Of socks and parcels

You want socks? You got 'em! Announcing the gorgeous Hedera pair, finished just 3 hours ago.

Great pattern (Knitty), great yarn (Cherry Tree Hill merino), great socks. Now they have to go into hiding until the weather turns cooler - hopefully quite a while away.


And the parcel? Well it's my prize from Maggie's Crafting - plus a little extra.

I received the stitchmarkers I had chosen plus a sunny little card, an extra pair of lovely handmade stitch markers, and a bag of honey bear chewy sweets for my daughters!
Of course I had to try them first, just to check. Thanks so much Maggie!

I had a second parcel too - but that's another story..

Beads, dyes, and new shoes!

First up - the Beaded Jewellery day course!
It was fab. There were 6 of us plus the teacher, and I wasn't the oldest. ;-)

We could choose from the bead selection there and shown how to make various types of necklaces and earrings. These are mine, and I'm quite pleased with them.

I've given the earrings to my SIL as I don't tend to wear dangly earrings much - they just get tangled in my hair. The necklaces have been claimed by both of my DDs of course, but I may have to borrow them back now and again.

I have plans for some other necklaces to use up some of my bead stash now, so I can make ones to match my various work outfits.

Secondly - the yarn dyeing. I managed to get time to do some this week - wahay!

I dyed 3 skeins of sock yarn with Kool-Aid reds, yellows, and oranges - not the best photo but you get the idea.

Finally the new shoes! Flip flops of course considering our new home location. I wore them on the beach this afternoon, and they're very comfy ;-)

I have to include a link to my favourite song atm too - "New Shoes" by Paolo Nutini - a fab happy tune. :-)

Other events

Feeling sad today - I found out this morning that my brother and his partner have lost their expected baby. They went for the first scan this morning (at 12 weeks) to find that the foetus had died at around 9.5 weeks according to the measurements.

Obviously this little one was not meant to be, but it takes a while to get your head around it. They do have a lovely little son already who is almost 2 years old, and I'm sure they'll be fine after a while. In the meantime we're sending them lots of virtual hugs and loving wishes to help them along.

High on sunshine

Oh I love sunny weather. It was great today being able to get back from work and diving into my shorts & T-shirt to soak up the last warm rays of the afternoon. Bliss!

Look - I found some beads for the croppped aran lace cardigan! I wasn't sure if they'd be the right colour/size/weight/etc as I got them from ebay rather than seeing them beforehand, but I'm thrilled as they're perfect.

I just need to sew them on now :-)

The Hedera sock is progressing nicely. I'm now on to the straight part of the foot, so not long to go now.

My workmates are not sure what to think of me - nobody has seen anyone knitting a sock before apparently!

I get to sit in the car and knit a few rounds before I go into my fitness classes too; I need to get there early to get a parking space so it's the perfect opportunity. :-)

Time flies when you're having fun!

Phew! Where have the last 10 days gone?

This week we’ve had DH’s parents staying with us; they are planning to move down here as soon as their house has sold. We've had lots of beach outings and picnics, making the most of the brillliant Easter weather which has just broken.

I’m getting excited about the Beaded Jewellery course now – less than 2 weeks to go! I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve had very little time to do much knitting, but I have nearly completed the Cropped Aran Lace Cardigan.

I just have to graft the small gaps under the arms and sew in the ends, then it’s all down to the beads.

I need 14 machine washable reasonable weight (but not heavy) beads with holes going side to side, so I can sew them on to the hemline points (shown here) to stop them flipping up. Time to find out the bead stash!

Oh yes, and as you can see from this close-up of the sleeve, it all needs a light blocking to open up those lovely lace patterns.

The first Hedera sock now has a heel flap and is progressing nicely along the foot. The Cherry Tree Hill yarn is lovely - soft and squishy with fab colours.

We'll see how they wash as I've heard sometimes there can be colour bleeding.

As soon as I’d finished knitting the cardigan, I started on the bargain cotton/viscose blend yarn from Lidl.

I’d found the perfect pattern for the yarn in an old copy of Rebecca knitting magazine – the issue with the Apricot cardigan in that I so adore (yes of course it’s on my To-Do list!). The top is knit in the round from the neck down and is pretty simple.

Unfortunately the German to English translation is not so brilliant, and 20-odd rounds into the design I found that I’ve been working too many increases in each alternate round – since round number 2. Ho hum. Into the frog pond – actually stuffed in a plastic bag in my storage pouffe in the lounge until I can face frogging it.

Better carry on with those socks!

Time to use some energy

Just as I was getting into a routine of updating this blog twice weekly, life gets in the way. But not in a bad way. We've had 2 lots of friends visiting Cornwall this week as the children are on Easter holiday from school.

So we've been very busy meeting up with them; DH has taken the girls swimming with their friends whilst I've been at work, then we've been visiting various family-friendly local pubs in the evenings. It's been lovely to see them all, but I'm glad we can still stay here in Cornwall after the holidays instead of going back.

As for the fitness classes I mentioned last time, I've signed up and been straight from work to "Bums and Tums" and the "Swiss Ball Workout" - which I can't stop calling the "Swiss Cheese" workout - can you see where my focus is?!

I can feel the effects of both classes - mainly in my torso and legs, which is great as it must be doing something.

Our fitness class teacher, Helen, is a lovely (and very fit!) lady who makes the classes good fun. She's told us we can eat plenty of chocolate this Easter weekend. I don't know whether she's saying we don't have to feel guilty as we're working out, or just guaranteeing plenty of customers for the forthcoming classes.. Either way I actually enjoyed both classes and I'm not the oldest or biggest there, so I feel better about that.

Another thing which has caught my eye is a one-day course in Beaded Jewellery at the local college on Saturday 28th April - which I have enrolled on!
I've been messing about with beads since last autumn when I had a go at making beaded stitch markers, so I'm really looking forward to it – but I wonder if I'll be the oldest one there..?!

On the knitting front, I'm now into the hem edging and cast-off for the cropped aran lace cardigan; not long to go there and we should have a FO - yippee!

The first Hedera sock in the work-lunch-break project has now reached the heel flap; I have to be careful with this as I could easily become totally engrossed and wildly over-run my allocated lunch break time..

Anyway, I hope everyone has a lovely chocolaticious Easter weekend; it looks like we may even get good weather which is very non-British for a bank holiday period. We're hoping to make the most of it on the beach - after we've eaten the Easter eggs that is.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

My youngest DD is 6 years old today!

Here she is with her big sister, trying to eat her birthday cake in one go! She has a party organised with her new school friends this weekend, and is getting lots of telephone calls and pressies through the post from our relatives and friends “up country”.

Thankfully she's feeling much better from her fever last weekend - it turned out to be short-lived I'm glad to say.

She’s so different from this time last year – much calmer, and managing to read a lot of her own birthday cards. My baby is growing up.

Happy Birthday darling daughter. :-)

Vegelicious

We didn’t get chance to enjoy the glorious weather this weekend as my youngest DD was quite poorly with a fever. I did carry her outside for a short while on Saturday though, to sit on a comfy sun lounger in the lovely warm sunshine and listen to the birds singing to her. It helped lift her spirits, and gave her something else to think about briefly – she even managed a little smile. :-)

Whilst she was having a little sleep, I got round to planting some garlic in my new garden. I’ve never grown it before, but we do eat a lot of it and it’s supposed to help keep pests away from the other plants. Each clove grows into a new bulb, so we should have plenty to keep us going.
I’m also going to try planting spring onions and my new favourite – fennel. As you can see, I have pretty much a blank canvas to start from!

I have some herbs (basil, sage, parsley and oregano) already enjoying their sunny position in the kitchen. The very helpful lady at our local garden centre phoned me at the weekend to let me know they now have some rosemary plants in stock, so I’ll be buying one of those soon to keep the garlic company.

We also got the juicer out at the weekend and made out own concoction including 1 jaffa orange, 1 Royal Gala apple, 1 large carrot, half a bulb of fennel, and a handful of red grapes. The result? Delicious!

All this is actually me trying to start to become fit and healthy. The last time I visited a gym was before my eldest DD was born, and now I'm driving myself to work, sitting in front of a computer all day, driving home, then sitting down knitting in my leisure time. Combine all that with the fact the I adore food, and you get the current situation where I want to lose 2 stone before I scare the holidaymakers on the beach.. ;-)

I've been checking out the details of the local fitness classes.. watch this space!

Oh yes - the Hedera sock is growing too..

On the needles

I realised that I haven’t shared any WIP pics with you for a while. There are just 3 on the go atm – amazing with my track record of start-itis!

Here is the oldest WIP first – the aran lace cardigan started in September 2006. It’s moving along nicely again, since I allocated it as my “home” project. The construction is quite unusual as it’s knitted in one piece from the neck down to the armholes, then the sleeves are worked in the round, then the lower half of the body and fronts are worked in one piece to the hem.

I’m now halfway through the second sleeve, and trying to work one or two lace repeats every evening to keep up a reasonable pace on it.

I have about 4 balls of the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran left to complete it, so hopefully it should work out ok.

It’s a lovely design and interesting to work on, with quite easy lace stitch patterns.

Next is the Crochet Fitted Jacket, which I half-heartedly started not long before we moved. I was inspired by the fitted jacket in the Happy Hooker book, but wanted to use a cone of 4-ply lambswool/alpaca that I’d stashed away from ebay a while back. I’ve created a pattern using my Knitware Sweaters program, but didn’t really think about exactly how much work is involved in crocheting such a garment in 4ply yarn,not am I convinced that I like the yarn once it’s worked up. What do you think?

Finally – the newbie on the block – a pair of Hedera socks using the beautiful variegated emerald green Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn I bought from Little Knits last year. I wanted a small portable project that I could work on in short bursts as I get chance during my lunch breaks at work, so it had to be a sock. I like the look of the easy lace in this design, which is different to any of the other socks I’ve done up to now. The yarn looks and feels yummy too!

As always, I’m enjoying these projects but impatient to move on to the next ones at the same time.. I really need a smart brown cardigan for work, and I have some lovely aran-weight bluefaced leicester in the perfect shade bought from ebay calling me from my stash. But then the weather should be warming up soon, so should I wait until the autumn? So many decisions to make.. ;-)

Yarn in.. Garments out..

Not quite that quickly of course!

Have you seen the fab offer on at Lidl stores around the country atm? I managed to grab some of their goodies in the Newquay store last week - and DH paid for them!

I got a couple of packs of the cotton/viscose solid dark blue yarn - each 150g pack cost £1.99 - plus a couple of packs of the variegated cotton, which cost £3.99 per pack of 300g. Bargain!
I was very restrained as there were loads of different colours of both sorts.
I see a dark blue lacy bolero and a variegated cotton top in my near future..

I've finally got round to posting a pic of the Patons Reef yarn which I treated myself to on my first visit to Truro Fabrics, my LYS.

It's a beautiful yarn, very similar to Colinette Giotto - and again I'm hoping to make another bolero.
I'm fairly keen on them as I got so much wear from my Lacewing Bolero last summer, and often wished that I also had a long-sleeved version. Hopefully soon I will!

Now for the FOs..

Here's my Calorimetry in all her glory. I don't think headwear does much for me, but this item is warm and fits well, and I love the colours.

I've worn it already on Mother's Day afternoon when we visited Padstow and stood outside (very cold) eating delicious luxury Cornish ice cream made at Callestick Farm near us.

The yarn was part of a gift from my good friend Fiona, and there's still plenty of it left.

Next up, a proper pic of "Fortune" - although I'm not quite sure was I was doing with my hands.. This is already becoming a mainstay of my wardrobe.

And finally, the Lacanau beach sandals knitted in 2 shades of Rowan Summer Tweed.

I still haven't found anywhere to buy readymade soles, so I'm watching ebay to see if I can get some leather offcuts to use.

I guess they won't really be a FO until the soles are on, but never mind.

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..