Knitwit

Something new on the needles.Another new (unplanned) project started, doh!

Beret-licious

My first finish of the year. The new hat is done.

I just love it, it's so nice and cosy, the perfect way to keep me warm during this cold snap we're having.I couldn't quite get the hang of trying to get a photo of me but you get the idea. If I remember I'll get Mark to snap a proper shot later ......

Even though I found the knitting tough going on my hands for some reason I'm tempted to get some more yarn to make the funky wrist warmers from the same book shown in this picture

A new knit

Check this out, I woke up this morning to an almost winter wonderland.

This must be the most snow we've had for a few years. It had already melted quite a lot so the only thing I could think to take a picture of was my car, looks like paw prints on the bonnet!

Thought I'd just share the new knitting project I'm working on. Way back last summer I bought this lovely chart book and the wool to make the stripey beret. Well I finally got it started while we were away at the weekend.
I don't know if it just the cold weather but I'm finding it difficult to knit up more than a few rows at a time as my hands soon start to get really stiff. Oh well despite this and the fact that I'm a slow knitter I'm hopeful that this will come together pretty quickly and I'll have a new hat to wear before the cold snap disappears.

Happy Christmas to me

One thing often leads to another as the saying goes.


In this case my hunt in the yarn box for the trimming to finish my Zebra cards led me to finding this kit which I remember buying in a sale in January.
Well you know how things go, one project interrupts another and I never did get round to making anything with the kit. When I found it again I thought now would be the perfect time to knit this up just in case I'm tempted by something else in next months sales, lol!

It was quick and easy and in less than a couple of hours I'd made myself a new scarf. It's tricky trying to get a photo of yourself!

Even Mark struggled with blur in the greyness of the days that seem to be the norm at the moment. Oh well I think you get the idea.

I enjoyed doing some knitting for a change and I just love the colours so I couldn't be happier with my Christmas present to myself :)

On another note my week off isn't turning out to be as pleasurable as I had hoped. One thing after another seems to be going wrong at home at the moment and no matter how hard I try to keep the smile on and in the Christmas mood I can't keep the blues away. Yesterday I had to have a plumber out as we had water dripping through the ceiling, that isn't good at anytime of the year but a couple of days before christmas ... could the timing be any worse?

Whose been shopping?

I don't have anything finished to show today though I am making good progress on a couple of things on my weekly list. Instead I'm going to show you what I bought today. This year I've really been trying to cut back on the amount of stuff I buy, I think I already have more than enough to last a lifetime but every now and then a girl needs to treat herself right?


It started off innocently enough I was driving by the craft shop and thought I ought to replace that block of Fimo that I used when making the skeleton doll a few weeks back. Somehow I found myself in the knitting section and before I knew it a pattern book and some wool had jumped in my basket. What were you doing with a basket Angelcat when you only went in for a tiny block of clay? I hear you cry, well sadly I don't have an excuse for that I guess I was doomed from the start.
This pattern book from Sidar really caught my eye, here is a picture of the back which shows a few more of the designs.
Sadly most of the tops would look horrendous on my large frame but I really love some of the hats and there is also a really cute bag too. Hopefully it won't be hat weather for too much longer but there is always next winter to plan for. I bought these to make the stripey beret middle right in the picture above. If it goes ok then I think I will also make the flower hat (bottom left) and the bag (picture below). If I had the perfect figure I would dress like this. Maybe in the next life.....

Hearts and Kandy

How do you know when you are a craft-a-holic? Is it when you look for things you can be doing even when in the bath?
Knitting works well as I discovered yesterday, though I think you would need to be at the very start of something or before long your project would be covered in bubbles :-) Take a look at this lovely felted yarn doesn't it look good enough to eat? I don't have that much to show for the last couple of days but after a few hours at the sewing machine today I turned this pile of hearts .... Into this cute bag. This is the February bag that the talented Kandy designed for us to make this month as part of the BQL bag challenge. This is going to be winging it's way to a cyber friend of mine in the US soon.

While I'm not girlie enough to be a hearts and flowers person I do love the shape and size of this bag so I may just have to make another for me but add my own embellishment. You can check out all of the other great creations being made from this pattern as they emerge here.

What happened to the last two years?

Today it's been two years since we said goodbye to Mum. I still miss her so much and I can't believe how time has flown since that last day. This us all on our last family holiday in 2004, I'm so grateful that we had this time.

Back to work today and a trip to the movies to see I Am Legend (overall a disappointing movie the start promised a lot but the ending was a total let down). I still managed to squeeze in a walk and some creating, both in my lunch break.

I took a walk round the block from the office where I work, there isn't too much to see but I loved these adorable flowers poking from one of the hedgerows. My knowledge of British wildlife really is appalling though so I have no idea what they are, I really need to do something about that. On the creative front I worked some more on the sock knitting that I started a while back. I don't think I've actually posted a photo of this at all yet. I certainly didn't do all of this today for anyone who might think I've suddenly turned into a super knitter! I only managed to add a few rows but still it was something. I'm not sure how far I'm going to get with this, so far I'm doing all the easy stuff but in another few rows and I have to start the heel shaping. I'm a virgin sock knitter and I'm not really sure that I understand what I have to do from the pattern but I'll just bumble along and see what happens, watch this space as they say.....

Holiday Hangover

I can't believe it's been so long since I last blogged, time really is flying by at the moment. MIL is still not too well and we have been going round to cook for her most evenings which is eating into what little free time we have after work each day.

Also last weekend was my work's Christmas party, I broke all my cardinal rules ...
1. Never go to the office party
2. Never drink at the office party
3. Definitely don't get drunk at the office party
4. Do not dance at the office party
5. Under no circumstances dance with the Chief Exec while drunk at the office party
....(sigh!) Consequently I had the worlds worst hangover and the weekend was wasted!

I have managed to squeeze in some creativity though. First off some knitting. Here is the scarf that I've knitted for my friend Charlotte, I'm safe to share as she does not know about my blog.This is the same yarn that I used for the hat I made myself not so long ago, I just love the texture and the yummy colours, here is a gratuitous close up.

Usually I like to try and make my Christmas cards too but this year I left it way too late and only managed to make a few. I fell in love with a beautiful embroidered tree design by Annwyn Dean in a recent Classic Stitches and decided to reduce the size of the design to fit on a card. I made about 10 in the end but time just caught up with me so this was no where near as many as I wanted to stitch .... maybe next year!

Knitting and Precious Gifts

So I still don't have a picture of the finished stitching on my bag project to share. I did take one but managed to delete it and now my camera needs charging. Sometimes I can be so ditsy. Instead I'm going to share something else that I've just finished.

I knitted myself a hat, one of the few knitted things I've managed to finish. Honestly I have half started knitting projects every where, I think the problem is I'm attracted to things that are just a bit too ambitious for my basic knitting skills and have got stuck and the difficult parts of various projects. As you know I don't like sharing pictures of me but what the hell, after the lack of blog posts here for a while I don't expect many people are reading any more anyway!
The picture is a bit dark so you can't really see the beautiful colours in the yarn I used very well, I will try and get a better one soon. I'm pleased with the way it turned out and have bought some more of this beautiful yarn to make a hat and scarf set for my friend Charlotte for Christmas (she doesn't know about my blog so I'm not spoiling any surprises here).

Before I sign off I just have to share some pictures of 2 precious gifts that my friend Vi sent me all the way from Australia. Look at this totally adorable pin cushion (again please excuse the poor quality picture there is not much good daylight at the moment and when there is some I'm always at work!).
Vi also sent me this beautiful friendship doll. She made this with a wonderful rainbow theme to remind me always of my Mum. Definitely one of the most special gifts I've ever received. Thank you so much Vi.

G is for ...

Helen kindly reminded me that I hadn't yet posted a picture of the cards I made for the something beginning with G swap. No, I haven't been trying to hide the fact that I hadn't made them it was just with my busy week at work last week I forgot to post about them. So here we are ....
Apologies for the bad picture quality it was a dull day when I was trying to take this photo (we've had a few of these recently, lol!). G is for Girl, green and garden. H is next, I have started them but I expect it will be a few more days until they are finished and ready to post about, especially as I have about three other half started things to be working on too. I've chosen a pretty obvious H for anyone who wants to try and have a guess...

As well as the G cards I also forgot to share this card that I made for the Artsnthemail September challenge - Knitting. The brief was to include any piece of knitting on your card, I took the simple approach and just knitted up a few rows with some fancy yarn and attached it to some of the blackberry dyed fabric from a couple of posts ago.

Autumn

I've been so busy at work this last couple of weeks I've hardly had time to think let alone blog. It doesn't happen very often but I've had a few late nights at work and I had to work yesterday too, yuck!

Things should be back to normal now though and I can get back to creating. I had fun yesterday evening making these cards for an Autumn swap.
It was quite time consuming cutting all the leaves and then handstitching them, but I enjoyed every minute (it was just so nice to have some creative time) and I am pleased with the way they turned out.

This week I have booked Tueday afternoon off work and am off to a meeting of a new group the Great Western Embroiderers, which should be a lot of fun. Also this coming Saturday I should be going to a creative knits class. The last time I booked a course with the group that are running this one it got cancelled due to lack of interest so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this one will go ahead. Speaking of Knits here is another of my hats on location...

Excited

Yeah, I just got my requirements list in the post today for a workshop with Janet Bolton, which I signed up for at the local quilt store. I'm so excited as I've been admiring Janets work for a long time so it should be a great day.

I've signed up for a few different day workshops coming up over the next few months from creative knitting to felting and I'm looking forward to every one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will all have enough participants to go ahead.

Before I sign off here is the hat of the day I love the colours of this one.

Blackberry Dyeing

Last night I got to squashing some blackberries into some fabric to see what dyed effect I could get. I only saved about 20 blackberries from the stash we collected the other day but the juice went far and I now have a 24" x 11" piece of blackberry dyed cotton.

Sorry the scanned image isn't the best but you get the idea. Now the fabric has dried the colour is a lot paler than I thought it might turn out, it was a lot of fun to do though so I might go get some more berries and try some different squashing techniques to see if I can come up with different effects.

Of course I can't end the post without another hat on location. This is one of my favourites, I think it looks great nestled in the tree.

Hats on location

A couple of posts ago I showed you a picture of me knitting in the great outdoors. I thought I ought to share with you a what I've been making. I think I told you about the Innocent Big Knit challenge. So for the past week I've been making the odd hat here and there. Rather than just share pictures I thought it would be fun to put Mark's photography skills to good use and take some of my hats 'on location'

Yesterday we went for a walk up Windmill Hill near Avebury and I took some hats with me. Sadly it was quite windy yesterday and as we managed to quickly empty the contents of the bottle it was difficult to find places out of the wind to get some good pictures but we managed a couple. Here is my hat of the day. Look out for more in the coming posts :)

Originally I had hoped to make and donate 30 hats, they only take about 30 mins to make from start to finish so a perfect in front of the TV project. So far I have made about 15, although I have a reasonable yarn stash, I have already made a hat with all the different types of yarn that I have and I don't really want to make too many duplicates as I think I will get quickly bored with that so I might just leave it at 15.

On a totally different note I just realised that I forgot to tell you all about my meeting with the wonderful Maggie Harris last week. I have been admiring Maggie's blog for sometime and asked her whether she knew of any groups that meet in the local area. Kindly she told me about the Swindon branch of the embroiders guild and I went to their meeting last Monday. It was such fun, all of the ladies there were so friendly and very welcoming and we had a lovely talk from Jenny Smart a local spinner and weaver. I had a great evening and hope they will let me become a permanent member of the group.

Knitting in the Beacons

Part of the reason that I haven't blogged much this last week was that I went camping at the weekend. Mark and I decided to take off to the the Brecon Beacons for a couple of days. We had lovely weather and who could fail to feel refreshed after a weekend of wonderful views and fresh air.

Mark had a great time looking for photo opportunities and I love to try and snap him when he's engrossed in capturing the images he thinks are interesting.
We sat by the stream that Mark is photographing above for a bit of lunch. Not only is Mark a great photographer but I think he might have a career in sculpture if he try, here is the rock frog he made while we were just hanging around. I am entirely unfit at the moment and had to sit around a beautiful mountain lake enjoying the sun while Mark climbed to the summit. You can just about make out his silhouette (he's stood on a huge boulder) against the skyline here.To help keep myself busy I took some knitting with me. Innocent Smoothies are having their knitted hat campaign again this year to raise some money for Help the Aged. You can find all the details here. Last year I bought some of the hatted drinks but this year I thought I'd join in and make a couple. I don't usually post pictures of myself as I'm horribly ashamed of how I look being far too overweight but what the heck, here I am knitting up a storm in the lovely Beacons landscape.