Water, Water, Everywhere.....

This is the rockpool play set just about complete.  I've knitted a few more inhabitants - look carefully and you'll see a crab, a cuttlefish, a starfish and a very small hermit crab.  The base has had a sheet of felt glued on to cover the stitching and the whole lot has been wrapped in copious amount of bubblewrap and posted off ready for a little girl's birthday.  There will be a subsequent parcel with a few more fish later on.

I really enjoyed making this - it was quite an unusual commission, but so much fun.  Left to my own devices, I could have made this very complicated and spectacular, but you have to consider just how much you will end up charging the customer!

Yesterday we had a day out, playing tourists up in London.  In a couple of week's time we will be attending the Paralympics equestrian event, so we thought we'd have a bit of a trial run up to Greenwich and visit the newly restored tea clipper, the Cutty Sark.
Unfortunately, I clean forgot to take a picture of the outside of the ship - whoops! This is a view of a British warship from one of the portholes though...

Stacie always enjoys playing Captain Jack Sparrow whenever she can...

We wondered what ship had this little chap as it's figurehead?

After a very enjoyable morning on the ship followed by a lunch of jerk chicken and goat curry from a stall in Greenwich market, we took a river cruise back to Waterloo.

It is fascinating to see that little Dickensian corners like this still exist - can't you just imagine Bill Sykes scarpering among those houses?

We were very excited to see the Olympic rings hanging from Tower Bridge, even though by this time the rain was coming down hard.

We saw the Tower of London...

..and the replica of The Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake's ship.

I think we need to pay a visit to this ship too, now there Stacie could really imagine she was in Pirates of the Caribbean!

A really fun day and a welcome break from the stack of work I've been wading through!

Hola Hernando!

What an undertaking this was! The past two days have been spent struggling with this little chappie. This is another pattern from Amigurumi Knits, and probably the most complicated one in the whole book.


I was very impressed with how the pattern has been worked out though. The shell was knitted with an incredible amount of increases and short rows, as well as knitting both sides of the cast on row, but when it came to grafting it all together, it spiralled into a shell shape like magic, and the increases cleverly form lines across the whorls just like a real shell.


Each leg was knitted separately and has two rows of pale pink picked up stitches which were then kitchener grafted together to make a lifelike underneath to it. The main claws had the nippers picked up and knitted separately again.


In the pattern he has knitted eyes, but I always opt for realism, so have sewn two little black beads instead, as well as knitting a small cluster of barnacles on the side of his shell.


I am really pleased with how this has turned out, it was well worth the sheer concentration it took to make.