Merry Christmas Everyone and welcome to today's blog! If you're reading this on the day it's posted it's officially the day before the day before Christmas. Christmas is just two days away so hope you have an amazing Holiday weekend. We've been doing more Christmas baking and making our traditional sausage rolls. (The best part of Christmas.) Check out my Don't forget to check out my
Christmas Lights Extravaganza Part 1 and Part 2 on Youtube!
Remember those cookies I baked and showed off in Wednesday's blog?
Yeah... They're gone, the Sugar Cookies too. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED! I think we had some cookie thieves.. Either that or Santa needed a quick snack before he sets off on Christmas night. Though yes we will be including a new batch of cookies along with all our other baking projects.
It's time for another knitting update! Don't forget to check out Wednesday's blog to see my finished pair of socks.
Remember that waffle washcloth I was making a week ago? Well I picked it back up and got busy on it. I've been a very busy elf on my knitting lately so take a look!
These owls are so cool, and how I made them is even cooler and perhaps... Mysterious.
I'm already half way through the washcloth. This is also my first step into cable knitting. What is cable knitting? Well I learned that all you do is slip two, or as many as you want, stitches onto the white cable needle you see in the photo. (You can use anything you want actually, like a paperclip.) You will then either hold the cable needle at the front or back of your work (It depends on the pattern so make sure you read your pattern carefully.) then you knit a certain amount of stitches equal to the amount you slipped onto your cable needle, finally you knit the slipped stitches back off the cable needle onto your normal needle. This gives it this twist and helps manipulate your stitches into all sorts of cool shapes. I'm amazed at how cable makes these shapes just... Show up with a simple cable 2 forward and backward.
The pattern I'm using for this project is called Waffling Owls Afghan 12" block or dishcloth by Margaret MacInnis on Ravelry. It's a really simple cable pattern and I've been breezing through it very easily with little errors (All my errors actually ended up being on the non cable parts... Oops. At least they got corrected so there's no problem.) It's a really easy pattern for knitters who want to try and learn cable knitting. With how fast this is coming along I may finish this before Christmas, all I gotta do after finishing is knit in some eyes with either scrap yarn or beads, haven't decided on that yet.
Cable knitting has completely surprised me, I thought I would have to do cable rows all the way up but all I had to do was do one cable row and then on the next row do just plain purls and knits. The only time I had to do cable again was when I was changing the shape to form the face. I'm assuming on more complicated patterns I will be doing cable every row but this pattern has me doing them every so often.
I already have my next cable project in mind actually! If you remember back in November on my End of a Knitting Beginning and Crossing a Lake of Birds my Mum let me have some more awesome yarn from her stash.
I received this Lana Grossa Lord yarn (Dye lot is 61101, the color is 005 i can't find the actual name of it, it's been discontinued forever.) and decided to make this Splendor Knitting; The Natural Cable Beanie by Ravelry Designer Homero Luna. This originally was going to be my first project but I came across this washcloth and I just had to knit it as a gift for someone for Christmas (I know, I know I'm leaving it to the last minute slightly but I'll have it done.) I plan on starting this hat around New Years so stay tuned for that on the blog!
So Christmas is just around the corner and my family and I came across this Christmas animation I had no idea existed. It's called Santa's Apprentice,
This 2010 animated movie was produced by Gaumont Animation tells the story of Santa who is nearing retirement, in this story over the years the current Santa Claus eventually retires but before hand he takes on a child apprentice to train in order to become the next Santa and keep the Christmas spirit alive. The lucky winner, to be chosen from among millions of children, must be named Nicholas, be an orphan and have a pure heart. On the other side of the planet, there is a little boy who is a perfect match, but his lack of self-confidence and fear of heights make him a poor contestant. Will Santa agree to step down, and help his apprentice take his place? This movie is a great animation for the whole family and the animation is so beautiful and colorful I was taken away by it. The characters are also really great and help build this awesome movie.
The movie actually has a sequel called The Magic Snowflake.
This movie of course takes place after Santa's Apprentice so I won't talk much about this movie but I will say it's even more wonderfully animated and has a wonderful story with great characters. Actually this movie released in November of this year, 6 years after the original movie.
These movies, with their beautiful artstyle, smooth animation, wonderful soundtrack and awesome characters makes them great additions to your Family Holiday movie collection so check them out on iTunes! If you're not too sure about these you can also rent them.
It's also not to late to add a wonderful song to your Christmas collection to play over Christmas weekend!
I know I've promoted this a lot over the past month but it's an amazing song sung by the staff and students of Redbridge High School (Liverpool, England) for Special Needs students. It encompasses a wonderful message about what Christmas really is and my little brother (Who is also a special needs kid, this is why I'm so passionate about this.) absolutely loves listening to it. All funds from this song go help the school build better equipment to make these kid's lives even brighter. You can check it out on iTunes for a very small price of $0.99 cents! (Price may vary by your country of course due to currency changes.)
Before I wrap the blog up I got something Pokemon related to talk about. So in preparation for Pokemon Sun and Moon (Be sure to check out the awesome blogs related to this I'll be making after Christmas!) I've been playing some previous Pokemon games such as Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. Well two evenings ago I was trying to catch a certain Pokemon I didn't have and I was fishing... Out of nowhere I ran into a Shiny Remoraid!
It's not that easy to see it on this screen shot but I wasn't even purposely looking for this guy... Or even a Remoraid in general. I know that shiny hunting with a fishing rod is easier then other methods but this is still a really big shocker. I don't know what a Shiny Octillery looks like (Yes... A fish evolves into an Octopus, this is why I love Pokemon, haha.) so I'll level this little guy up and see! This shiny distracted me so much I forgot what Pokemon I really was looking for, haha.
Be sure to keep up with my blog to see more Pokemon blogs! I'll be unboxing Pokemon Sun and Moon Christmas day and the Alola Journey will begin! I have tons of cool ideas for blogs related to those games.
Anyway that's about it for today. Merry Christmas but also Happy Hanukkah to everyone! Hanukkah surprisingly starts on Christmas night so this weekend is a double Holiday weekend. I know Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are both on days not on my blogging schedule but I may be posting something small on either day so stay tuned! If you're busy be sure to come back Monday for my After Christmas/Boxing Day blog! Be sure to check me out on Instagram as I'll be posting a lot on their but also Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat as ZAKManK, and of course Ravelry!
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays everyone!
Actually, most cable knitting only has actual cables about every 6 rows/rounds or so. It's the beauty of it! Thank you for choosing my pattern to try your hand at cables. You did a great job of it!
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