm (1 3/4 in) tall. He's made with a wool blend, using both knitting and crochet to give him a proper penguin shape.

Would you like a penguin magnet to guard notes on your fridge? Take a look in my Etsy shop!

Sunday Snippets - week 43

I'm trying something new this week by taking part in something called Sunday Snippets:
A collection of photos from your week. No need for words. Let the pictures tell your story.

This week we saw Turku change from a golden autumn city to a winter wonderland.

An awesome savoury pie, with delicious stuff like cold-smoked salmon, pesto, sundried tomatoes, feta etc. Perfect on a cold October day.

The tiniest tomatoes ever! Some of the last food harvested from the balcony.

Turku Cathedral

A chilly-looking visitor on the balcony. (Look at the railing below; an impressive amount of first snow this year!)

Go to {tinniegirl}'s blog if you want to see more Sunday Snippets or join in yourself!

The Grand North American Adventure, part 1: Inauspicious Beginnings

As you may have guessed from the sky photos last week, I spent my autumnal break travelling. Yes indeed, Mr Morrgan and I embarked on a grand North American adventure! First we spent a little under a week in the Boston area on the east coast of USA, then headed up north to Ottawa (and Montréal) in Canada.

Hello America!

Our trip did not begin too well. We were scheduled for a total of three flights, Turku -> Stockholm, Stockholm -> Frankfurt and Frankfurt -> Boston. Well. Our first flight ended up being so late that we arrived at Stockholm airport at the time our next flight was leaving. Much frantic running about with a generally helpless and lost appearance ensued, until a lovely lady managed to get us rebooked for a flight to the US, though to New York, and from New York to Boston.

During our trip, we appreciated literature!

Naturally the gate for this flight was at the other end of the airport, so we once again had to run to make it to our new flight (as it turned out, running would become the theme of this trip). We made it on the flight, though! Alas, our luggage did not. Nor did the information that I needed gluten free food.

We appreciated art!

We arrived in New York well on time and entered the huge security check queue on the way to our final flight, looking at the time and saying silly things like "Oh, we have half an hour. We'll make it through this checkpoint easy."

And history!

Haha, haha, haha. 25 minutes later we were nowhere near the end of the queue. After some more frantic helplessness an attendant let us go through the VIP line to get straight to the security check, but it was in vain. By the time we reached the gate, our plane was taking off. How eerily familiar!

Aaaaaand architecture!

Once again our flight was rescheduled. Interestingly, despite this disaster of a flight, we ended up arriving in Boston only an hour or so late. Sadly, our luggage didn't, so the next day was mostly spent hunting for socks and underpants.

Also, a wee bit of the night life!

Oddly enough, not that many photos were taken over the course of almost 2 weeks, but nonetheless I found I have too many for one blog post, or even two. A total of three posts full of photos is needed to fully describe this adventure, so stay tuned for parts 2 (USA) and 3 (Canada)!

New in October: Striped Fingerless Gloves

So, the autumn break is over and Morrgan is back in business! I have a whole bunch of new designs for this season that I can't wait to show you, starting with something for your hands.

I'm a big fan of my latest fingerless glove design. They're made with a current favourite yarn of mine, a soft and warm blend containing alpaca and wool. It's perfect for mitts like these, not to mention a joy to knit with. =)

These gloves also combine two other things I enjoy, both making and wearing: stripes and knitted, decorative surfaces. As always, they feature a separately knitted thumb for a snug and comfy fit.

These fingerless gloves are available in four different colours: green, magenta, grey and blue. I'll be listing them in my Etsy shop within the next week or so, so feel free to take a peek at those listings for more details!

More new stuff coming soon, including magnets and footwear!

(Also, travel photos.)

Taking to the Sky

I can't decide which is the best thing about flying. It's either the moment of takeoff, when gravity seems to relinquish its hold on you and makes the butterflies in your stomach flutter about in a good way; or when you see views like this:

Magical. Like a white, unexplored world in the sky.

(It's too bad absolutely everything else about air travel sucks.)

An Autumnal Break

Morrgan's Creatures is on a fall break! The Etsy and Dawanda shops will reopen at the end of October with many new exciting designs.

My patterns will continue to be available throughout the break in my Ravelry and Craftsy shops, so go take a peek there if you are overcome by the desire to knit a cute creature!

My balcony garden 2012 - a review

No, this isn't the whole harvest. It wasn't that bad.

Summer 2012 here in Finland was not a good year for the balcony garden - cold and rainy weather with little sun meant sad plants. It's no wonder then that the harvest was also pretty sad this year.

It wasn't all tears and gnashing of teeth, though. I found a few cool new plant acquaintances which will definitely return another summer. As I prefer to look on the bright side of things, I thought I'd look at some of the gardening highlights of the year instead of crying over all the wasted seeds I planted.

I went with pinks, reds and whites as the main colours this summer, with a few spots of bright blue providing contrast.

The seating corner looked much as it has previous years, with the vine and hosta doing quite well in the big planter, and with a gorgeous dahlia providing colour on the little table.

The dahlia was an irresistible shade of bright pink, with darker pink edges on the petals, and it kept on flowering long into September. Oh dahlias, you never let me down, no matter what the weather brings.

 

The other decoration on the table was a basket planted with a couple of perennial succulents. Getting these two was one of the best decisions I've made for the balcony, for they are perfect for its normal conditions; hot and sunny. They did very well, filling up the whole basket over the course of the summer. I hope they'll survive the winter!

The main flower box was planted with white and blue lobelias, red petunias and a pink-and-red new acquaintance, which Wikipedia tells me is called "Sweet William" in English. It also did very well, as did the petunias. Unfortunately the lobelias didn't last more than a month; victims of the crappy weather, I suppose.

The notables of the other corner, shown in the photo below, were the red tobacco plant (always a good choice, it seems) and a pretty silver plant whose name I can't remember. There was also a mini rose planted with them, but the rose didn't like the poor weather at all and gave up pretty quickly.

On the right, with yellow flowers and huge leaves, grew a cucumber plant which produced the most awesome cucumbers ever. Seriously, I have NEVER eaten cucumbers as good as these. Ever. Definitely one to plant another year!

So there you have it, the highlights of my balcony gardening summer of 2012! If you've read this far, well done. I guess you really like plants!

A shiny new look for the blog!

Well lo and behold, the Morrgan's Creatures blog has a completely new look! What do you think?

Originally I just wanted some of those neat easy-to-share-in-one-click buttons on every post. However, my old blog template was really, really, REALLY old, so getting them to work required a template change. Once I committed to that I decided I may as well do a complete overhaul. It was about time and I wanted to make the blog neater, prettier and easier to navigate.

I may have been a bit silly though. I could have sworn I made a backup of the old blog template before I began the changes, but now that file is nowhere to be found. So, dear readers, I need your help. I have tried to add all the relevant features and links my old blog had, but can't be sure I got it all right.

Is there anything you really liked about the old blog that's missing from the new design? Or maybe there's a completely new feature you'd like to see? If so, please let me know!

Introducing Humboldt the Fancy Bunny

Humboldt is a bit of a fancy bunny. He’s the sort of rabbit who would wear a top hat instead of being pulled out of one. However, he isn’t exactly a snob; he just enjoys the finer things in life. Only the freshest hand-picked carrots will do for Humboldt!

Guess how long I have been planning to make this particular bunny? Anyone?

I looked up the receipt for the yarn I bought specifically for this bunny. The yarn was bought in February 2011 and I know I had the vision of a long-and-floppy-eared bunny in my head for way longer than that. Poor Humboldt. He's certainly had to wait for his moment in the spotlight!

Humboldt is available as a pattern via Ravelry (or click here to buy now - no Ravelry account needed) and from my Etsy shop.

Want to see more creature introductions?

New in September: Knotwork fingerless gloves

Just in time for the chilly days autumn, I bring you stylish handwear!

It's been a while since my shop last had gloves listed, but now they're here again! I promised new designs early this year and here's the first of them: knotwork fingerless gloves.

They feature the intricate cabled knotwork I so adore, both to look at and to make, originally inspired by Viking and Celtic knotwork. The darker pairs especially have something deliciously gothic about them. All in all, I'm very pleased with this style.

The design would look fantastic as a full pair of mittens as well - if you're interested in a pair, contact me via my Etsy shop!

I have more new fingerless gloves to show soon! I spent the summer sourcing lovely new yarns for handwear and have been knitting like a madwoman this past month or so. Stay tuned!

Tiny Dragons - The 20th Batch

Well, well, well. The 20th batch of tiny dragons is complete, meaning I've made one hundred of the little ones.

One. Hundred.

Wow.

Shall I continue onwards to 150? 200? I probably will; I still enjoy making them too much to stop, not to mention that I have a bunch of neat colour combos to try out! However, I do think I'll take a little break from knitting and crocheting dragons for now.

But today, say hi to these guys!



From left to right:

#96. Cerise - purple and dark magenta
#97. Sherbert - pale yellow and light purple
#98. Aqua - bright turquoise and teal
#99. Freya - grey and orange
#100. Moira - cobalt blue and indigo

Here's how it works: Every now and then I make a batch of 5 dragons. Each dragon has a unique set of colours and they get a signed hatching certificate with their name, number and date.

When they're ready to list, I post an introduction on this blog like the one above. During the following few days, I'll list them in numerical order in my Etsy shop. Should you happen to spot one you must have, let me know and I can reserve it for you.

What to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

It's already September and the rainy, cold days have arrived. Sunny days are few and far between (have been all summer this year, really), so when the sun was shining prettily this weekend, Mr Morrgan and I went on a spur-of-the-moment trip to the nearby botanical gardens.

Alas and alack, the weather decided to play tricks on us and by the time we arrived at the gardens, the sky was full of dark clouds and the rain was only minutes away (hence the somewhat grey photos).

We would not be deterred, however, and made the most of the outer gardens while we could. When the rain started we rushed into the greenhouses and had a pretty good time looking at all manner of cool, pretty and just plain weird plantlife housed within. Afternoon trip saved!