Oh my goodness. Where have the last few months gone?! Silly question, really. They have gone the way of every yesterday, and every last weekend and every yesteryear and vanished into the past. I think that time just goes by even faster the busier you are, and I have been rather busy recently.

I have a lot to show you now that I have eventually managed to sit my self down, coffee to the left, mouse to the right and keyboard stuck in the middle with me… Now I finally find myself eager to get this catch up post out of the way so that I feel freer to get back into a nicely organised blog writing routine like I used to!

So here goes… Picking up where I left off, Drake the Dragon came 5th overall in the Fantasy Creatures amigurumi competition. Yay for Drake and a big thank you to all who voted! There were over 700 entries in the end so I’m very pleased with that result.

So pleased, in fact, that I made Drake a big marshmallow on a stick for toasting with his nose flames as a reward for doing so well. Other smiley news is that there is going to be a fantasy creatures amigurumi book inspired by the competition and Drake will be featuring in it alongside 14 other magical and quirky designs (I’ve had a sneak preview of his book-fellows and I can report that they are all 100% cute!). That does mean, however, that I won’t be publishing his pattern in my online shops until after the book release but I’ll keep you all informed about release dates as and when they come to light.

Shortly after my last post the Halloween decorations came down. I like to keep them up until the Christmas ones come out to play. The winter evenings are so dark and dull, my twinkly fairy lights, plethora of pumpkins and abundance of warm autumnal colours help keep me cheerful through the worst of it.

And so Pumpkin Patch People were replaced with the newly written up pattern for the Christmas Elf Quartet (adapted from a design I made for a magazine a couple of years ago – some of you may recognize it). I tried several colourways until I found my perfect combination.

Love these lime and bottle greens together with the red and the silver grey.

And very good were they at helping with the Christmas decorations this year!

Tah-dah! Job done!

They also featured as star attractions on my mantelpiece.

Christmas was fabulous. especially now two of the boys have girlfriends. The feminine element meant that thoughtful gift wrapping and giving was raised to a whole new level and it was lovely to have some girly company over the holidays too. My boys are all fabulous human beings, but they don’t do Christmas like the girls do Christmas!

Rubick enjoyed helping, or getting in the way, which ever way you prefer to look at it.

Too cute!

Though he is a bit of a liability this one. Not long after these photos were taken he came back from one of his garden hopping jaunts with a massive gaping cut in his side. I’ll spare you the photos of his untreated wound but, several visits to the vets and hundred pounds later he was doing quite a good Frankenstein’s Monster impression with eight stitches and a lovely bald patch to show for it all.

By the way, this is what happens when I quickly sneak out of bed in the early morning to make a cup of tea,. Rubick has grabbed the warm spot with a look of ‘finder’s keepers, losers weepers’. Oh well, never one to argue with the cats I just made an early start that day and drank my tea in the studio instead!

It snowed a couple of times over the holidays. The first time it melted away again almost as soon as it had landed. Mojo was fascinated with God’s bad dandruff day!

Then a little while later it snowed a lot…

About six inches of the lightest fluffiest snow I’ve seen for a few years.

I absolutely had to go and make a snowman who wasn’t made of yarn for a change.

I couldn’t get the boys motivated to come and help. I think they’re probably way to old at 19 and 20 years to get overly excited about a bit of snow (not sure what happened to me then!). So I built him on my own. He was a bit rushed as I could only find a single glove with fingers in it due to my passion for fingerless mitts, of which I have many, all lovingly hand knitted by myself, but all completely useless for making anything out of snow. So the other hand was wrapped in a sock which did nothing to keep out the icy wetness. That’s my excuse for why my real snowman looks a bit wonky and not very well finished. I didn’t want to risk not being able to crochet due to frostbite!

In the run up to Christmas I began working on some new Christmas gift bags.

With all the fairy lights twinkling and scented candles lit I made the most of the cosy evenings to crochet a few rows whenever the busy pre-Christmas schedule would allow.

I had lots of fun crocheting with this beautiful tinsel yarn by King Cole.

But alas, after the elves, I didn’t quite manage to squeak out any new festive patterns before Christmas itself was upon us. But the character bags are still a work in progress and will most definitely be up and ready long before this year’s festive season begins!

For now though I’m working on some new stuff that has nothing to do with the holidays. A New Year (well, not quite anymore!) and a new start.

This is another design I made for the same magazine as the elves. I was originally going to call him Beginner’s Bear as he is so quick and easy to crochet. If you have four hours to spare you can make one of these from beginning to end and, with just a single crochet stitch and some very simple shaping to handle, he really is a doddle. In fact, if you are a reasonably fast crocheter and know what you are doing then this bear can even be made in around three hours. Almost instant gratification!

I’ve used up lots of scraps and small leftover balls of yarn from previous projects for these bears so there are some small spaces opening up in my stash baskets, ready to be filled with more almost immediately, I’ve no doubt!

I decided in the end to call the finished bear Bobbin, so it can be a girl or a boy and s/he is my first fully finished pattern of 2018.

As late to the party as we are, myself and the new bears on the block would like to wish you all a tremendously wonderful new year ahead!

Now I am finally back into the swing of pattern writing I have plenty more up my sleeve.

This is the sort of thing cluttering up my desk this week. Yes, some more monsters are on the way. Oh, I get to make more eyeballs! What joy – though I’ve also spent a small fortune on safety eyes again.

I’ll be making a blog post about these new creations next. Now I’ve finally caught up with myself I’m going to try very hard not to let things slip so far behind again. Well, only time will tell if I manage it and with the rate of knots time seems to be slipping by I’m going to have to try very hard indeed!

Thanks for reading, and see you all again… soon!