Maybe I Should Do A Little Butler / Automation For Trello Training…

Aimée the Sheep

Made using a kit from TOFT.

It's limited edition but if you're familiar with their body construction you can probably very easily recreate it. The only 'special ingredient' is La Bien Aimee Confetti Cake yarn - it's also the main reason for the kit being on the expensive side I guess. The yarn came in hank and I was dreading it based on my previous experience but it turned out that DK weight yarn was significantly easier to untangle than sock weight. 😌

You can also still get the Sheep magazine with patterns (including previously featured Seth and Tobias) if you do want/need a pattern.

I've not got super much to say about this one to be honest... I forgot to put in the safety eyes so it's a bit of blue sparkly Rico yarn which I think suits her. I made bulk of the body in a queue waiting for a sample sale and I thought it was quite solid but upon inspection later the holes between stitches were once again HUMONGOUS. Thank sheep god for the fleece on top, and a note to self to pay more attention and keep my tension *tight* (but then relax it for granny squares, I started one and it's a wrinkly mess 🫠).

The project helped me overcome my hate on hanks and the yarn seemed like a qualitt product, it's a serious contender if I ever need to make a Quality gift. 👌

Anywho, here's a pic of all three existing sheep I made (Seth and Tobias post). No denying that Seth is still the most bombastic.

Why do they make me think of Will and Hannibal with Abigail? 🥺

Has Peter Strickland watched this immediately before sitting down and writing Flux Gourmet??

May 2025

This month was about 3 years long, work has put me through the wringer and I'm in my feelings about it so much that I thought I've done nothing else but apparently my spare time is endless. 💀

Work

[deleting the first para because i realised it’s almost identical to last month and i just swung to the dark side cos i wrote it while very tired 😌]

I'm still not failing as badly as whoever is managing those AI summaries on top of Google tho. Whoever you are, you're making millions of people's life worse several times a day and burning down the planet. 💖

Anyway, the deadline got moved by a week and the world did not stop spinning. Not even when some people took holidays. Figures!

Did not make it to Delivercon because of the above shenaningans. One day I will be a dependable unconference co-organiser. :(

I'm personally quite disappointed in some of the decisions being made lately but at least they resulted in seeing how many people genuinely do value working in the open etc. It's heartening to see that this stuff genuinely does matter to other people and I'm not the only one upset by it.

I keep thinking about a conversation I had few months ago now about bullyign and what to do when you witness it but are not personally affected. TBH my own experience of reporting things was so disastrously bad I'd be cross if someone reported a thing on my behalf haha. It's not helpful that a lot of the guidance assumes the line manager is a safe person to report things to, like they're never a problem themselves... The most pragmatic thing is sadly to help the bullied person get another job. 🫠

I genuinely dread every time when I need to buy something (people, software, outcome), might be a thing to fix if we shouldn't be doing everything from the ground up....

Professionally one of the worst months of my life, several things were late, not done, or not escalated in time for a big deadline on the 3rd June and no matter what anyone says they were squarely within my remit. 🥲

I'm still not failing as badly as whoever is managing those AI summaries on top of Google tho. Whoever you are, you're making millions of people's life worse several times a day and burning down the planet. 💖

Anyway, the deadline got moved by a week and the world did not stop spinning. Not even when some people took holidays. Figures!

Did not make it to Delivercon because of the above shenaningans. One day I will be a dependable unconference co-organiser. :(

It's been so nice to see how many people in my organisation genuinely value working in the open etc. It's heartening to see that this stuff genuinely does matter to other people and I'm not the only one upset by the direction things have gone recently.

I keep thinking about a conversation I had few months ago now about bullyign and what to do when you witness it but are not personally affected. TBH my own experience of reporting things was so disastrously bad I'd be cross if someone reported a thing on my behalf haha. It's not helpful that a lot of the guidance assumes the line manager is a safe person to report things to, like they're never a problem themselves... The most pragmatic thing is sadly to help the bullied person get another job. 🫠

I genuinely dread every time when I need to buy something (people, software, outcome), might be a thing to fix if we shouldn't be doing everything from the ground up....

Various

I had a good time at UK Games Expo, even though it was initially super overwhelming. I met up with some friends, bought way too many games, and went to a game design workshop where my group made something quite abstract but that actually worked as a fun game! :o Making it my goal to prototype at least 1-2 small things by end of year.

UKGE bonus win: I convinced someone to buy Arcs and we're playing this weekend. 🥳 Ideally we'd find a regular 4th but fingers crossed it works with three. I can't wait for the Fangs & Fortune expansion to Ahoy to come out as well, both the factions seem super fun to play. 👏

STILL WAITING FOR THE COMPLETION DATE but at least my mortgage rate went down by 0.5% since the initial calculation. It'll offset the stamp duty a bit I suppose. 🙃

I (re)discovered Baikal seals and I'm now convinced petting one would fix me.

I enjoyed this personal video by PushingUpRoses where she talks about how therapeutic ceramics have been to here. Personally throwing makes me feel like I'm on the brink of madness (can't fucking center), but as someone with fairly powerful 'could a depressed person make THIS' energy I appreciate her being open about it. Something to relate to innit.

Moved Ghent trip to October from this weekend and it only cost me £28 extra. 😌

I went to Java Whiskers' crochet with cats evening and like anythign else cat cafe related it was terrible value for money.. worth doing once tho. The cats were cute but I was not willing to compromise my yarn integrity for their amusement so I was not the most popular person there. ;(

The Grayson Perry exhibit at Wallace Collection was fantastic, just a really fun concept done so well. His ceramics were probably the least interesting piece which speaks to the quality of everything else.

Arts & crafts

Ralsei

Aimee the Sheep (pictured below being made at Nagare 👌)

Fox and a Cat

a very easy hat

I got started on the potter's blanket pattern from Toft, but adding pinks as well (since I had a lot of 8/8 cotton in whites, pinks, and blues)

Hello Kitty (waiting for a friend she was gifted to finish making an outfit before I can post)

two floral pairs of earrings at a workshop by Rosa Pietsch

I have a crochet backlog of gifts only, starting with Jigglypuff in 8/8 cotton that is making my hands cramp up something awful. I'm never buying that weight again, it works fine for the granny squares but otherwise it's bloody murder.

Watched and played

Kathy Rain 2: too direct of a sequel IMO, and the supernatural elements were the weakest part of 1. The Whedonian tone got really old since then too. Some gorgeous pixel art and more traditional investigation were fun, but a solid 6/10 for me at most.

Star Trek TNG. I am almost done, in the middle of the 7th season which is loaded to the brim with everyone's extended families for some odd reason. The grandma-loving ghost is probably the most fun of the bunch. Overall, a very enjoyable series and I can see myself returning to some episodes (not the non-binary planet one). I wish K'Ehleyr wasnt't killed off, I wish Ro Laren's biggest role after her intro wasn't fucking Riker, I wish Geordi's captain mom existed as a character before dying, I wish ManWithNoName!Troi was just how she always was. And most of all I wish there was and ep with Q *and* Lwaxana because I love to see Picard suffer. 😌 But I guess I'll have to make do with a book.

Final Destination 6. So many deaths that were just... splats. The flashback intro was amazing tho and some kills were fun - but nothing will top The Monkey for that this year and possibly many to come.

Phoenician Scheme. Very pretty, very aesthetic, that was all that I needed from it.

Tornado. Scottish samurai western sounds cool as hell but the characters made stupid unrealistic decisions all of the time (NOT in a fun way) and I ended up more exasperated that entertained.

Evangelion: Death (True). Weird af recap, to be honest, just made me feel like I should rewatch the series. ✋

Next up

Hades II update?! Deltarune... tomorrow!! D:

the Undertale concert

Sashiko embroidery workshop

Witcher 3 is great but all the female models are so pornified that the Crones are the closest I get to representation in this game. 😌

I hate those stupid quests like Spirit of the Woods that give you a choice but outcome is almost the same (I guess you can save one old dude) or make you fight but the cutscene forces a loss (RIP Jordund). :|

tl;dr i finished two sheep from TOFT (Seth the Wensleydale and Tobias the Hebridean) and this is what they look like

Things that went well:

I think they are very cute and I 💖 them, I guess that's the most important : )

I'm glad I changed the colour palette for Tobias, crocheting so much in a dark yarn would have been hell even with my new neck light

Safety eyes, look much cuter than the pattern. I wish the toft patterns had more instructions on where to place the eyes, I go through A LOT of trial and error. :|

I added a second coat of sligtly longer chains to Tobias' fleece and I think it was a good decision, he looked hella flat otherwise (and it wasn't actually that much more work).

Seth has very fun texture! Reading the pattern I could not imagine how a chain you work back down can become fleece but in the end it's even more extreme than the picture. Leading to:

Things that did not go so well:

Holy fuck did I use A LOT of yarn on Seth. Obviously I misinterpreted something in the instructions about curliness or density but if I only used the 50g provided I think he would have looked patchy AF? In the end I think I used 50g just on the head, and about 125g in total - needing not one but TWO deliveries (since I thought extra 50g would do... idiot). I could tell early on it looks different but obviously was too stubborn to undo what's already been done. I'd like to say I'm gonna learn something from this but I'm not gonna sit here and lie. 😑

Black yarn fortunately means no one can see stitches on Tobias' horns, not just me. 🙄 I felt like I followed all instructions and even made 3 of each just to test if I fucked up by accident but all of them ended up looking a bit off.

Future improvements

I want to learn different ways to do a decrease (sc2tog), or maybe figure out how I'm doing it wrong - it always stands out and looks like shit. The fleece helped hide it in this instance but I won't always be so lucky...

I need more patience when sewing things together, or I'll never make anything that looks straight ahead. 💀

Fortunately I found both a crochet class from end of March and a stitch circle in my local library that just started mid-Jan so I should be able to bother some people irl for advice when a pattern does not make sense to me and just as a second pair of eyes. :')

Racoon Sanitation Worker

Made using a pattern by Bogusia.

The most complex thing I've attempted yet, given the number of accessories. I'm pretty happy with her overall, but issues are obvious:

NO CLUE what is happening with the face. I think I may have lost count when joining up the legs and never recovered (but the body is fine??) or maybe just lost the round end? I've restarted the face several times and it was just not having it so I just powered through it instead of abandoning the project but the wonkiness is obvious.

Colour changes themselves ended up looking pretty sus most of the time, and seemingly every 'improvement' ended up looking worse and worse. 🤷🏻

I'd like to try this pattern again (so she can hang out with the Rogue version) and I think I'd either try to reverse it (starting from the top) or do the head separately and then join the two parts.

On the plus side, I made this with a very small hook (1.8mm) so there's virtually no perceptible gaps. 🎉

This is also the first time I've been conscious about the 'right' and 'wrong' side.. yes it took me a while. But also, no one I showed my previous stuff to cared or knew the difference - you can't really count on amateurs to provide constructive feedback esp if they like you. From now on showing WIPs to my enemies *only*.

Not directly related to the pattern but I finally learned how to do a magic circle - goodbye 2 chain butthole looking centres. 🫠

According to the pattern the bin should be closed but I left mine open and the bin bag can be put into it.

The bin bag was surprisingly tricky, and the banana surprisingly straightforward.

The project uses a real mix of different yarns - fortunately everything is sort of in proportion but variation in textures does stand out a bit. I'm undecided if this makes it more interesting or looking a bit sloppy haha.

How cute are the little claws? And the gloves??? Oh my goodness!! >.<

This is my first thing that can stand by herself sort of confidently, thanks to the mahoosive tail. : )

It took me about 2 weeks to finish everything (mostly because of the face pattern but I think working with teensy hook was also a factor). I made simpler 4 things in the week since, but I really want to make the crow wizard and penguin pirate too \m/

Laundry cat.

January 2025 | monthnote

Is it even a new year if I don't make some doomed attempt at weeknotes?

Random notes inc work stuff

Vicky dying still does not feel real. I feel privileged I got to spend some siginifcant time with her when she came along to Conferencia Agile Spain (like most people I primarily knew her from her writing and online presence, altho we met briefly a few times when we overlapped at GDS) and was hoping to follow up on a few things we talked about at GovCamp but equally it means I can't just indulge in my full-on denial mode...

Worked through xmas-ny break like usual. It's usually a chill time unless I am in this department, where apart from the ongoing time-sensitive work lots of random emergencies happened. So glad I'm off for a couple of weeks now, I've not had a proper break since Japan in March/April and I'm shattered.

Overall so much random and weird shit was going down at the end of Dec / start of Jan (including both me and my flatmate having very strange dreams) I was beginning to suspect a gas leak... 🙃

Got extended till Feb 2026 in my current contract. 🎉 It should make getting a mortgage easier, now just fingers crossed that the property does not get down valued like the last one and my sellers find something they want to purchase soon.

Quite a lot of change at work, lots of it quite neatly coinciding with my leave. The migration from GOV.UK PaaS my team was prepping for for the last year got delayed last minute and now I'll be missing it but I'm sure it will all go fine.

Booked in with Keemee for a tatoo just after the holiday. 🌺

Govcamp happened and I was mostly helping our rather than going to sessions. :o Good times as usual, felt particularly busy this year for a 'normal edition'. I really like that we finally have a bit of a Teacamp return with TransformGov Talks and also sort of DataBites! \o/

Spanish classes are back. I've not signed up for Korean yet, there's probably a fair bit I can do to brush up close to my former level by myself if I just find the motivation. :s

Watched

Lots of Taskmaster, the perfect crocheting accompaniment (see below)

Nosferatu - the scene in castle 100% played like something from What We Do in the Shadows, I'm not even sorry for giggling throughout. 😔 Needed more Dafoe hamming it up. I was shocked the cat was not named in the credits - breaking a sacred tradition of cinema. 4 stars.

Presence - not a horror, not my kinda thing otherwise (family drama). The central gimmick could be fun in an actual horror movie tho. Another one they kind of employ ('not being bound by time') is sort of redundant because the progression is linear (I suppose otherwise the twist would be ruined). The marketing vs movie kind of fell in place for me when I realised it's the same distributor as Longlegs which was also underwhelming.

Late Feb / March seems staked with releases I want to see: The Monkey, The Last Showgirl, Mickey 17, Death of Unicorn... probably more. Those are just the trailers I saw before Presence lol.

Played

This is probably between Dec-Jan rather than strictly Jan.

Fledgling Manor - Stefan's route only, basically not sure how the other ones can top it so I lost interest but it seems all need to be played to resolve some plot points so maybe in the future...

Sorry We're Closed - I thought this would be a VN but it's a survival horror and I find the shooting stressful haha. You can say I hould have read the description before buying but I was blinded by the art. -_-

bits of Arco (love the mechanics and the story is good but I got stuck at an encounter I can't pass but I'm too stubborn to back out and return at higher level), Animal Well, Stanley Parable (at very long last - yes, it's as good as I thought it would be), I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (tbh the mechanics were more interesting to me in a more down to earth setting of Growing Up), Cryptmaster (Steamdeck does not work well for this).

Waiting for Yakuza in Hawaii, more Hades 2 patches, next Deltarune chapters, and Ghost of Tsushima sequel + Assassins Creed Japan (open world map marker slop > therapy, don't @ me).

Makes

Decima is still closed so no pottery. I've probably forgotten 100% of what little I could do. I'll probably do a course at Mudgang when I'm back to return to some working level and then get either a studio space subscription from them or Turning Earth near Haggerston, depending on how the flat buying is coming along.

In the meantime I have finally sort of learned how to crochet. I got a kit from TOFT to make a black and white cat, resembling Bella a bit. I tried crocheting before a few times (I learned very basic knitting during lockdown and have half a pride blanket from Wool & the Gang somewhere) but it always ended up with me crying, once in public. 🥲 The kit said it's level 2 so I got another level 1 one (labrador)

TBF they are not that different, cat requires changing colours which is actually not hard if you get over the initial barrier to entry of crocheting anything at all. 😬 The cat is also bigger which makes the process much less fiddly.

TOFT instructions are quite barebones and don't have any interim 'this is what it should look like by now' pics which as a complete beginner is quite rough, but I think I managed to make decent approximations of the cover images. I made some changes to the cat on purpose.

Belly disagrees.

The biggest issue I have with TOFT kits so far is that the amount of yarn provided leaves no room for errors or even leaving longer tails. With both patterns I made mistakes (crocheting with dark yarn is particularly hard going if you don't know wtf you're doing) and the yarn started fraying real bad so I had to chop it. I actually had to buy more yarn (which doesn't exactly match...) to finish the cat at all. :(

I got yarn and patterns for two sheep (Seth and Tobias) from them to keep busy on the upcoming flights so we'll see how consistent this minimalism is. 😬

Anyway then I went crazy at John Lewis sales so I have lots of materials now, just need patterns and ideas. The first one is not going particularly well and I'm losing my patience sligtly, might swap to something else.

またね! ✌️😗