4th March 2020 is when I last wrote this blog, just before the world went mad. I won't bore you with my 2020 just hit the highlights; Jen and Sam's travelling was unfortunately cut short and having given up jobs and rented flat as they planned to travel for a year to 18 months they found themselves living with us for nearly 7 months and did lots of DIY and gardening until they were able to work again so the house looks pretty good these days. Happily they now have a home having moved in in October and so all is well there. I took voluntary redundancy in November from my opticians job as we needed to lose a lot of people hours, it felt like the right thing to do so now I am working hard to get a proper little business started selling my soft toys, if you're interested see my Facebook page or my Etsy shop SparklingunicornUK. Well that's the high points though I will say in opposition to my usual New Year's Eve practice of being in bed by 10pm I stayed up until midnight this year not so much to welcome 2021 although it is very welcome as long as it doesn't behave as badly as 2020 but no I wanted to make damn sure 2020 left! I'm glad to say it did though to be fair nothing has really changed yet.
So what have I been up to lately I hear you ask. On the run up to Christmas I was very busy as I had a number of orders through Etsy several from friends and of course the presents I was making I'll pop some pictures in:
These were made for a friend at work for her little boy, they're from the cbeebies show Numberblocks and as you can see these are 1 to 5. I didn't have a pattern for them just worked from a picture, to get the blockyness I made squares 11 stitches by 11 rows and then crocheted them together, features and accessories are mostly made of felt. When I was first asked to do them I thought they would be super simple to do but they were actually much more time consuming and used a lot more yarn than I anticipated, they were a great stashbuster though and were worth the work (including one 14 hour day to get them finished in time) as they were really well received.
These little chaps were a lot of fun to make I was working from a pattern in a book called 'Amigurumi Treasures' by Erinna Lee (good old Amazon) I had been asked for 3 identical pink platypus plushies (try saying that after a few drinks) by a lady in Canada. This is such a lovely pattern and you don't often see the Duck Billed Platypus, while I was making them my sister sent me a wonderful GIF of a platypus
It made me laugh so hard but look how cute he is!
In other news the cats are doing well Cato the Elder had his check up just before Christmas and has developed a heart murmur which is a little worrying but we are keeping a good eye on him, he did for a while develop a habit of sleeping on my kitchen worktops which was not well received by me but he has now moved onto the stairs which is better as long as you're careful. Professor Picklepants has now taken to stealing the Railway Man's seat as soon as he gets up for any reason and you will almost always find him there in the morning or indeed at most times during the day - he's lazy! Professor Picklepants not the Railway man! As for Baby Jake despite us installing a new microchip cat flap with the intention of keeping him and Lady J out as they aren't our cats he has found that if he hooks a claw under it from the outside he can lift it up and still get in he's very clever!! Lady J recently went missing for several weeks which obviously worried our neighbours who thought she may have been stolen, she is very beautiful and sweet natured and was pregnant. However the story has a partly happy ending she was found to everyone's relief and is back with her family there is however no sign of her kittens which leaves a bit of a ???
And there I'm going to leave you for today, I have lots of other projects to share with you and a couple of recipes but I'm off to have my lunch. xxx