Valentines and being an olympian

Love is not dead at the Monkey household. It's our first Valentine's day as husband and wife and we were sucked in and bought our first (and probably only) Husband/Wife Valentine's cards. The thing is we don't usually bother, we're not fussy and lovey dovey and really don't need to be told to buy each other gifts because we do that anyway, because we like to but things for one another. Still, our first married Valentine's day is a bit different and I showed by love the best way I know how...by knitting!

Mr.Monkey is rather fond of his gaming and I had seen a number of knitted Sackboy toys on Ravelry, Sackboy is a knitted character from the PS3 game Little Big Planet if this has passed you by. He's rather cute and Alan Dart wrote a pattern to make one which is available on-line for free. You'll have to find it yourself though as I'm not linking to the website for the newspaper that has a free on-line copy! I comforted myself downloading it from them simply with the knowledge that I do buy the magazine it was originally printed in but don't appear to have the one with the pattern in!

Here he is...
I am feeling pretty proud with this. I haven't knit a toy before (well I've started but never finished!) and my sewing up is pretty ropey BUT I think he looks OK. I couldn't find the buttons specified in the pattern when I went to the market even though I tried two different stalls and I couldn't get a metal zip with a brown fabric section at either of those stalls but my husband assures me that he looks just fine. I am however knitting him a scarf to hide the particularly poor sewing attaching his head to his neck!

Mr.Monkey showed his love buy hitting my Amazon wishlist and buying me two knitting books, Free Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again and Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn so I am most pleased. We will be really living it up tonight when we get a curry delivered and watch a film. I'd say this is a pretty perfect Valentine's day for me.

So the aforementioned husband likes it when I knit. He says he is glad that I have a hobby that I enjoy and seeing me happy to be knitting makes him happy. What he DOESN'T like however, is knitting to deadlines. He says knitting should be relaxing and enjoyable, staying up until 3am to finish socks for someone's birthday is neither relaxing nor enjoyable and he doesn't think I should do it. Apart from the occassional pair of socks for him and for my mum (who is included because she knits gifts for me!) he thinks I should only knit for myself. I do mostly knit for myself and whilst I made Christmas gifts there was no last minute rush. I do know he was not impressed that I spent a large portion of yesterday finishing knitting and sewing up Sackboy (he liked the result of course!) and so my latest bit of deadline knitting is being kept a secret. Well, the knitting is public knowledge, the deadline is the secret bit!

I signed up for the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics, I added the little icon to my blog page and everything. I stayed up very late on Friday night awaiting the opening ceremony which came on at about 2am GMT so I could cast on my project. I finally, after much muttering about wanting to, cast on Ishbel. This is my first shawl, my first project with a lot of lace (Rose Red is only a bit of lace...I must get a photo of that up!) and I feel a suitable challenge for the Knitting Olympics. OK so it's not a Fair Isle pullover with steeks BUT it's a challenge for me and I am hopeful that I can get it done before the torch goes out at the closing ceremony. I'm using Regia Hand-dye effect which is in very pretty shades of blue. I am hoping it comes out nicely, if it does I'll probably knit another and get some yarn specially for the occasion as I'll admit this stuff was in my stash already and I had no idea what I was going to do with it but knew I didn't want it as socks.


So I guess I have knitting to be getting on with...