Yarn along!

Hello, 

Today I'm joining in with Ginny's 'yarn along'.

 I'm making some progress with my Osen Christmas stocking knitted in Titus yarn. 

This yarn is so soft that I think I will be wearing this Christmas stocking, rather than 

hanging it up hopefully on Christmas Eve! 

Progress on this has slowed recently because I've been distracted by crocheting 

little red Christmas gift bags.  

I am making even less progress with 'The Full Cupboard of Love' - I just don't 

seem to be able to concentrate on reading at the moment. 

Looking forward eagerly to my next book!

xXx

PS Thank you for all the lovely messages left on my last post - and for all the offers of drives on which to park my campervan! Fun times beckon!

Resorting to using a teabag...

Hello, 

Our tea cosies are beginning to look a little sorry for themselves,

so I decided to knit a new one using one of my favourite yarns - Rowan Felted Tweed DK.  

I have chosen to knit said tea cosy using 3 colours,

but my goodness, this tea cosy is taking a loooong while to come together and the

fundamental problem is this....

As with us all, life is quite busy and so I most often knit when I sit down to have a cup of tea. 

Now I am a great lover of loose tea, nothing fancy mind you, just plain old loose PG Tips Tea 

(and no royalties received for giving PG Tips a little plug) 

and so my tea always comes from the teapot!

And therein lies the problem

I am making the pattern up as I go along and so when it comes to making sure the cosy fits,

the teapot is always full of hot tea just at that 

very moment when I want to try the cosy out for size. 

Not the best time to try a woolly jumper on a teapot!

As there is no way I can forfeit my cup of tea - such a sacrifice -

I've decided I'll just have to resort to a teabag in a mug for a while just so that I 

can this tea cosy finished. 

Oh, if only all life's problems were so easily sorted by resorting to the use of a tea bag!

xXx

Weekend pleasures

Hello,

We all know this but sometimes it's good to remind ourselves....

'the simple things in life can give so much pleasure'

a line, full of washing in the sun... 

(oops, I might have to search a little deeper for the pleasure to be 

found in the resulting chaotic pile of ironing)

home baking: toss in cake

 home baking: quiche

 home baking: cheese straws

home baking = good things for the family to eat

   colour on the kitchen table...

  daughter's skateboard, residing in the kitchen.... 

Have a good week!

xXx

Some swoon...

Some swoon at a beautiful new handbag.............

 Some swoon at a shiny pair of shoes......... 

 Some swoon at an immaculately clean house............ 

Some swoon at a gleaming new car..........

Some swoon at their growing collection of their favourite yarn ............

Oh yes, a visit to John Lewis and somehow three more balls 

of this gorgeous yarn ended up in a shopping bag in my 

hand ....... how do these things happen?

Three new shades to me!!!

P.S. I have been known to swoon to all of the above!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

xXx

Over a month!

Hello,

Yes I have just realized that it is over a month since I last posted!

And those few weeks have gone by in a whoosh!

• new job

• making a start on sort out our house a bit

• visiting 2 sons in Sheffield (yes, still find it hard to believe that both sons are now studying at university in Sheffield)

• a half term train trip to Sweden and Denmark (for me and husband) 

• and a school trip to Morocco for daughter which was a bit of "school trip from hell" with two thirds of the pupils suffering a sickness bug!!

 But anyway, I have managed to squeeze in a bit of reading and a bit of crafting in the last few weeks - especially this weekend when I was particularly lazy and spent several hours crafting. 

Firstly, I have at last finished the notebook cozy for my daughter - I posted about the notebook cozy I knitted for me to use here - I love it while at the same time thinking it is a crazy idea!

And I'm still loving that yarn - so no surprise that I've now added a few more balls to my collection!

I also love making Christmas decorations. I have made quite a few over the years but I give them away either as gifts or to our scout group for them to sell on their craft stall. I have kept a few for myself but realized I had several in various stages of construction so last weekend I finished the half-completed decorations and now have a reasonable selection of stockings, Christmas puddings, mittens and hearts!

And this is the very satisfying view I could see round my feet - ribbons, felt, cottons,

 cross stitch charts, buttons, evenweave fabric -  all waiting for me to be creative

 with them - the possibilities are endless!!

 

 

Right, off to catch up on some blogs!

Hope you are all and happy crafting!

xXx

Double love

I'm in trouble! I am suffering from a case of "double love" just now.

Firstly, I came across this great yarn from Rowan, Felted tweed dk. I think I'm a bit late in discovering this wool as I think it has been a round for a while.

The tweed effect is gentle and mutes the colours somewhat but Rowan offer a reasonable range of colours. The yarn just has such a lovely, light feel to it. I could really imagine wearing a cardigan knitted in this yarn. 

I chose Seasalter and Rage for my project.

 Oo, look at them nestled in the bottom of my shopping bag.

I bought these for a particular project I had planned.

For my second love, I came across this picture on the internet of knitted book covers

And I instantly fell in love with them and with the idea of knitting covers for my notebooks.  

  

Don't these look great!

  

 So I soon had my needles out and, after about 3 false starts trying to gauge exactly how many stitches I needed to cast on for a perfect fit, I was away.   

 I decided to knit a very simple fair isle pattern, just to add a bit of interest.

And fairly soon.....

I had a snuggly warm notebook tucked up inside its very own cozy!! 

And I love it!! And so does daughter so I shall be knitting more of these.

You see, we have a slight, but very well controlled, obsession with stationery, so I have

 notebooks of various shapes and sizes to keep cozy this winter.

I admit that I think knitting cozies for books is a bit bizarre but for some reason

 I just love the idea!

And my mind is buzzing with further project ideas for this yarn.

What is your favourite yarn of the moment?

xXx

Ahhh......................

That is always the feeling I have when I see the sea..................

Living in the middle of the country means we have to commit to a minimum of a two-hour drive to reach a bit of coast (older son informed me only this week that we lived just 20 miles from the middle of England, although there is some debate about the exact location of the 'true' centre point of England). This is a drawback for someone like me who loves the sea, in all weathers.

This year we hadn't yet made one visit to the sea. We have found that as the children have got older, the holidays where we used to spend a week by the sea perhaps in Cornwall, or Dorset or Northumberland just don't hold quite the same attraction for them anymore but yet a short break to walk along the beach, eat ice creams and spend our coppers on the amusements was acceptable to all. So last week we spent one night at one of our favourite seaside resorts, Filey.

This is how Filey is described: The quaint seaside resort of Filey, positioned on the beautiful Yorkshire Coast, is the perfect place to stay for those looking for a peaceful and relaxing holiday.

Bursting with all the appeal of a traditional Edwardian coastal town, Filey offers a real sense of olde worlde charm. The 5 mile stretch of clean, sandy, award winning beaches are the ideal place to spend your afternoons."

Sounds ideal for us. I posted about a visit daughter and I made to Filey last year here.

On our first day, the weather was better than forecast so we spent several hours on the beach, reading, playing with a bat and ball, drinking tea from a flask,

eating ice creams .............

And I do love to go out for walk in the evening along the sea front,

especially at a time of the evening when normally, if we were at home, we would probably be indoors. 

Even daughter didn't complain about the walk .... ok, I'm kidding, she was on her skateboard, and given a helping-hand uphill by older brother!

Our second day started a bit grey and overcast.

A small purchase at the wool and needlework shop (The Beachcomber) brightened my day. This is such a great shop packed with all sorts of yarny and fabric goodies - and all at a very reasonable price. 

Then, a round of pitch and putt kept us amused for almost 2 hours!

More ice cream followed,

and paddling and sea glass hunting.

 I could spend hours watching the tide coming in.

But eventually, as the late afternoon light hit the cliffs on the north side of the bay, it was time for us to say goodbye to Filey once more.

 

Ahhh................

xXx