It's all in a dyes work

Sock yarns for saturday

A friendly postman

Always brings treats!

Life is...... good, I think.

I'm generally not a great one for writing long introspective posts, this is primarily a craft blog after all.  However, until about a year or so ago, it also included odd snippets of my life with my little man as they so often influence the direction my projects take.  Events as always overtake us and while angry and disillusioned with certain members of my extended family, I made the conscious decision to exclude those parts of our life and make this a purely craft blog.  As always when you make decisions like that they invariably have an unintended side effect and I found that rather than blogging being a fun thing anymore, it had become a chore.  Hence the sporadic posting of recent months.

Anyhow, I digress, back to the present day.  Sometimes unexpected events happen to make you reevaluate your life and the way you look at things.  I've had a fantastic Easter away in Manchester, most of it spent decorating my sister's house but I also got a glorious reminder of what my life was like before responsibility kicked in and grounded me - I got to spend a completely child free weekend away with the "grown ups".  As much as I love my little man and wouldn't be without him, it also reminded me what I've been missing out on.  Don't get me wrong, my life is pretty full but I hadn't realised quite how much I'd allowed parenthood to define me rather than being my own person.  I've spent most of the last few days working out in the garden catching up on all the spring jobs.  Manual labour is great but it also gives your mind far too much free time to wander and dwell on things that have happened.  

So what to do now?  I have some wonderful friends here, in fact I have more female friends at this stage than I have ever had in my life.  They've provided so much support and encouragement over the last couple of years and I have definately grown as a result because of it, I am now designing more and have built a good foundation for my little yarny business.  I've also realised, I'm not angry any more and that I can be the bigger person, that I don't need to allow someone else's bad behaviour to affect how I view the world.  However, there's still something missing and I obviously need to get a better balance in my personal life. 

I need to make some changes and while they may not happen all that quickly, I've an idea where I need to be going and I think of how to get there.  That has to be a good thing right?  In the meantime, I'm going to make the most of everything going on here and look forward to a fun weekend with my knitty friends.  I can make random postings of things that have caught my eye and hopefully return to loving my blog again.  Has it helped to get all this off my chest?  I think so but I guess we'll find out over the next few weeks.

Mutant crochet?

I think i have tension issues!

Water, water everywhere

Who turned out the lights?

I'm finally beginning to catch up on blogging but am back with a bit of a problem.  While I carry on talking about things already finished and photographed, I can't get a decent picture of anything that's current!  With this rubbish weather we're having, my usual light box doesn't work.  All the natural light is too blue and it's bleaching out all the colours.  Greens look blue, reds and pinks become purple.

Of course I say "light box" in the loosest of terms here.  What it usually involves is a big board balanced on my bedroom windowsill covered in a white table cloth.  There's usually such good light coming in there in the morning it makes for a great place to take pictures.  It also means I have to have a blackout blind in the summer or be woken up at daybreak (but that's another story entirely).  This is also proving problematic for getting yarn uploaded to the shop.  Trying to tell people that the rather grey looking yarn in the picture is actually a beautiful shade of apricot just doesn't wash for some reason.  So, new light box set up it is and quickly hopefully.  I think I've still got some daylight bulbs tucked away in the cupboard.  Fingers crossed they'll do the job!

Winter warmers

Brr it's cold again! and damp and wet. That must mean it's time for a new hat or two. Actually it meant new gloves too this year as I lost one half of my favourite pair of gloves and the little man seems to have grown since last year.

Apparently, so he tells me, mittens are too babyish so we settled on a compromise and I made a pair that are a cross between the two. I've seen them describes elsewhere as "glittens". They make me want to hold my hand up and say "nanu nanu". Seeing as the yarn went so far, I made him a matching hat. It's just a basic beanie but the striping in the yarn really makes it stand out. This yarn was another find from the Woolcabin at Clacton.

So how about something for me, Ruth aka Woolly Wormhead decided to launch another mystery hat KAL this winter so here's mine. I love the hat and the colour's great - kind of a petrol blue. I should have knit the smaller size as it seems to have relaxed just a little too much. In the medium size on 4mm dpn's it took just over one ball of Wendy Mode.As much as I loved it, in the end it was frog it or gift it so it nows has a new home with one of my best friends.  I'll just have to make myself another.

Now for some gloves. I've been eyeing up Julia Mueller's patterns on Ravelry for some while, she designs the most beautifully detailed glove patterns. These are one of her free patterns and probably one of the simplest but they really are the perfect fit for me. Paige brought the yarn back from the States for me last winter (Plymouth Happy if I remember rightly) and it knitted up really nicely. I have worn and worn these gloves, they are so comfortable and the pattern is really well written.  It also helps that red is one of my favourite colours.  I'm going to have to get on and knit up the red merino I span to make myself a new scarf/wrap to match them.

Lastly an actual Christmas gift.  I made a Quincy hat for my (not so) little brother.  Personally I loved it but I'm not sure he's actually used it.  Still, it's the thought that counts and I have discovered another great yarn in the process.  Stylecraft Life.  This was the chunky but I've bought myself enough of the same colour in the aran weight to make myself a new sweater.  Yes, I am making jumpers for myself this year before I make any more for anyone else.