I'm still alive... and the Giant Owl Blanket is DONE!

Oooh... so it's February now?
Last two months have been crazy. Many things changed. Some for good - we're getting our own apartment in three months, and some for worse - we lost our little friend - Tiny Tina.

Farewell my fuzzball :(

All this made me a bit to busy to blog. Sorry!

In this post from October 2nd I wrote that "I secretly hope this winter will be colder than the last one, so I will be able to use my shawl often, without risking overheating."
I hereby want to sincerely apologize! I have had it with this winter!!!
It's either this:

Or this...

By "this" I mean that grey haze over my lovely town. Smog is a serious issue this year.

Ok, enough whining!
I promised myself to not reveal my Giant Owl Blanket before it's new owners see it first... but I just can't help myself.

I joined the Sunshine Owl CAL a bit too late and in the end I followed instructions up to week 5. Then the blanket got a bit too big for a newborn blankie.

Here you can clearly see when I  started improvising, and lost stitch count. Oh flaring... I wanted to frog it at first, but then I thought - no one is going to lay it this flat!

For some reason my owl turned too big for the center so I did some shortcuts here and there:

And here's one more look at edges:

For this project I used 100% acrylic yarn  Ince by Bonbon in DK weight. It's not a top-notch yarn but colors are vibrant and pure, it also is very even and works up quickly. It went great with a 4mm hook (4,5 mm for two green sections - lacy ones). The whole thing is HUGE - 120x120cm. And that is not the entire pattern!

It took 510g of yarn - I purchased one skein of each color - 10 skeins in total. Looks like someone will make another blankie!

My next post will also be the 100th post! That calls for some celebration. Of course I'll do my best not to write it in April!

Have a nice afternoon!

Gosia.

PS.: Korek says "hello" :)

Christmas preparations start... today!

It's December already! Weather resembles early springtime, but you can tell holidays are just around the corner.

Today I promised to help with decorating my workplace for Christmas (isn't paediatrics the best?).
I made one blue owl from pattern by Moji-Moji Design... and I decided it shouldn't be lonely so I made her a little sister based on the same pattern.

Then I wanted to make one of those lovely half-circled birds I saw on Lucy's blog. Being to lazy to check out the exact pattern I decided to improvise. How hard it could be, right?

Well.. instead of an adorable birdie I ended up with a rare specimen known as a Failbird.

What a lovely plumage!

Despite his general quirkiness he seems to get along with my owls very well:

Speaking of preparations for Christmas I decided to clear my conscience.

6 years ago I made I promise I didn't really keep. I was supposed to make a Vault Boy for my classmate. I couldn't find a pattern then and my improvisation skills were far from good.

Last week I started to play Fallout Nev Vegas again and suddenly I remembered!

I found a nice Vault Boy pattern by Bryana Amaro. It's a shame to admit that actually fulfilling my promise took me less than two hours.

But hey, better late than never, right?
I also made some special, VERY SPECIAL preparations for the Star Wars premiere. I'll share them soon!

Have a nice evening!

Gosia