My Creative Space: Houston the Dragon

Say hello to Houston the Dragon!

Houston is knitted and crocheted using my Primrose the Dragon pattern (available via Etsy and Ravelry). I made the pieces a while ago, but only managed to sew the pieces together this week. He's a bit of a troublemaker, constantly getting himself tangled up in my yarn as I was putting him together. Tsk. ;)

I used needles size 3.5 mm/US 4, so he ended up a little smaller than Primrose, about 25 cm (10") long.

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My Creative Space: The Seeeeecret Project, part 2

As promised, here's another preview of what I'm working on! (See the previous one here.)


I've got 16 pieces ready (probably need another dozen or so), so the project has been progressing pretty well. Until now, that is. I've hit a snag. The main body of this is meant to be a square-ish shape. That will not happen if I try to fill it with the usual polyfill, alas.

So, I've been hunting high and low for something suitable, but no luck so far. I want something with structure to it that I can shape it, but still soft enough to be a cuddly plushie. Some sort of foam, perhaps. Any ideas?

This material sourcing problem means you still have time to guess what this might become! Plenty more hints this time. Does anyone want to try? :)


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: A preview

This week I've been working on something for myself. I'm not going to say what it is yet, but I'll show you a little preview. If I can make it exactly like I picture it in my head, it's going to be pretty cool. It's kind of a fun test of my skills. ;)


So, who or what might this become? Anyone want to take a guess?


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: There Be Monsters

The knitting (and crocheting) of warm stuff for autumn and winter continues. This week it's mostly been dreadful monster scarves. Rawr.


Looks like I'm all out of that blue yarn, so those will be the last two of this colour and material. Grab 'em while you can! I'll keep an eye out for a replacement yarn, though, so similar monsters may appear in the future.

(For those who might be wondering about the never-ending sock project, they're still not done. After all that knitting, unraveling and knitting again, I needed a break from socks. Wild monsters seemed like a much nicer project.)


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Yarn trouble

This week I bring you a tale of woe, misery and broken dreams. And socks.

Remember the beige and green socks I'd just started on last week? Well, that project failed miserably.

It wasn't anything to do with the pattern or the knitting itself. One sock turned out just lovely, and the other was going well. And then I ran out of yarn. Yarn I'd bought about 5 years ago, so I can't get more of it now. Arrrrrgh.


I undid the 2nd sock and started again, making the sock a bit smaller this time. And ran out of yarn again. I then undid the finished 1st sock and am currently making it in the smaller size too. Hopefully there will be enough left over from that to finish both socks, and all this yarn puzzling will result in two fine, albeit smaller than planned socks. Hopefully.

So that's the reason why these socks are still in the works this week.

(Well. That and the fact that I may have gotten myself addicted to Soulcalibur 4 and Borderlands, taking up most [er, all] of my time. Again.)


Want to see the (more successful) creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Slippers and socks

Here's what I've been working on this week: knitted footwear for both men and women. It'll soon be the season for warm slippers and socks around here, alas.



Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Preparing for autumn

Yeah, I missed the Tuesday Finds this week, sorry about that. While I did get back on Tuesday, we arrived close to midnight, so I just collapsed in bed as soon as we got home.

But enough of that and on to what's brewing in my creative space this week, with a sneak peek of this autumn's winter wear! As I am at times physically incapable of letting the knitting needles rest even on holiday (needleless fingers = restless fingers = unhappy fingers), I made the bottom three during these past few internetless days. I have used an eclectic mix of lovely soft wools, bamboo and even a funky vintage cotton-acrylic blend, in all sorts of fun colours. Neutral, dramatic, colourful, sweet; there's pretty much something of everything.

None of these are completely finished yet, but once they are, they'll find their way into my little shoppe.


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Owly Bits

Oh look, it's another pile of random-looking yarny things! This is one of the projects for this week - a bunch of tiny owl magnets. Mmmm, I love that chocolate brown.

With this post I'll again be taking a few internetless days to enjoy summer over the weekend. I should be back in time for next week's Tuesday Finds, so see you then!

Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Nessies!

Well, I finished the custom order I mentioned I was working on last week. These plesiosaurs were shipped yesterday and I miss them already. *sigh* I'm just so happy about how they turned out.

I might have to make a big Nessie or two for myself to sit by the aquarium. I think the red-finned Fishmeat (seen chatting with the plesies in the photo) misses the company as well.


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Finished Chompy Hearts

Remember last week's random pile of knitted red pieces? It's turned into proper hearts gone wild. Rawr. Some of these are for a custom order, but a few will be making their way into the shop later, once I manage to take some proper photos of them.

(The small ones are magnetic, meaning you can finally have wild chompy hearts guarding your fridge. Perfect!)

Other than that I don't have much to show so far this week. I have done quite a bit of knitting, mostly on another custom order, but all I could show of that would be more piles of random shapeless forms from yarn and there was enough of that last week. ;)


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Chompy Hearts

The flu is finally all gone and it's back to knitting for me! I have a couple of custom orders on my plate, starting with this:

This random-looking pile of red will eventually turn into a number of hearts gone wild. As you can see, I use up to six double-pointed needles when making these guys. I like my knitting complicated.


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Homemade Piña Colada Ice Cream!

As you can see, I'm back on the internet. I spent the previous week relaxing with family and it was all good. So what happens when I get back home? BAM, I get a summer flu. A very mean flu too. It meant I couldn't do much other than go "oh woe is meeee" in bed in a plaintive voice, hoping Mr Morrgan would take pity on me and bring me nice things to eat and drink. (Which he did.)

It also meant I haven't been able to do any knitting. However, I'm a person who can't sit still for very long. Once I was well enough to get out of bed, I needed a project to work on. While browsing blogs, I came upon a photo of homemade ice cream. And BAM again, it hit me: I must make homemade ice cream!

Behold my first batch of ice cream!

As I can't follow a recipe to save my life, I got creative about this too. "Coconut ice cream? Boooring, when I can make a few modifications and make piña colada ice cream instead! Can't find a recipe for that? No problem, just take this and that, and add some of those with a pinch of these..." Well, you see how it goes.

In the end I made up a recipe of my own for homemade piña colada ice cream, made from scratch with whipping cream, cream of coconut, crushed pineapple, white rum etc. No eggs, no ice cream machine. For a first try, I'm very pleased! As is Mr Morrgan, who now has the flu too and needs ice cream to soothe his aching throat (or so he claims).

While surprisingly close in texture to storebought ice cream, it's not perfect yet. I'll fiddle with the recipe some more and when I'm happy with it, I'll share it on this blog. Fun times. =)


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Teasers

Well, the major news of this week is that the pattern redesign I mentioned in my Creative Space post from a couple of weeks ago is finished! It was a huge chunk of work, but I'm so pleased to have it done. All redesigned patterns can be seen in my Etsy shop.

Now with that out of the way, I can put my energy towards new patterns and other designs. I have none quite ready to show you yet, but I can give you a few sneak peeks into what I've been working on.

My my, who might this mysterious, handsome stranger be...

...and what are these fine gifts he brings?

These guys might seem familiar to you from way, way back.

More pictures and info on both projects to come later! I'm very, very excited about these, as well as several more projects that are still only in the planning stage. Suddenly I keep having idea after idea and the only problem is when to find the time for them all. I like it. =)


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Many tiny creatures

This week, my creative space was first filled with many, many tiny bits and pieces of creatures-to-be...


...which I then turned into the actual creatures - lots of magnetic animals, like bats, dinosaurs, kiwi birds, sharks and more.


Phew! I must admit my right wrist actually hurt a bit after finishing all those.

But that didn't deter me for long, because this week I also finished a pair of arm warmers in a beautiful deep burgundy red. I noticed that the yarn used was the exact same red as one of my little roses on the balcony, which inspired me to try a new style of photos. What do you think?

Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Something a bit different

This week I have actually been mostly working on the computer. I decided my creature PDF patterns were in great need of a facelift, especially the older ones, so I have designed a new layout with many new photos. I've also tweaked instructions here and there when needed, to make them more clear.

I'm very excited about this change! It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but haven't had the time for until now. It takes quite a bit of time and energy, however - I've found that I can only redo one pattern per day. So far I've got a third ready, so I imagine it'll be a couple of weeks before all of them are ready for release.

Want a sneak peek? Here are the patterns for the goldfish and the piggy; old on the left, new on the right:




Once the new pattern layout is launched, I also have one or two new patterns to add to the shop!

If you have bought patterns from me before and want them in the new design, just send me a note (Etsy convo, email) once the new layout is available in my shop and I'll send you the new version, free of charge of course.


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space: Django Ponies and Captain's Chairs

Mr Morrgan is a web developer and spends all his day with things like Django and Python. He's been rather excited about it and after showing me a picture of Django's unofficial magic pony mascot, I was excited too. Who wouldn't be excited about a flying, magical pink pony? About instantly I decided Mr Morrgan needed his own magical Django pony to help him out at work.

If you haven't heard of these terms before, perhaps this explanation may be of use. Mr Morrgan has tried several times to explain Django to me and I have also tried googling it, with little success. (Frameworks? High-level pythons? What?) This morning over coffee, however, he explained it to me beautifully with the help of Lego. It went something like this: if C is the plastic, metal and rubber used to make Lego, Python is the basic Lego pieces and Django the fancy, moulded special bits you can use to make neato space stations. Et voilà, it made perfect sense to me, who spent her childhood making über-cool secret bases, robots and said space stations out of Lego.

Onwards to the point! Meet Dee, Mr Morrgan's magic Django pony! She's knitted and crocheted from a wool blend, using the pattern for Hubert for the body. The wings are the part I'm really proud of, though. When I started on the first one, I still had no idea how to do them. But it all came almost automatically as I was working and they turned out even better than I had hoped. Joy!

By the way, the chair in the photos is one of my favourite places to sit and knit and is also where I made most of Dee. I think it's a fantastic piece of furniture. Look at the shape! The gorgeous red colour! Best of all, it spins and rocks and adjusts! Awesome!

Mr Morrgan doesn't agree, however. He thinks it looks like a prop from Star Trek of the 60s - hence we call it the Captain's Chair (we joke that I should get a Captain's Log to go with it). He wasn't too happy when I spotted it in a 2nd hand place just as they brought it in, but I vetoed his opinion. This chair is MINE and perfectly illustrates why I love going hunting for finds in 2nd hand shops.

I now await with trepidation when he'll use his veto right on my opinion of a piece of home decor, but it was worth it.


Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space

The main joy in my workspace this week is the board I recently got to keep my magnetic creatures on. So tidy! So practical! And also so nice to see my creatures while I'm working at my desk. ;)



Also pictured: the pile of yarn I picked up from a yarn sale recently, waiting to be sorted into storage. I did promise myself (and Mr Morrgan) not to buy any more until I'd used up one of the basketfuls I have... But it was so pretty and soft! And on sale! That makes it ok, doesn't it?

Want to see the creative spaces of others? Head on over to Kootoyoo's blog for a look!

My Creative Space

One word to describe the current winter here: dark. Dark when I wake up and look through the window, dark when it's time to head home from the day job. There's no snow to brighten everything up yet.

This explains why the photo I took early this morning of my workspace is so dark.


One of the main joys of the new apartment is that I have a desk of my own for packing up orders. Yay! All the packing materials in order in one place, ready to go. Lately my morning routine has been to grab the obligatory big cup of coffee and sit down to check my online shops. If there are orders, I pack them up before I head off to work, having a sip of my coffee now and then, so that I can drop them off at the post office on the way home. This morning there were two orders to take care of.

(As a little related factoid, my "desk" (or actually a chiffonier according to Wikipedia) is a special piece of furniture to me, as when I turned 18 it was handmade for me by my uncle, on the request of my grandmother.)


Want to see the creative spaces of others too? Head on over to kootoyoo's blog!