Project 365+1: Days 329 - 342

I'll keep this short because I've got a bunch of photos to post as I didn't get a chance to do it last Sunday, mainly because we were up late on Saturday night with Mr Click throwing up after he managed to poison himself with some spicy sauce. And we weren't wanting to take a chance on it actually being a bug so we stayed home on the Sunday.

Day 329: A Little More Festive Viewing

We've carried on watching Christmas films. Working through them in alphabetical order, ready to gear ourselves up to putting up our Christmas decorations. The Holiday and Love Actually are good films to watch in Novemeber because they're just set at Christmas time. Love Actually kind of has a special meaning for me because we used two of the pieces of music from it when we got married.

Day 330: Virus Scan

As my beloved HTV has been suffering from some little technical hitches, in the shape of malware alerts, which then popped up for a viewer of this blog when I copied a post across that I made on there. So last Monday I did a very quick virus scan first thing in the morning before I left for work, which I then followed up with by doing a really indepth scan that took about two and a half hours that evening.

Luckily, I was safe. Aside from a couple of suspect cookies, my laptop was virus-free. HTV is slowly being repaired now as well, so hopefully it'll be virus-free too soon.

Day 331: Following The Pattern

Work has progressed well on my Santa. Being a bit lazy when it comes to knitting, I enjoy the actual knitting process, I find it really relaxing and it gives me something to do while I'm watching TV, the problem is I get bored sewing things up. But once Santa took shape, I didn't actually mind doing these little embellishments too; they knitted up quickly and weren't too much trouble to sew on, and they look pretty good, as you'll see below.

Day 332: Dragon's Egg

This arrived in the post the week before last. When I was checking out the Blu-ray editions of this series, I realised that the price for the special boxset was about the same as the regular one. So we preordered it. I got an email about it at the beginning of the month, but it wouldn't load on my phone, so I didn't think too much about it. Until we discovered that they'd basically halved the price of the set. It's the regular boxset, with a bonus disc with the first episode of series two. The box is sort of padded and it's got a dragon's egg as well. I was expecting it to be fairly lightweight, but the egg is seriously heavy and looks really old.

I can't wait to watch this, though we're going to have to rearrange our DVD shelves because at the moment it's just tucked up in a cupboard. I've seen every episode except the last one in the series and Mr Click has watched most of the second half of the series (again, except the last one). At the beginning I wasn't sure if it would be my sort of thing and there were so many characters that it took me a while to learn who everyone was, this time I'll know everyone so I can't wait. Of course, first we have to finish watching All Creatures Great and Small.

Day 333: Let It Sew! Let It Sew! Let It Sew!

This was how I left Santa each night, hoping that he would sew himself up by the morning. It didn't happen. Here he is with the bottom of his coat sewn on, as well as the cuffs round the bottoms of his trousers, just waiting to get his sleeve cuffs fixed on.

Day 334: Word Origins

Another geeky linguistic book. It's literally a dictionary, but I read it cover to cover. In hindsight it would've been better to just leave it on the bookcase and dip into it as the moment required, but instead I'm now armed with the histories of a bunch of everyday words. It's funny to think how old some words are and how they came to be used the way they are.

This was November 30th and I added my final few words to my NaNo, leaving me with a grand total of 51,510 and a winner's badge. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I managed to write at least something each day and the story's not too bad, though still unfinished.

Day 335: Oh Christmas Tree

This is a rather blurry photo of our Christmas tree, I'm planning on looking out my tripod and fiddling with my camera settings so I can take some nice photos like I did last year. But in the meantime, let's just admire this one. Last year we were without a Christmas tree, but Mr Click found this one on eBay for £14.99 including the lights and decorations. Bargain!

Not all the decorations came with the tree though, each year on our anniversary we exchange a decoration, so lots of the ones hanging here have some special story or significance. I love this, I can't wait until we have kids and someone to pass this tradition on to.

December the first was a busy day for us. First I shaved off the goatee that Mr Click has been cultivating all month (this is the after picture, he looks hairier in the before version). Then we put up the Christmas tree, then I spent ages making paper chains to decorate the living room, and later my cousin came round with her partner and kids as she was up visiting another family member.

All in all it was a lovely day, only slightly spoiled by the vomiting episode later that night.

Day 336: Santa's Movember Spirit

So this is Santa sporting his lovely hat and with his beard half sewn on. You can see he's got all of his cuffs here (you can also just see the picture in the book showing what he's supposed to look like). Unfortunately I don't trust my buckle embroidery skills so at the moment he's still buckle-less, I'm thinking I might make one out of felt instead. His hat also turned out a little bit too large, so it's not sewn on, this is good because it means I can whip it off and put it on Tara instead if I feel like it.

Day 337: Pumpkin Carriage

As I mentioned above, each year we exchange tree decorations. Since we got married, I've tried to make mine to Mr Click link to whatever the traditional gift for our anniversary should be that year. He's slightly more flexible which meant I got this little gem last year (my main presents last year were all themed around Cinderella). It's pretty weighty so has to rest on a lower branch on the tree, but isn't it beautiful? I've hung it on the side of the tree that I can see when I'm sitting in my chair.

Day 338: Santa's Ready To Go!

And I promise this is the last photo I'll post of Santa (well, maybe second to last, I've still got three more rows to go on his sack of toys (read: sweets, I'm going to stuff it with Segsations, that's if there are any left by the time I get to the end of the knitting).

He really came to life once I got his eyes in. The nose was a little tricky and I've left him mouthless, again because I don't really trust my embroidery skills. He's actually come together pretty quickly, once I got my act together. I'm looking forward to him becoming one of our standard Christmas decorations each year.

The book that I got his pattern from also has a Rudolph pattern and a Snowman pattern too, though I'm considering treating myself to the Jean Greenhowe Christmas pattern book for future projects. Santa's really resparked my love of knitting, so I'm hoping to make a lot of stuffed toys that I might be able to sell for charity or something.

Day 339: Paper Chain

A few years ago I started cutting out strips from magazines to make into paper chains but they didn't look brilliant and I've not really tried again since. When we were off the island shopping I found a bunch of little paper chain making kits and I decided to spluge and get them. I had great fun making these, they were designed to sort of slot into each other but I added a touch of tape on each onto so that didn't pop out. I used three packs and they go right round our living room, all joined up into one really long chain.

Day 340: Cuddle Pup

This is an awful photo, but I couldn't get out of bed to get a camera because Tara was actually lying right across me. She's so funny, she loves to be cuddled and just this week she decided that I had to be cuddled all night, which basically meant lying on me/up against me. It was very cute, but also very difficult to photograph.

What wasn't so cute was the very next morning when she decided I was taking too long to get out of bed and jumped up, winding up standing right on my eye. Which was open at the time. Having a labrador stick her foot in your eye socket really hurts, can't say I recommend it. After a long headache and lots of blurriness, it got better (I'm sure the painkillers helped too). I don't think that's a morning routine we'll be repeating in a hurry!

Day 341: Advent Calendar

I've not shown a photo of my advent calendar yet, so here it is. We decided to splurge on personalised ones from Thorton's (mainly because we were too late to get any last year).

I'm planning on using my knitting to good effect in the future though and making little stocking advent calendars that we can put Christmassy things to do into, instead of chocolates. But for now I'll just stick to the chocolate, that'll save me some blisters for a little while at least.

Day 342: Christmas Movie Marathon

We watched almost all of these in a 24 hour period, with the exception of White Christmas and The Little Prince. I'd never seen Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer before, though I'd heard of it and seen clips on American TV shows. I have to admit, I quite enjoyed it even with the casual racism and sexism, I can see how it became a bit of a cult hit.

Also, Mr Click did a really good job last year and managed to find a copy of The Polar Express in 3D on blu-ray. I love watching this, it actually looks as though it's snowing in your living room and at one point the train tries to park itself in the room too. At the time we were watching it, we were eating lunch, which isn't so easy when you're wearing 3D glasses; luckily I can knit without looking at what I'm doing, so once I'd finished my lunch I managed to do that without too much trouble.

So that's been our very busy week here, and it's only going to get busier in the coming week because next Sunday is Mr Click's birthday. I can't wait until I give him my present, I'm so excited to see what he thinks.