Good to be home

I love holidays, and I love coming home afterwards. We did have a good break in Tenby last week; thanks for your good wishes. We had wonderful weather most of the time and have all managed to get tans by spending hours on the fab Tenby South Beach! Not bad going for 5 days in Wales.

Coming home was great - it smells of gloss paint as my magnanimous in-laws spent 3 days here whilst we were away re-decorating for us. They are such gems! We are currently tackling the lounge/stairs/landing - all in one as we have no separate hallway. It was covered in original 70's woodchip and many layers of yellowing paint; the painted areas now look like part of a newly-built house! It's all very inspiring, and my yarn budget is well on it's way to being blown on new curtains, cushions, and lighting. BTW have you seen that Crown suede-look paint...? Yummy!

AFA yarn goes, the holiday was unfruitful. I visited Colourway twice it was shut first time, and just about to shut for half-day closing the second time! I did manage to get 10 minutes to look around, but they still hadn't received the Jaeger JB38 magazine. I had intended to buy that and maybe some yarn for one of the projects, but it was not to be. Nor could I find any kind of sale section either, so no Welsh yarn bargains for me this time. It's a very lovely shop though. They had a cardigan knitted up in green Rowan Cotton Braid which looked totally fab (very different to on the ball as the binder disappears to the back and the coloured loops show up much better). I also spied some Rowan Plaid which looked yummy too but I was a little scared off by the £8.50 per ball price tag!

We didn't get to Colinette as turned out to be too far off route - that's a trip for another day.

We did stop for food at a fab place on the way back called Garth Mill - they have llamas in one of their fields! We bought some of their gorgeous dry cured bacon and home-made sausages - 6 of the pork and apricot, and 6 of the pork, mustard, and herbs. The mustardy ones went to my in-laws as a little thank-you for the decorating and were thoroughly enjoyed.

I did manage to knit every evening and finished the first ball of Jaeger Luxury Tweed on my textured cardigan - all 185m of it! It sure goes a long way. I'm loving the stitch pattern now that I've got used to it.

I also did some of the dreaded Fizz scarf, and I'm now on the second (and last) ball of that. I don't think it's going as far as the previous version of this yarn, but it doesn't matter.

Confession time! Just before we went on holiday I did succumb to 2 packs of Rowan Cork in the shade Chilly which the fab ebay seller 4to4 was selling for less than half price! The pattern book came along too as a freebie.

The intention was to make Carmel from Rowan 34 which I've been contemplating for almost 12 months now. BUT, having looked through the pattern book, I think I may change my plans to make Kathy and Bless as I can squeeze them both out of the 2 packs. Bargain!