Small shop update

Just a quick update on the shop, I made my first sales! Yay. Thanks to Annette who bought some of my sock yarn and Paige who dived into my basket last week before it even went online. I've been updating the shop again this morning and have added the rest the sock yarns and some the first of the double knitting. Here's a quick peak at some of the DK. It's a really versatile yarn this as being handwash, it felts nicely. I've used it several times for hand bags as it gives quite a firm fabric when you knit two strands together. Not only that, there's enough for a pair of socks in each skein. Ok, hard sell over but it is really rather nice ;)

Catching up with the FO's

Like so many other knitters, once New Year comes around again I find myself looking at all the knitting projects I have started, and in some cases finished, over the last year.

Pattern: Shetland Shorty from Knitty

Yarn: Sirdar Luxury Soft Cotton 4ply
Needles: as quoted, 3.5mm/2.25mm circs

As I'm relatively busty (you'd never guess from this picture!), I made the medium but now that it's been washed and worn a few times, I could have got away with the next size down. I also subbed the yarn and in the end only used 2 balls which was less than the quoted yardage even though my tension seemed spot on. Will I make it again? As much as I like it, probably not. Apart from anything else, the weather's not all that great around here to be needing summer cover ups.

Pattern: Fishy from Knitty
Needles: 4.5mm circs & dpns
Yarn: Wendy aran with wool and various aran odds and ends.

I love this pattern, it's such a fun and quick knit - pretty much done in a couple of evenings. I'd intended to make a blue and grey striped fish but was told in no uncertain terms that it was supposed to be a goldfish. Who can argue with a five year old?! A quick rummage later and I found the Wendy aran that my gran had given me. It's far too orange a red for me to ever wear so hey, hats it is then. I'm sure I'll make this one again at some point. I might even make myself one although I'm sure I'd get some very strange looks if I wore it to do the school run.

Pattern: Meret from Woolly Wormhead
Needles: 4mm dpns
Yarn: Stylecraft Life Aran

I have worn and worn this beret, it's so comfortable. I used slightly smaller needles than the pattern asked for and as a result, it's more of a beanie than the slouchy beret it's supposed to be. Still, that's made it nice and dense and warm and as it can be so windy around here during the winter, I wear it almost daily. I'm definately going to make another at some point but make it nice and slouchy.

New Shop

Yes, I have decided that now we're back into the swing of things, the time is right for me to reopen the shop again. I've decided to leave Etsy behind and am going to stick the the local market for a while so I bring you The Bear Necessities on Folksy. Based in the UK with UK prices (no currency conversion to get my head round and constantly change). Yay all round. I know we should be supporting the free market economy and all that (sorry I've been watching BBC news again) but hey, buy British I say. It's something that I try to do whenever I can and with so many great indie dyers over here, why not?!

So anyhow, today I dove into the fibre mountain and set the dye pots bubbling with some new offerings to be ready for the weekend but in the meantime, I'm filling the shop with all my current stock. Here's a sneaky peak of the sock yarn and 4ply available. I've already added some aran weight that's just ideal for felting or knitting anything else you fancy. I'll be making handbags for the shop again and am hoping to be able to offer some handbag kits in the very near future. It's all very exciting :)

mmm fibre

Lookie lookie, new squishy goodies! Actually, the postman has been really good to me this last week and it's not even my birthday til the weekend. I have a mountain of fibre and yarn to roll in and dye up and lots of new things to spin. This top one is my current favourite and has got to be the next thing on my wheel - if I can stop stroking it that is. It's some of Sara's "Biffle/silk" that I'd asked her to dye for my birthday but then I won her birthday competition too. How cool is that? It's luverly :D She's got a new shop on Folksy if you fancy some of your own and she does some absolutely fab colours.

Also hitting my doormat last week in time for my return from Oz was this shetland humbug from Shunklies. This one's destined to be a rather funky pair of socks as my spinning has finally reached the stage where I can get a more or less consistant 4ply equivalent. Yay. I think it's down to all the practice I got in Australia as with the weather being what it was, we got to spend quite a lot of time indoors. In fact, this is where I got to sit and spin - a bit different from my usual corner of the lounge in front of the tv!

Australia in pictures

My creation
Originally uploaded by Bearium

Well the title really says it all. I never did manage to take a good picture of the rain but one of the other really memorable things was the wildlife. It wasn't until we started going through our pictures when we got back that we realised quite how many we'd taken.

Is it New Year already?

La la la, where does the time go? That seems to have been a fairly regular opener over the last few months but hey we're home, over the jet lag and settling back into our normal routine. I'm sat here feeling slightly soggy having just beaten up some hand spun and am contemplating heading back out into the drizzle to collect the 'Mighty Midget' from school. He stayed for his first ever after school club today so it's a late afternoon. Mind you I did find myself going out at my normal time - I knew something was wrong but it wasn't until I'd actually driven almost to school that I realised what it was. I was an hour early! Still, maybe I'll remember a bit earlier next week.

So how was Australia? Wet is the short answer. Yes, really! Australia actually has rain - lots of it apparently. I guess the tropical bit (in Tropical North Queensland) was somewhat of a clue but as the last time I was there it was early spring I wasn't entirely prepared for what turned out to be an early wet season. Or for the insects that came with it! Still, you can't dampen the spirits of a five year old and most of the time he didn't care that it was pouring or that we kept getting flooded in. It all adds to the adventure.

Needless to say, he enjoyed himself enormously. Although even he didn't need any encouragement when it came time to come home. Seven weeks is an awful long time to be away from family and friends. I wouldn't say we were homesick per say but we certainly missed the company of all our friends. It's incredibly isolated out there. I live out in the country here but where we were staying out in the bush makes my village look like a huge urban conurbation!

The MM pretty much ran wild for the whole time. I did manage to get a little school work out of him but it was a bit of an uphill struggle. He just wasn't interested for some reason. Too many new things to see I guess. There was certainly plenty of wildlife to distract him and also the mountain of presents that "santa" had waiting for him when we first arrived might have had something to do with it.

With it being such a long flight, I thought I'd want to knit on the plane on the way over and was all prepared with wooden needles etc (which incidentally went through security without raising an eyebrow, offensive weapon my a***) but I hadn't quite taken into consideration the effects of long haul travel. No matter how prepared you think you are, it sucks. Although, travelling with the MM wasn't as bad as I was expecting. His first ever experience of flying was on a jumbo with his own personal TV that not only could he watch films on, he could play games too. Talk about spoilt, he's going to be so disappointed the next time he flies as it's rare we would ever go far enough to go on such a big plane.

Anyhow, that's about it for today's rambling especially as this time it's picture free. Next time, spinning, knitting and a few snap shots :)

The final countdown

Wow, time flies. I can't believe it's been quite so long since I last posted. Anyhow it's all go here and we're now counting down the days til we fly off for sunnier climes. The tickets are here and after much nail biting and hair pulling, the visas are through at last. We're actually going to Australia!One week to go, now it's just the packing, and all the last minute things I can squeeze in before we go.

So tickets, passports, visas, suitcase, small child. Hmm anything else?