Feeling sunny

I seem to be fairly obsessed with sunflowers at the moment, so I decided to put together a treasury of sunflower-themed items from uk etsy sellers to share.

Take a peek - it'll brighten your day!

Chilled out

TWO whole days off school because of snow? Unheard of here in Cornwall! But when fingers and toes need to warm up, out come the face paints..

Moo!

I recently received my order of Mini Moo cards and I'm really pleased with them!

The pictures have turned out really well, and the design is clean and modern, as I hoped.

I'm busy hole-punching lots of them to use as tags on my items for the upcoming Craft Market in Falmouth.

We may be well into autumn, but today has been stunning.

After a very blustery night, the clouds left us with a beautiful blue sky and brilliant sunshine to show off the seasonal plants.

Gorgeous!

The great Cornish outdoors

We've been trying to do more outdoor family pursuits since the weather has warmed up, in an attempt for me and DH to get fitter.

Last Sunday we walked up St Agnes Beacon. It was great exercise, and the view from the top is stunning.

One one side the Atlantic Ocean stretchs away into the distance, and on the other a vast expanse of Cornwall spreads out like a beautful blanket.

Just wonderful.

Today we cycled the Camel Trail from Wadebridge to Padstow - that's a total of 10 miles!

No doubt there will be some sore leg muscles tomorrow, but it was a lovely day out.

The trail is flat and follows the side of the estuary so there are great views.

Both of those outings are set to become regulars I think!

Brrr!

Not your everyday view here in Cornwall - this is the first time we've seen snow since we moved here 2 years ago. And it's still snowing...

Nature's Morning Show

This was the view from our window earlier this week as I got up.
A stunning sunrise - and I didn't even have to get up early to see it!

Spring clean and conundrum

I know the weather is distinctly wintry right now, but something is inspiring me to clean out. I'm not destashing as such, but I feel the need to clear the decks a little.

Not only have I been finishing off all my WIPs, but I actually want to use up a good deal of my stash yarn too. A strange concept, I know, but I would like to be able to buy some new yarn and start knitting with it soon after purchase, without feeling immensely guilty about the enormous stash occupying our small bedroom.

The other weird thing that's happening is that I'm getting around to knitting up some of my more longstanding stash and finding that the pattern I originally bought it for is no longer what I want to wear. So then it's back to pattern hunting, and finding that I don't have enough of that yarn for the patterns I do want to make... which comes back to the first idea of buying yarn and using it soon after.

So as part of the clean-up, I finished the aran lace cardigan. Not a huge task, as all I had to do was sew on the beads, sew in the ends, and block it. Now it's done, and I'm disappointed to say the least.

The knitting is lovely - I adore the stitch patterns and the colour and feel of the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn, and even the glass beads which co-ordinate with it beautifully.

But I hate the fit. The sleeves are too long and wide. The body is too short. The front neckline is too high - a fastener at the top corner would sit on my throat. Not what you would expect from a knit-to-fit pattern. Sigh.

I'm not sure what to do with it right now. I don't really want to banish it as I love the yarn, but I know that I won't wear it. So what to do?

As it was a top-down knit, I could unpick the lower part of each sleeve and rework them narrower and shorter. Part of that problem was I only had a short circular needle in the right size, so couldn't so magic loop to decrease them further. So why didn't I buy another needle? Doh!

I could also unpick all the ends and remove the glass beads (ouch!) and lengthen the body - assuming I recouped enough yarn from the sleeves. I think I would probably cast off with a straight hem, as others have done (thanks Ravelry!). The beaded pointy hem is great, but looks way too dramatic and bat-like to get much wear.

But what can I do about the neck? I would prefer to have some kind of fastening, but I think it would have to be lower down. Would that make the neckline sit weird? If I undo it to the neckline I'll have frogged the lot. Maybe that's the only answer!

Any ideas?

Twister teaser

The talented TutleyMutley dropped by and asked where we had moved from - it was from Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, on 19th Feb 2007. Nearly time to celebrate the first anniversary of starting our new life!

In the meantime, here's a welcome bright patch in our rather grim wintry back garden at the moment - our lovely camellia, coming into full bloom.

The garden resembles more of a building site - and will do for a good while this year - as we're not landscaping it until our extension is completed. And that's not even started yet. ;-)

I had to show you the beautiful sunrises we get here - this one from this morning.

The lefthand picture is from upstairs (we're in a dormer bungalow) - great view across the rooftops of the surrounding bungalows and out over the countryside.

The righthand picture is from our bedroom, which is downstairs, so we get to see the palm trees in the front garden. I never thought I'd live somewhere with palm trees in the garden! :-)

Oh yes, and the knitting i.e the Twister sweater. The knitting is all done! I've seamed the shoulders and sewn in the sleeves; just the side and sleeve seams to do. Hopefully in a couple of evenings I'll have a FO to show you. I even have enough yarn left to sew the seams, and a little more - maybe for a hairband or similar.

I'm starting to compile a list of lessons learned, which I'll share with the FO. Watch this space!

Summer in winter

Yesterday was the most glorious day - clear blue sky, warm sunshine, very still and calm. So we made the most of our wonderful location to nip down to Perranporth beach for an hour. I have to show you some of the fabulous photos DH took:








We're so lucky. We've been living here almost a year now, and it still doesn't seem real on days like that. Sigh. :-)

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!