Project 365+1: Days 343 - 349

I've failed ever-so-slightly at taking photos this last week. I'm blaming this mostly on the fact that I've been working on my assignment to get it all submitted and when I've not been doing that I've been obsessive compulsively knitting or reading various Christmassy books. Hopefully this week I'll make up for it with some more interesting photos (which aren't all taken on my phone).

Day 343: What's in Santa's Sack?

This is my Santa totally finished, complete with Santa sack. Unfortunately, midway through knitting up the sack I realised that I was getting very low to the end of my ball of brown wool (which was less than 50g before I started and I used part of that on Santa's belt). Not wanting to be defeated I decided on a slight design alteration and made the top half striped.

Luckily Mr Click had bought some Terry's Chocolate Orange Segsations which filled it up perfectly. He's been standing on the back of my chair all week and we've been helping ourselves to chocolates as we go past (so he'll be needing to replenish his supplies soon). Finishing him has really motivated me to try some more stuffed toys, as you'll see below.

Day 344: Under the Christmas Tree

This is the view under our tree earlier in the week (when Mr Click finally brought down my presents to add to the collection). The ones wrapped in brown paper on the back right are actually Mr Click's birthday presents (which he unwrapped earlier on and loved).

I love how the presents gradually start to appear under the tree from the time it goes up until Christmas day. Our presents went under it a little earlier than usual because my cousin was visiting with her kids on the 1st and so I wanted to have their gifts under the tree. It would've looked a wee bit bare with just four wrapped parcels, so I bulked it out with Mr Click's birthday presents. I'm amazed that Tara hasn't taken it upon herself to try unwrapping any of them yet - she was very keen to help Mr Click unwrap his presents this morning!

Day 345: Heffalumps & Woozles

The last few weeks I've been revisiting some of my favourite childhood books. One of these was Winnie the Pooh which I've had a copy of on my bookcase ever since I was very small. Obviously, I'll post a review about it later on, but suffice to say, I love this copy. It's got a fairly plain cover but it's got lovely little illustrations in it (by E.H. Shepard, of course). I was surprised at how many little bits there were that I missed when I read it as a child, I get the impression they were there to amuse the adults reading the book to their children.

Day 346: Twelve Twelve Twelve

I felt like I had to take a photo to celebrate the special date (the last one that we'll get for quite a while, though 2013 will be notable for being the first year since 1987 where none of the year's numbers are repeated within itself). This one kind of diminishes the impact though, since there's only one twelve, but it's got Winnie the Pooh in it, so at least it's cute.

Day 347: Roley Poley Kid

This is my latest knitting project, which is now almost finished. This pattern is from the same book as my Santa one; when I was nearing the finish of Santa I asked Mr Click to pick what I should do next, so he picked the pattern which called for a rotund family with seven equally spherical children. This is actually a really good pattern for using up my random balls of wool because it's basically just asking for two contrasting colours for their clothes, plus a bit of black for their feet and something else for the hat. The parents will take a little bit longer, but if you had a day to spare you could easily make a kid in one day. I think it took me about three days (only having an hour or so at a time) to get to this point.

Day 348: Santa & Friend

I'm beginning to realise that my house will probably end up looking like it's been yarn-bombed or something before too much longer. Luckily after Christmas Santa will disappear into the cupboard with the other Christmas decorations (making room for more members of the Roley Poley family to hang out).

I wasn't sure which of the Roley Poley children this one was going to be (though I was sure it was a girl), so I got Mr Click to pick from the picture which one I should make. He picked the one with possibly the hardest hairstyle. It doesn't look like much here, but wait until you see what I did next. (By the way, those funny little sausages by her feet are actually her arms, they're one of the last things to be sewn on).

Day 349: Hair Today

And this is the next stage. I was a little bit sceptical when I was reading the instructions for the hair (not helped by the fact that I read this first half of one particular hairstyle, and the second half of another which made absolutely no sense at all). It's amazing how a bit of thread wrapped around a bit of card can actually take shape into something like this. It looks a little bit strange, but once the doll's got a hat it should look really neat.

The doll now has a face as well and I did start work on the hat, though completely messed it up so frogged it to start over.

Today has also been Mr Click's birthday so we've had a lovely day of presents and nice food and walks. It's going to be a busy week in the run up to Christmas so I'm hoping to get ahead with my OU (so I can relax over the holidays) and reorganise my knitting bag so I can bring it with me when I go out over Christmas to see if I can get the rest of the Roley Poley clan finished.