Happy Mother's Day!

It's Mother's Day here in the UK today, so I was treated to bacon sandwiches and a cup of tea in bed this morning. :-)

Here are my gifts - the latest books from my favourite authors - and beautiful handmade cards from our DDs.

Both DDs then wanted to paint their faces; here's my eldest with her finished look - youngest DD is still working on her third version in the background!

I'm wearing my "Fortune" cardigan which I finished recently. It's knitted in Jaeger Matchmaker Merino which is beautifully warm and soft, and I love the design - a Kim Hargreaves pattern of course, from Rowan magazine number 20.

The nasty cold is nearly gone although my ears are still muffled wich makes driving seem weird. Better be chauffered today I guess. ;-)

Struck down

It seems I'm experiencing my first taste of the Cornish cold, and it's not very palatable.

Winge mode on. My entire body aches, my nose keeps exploding, my lungs feel like they're in a crusher, my throat has yellow spots on the inside, and my ears feel like they have knives in them. Tonight I ended up in bed at 6:30pm - not good.

So now I'm fighting back. I'm taking high-dose vitamin C at regular intervals, I have a hot lemon and honey drip, and I'm gargling with Tea Tree oil (3 drops in 25ml of cold water - do not swallow. Have you tried this? Why would anyone ever want to swallow it? Yeuch!) OK - winge mode off.

On the plus side, we spent Sunday on the beach with a picnic and the girls paddled in rock pools up to their waists. I've started knitting a Calorimetry with some lovely variegated stash wool - the wind is cold on our nearest vast open beach at Perranporth atm even on a sunny day. This should help to stop it giving me earache I reckon.

The girls have also been busy baking gingerbread cookies. They were supposed to be for Mother's Day but we couldn't wait. ;-)

They came out really well, and tasted delicious.

We've since made a tin full of granola bars which was a recipe I'd saved from a 6-year-old Good Food magazine. Very tasty!

Finally online

We're here! Well we've been here 2 weeks actually, but as of this morning we have functioning broadband too.

Thanks for all your good wishes; I managed to take a peek at them during my lunch break at my new job for Cornwall County Council which is going well so far.
The girls are thoroughly enjoying their new school; they've made new friends, been invited to parties, and are going on trips already.

We seem to have fallen lucky with our accommodation too - the dormer bungalow which we are renting has been offered for sale to us, and it looks like we may be going for it as long as we can get planning permission to extend it. The architect is coming round tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes, but the general opinion is that it should go through fine.

I'll have some knitting pics soon - I've finished the beach sandals (apart from getting some soles), and I'm finally wearing that lovely Fortune cardigan. I'm now on the second sleeve of the aran lace cardigan, and deciding which sock pattern to keep at work as a lunch break project.

And yes we've been to the beach - several times. It's all looking good! ;-)

Under starter's orders..

Boxes everywhere, butterflies in my stomach, we're off tomorrow! Next time I post we'll be living in Cornwall. That can't be real can it?!

As for knitting, I've managed to almost finish knitting a pair of Lacanau beach sandals with my gifted Loganberry Rowan Summer Tweed plus some in lilac left over from my knit-crochet sweater. I thought they would be the most appropriate project for now. ;-) They're very quick and I'm loving the results - pics to follow once we've got the computers set up.

Photos!

Somehow, amidst the madness of packing today, I have managed to take photos of my latest FOs. Actually it was a bit of light relief, as is typing this blog entry. 12 hours of packing, washing, ironing, and cleaning is enough for one day for anyone I reckon. Anyway - the FOs:
First up, we have the Colinette Giotto sweater. The shade is "Caramel", and it's incredibly difficult to photograph without it looking all sparkly! There's definately no lurex in there, although it has a shimmer to it.

This was my design based on a Per Una sweater I have - a very simple fitted shape with a crochet edge all around and a deeper crochet hem on the body. I do like it.

Then there are the socks! I have done both, but the photo of both makes my feet look even bigger than they actually are, so this is the one you're seeing.

I love these socks. I used Wendy's Toe-Up sock pattern and a hand-dyed sock yarn that I bought from ebay a few months back in a lovely dusky denimy mix of colours. They are really comfy and fit great. I will use that pattern again - I find that the short-row toe and heel are the right shape for me and I enjoy knitting them.

Final picture for this post - based on our move of course! This is what our lovely house looks like in every room atm. That's me all boxed out for today. G'night!

It snowed!

Here's the proof: My DDs enjoying the snow in our back garden before bedtime last night!

It started to thaw this morning, then snowed much more this afternoon and evening. It seems to be thawing again now, but there's more snow forecast for tomorrow.. See-saw, see-saw..

I just hope it's all clear by Monday 19th Feb, as that's now officially our moving date!

Goodies!

I went to my local Beatties knitting group for the last time today before our move - and received a lovely bag of knitterly goodies! Those wonderful knitters have clubbed together to buy me 600g of Sirdar Just Bamboo and a lovely cardigan pattern for it, plus the latest Rowan magazine 41. Thank you so much to Rose, Fiona, Josie, Annette, Pippa, and Sarah-Beth. If I've missed anyone out - sorry, and thanks!

I shall really miss that group, and will consider myself very lucky if I find a similarly fab knitting group once we're settled in Cornwall.

I also received a extra surprise gift from a male knitter at work - a skein of Rowan Summer Tweed in the gorgeous Loganberry shade, plus the latest Bamboo Tape pattern book. Thanks John!

A quick flick through the Rowan 41 mag has convinced me that I MUST buy a goodly amount of the new Rowan Damask yarn in shade Zircone once we've moved - it's just GORGEOUS! I think that may have to be a treat for me when I receive my first Cornish salary payment. ;-)

2 weeks and counting

Thanks for your lovely comments - it's nice to know that somebody does actually read this!

It looks like we're moving w/b 19th Feb! Just 2 weeks to go.. I'm not sure of the exact day yet as the removals company have to load up and set off one day, then arrive at our new home the next day. We'll have to set off at the same time as them, but then camp out in our bungalow with the supplies we take with us (kettle, laptop, & airbeds included!) until they arrive the next day.

Our friends are starting to settle in New Zealand and we're getting used to driving the car we bought from them - a nippy little Renault Megane. I was dreading going back to a manual after driving an auto for a couple of years, but it's been fine - no stalls yet, and I've only crunched the gearbox once - ouch! In fact I love driving it, so I think that's the one I'll be driving to Cornwall. I get the girls, bedding, suitcases, etc in with me, and DH gets to drive our original car (assuming it's fixed) with the flammables (decorating equipment, petrol cans, bbq gas bottle, etc) that the removals people won't take. I'll be relieved once that particular journey is safely completed.

We took our DDs bowling on Saturday morning with their friends, then spent Saturday afternoon decluttering and clearing out the shed and garage. Phew! It was a long job, but well worth it, and it's one more ticked off the list.

I came down with a heavy cold on Saturday morning and DH started with it last night too - my commiserations to anyone else who's suffering with similar atm. I also managed to plane a long strip of skin off my right leg last night by dropping a plastic storage box down it - didn't hurt much at the time but it bled a lot and woke me at 6:20am this morning stinging as the lint under the bandage had stuck to it.. ;-) Seems to me that it's an indication that I've been burning the candle at both ends - which comes as no great surprise.

Sunday morning was a friend's 5th birthday party at the local Wacky Warehouse - and a lovely opportunity to have a long natter with my local parent friends and then get treated to a scrummy garlic-y pasta Chicken Alfredo followed by Fudge Cake and ice cream for lunch by my DH. The afternoon and evening were spent sorting out a huge pile of domestic paperwork into "Keep It", "Shred It" and "Recycle It" piles. That's a job I'd been meaning to do for over 12 months, so it's very satisfying to have completed it. The girls last swimming lessons here in the Midlands punctuated that - a chance to say goodbye to friends there.

Today brings with it a little frustration as my bank have managed to lose all track of the paperwork requesting a bank reference for the letting agents - which I hand-delivered as an urgent task 2 weeks ago. I have now signed another faxed copy, and they have promised me it will be faxed back to Cornwall within 48 hours. If not I'll be exercising some of my assertiveness training... ;-)

Knitting-wise - I managed to finish off the Classic Fitted Sweater (started Jan 06!) in Colinette Giotto. I'm glad Fiona talked me into finishing it off instead of frogging it - thanks! All I had to do was seam the right sleeve and side, and do the crochet edgings. It's not exactly as I'd first planned as I'll need to wear a little top underneath it, but I'm sure I'll wear it a lot.

That's it for now.. time for more hot honey and lemon.. <aaaaaaachoo!>

Checking in

Er.. hello.. I seem to have taken a backseat from blogging for a while. Of course you know that's due to our big move. These things take a lot of sorting out.

So the progress so far is:
- we've sorted out a rented bungalow to live in while our house in the West Midlands (hopefully) sells
- we've got our daughters into the local school (less than 1 minute's walk from our rented home!)
- we've finally finished the house improvements we wanted to do
- we've had some valuations on our house and will decide which estate agents to use tomorrow
- we're in the process of getting written quotes from 3 removals companies
- 2 of our friends have emigrated to New Zealand and we've bought their car from them, as I'll need to drive to work in Truro
- our original car is still poorly and lots of people have been involved so far trying to work out what the problem is and how to fix it (no result yet)
- we have chosen our solicitors based on a family recommendation and now have to contact them for our house sale
- we've decluttered ruthlessly, and now know our local charity shop staff pretty well...

Not bad going I think. Only 3 weeks left before the move now!

Knitting? Oh yes. I finished my socks (still no pic) and I'm on the last stretch of my Fortune cardigan (remember that)?

Back soon...

Happy 2007!

Happy 2007 everyone! Seems like it's going to be a big change for us, and hopefully a good year for knitters everywhere. :-)

I've got myself hooked on making collars since I did the recent craft fair. I stocked up with sale yarn from Get Knitted and I'm now using up the last few skeins:

I've listed this one on my Etsy shop this evening.
This one will be going up on there soon.

I completely forgot to make any New Year's resolutions this year! I guess our forthcoming move is forcing the issue though; I'm clearing out a lot of my knitting pattern books and never-to-be-used yarns via ebay, and I really must use a good deal of my stash before I invest in more yarns.

I do have a couple of knitting-related intentions for when we get settled in our new home area:
1) To find or start a local knitting group in/around Truro
2) To locate any good craft fairs where I can have stalls every so often.

I still haven't got around to taking pics of the toe-up socks I'm knitting at the moment. Maybe next post..

The clearout begins..

Thanks to all of you who have left comments and good wishes regarding our surprise move to Cornwall. It's lovely to read your words, and reinforces to me that it's the right thing to do. Thank you!

Thanks also (groan!) to Della who has so kindly tagged me for the "6 weird things" meme. This has taken a while (I'm just so predictable and boring most of the time!) but here goes:

1: I cannot, under any circumstances, hold anything other than food in my teeth without gagging - especially fabric. (I'm sure I was bound and gagged in a previous life.)

2: I have no roots at the sides of the big toe on my right foot as they were removed when I was 18yo to cure my persistent ingrowing toenail.

3: I have a 6-tooth-wide crown on my top front teeth as two of my second teeth were completely missing - just dips in the gum where the roots should be.

4: People who hardly know me can recognise me easily (even from behind) by my "big hair". Well I'm a Leo with a full mane..!

5: I can't get into bed at night without checking under the covers first for creepy crawlies.

6: I talk to my house, car, etc, etc.

There you go - that should be plenty to have a good laugh at. Now my turn for some tagging - I nominate the following (but only if they want to):
Scarlet Princess
Goldthorn Girl
Spinning Sue
Seahorse
Float'n'Purl
Blueadt

"THE RULES:Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog."

As for the move, well I've made a (feeble) start by listing some of the stuff-to-go pile on ebay this evening. Take a look!

BTW if anyone has any problems leaving comments or anything on my blog, please let me know as I've just switched over to the new version of Blogger. It should be better, but there are bound to be teething problems.

I've just realised that I didn't get anything even remotely knitting-related for Christmas this year. Although I guess I should count my new MP3 player from DH as knitting-related as I can listen to the knitting podcasts without borrowing his player now. As for yarn etc, not even a fibre. Oh well - probably a good thing with the amount of packing that will soon be happening.

I have been knitting, but very sporadically atm obviously. I'm working on a pair of Wendy's Toe-Up Socks for myself in some yarn I bought from ebay a few months back. The first one is done and fits beautifully, but I don't have picture uploading facilities atm do you'll have to wait for the big reveal.

A New Year = A New Life!

Well it seems that what I thought was hectic was actually a short-lived blustery period compared to the forthcoming gales.

You see we've pondered about moving to Cornwall for the last couple of years or so, and now - all of a sudden - the opportunity has appeared out of nowhere! I found (quite by chance during a Googling session) a vacancy at Cornwall County Council which is identical to my current post.

After much deliberation about hours (I work 3 days per week but the advert was for full-time) I applied (online, 1 hour before the deadline), and was subsequently invited to interview. So a couple of weeks ago DH and I sorted out MIL to stay home with our girls whilst we headed off down south. Less than 3 hours after the interview, I was contacted with the job offer based on 4 days per week!

I've accepted it, so now - during the Christmas period - we're finishing off the work to our house, gathering information about schools, getting our house up for sale in January, then heading down to Cornwall around mid-February. We'll be renting for the first 6 months, so I have no idea whether we'll have much in the way of internet/email access, then buying there once our house here is sold.

So the New Year for us is definately starting a whole new life, relocating across the 250 miles from Wolverhampton in the West Midlands to Truro in Cornwall! I still don't really believe it...

Deadlines

Things have been pretty busy – well ok, manic - round here.

I found details of a local Christmas Craft Fair at Northycote Farm this Sunday 3rd December and decided to do a stall there with Fiona of Yarnwise. Great – er, but I guess that means we need things to sell, right? Hence the frenzied crafting in every spare minute since - then there's the labelling, organising, childcare, etc, etc..

I will try to remember to take my camera and show some pics of the event. If you're in the area, come along!

Hooks at the ready

I've worn my crochet neckwarmer all week and I love it. It's really cosy and fits neatly under my work coat without the bulk of a scarf.

I decided to make some more and list them for sale in my Etsy shop - take a look!

These are the ones I've done so far, and there are more on the way..

Cosy and warm

Browsing through Etsy over the weekend has led me to my latest quick-fix project.. Yeah, ok, I know - I don’t exactly need more projects but then sometimes you just feel the need to use a specific yarn don’t you?

It’s a cosy collar or scarflette which took 30 minutes to make from start to finish!

I had a single ball of this beautiful chunky fuchsia pink/dark purple yarn as part of my birthday present from Fiona. The yarn seems to be a heavyweight chunky slub wool strand plied with a variegated silky soft (probably nylon) eyelash strand, and originally came from The Threshing Barn.

I crocheted the collar using a 10mm hook over 10 stitches with 1 row of dc & 1 row of sc alternating until I ran out of yarn. Then I sewed on a button, which fits through any of the dc stitches without needing a specific buttonhole. Result: one lovely neck warmer, which fits neatly underneath my coat without the bulk of a scarf hanging down the front.

Now on to the next on-the-fly trial - this time for my youngest DD.. although having knitted some more of this tonight I think some tinking is in order as it's getting rather too big.

Pictures at last!

It seems that the Blogger picture problem was solved last night, but I still couldn't upload mine - maybe too many people were catching up on theirs. Anyway, here we are at last!

The stripy scarf.
I actually finished knitting this last night, and now just have the fringe to sort out.
It's incredibly difficult to photograph accurately - somehow the flash keeps catching on the eyelash Boa yarn!

This jumbled lump is the aran lace cardigan.

I'm working on the first sleeve, then I have to do the other one and finally finish the body.

You get an idea of the stitch pattern though.

Bag it up

I’ve had some lovely comments on my French Market Bag, and it’s proving to be extremely useful. It holds an amazing amount of shopping, and is proving very capable in carrying a considerable weight very comfortably too! If you haven’t made one yet, I’d recommend it. In fact I think lots of people may be getting felted bags of one kind or another for Christmas this year!

Della – the bag is a natural off-white colour at the top and caramel underneath. I felted it in my front-loading Zanussi washing machine by running it through a 50 degree cycle twice with a pair of my corduroy trousers – my jeans were still clean from the Booga Bag felting… ;-)

More hot projects on the go.. I've been trying to upload pics of these for 2 days without success, so they'll have to stay that way until Blogger decides to behave again.

I’ve received the (incredibly short) 40cm Addi circular needle so that I can work the sleeve of the cropped lace aran cardigan in the round more easily. The Magic Loop technique with a longer circular needle was getting cumbersome with the lace pattern, and I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I wanted.
The Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn is gorgeous to work with; I just hope it holds out when being washed and worn.

My current on-the-fly project is a soft stripy scarf in my colours of the moment, which are tending to revolve around the blue-teal-green range. I’m using 2 Sirdar yarns – Blur and Boa, so the end result is an airy kid mohair, acrylic, and nylon mix which is very soft.

My first New Year’s resolution has struck me too – write up more of my patterns instead of squirreling the bits of paper away in a folder to do later! That folder is getting way too full…

Moving on

At last - some progress!

The French Market Bag is finished and I'm quite pleased with it.
I used 3 balls of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran bought in a sale for under £3.50 total. The pattern was very easy and the wool has felted well. Success!


The other bargain project is finished too. This is my bulky cardigan made from Sirdar Denim Ultra in shade Seaspray, bought in the same sale for around £7 total.
This was finished a while back, but then it took ages to find some buttons that I liked with it. During my search I came across Duttons for Buttons who stock over 12,000 styles of buttons and will do a mail order button finding service! Well worth a bookmark.
Then I decided that the arm seaming was going to annoy me due to the mega chunky yarn. SO I unpicked it and seamed it flat instead, which is much more comfortable. Now I just need some really cold weather!

More Blahs

I’m playing with fonts. This one is “Papyrus” which I like in a Word document. How is it to read on the blog do you think?

There’s slow progress on the knitting front. I’m plugging away with my French Market Bag - 5 inches of stocking stitch to go with 200 stitches per round. It’s a good project for some mindless TV knitting though.

Had a really upsetting weekend which is going to take some time to get over, so I’ve not felt motivated to do much other than stare into space. I did manage to set my hands on auto-pilot one evening & finished my Booga Bag.

This is my first “real” attempt i.e. actually following the pattern to the letter with the specified yarn. The colours are beautiful but I think next time I would make it a little bigger and maybe add a magnetic snap fastener.

The lace aran cardigan is progressing slowly; I’m down to the armholes (300+ stitches per round!) and now I’m working on one sleeve. I’ve put this aside for a few days as I’m awaiting delivery of a shorter Addi circular needle so that I don’t have to use the Magic Loop technique. It’s not ideal for a lace pattern with YOs that move around each row, so I figured a shorter needle would be worthwhile.

I finally managed to set up my Etsy shop too - just a few items on there for now.

As for all the other WIPs - well they’re resting in the pile until I feel more enthusiastic about life.

Uninspired

It’s been well over a week since I posted a blog entry, and the situation seems similar on lots of the other knitting blogs that I read. Are we in a particularly uninspiring moon phase or something?

It’s not that I’ve been idly my time away. I’ve done some more Kool-Aid dyeing, bought a selection of yarns to play around with, and been working on my (many) current WIPs. It’s just that there’s nothing to shout about atm really.

The weather here today is a blanket of monotone grey drizzly mist - not exactly uplifting. Let’s hope I find the energy to make something amazing happen soon.