6500 miles is a long way...

... but I have to say that Cape Town is definitely worth the trip!
And TheBoy was worth the trip back, with kisses & cuddles galore waiting for me!!

I saw this:
up close and personal and heaps of other very beautiful sights but I must jpg them all down before blogging!

I also did no knitting or crocheting for a week and so really must crack on now I'm home... speaking of which I saw this...


and did not buy a single skein of locally hand-spun&dyed yarn, not even one.

Well done me.

Road Trip!

.... or, Didn't We Have A Luvverly Day The Day We Went To I-Knit!

So, we went to see Yarn Harlot at I-Knit and we had a very good day. It began early mind, I left home about 6.30am, which in hindsight wasn't quite early enough; I was collecting Flajol, who lives, as DH puts it, on the way to nowhere (sorry Flajol...) and I overestimated Badger's ability as a space n' time machine so instead of leaving the car safely at Krafty's house we ended up meeting in Bamber Bridge and leaving Badger in a pub car-park with instructions not to get clamped and/or ticketed.

We drove, chattered, knitted and ate our way to Watford train station, and from there chattered and knitted our way across town to the Lawrence Hall not too far from the Houses of Parliament (awesome).

The I-Knit hall was a feast of yarn-y goodness - I missed Woolfest (darn the free trip to Portugal...) so this was the first time I've been anywhere like it; it was hard to know where to start and even harder getting near to any of the stalls... it was busy busy busy and everyone had their elbows sharpened, my word! The busyness didn't really surprise me but goodness me! those knitters aren't as friendly as you'd like to think you know, they really weren't taking prisoners when it came down to who grabbed the best yarn first.

That didn't stop me getting rid of my cash though, I'm pretty patient when I want to be. I invested in 4 beautiful skeins of yarn (which I will stash on Ravelry in due course) and something for my mum, who reads this, so I won't say won't but she's got a birthday coming up so it would have been rude not to buy her a ball of dusty half-price acrylic dk in post-box red wouldn't it?

And I got onto Yarn Harlots blog!

More next time, TheBoy is awake and I've gotta get a move on...
xx

Spoilt me!

It was my birthday this week, yippee!

Now, at my age, it often goes a bit un-noticed and un-celebrated..... but this year was a real treat; I only found my knitting group in March and they've made me so much a part of the gang I feel I've been going for years.

A flood of text messages before lunch put hubby to shame (he'd forgotten, with all the fuss about moving house...) and three squashy yarn packages followed along with a gorgeous handknits book (thanks Nat!) and a scrummy bottle of wine - I'm spoilt and I love it!

a HUGE thank you!!! xxx

Rhubarb crumble...

so, we're moving house in 5 sleeps and we need to use everything in the freezer this week. There's a bag of rhubarb for sure and I know I left some crumble topping from the last time I made so that's one meal ! (ah-hem, I meant to say, 2 - 4 servings of pudding and absolutely NOT one full meal for me.....)

otherwise, everything is packed and good to go!

in knitting news:

• I have finished my StashBustingFeatherAndFanBlanket, just need to block it and do pix for ravelry
• I have finished (all but graft the toe and the chardonnay says not-tonight-darling) my first ever sock!!!!!
• Dishcloth II finished and just in time for the first one to go in the wash (Must-Use-The-Handknits)
• I'm working on my LogCabin blanket with about 5 balls of Noro Kureyon to go - easy TV knitting (the chardonnay says bring-it-on)

heaps planned, stash-busting included, packing has been cathartic (the chardonnay says that-might-be-a-word-meaning-cleansing...?) hopefully post-move and the onset of winter will see blogs galore and FO's flying OTN!

(chardonnay says hic!)

xxx

A year in the life...

... of me!

About a year ago (easter 2007) I asked my mum "will you teach me to knit?" Bless her, she nearly fell over! I've been a tomboy since, like, forever, and never ever ever showed any interest in knitting or anything else girly. So she said yes, and prior to our next trip to sunny Anglesey I went to Hobbycraft (not having even imagined the fabulous world of Local Yarn Stores which would become available to me over the coming months.......) bought myself some wool and some needles, my very first.

I bought some Pony plastic 6.5mm needles and a ball of Sirdar Chunky Denim - I liked the colour.

So mum taught me to knit and purl, cast on, cast off, increase and decrease. My best friend bought me Knitting for Dummies which is brilliant. And the rest is history!

Now, recently I plucked up the courage to go to my local S&B in Preston, which has been amazing for me, it's the first regular evening out since, well I was going to say the birth of my nearly 3 year old son, but thinking about it I could probably say "since I was in the Girl Guides...." I'm not the greatest for getting out in the big world, very sad really. Anyway, it's also been amazing to meet such a lovely group of women who have welcomed me so cheerfully and shared their love of knitting with me.

And they've got me into Ravelry www.ravelry.com - oh I still remember the day my Ravelry invite arrived in my inbox.... *sigh* The next logical step was getting my wips, fo's and stash onto the site, I have precisely umpteen wips and fo's and listing my stash was quite an enlightening process.

Right so, where this blog was going is here... reminded by ravelry this week of the Mistake Stitch Rib scarf by Joelle Hoverson I hauled out the much practised / frogged Denim Chunky. Then I riffled through a vase of needles to see what looked right and only afterwards noticed it was the 6.5mm pair. It's nice that its a whole year since I started with this yarn-lark and the Denim is happy as a soft deep chunky rib scarf. I've learnt so much this last year and I won't look back, there'll always be a knitting bag at my side.... knitting on one side, Ollie on the other side; happy!

It's not easy...

finding time in the day / week / month to do everything that needs doing, how do some people manage it? Perhaps they have cleaners.... me, I just do it all myself, usually on a Wednesday like today.... but this weeks Wednesday (today) dh and ds have gone to grandma's and left me to quietly relax [this is a very rare event and celebrated by doing much less housework than usual and giving my poor blog some much needed attention - I even had a sort-of-lie-in, the kind where I was up at 7am with ds and went back to bed for an hour at 10am when dh rolled out of bed...]

so, today's relaxing has involved cleaning 2 bathrooms and cleaning out the chickens Eglu, bless them, I should have done it a bit sooner really. oops. my next bit of relaxation is going to be phoning the bank about the mortgage and then, only then, might I get out the stix and knock a few more rows off one of my latest projects - today I think it will be.... a rowan cotton jeans cardi - pix another day I've really only just started!

also otn just now, a lovely purple-pink throw in the feather & fan lace pattern - this is a real Stash-Buster so I'm loving it twice as much!! May have enough Stash for another one after this - gulp.

tomorrow evening I'm going to my first knitting group in Preston, really looking forward to it... so, more soon - ish...