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.

One done, two more started

I had a need for a quick fix project at the weekend, and found the perfect solution.
I printed the free Interweave pattern for Molly’s Headband and used 18g of a 50g ball of RYC Cashsoft DK which I bought label-less for 50p from a bargain bin!The whole thing took 2 hours from start to finish, and it was an enjoyable little pattern. Great for quick gifts!

This pattern has been calling me for ages, and last week I suddenly realised that all my long-sleeved cardigans are pink! Time to remedy this.

I think (fingers crossed) that I should have enough Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn in my stash for this. OK so it’s not a huge shift in colour, but it’s a start.

This pattern is interesting too – it’s another top-down seamless garment, there’s no gauge given and the instructions are for a “knit to fit” style which is really flexible and easy-going so far. I’ve just ordered some more Addi circulars as the pattern calls for 4 increasing needle sizes as you progress down. So far so good!

And - oops - I seem to have started another new project too. Well, I was waiting for the next size Addi needles to arrive, and I just felt like it!

It's the French Market Bag from Knitty which I making using the Rowan Yorkshire Tweed aran yarn I got in my LYS sale for £1.08 per ball instead of £7.25!

Must go knit a couple more rounds before I have to fetch the girls and their 2 friends from school.

Happy gifted FOs

Two recent FOs to report on this evening:

The first was a secret project as a gift for Fi's new arrival Seth. The new owner now has them in his possessions, so I can reveal them without giving the game away. Glad they fit him Fi - and thanks for being so co-operative and producing a boy for the blue bootees. ;-)

I made them using some RYC Cashsoft yarn I had in my stash, so they're deliciously soft and machine washable too. The pattern I used was the cover design on this book, which I grabbed as soon as it arrived as new stock at my local library.

I didn't send the teaspoon - that's just for a size comparison!

The second FO is the Rainbow Poncho for my youngest DD, to replace her stolen one.

She loves it, and has worn it many times already - thankfully!

S.E.X. at the N.E.C.

Yep, you read it right. I had a fantastic S.E.X. (Stash Enhancement eXperience for the uninitiated!) when I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show with my good friend Fiona at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham today.

It was amazing. There are so many incredibly talented people out there. Unfortunately photos were not allowed in the gallery area, so I can't show you the amazing work displayed in the showcases and exhibitions.

The lovely lady at the House of Hemp however was not camera shy. Thank you! Here you can see a beautiful display of her hemp yarns, which have such a wonderful sheen and feel.

She had a lot of weaving on display and was actually creating more on her stand. Fiona had a little go at it too. This was a tiny part of the gorgeous pieces hanging on the walls.



Fiona succumbed to temptation and took home a goodly sized pair of knitting needles (amongst other goodies).

So what did I take home? This little lot:

• 2 craft kits for my daughters
• 2 packs of Rowan Cotton Braid (a bargain at £10 per 500g pack)
• 1 skein of HipKnits cashmere sock yarn in a gorgeous bright pink colourway (Kerrie is lovely!)
• 1 skein of Hand Maiden Lace Silk (in a variegated green-blue colourway which is just to die for) from the GetKnitted stand (Warning - far too many truly luscious yarns in one small space - an OD zone!)
• 4 mini skeins of some kind of braiding wire stuff and some beautiful beads to try out some Peruvian Braiding as kindly demonstrated by the ladies of the Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers Guild (amongst others) - fascinating!
• 2 cones of undyed yarn for dyeing from Uppingham Yarns - 1 funky flag type and 1 hemp
• 1 wool dyeing starter kit and some more fixer for my Procion cotton dyes from the very helpful lady at the Ario stand
• Buttons from the Button Lady and a couple of funky squashed box shape beads from MoBair (which I forgot to line up for the photo shoot)

Plus I got to meet Fred from UKHandKnitters - Hi Fred! Hope you survive the rest of the weekend ok. ;-)

We were both surprised at what we had ended up buying, and had a thoroughly enjoyable day. Everyone there was very friendly and helpful, and it was like spending a day amongst friends. If you have some spare time this weekend, I'd recommend a visit - it's on until Sunday 17th September.

Time to go fondle some cashmere and silk... ;-)

10th Wedding Anniversary!

We made it to double figures - yay! Happy Anniversary to the perfect hub for me. :-)

Above is a picture of our wedding invitations, which we made ourselves.

It's a very rainy day today, but 10 years ago it was like a summer's day. If you're interested there are some photos on my other site.

We're going out to lunch at one of our favourite pubs - they do great food. Then tonight it's burgers and champagne for tea!

How do I look?

I wore my Presto top to work today. A (male) colleague noticed and commented:
"Did you make that?"
Yes I did.
"Hm. Thought so" came the reply.

So what's that about?

A done deal.. grr..

I just spent ages composing a long blog post about my latest FO and stuff. Then the bleedin' browser crashed. Aaaarrrgghhh! SO here's the alternative version.

I've been working on a top-down seamless cardigan I designed using some stash yarn (Patons Super Sport Aran).

It's finished.

Youngest DD loves it.

That's it. Thank you and goodnight.

Stash explosion

Saturday afternoon took me to my Knit Chat group at Beatties, and some cunning assistant had piled a LOT of yarn onto the 70% off clearance display, which of course I had to walk past. Oh dear. Once I’d bought half of it that is. ;-)

I ended up with 1.9 kilos(!!) of Sirdar Denim Ultra – 700g in Sea Spray for me, 600g in Blackberry Crush for youngest DD, and 600g in Blue Wave for eldest DD.

Thankfully there weren’t any more of the colourful shades on the stand, otherwise I may have been in danger of clothing the entire family in the stuff.

This huge mound of lovely yarn is destined to become 3 snuggly warm chunky cardigans – hopefully long hooded ones for the girls, and a regular one for me. The yarn is a real soft acrylic/cotton/wool blend, machine washable, and cost me £21.66 for the whole humungous bagful rather than the £72.20 that it would have cost full price. What knitter can resist a bargain like that?!

It absolutely flies off the 10mm needles – 9 stitches and 12 rows to 4inches. I know because I’m too weak-willed to resist and I’ve finished the back of mine already.. ;-)

I have a new sweater!

Yes, Phoenix is finished. Just in time for autumn – although most of August has already felt like autumn this year.

These pics were kindly taken by my 7yo daughter. That flash sure highlights the underwear! Phoenix has a crocheted front, knitted sleeves and back, and crochet edging all around.

The crochet edging shows up nicely along the back hem and sleeves.

I used 450g of Rowan Summer Tweed, and designed the pattern using my Knitware Sweaters program. It's based on an old shop-bought favourite that I wore until it literally droppped apart.

I'm quite looking forward to some weather cool enough to need to wear it now!

And so to fill the hole in the stash, here is today's parcel - my first ever Noro stash. I bought it from this ebay seller and got super-fast shipping and a great price. The project for the yarn is secret atm though!

Music for the soul

Being an avid listener of Cast On, I have to thank Brenda Dayne for introducing me to the fine music of Adrina Thorpe. I kept listening to the clips on the Podsafe music network and was compelled to buy the “Elusive” CD with some of my birthday money.

I couldn’t find it anywhere here in the UK so I bought it a few days ago from CDBaby in the USA. After great communication and easy PayPal payment, it arrived yesterday and I LOVE it.

The track “Round the Bend” makes me shiver every time I hear it. Fab voice. Have a listen!

Life Laundry..

Firstly thanks for more belated birthday wishes - much appreciated. :-) Also it's good to hear that some of you will be going to the NEC on the same day as me, so hopefully we'll get to meet up.

General decluttering is what our household is about right now. The autumnal weather has obviously confused our brains and we’ve tumbled into spring-clean mode! DH is overhauling the extension/office, I’ve been scouring the house and garage for items for the car boot sale, and I even got the girls to sort through their sprawling mounds of toys and groaning dressing-up box.

I did this year’s final (for me) car boot sale last Sunday – no knitting done, but I had a great time chatting to my fab almost-SIL – well she will be my SIL when they finally get around to getting married. I sold a boxful of old knitting magazines, books, and patterns, and my lower-priority stash is going on ebay shortly. The remaining few bags of unsold items will be whisked away to the charity shop tomorrow, and we can get on with renewing and restyling our home.

I bought a fab new duvet set for our soon-to-be-new bedroom, but we still haven’t decided which blinds would be best for our 8ft-wide windows. We're thinking of verticals, but I'm a bit worried about them not cutting out enough light as we want to go for a neutral colour - that way I can easily change the room colours with the duvet covers and accessories. Can anyone share any experiences on vertical blinds in bedrooms or a good supplier?

I don’t fancy crocheting any window dressings, but I am tempted to crochet some boxes similar to the ones Ikea are selling currently.

One of my other WIPs involving crochet – Phoenix – is taking shape nicely. I’ve sewn in the knitted sleeves using a coordinating mercerised cotton, as the Rowan Summer Tweed was just not up to being pulled so enthusiastically without breaking constantly.

The neckline is edged in shrimp/crab stitch – i.e. reverse double crochet.

The sleeve and side seams are next, then I’ll decide on what kind of crochet edging they should have. I think I’ll repeat the crab stitch around the sleeve hems and then work something deeper on the body.

When it’s finished I’m planning on giving it a good soak in my Tenestar Silk Wash to soften it up, and then hopefully wear it lots! Right.. where did I put that Chibi..?