Tom Baker Scarf

The first knitting project I ever completed was to knit a Tom Baker/ Doctor Who Scarf the pattern for which I got online but can no longer find. I recently made a second one for a friend and it took me the best part of a year and a half to do, such a large project requires a lot of dedication and patience and is difficult for people with comparatively short attention spans like myself.

It's actually quite a good first project as it's ambitious because of the length but the pattern is so varied and not very strict so if you make any mistakes no one will notice.

Wool - I used double knit. There are 7 different colours used in this Scarf and you shouldn't need any more than one 100g ball of each colour.
The colours are- rusty brown (RB), mustard brown (MB), grey (G), sunshine yellow (SY), purple (P), rusty red (RR), olive green (OG).

Needles - 5.5mm


cast on 45 st and knit in garter stitch for the whole body.
18 rb
10 mb
32 g
12 sy
10 p
30 rr
8 rb
12 g
16 mb
54 og
14 rb
6 sy
12 p
8 mb
20 g
12 rr
40 sy
8 p
20 og
14 rb
42 mb
8 g
10 sy
40 rr
8 p
18 mb
8 rb
12 og
10 p
54 sy
8 mb
16 g
8 rb
42 og
10 p
8 rr
14 mb
28 sy
10 rb
20 og
8 p
22 mb
10 rb
16 rr
52 sy
10 p

This is the pattern that I used, however I have found a much better pattern online which I wish I had found earlier. It also has patterns for Tom Baker's other scarf's that he wore during his time as the Doctor. This is it >> http://www.doctorwhoscarf.com/

Happy Knitting!

A blog a day eh?

Okay, so blogging every day clearly isn't something I'm very good at.

I'm not even able to manage every week, or month.

Truth be told I haven't really had anything to blog about but lets see if I can think of something.

A few weeks ago I visited The Elephant House Cafe in Edinburgh. To anyone familiar with the JK. Rowling story this is the wee cafe where she would go to write in the early days (before she could afford heating.) It's the perfect location for some one wanting to make any Harry Potter pilgrimage, there are so many gems there to be discovered by any fan of the series. Out of the window I was sitting beside there was a fantastic view that looked up to Edinburgh castle and down to Greyfriars Graveyard.

The table we were sat at was a big old desk with drawers, and while my mum was being nosey poking in and out the drawers she happened across notes, thousands of them, stuffed in the drawers from customers and fans of the Harry Potter books from all over the world who were visiting Edinburgh, full of praise and love for the city and the books and the writer and the Elephant themed cafe. Such a lovely thing to come across that makes me smile whenever I think about it, it's very Potter-esque. Of course I added my own note, I drew a Harry Potter Elephant, with lightening scar and wizards ha and NHS glasses, with a wee note added, I forget what it said. If you go there and come across that note you know it's mine.

Also - 

This is amazing and I want one.

~
Since Christmas I've taken up knitting to quite a great extent, I've been really getting into it and am almost finished my second Tom Baker (Of Doctor Who) scarf, this one I'm making for my Boyfreind's best friends, a return gift which was intended for 2 Christmases ago. I don't think I'll make one of them again, I'm sick of the colours and whey too time consuming.

Today I've started following some crafty bloggers and think I'll become a crafty blogger myself, I'm forever making things and have thousands of ideas for things to make, I'm still finding my feet but I'm loving every minute.

So now I have something to talk about hopefully I'll be here more often. :o) 

What An Obnoxious Christmas

It's almost Christmas and perhaps this particular disgruntled stating of the obvious is a little late in coming but, Christmas came far too early this year, and last year to be frank, and probably will come much earlier next year. But my particular dissatisfaction comes from the feeling that this commercialisation of the holiday, which starts it's poking and prodding at the stress centre of our brain earlier and earlier every year, is ruining Christmas!

What's magical about Christmas is that it only comes once a year, it's something to look forward to, a point you can foresee when you know you'll be happy because you'll have the day off work, well, most people will, and you'll be surrounded by the people in the world who mean the most to you. Every one makes an extra special effort to be nice to each other and be on their best behaviour, we even buy each other gifts!

Every family has their own family traditions which will fill each heart with pleasure. Some people have massive chaotic family Christmas's where granny and great uncle Phil and your fifteen cousins come to visit. Other families have intimate affairs where you huddle round the telly with your brothers and sisters and watch 'A Wonderful Life' while tucking into hot chocolate. Both Christmas's sound fantastic to me and I love Christmas day! What I don't love is the build up which this year started in August?! I have a friend who went shopping in Braehead Shopping Centre in the Summer and came across a 'Christmas Shop' She took a picture and posted it to her facebook.
The first picture in an album titled 'August' is a picture of a glorious Christmas tree on the back of Santa's Sleigh.

I was still picking last years pine needles out the skirting boards in August!

I work in a shop, a supermarket to be precise, one of the big British chains which sell everything from carrots to party dresses (There's a few shops which fit that description in Britain I'll let you wonder which it is) And in this shop I saw selection boxes being displayed in September.
 
I think for most people, after the realisation comes that there is no Father Christmas to do your gift shopping for you comes the realisation that you kind of have to do it yourself. Which brings immeasurable levels stress, it's like every one's birthday coming in the same month (Which actually does happen to me in January btw) I feel pressured to start buying Christmas presents before I've even sorted out my Halloween costume. Which inevitably turns out rubbish because I'm so distracted and my brain just won't shut up about Christmas.

Christmas spirit, in it's base nature is only designed to last two weeks, three at most. And yet we're being forced into it early by retailers and advertisers so that by the time December 25th actually comes around we've had enough of Christmas trees and tinsel and Christmas Songs and Santa and gifts! It's not even December yet and already I'm sick of Christmas.

Christmas has been made obnoxious! And I don't think Christmas would like that.

Christmas is about celebrating the birth of our saviour, the principle date in the Christian calender.
To most individual's it's about breaking bread with your family. Taking time out of your life to let the people that matter know that they matter and making the people that are special to you feel special. It's something that is sacred to everyone who celebrates it, and hold a warm place in our hearts. The cold, sterile, greedy, money driven retail and advertising industries have no place in that and I call on everyone who feels the same to join me in rejecting these forces from your celebrations next year when they begin to rear their ugly heads... as you're on your way to your summer holidays.

A Blog a Day

...And why I'm here.

I feel that I need to improve my writing. I used to be quite good and would blog quite often on different platforms but lately I've become a little rusty. So I'm going to do what ladies of old would have done when finding themselves in such a position and I'm going to keep a diary (or a blog as we call it here in the 21st century) and hope that it helps me in my little problem.

I'll be writing about all sorts of things that happen to take my fancy or interest on any given day and I only hope that I'm able to keep it going.

Hope whoever reads, enjoys.