List!

It's been absolutely ages since I blogged but Xtiand's blog inspired me to this; random facts lists

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says: "cake pan; line with greased paper"

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can...what do you touch first? my new and as yet untouched sewing machine, I can't wait to have the house to myself and start playing on it!

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV? the news, but only because I stayed up last night past my 10pm bedtime

4. Without looking, what time is it? 10.55am

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time? 10.56am! but I did only look a few minutes ago...

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? my son (age 3), chattering away and repeating himself again and again and again...!

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing? 8am this morning, feeding the chickens, it's arctic out there so I gave them extra corn

8. What are you wearing right now? track pants and a 3/4 sleeve top, wishing I had a huge jumper on but I'm going for a shower any minute now

9. What did you dream about last night? the builder telling me there'll be a delay doing the garden wall I asked him to do

10. When did you last laugh? yesterday, at my boy, who is crackers and tells me the funniest things

11. What's on the walls of the room you're in? the wallpaper inherited from the last owners is the kind you can stick pins in - foam I think - so lots of pages ripped from home magazines to inspire my next bout of decorating pinned round the room, a family tree I wrote out on tissue paper and framed in a cheap wood frame, a painting that came from an old friend of DH's family, it's oil on canvas of a stormy sea and I love it, a wicker heart shape and a metal cockerel from a friends holiday

12. What's the most memorable experience you've ever had? giving birth, very traumatic though

13. What's the last film you saw? x-men the last stand, it was on tv and dh was watching it

14. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first? the field behind our house, us and all the neighbours want to share a small-holding there and we can't find out who owns it so we can rent it from them. And my house, from the bank.

15. If you could change one thing about the world, what would you change? the people

16. Do you like to dance? yes! and I don't often enough

17. Imagine your first child is a girl. What would you name her? Daisy

18. Boy? I called him Ollie

19. Would you ever consider living abroad? not seriously, I'd miss this grey island and my friends and my family too much

20. What time did you get up this morning? 8.30 which is very late for me, up-time depends entirely on when the boy wakes up and he was late today (on a Sunday, result!)

21. Diamonds or pearls? neither

22. What's your favorite TV show? don't have one, can take 'em or leave 'em these days

23. What did you have for breakfast this morning? toast

24. What's your favorite cuisine? italian

25. What foods do you dislike? none, but shell fish doesn't like me much

26. What is your favorite chip flavor? I like chips with salt and vinegar, they're usually potato flavour... do you mean crisp flavour?

27. What's your favorite song at the moment? don't have one, but find myself singing the Fireman Sam theme tune more regularly than I would like

28. What kind of car do you drive right now? a vectra, 2002 - it's solid which is what I wanted for travelling with the boy but I don't like the fuel bills and the tax

29. What was your first car? a red fiesta in 1995, it was a B-reg and I loved it dearly

30. Favorite sandwich? anything with cheese

31. What characteristics do you despise? self-importance, arrogance, lack of empathy

32. What is your favorite article of clothing? jeans

33. What color is your bathroom? white

34. What is your favorite brand of clothing? animal

35. Where would you/did you retire to? near the sea, or the lake district

36. Favorite time of the day? early morning, if I'm alone

37. What was your most memorable birthday? 30th, I always wanted to be 30. it was a family bbq, mum, dad, dh, brother, s-i-l and the weather was lovely, we stayed outside til late drinking champagne (it was july)

38. Where were you born? macclesfield general hospital

39. What fabric detergent do you use? supermarket own brand, ecover just didn't do it for us

40. Were you named after anyone? no

41. Do you wish on stars? yes

42. When did you last cry? last week, the PMT made me do it

43. Do you like your handwriting? my handwriting it shzisoprenic (?), sometimes I love it sometimes I don't

44. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? maybe

45. Are you a daredevil? no

46. Do looks matter? no

47. How do you release anger? shouting

48. What were your favorite toys as a child? my bike

49. What class in high school was totally useless? french because the teacher coudln't control the brats in the class, and I regret not learning french now

50 Favorite movies? Miss Potter

51. What are your nicknames? woolly - that's thanks to ravelry, brownie - that's my old surname

52. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?no

53. Do you think that you are strong? yes, physically, thanks to carrying my son round, not so much now he's 3 of course! and too strong mentally, feel tough as old boots sometimes and wish I wasnt'

54. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? REAL vanilla

55. What are your favorite colors? green

56. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? I don't carry things through

57. Who do you miss the most? I'm lucky that I've not lost anyone close enough to miss

58. If you were a crayon what color would you be? green

59. Last person you talked to on the phone? my mum, we talk every couple of days

60. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? height

61. Favorite drink? in the daytime a cup of tea, evenings wine

62. Do you wear contacts? no, nor glasses

63. Favorite day of the year? how do you choose? a sunny day when everyone around me is happy

64. Do you prefer your endings happy or sad? happy

65. Winter or summer? summer

66. What is your favorite dessert? crumble!

67. What book(s) are you reading? child of the prophecy by juliet maurillier

68. What's the furthest you've been from home? cape town, south africa

69.What's your favourite flower? daffodils in the spring

70. Ambitions? to carry something through for once; set up my yarn shop online and turn it into a real shop that pays my wages

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...