Hello

So, it's been a while since I last posted but hey, I'm back. I do have my fingers firmly crossed at this point though. Was trying to find a nice picture to put up but I'm not quite sure where to start as I have projects and all sorts of other things to chronicle, not least the Colchester weekend knit meet which was fantastic. Anyhow hopefully my internet connection is back up running properly again and I'll be back soon with pictures :)

Travelling North

as I said at the end of the last post, I suddenly realised I'd not been blogging again and I'm annoyed with myself as I'd decided I'd try and post more this month. We're a week into April already, it's the holidays and we definately seem to be stockpiling Easter eggs. I also have a huge shop update to get posted but as heading to Manchester again in the morning, it'll have to wait.

We've been making the most of the lovely weather and been outside in the garden for the last few days. It's beginning to look great and now that we've cleared the bottom of the garden, I have a whole new veggie patch to fill and it's twice the size of the last one. All of the plum trees are covered in blossom too so hopefully we'll have a bumper crop this year and we've had the first of the rhubarb already. Yum. Hang on a mo, when did this turn into a gardening blog?

So to redress the balance a little, how about some yarn? Homespun yarn at that. This is some of my favourite so far, it's BFL/silk from Babylonglegs. The first bobbin came in at 26wpi, the second at 28wpi. It's more or less consistent and the finished yarn came out if I've measured it right at about 16wpi. It's lovely and it's going to make me a fantastic pair of socks :D

I love hats!

I haven't been completely unconstructive with my time lately, although the housework has slipped a bit as usual, I've been knitting like mad and dyeing away. Most of the last couple of weeks of new sock yarn hasn't actually made it as far as the shop though as the ladies of my knitting groups have dived on it instead. Still, can't complain the new yarn bases are a success and I'll definately be ordering more - the general consensus in Colchester seems to be that it needs to be superwash.

Although it's sunny again today, last week saw me making hats again. You can never have too many and I'm loving Woolly Wormhead's hats at the minute. My new haircut means I can wear beret's at last without looking really daft so I've finished a new Meret, made a Starburst hat for one of my friends and am considering doing another for me. I've also lined up Jared Flood's Porum pattern, Lisa's beret and a Flappy Cabler (sorry, those are all Rav links and I'm too lazy to find others). Never mind that I have a couple of pairs of socks on the go, I'm trying to finish two cardigans for myself, the mighty midget has put in a request for a jumper and I've also promised to knit dad a new aran. Are there enough hours in the day?

It's funny, I sat down to finish this post and suddenly realised it was a week old! Where on earth has the time gone? I only saved it to go and find some pictures of my finished hats. So here's me looking silly, wearing hats and yay, new hair.

Pattern: Starburst by Wooly Wormhead
Yarn: Wendy aran
Needles: 4.5mm

Pattern: Meret by Wooly Wormhead
Yarn: Sirdar aran with wool
Needles: 4.5mm

Rubbish pictures of me, but the hats are fine ;)

An award and some trivia

My blogging mojo has been m.i.a. recently so although I've sat down a few times to write an update, it's not got much further than a draft. Anyhow, here I am again. I'm still snuffling away with my spring cold but at least I feel like writing now. Thanks to all those who take the time to comment when they drop by, I really appreciate it so I'd like to share my recent blog award with you all. Suse has nominated me for an Honest Scrap award and in return I'm to pick 7 blogs that make me happy and nominate them in turn by posting on their blogs. Finally, to list at least 10 honest things about myself.

So here goes, ten or more trivial things about me:

1. My sister and I are exactly the same height but she looks taller as she's slimmer.
2. When I got made redundant, I spent the whole of my payout and more on a trip around the world. I had an absolute blast and met some fantastic people and wish I'd been able to travel for longer.
3. I love being outside on cold winter days so long as it's not raining.
4. My mum started me doing patchwork in my teens to stop me biting my nails in front of the tv. The patchwork grew so much, it now covers a double bed. I still haven't finished doing the final quilting part 15+ years later although I use it anyway.
5. I can cover a double bed with yarn and that doesn't include the shop stock.
6. If I have a good book to read, I can lose a whole day and it's the only time when I still bite my nails.
7. I have really low blood pressure and if I skip meals, I get migraines.
8. I talk with my hands, just like my mum and sister and I've noticed recently, I've passed it onto my son.
9. I also have never seen the whole of Titanic. Five minutes of the "happy Irish doing a jig" was more than enough.
10. I've surprised myself the last few years in that I've really enjoyed being a stay at home mum and now I keep finding excuses to put off going back to work.

Right onto the nominations and I've a bit of a confession, I've actually not been great at reading everyone else's blogs recently as I've been so wrapped up in everything going on here. I think since I started using Ravelry so much, I tend to just read the headlines rather than actually going and checking out people's individual blogs. As much as I love Ravelry, it can definately make you lazy.

So anyway, here's a few blogs that I go back to time and again and one or two new ones:
Cinders muses about... Ruth has so much to deal with health wise but she soldiers on.
knitpurldrop Paige is a transplant American in Colchester, it's great to see her enthusiasm for all things English as she crams as much of the UK into her trip before she heads back to the US to finish her studes.
Laughing Mouse I'm looking forward to seeing how Scarletti is getting on after her move. She's struck out on her own with her kids which is incredibly brave.
Babylonglegs - Sarah is an incredible dyer and it's hard not to keep buying her fibre when I have more than enough of my own already.
I saw her STRANDing there, Megan spins, dyes, knits, crochets and is far more organised than me.
Confessions of a Graveyard Gypsy. Kate's a fearless knitter, designer and publisher.
and finally another Lucy from Attic 24 who's blog I found after a knitting friend's recommendation, her blog's so bright an colourful.

Thanks everyone and keep on blogging :D

Date for your diary: 25th April

We're having our first weekend meet up and are opening our doors to anyone in the area, be it knitters, crocheters, spinners, felters - anything yarn related really. If you fancy a day out, it'd be lovely to meet you.

Meet Molly, currently the most spiteful cat on the planet. She might look beautiful but don't let that fool you. Underneath the calm interior lurks one of the meanest cats around. Oh she might be nice and come and cuddle up to you at night but let her into your room and she might just leave you a little something on the carpet. The weather is beautiful, the litter tray is clean but no my bedroom is currently her spot of choice for doing her business. All I can smell is cat wee. It stinks, it's pervasive and this is now the second week in a row that I've had my carpet up and shampooed. I even caught her in action the other morning so I know that it's her. As much as I love her - I am never having another cat!

So anyway to cheer myself up the last couple of days, I have wandering around my garden enjoying the sunshine. Let's face it, this is England so you have to make the most of it while you can. Still, if it carries on like it's started, we could have a beautiful year to come. I'd best start crossing all my fingers now. Actually, it's a bit cloudy and much chillier today which is why I'm in the study composing this instead of digging in the garden. Mind you, having shifted almost a tonne of soil between us at the weekend and also mended the greenhouse I don't feel so guilty about doing so. There's always so much to do in our garden as I'm not the only fair weather gardener in the house. It's an old place too with a pretty mature garden and having mature trees means it's never just a straightforward job to trim them back. This year it's going to involve ladders and chain saws at some point and that's well beyond my remit. I'll stick to the flower webs and the veggie patch. We did a soil test in the veggie patch at the weekend and wow, did we get a surprise. We have the most beautiful, light, free draining soil. Like a lot of Essex, we're on sand and over the years we have piled barrow load upon barrow load of compost into it. By rights we should be able to grow the most fantastic carrots but they never get to more than 2 inches long regardless of the variety. Anyhow, the test showed that the garden is alkaline and not just a little. I'm not sure we'll be able to pour enough manure in it to be able to fix it. Well, certainly not this year anyway.So anyway, here's my pick of the spring flowers so far. Helebores poking out from under their leaves at the bottom of the garden. This is the first year they've done as well - they don't like our regular summer droughts.

Pulmonaria or Lung Wort or as my gran always called it, Jacob's coat. It flowers really early in the spring and then all summer you get huge green spotty leaves.
The first of the violas.
Frogs, lots of them but so far, no spawn. I found young newts at the weekend too while I was moving some of the stones about. They were obviously still hibernating so I covered them back up. Finally the winter clematis - about the only thing in the garden that's a bit late flowering this year. Mind you, that could just down to it being in the shadiest part of the garden. Ah spring is definately springing, before we know it it'll be Easter.

I've just had the best day ever and I'm now sat here with the cheesiest smile on my face. It started out with a trip out to a new weekly knitting group (Monday mornings at Fillpots Nurseries in Boxted if you're in the Colchester area). I met some lovely new ladies, caught up with a couple of people that I hadn't seen for a long time and had tea and cake. Pimped out my shop a little and with the help of the others converted another knitter to start on her first pair of socks. I gave her some spare needles and a pattern and sold her some sock yarn - hehe, aren't I shameless!?

It's been gloriously sunny all weekend and I'm still on a high for working or should I say, skivvying in the garden. Then tonight when I picked up my emails, I had one to say my advert has been approved. I am officially a ravelry advertiser and of course, when I logged on, I saw my first advert. Ah, maybe I'm just easily pleased but hey, my little shop is being advertised on Ravelry. Yay!