Monday 18 July 2011

One week in July

last week was lovely - a week spent in stranraer with my mum the pair of us plotting and planning some knitting projects to use up some of our stash - mostly to finallyy to finish off our cottons. So a lot of time was spent looking at patterns and on ravelry but we each now have 5 project bags with a pattern and wool in each one ready and waiting.
I even managed to finish one that I started - a lacey scarf in RYC Silk Cotton only 2 balls at the grand cost of 80p each in a John Lewis sale a couple of summer's ago!


 W e also had chores to do - Alex the tiger was needing an operation and a bath !
And finally peace was shattered when everyone else came home - guess where Andrew had been!

Friday 1 July 2011

The Cold Sheep bug



Well I've been good since New Lanark in April and haven't bought any more wool - but I've knitted up lots! Some of that was thanks to the impetus of a Cold Sheep Knit Along over on Ravelry - so my tally for that was a baktus scarf, a pair of cosy socks for my mum, a cowl and fingerless gloves to match, a rainbow shawl from kureyon sock yarn that didn't want to be socks, a pair of socks in fingering weight yarn I brought back from Germany and somehow they magically match each other, and a thick hat that covers my ears for the winter! I've also finished a danish tie shawl and a pink cotton sweater. So am feeling good about it all!

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Knitting again! And cake too.

Yay! The knitting embargo has been lifted ... at last. As long as I now knit with my new correct posture .... and of course not for too long without a break (Hmm). The arm is still a bit stiff but nothing like what it was. So a wee catch up - I only did half the Belinda as the variegated kidsilk I got to do the other half didn't really match in the end. So it's a scarf instead and lovely and soft too. Then it was on to finish the waistcoat ... the one that I thought about ripping out at least 4 times but persuaded myself to keep going. Bad move. The construction is ingenius but it only fits a beanpole which I am not. After a session spent pinning it onto my sister to see what could be done it got ripped out. Much to the joy of my nephew who got to do some of the ripping out. I was down at my sister's and we'd planned to watch Harry Potter that night so it was a quick Ravelry pattern search to see what I could find... and I found this great looking shawl which I thought would suit the wool. Of course the pattern was in Danish. But luckily enough I found an English translation so started off the lace edging. And after faffing around with needle sizes and exactly what to do with the yarn overs I think this is going to be good!

And the cake. Well I decided to use my Tesco vouchers to get Good Food magazine - new recipes to try out, hopefully healthy eating etc etc. So of course I made a cake! Kind of a lemon drizzle cake with potatoes and gluten free flour. And it worked.

Monday 24 January 2011

Cold Sheeping!

I moved home at the end of the summer and was rather shocked to discover how much (among other things...) wool I possess. Some  of it has been with me rather a long time - like the wool I brought back from Harris in 1991.... eek. So even though I did get rid of some there are several rather large plastic really useful boxes in the spare room, which my partner says goes 'meh' whenever he opens the door. So I have been very good and not bought any more wool AT ALL since July 2010 - and then just recently I joined a Cold Sheeping group on Ravelry! So that's it in 2011 I am cold sheeping!! No more wool to be bought til I have used it all up....
But I have to warn you - such resolutions are dangerous. I spent a weekend sorting and organising and making notes of what I had. It was the first weekend I was at home after the New Year so of course I was rushing around like an eejit trying to get all the cleaning and hoovering and washing done. And later in teh day I realised my arm was sore. And almost two weeks later it still is! Apparently I have tennis elbow. Sigh. Which of coure means no knitting and lots of rest. So my question is how do you relax when you can't knit?

Friday 7 January 2011

Finally finished Christmas and New Year!

Well that's me back home and finished with all our gallivanting over the festive period - from home to OH's mum's in Dundee then to my family then home then back to Dundee then home then a quick New Year surprise trip down to my mum at Stranraer. Whew. No wonder I'm tired and have spent today kind of faffing about before starting back proper into all the things I need to do! No pics of all the fun things like playing with younger nephew's new pool table and being rubbish at Wii games though...

View from the living room window a couple of days before the big day...
 Dinner table reindeers and cake...
 The Christmas knitting revealed! A herringbone neckwarmer and wristlets in Rowan Big Wool for mum:
 And a Noro Transitions cowl and wristwarmers for my sister:
And of course snowman and the felted tree came with us on our travels!