Declaring Christmas!

Ok. I hate it when all the Christmas stuff is out in the shops before Halloween is even over.

But today's perfume makes me want to declare Christmas already! Its Cherry Kisses, another medium tier perfume from the sniff test, but my goodness now I'm wearing it, its absolutely gorgeous.  It smells exactly like those lovely Christmas candles I always buy by the dozen as soon as they go on sale.

The scent is made up of Cherry, Clove & Mixed Spices. It really makes me feel festive, I definitely want some of this to wear on Christmas day.

My son thinks it smells like sweeties, and my OH approves as well, so thats a thumbs up from all of us!

9/10

Im still plowing away on the shawl, I'll take a photo this evening as I'm just short of halfway now.

Get out your badger paws

Today's perfume is Honey Badger.

I ordered this one for the name alone, it felt like the perfect perfume to celebrate my Hufflepuff pride.

The scent is beeswax, coca, honeycomb, dark chocolate, black & white musk.

When the scent arrived I wasn't that impressed, and put it in my bottom two. But wearing it today I like it much more than I did. It's the opposite of yesterday, which was a disappointment.

This is also the first perfume my other half is liked, which gives it an extra point.

So, all in all, for name value, scent and partner approval this one gets 7/10. 

I'm currently knitting away, making a shawl for my Gran In Law. It's the first time I've used a lace weight yarn. But it's lovely and fluffy. I'll take a photo in a few days when I've got more done, but it's knitting up nice & quickly which is a bonus.

Constance and the hand made leg warmers

Today's perfume is Constance, it's one of my mid tier favorites. The scent is made up of Cookie Dough, bread, butter cream, butter, tea and sugar. Sounds good enough to eat right?

Unfortunately for me the scent is just too subtle, maybe its the scent of the tea in the mix, but I just don't really get the scent of cookies. I've had a cookie scented perfume before, from a different maker, and that was gorgeous, it really did smell like freshly baked cookies and I got compliments every time I wore it. This doesn't have that feel, which is a shame as I really wanted to like it more. I actually liked the scent more in the bottle than I do on me.

5/10 for me.

On the knitting front, I've got one Christmas present completed, yay!! Here are the leg warmers I've made for my Grandmother, she wanted some to wear while walking, so they're made from the lovely soft worsted weight llama wool I bought a few weeks ago. They are very simple, but supper warm and snuggly, and I think I have enough yarn left to make a matching gead band (If I have time before Christmas!)

*sniff test*

One of my treats to myself every now and then is artissan perfume. My best friend loves Black Pheonix Alchemy Lab perfume, and whenever I used to visit she'd drag out her huge collection of perfume bottles and let me try some on.

Unfortunately living in England BPAL perfumes are an expensive treat, as the shipping alone is pricey. So I started looking around for an artissan perfume seller closer to home and found a few which I tried out. Over the years I've found some I loved, and some I was utterly unimpressed by. But I think I have now finally found THE ONE!

The seller is Common Brimstone on Etsy, and lives in the UK so postage is cheap (thankfully) and she seems to share my taste in scents.  I decided to buy one or two bottles, but struggled to pick just one. So I decided to buy a sample pack of 10, and still struggled to get my choices down to 10!

But eventually I did, placed my order and sat down to wait... Yesterday my perfumes arrived up, and my do they smell nice.  To be honest, normally with a sample selection there's a couple that, when they arrive, you just don't like after all, or they don't seem 'you'. This time that isn't a problem, the problem is I like all of them!

After a lot of sniffing yesterday I finally separated out my Top 5: Oshun, Black Wood Sugar, Cinnamon Bird, Caramel Chai & Pumpkin Nuit

Middle 3: Cherry Kiss, Kitchen Witch & Constance

& the bottom two: Honey Badger & Bastet

But honestly its a very close thing, now I need to try out each scent and see what I think.

Today is the first scent, and one of my top 5. I had planned to save this one till later, but after an awful nights sleep last night I needed a pick me up!

The scent is called Oshun, which is apparently named for an Oshiri (goddess?) of love,  beauty of diplomacy.  An interesting mix, as is the scent, which apparently contains warm clove, amber, nutmeg, cinnamon, honey and pumpkin.

I really do love this one. Its warm, deep and comforting, without being too sweet or cloying. I want to wrap myself in it and snuggle in front of a fire with a good book.

9/10 (Honestly I'd give it full marks, but that seems daft on the first day!)

Oh and to keep it knitting related,  today Im trying out the socks I finished for the first time, they didnt need a sniff test though! ;)

The good, the bad, and the squishy!

A bit of a mixed bag last week.

I'm always a believer in starting with the bad news, which last week involved the news that my local favourite yarn shop (purl city yarns) is closing. Boooo.... :(

But this horrid news had an upside, which was that they had a huge sale on to clear their stock before they shut forever.

This meant I was able to do my Christmas Yarn order for a bargin price (well as bargin as you get for lovely yarn, which admitedly isn't really ever a bargin, but who cares, it's lovely!)

So on Saturday morning the postman delivered my lovely order full of pretty yarn.

Oh so pretty, and soooo squishy!

So I know have 6 skeins of  worsted llama wool (in 2 colours) I've never used llama wool before, but my goodness its soft.

I also have 2 skeins of lace weight mohair yarn, which is both gorgeous and squishy.

And finally a lovely self striping dk yarn.

*Sigh* yarn heaven!

Planning for Christmas

I know, I know, I said the 'C' word. Sorry.

But still, it's time to start planning what I need to knit for Christmas presents.

At the moment I'm finishing off the socks I started last month.

I've got one done, and the other is almost finished. Above is sock number one. The pattern is mermaidia, which is a really pretty pattern based on a mermaids fins. I wanted something either wintery or aquatic, as the wool give me the feel of either deep dark winter or deep dark water, and I couldn't find a snowfall pattern I liked enough.

Anyway I should have the socks finished by the end of this week, beginning of next at the latest, so what then...?

My Grandmother has requested some leg warmers for when she is out walking, and suggested some finger-less gloves for my Granddad similar to the ones I made for her last year.

I was planning on making a cape for the boy with the remainder of the red wool from my shawl, however I can't find a single 'superhero cape' pattern. I can find lots of 'little red riding hood capes' but no superman like ones! Bah!

What has everyone else got on the books for Christmas knits this year?

Shawltastic!

After having said that I lost my knitting oomph, I finally found it again!

I made two lovely shawls in time for Nine Worlds...

The first one was the Firefly inspired saffron a shawl for leaving the maiden house

Not perfect, I made a few mistakes along the way, but still, it looks good on. And, as a first attempt I'm happy with it, and I'm not the only one...

The Boy loves it. So much so that I'm think I need to make him a cape, just so I can get my shawl back! 

The second one was the Time Turner Shawl which was inspired by Hermione's time turner in Harry Potter. Although, because I used a self striping shawl, you can't actually see the pattern, which is a bit of a shame. But then again, it does look really pretty anyway, so I don't really mind!

So, I think I have now cracked shawls. Now, onto socks!!!