Once Upon a Time... A Journey to Middle England

Living off the land...

2011-08-11T19:14:00.006Z

There aren't many things as satisfying as going out into your own garden and getting the fruit and veg that you are going to cook for dinner. With all the rain that we've been having the veg have been pretty slow in coming (the tomatoes, now that there are any, are still all green, even in the greenhouse) but the fruit - oh, the fruit! - is amazing this year. We are having an absolute glutt of plums, and green gages, and apples and pears.

The green gages are all gone now, but the victoria plums are just coming online so tonight I went out there and I picked a little bowl full of them and made a dish that brings back a lot of childhood memories for me: Zwetschgenknoedel (plum dumplings), which is a dish from Germany / Bohemia. The plums are wrapped in a thin layer of quark dough (just quark, flour and a pinch of salt), are cooked in simmering water until they float. They are then cut open, sprinkled liberally with sugar and drizzled with melted butter. DELICIOUS!

Poor D was all shook up though, because he was having pudding for dinner. I think the idea of eating a sweet dish as a main meal is more German than British...

Of course the lads were sceptical, so I also dug up the first lot of little new potatoes (which were beautiful - aren't the first new potatoes always the best?) and grilled the obligatory fish fingers. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if there is any government recommendation on how many fishfingers one family should eat. I'm sure we are well over the limit!

Recap - May/June

2011-06-25T13:19:00.002Z

The trouble with wool blankets...

2011-04-01T18:15:00.005Z

... is that they take so long to make!

Over the past year I've been working on a grannysquare blanket. Not all the time, mind, just on and off. Sometimes I'd work on it for a few days, then I'd put it aside for a couple of weeks, and so on. Still, you'd think that I'd have enough squares for a decent-sized blanket my now, right? RIGHT?

Yes, so did I. And in the bag it looked like I had LOTS AND LOTS of squares, well enough for a blankie.

So I laid it all out on the floor - or rather, I tried to, while the Tickster was determined to thwart my efforts by taking it all apart again.

The thing looks tiny!

I'm so disheartened! Honestly, I think I'll need about the same amount again to get a decent size. It's not that it isn't fun to crochet the squares, and it's a good portable project too, but we are talking another 60 squares or so. Ugh!

Maybe it wants to be a little lap blanket instead...

Progress...

2011-03-19T16:46:00.007Z

Dear D and I had a child-free day today (thanks Grandma!) and we did what we like best - tinkering. D went out into the garden and tinkered with the car all day long (it needed it, believe me), which is his idea of heaven, and I did the same in the house.

I finally hung some of my pictures:

These are my Nikki McClure prints which I've had for ages and I've been meaning to hang, just like that, for equally as long. It creates some continuity with 'Congregate', which is presiding over the place where we hang the coats.

Anyway, we'd been meaning to hang these prints for ages. The holdup was that our walls are so bad, so every time we tried to hammer a nail into the wall bits of plaster would come off, creating a big hole in the wall and making the whole process of hanging pictures a nightmare of frayed nerves, swearing and bickering. Then a friend of mine introduced me to these:

They revolutionised our life! No more lumps of plaster falling off, no more wobbly, bent nails in the wall. You hammer them in and they are solid. There is the small draw-back of them being impossible to remove once they are in the wall - they will be there for eternity I fear. As I found out when I managed to whack one of the hooks off with a too-enthusiastic swing of the hammer. I had to put another hook in next to it because the damaged one coming out? No chance.

Anyway, I digress... The six pictures being up I felt inspired to do other things. I hung another picture that I bought recently. It's themed around a Morissey quote: "There's more to life than books you know, but not much more". I love it.

Together with Say's artwork (thank you so much Say, it makes me happy everytime I look at it!) this makes the living room complete as far as pictures are concerned. :-)

I was on a roll. We've recently ut some of the stuff in the sheds on ebay and today someone came to pick up a bathtub, so I had a good look around and dug out a tattered but quite cute little chest of drawers:

Battered but cute, no? I think I will whitewash it, because it's been painted before and it just doesn't get any cleaner than that. (Lorry made out of cardbord boxes and plastic trays sitting on the chest of drawers curtesy of the Bean)

I also dragged out another cupboard. It used to be full of tools at my MIL's. No idea where it was from originally, but D reckons it was someone in his family. Still have to take a picture of it but it has found a new home in our bathroom.

Sometimes, Grandma days are great! And tomorrow we'll take the lads to the carboot and then spend the day playing in the garden. :-)

Ten on Tuesday - Favourite Smells

2011-03-08T12:07:00.006Z

What a strange one, was the first thought I had when I got this week's prompt for Ten on Tuesdays, but then I realised that there is a lot to think about when it comes to smells and in the end it was very easy to compile the list. So here you go:

Vanilla pods – I’ve always loved the smell. Delicious.

Christmas baking – of course all baking is lovely, but there is something about Christmas cookies in the oven and that smell of cinnamon and cloves, and Christmas spices that just encapsulates everything that is magical about Christmas.

The sea – that salty smell. Difficult to describe what it is about that, but I love it.

Spring – earthy, moist, fertile. There is a distinctive smell to spring, when the earth wakes up and the first fresh shoots are starting to appear. It brings it with it all the joy of the changing season and longer days and warmer weather and the promise of another summer spent in the garden.

Roses – delicate, fragile, decadent, delicious. Beautiful flowers, beautiful scent.

Mint – fresh and zingy. I love mint anyway – peppermint tea is one of my favourites, and just the whole idea of picking a few leaves and crushing them in my hand and getting this lovely scent from them is beautiful I think. Such a powerful scent from such an unimpressive looking plant.

Lavender – old-fashioned and nostalgic.

Babies – everything about babies is delicious. Especially newborns. Difficult to describe what they actually smell of, but there is something about their delicate and precious little selves and that warm baby smell, all milky and snugly, that is irresistible I think.

Fresh bread – what’s not to love?

Old books – yes, that weird, fusty, slightly mouldy smell of old books is one of my favourites. Don’t ask... I guess it has something to do with my love of books, not just to read but also as objects . Somehow that mildew-y smell is comforting and calming to me, reminding me of happy days spent hidden away at antiquarian bookshops and car boot sales digging through dusty old tomes. And yes, I do realise that this is a bit odd.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-03-01T20:26:00.002Z

Ten Things to Like About the Month of March

1. Crocus and snowdrops

2) Warmer days - there are still a lot of cold days, that's for sure, but you get the occasional warm day that makes you think you can smell spring and damp soil and fresh growth, and all those other things that make you realise that the earth is waking up again.

3) The days post D's exams which are soon. So March is always tied up with that lovely feeling of having the exams over and of having the summer ahead of us.

4) longer days - every day just a little bit more daylight

5) Gardening season is approaching - towards the end of February and the beginning of March I start getting impatient and I start looking through seed catalogues and clearing the shed to get to the puts for my veg this year. So exciting to know that in a few weeks time it's all going to start!

6) getting out with the kids more - playing in the garden, going to the playground...

7) the first leaves of the daffodils peeking out.

8) Things generally start happening - everything seems to speed up around this time

9) We start thinking about Easter - making things, talking about it all - with the kids these things seem to take on a whole new meaning.

10) And last but not least, Spring officially arrives in March

Winter days...

2011-02-18T21:25:00.002Z

... can sometimes be fun. Not always, and I'm not really a winter person, but at this time of year sometimes there are days when the sun comes out and you get a hint of spring in the air. It never stays, because it's really far too early, but nonetheless, it's a bit of warmth and light in this grey season.

The last time this happened, a few days ago, we spent a happy couple of hours in the garden, and there are signs of life! Bean spotted a ladybird, and we all went round to spot all the fresh green shoots of daffodils and bluebells and the little white flowers of the snowdrops.

Then I tried to take a few pictures of the lads so I could get a canvas print done for my dad's birthday. It didn't go so well...

The little monkeys have decided to become photo-shy...

I'm doing a knitting update soon, but it's been so dreary that it seems just impossible to get a decent photograph of anything.

Ten on Tuesday...

2011-02-18T20:46:00.002Z

... well, Ten on Friday, really.

Since I missed last Friday (it's been a crazy couple of weeks) I thoguht I'd use the 'Ten on Tuesday' prompt to list a few more of my current favourites.

I'm really into family, vintage, and design blogs at the moment. Probably because I'm STILL shuffling things round in our house. Hey! It's only been 4 years or so since we moved here and considering we still haven't finished doing the house up I think I'm doing OK. Brought a whole stack of picure frames downstairs today, washed the fine black dust off that's covering everything upstairs in the attic ever since we had the lath and plaster ripped down in one of the rooms up there, and have started putting new pictures in. I'm envisioning a kind of collage of lots of small pictures with artwork in them in the lounge above the sofa. We'll see if I can convince D, since it will be him who will attempt to put the necessary nails in our brittle walls. Our walls are terrible, which is why I'm not permitted to play around with hammer and nails - every time you knock those walls too hard a chunk of plaster seems to fall off. I guess that's what you get when you cut corners (and save money) and just put a skim coat of plaster on some really rubbish walls...

Anyway, as I said, design blogs are IT right now. I'm still reading my regular blogs, but I thought I'd share some of my new (and old) favourites. Here we go:

Soulemama - this is an old favourite. I just love everything about this blog. The writing, the photographs, how inspiring Amanda's take on life and family is.

The SleepyTime Gal - beautiful photographs, inspiring stories and ideas.

Made - it celebrates BOYS this year. I happen to have to of those at home. Need I say more? ;-)

Procrastination Mama - lovely blog, interesting links to other places on the web (MORE design blogs, heh!)

No Monsters in My Bed - again, lovely blog, pretty photography, interesting links

A Beautiful Mess - Vintage, yay!!

Design*Sponge - I've liked this blog for quite some time. It's a good mix of new design, vintage, revamping of old things to give them a new look, and it always has good links to all sorts of design websites and shops online.

Bluebirdbaby - inspiring posts with beautiful photography

The Coffee Lady - quirky, funny and thoughtful.

Prairie Mouse - crafts AND food. Need I say more?

Drago[knit]fly - crafts, sowing, quilting.

(Picture is of Kipper, lounging on a fence top, surveilling his territory)

Blog Inspiration Friday...

2011-02-04T20:50:00.005Z

I was organising and tidying up my sidebar today. So many dead links... it makes me sad how so many beautiful blogs have disappeared over time. It shouldn't be, but it's always a shock to me how temporary everything is on the internet. There one day, gone the next. I like things to be constant, solid, possessing an object nature, a physical presence rather than this etheral lightness and lack of permanence.

It's made me think that I also need to celebrate what is there, and what I love now, today. So every week I want to post a link to a blog that inspires me, makes me think or act or that simply makes me happy.

I've picked Schlitzohren for today's post. There were many others I could have picked, but this is a new find and it was mainly this post that resonated so much with me, with what I've been trying to do these past days and weeks, sometimes succeeding more sometimes less, but always trying. It's always worth it. x

Once upon a time on a rainy and cold Sunday afternoon in mid-winter...

2011-01-30T20:34:00.001Z

... we took our new go-cart out to Bridlington. And you know, it's amazing how a homebuilt wooden cart with two lads in raingear can bring a smile to people's faces. We had at least 10 people comment on it, reminiscing about the carts they used to have when they were kids. Nostalgia is alive and well in Bridlington! ;-)

D couldn't resist squeezing into the cart himself together with Tick to race it down the ramp to the beach promenade.

Building sand castles at Bridlington South Beach.

Father and son...

Some Time Alone...

2011-01-23T16:59:00.005Z

... can be something very precious indeed. With two little lads, our lives are full - gloriously, industriously full of play and laughter and business. It's wonderful but it's also exhausting, and it can be difficult to have so little time for each other and for yourself. D and my evenings are sacred. Once the lads are in bed we sit down together. Sometimes we talk, or watch TV or read, but we always treat it as time together, spent as a couple. It's important and it's precious, looked forward to every day.

But there still isn't much timee to be alone. Before we had children, D and I used to spend whole weekend days doing whatever we liked most... D would build or fix something in the shed / garage, and I would knit, sew, draw, read... We always had some projects on, there was always so much to do, and we used to 'meet up' for coffee breaks and lunch to tell each other about what we'd been doing.

Today, there is little time for that, so a while ago D and I agreed with Grandma that every few months or so the lads would have a Grandma day while we just... tinker. There is a real sense of decadence in those rare days - to get up and immediately launch into something and to know you don't need to stop until it is either done or the day is coming to a close.

Today, I decided to get the oil paints out. D got an easle and paints for me about... 2 years ago?... and ever since then they've sat in a corner of the dining room, waiting for that one day when they'd finally get unpacked and used. Since this is really nothing you can do with little ones around it's taken a while. ;-)

Now, I've painted before, not for a long while, but I used to love it and used to dabble in it on and off. Never with oil paints, though, so this is a completely new medium for me, and I was VERY excited to finally get to try. These two projects were supposed to be just starter experiments to see how I'd work with oil, but I'm actually quite pleased with them:

#1 Wakeful

Oil on canvas. Painted wet over wet. A red bird in her nest, wakeful and diligent in the silence of the night.

#2 Doodles

Oil and mixed media on canvas

This was really just that - doodling. The way I tend to doodle while talking on the phone. Just with oil and bits from the kids crafts box and a few pieces of ribbon. I didn't have a particular project in mind and just kept on filling in the blank spaces until it was - full.

Afterwards it ocurred to me that it looks a leeeeetle bit like the art of Mati Rose McDonough. I still have a print of hers somewhere, waiting to be framed. I wasn't conscious of this while painting it but maybe my subconscious was inspired by her?

And while I was so busy inside, painting and getting high on paint fumes, D was in the shed, making this:

A go-cart! How cool is that! It's entirely made from scrap, found in the shed - old bits of wood and bicycle wheels. The lads were so excited when they arrived back home earlier. D needs to finish up a few things this week, but next weekend we'll take it out for a ride.

Ten Favourite Childhood Games

2011-01-19T19:28:00.003Z

Curtesy of Carole Knits.

1) Clue - I loved this game as a child. The gardener did it with the candle holder in the library...
2) Monopoly - I used to play this for HOURS. Honestly, I wanted to play this game all the time and for as long as possible. Nobody in my family shared my fascination with it or my stamina.
3) Rummy - I used to go on a skiing trip with my gran, and my two great aunties once a year around Easter time. During the day I went to a skiing school for kids and in the evening we played endless rounds of card games. I used to be very good at this - now I can't even remember a single one of the rules!
4) Nine Men's Morris - again, as above. One of the games we played during our annual skiing trip. I used to beat the old ladies all the time. ;-)
5) I Spy - kept me entertained on endless car journeys
6) making up stories - I used to make up endless stories on long walks and entertain (or bore) my family with them. And I used to play a Tell A Story game with my gran on the phone where we would each have to think up a story and tell the other. We spent hours on the phone...
7) Make Believe - I used to love 'becoming someone else'. With friends I used to spend whole days being detectives, or indians, or farmers, or doctors and patients, or pirates,...
8) Dressing Up - my great aunt had a box full of dressing up stuff. Alternatively my mom's ball gowns and high heels would do too... ;-)
9) Reading - I was fanatical about books ever since my early childhood and used to spend whole nights reading under the duvet.
10) Mensch aergere Dich nicht! - a German board game that is fairly similar to the game Sorry! I think... We played this quite a lot when I was little.

It's done...

2011-01-19T17:04:00.000Z

... actually, it was finished a few days ago, but I didn't have time to upload a picture. It was immediately hogged by the lads, which is kind of nice. They like to snuggle under it as they watch TV. :)

In terms of craftmanship this isn't that great. It's wonky in places, there are a few creases, and the trimming is pretty terrible. I forgot all about how to do this properly and fudged my way through it. The corners would make any seasoned quilter run away screaming. I don't really mind, though because this is not a gift - it's just for us to love and use. And it's already getting a LOT of use here from both the lads and us grown ups. I'm considering stitching a few more colourful hankies on top of the others to brighten it up, but for now I'll leave it as it is I think...

I am shocked...

2011-01-10T09:39:00.003Z

Well, colour me shocked. My last post was in 2009, when I had just finished the Primeval socks. So much time has passed, Primeval is actually on TV once again.

I declare, things will have to change. I acknowledge that with two very lively little lads and a busy job I don't have a lot of time for lengthy posts, but since Bean, older of the two lively lads, is developing both a crafts and photography addiction I should have ample opportunity for photoshoots. We may have to remodel the blog a bit - make it into more of a communal project rather than a solo enterprise, but that's an exciting change, no?

So, more photos, slightly less writing. There is also less knitting going on these days. Not none, but time is limited, and I'm doing a lot of crafts and mosaicing and painting with the little ones during the day and also some sewing at night, so things progress somewhat more slowly around here than they used to.

This is the plan:

1) posting approximately 2x per week. I have two days with the lads, so those might be my posting days.

2) one progress / crafts photo per week (we do a lot of STUFF)

3) one snapshot of our week (a still with very little comment) - everyone has those moments every day. Moments that you want to capture and that require very little commentary. So you'll get one of those

There may be more, but probably not every week. I don't want to overburden us with plans that we might not be able to live up to. Busy lives and all that.

So to start this off, here is my WIP right now:

This is my handkerchief quilt, made from old family handkerchiefs that I have kept and/or have been given over the years by members of both my and D's family. I kept them because I always rather liked those dainty little fabric square, some of them with quite exquisit lacework, others more utilitarian and plain, but each of them with a story to tell, with intricate monograms in the corners, mended patches, fine and at times brittle fabric. A little scrap of history, every single one of them. Not knowing precisely what to do with my little stack of handkerchiefs it ocurred to me that they would be perfect for a quilt, so I sewed them all together and backed them with a length of blue paisley fabric I had in my stash. Not finished yet, and far from perfect (turns out that handkerchiefs are really awkward to sew together - all that brittle fabric...), but very much anticipated as a snuggle blanket by the whole family.

Primeval Socks finished!

2009-10-30T19:43:00.008Z

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you...

* drumroll *

Tada! My Primeval socks.

Ok, so they don't really look primeval, but they were knitted while watching Season 1 of Primeval on DVD, in that precious 2 hour slot in the evening after the kids have gone to bed and before D and I drag ourselves up to bed to promptly pass out.

The yarn was skein of Duet sock yarn in the colourway 'best friends', a gift from Craftylilly for a contest that she had on an eternity ago. It was great fun to knit with. The pattern was supposed to be for the Herringbone socks, but apparently I've forgotten how to read a pattern and totally ignored the second line of the herringbone pattern, which says that you have to knit one row in stockinette. Oh well, the result is a whole new pattern and although initially there may have been quite a bit of swearing when I realised my mistake (almost at the end of sock one, after I a lot of bewilderment why my sock didn't look anything like the pictures in the pattern) I am now rather pleased with how it looks.

I will knit another pair with the correct pattern, though, just to see if I like that too. ;-)

Moderations to the pattern:
* ...er... the herringbone pattern. It's sort of a different pattern now.
* knit on 2.5mm circs with the magic loop technique
* I only cast on 48 because of the larger needle size

Knitting from stash...

2009-07-28T15:41:00.005Z

... means that before you can knit you need to wind. Yarn into yarn cakes, that is.

I've been going a bit crazy on the winding of yarn into balls. In one frantic evening that had me bent over my swift and yarn winder for a couple of hours while my bemused husband was watching proceedings from his rather more comfy place on the sofa, I turned skein after skein into yummy cakes.

From Back left to front left, clockwise: three balls of Rowan Tweed in grey, left over from another project, two balls of Knit Picks Memories Sock Yarn in Redwood Forest, three balls of dark blue Rowan DK Tweed, five balls of orange/yellow handspun, one massive ball of laceweight handpainted 100% cashmere from Hipknits, one ball of grey handpainted and handspun merino sockyarn from Hipknits, one ball of 100% cashmere sock yarn from Hipknits, and finally one ball of handpainted wool that I got via a swap from Australia.

Phew, that was a lot of winding! I've been knitting and crocheting too, though. Mainly granny squares, but then the urge to knit something larger and I grabbed two balls of lovely soft Misson Falls 1824 wool (merino superwash) that I had lying around, and cast on for Zoe Mellor's Dinosaur toy. I didn't bother to do a tension swatch because really, what does it matter if a toy comes out a bit larger or smaller than the pattern states? Yeah, right. This is one MASSIVE dinosaur - more like a pillow, really - and I also ran out of yarn so had to do the legs and belly in a different yarn. That'll teach me... Anyway, she's called Gerti. :-)

I've now cast on for another project - Tang from Custom Knits. I love that book - how often do you get a pattern book and want to do every single project in there? I'm using a GGH yarn, also from stash (it's kind of addictive, this knitting from stash... and I have enough to keep me going for quite a while!).

More knitting from stash to come soon. Watch this space... ;-)

Well...

2009-07-14T15:43:00.006Z

... what an odd sort of day yesterday was!

Because after writing that post about my thwarted Flylady attempts I decided to tidy. Yes, I was so tired that I could have dropped on the spot, but I had no kids at home today and really, if you have a day at home with your children in daycare you have to do something that uses this precious time in a valuable way. While it is arguable that a dose of uninterrupted sleep (haven't had that for about 9 months now) might have been exactly that, I instead decided to get the house ORGANISED.

Well, not quite that, but I made a start anyway. Laundry was done. Nearly all of it, including the bits of fabric that have been lying next to the washing machine for months now, waiting to be washed. Laundry was hung outside on the line.

I'm not sure what it is, but I love the sight of laundry on the line. It looks all crisp and clean and summery, swaying slightly in the breeze...

Then laundry was taken off the line and folded. Yes, it was hot enough yesterday to get several batches of laundry dry, despite a short shower around mid-day which threatened to put an end to my laundry ambitions.

Then I tackled the kitchen. I made dinner - some chicken casserole - and I tidied the kitchen table. We have a new acquisition there. BIL gave us his old aquarium and after languishing in the shed for months and months we finally decided a couple of weeks ago to get it all cleaned up and get some fish. We debated for a long time where to put it (no space in the lounge, no good in the office, no suitable piece of furniture anywhere) before we realised that we had the perfect place right there - the kitchen table. It's sturdy, it's the right hight, and we can always see the fish when we eat. It may even pursuade the Bean to stay at the table long enough to actually eat something.

Right now we don't have fish yet because the guy in the shop told us that he'd wait for at least 2 weeks with that. Instead we have a snail called Speedy, who feels very much at home and has already started to diminish the vegetation in the aquarium. He does so in a rather alarmingly efficient way, scooting over to the base of a plant and biting through the stem until it floats up to the surface. He seems to have a particular liking for a pretty light green feathery kind of plant, which is now nearly gone. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come or Speedy and I will have to have words...

Anyway, I got sidetracked - I tidied the kitchen and made dinner. I switched on the dishwasher. Then I moved back into the laundry room and tidied and swept the floor there. Then I packed up a bunch of ebay parcels (we've been trying to declutter a bit, recently) and took them to the post office.

Then I sat down and had a well-earned cup of tea and a chocolate bar (kindly purchased and donated by D on his way back from work). After all that I felt very, very tired, but oh it feels good to have achieved something.

Oh boy...

2009-06-30T10:10:00.005Z

... I'm so tired.

Yesterday evening, at bedtime, the littlest member of our family decided to drink a whole bottle (he just randomly decided a few days ago that it was OK after all to drink from a plastic teat - yay!) then to burp uncomfortably and, when I picked him up, to throw up his entire stomach contents all over my top. In fact, like the practical and competent person I am (HA!) I caught most of it in the little dip that my nursing bra makes, right there in the middle. Ugh! He then, poor little thing, demanded mama's milk rather than the bottle, and proceeded to sleep fitfully, for about an hour at a time, throughout the night. We were both rather shattered this morning.

Which is one of the many reasons why I think shall not devote much time to my task of the day - The Main Bathroom and the Laundry Room. Yeah, I know, I signed up to The Flylady ages ago and receive her emails every day - cheerful testimonials of successful housecleaning and house organising, largely ignored by me while I struggle up the stairs, holding an infant and clutching the hand of a toddler, past the laundry basket blocking the way in the hall, and the boxes, destined for the attic, which clutter up the stairs and hinder my progress. At least I have done some laundry today. Mainly because it had baby sick on it.

I always seem to have plans for the house. Grand plans. Little plans. Humble plans to perhaps finally hang a picture or two on our blank walls. The husband resists my attempts to get him to drill holes and stares in horror at my suggestion that perhaps I could do this. To be fair, he has a point - our walls are fragile, with old crumbling horse hair plaster skimmed with a few millimetres of new plaster, which tends to come off when any nail or screw comes too close, leaving unsightly huge holes in our pristine white walls. Maybe not the right kind of project to learn whielding power tools. In the end he relented and finally hung that mirror. That mirror that I bought nearly 2 years ago, took nearly as long to paint, and which has been standing around, tripping us up, all this time. I'm still startled every time I walk into the lounge that there is something ON THE WALL. It's quite a shock to the system.

The surprise was that the drilling wasn't too bad this time. Which has led me to drag out every single picture hidden away in the attic, and line it up (to be tripped over) so the husband can see it and think "oh, I could hang this up!". Well, one can dream, right?

In the meantime, I could wash the floor in the hall, or the kitchen, or do some more laundry, or dust (everywhere), or hoover the stairs, or clean the bathroom, or declutter the guest bedroom, or plan my week the way The Flylady suggests. Instead, I've been crocheting Granny Squares. I've become rather obsessed. They are everywhere. Tick has been playing with them. The Bean lines them up on the living room floor, Kipper the cat makes his nest on them. Such a good way to get rid of those spare balls of yarn! I've nearly run out now and have turned to thinking of yarn that I could use for the last round and the stitching together of all the squares. I still have a half-frogged Shetland sweater lying around somewhere. Maybe that would yield enough yarn?

So The Flylady has not really been a resounding success around here. Don't get me wrong, I like the concept (although not the testimonials - it's all a bit too weird) and I think it COULD work if one gave it a real try. Of course I find excuse after excuse - mainly that the house is still not finished and we have boxes standing around and bare floorboards with old rugs over them everywhere - but really, lets face it. The house will never be finished.

"But we've been busy!" I stammer, tripping over myself to justify my idleness, "we've been going to weddings at the other end of the country (Devon). Going to Germany to see my family. Doing work type things. Negotiating part-time work for me. Generally living and trying to get stuff done..." and it's true. Still maybe I should give it a chance. 10 minutes of anything isn't such a long time, is it?

Maybe tomorrow - when I'm not so tired.

The sea is on the naughty step...

2009-05-07T08:58:00.007Z

Hornsea, East Yorkshire.

Bean has a thing about the naughty step. I think the older boy at the childminder's he goes to a couple of times a week might visit that step sometimes when he needs a few minutes to get his little self back together, and Bean thinks it's the coolest thing ever that people who are NAUGHTY are sent to sit there. "I put the timer on!" he exclaims whenever anyone does something he deems naughty. It's never him, though. Funny, that...

The sea, the poor thing, never gets to leave the naughty step at all. After all, who wouldn't have to be sent for a time out for continuously teasing and pretending to come and get you?

The truth is, Bean is a little scared of the sea. I think it's D's fault, because the last time we were at the beach he told Bean that the sea was coming and that they would have to run so it wouldn't get them. It's stuck in his impressionable toddler mind and refuses to be dislodged. This time, just to make sure, he insisted on being carried the entire time. As long as his feet didn't touch the sand he was safe, you see? The only place he agreed to walk was behind the sea defences and he had fun chucking a few stones into the rock pools, but on the actual beach? "Noooo! Daddy carry me!"

We had a good time - a beautiful early summer day, not many people around (nobody seems to go to Hornsea), and some bacon sandwiches in Eddie the van. What could be better?

A windy but bright day.

Brotherly affection... and some gazing out onto the sea from the safety of the van.

Also, I've been sewing a bit - mainly trousers for Tick (here he is wearing a pair made from some curtain off-cuts!). It's hard to fit a cloth nappy bum into normal 6-9 months trousers, so some wide-leg pants were needed. I used the tutorial that SouleMama has in her book The Creative Family - so easy! She wasn't kidding when she said that it only takes 15 minutes to make these trousers. I might have to raid my fabric stash and makes some more...

Spring...

2009-04-21T15:39:00.004Z

... is in the air.

1. Ingenue, drying after her first wash - more photos and soecs to come.
2. little baby feet, uncovered in the warm weather
3. No-purl Monkey sock in a suitably sunny Easter colour (still life with vegetable seedlings)
4. cat, basking in the sunshine
5. Easter hat for Bean (aka. the hat-in-5-minutes panic project for a forgotten toddler group egg hunt)

I've been busy recently - there have been articles to finish, little people to look after, friends to entertain, Easter eggs to hide (and eat) and MILs to move into new homes. And all the while the weather has got warmer and warmer, and the sun suddenly seems to have strength again. The daffodils have come and gone, and the bluebells are nearly out. It's a good season. :-)

Hope you are enjoying spring too!

Unwrapped is finally wrapped.

2009-03-20T11:17:00.006Z

Yes, that's right - I've finished my first big knitting project since Tick was born. Thanks to all those hours I sit in the car with my two sleeping babies (Bean refuses to nap anywhere else these days... *sigh*) I managed to finish Unwrapped this week. I wove in the ends yesterday, and hey, presto! A new jumper for me. And unexpectedly it's even suitable for nursing...

... well, kind of. When trying it on today I realised that I can pull the v-neck down to uncover the relevant bits, so even though I can hear the poor jumper screaming at such treatment at least I get to wear this piece before it gets too warm for it.

I quickly too some photographs while the sun was shining into the lounge so the jumper is not blocked yet and rolls quite a bit at the bottom. Not that I care! ;-)

This has been such an enjoyable project. I never thought I could enjoy knitting something on 3.25 mm needles so much! I used almost exactly 7 balls of Rowan Felted Tweed (which is fabulous - why, oh why did they discontinue it?) and considering the small needle size it knitted up fairly quickly.

Some alterations:
1) My gauge was off, so I guestimated the size - luckily it fits really well! I ended up knitting the smallest size to make up for 2 cm that my gauge was off, lengthwise.
2) I made the body longer. Somehow, if I follow knitting patterns regarding the length they always turn out slightly too short for me. I must have an extra-long torso or something...
3) I gave the jumper long belled sleeves. I don't particularly like short-sleeved jumpers. They are not something I tend to wear.
4) I altered the bottom of the jumper. My version only has a slit on one side, and I only used one repeat of the lace pattern at the bottom and the end of the sleeves.

One mistake: I somehow messed up the lace (not really lace but a textured stitch pattern) at the neckline. The slipped stitches are not supposed to line up but to alternate. It's not particularly noticeable so I may or may not undo the neck... Right now I'm kind of done with this and want to wear it for a bit!

And what next?

Out of the chaos of my everyday life emerges another knitting project. This time it's Ingenue from Wendy Bernard's Custom Knits. :-)

Random post...

2009-03-05T15:47:00.005Z

... in which I gush over recent acquisitions.

MIL is moving house soon and, in the spirit of getting herself organised, has been clearing out a lot of stuff. She used to sew quite a bit, although not so much recently, and she also, over the years, acquired a lot of sewing materials that came from other members of the family. And since she knows that I'm always interested in adding to my already far too large stash she asked me if I wanted to have a look to see if I wanted any of the things she was thinking of throwing out.

First on the list was a stack of old sewing patterns - isn't that 60s dress pattern adorable? I think it originally came from D's gran.

Then there was a higgledy-piggledy stash of fabrics. I only took some of them, and no, I obviously have no idea what to use them for.

And then there was some linen - a beautiful embroidered tablecloth and napkins (what is it about crisp white linen that's just so irresistible?) and two pieces of fabric that I assume were samplers, with some pretty stitching.

My stash may already have reached critical mass, but can you blame me for taking these little treasures home with me?

Oh, and the first picture is of course Unwrapped again - I couldn't resist taking a picture when I saw the sun shining on her like that. I'm knitting the first sleeve now so soon, soon...

Soon, soon, ...

2009-03-03T11:55:00.003Z

... there will be pictures of Unwrapped. I was going to take a few pictures yesterday but then decided against it because it would have meant putting the jumper on scrap yarn again, etc, etc... I just wanted to use the few minutes that I had to knit instead!

Suffice to say that the jumper is coming along nicely. I have made a few alterations, but more on that when I have finished it. I am nearing the end of the body section and am already planning the sleeves. Again, I will alter the pattern here, because quite frankly, I don't get short sleeves on knitted jumpers - when I'm wearing something made out of wool I want to be warm, meaning that I want to be warm on my arms too. And when I'm warm enough for short sleeves I don't want 100% wool on my body either. *shrugs*

In the meantime I have been baking. It was D's birthday and I made him a Beetroot - Chocolate cake. It was delicious, although very rich. And it's supposed to be mixed in a food blender but only ever having used the mixer/juicer side of mine I didn't realise that my blender doesn't actually work. It probably never did work, but I didn't know. This is somewhat annoying because of course the guarantee has long run out.

This meant that I had to mix the cake by hand, which was possible but rather hard work - grating the beetroot and mixing in the oil (the recipe asks for oil rather than butter and it doesn't blend all too well when mixed in by hand). Still, a lot of love was stirred into that cake too. :-)

D was very pleased with his presents. He got a juicer from me (for his homebrew - D thinks it will revolutionise the way he deals with our apple harvest), Tick made him a sand imprint of his foot, and Bean crafted a card. He was so excited that he told D all about it the evening before, when he was in the bath: "Glitter!" he kept on saying, and "Fish on it!", referring to the fish stickers he used to decorate the card with. D had no idea what was going on, but it all became clear the next morning. ;-)

Bean has also been using my camera recently. It's been a lot of fun. Amongst the many many self-portraits and shots right up his little nose there were also these:

Random pile of toys and pompoms...

and Tick in his play gym...

The world through the eyes of a toddler...

Life with two wee people...

2009-02-24T19:26:00.009Z

Generally speaking, life with two small people in the house has proved to be less of a disaster than I anticipated. Before Tick was born I had nightmares about sibling rivalry, escalating toddler behaviour, extreme sleep deprivation and general insanity. The reality is thankfully not quite like that. For starters, The Bean adores his little brother. Sure, he is also occasionally jealous and yes, there has been quite a bit of wanting to be carried around or sitting on Mama's lap while Tick is nursing... we work around that. Also, sleep deprivation, while never a joy, isn't quite so awful this time round. I think it's a mixture of knowing what to expect and the fact that Tick isn't as much of a snacker as Bean was, meaning I occasionally get longer stretches between feeds. Again, there are occasional tough nights, like two days ago for example, when teething pain coincided with a growth's spurt, but most of the time, as long as I go to bed at a reasonable hour, it's OK. And life in general might be more chaotic, but then, we are used to chaotic around here, and Tick fits in rather well with us. He is a contented and relaxed baby, and quite self-reliant and independent, happy to lie on his blanket and watch his big brother play. He is an additional happy little bundle on shopping trips and an interested observer of toddler play during play group sessions. I can honestly say that the introduction of the second little person has been a resounding success, not only with us but also with the proud big brother.

Nonetheless, there are also occasions when things are a bit more rocky. Occasions where you find yourself with two crying little ones and you are just about hanging on to sanity while really you would like to do a bit of howling yourself because you feel so desperate and helpless and tired. Like tonight for example.

Bathtime - normally a fun time in this household. D usually takes over then and both The Bean and D enjoy their special time together. While they are playing I get to straighten things up a bit, get Bean's bed ready, prepare his milk, and spend time with Tick. This spending time with Tick is particularly important at this time of night because this is when he becomes more grizzly and fretful. After a hard day's watching everything around him he is tired and overstimulated and he doesn't quite manage to make himself sleep so he is prone to quite a bit of fussing.Normally this isn't a problem because there are two of us and I can settle him.

Not so, however, tonight. D had to work late, leaving me with the task of getting The Bean bathed and into bed. It started off well, with Bean having a good spash in the tub and Tick, minus his nappy (he has had a weird rash for a few days and I suspect it's the disposables so I am trying a mix of cloth nappies and lots of nappy-free time to cure it), kicking on the changing mat on the floor.

Then he started fretting. I tried to calm him while at the same time keeping an eye on Bean in the bath. With little success. The fretting turns into crying. Now Bean is starting to get upset and urges me to pick Tick up because, so Bean, "Tick hungry!! Tick booby!". Well, I try that, in the vain hope that it will calm him. No luck. Of course I know what he needs - some calm time with Mama in a quiet and dark room to settle himself - but right now, with a toddler in the bath I can't really provide that. I put Tick back down to get Bean out of the bath and hurry things along a bit. By this point Tick is howling and Bean is visibly upset (he hates to see his brother cry). I convince him to come out of the bath and help me get Tick ready for bed. This means that Bean's bedtime is shifting rather more than I would like (he is still a difficult sleeper so I don't like to upset his routine because we tend to suffer for it), but it can't be helped. I stuff Bean into his PJs and we go into Mama's bedroom to get Tick ready. Bean is now quite frantic with worry about his brother and wants to lie down with him in Mama's bed. We do that for a bit because I want to try to nurse Tick again in the hope to settle him. It doesn't work, but now I also have to get Bean out of my bed, where he is contentedly settling down for the night, and into his own. All the while Tick is howling.

Eventually I manage to get Tick into his PJs and sleeping bag and into his own cot and Bean out of my bed and into his own. He is not happy that he isn't sleeping in Mama's bed but eventually cooperates. He is a trooper, really - while, like all wilful toddlers, he has his moments and his tantrums, in situations where I get really desperate I can usually reason with him. He seems to sense that I need him to cooperate and he can be ever so sweet. I am deeply grateful for that.

While I settled Bean in his bed and then when I went back into the bathroom to tidy up the chaos I finally heard Tick settle down. I tiptoed in again to check up on him and to switch the monitor on and then glanced at the clock - the whole episode had taken little more than 20 minutes from Tick starting to fret to both children in bed and asleep, yet it had felt like hours.

I came downstairs, and sat down on the sofa with a hot drink and a couple of slices of banana bread and took the luxury of closing my eyes for a moment to relax.

I think I have earned it.

~ * ~

Just so that this post at least includes some knitting too, I thought I'd give you a quick update on Unwrapped. It was going well until yesterday lunchtime. I have managed to do quite a bit of knitting - mainly in the evenings and, and this has been particularly effective, in the car, when Bean has his nap (recently he has refused to nap anywhere else so I do a lot of sitting in the car...) - and Unwrapped has been growing nicely.

Now, however, progress has stalled. The reason? A broken circular needle. See, this is what happens if one is a cheapskate and buys a whole bunch of bamboo needles on eBay for something like 50 pence per pair... They arrive and one looks suspiciously at the rather stiff plastic tubing used to link the two needles. With good reason, as it turns out, because these needles don't even seem to be able to withstand the wear and tear of ONE knitting project. The bending proved too much for the tubing and it broke. I have already put in an order for a new pair of circs although in the meantime D managed to simply cut off the broken bit of plastic tubing and to stick the remainder back onto the needle, showing a) how simply these needles were made in the first place, and b) that he is the more technical minded person in this household. The needles are still not usable, though, because we didn't have any super-glue to secure the tubing. Also, who knows how long they would last before the next breakage?

Anyway, here is a picture to show that progress is being made - I'm doing the hip increases now, so I'm nearing the end of this project already!

February gloom...

2009-02-18T11:33:00.003Z

... and what to do with it.

Recently Soule Mama posted a series of inspiring blog entries about how to deal with the February funk - her Winter Manifesto.

I loved reading the posts and it made me think about how I deal with this gloomiest of all the winter months. See, I'm not a winter person, and while I'm not averse to a bit of the fluffy white stuff, what I really hate is the dreary wetness of the UK winter. Somehow it's always worst in February, maybe because the holiday season is over, or because it's been winter for so long already and you find yourself longing for a bit of fresh growth, or maybe even because spring seems just round the corner - the days are getting longer, there is the odd balmy day that makes you think of spring... yet much as this month teases with it's close proximity to spring, there is still a lot of cold and wet to come and somehow that makes it even worse.

At the weekend we found ourselves with an unexpected half-day of free time and no particular idea of what to do, so D suggested going out into the garden. While I was initially reluctant ("but it's cold and wet out there..." *whine*) I let myself be persuaded and it turns out that you can have fun outside - even on a grey day in mid-February.

The Tick was asleep for most of this, but The Bean was excited to visit his friends the worms (fast asleep under a couple of logs in the garden) and then happily proceded to water our already completely waterlogged garden. I'm sure the weeds won't mind...

And lo and behold, amidst the dull greys and browns of the season I managed to spot some new green shoots - bluebells!

I know that spring is still a long way off, but it's good on the eyes to see a bit of colour at this time of year.

In knitting news - Unwrapped is coming along nicely - pictures to follow. I just hope it will fit... I'm still weary of the wonky gauge!

Destashing swap...

2009-02-09T20:05:00.003Z

Shortly after Tick was born I took part in a swap on Ravelry. I hadn't done any swaps for a while and the concept appealed to me - it was a swap with the purpose of only using things you had anyway and to spend as little as possible (as a kind of counterbalance to the crazy spending that xmas usually gives rise to). At the same time the parcel was of course supposed to be filled with nice things - the idea being that you shouldn't give something to someone else that you wouldn't also be happy to receive yourself.

My swap partner was in Australia so we arranged to send our parcels surface mail and to accept that we would have to wait rather longer for them to arrive (the alternative was to spend far more on postage than on what was in the parcels). I dived deeply into my stash, filled a box with yarn, fabric, some knitting needles, a pattern and some sweets. Surprisingly my parcel arrived very quickly, making me think how crazy it is that I can send something to Australia using surface mail and it arrives within 3 weeks and send something to Germany using normal mail and it also arrives in 3 weeks. What's that about?!

Anyway, the parcel from Australia took rather longer. It arrived a few days ago and boy was it worth the wait!! This is what my partner sent:

Isn't that fabulous? I love the bold colours on the big skein of yarn - it's hand-dyed! There was pretty knitting, books, a sock pattern, a cute little book for The Bean, sweets, ... I can't list it all, there were so many things. Thank you so much sthrnx, you made my day!! :-)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

2009-02-05T10:13:00.004Z

We had snow on Monday - real, actual snow that lay on the ground in a poudery pristine white layer at least 4 inches deep. Anyone the least familiar with the UK climate will realise how unusual this is. Of course everything immediately broke down and the whole country round to a halt, but me? I was happy. Far happier than I normally am at the berginning of that dreary month of February, whrn the cold and damp has had ample time to creep into the bones, there are no more distractions in the shape of holidays, and spring is still a long way off. And Bean loved, loved, LOVED the snow. Despite the cold I could hardly get him into the house and even when it was time for bed he was asking to go outside to check on the snowmen we had built earlier.

There is something so magical in seeing a child enjoy the snow - for the first time, even, because although he has seen snow before there's never been enough of it do DO anything other than try to stay out of the slush that the cars had made. It's supposed to snow again on Friday and I so hope it does because Bean has not stopped talking about the snowmen and was quite upset to see that they'd melted when the weather turned, not 24 hours after that miraculous snow, to return to the usual UK fare this time of year - rain and temperatures just above freezing.

In other areas too, miraculous things have happend. I have cast on for a sweater. It's Unknit from Knotions and I'm using some Rowan DK Tweed that I bought on ebay a while back. My gauge, despite knitting 3 (!) swatches with different needle sizes, is off, and I've given up hope that this yarn, with any needle size I might try, would give me the gauge that is needed for this project. So I am winging it. I'm knitting the smallest size, which is actually winging it doubly because a) the width is the part of the gauge that is totally off (by about 2 cm) and b) right now my boobs are not really their usual (humble) size because I am feeding Tick. I am hoping that by knitting it in the 28 inch size I will end up with a garment that will fit me once I am not nursing Tick anymore. We'll see how that will work out...

For now I'm leaving you with another picture of Bean in Winter Wonder Land. :-)

FO!!!

2009-01-29T10:40:00.005Z

Something amazing has happened - since my unravelling of the neverending sock I have started and completed another project.

The evening after the sock was gone I cast on for a horizontal stripes scarf. This was a little project of the Bean, who's been stealing my scarf for a few weeks now because he likes to 'wrap up warm' and hide away from the wind (he hates wind). I used three strands of yarn and big needles so this was a very quick knit. Even with Tick's evening feeding and cuddling routine it was done in two evenings. The yarn is some leftover merino that I still had lying around (even after Bean's baby blanket AND a stripey raglan sweater I made for him ages ago). There is still quite a bit let but the stash is finally diminishing.

The rag rug effect was unintentional but I quite like the chaotic hippy look of the scarf and Bean certainly hasn't complained and walked off to nursery (he goes there occasionally so I get some time with Tick) rather proudly this morning.

Photos are rather rushed (Bean refused to sit still for even a second this morning) and the scarf is unblocked).

Now on to the next project...

Sometimes...

2009-01-27T11:18:00.005Z

... drastic measures are required.

R.I.P. never-ending sock!

Yesterday evening I decided that the sock needed to go. I love the yarn, I love the pattern, and the first sock was nearly finished, but I was just not happy with it. It was too tight, despite the fact that I had already tried to fix this problem by unravelling the sock partly and re-knitting the heel in a larger needle size, but the instep was still too narrow. I was also not particularly happy with the toe, which, should I knit this pattern again, I would make longer. It's something about the weird shape of my feet that makes them look all wrong when the toe is too short.

That said, I LOVE the heel design on this sock. To the extent that I think this will become MY heel. I'd be quite happy to substitute any heel on any sock pattern with this one - it's neat, it's sturdy, and it's not too fiddly. And I do love the whole idea of this sock - it's simple and pretty, and cables are so satisfying to knit.

But despite all this the sock needed to go. It's always a bit heartbreaking to unravel a project, in particular one that you've been working on for so long, but it's also quite liberating. And it means that I am now free to pick one of the projects on my list to make a fresh start. :-)

I'm longing to...

2009-01-24T20:45:00.000Z

... knit.

These days I find myself daydreaming about knitting... planning elaborate knitting projects in the wee hours of the morning when Tick wants to feed yet again. .. snatching minutes to finger yarn earmarked for projects that may or may not come to fruition in the foreseeable future... and furtively knitting the odd half-row on my never-ending sock - the one started before Tick was born (and no, I'm nowhere near starting sock #2) - when the Bean is watching The Night Garden before going up for his bath and bed.

I have two projects on the needles right now.: The never-ending sock, which, to my defense, I had to unravel partly because it was far too tight for my fat ankles, and a heavily altered version of Knitty's Satchel Bag, intended to become a knitted (and lined) nappy bag big enough to fit all of Beans and Ticks STUFF. But I have so many plans - especially at night, when it's quiet and Tick is sleepily feeding, I sit in the half-light of my dimmed bedside lamp and think of all those projects.

I want to knit a belted cardigan like this one HERE.

And I want to knit a funky scarf for The Bean (he keeps on "borrowing" mine), possibly made from left-over yarn and using two strands at the same time so I can blend colours. I might knit it sideways.

I'd like to make Tick another couple of cardigans.

I want to knit a few cardigans for myself. Like THIS ONE or THIS ONE here.

I want to design a jumper using some light blue mohair yarn that I bought ages ago. I know exactly how it should look but obviously haven't got round to working on it.

The reality of the situation is that in the next few months I probably won't get around to much knitting because during the day I'm more likely to be involved in activities that feature the items in the picture above and in the evening when The Bean is snoozing peacefully Tick seems to wake up and want a lot of holding. I'm guessing he is catching up on all those cuddles that he is missing out on during the day when his big brother demands most of my attention. Maybe there will be more time once we get Tick into some kind of bed-time routine but right now he goes to bed when we do - which isn't very late either. ;-)

I guess for now I need to console myself with fondling yarn, looking through my pattern collection, snatching the odd minute to work on the sock, and dreaming of all those projects that may or may not happen...

Just a heads up...

2009-01-14T20:55:00.003Z

... to say that I have more yarn listed on Ebay here: http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/cov-kipper in case anyone is looking to expand their stash. I'm getting through my unused yarns and it actually feels quite good to let go of some of it. There is still plenty, no danger of my stash approaching anything that looks reasonable, but if I at least have a project in mind for it, no matter if that is 10 years away, I don't mind holding on to yarn.

Anyway, sorry for the lazy update - I promise that there is more to come but I have The Bean at home all day for the rest of the week and he's decided that sleep during the day is for the weak. This translates into no time to update the blog (or eat, or do the laundry, or hoover, or tidy up, or... you get the picture! ;-) )

2008-12-31T14:02:00.003Z

That picture is a fairly accurate depiction of how I feel right now - a bit chaotic and untidy, and a bit blurry and out of focus... Christmas takes its toll, with the excessive eating and the excessive visiting and meeting people, and the excessive presents. We had a policy of not giving excessive gifts this year - after all, The Bean doesn't need another room full of toys and Tick doesn't really need anything other than mommy milk right now ;-) - but somehow we seem to have neglected to tell other people. The result can be seen above...

We had a lovely time, though - relaxed and fun, if a bit chaotic.

New Year is shaping up to be a much more quiet affair. I have managed to catch the flu that has been going round, so I've spent the last two days in bed, only feeding Tick when he demanded it, while D has been entertaining The Bean (they are out in town right now, buying a new mobile phone I think...). We hadn't planned to do much for New Year anyway, but the way it is looking now the evening might be over by 9.30pm! Oh well...

In any case, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and I wish you all the best for the New Year!

x

Decluttering...

2008-12-16T14:51:00.007Z

I think if I will have one New Year Resolution this time it will be to get rid of some of the clutter in our home. Honestly, the clutter, it knows no bounds.

Yesterday I went through a few bags full of yarn that I accidentally stumbled across when I was trying to stuff something else into an already over-full closet and I made a radical decision - I want some of my stash to go.

I'm fine with having a lof of yarn and I love looking and petting all the pretty skeins and thinking about all those future projects, but then there are also purchases that either I don't like anymore or that I can't for the life of me assign to a project and some of it should find a new owner. I am thinking of listing it all on ebay (and in the case of the random bag of odds and ends I have already done so - link is here), but I thought I'd offer it up here first, in case someone is interested.

Here we go:

Two balls of Patons Washed Haze. £2.50 plus postage.

2 balls o Kool Kotton in a light beige / linen colour. £2 plus postage.

4 balls of 4 Seasons yarn. This is very similar to Rowan All Seasons Cotton (although not as expensive as that!). £4.00 plus postage.

One big ball of Opal Sock yarn. £3.00 plus postage

2 balls of Wolle Roedel Ronda yarn. £3 plus postage.

Huge mountain of odds and ends (there are a few more that I forgot to include in the photograph. This has been listed on ebay here.

Two bags of fibre. This is Welsh mountain and Swaledale, so it's not particularly soft. Would be good to practice with. I would let this go for just cost of postage.

Last but not least, this selection of mini skeins from the Natural Dye Studio. Please note that these are not regular size skeins but mini-skeins. I bought this as a selection to try some Fair Isle but I is it really ever going to happen? Probably not in the next 10 years, so I might as well get rid of it. £4.50 plus postage.

Comment or send me an email if you are interested. Otherwise this will just go on ebay because I really REALLY need some space in my cupboards!!

More to come.

He's here...

2008-12-02T13:26:00.005Z

Sorry for the silence - it's the New Baby craziness that has taken hold of us here.

Tick arrived on the 13th November - two days before his due date - after only 6 hours of active labour and only 1.5 hours after we got to the hospital. In fact, the midwife nearly missed it. She'd gone out to get a nurse and when she came back in she just about managed to catch him!!

I'll be back more regularly in a few weeks time I think, once things have settled down a bit. For now I am sitting back, basking in the New Baby glow, and trying to juggle a very proud but also quite confused little Bean and a little Tick who, in the way babies tend to, has his days and nights mixed up and likes to sleep like an angel during the day and feed like a little fiend all night. Right now all is well with my world.

So until I return to more regular broadcasting, hope you are all finding some enjoyment and some quiet, peaceful time in the often frantic uprun to Christmas.

x

Still waiting...

2008-11-11T11:08:00.005Z

I know I am inpatient, I know I am...

... but with The Bean being a little early I thought that Tick might follow his big brother's example. Of course his due date is only Saturday, but still! It's Tuesday today and he is making absolutely no signs of wanting to vacate the premises...

At least I've had plenty of time to get a few things sorted around the house.

I built the Ikea bookcase for the corner of our lounge and carried a ton of books downstairs to sort into the shelves. Very satisfying, although I was rather tired afterwards.

I think it looks OK. I was a bit worried that it might not work, and to be perfectly honest, the sofa IS a little bit too big for the space that is left for it, in particular with the small table with the lamp on by the side, but it isn't very noticeable and we did need the space for the books after all. I think it makes the room feel more cozy...

I've also got round to sewing a new cover for my moses basket. It's not finished yet because it needs some elastic around the rim to hold the fabric up securely, but just to show you the pattern of the fabric:

This is a kind of flannel fabric that I got in a swap a while ago. No idea what it is exactly but it's cute with the little giraffes. It's the first time I've worked with a stretchy fabric and although I like the way it has turned out I have to admit that I didn't working with the fabric much. It's just not an exact science and the fabric slips and slides all over the place. It's good enough for a moses basket cover, but overall I think I'll stick to sewing with non-stretchy materials...

My sock knitting is also coming along uncharacteristically well - I've turned the heel (there seemed to be a mistake in the pattern, so it took a bit of experimenting, but overall this is just about the nicest heel that I've ever come across - I'll definitely use that pattern for the heel again!) and I'm on the home run now. Of course then there is the second sock, but we are not thinking about that yet.

In the sprit of nesting I've also spent the past few days sticking photographs into albums - a task that I normally NEVER get round to. We have boxes and boxes full of photographs!

If Tick makes me wait much longer, my tasks for the next few days will be:

1) more sticking pictures into albums
2) sewing a nappy bag with some corduroy fabric I have in my stash
3) sewing a head support for the Mei Tai baby carrier I have for Tick
4) x-mas baking with The Bean - I'm really looking forward to that and have already dug out my recipe books. There are plenty of terrifying things about the up-run to x-mas, but the German x-mas cookies? Hmmmmm!! ;-)

Nearly there...

2008-10-31T09:58:00.005Z

Well, tomorrow I'll be officially 38 weeks pregnant and in the home stretch.

After all this waiting around it seems a bit surreal that Tick will be here with us so soon. I had a midwife appointment yesterday and when we arranged for another appointment in 2 weeks time it ocurred to me that if Tick is anything like Bean was I won't have that appointment - he will be here by then.

Things have been well - much better really, than a few weeks ago, when I felt tired and exhausted and big and lumpy. It seems that I am experiencing that surge of energy that so many pregnant woment have right before they go into labour. And the nesting very much continues... I even managed to squeeze in a trip to Ikea two days ago (much to D's annoyance because he is the one suffering from all the 'imaginary' tasks that I come up with that, at least in my deranged and pregnancy-addled mind, can't possibly wait and URGENTLY need to be seen to before Tick gets here). I bought another bookshelf for the living room (will post pictures once it's up and full of books), a small shelf unit for Bean's room (I am trying, in vain, to keep the flood of multi-coloured plastic in check that threatens to engulf us one of these days) and a little wooden stepping stool for the bathroom so Bean can reach the basin to wash his hands. Also, more boxes for clutter collection, a few frames for Bean's 'artwork' and some x-mas decorations. Gotta love Ikea...

I'm also knitting. Socks, even! A few weeks ago I started on a modified version of Knitty's Satchel, mainly to use up some ancient Ebay yarn, but all that stocking stitch is starting to get to me so I suddenly felt like knitting something more intricate. Despite the fact that I rarely knit socks I own a lot of sock yarn (got to love the wonderful colours you get for sock yarn...) and I finally got round to winding a few balls and casting on:

This is the Widdershins pattern from Knitty, and so far it's rather fun to knit. The yarn is a handspun sock yarn from Hipknits. It was a horrific tangle and took me about 2 days to wind into a ball, but it is wonderfully soft and I love the soft earthy colours of the yarn.

PS: Now that I am settling into my maternity leave I've been starting to wonder if I should join a swap again. I do so love parcels (both sending and receiving them) and it's been a looooong time. I don't even know where to look for a swap these days. Are any of you aware of any interesting swaps starting in the near future?

Embracing the home life...

2008-10-21T08:56:00.010Z

I'm finally on maternity leave (yay!) and I've been trying to wind down a bit. It's hard, in particular as I still have an article to finish up before Tick arrives. It's in the final stages, but I do find myself fretting over it late at night after yet another visit to the bathroom (if Tick could just be a little more kind to my bladder we'd both sleep so much better...).

In preparation to embracing the homelife I am hoping to enjoy in the coming months I have splashed out on a few books though:

There is a Kath Kidston book on embroidery - I thought it would be a bit more about actual sewing, but it's nice anyway - and two cookery books. One is a lovely little book on homemade edible gifts - cakes, biscuits, chutneys, jam, marmelade, pralines, alcohol... and it's beautifully photographed. I can't wait to try some of the recipes. The other one is a cookery book based on the wonderful food that is always mentioned in classic children's books. Who can't remember reading children's books and, for hours after, wanting pancakes, muffins drizzled with melted butter, and homemade lemonade? The book is compiled and written by Jane Brocket of Yarnstorm, which is something I only found out after I had already bought it!

Hopefully all the cookery books will have the added side-effect of providing me with a few cheap x-mas presents for friends and family. I'm no good knitting things for a deadline, and I have a rather disasterous Sockapalooza experience to vouch for it, so I am not even attempting knitted gifts - they happen when they will, but not usually in time for birthdays, anniveraries, or x-mas - so I am hoping that perhaps I can make some luxurious chocolates and cakes and maybe bottle a few chutneys for people. The Bean will hopefully help - we've recently ventured into the real of cupcake making together. We made Postman Pat mini muffins and apart from the fact that he managed to eat quite a bit of the dough and about half the icing they were a great success.

I even have some knitting content today:

Yes, I've dipped my foot into the dangerous waters of sock-knitting again. This was an internet pattern that was knitted inside out. I will edit this post and give you a link once I find the pattern and can confirm the name. It was an easy enough knit, although socks are always painfully slow for me. Unfortunately, though, I don't really like the socks. Nothing to do with the pattern, I hasten to add, just that the yarn really didn't go with the style of the socks but once I had finished one of them and had realised this there was really no way I was going to unravel the whole thing again. It had taken me months to get to this point, after all!! Instead I quickly cast on for the second sock and finished it in record time, just to get this project out of the way. I will still wear the socks, obviously, but I really wished that I was happier with the result...

2008-09-30T08:40:00.002Z

Another little something for the arrival of Tick - this is from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and the yarn is the same I used for the Baby Raglan. Debbie Bliss cashmerino I think...

2008-09-11T20:00:00.003Z

Does anyone elses home look that chaotic?

Actually, don't answer that, it's most likely just going to depress me...

Living with toddlers is not beneficial to tidy surroundings. *sigh*

I'm not sure why I am subjecting people to this, and this is a particularly bad day, and clearly pre-evening tidy up, but with all the nesting that's been going on here recently I guess it's been on my mind. Isn't it strange how mess breeds mess? And how it ends up cluttering your mind?

I admit, I'm not the tidiest person, but I've been trying to get organised for little Tick and part of that is to declutter. Over time we've been given so much stuff for the Bean and I've been going through it all, giving stuff away and storing other things away for later re-use by Tick.

Not that this is going to prevent further mess, but a girl can have her illusions, right? Also, it takes my mind off the article I'm supposed to write... although that is maybe not such a good thing. ;-)

I've also finished the Baby Raglan that I've been knitting. Sadly the colour didn't come out at all - it's a very light sage green - but I'm hoping to get another shot when Tick can actually model the sweater.

Buttons ahoy!

2008-09-03T10:02:00.007Z

Not much to report here so I'll just post a shot, taken 2 weeks ago when we had friends staying with us. This is Spurn Point, where we spend a lovely day, walking and chatting, and building castles in the sand with the Bean. It's a stunning place, really, a very narrow lip of land that is only a few hundred metres wide the most (often less) and reaches a few miles into the sea. I'd never been, but I can see us returning there often.

In other news - we have a wardrobe in the kids' room now, so I can finally start washing all the newborn clothes. I've been nesting like crazy these last few weeks. Did it start this early with the Bean? I don't remember this at all... Or maybe it's because this time round with the house a bit more finished I actually have a CHANCE of being somewhat ready for the new arrival. So I've been rooting around, finding things, stocking up on things I will need in the first few weeks, but mainly I've been washing load after load of laundry. It doesn't help that I've decided to give cloth nappies a serious try this time round. With the Bean I didn't use them as much as I wanted to because we were just not set up for that yet, but this time I'm ready I think. :-)

Oh, and I've finally got round to sewing some buttons onto my recent knitting projects. I don't have a picture of Bean's cardigan yet because he is wearing it today and I didn't get round to it in the morning, but here is the Tick's baby cardigan:

I know, I know, you've seen this and it wasn't that exciting the first time round, but I'm always amazed what a difference a few buttons make. Suddenly it looks kind of cute while before it was just... a wide expanse of garter stitch. ;-)

Back from all the summer extravaganzas...

2008-08-25T18:30:00.011Z

Yes, I am still here - I was just gone for a while because I first went to Germany to see my family for a couple of weeks, then, two days after returning to the UK, we went to the Lake District for another 10 days or so.

We had a fabulous time and, despite the consistently pessimistic weather forecasts, fantastic weather! We had rented a little cottage in a valley behind the Old Man of Coniston (a local mountain) but in the end also added another two days at a B&B we passed on the shore of Coniston Water. It was a magical place - I'm so thankful my pregancy-bladder demanded an immediate stop and we decided to have some tea at the same time. The place was called Bank Ground Farm and is actually the farm that Ransome's Swallows and Amazons' Holly Howe is based on. Fortunately they had a room available and we were able to add another two wonderful days to our holiday. This is D and The Bean by the shore of Coniston Water, throwing stones into the water.

Upon coming back from holiday, as if that had all been nothing, we had Bean's Christening and a house full of people. After that I was at work what feels like 24/7 because of Clearing (when here in the UK the A-level results come out and prospective students start ringing around because they didn't get the results they were expecting and are hoping to secure a place anyway). And this weekend we had friends staying with us and we did quite a bit of driving around (Spurn Point on Saturday and then the Yorkshire Moors on Sunday).

It's all been great fun, but I AM EXHAUSTED! I think I may also have a pregnancy-related iron deficiency going on, because even with all this going on, I don't think I should feel quite this tired... Better check this with the midwife at my next appointment on Thursday. Other than that, though, Tick is doing well, and this pregnancy is progressing so fast... can't believe I'm 28 weeks already. CRAP, when am I going to get all the things done that I was going to do before this little one gets here?

Despite all this, there has been some knitting - not for me, because I don't really want to start anything that I can't try on right now, but there has been quite a bit of baby knitting.

First of all, I finished the double-breasted baby cardigan that I mentioned last time:

As I suspected, the sizing is... a bit off. To my eyes the cardi looks HUGE. It might fit me!! (Well, maybe not right now, but without the baby belly it might) That said, at least the length is exactly what it is supposed to be, so maybe the sizing is just this odd?! There are also no buttons yet, because I haven't got round to digging any out. I have two big biscuit tins full of old buttons that I inherited from D's grandma, so I am hoping I'll find something in there.

The second thing is also from the Debbie Bliss baby knits book, this time something for Tick:

It's the garter stitch baby cardigan, again, minus buttons. The yarn is from Wolle Roedel in Germany - a superwash merino which was great to knit with. Again, the sizing is odd, because with a bit of stretching this cardi would also quite comfortably fit the Bean - is this really supposed to be the newborn size?

I'm now knitting another baby raglan sweater from the Debbie Bliss book. This has become one of my favourite pattersn because the cardis turn out so cute and are so easy to wear for babies an toddlers (the sizing doesn't go up to 2-3 years, but it's easy enough to adapt the sizing to Bean's requirements).

Knitting content... and a meme

2008-06-24T08:30:00.005Z

It ocurrs to me that I haven't posted any knitting content in quite some time, so I thought I'd at least show your a FO - this was finished a while ago, but it was during my period of non-posting, so I guess it could still count as a 'new' FO...

I present - the Classic Cardigan from Debbie Bliss' The Baby Knits Book:

This was knitted with some merino wool/acrylic mix if I remember right, but I can't quite recall what it was called. Maybe one day I'll find the label.

It was a quick knit, although it then predictably took me about 2 months to sew the buttons on.

The bean LOVES it. He saw me knit it and then suddenly it was something he was able to wear! It's like magic! I really hope he is a long way off the stage when hand-knits done by mummy become the most embarassing thing in the world...

I've now started another project from the same book - the Double-Breasted Jacket:

The picture is from the book itself. I don't dare post any pictures of my own knitting yet, because I'm kind of making it all up as I go along. I couldn't face knitting with the thin yarn and the tiny needles that were suggested and I had this really snuggly soft yarn in just the right colour but totally the wrong weight, and I just cast on anyway. I'm doing the smallest size but with the length suggested for the largest size... It can only go terribly wrong!

Also, I was tagged for a meme - well, for two memes, really, but I have to take the pictures for the second meme so that one will be in the next post. This one is the 'Knowing me' meme, and I was tagged by Steph of Six Skeins Under.

1. What was I doing ten years ago?
Well, let's see... I was already in the UKI (gosh, I've been here a long time now). I was a visiting student then, from a German university, but I had just decided to apply to finish my undergrad degree in the UK.

2. What are 5 things on your to-do list today?
1) Laundry - laundry is always on my to-do-list...
2) Finish an article - I have a self-imposed deadline of Friday for this one
3) misc paperwork - there is a nice growing pile next to the computer
4) food shopping - we are running out of just about everything right now
5) sleep - the bean still likes to get up early. Very early this morning - around 4.40am!

3. What are your favorite things to snack on?
Right now anything savoury / spicy. I've just managed to source some Kimchi (Korean fermented spicy cabbage) online, so I'll probably cook some rice later to eat some of that.

4. Where are some places you've lived?
I've lived in Berlin, near Frankfurt, Munich, the Midlands, and now East Yorkshire. Oh yes, and in London for a couple of months.

5. What would you do if you were a billionaire?
You mean if I won the lottery? I probably wouldn't change all that much. I wouldn't chance where I am or the job I do for example. I would, however, get someone to finish the house for us and do up our bramble patch of a garden, and would make sure the people close to me could do the same.

6. What jobs have you done?
supermarket worker/shelf stacker, assistant in a doctor's surgery, market seller at an mediterranean deli stall, carer for a paralised person, personel assistent, general secretary, researcher, seminar tutor, university lecturer, and being a mom! ;-)

7. Which other people would you like to know more about?
I am tagging Karin, Beth, Jennifer, and Jane.

Summer is here...

2008-05-28T08:56:00.003Z

Just a few pictures from the veg patch...

It's all coming along now - the potatoes have come out, and the onions. The sweetcorn went in a couple of weeks ago and I have planted lots of salad and beans. The only thing failing me this time seems to be the tomatoes. I was lazy and put them straight into the soil rather than planting them into pots first to bring them on. Last year this seemed to work fine (although to be truthful, tomatoes don't do that well in this climate anyway and I usually end up with some ripe ones in October or so...) but this year nothing seems to come up. It's too late now to try with the seeds again so hopefully I'll pick up a few plants somewhere.

~*~

Last weekend we took our trusty little camper Eddie out and went camping - for the first time ever!! We've used Eddie a lot since he joined our family in January, but so far we hadn't ventured into proper camping. This was partly due to the weather, but partly also to our own nervousness. I've never really been much of a camping-kind-of-girl but D loves it, so I was willing to try. It turns out that it can be good fun!

We didn't go far - just ventured into the North Yorkshire Moors and stayed at a campsite close to Helmsley. Initially it wasn't that great - very windy and we only managed to get the very last spot on the campsite, meaning we were right by the entrance and completely in the shade... COLD! Still, it was kind of nice to cook our evening dinner (pasta with tomato sauce) on the tiny stove and the bean absolutely loved the camper and all the tents around us. We even found that the boot of the camper, without folding the bed out, makes a perfect bean cot - it has the matress and the back seat means that he can't roll out during the night. He slept till 6.20am, which sounds pretty early, but is absolutely spectacular when you consider that he usually gets up at 5am. In fact, the night before he'd got up at 3.45am... *yawn*

We spent the bank holiday Monday in Helmsley, where we discovered a lovely walled garden, and took the long scenic route via the moors back to our spot.

Not our last camping trip, that much is certain!

Oh my god, it's May...

2008-05-12T08:20:00.003Z

That means that I have been MIA for, what, 4 months?!

The good news is, though, that I am now officially free of teaching for the summer, and while that sadly does not mean that I am also free of work (2-3 papers ready for publication is my aim) it does mean that work will progress at a much more flexible and leisurely pace (no more last-minute dashes to the library to finish a lecture for tomorrow morning), which in turn usually translates into some extra time to do silly things like.... knit, spin, and post in my blog!

I've been missing this blog so much, so I am looking forward to getting back into a regular routine of posting. And since I've already made significant inroads into the all the tasks that have been left until such a time when I am not bogged down by teaching prep: I have done laundry, which was very very necessary - I had to dig a path to the washing machine because the stacks of laundry were that high; I went food shopping - yay, we have fresh food in the house; I planted my veg patch - the shoots have already started appearing; and I have started cleaning the house - this one is going to take me a while longer I fear... . Anyway, since I have made inroads into all these 'chores' I felt that I was justified spending a pleasurable half hour posting on my neglected blog.

The other reason why I think I might get back to posting a bit more is this:

Yes, that's right, bean #2, aka 'tick' is on the way. He/she is due in mid-November, which makes me about 13 weeks pregnant now. I'm (hopefully) over the really miserable first trimester of extreme tiredness and 24/7 nausea (so much worse than with bean #1, or have I just forgotten this?!), and my belly has just started popping out a bit. It's so exciting!

Anyway, because of all this there should be more movement on the blog from now on - more knitting (got to knit for my second winter baby, right?), more gardening, and of course there are all the new developments on the ongoing project that is our home...

It's good to be back. :-)

Well...

2008-01-11T20:42:00.000Z

I seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth!

How are you all (provided anybody is in fact still checking back here)? Happy New Year to all of you!

These days, full-time working life plus full-time mothering have me firmly in their grip, and time at the computer is very limited - at least when it comes to focussed blogging time. Sure, I get the odd minute here and there to answer an email, but its rarely enough to do much more, and since it's also usually at work rather than at home I don't get to upload photographs all that often. I miss it, I really do, and I am hoping to make some more time this year.

I miss being creative and I have plans for the coming year. I do still knit, and recently I have taught myself crochet. I'm working on my first granny-square blanket, which is to grace our newest crazy purchase - an old VW Campervan called Eddie. Spinning and sewing have suffered in the last few months, because they are just not portable enough, but I'm thinking about giving crewel a try... And I want to start drawing again - just for myselfa - and teach myself some new techniques (oil in particular).

The next academic year will be very very busy, in partiular as we are also covering for absent colleagues), but as I start developing new routines I hope I'll find more time again to reconnect with the blog. Here's hoping...

Cowl - FO

2007-10-28T12:19:00.000Z

I have a FO to report!

The Cowl, blogged about in my last post, is finally finished.

I like the sweater. It was fun to knit, didn't take long, and is very wearable. I'm also in love with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran - so soft!!

The only negative thing worth mentioning is that the garter stitch body of the cowl makes you look a bit podgy round the middle... It's not too bad, but I think it has something to do with the way the fabric drapes, the garter stitch, and the extra-large needles it's knitted with.

Project specs:

Started: September 2007
Completed: October 2007
Yarn: 9 (8 1/2) balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in red (300611)
Needle Size: 8mm and 10mm

Done! It feels good to get a project off the needles for once...

Still here...

2007-10-23T09:34:00.000Z

Yes, I am, in fact, still here! Who would have thought! :-)

Life is, as usual, but more than usually, busy these days, and blogging from work is something I am trying to avoid, so the poor old blog has suffered a little. Add to that that the home computer is still in bean's bedroom, which means that after 7 pm I can't switch it on to upload any pictures or write any blog entries and you have a situation that is not conductive to regular blogging activity. I do miss it... Today I am working from home, so I thought I'd at least get a teeeny tiny post in this morning!

i have been knitting - yes, despite everything, I have. There is no proper FO yet, but I'll show you the WIP, OK?

This is Diana Rupp's Cowl from the Stitch'n Bitch Handbook - I think I hadn't looked in there for at least 2 years and recently Bean pulled it off the shelf and I flicked through it again. I had completely forgotten how many good and simple patterns there are in this book! I found a pattern to use for my huge lot of green mohair (Martha Lazar's To Dye For pattern) and I found this Cowl pattern in garter stitch for a recent ebay purchase, some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, which is just perfect for this pattern. It's lovely and simple, so I can knit while I watch TV, and it's quick and, due to increases and decreases, interesting enough not to get too bored with it. I've all but finished it - only the assembling and the cowl to go, and then I will finally have a warm and cozy, yet fitted, jumper to wear to work. I can't wait!

I'll leave you with this - the Humber foreshore near Hull, in the late afternoon light on Sunday.

FOs!!

2007-09-14T14:47:00.000Z

I'm getting ready for the start of term.

Obviously, this entails teaching preparation, tidying of bits and pieces of research, furnishing my new office (so exciting!!), but it also means that I am trying to get the house into a semi-habitable state, catching up on the laundry, ordering in food for the storage cupboard, and... I am continuing on my journey of finishing knitting projects that have been lying around far far too long.

Next on the list are the socks that I have spoken of before:

I'm happy with them. Really happy. The yarn was some merino wool from the Natural Dye Studio and they are super soft. Also, I love the blue. I don't often knit blue things, because it's not the best colour for me personally, but knitting things that are a) not for oneself, and b) socks frees you up a bit on that account. :-) I hope that their recipient will like them as much as I do.

I have also knitted a little Raglan Sweater for the Bean. He had one that I knitted for him when he was very very little, but he never wore it because he hadn't even tried it on before it landed in a pile of laundry that MIL took away to wash for us to help out. She tumble-dried the little sweater and it was never quite right after that... ;-)

This was such a quick knit. I started it last week, then took it with me to a conference at the beginning of this week and I nearly finished it on the train. Just this morning I knitted the last few rows and then assembled the whole thing. I like the simplicity of the sweater - no frills at all - and the rolled edging. I have high hopes that it will actually fit the Bean!

And lastly, I have received the last of my current Gimme Your Stuff exchange parcels and I have to say that I am speechless - such generosity! Just have a look at this:

There are 3, yes, 3(!) yards of fabric, and all soooo pretty! Then there is some Knitpicks yarn, both to dye myself and in a gorgeous colourway, some lip balm, a cute keyring, and there were also some delicious and really fun Jelly Bellies, which alas have already been eaten by D and myself. It was almost like Berty Botts Every Flavour Beans in Harry Potter!! Thank you so much Phyllis, I love everything you have sent!

ETA: I forgot one item in the parcel - a copy of Blueprint magazine!!

Quick update...

2007-08-31T15:01:00.000Z

I am spending far too much time on Ravelry. It's bad, very bad. I've spent hours today, uploading projects, and I'm not nearly done - and I haven't even really started on recording all my stash, and the needles, and whatnot... Oh dear.

I've been working rather hard recently, or rather, I've tried to. Other than academic work there has been a lot of dealing with fruit - yes, it's that time of the year again...

D has been doing much of the de-stoning while I was in charge of jam-making. We now have something like 40 jars of plum jam. Should be enough for a few years!

To treat ourselves, and also because with all the rain this summer it might well be the last nice and warm summer weekend this year, we had a BBQ and bonfire.

We also managed to go to two (!) car-boot sales this weekend - how I love them! I always seem to come away with something, but this time was special. Look what we discovered:

A set of handcarders, a flick-carder, three bobbins and, not pictured, a spinning wheel flyer!! The guy who sold it all to us clearly had no idea what he was selling. He kept looking at us weirdly, for buying the disgusting old hairbrushes! ;-)

There hasn't been a lot of knitting time but I am heading towards the end of a knitting project that I've had lying around for ages - some socks that I was knitting for someone else, that got left at the bottom of the knitting basket, neglected and forgotten, when the bean entered our lives. Recently, swept up in my newfound enthusiasm for finishing long-term WIPs I discovered the lonely half-finished first sock and finished it and a few days ago I cast on for the second one. I'm so proud of myself! ;-)

Ravelry

2007-08-30T15:32:00.000Z

A few weeks ago I finally got my invite for Ravelry and today I found some time to have a proper look at it.

I'm so doomed.

That is all.

This crazy life...

2007-08-03T08:18:00.000Z

I feel guilty for not updating the blog more often. Life is always so busy around here. Why is that? Is it the same for other people?

The flooding saga continues, but at least the tiles in the hall have now been removed. That means that hopefully the dehumidifiers don't have to be with us for much longer. The heat and noise are driving me potty!

I've also started work, which is wonderful. I'm feeling very positive about it all, I like the people, and am looking forward to working with them, but it also means a lot of lecture and seminar planning for the start of term and also a lot of frantic last-minute research and writing for yet another conference this summer and a book article due in next month. There are also the remaining 4 weddings to go to this summer, and our holiday, which I am determined to spend with my little family rather than in front of the computer, surrounded by books, frantically writing conference papers. We have trips planned - to the beach, to a few museums around here, and then we will spend a few days at the German sea side when we go over there for a wedding in a few weeks time. It's our first real holiday as a little family, so the last thing I want is to take work with me.

I have been knitting, but only on things started a long time ago. The drive to FINISH things is still strong, so I am going with it for now. Maybe, just maybe, before it runs out, I will get a finished Cozy out of it, and possibly another pair of socks.

The picture above is from another Gimme Your Stuff Swap, this time with the fabulous Malin in Sweden. She is the best kind of swapper - we exchanged a lot of emails beforehand and she is funny and interesting, and kind. And the parcel she has sent me makes me so happy. Can you see the gorgeous handmade bag? I love it so! And the quirky mushroom fabric? And I love the Swedish recipe book. I've long been fond of Saffron and Cinnamon buns... And the copies of IK, and the yarn! There is also quite a bit of stuff that didn't make it onto the picture - there was a yummy bar of chocolate with digestive biscuits in it (eaten instantly), and some rosehip soup with almond biscuits (also already gone). Thank you Malin!!

Reporting back...

2007-07-11T16:02:00.000Z

As the weeks pass, the fallout from the flooding is becoming more apparent.

We were not as badly hit by it as many other people, and we managed to carry most of our things upstairs in time, yet the noise and the heat that the dehumidifiers and huge fans produce are becoming increasingly difficult to live with. We have three dehumidifiers and fans dotted around the ground floor to get rid of any remaining water in the flooring and walls, and they have to be on 24/7. The house is soooo hot, and we are not supposed to open any windows so that the dehumidifiers can work most efficiently. Ack! Still, I shouldn't complain - in comparison to a lot of other people in this region we got off fairly lightly.

Which is why I'm moving on now to what I've been up to in the last two weeks:

1) First of all, I got a job!!! Yay!

2) tidied around the house and thrown a lot of things out that were either damaged by the flooding or that we discovered while shifting things and decided we didn't need.

3) Finally finished the baby quilt for B's little girl, shortly to be sent off to Germany with the baby cardigan:

I used Heather Bailey's instructions for Continuous Quilt Binding, and I love it - so much more neat than my previous efforts! I'm still not convinced of my wonky sewing, and if I made this particular quilt again I would choose some blue thread for the back of the quilt (not keen on the pink), but overall I'm happy with this.

4) Since I was in a finishing kind of mood I tackled a project that is so old I can't even remember when I first started it, although I'm fairly sure that the yarn came from Sherrill at Baa Bonny Belle (thanks again Sherrill!): my Jaywalkers:

I like them (and, as you can see, so does Bean), even though, due to the fact that I knitted half of one sock a long time ago, there is a change in tension, which means that one sock is just right, while the other (the one that was started first) is rather tight around the leg - looks like I don't knit as tightly nowadays... Still, as with the quilt, it's not enough for me to bother changing it and I do like the socks. Somehow the colours remind me of dark cherries, which in turn reminds me of my birthday when I was a child - we always had crates full of cherries in June. :-)

5) I won the birthday contest on Craftylilly's blog and received my price (arrived yesterday) - a beautiful skein of Duet sock yarn in the colourway 'best friends'. Thank you Jennifer, I love it!! Looks like I'll be knitting more socks soon. :-)

6) I received my Gimme Your Stuff swap parcel from Ankaisa in Finland:

It was full of lovely things - a knitting pattern booklet, some pretty yarn, some fabric, two fabric bags, and some pine soap in a cute knitted bag, Thank you Ankaisa!!

It's been a busy few weeks... :-)

Oh what a night (and day)...

2007-06-27T09:58:00.000Z

Do you see this? That's D and my dad on our doorstep. Yes, like so many other people in Britain, we were flooded on Monday afternoon.

This is what the back garden looked like:

Apparently this hasn't happened in this village in 70 (!) years, so so an old neighbour who has spent all her life here tells us... Isn't it grand that we get to experience such a momentous event in our first year of living here?! My dad is visiting us right now - he feels so privileged that he was here to witness this. ;-)

Fortunately we managed to get most of our possessions upstairs in time - the sofa remained but we put it on a few buckets to keep it out of the water, and some of D's office furniture suffered, but the main damage was done to the flooring. The carpet soaked up the water like a sponge, and I have no idea how things look underneath the tiles in the hall and kitchen... There is also some damage to walls and skirting boards and the like. We'll see what the insurance company makes of it all.

On the bright side, and to leave you with something more pretty to look at than drains water in a garden, a while ago I FINISHED THE BABY CARDIGAN ON TOOTHPICKS! I have finally got round to photographing it so here it is:

I am so happy with it! I'm even pretty happy with the seaming, and that is something that usually goes wrong for me! Not that I would necessarily knit this again, but I am glad I made the effort. :-)

Mememememe

2007-06-26T19:54:00.000Z

Baa Bonny Belle tagged me for the birthday meme:

The rules are to go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday month and day only. Then post 3 events, 2 births and one holiday that occurred on your birthday, then tag 5 friends.

Events

763 BC - Assyrians record a solar eclipse that will be used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history.

923 - Battle of Soissons: King Robert I of France is killed and King Charles the Simple is arrested by the supporters of Duke Rudolph of Burgundy.

1215 - King John of England puts his seal to the Magna Carta.

Births

1843 - Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer (d. 1907)

1330 - Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales (d. 1376)

Holiday

Roman Empire – ninth and final day of the Vestalia in honor of Vesta

I am not going to tag 5 friends, simply because I fear that since I've been quite busy the last week I'm already quite late with this meme and I won't have time to check in the next few days who has or hasn't already been tagged. So if you so far haven't been, and you like the look of this meme, please consider yourself tagged! :-)

FO!!

2007-06-08T08:50:00.000Z

Once Upon a Time Productions presents...

THE TWO-TONE (ONE-TONE) RIBBED SHRUG!

This was such a quick and enjoyable knit. If I made this again I would trust my instincts more than my gauge (which was a bit off, so I decided to knit the smallest size) and would make this bigger - as you can see, it is a little on the small side... Still, it was fun and I've already worn this today. Also, the yarn was wonderful to work with - Knitpicks Andean Treasure - I can only recommend it.

Stats:
2 1/2 skeins of Knitpicks Andean Treasure in 'Granite'
Needle Size: 4.5 and 2.
Started: 31 May 2007
Finished: 7 June 2007

Sometimes it's nice...

2007-05-31T10:10:00.000Z

... to knit for yourself.

Progress on the baby-cardigan-on-toothpicks has stalled because even though I was following the pattern I managed somehow to run out of yarn. And not only that, I managed to run out of yarn about 3 rows before the end, or rather, 3 rows into the trim for the cardigan. Rather annoying. A third ball of yarn is on order (hopefully they will be able to send me the same dye lot), but until then I'm stuck with this project. Not that I mind too much, because instead I've been doing other things...

Like this:

This is the start of the Two-Tone Ribbed Shrug (well, in my case it's a One-Tone Ribbed Shrug) from the newly acquired Fitted Knits, and it's for ME!! After knitting for the bean and then for other babies, it feels positively sinful to knit something for myself. At least I am using yarn from stash. It's Knit Picks Andean Trasure in 'Granite', a 100% Baby Alpaca yarn that's sooo soft, I could fondle it all the time. I bought it off Amanda a few months back and have been itching to knit something with it ever since.

I have also started another quilt, also for the recipient of the baby cardigan:

The fabric is Alexander Henry, and the backing is denim. I made it extra thick by adding an additional layer of fleece fabric on top of the batting, just to make sure that my little girl is never going to feel a cold floor when she is lying on it. This is my second baby quilt - I made one for the bean a while ago that I completely forgot to photograph. It was made with another Alexander Henry fabric - this time with Cowboys on it. Might take a picture once it's out of the wash...

And lastly, today I got this in the post:

Isn't it pretty? It's a print by the talented Rachel Salomon that I ordered a while ago. I love it. It's going to be part of my growing collection of small prints that I am planning to frame and hang in the hall.

More reasons to be happy...

2007-05-24T11:04:00.000Z

#1 - Discovering that there are deer in Richmond Park:

We spent last weekend in London, visiting friends. Rather than a planned trip, this was more of an emergency solution that turned out absolutely lovely. What we had planned was something much less lovely, so I'm doubly glad it turned out to be such a fun weekend after all. Sometimes I wonder about D and myself, though - two PhDs, and at times we don't seem to have a brain cell to share between ourselves...

This is what happened: We had an invite to the naming ceremony of the little daughter of an old friend of mine on Saturday afternoon. The plan was to do drive down to the Midlands on Thursday, down to London from there on the Saturday morning, and back up to Yorkshire on Saturday evening after the ceremony. Quite OK in theory, but not so much in practice.

First of all, it took us almost 5 hours to get to our destination, all the while relying on the dubious navigation of Multimap. We were led right across central London, passed Westminster and Marble Arch, and you can imagine how crazy the traffic was. Bean had been asleep on the journey to London and chose this opportune moment to wake up and start screaming, we were tired and in need of food, drink, and the loo, and generally pretty frazzled by the time we arrived in south-east London. At least we were on time... just!

The ceremony was beautiful and it was great to see our friends, but clearly the last thing we wanted to do at this point was think about an even longer journey up North. Also, in order to arrive at a reasonable time we would have had to leave barely an hour after we'd got there in the first place. Honestly, what were we thinking, planning to drive back up on the same day?! We agonised over it for some time and then decided to pounce on some other friends and ask if we could stay with them. 5 minutes later, the life-saving SMS arrived - no problem at all, we are welcome to turn up whenever we want. Aren't friends great?

They put us up, moving out of their own bedroom no less, so we could put bean's travel cot up in the bigger room, and even cooked dinner. We had a great evening and the next day decided sensibly that we might as well take some more time and drive back in the late afternoon. We decided to have a picnic in Richmond Park.

I'd never been, so to discover wide open fields, forests and lakes, complete with whole herds of deer, all in the centre of London, came as a bit of a surprise. We had a lovely day and a good journey up, and arrived in Yorkshire just in time for bean's bath and bed.

Now why didn't we plan it like this to start with? Why do we need to always rush around?

~ * ~

#2 - going to the cinema with D:

We are going to see Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End tonight!! We will put Bean to bed and then MIL will look after him for the evening. Hopefully he will be asleep the entire time anyway. I'm ridiculously excited about this. We haven't been out, just the two of us, ever since LAST SEPTEMBER when the little Bean arrived!

~ * ~

#3 - almost finishing the little baby cardigan for my friend B's little girl:

This is the second sleeve. After that I only need to assemble the damn thing and add the borders... It feels like I've been knitting this for ages! I do like the way it looks, though. Hopefully B will like it too.

~ * ~

#4 - spinning again:

I've been spinning up a bit of the merino superwash that Tawama of Rooted in Knit-reality sent me for Yarn Abroad! over the last few weeks. I love the way it spins up and I am planning on Navajo plying it.

7 random facts...

2007-05-22T13:20:00.000Z

I've been tagged by Baa Bonny Belle.

Here are the rules:
Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs the 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog.

OK, here goes:

1) I'm half-Korean but other than the words for grandma, grandpa, milk, and thank you, I can't speak any Korean at all. I can, however, sing an entire song in Korean - apparently it's a children's song about how pretty the dew looks when it catches in spiderwebs and blades of grass, but I don't understand a thing of what I am singing. It could be about anything...

2) I can't dive without pinching my nose shut. As you can maybe imagine, this is not particularly conductive to efficient diving and, during swimming lessons at school, led to various embarrassing incidents with me trying to retrieve items from the bottom of the pool, padding with one hand while the other was taken up by me pinching my nose shut. It also led to me failing most of the swimming proficiency tests.

3) I'm appalling at sports. During PE lessons at school I was ALWAYS the last person on the bench. I started to feel sorry for the team who had to put up with me in the end because really it was as if they had one person less on their team.

4) When I think of something that I find embarrassing, I start singing. This is something that I do completely involunatarily and I have no idea why.

5) When I was little, my dad used to tell me that there were what he called 'Shrunk Germans' who sometimes visited him when I was asleep. They were the size of a thumb and he managed to convince me that they were all around us and only hid from children because they were scared of them. For years I longed to see them and convince them to live in my doll's house.

6) I think and dream in both German and English.

7) I'm much better at starting projects than at finishing them.

I am tagging:
Union Centre Knits
Felt Like Knitting
Craftylilly
La La La
The Woolpalace
Clothesknit
Lixie Knits It

Up for grabs...

2007-05-15T08:06:00.000Z

This is a desperate attempt to rid myself of some stuff. As you may have gathered, I have rather a lot of stuff, and with most of the house still in a state of chaos this fact has been weighing rather heavily on my mind. Do you know that feeling that you can't think because somehow the clutter around you is getting into your head and you can't find your own thoughts anymore? Yeah, like that.

Anyway, I was thinking that I might offer some of these things up on the blog. I don't want any money for them, just the price of postage, so if you want any of them, just leave a comment or send me an email and I'll mail them to you, OK?

Right, here we go, one fibre item and two non-fibre shoes:

First on the list - a bin liner full of unwashed fleece. I bought this off ebay ages ago and it was sold to me as Bluefaced Leicester, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. The fibre is of very varying quality, some super-soft (and that could convince me that there is at least some Bluefaced Leicester content), and some quite coarse. It obviously needs washing, etc., and also sorting through to separate the very coarse bits from the good stuff. If I had the time right now I'd do this and I had already started to with a small amount, but let's be realistic - it's not going to happen in the next 5 years, so it's got to go. I have no idea what postage would be for this but if you are interested I'll walk it over to the Post Office and find out for you.

Second on the list:

A pair of very retro, very red shoes. I bought these a few years ago in the vain hope that what didn't fit me then would suddenly, miraculously, fit later. The picture is not very good, the shoes do not look quite so gaudy and (I think) more retro than kinky! ;-) They are size 5 / 38, made by Schuh, and as good as new. Again, I only want the price of postage for them.

Third and last (for now) on the list:

Another pair of shoes. These are a more worn, in particular around the buckle, but otherwise the story is very similar to that of the red pair above. What can I say - I have an issue with shoes that I like but that do not fit. These are size 6, made by Saxone, and way too large for me! I love the classic shape of them.

We'll see how this goes - there may be more in future.

Little treats...

2007-05-12T20:02:00.000Z

I still don' t have much to show for regarding the baby cardigan, although I can report progress - the back is finished and tonight I have cast on for the first of the sleeves, so there is hope. I may even take a picture tomorrow because I am quite enamoured with the scallop trim...

Last Wednesday I finished some work, so I've been taking it a bit easy - I spent some time in the garden yesterday and planted some beans and tomatoes, and today we went to the local farmer's market and took a stroll around town. As I am typing we are watching the Eurovision Song Contest, which is always good for a laugh. Life is good. :-)

I've also been meaning to show a few little things that have arrived in the post since my last blog entry. First of all, I've treated myself to a book that I'd been coveting for I don't know how long:

I am so pleased with this - so far I've only had a quick look through it and there are already at least 3 things I want to knit.

The next thing is the Diaper Bag pattern I bought from Craft Apple. I saw the bag she made a while ago in her blog and I couldn't believe my luck when I realised a few weeks ago that she has now published the pattern for it:

I've been very happy with my Amy Butler Diaper Bag, but I'd love another one - for variety and also because occasionally it can be a bit annoying that the bag doesn't close. It would be good to have one that closes so that, if I overfill the bag (as I usually do) the contents don't spill out.

And lastly, a few weeks ago I received an email from a small start-up company who produces yarn harvested from British farms. It's called Farm Yarn, and they asked me if I'd be interested in reviewing their yarn. I agreed and a few days ago they sent me a small box with some yarn samples:

The yarn is lovely. Obviously it wasn't enough to knit anything, so I can't really say much about how the different types knit up, but they feel wonderfully soft and the natural colours are beautiful. There was natural Alpaca yarn in different weights and colours and also some organic sheep yarn - Llanwenog and Jacob, which isn't quite so soft but has a nice crisp texture to it. I've added a link to their website on my sidebar, so have a look!

May is upon us...

2007-05-05T13:59:00.000Z

... and isn't it lovely to see everything grow?

I was in Germany for a week, to let the relatives have a cuddle with the bean, and when I came back I was greeted with this spectacular growth in the veg patch:

Just because it's so lush and yummy-looking, here it is again:

Isn't it spectacular? I was only gone for a week and everything has grown so much! The potatoes, which you can just about make out in the back, have grown at least 15cm!

There is even some growth on other things - baby cardigans for example. I don't have a picture because really there isn't that much to show for, but I have finished both front panels now. Maybe there is a chance that I can finish this item before my friend's little girl ha finished school after all...

* The bluebells on the top picture have come up amidst the weeds by wall next to the kitchen door - it's quite exciting to see what this garden hides, now that most of the brambles are gone.

Gimme Your Stuff

2007-04-23T15:12:00.001Z

... I've caved and have signed up for Gimme Your Stuff. I've resisted for some time (found the blog a few months back), but it seems like such a cool idea that it was only a matter of time until I gave in. Could be fun, right?

What I can swap:
* yarn
* fabric
* anything crafts related as long as I can get it here
* something handmade by me
* sweets, etc
* anything typically British that you always wanted to get your hands on
* Postcards
* Recipes
* Magazines
* clothes and accessories
* vintage stuff (I love car-boot sales ;-) )
* virtually anything you are looking for, as long as it isn't too heavy

What I am looking for:
* all of the above really, with the exception of sweets (although I like the occasional chocolate bar I'm not much for candy...)
* crafts books and magazines from any country
* fabric
* Japanese crafts books and mags
* Yarn or fibre that is typical for your country
* anything handsewn
* Clothing that I might like (T-shirts, skirts, etc)
* handbags (handmade or bought)
* anything vintage or funky or quirky that you think I might like

There, it's done. I'm clearly doomed to never get any work done...

What does a girl do...

2007-04-21T07:57:00.000Z

... when she doesn't like knitting socks because knitting on small needles takes far too long for her liking?

She starts knitting a baby cardigan on toothpicks of course!

I'm so hopeless. Honestly, much as I adore sock-weight yarn and much as I adore handknit socks, I am rubbish at finishing sock-related knitting projects. Knitting a pair of socks takes me on average 2 years. So what am I doing, trying to knit a baby cardigan in 4-ply yarn? For a deadline that could be any day now (my best friend is due TODAY but fortunately her little girl is not in a hurry to leave her cozy little nest and face the grey and rainly April weather)?

Obviously I fell in love with this project BEFORE I checked on the required yarn and needle size and when I did it was already too late, in particular as I'd been waiting for quite a while for a suitable girl baby to knit this particular item for. And now I'm stuck, evening after evening, after settling the bean down for the night (he thinks knitting needles are utterly fascinating, so no knitting with him around!!), squinting at my minuscule progress on said cardigan. Even D commented a few days ago - 'god, you've been knitting this for ages. It's tiny!!' Grrrr!

I do like the result, though. I think once it's done (should be around the time the little girl leaves home to go to university...) it will be very cute.

Happiness is...

2007-04-16T09:58:00.000Z

... a Sunday afternoon in the garden while the sun is out.

... admiring the fragile flowers on the fruit trees.

... working on the vegetable patch and spotting the first few shoots coming up (these are my mangetout pea seedlings)

... just sitting back with a cold beer and watching the cat (who thinks the new vegetable garden is a fabulous huge cat latrine -blegh!)

... the first BBQ of the season (although it was rather tricky to light sodden charcoal, but the grilled chicken was divine!)

It's good to do nothing in particular sometimes.

~ * ~

My blog seems to be on some kind of hiatus. Not that I want it to be, but somehow I am managing to start most days with thinking "today I am going to update the blog" only to realise when I go to bed that once again I've forgotten to do just that. I have a new resolution, though - from now on, I will update the blog at least once a week and I will only skip the update if I am away. We'll see how I go with that.

Things are good here, the bean is starting to enjoy some solid food, we have finally made a start on painting the walls in his room, and the recently lovely and warm weather has meant that I have also started my very own vegetable patch! And there has even been some crafting and knitting. We are content. Life is good. I think it was this that gave me the idea of starting this little series of posts about what makes me happy.

Look Ma, actual crafts content!

2007-02-08T15:32:00.000Z

It's been a while... again. The bean had his third set of vaccinations and the poor little mite had a rough few days because of them, so that meant no computer-playing time for me, and before that we were in the Midlands for a few days because I finally graduated! Yes, I'm officially at the end of my studies now, and can now enter the frightening world of the job-less. Obviously I am hoping that this is not a permanent state of existence so I am keeping my eyes open for job opportunities, but for now I am trying to enjoy my time at home with the little bean.

One nice thing recently has been going fr walks at lunchtime on those days when D is working from home. We wolf down some food, stick the bean in his carrier, and use the rest of the lunch hour to explore the footpaths around the village. It's really helped me to get to know this part of the world better, and when initially it looked pretty drab, I am slowly coming to appreciate the big open skies you get up here.

And there is always a little surprise, a small discovery - this time it was a horse in a hidden little paddock in the middle of the village.

Crafting has been very slow going. Somehow, knitting and sewing is really not the same when you try to balance a baby on your lap at the same time. Though maybe with a bit of practice...

One thing I finally managed to finish, though, is my first quilt. I used all sorts of off-cuts, mainly very old pieces of fabric that were still from my mother and that I remember from various sorts of projects - kitchen curtains, table cloths, some trousers she made, etc., and I added a few of my own that I had acquired over the years or that were left over from other projects. The result is... eclectic:

It's far from perfect - the quilting is completely wonky and the spacing is uneven, and so is the seam, and sometimes the backing is a little bunched up, where I hadn't pinned the layers together properly - but I really don't care. It's rustic-looking and I think it should be fairly hard-wearing. I used denim fabric as a backing, because it seemed to work best in terms of the colours, but also because I am planning on using this quite a bit in the summer, when the bean can practice his crawling in the garden. For now it works well on the sofa and to cuddle up in on those cold winter evenings.

Yarn Abroad!

2007-01-22T14:50:00.000Z

Guess what arrived in the post today?

The Ferdinand Magellan Yarn Abroad box, full with fiber goodness, straight from Brooklyn, NY, sent by the fabulous Tawana of Rooted in Knit-Reality.

I immediately dug into the box, and look at all the fantastic things she sent me:

Honestly, I am overwhelmed! There is some beautiful Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino in the colourway 'Brown Eyed Girl' (it's me! it's me!), some Soy Silk and Cashmere fibre and some pure Cashmere (pure Cashmere!!), both undyed. There were also some sweets, half of which didn't even make it onto the picture because they were eaten immediately, and she even packed a little something for the Bean - some cute little stripey socks and a cool baby vest which I can't wait to dress him in!!

Thank you so much Tawana, this is a fantastic parcel!

Plans

2007-01-10T13:54:00.000Z

This morning I have been browsing blogs. This has become a rare treat for me, ever since the little bean came into our lives, because nowadays relaxing time at the computer or anywhere else and in any form that means I have both my hands free to do some typing, knitting, sewing, or even cleaning, is a rarity. I am not complaining, mind, because the little bean is continuing to be a little miracle to me and I am spending many hours each day gazing at hime and cataloging all the little things that he learns every day in my mind. I never knew parenthood would be this way, would be so much like being in love, would mean that I could spend hours just looking at and caring for this little bebe without wanting anything else. It's not something that can be imagined, I think, when you don't yet have children. Still, it all means that I don't get much done nowadays that requires the use of both of my hands - typing comments for example, or knitting.
What I noticed, though, when I spent some time browsing this morning, is that everyone seems to have those fantastic New Year's Resolutions. I don't have any.

It made me think, though, and I do have resolutions and plans. For example, I would like to de-stash a little this year. I have bags and bags full of yarn, and still I keep buying more. So I guess my resolution is that I will use up some of that stash. Iwill still have to buy some yarn, for example when I am making things for the bean, but I should be able to get a good few cardigans and sweaters out of the yarn that I have stashed away everywhere.

2) I want to finally sew up my first quilt. I managed to get all the pieces layed out a few weeks back when we were at MIL's place and I had some space to play, but I still haven't managed to sew anything together.

3) I want to finally put all the things I have been saving for that purpose on ebay - there are clothes, and some yarn, and some other stuff, and I just never seem to get round to doing this. I am now bribing myself with Amy Butler fabric from the money I am hoping to make.

4) I want to start spinning again. I have really missed this, but again, spinning with the bean has been a bit tricky... Maybe I can figure out a way of balancing him on my lap while spinning at the same time!

5) I want to finally attend the knitting group in this area. It's so close by, yet I have not managed to get there yet.

6) I want to go to a meeting of the Spinner's Guild in York. It sounds fabulous and it would be great to meet other spinners. Again, I haven't had time for this so far.

7) I want to be better at keeping in touch with friends. I am notoriously bad at phoning or writing to friends, or even at returning phonecalls. It's odd, really - I think about my friends all the time and I love meeting up, but returning calls? Soooo difficult! Part of this is probably that I'm not mad keen on talking on the phone, but partly it's just bad time management. So, here's hoping that there is room for improvement!

Right, the bean is stirring, so I will have to end my list of resolutions. We'll see how it goes...

Back in action...

2007-01-05T10:20:00.000Z

I trust all of you have survived xmas and New Year in one piece?!

We went to Germany so my relatives could worship the bean and we really had a good time. I was particularly excited about the fact that my dad had volunteered to cook the goose. This freed me up enormously and I have to say that he really did a good job, the meal was delicious!

Other than that, life continues to be both slow and hectic - it may not make much sense, but this is what it feels like for me. On the one hand, everything has slowed down since the arrival of the bean, and on the other hand things have got, if that is at all possible, even more chaotic... I have so many plans and yet so little time to spend on any of my numerous projects. At the same time the fact that I am not working means that I have far too much time on my hands to hatch crazy plans.

My newest pet-plan is a little cafe in the tiny cottage next door... I already know that it most likely will not happen, mainly because I also want to go back to work at a university at some point in the next few months, but still, how much fun this could be! I could even sell some wool and fibre and maybe some fabric on the side... I even have fairly clear ideas what I would want the place to look like - I would buy mismatching antique chairs from car boot sales and auctions around here and put some rugs on the floor. The walls could be painted cream and there would be some cute curtains, possibly made from some Amy Butler fabric... Candles on every table, possibly mismatching tablecloths. I could offer a selection of homemade cakes (my fantasies about a working kitchen are coming through here!) and simple meals. In the summer we could set up some tables and chairs in the garden. But alas, I will not have the time to do any of it!

Sometimes too much education can really hold you up... but I feel I have to - and want to - use this title I can put in front of my name now, and to do that I will have to return to academia. This in turn means that my job will eat up each and every minute that I don't wrestle away from it to spend it with the ever-delightful bean and our little family, so plans for cafes and the like will have to remain on ice for the foreseeable future.

But enough of this - I thought I'd show you something that arrived in the post the other day:

Incredibly cute, no? This arrived directly from Japan, where friends of ours are living right now. It's a traditional Japanese dress. The bean hasn't worn it yet, but I can't wait to find an occasion to dress him in it!

Also, Jane tagged me for a meme:

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

1) As a child I used to hate cheese but thought it would be the coolest thing ever to eat a slice of bread with slices of hard cheese on it. To pretend I would cut chilled butter into thick slices and eat it on crisp bread.

2) When I was seven or eight I did (and passed) a bicycle road-worthiness test but now I can’t even take one hand off the handlebar to indicate.

3) I can’t click my fingers.

4) When I think of something that I have done that I find embarrassing and don’t like to think about, I immediately start singing. I have no idea why I do this, and it’s completely involuntary, but it happens every time.

5) I own over 30 90-minute tapes of music from the 1980s, compiled by a friend of mine with whom I lost contact years ago. I love them all.

6) I used to sleepwalk for years, and I still frequently talk in my sleep or sit up in bed suddenly. D tells me about this in the morning but I very rarely have any recollection of it.

I rather liked this one as it made me think about all the little oddities we have, so I am going to tag a few people as well: Craftylilly, Kids & Knits, Opportunity Knits, Mog's Blog, Clothesknit, Fair Isle Fibres. Obviously no worries if you don't have time to do this (I'm not usually a very meme-y person either), so don't feel hassled! ;-)

2006-12-21T14:51:00.000Z

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!!

What would you do?

2006-12-11T10:05:00.000Z

A while ago (rather a long while ago now) I participated in a Yarn co-op and bought some Fleece Artist custom-dyed mohair yarn. Rather a lot of it, and in three colours: there is a juicy red mohair boucle, and then two huge skeins of single-ply mohair in a mossy green and in a light blue. I love them all, but I have NO IDEA what to do with it!

Here is the blue and the green mohair - pen next to it for scale:

And this is the red mohair yarn:

Any ideas? I was thinking about some basic cowl neck jumper with one of the plain yarns - maybe the blue one - but have no pattern yet, and for the other two I just don't know at all.

Next: some new acquisitions...

Another chapter closes...

2006-12-10T22:14:00.000Z

At the end of last week I passed my viva, and with that, the chapter of my PhD is finally drawing to a close. It feels strange, after all, my thesis has occupied me for four years of my life, and the fear of the viva has been with me for almost as long. In the end it was all so much less scary than I thought it would be and 1 1/2 hours later I was drinking champagne and looking dazed while people congratulated me.

Of course it isn't quite over yet - I will have to correct a few typos and the like - but even though I obviously haven't received the 'official' OK from the university yet I have been assured that this is it. I may even get to graduate at the winter graduation, although I may have missed the deadline for that. My most dominant feeling is relief. Such enormous relief. There is elation, sure, and pride as well, and also some sadness that this chapter of my life is now drawing to a close, but most of all I am so glad that it all went well. And I am looking forward to all the things I want to do now.

In fact, the night after the viva I lay awake in bed at 5 am because I was so excited about all the things I want to do next! I do want to get a job, and I want to work on some more publications, and I want to go to a few conferences next year, but right now I want to take some time so enjoy the bean, and to work on the house, and to knit, and to spin, and to finally start the quilt that I have been planning for ages. So many things have been on hold while I was preparing for this last exam, and then there are all those things that I have been waiting to post about but never found the time to. You can expect a lot of activity on this blog in the next few weeks!

But for now, I will make a list - a list of everything I want to do with my life now. :-)

One Yard Fabric Swap - the Update

2006-11-23T13:25:00.000Z

I am resurfacing from the ocean of baby-dom to finally post an update - on my life, and on the One Yard Fabric Swap, which, as far as I can see from the blog entries, has been fun. I think by now most people have received their swap parcels, although I know that some of you are still waiting and/or haven't posted about their parcels yet. Hopefully those few missing parcels are on their way to their new owners by now. I, for one, received the most fabulous parcel just this morning. It came from Caro of Splityarn, all the way from Texas!

Such a cute card:

The haul:

Bibs, made by Caro:

She sent me two bibs, sewn by her in the most gorgeous fabrics, a piece of japanese fabric which is just beautiful, some stitch markers with the G and the O of Green Onion, and some Mision Falls merino wool in a lovely blue / green colour. Thank you so much Caro, I'm thrilled!!

And here is the list so far of all the posts with swap pictures that I have been able to find, in gifting order:

Caitlyn was gifting Penny, who blogs about the parcel on 2nd November 2006 (no perma-link).

Penny prepared a parcel for Amanda, who shows her haul HERE.

Amanda was gifting Elizabeth, who writes about it on 14th October 2006 (again, couldn't find a permanent link).

Elizabeth was sending a parcel to Bekka, who blogs about it HERE.

Bekka was gifting Katie, who blogs about the parcel HERE.

Katie was gifting Gem (Jess' mum), who sent me a photograph and a thank you to post on this blog, but I have since seen that she has hijacked Jess' blog to post her thank you there. The post is HERE.

Gem in turn was sending a parcel to Sherrill, who blogs about it on Tuesday 2nd November 2006 (couldn't find a permanent link to the post).

Sherrill was gifting Caro, who shows us the contents of the parcel HERE.

Caro was gifting Iris, who blogs about it in this very post ;-).

Iris was gifting Zonda, who blogs about the parcel in her post of 6th November 2006 (again, no perma-link)

Zonda was gifting Joyce, who shows her parcel HERE.

Joyce was gifting Kaye, who shows the contents of the parcel HERE.

Kaye was sending a parcel to Jess, who is still waiting for it to arrive.

Jess was in turn gifting Diane, who is also still waiting for her parcel to arrive.

Diane was gifting Joni, who blogs about it HERE.

Joni sent a parcel to Jill, who writes about it HERE.

Jill prepared a parcel for Lynne, the post about the contents is HERE.

Lynne was gifting Leah, who posts about the parcel HERE.

Leah sent a parcel to Teri. I couldn't find any post about it on Teri's blog so I assume it hasn't arrived yet. Any news, Teri?

Teri sent a parcel to Erin. I'm not sure if this has arrived yet, as I couldn't find a post about it yet, but I imagine it can take some time for parcels to make it to Singapore.

Erin in turn was gifting Beth, who has received her parcel and blogs about it HERE.

Beth prepared a parcel for Kate. The post about it is HERE.

And Kate in turn sent a parcel to Caitlyn, thus closing the circle. Caitlyn blogs about it in her post on 3rd November 2006 (again, no perma-link).

Last minute...

2006-11-01T16:38:00.000Z

Well, my One-Yard-Fabric-Swap parcel made it to the post office in time yesterday, so at least I made it before the deadline. Nobody ever accused me of being too early for anything - well, apart from the arrival of the Bean... 4 days early... totally unheard of! But then, the arrival of the Bean wasn't strictly speaking my doing, or else he would have been 2 weeks late and even heavier than he was (ouch!).

I'm also fairly last minute on other things recently. Of course now I have the excuse of a newborn, but still, is it really necessary to leave things so late that you end up typing letters and filling in forms on the computer with a pillow between you and the keyboard on which the Bean either sleeps or has a snack?! And now I have done it again - yesterday was the deadline for the submission of abstracts for papers for a conference. Obviously I totally miscalculated the amount of time it would take me to even get my fuzzy post-pregnancy brain into gear and start processing information in any shape or form suitable for academic thought, never mind finish a paper proposal, so I had to end the day by writing an apologetic email to the organiser, asking for more time. Do I need to point out how much I hate bothering people in this way? Fortunately they were very nice and I have till the end of the week, so here is hoping that I will have something resembling a coherent idea by then...

Anyway, back to the One-Yard-Fabric-Swap. I finally had a look round the blogs, and although not all parcels have arrived yet, the ones I have seen so far look fantastic! I am so happy to see the effort that everyone seems to have put into their parcels and they all look wonderful. In the next few days I will post a list of links to people's posts so they can be easily found, and in a week or two I will update it to include the rest of the parcels. I can't wait to see them all!! Which reminds me - if you don't have a blog, please don't forget to take pictures of your haul and email them to me. I will then post them on my blog so we can all properly admire them. ;-)

And now, since I seem to go on so much about my dreadful last minute habit, I will try to actively do something about it and have another look at that abstract...

checking in...

2006-10-30T10:01:00.000Z

With the bean occupied with a garishly-coloured mobile toy in his moses basket behind me I thought I should at least briefly check in to say that I haven't completely disappeared! So first of all, thank you all so much for the many well-wishes I got from everyone. I had no idea there were even that many people reading this blog!! At some point in the future I will attempt to answer all the comments (or at least those where I can find an email address) personally, but for now, a big fat THANK YOU to you all. :-)

Secondly, a particular thank you to Sherrill, who sent me a beautiful knitted baby cardigan which the bean has already worn. I still haven't got round to photographing it, but I remember Sherrill posting a picture of it a while back... She also included a pack of baby onesies, which are great! Thank you so much Sherrill!!

Thirdly, another particular thank you to Jane, who sent me a really cute baby hat, which even spells 'BEAN'! Thank you Jane, the hat is great and I am sure we will use it a lot this winter!

I am also aware that I still haven't posted a picture of our little bean, so to make up for that, here he is, big bum and all! ;-)

Other than that, there isn't all that much to report. Life with a brand-new bean continues to be both wonderful and rather hard work. I still don't get more than around 5 hours of interrupted sleep each night, but my body seems to adjust to it, so I don't feel quite as sleep-deprived as I did in the first two weeks. I am also more mobile now, so I have been trying to leave the house most days. The bean is doing great too and has already put on quite a bit of weight. We are starting to get the first smiles now!

There has been some knitting, but not much, so I will save it for a later post.

Right, and now I'm off to get the parcel for the One-Yard-Fabric-Swap ready - last minute as ever!

Public Service Announcement

2006-10-06T17:51:00.000Z

Well, not really, but I thought I'd quickly post to say that the Bean is finally here.

He arrived a few days before his due date on Tuesday 26th September 2006 at 10.37 am after a 9 hour labour. The birth was thankfully smooth and natural, even though he was heavier than I had anticipated - 8 llb 7 oz. D and I are completely in love with him.

Bean and I were able to leave the hospital the next afternoon and have been at home since, but because I am existing in a bit of a sleep-deprived haze right now and because every time I sit down at the computer Bean demands to be fed I don't seem to get round to even answering any emails, never mind update the blog! I have hope that as things settle down into a bit more of a routine it will get better!!

I should resurface in a week or so (I hope), but for now I am off to sleep...

Z...z...z...z...z...z..z..z..z.z.z.z.z.z.....

Look who it is!

2006-09-21T07:31:00.000Z

It's Henry the Navigator!

You can imagine my excitement when the postman delivered a huge box this morning which was, at a glance, revealed to have come all the way from the US, from the lovely Teyani of The Intrepid Fibrewizard. I was a bit baffled by the size of it, as I had imagined the Yarn Abroad box to be a bit smaller, but that mystery was soon explained when I opened the parcel.

Inside it was this:

Isn't that adorable? The cute not-so-little bear was nestling next to the Henry the Navigator box. I think I shall call him Henry - it seems only appropriate! :-) Henry the bear, a little yarn label revealed, is knitted from Blue Sky Cotton, which is lovely and soft - I can completely understand now why everyone goes on about what a great yarn this is. Bean's first knitted soft toy, so cute!

Next was the yarn abroad box itself:

This is what I found inside:

And unwrapped:

There is some yummy Lorna's Laces in a beautiful and unusual colour combination of green, blue, and yellow - I love it! Further, there is a Fibre Trends sock pattern for 'Peak Experience Socks', which looks perfect for variegated and self-striping yarns, and a pattern for a baby sweater with cables, which I am looking forward to knitting. Then there was a cute little purse made from a baby's sock, with some coins in it. What is the meaning of those Teyani? There was also a little yarn needle and a wooden button, which looks very pretty, but again, I'm not totally sure what it is... Teyani?

Further, there were two postcards from Washington and from Seattle (it looks beautiful), a great fridge magnet which says 'Chocolate is proof that God wants us to be happy' - I obviously agree fully - and finally two delicious chocolate bars, which I am afraid to say are already gone. D found them about 5 minutes after I had opened the parcel and while I was still fondling the yarn and Henry the bear, he had already opened the Lemon fudge bar and had eaten half of it. This immediately prompted me to waddle over there and push the other half of the bar into my mouth before he could eat it... I get very ungenerous and territorial about my food nowadays - I blame it on late pregnancy (This is also my excuse for usually eating more than D now). ;-) The other bar of mint chocolate followed shortly after. Delicious!

What a fabulous parcel - Teyani, I can't thank you enough. And that you even knitted a bear for the bean really touched me. Thank you!!

2006-09-20T09:26:00.000Z

We're on! The deadline was on Sunday, and the matches went out yesterday evening. If you haven't received your match, please let me know asap - it's entirely possible that I managed to miss somebody out!

How I matched people up:

Entirely by chance, with some little tweaking to accommodate things like cat hair allergies and not wanting to ship internationally.

All your names went onto little bits of paper, were folded, mixed, and then set out in a line. I then made a note of the order and double-checked to make sure that there weren't any obvious mismatches, such as obvious cat-lovers with 5 cats sending parcels to people with cat allergies and the like, although I cannot guarantee for how well I have succeeded with this as not everybody might post about their pets... If you have cats and have ended up with someone who is allergic and think you may not be able to keep the cats away from the fabric, please let me know as soon as possible so I can try to change things around.

Other than that, I left the matches exactly how they happened to be - I think it's fun to 'meet' people through chance encounters like that. :-)

As a reminder:

Deadline for the sending of the parcels: End of October 2006

Swap rules: HERE

ETA: This is a secret swap - I have not told anyone who will be gifting them (although for myself it was kind of unavoidable ;-)). This is not to say that you can't contact your swap partner. Send them an email or leave a comment on their blog to say Hi! or to ask any questions, just do so anonymously. You can then reveal your identity through your parcel.

I am really looking forward to this - hopefully it will be fun for everbody!

Counting down...

2006-09-18T10:56:00.000Z

For the sake of keeping a record, I thought I should post a picture of my belly these days. It may not look that big (although... I really think it does!!), but compared to the picture next to it, which is me when I was 2 weeks or so pregnant (I don't think I even knew then) it is quite a difference!

The picture was taken a few days ago when D and I finally got round to taking a few more pictures. Of course this is a far cry from our initial plans - taking pictures every month to monitor the growth of the belly. Instead we have a few pictures of the initial bloatedness of the first 12 weeks, maybe one picture of a 5 month belly and then this set of pictures... I guess it's still good that we managed to at least take a few before the bean is ready to face the world!

~ * ~

Other than that, I have been in the right sort of mood to finish some WIPs. I have been knitting like crazy on the logcabin baby blanket and lo and behold, I only have one round to go before I can call it done. Unfortunately I seem to be running out of yarn for one of the sections, so I may have to make a quick run to the local yarn shop (and hope that they stock the particular yarn I have been using), but even with that little hold-up it should be finished very very soon.

I have also finished the messenger bag that I started sewing a week or so ago. There is no pattern, so the whole thing was a bit of an experiment, and overall it's not as tidy as it could have been. Still, I am pleased with the result, and have already used it to tote the soon-to-be-finished baby blanket around with me when D and I went out yesterday afternoon!

The inside of the bag has two pockets - one for a mobile phone, one a bit bigger, for a wallet for example. Shame on me, though, for not thinking of this earlier - the bag now sports some seams which are visible on the outside of the bag because this being an afterthought I had of course already sewn up the rest of the bag. I also ran out of fabric for the bag straps, so I had to settle for having two thin ones rather than one big strap (you can see this a little on the pictures). I am contemplating sewing them up in the middle to make it look slightly less odd...

Right, onto the next finished WIP - the garter stitch baby cardigan in unphotogenic dark blue. I have finally found and added some buttons:

Predictably, the colours are totally off. The cardi itself is a darker colour than it appears on the picture, while the buttons are a light blue rather than the white that they seem to be here. I am really pleased with this, in particular as it hasn't turned out too tiny and bean should be able to wear it for quite some time.

And last but not least, I have been trying myself at sewing softies. My first attempt isn't much to show for, but I love the result anyway. May I present Manfred the hippo (eyes to come once I can think of some way to not make them look creepy):

Manfred is very very wonky, because, being the lazy thing that I am, I didn't bother stitching the pieces of felt together before I started sewing. Instead I made this up as I went along, with the rather predictable result of poor Manfred being a bit lopsided. I think with my next softie I should maybe take the prep work a bit more seriously! ;-)

~ * ~

One-Yard-Fabric Swap

Well, the deadline was yesterday evening, and it looks like we have a good group of people now! I also have most of the questionnaires back by now (all apart from one! ;-)) so I shall wait for a another day or so to give the last swapper time to send it back and then you can expect to receive your swap partner details on Wednesday or on Thursday at the latest.

As a reminder, details of the swap and the rules are in the sidebar of the blog or else HERE. The deadline for sending the parcels to your swap partners is the END OF OCTOBER, so there should be ample time to get everything together.

I am really looking forward to this and as this is my first attempt at hosting a swap I am so pleased to have such a lovely group of people together. Can't wait to see what people will send! :-)

One fine morning...

2006-09-11T08:01:00.000Z

There is something incredibly comforting about a hot cup of sweetened tea and some biscuits, possibly accompanied the reading of a newspaper - or, in this case, some vintage sweater patterns that I wasn't able to resist and bought off ebay the other day.

Not that I'm knitting tight-fitting sweaters for myself anytime soon. ;-)

Instead, I have a day of sewing planned for today. I have a Roman blind to finish for the bedroom, which is finally ready to be inhabited! D put on the last coat of oil paint on the window yesterday morning and as soon as the nasty paint smell has somewhat evaporated we will finally move out of our dusty hovel of a bedroom. Right now it looks so crisp and clean that I feel almost sorry to disturb the harmony of the simple and clear lines:

I have also decided to sew another bag - this time of my own design if you can call it that. It's a simple bag with a classic messenger bag look to it, or at least that is what I am envisioning.

In terms of bean preparations, the imminent change in our room situation, brought on by the finishing of the bedroom, also spurred me into action to do something about the huge pile of baby clothes, blankets, sheets, etc. waiting to be washed. Can you imagine that I spent all day yesterday washing baby clothes? And that it's still not quite done?! As D put it, while shaking his head in disbelief: "How many clothes can one tiny lad need?!" I'm pretty sure the answer to that one would be: "not nearly as many as we have for him."

They do look pretty on that washing line, though, don't they?

The reason for the slightly out-of-control baby clothes situation is that a few days ago a friend of ours came round with two huge black binbags full of baby clothes - all for boys, all for newborns. They are beautiful and nearly new clothes and we were of course more than grateful to accept. It has me wondering, though - sure, she has three little boys, but it's not like she had them all at the same time and would have needed three times the amount of chothes. Even if you buy something new now and then, how do you amass such a huge quantity of baby wear? Or is something like 40 sleepsuits and an equal amount of shortsleeved body suits not a huge quantity? Am I being naive?

In any case, I was totally overwhelmed, in particular as they are all so pretty! This means that, with the exception of summer clothes, I am washing them all. Now of course D and I have nowhere to put our own clothes, but never mind that... ;-)

Hopefully there will be sewing and possibly even knitting content to show for by tomorrow!

Getting ready for the bean...

2006-09-06T09:46:00.000Z

The last week or so I have been trying to get ready for the impending arrival of the bean. There isn't much I can do about the house itself at this point, although the bedroom is coming along quite nicely, but there is still plenty to do.

Yesterday, apart from the frantic jam-making, I spent most of the day doing paperwork and getting finance stuff in order. I hate doing this kind of work, and by the afternoon I had worked myself up into quite a foul mood. It didn't help that I had to go to the garage *again* to fix something regarding one of our cars. I swear, the guy at the garage is rapidly becoming my new best friend - it seems like I can't do for two days without paying him a visit. First it's MOTs, then my car starts making strange noises, then the radiator starts leaking, then the breaks start packing up on the other car, ... And everytime I need to go there I have to ask MIL to give me a lift. I don't like relying and imposing on others like that, but there is really no way around it.

Still, retrospectively, yesterday was good in a I-got-lots-of-unpleasant-stuff-done kind of way. And today the rest of the jam jars are arriving (another 80 jars or so!), so I will be able to bottle the rest of the jam up AND get started on making apple sauce with some of the apples languishing in the kitchen right now. Other than that, I have another ultrasound today - bean has decided that he rather likes to be head up rather than head down - he's breach. Hopefully he'll still turn on his own (after all, he still has around 4 weeks to do so), but my midwife decided that she wants it checked out anyway.

But back to my preparations. I admit that I have been on a major spending spree. Not that I went out of my way to buy excessively expensive things (in fact, I tried to source a lot second hand), but I am continuing to be amazed at the amount of kit that a baby requires: pram, carseat, cot, moses basket, blankets, sheets, nappy paraphenalia, clothes, ... And that doesn't even touch on all the non-essential yet nice items like little toys or possibly a mobile above the cot. I have been restricting myself to the absolute basics, but have still managed to amass a mountain of baby gear in the spare room (where it is all living for now, waiting to be moved into the yet-to-be-finished bedroom).

We have also decided to do the whole baby thing as green as is feasible for our circumstances. I guess the impulse comes with moving out of the city and goes hand in hand with the jam-making. This means that we have decided to give re-usable nappies a go, at least for at home (if we go on holiday I think we will probably still rely on disposable ones). This opens up another entirely new area of research. Who knew how many types of re-usable nappy were out there?! Not me! I have now ordered a few samples and have also put in an order for other 'green', environmentally friendly baby stuff. The order arrived a few days ago and I felt like an overexcited child at christmas when opening it:

All the exciting new kit! Nappy liners, and cleaning stuff, and changing mats, ... I was a bit baffled by amount of bubble wrap used in the box (not in the picture) - considering this is one of the main green mail order companies in the UK I would have thought they would come up with something a little less plastic-y to wrap the stuff in, but we will re-use all the bubble wrap for our move, so it doesn't matter too much.

Now that I have most of the baby gear together I have also managed to get on with making some items. The knitted cardigan I showed the other day is still awaiting some buttons, but the log-cabin baby blanket is progressing nicely:

It's slow, though. I feel reminded of all the reasons why I don't like knitting blankets and the like - it's boring. This isn't too bad, because at least I get to change colours once in a while, but as the sections grow longer I am becoming more impatient. How big does a baby blanket have to be anyway?!

I have also finally finished the Amy Butler Nappy Bag that I started a while back (I couldn't finish it then because I had run out of fabric for the lining). I am quite pleased with it, although it is rather large. It could also be a great deal neater, but I admit it now - I am terrible at finishing things off neatly. I am too impatient. Especially with sewing this has always been my downfall. Still, I think the bag will do nicely:

Next on the sewing list - a Roman blind for the bedroom window. I have already started it, but need to cut some dowels to size before I continue.

More tales from 'The Good Life'

2006-09-04T17:50:00.000Z

Do you see that? The picture above? Those are Victoria plums. Delicious and ripe Victoria plums. They are part of our second bumper harvest this year (and I am not even counting the Greengages, which I have already dealt with). Yesterday alone, D and I harvested around 4 buckets full of apples and 2 buckets of plums (add to that another two buckets, which are already transformed into jam and plum cake):

We are drowning in fruit!

Not that I'm complaining - in fact, we are thrilled - but I am ordering jam jars for the second time in a week now. The 36 glasses that I had ordered initially are not nearly enough.

There will be more plum jam (the Victoria plum jam I made with the first crop is delicious and we have managed to give quite a few glasses away to friends and family), more plum cake, a lot of apple sauce, and a friend of mine who dropped by yesterday suggested slicing some of the apples and freezing them like that for cake and the like.

It's a real shame that we can't store some of the fruit for winter without having to turn it all into preserves etc, but since everything is organic and hasn't been sprayed with anything there are quite a few bugs which made their little homes in the apples and plums - not in all of them, but it's almost impossible to tell before you cut them open, in particular with the plums (browsing a few days ago I found that The Pink Iris had the same problem with her plums HERE. I refuse to discard them, though, so we very laboriously cut each one open and cut the infested bit away. Took ages but was well worth it!!)

There will be pictures once I have bottled all the new jam up, but for now I am moving on and away from The Good Life and towards some good old-fashioned knitting content (trying to get back to the roots of this blog here!). A few days ago, a received a little parcel in the post, for which I have of course already sent a private thank you, but which really needs to be shown:

It's a little bib for bean, made by the lovely Mia of Way Past My Bedtime. Isn't it cute? I absolutely love the colour, a dusty blue, and have you seen the cool button? She also added some KnitPicks sock yarn to dye myself (this is my FIRST EVER Knitpicks yarn - I'm so excited!) and some Koolaid to do the dyeing. Thank you so much Mia!!

Then, yesterday the friend who stopped by brought me a little baby cardigan that she had knitted. Here it is, together with yet another cardigan - this time knitted by me (yes, I do still knit, although I seem to have slowed down rather a bit, due to excessive jam production):

Hers is the white one, mine is the dark blob behind it (true to form dark knitting remains impossible to photograph), so far without buttons and hence not really recognisable as a cardigan.

Right, better get back to work.

One-Yard-Fabric-Swap Update

2006-08-27T13:09:00.001Z

A bit later than I had planned, but I was delayed by friends who stayed over last week...

Here is a list of the people who have shown interest in the fabric swap so far:

Sherrill at BaaBonnyBelle
Jess at Scarf-o-Matic
Jess's mum in Holland (I don't know if she has a website - Jess?)
Elizabeth at Lazy Life
Caro at Splityarn
Joni at Union Center Knits
Kate at Apples and Oranges
Zonda at Z Knits... and Sews
Amanda at Clothesknit
Katie at Knits and Grits
Leah at Stress Reaction
Jill at Just Another Creative Thing to Do
Lynne at I Was Knit Together In My Mother's Womb
Penny at Random Thoughts From Another Dilettante
Diane from Lincoln, US (no blog)
Erin at Opportunity Knits
Bekka at Bekka
Caitlyn at Knot Without my Knitting
Joyce at Slateblu
Kaye at Bliss Out
Beth at Felt Like Knitting
Teri at Knitting, With Beads
and of course myself at Once Upon a Time...

That should be everybody, but please let me know if you are on the list but don't want to be or alternatively, if I somehow managed to miss your name off! Also, if I don't already have it, could you please let me have a contact email - I will need it for further communication (there will be a short questionnaire for everyone, and I obviously also need to send you the information about your swap partner). You can email me at merkuria_lyn@yahoo.co.uk.

So far, we are 14 people participating. I'm quite pleased with that number - not too small a group, but still small enough to be easily manageable. Which means that my problem of if I should post on Swap Bot has solved itself - I don't think it's necessary, and quite honestly, control freak that I am, I feel more comfortable just keeping it on my blog. ;-). Joni has created the button above, so feel free to post it on your blog, and Amanda has offered to help out if necessary (thanks again to both of you for all your help!!), so if I am not contactable for a few days due to the arrival of the bean, she may be able to help.

As I have said before, I think I will leave the swap open for a few more days. So the deadline is Sunday 17th September 2006. I will then send the matches out in the week following the 17th September, and the deadline for sending the parcels will be Tuesday 31st October 2006.

Here are the rules again:

1) The idea is to send no less than 1 yard of continuous fabric, enough for a little sewing project, and, to make sure that nobody ends up with, as Alex put it, 'some nasty nylon' - cotton only!

2) Only send what you would also love to receive. So no palming off of unloved bits of fabric that you would otherwise stick in the bin! ;-)

3) Include other little presents - sweets, yarn, other crafty things, something you think the other person would like.

4) Suggested spending: around $25 (or around £15) max.

Edited to add:

5) You can use fabric from stash if you want, but see rule no. 2!

6) Please notify me asap when you receive your parcel and post about it on your blog so we can all be nosy and have a look! If you don't have a blog, please send me a picture of what you have received when you notify me so I can post it for you.

Please let me know if you have any questions and if you still want to join, just leave a comment or email me at merkuria_lyn@yahoo.co.uk.

Got Fruit?

2006-08-26T11:58:00.000Z

Recently, I sometimes I feel like Barbara from The Good Life. Moving out of the city has definitely changed our life - in some ways it has slowed down, but in other ways it has made us very busy indeed. There always seems to be something to do, and I'm not talking the never-ending DIY either!

Last week, we came back from our trip to the old nest, and thought we'd take a look at our little orchard. We'd been watching the fruit grow and change colour for quite some time, and in particular the plums had started to gain in size. As they were still green, though, we thought that they weren't quite ripe, a mistake on our part, as when D picked one he discovered that our yet-to-turn-red non-ripe plums were in fact Greengages, and more than just a little bit ripe!

That evening we picked 5 buckets full of Greengages, all deliciously sweet, and I am not even trying to reconstruct how many we ate there and then. Not that it even made a dent in the amount of fruit piled up on our kitchen counter.

Obviously, we had to come up with a quick solution to that much fruit or we'd have a fruit fly invasion on our hands, and we spontaneously decided to make Greengage jam. I wasn't able to find a recipe for this online (most plum jam seems to be made from Damsons, which we also have but which are not quite ripe yet), so I decided to just make it up. I used several kilos of Greengages (as much as would fit in the pot), some jam-making sugar (about 600g), cloves, a stick of cinnamon, and some ginger. I really wanted to add a bit of Rum, but we didn't have any (still in the old house), so I made do without it. The resulting jam did not quite thicken, at least not through the Pectin, but to make up for it I cooked it for long enough to get rid of excess liquid and removed the foamy residue at the top. This is what we got:

We ran out of jam jars, so had to use one pint glass and a bowl. I have no idea how long the jam will last, so we are trying to work out way though the open glasses as quickly as we can. The taste is delicious - sweet, but not too sweet, with a hint of acidity and just the merest hint of cinnamon and clove.

I hadn't made jam for at least 10 years, so I seriously need to brush up on my jam-making skills. There are still 2 more plum trees, so there is definitely more to come. Also, what do you do with 4 different varieties of apples (there is some kind of bug in them, so I don't think they will store for very long), and 2 varieties of pears?! Any ideas?

This whole self-sufficiency episode has spurred me on to finally do some sewing, and what better way to start than with an apron? Sherrill at BaaBonnyBelle was sewing aprons a while back and is also hosting an Apron KAL. The apron I made is inspired by her basic design, although I changed it a little:

I look huge in this picture! Not having any floor-length mirrors in this house (all this is still in the old house) means that I haven't seen the size of my belly in quite some time - it's enormous!!

But anyway, the apron - it's made from Amy Butler fabric and the design is quite basic. I added a big double pocket at the front, two long bits of fabric to tie the apron, and the tie around the neck is construced with one piece of fabric that is threaded through a button-hole on the other side and then knotted.

I have also started sewing some bags - an Amy Butler Nappy Bag, which is still not quite finished because I ran out of fabric and had to order some more, and a Swing Bag, which I finished last Saturday and which I have already been using all week. Here it is, photographed in our dusty hall:

I love the design. It's simple, neat, and very sturdy, and it can even be turned inside out if I get tired of the blue patterned fabric and want a plain brown bag.

And that is it for today. In case anyone is wondering, I have been knitting, but right now there I don't have much to show for. Maybe in a few days time!

Update on the Fabric Swap tomorrow!

One-Yard-Fabric-Swap

2006-08-16T16:53:00.000Z

Well, some news re. the One-Yard-Fabric-Swap. We have a button! The lovely and talented Joni of Union Center Knits volunteered to design it, and hasn't she done a fantastic job?

I have already outlined the basic rules in one of the last posts, but here they are again:

1) The idea is to send no less than 1 yard of continuous fabric, enough for a little sewing project, and, to make sure that nobody ends up with, as Alex put it, 'some nasty nylon' - cotton only!

2) Only send what you would also love to receive. So no palming off of unloved bits of fabric that you would otherwise stick in the bin! ;-)

3) Include other little presents - sweets, yarn, other crafty things, something you think the other person would like.

4) Suggested spending: around $25 (or around £15) max.

The sign-up deadline I am aiming for is mid- to end of September, with about a month to get parcels ready, so the deadline for the sending of fabrics would be the end of October. I admit that part of my timing has to do with the predicted arrival of the bean at the end of September, but I think the timeframe is quite convenient anyway. Let me know what you think, though - I'm open to suggestions!

Also, I am still unsure if I should use Swap Bot. I imagine that you would have to sign up there, if you are not already registered with them. If I go ahead, I will do so after the weekend - possibly on Monday or Tuesday.

Anyway, that is all for today - but go ahead and take the button to publicise the swap a bit if you want! :-)

Flooding, holidays, and fibre...

2006-08-07T07:58:00.000Z

If you can't tell from the heading, this is going to be a photo-heavy, long and slightly disconnected entry. Never mind - who needs coherent and non-rambling posts that load quickly anyway!? ;-)

First of all, I had said I was going to post a picture or two of the flooding that turned our poor house into a slightly leaking Noah's arc. Well, here they are:

Clockwise from upper left: 1) the water level just before the cottage started flooding. 2-4) The rising water level in the yard.

But enough of that! ;-)

Much more fun to think about our holiday. Oh, how lovely it was. As I have probably mentioned, the first two days it was raining quite a bit, but it didn't matter - the lovely room, the yummy food, the beautiful landscape, the complete lack of DIY, ... it was great!

Our hotel was the Newby Bridge Hotel. You can have a look at it HERE. We arrived on Monday afternoon, so that first day we didn't do much apart from enjoy the lovely food in the evening. We had been lucky enough to get a special deal for our stay, which meant that we had room, breakfast, and dinner included for a price that was lower than just room and breakfast. I was so glad it worked out that way, because not only did it save us venturing out in the evening (we were always exhausted from all the driving around during the day), but the food turned out to be a fantastic 3-course meal!

Anyway, on the Tuesday we went on a steamboat cruise around Lake Windermere. A very tourist-y thing to do, but that's what we were after all - tourists! ;-)

I loved the landscape around the lake, but of course I hadn't seen anything of the 'real' lake district yet. That changed the next day, when we decided to drive up to Stainton / Penrith to visit the Alpaca Centre there (can't go on a holiday without some kind of fibre content!). This is the scenery we drove through:

It was breathtaking, even with the rather miserable and cold weather. Even the Alpaca's looked a bit soaked, although, as befitting for members of the camel family, they seemed supremely disinterested in their surroundings. What is it about this type of animal and the staring fixedly at some spot on the horizon?!

But the most exciting thing about the Alpaca Centre was not the Alpacas (although I liked them), but their fleece! We splashed out on 1200g of lovely off-white yearling fleece which had just come in. The yearling, Mistral, whose fleece it was, had just been shorn the day before! No picture yet, but I can't wait to spin this stuff up - the owner assured me that it should be enough for two jumpers / cardigans. Maybe if I try some Navajo plying? It would be a new technique for me and I've been meaning to try it for some time now...

D also had fun. He quite likes the whole process of spinning, but he was most excited to see that there was a wood-turning workshop on the premises. We spent a good 40 minutes hearing all about lathes and wood-turning. Quite interesting, and if D continues being interested in it I wouldn't mind giving it a go at some point.

From there we went on to Keswick for a leisurely lunch and afternoon tea (the whole holiday was VERY food-focussed. I have become quite obsessed with food recently...), and that was day two!

Day three was the probably most fun day of the holiday, not least because we awoke to a beautiful blue sky. We decided to spend the day exploring the lake district hills a bit more, so we headed off into the heart of the lake district, always following the tiniest roads that were marked on the map. The scenery was absolutely amazing, and we took it slowly, enjoying the sunshine, and stopping frequently.

We stopped by a quirky little pub we discovered, which had porch with wicker chairs and overlooked a valley. We basked in the warm sun and enjoyed a simple lunch. This is how the food arrived at our table - isn't that cute?

That's a simple cheese and ham sandwich and a Ploughman's Lunch (in the towel).

After that, we went exploring and ended up driving through a few beautiful valleys and through a mountain pass - the roads were tiny, barely wide enough for one car, and it was high enough to make your ears pop:

It was so beautiful! We arrived back home that day completely exhausted but happy. I'm so glad we had that day, because the next day was already the last and we didn't have time to do much else but pack our bags and set off home.

I shall leave you with one last set of images - what I have been spinning before we went on holiday:

This is the fibre that Sherrill at BaaBonnyBelle sent me a while back as part of the Knitty board Holiday SP Exchange. Not quite sure what it is, but it was wonderful to spin. For quite some time I wasn't sure how to spin it, because I wanted to make it enough for a little knitting project. Eventually I plied it with some grey Romney roving that I still had - it had been part of the first ever batch of fibre I bought, back on honeymoon in New England last year, and there was not that much left. I was glad to have found a way to use both. The end result is a soft and slightly shimmering yarn with muted colours. Initially I was a bit regretful that I would loose the vibrant colours of the dyed fibre, but now I am very happy with the end result. And there might even be enough for a hat or some fingerless gloves!

First things first!

2006-08-05T07:42:00.000Z

We are back from our little holiday - thanks for all your well-wishes, we had a fabulous time! For two days it was raining quite a bit, but even with that draw-back, it was a wonderful holiday and we both got some much-needed rest. Now it's back to reality, though. D is already upstairs, tinkering with our bathroom suite, and it looks as if by tonight we might have a functioning sink and toilet. Yay! ;-)

I have lots of pictures of the lake district, and I know I also said that I would post about the flooding and about my recent spinning efforts, but before I start with that, first things first: Before we went away I finally got my socks from the Sockapaloooza sock exchange. I had thought they had got lost in the mail and had already almost given up hope, but when I went to the PO Box last weekend they were there! I have no idea what happened, because it was apparent that they had been there for quite some time (how lucky they hadn't been sent back!) - I had rung up a few times and had been to check, but apparently, before last weekend nobody had been able to spot the parcel.

Sometimes I am glad that we have moved and I won't be able to use the PO Box anymore from now on!

Anyway, here are the fabulous contents of the parcel:

My Sockapaloooza pal was Sabine (her blog is here: Stricky) and she sent me some lovely blue sock yarn, some Italian soap (which smells wonderful), three themed postcards of Berlin, where she lives, picturing the city at different points in time), and of course the socks. They are the Madder Ribbed Socks from Nancy Bush's Vintage Socks book. There were also some very cute stitch markers, but somehow I managed to miss them out when I took the photograph, and now everything is stashed in the big box I packed to take up North that weekend... Here is another picture of the socks, though, this time modelled by me (please ignore the slightly swollen ankles and the rather pasty-looking skin on my calf, OK?):

Don't they fit perfectly? I'm so thrilled with them. Thank you Sabine, I couldn't be more delighted with the parcel you sent me! :-)

Lake District, here we come...

2006-07-31T08:02:00.000Z

D, myself, and the bean, are off on holiday for the week. A, as I think, well-deserved 5 day break in a nice hotel in the Lake District. Almost an entire week of pampering! Can't wait. ;-)

Keep well, and until next weekend!

*waves*

An eventful evening, and One Yard Fabric Swap update

2006-07-28T18:44:00.000Z

Last night was ... interesting.

After a rather uneventful day, which I spent mainly sweating and wilting in the humid heat and fretting over the non-event that was academic work or any kind of coherent thinking, our evening was one of a kind.

7pm: It all started with the rain. One minute it was hot and humid and the sky was blue, and the next minute it was so dark we had to switch on the light in the house. Then the skies opened. It rained like I have hardly seen it rain before. Our poor old house, it seems, couldn't cope too well, because all that water prooved a bit too much for the rain pipes and within minutes the conservatory/glass outhouse (very old) was flooded.

Then it became apparent that not only the house couldn't cope with the masses of water - neither could the gullies in the road. This meant that what had been a road only minutes before rapidly turned into a river which, joy oh joy, flowed right under our gates and into the back garden. There it spread, the water level steadily rising, until it started to flood the little cottage in which we have been using the kitchen and the bathroom.

By that point, D was trying to shift sand bags to the door of the cottage to stem the flow of the water somewhat, but the damage was done. The street, and half our back garden were flooded, and water was pouring into the kitchen of the cottage. The amazing thing was that the whole thing was over within 20 minutes. The rain eased up, and the water disappeared down the gullies in the road.

I have taken pictures, but since we are in the old house right now I can't upload them. Will post some on Monday, though!

Well, all that happened around 7.00pm. By 8pm we were finally on the road to drive down to the Midlands. Around 30 minutes into the journey, we had a call on D's mobile. It was MIL, sounding rather strange and spooked on the phone as she informed me: "I've had a little accident. I've just swallowed some diluted bleach..."

WHAT?!

Needless to say, we turned back. She'd drunk the bleach by accident because it had been in a cup by the sink (don't ask me why it was in that cup in the first place - MIL uses bleach for everything, so she was probably soaking something in there) - had noticed that it tasted a bit 'funny' and had already rung the emergency line, so an ambulance was on the way to her. Arrived at MIL's around 10pm. The ambulance had just left and they thought the bleach must have been quite diluted and that she would be OK. We had a cup of tea with her and she professed that her mouth felt rather strange - kind of like it had been scrubbed clean... No kidding.

That's when we decided to drive down to the Midlands in the morning. It was getting rather late, we were tired and a bit drained after the whole Noah's arc episode and the bleach incident, and all I wanted was to go to bed. Which we did.

Now, roll on 3am, when I woke up with the worst cramp in my leg I have ever had in my life. Ouch!! Honestly, for a minute there I didn't know what to do with myself, it hurt that much. And I'm not usually that fussy. Because I wasn't all that coherent, D got really scared and by the time I had stopped groaning and twitching and had managed to pull my wits together enough to tell him that it was a cramp we were both wide awake.

Needless to say that I am less than wide awake now!

*yawn*

Anyway, that was yesterday and is hopefully not to be repeated anytime soon. Now for something entirely different - the One Yard Fabric Swap!

I have decided to go ahead. A few of you have voiced interest, and I have thought a little about how to publicise the swap further. Joni at Union Center Knits has already offered to post about the swap on her blog (thanks Joni!), and I think maybe that is the next thing to do. Would it be OK if all of you who were interested post about it in their blog at some point over the coming weeks? Again, no hurry - I am not thinking about setting this up tomorrow, but maybe we could aim for something like September or October...

Also, a few of you have asked me to clarify the rules of the swap, as I have it in mind, a little:

1) The idea is to send no less than 1 yard of continuous fabric, enough for a little sewing project, and, to make sure that nobody ends up with, as Alex put it, 'some nasty nylon' - cotton only!

2) Only send what you would also love to receive. So no palming off of unloved bits of fabric that you would otherwise stick in the bin! ;-)

3) Include other little presents - sweets, yarn, other crafty things, something you think the other person would like.

4) Suggested spending: around $25 (or around £15) max.

I am still contemplating using Swap-Bot for this, but in a way I would rather not, simply because it would be nice to keep it relatively confined and small... We'll see.

Preview of what's to come on this blog:
1) pictures of the flooding
2) spinning update with pictures
3) Sockapaloooza socks!! They are finally here!

Two Thoughts...

2006-07-24T08:16:00.000Z

1) People from blogland keep on disappearing - or is it just that they have moved away to other blog sites? Do any of you know what happened to:

The Woolywarbler
Naive Knitting Blog

I always find it worrying when people disappear like that without leaving a trace. It's different from anyone taking a break from blogging (and I have certainly done the same once in a while) - in that case it's temporary and it's often announced on the actual blog, and most important of all, it doesn't make the whole blog disappear! It's disconcerting when that happens. It makes me realise that, no matter how close we feel to other people in this little community, we know very little of each other.

2) On an entirely more happy note - I have been sewing a bit again (nothing to show for yet, as they were all practice projects and little experiments) and it made me wonder if anyone would be interested in a One-Yard-Fabric-Swap? It could be a kind of secret pal swap, only with fabrics, which is not to say that other things can't be included. What do you think?

No hurry if you need to think about it, but if you are generally interested, leave a comment or send me an email at merkuria_lyn@yahoo.co.uk. I may check out Swap-Bot to post it or I may keep it on this blog if any of you are interested...

Another weekend...

2006-07-22T14:39:00.001Z

Our friends left this morning at 5.23 am (we had to get up at 4.30 am to bring them to the station - yikes!!) and it's quiet here again. The cats are napping close by, and the bean is restless, kicking and moving around so it looks like my belly has developed corners.

Maybe he picks up on my own restlessness. I want to do things, I want to decorate and clean and garden, but D, spooked by the early arrival of a neighour's first child, due to excessive decorating, which I mentioned in the last post, has begged me to sit down and do nothing. It's hard, in particular as this means that now would be the perfect time to do such unpleasant things like work on my next article, due in at the end of the month, or write some thank you cards for our wedding (which by now is almost a year ago and thus provides a rather clear picture of how organised D and I have been!). Sadly, both options sound very unappealing, especially when the bathroom is so close to being finished now. We have painted the walls and right now D is working on the skirting boards. When they are done he can install the bathroom suite and we will FINALLY HAVE A BATHTUB again! Nothing against showers, but I am missing my long lazy baths...

Being chained to a chair by my suddenly overanxious husband (not that I don't share his concerns - considering the state our home is in we can not afford this bean to arrive early!), I have been surfing craft blogs. Such a lot of lovely blogs out there, it's hard to decide which one's I liked best. I seem to be drawn to a number of things: interesting crafts projects (knitting, sewing, or otherwise), inspiring posts, nicely organised blogs which display correctly on the screen and beautiful photography, count among the most prominent features which seem to attract me. Here are a few little discoveries:

Bella Dia
Little Birds
Splityarn
Knitting Wench
A Bird in the Hand
Liquid Paper
Crafting Japanese
Cherry Tomato
Stitchy
Thimble
While She Naps
Yvestown

Have a look if you have time - there isn't much that is as relaxing as a cup of tea and some inspiring blog reading! ;-)

2006-07-20T16:15:00.000Z

Yesterday it was amazingly, suffocatingly, unbearably hot. I am, in general, not a person who minds hot weather. In fact, I relish summer and I'd rather be hot than cold, but yesterday was even too much for me. Apparently temperatures reached 36 degrees Centigrade, but it might as well have been 56. All day I was lusting after a nice cool Caipirinha. I even looked up the recipe, but for obvious reasons I decided not to give in to that particular craving. It would be delicious, though... Hmmm.

It didn't help that we spent a large part of at least the morning in the car, travelling from Yorkshire back to the Midlands. My friend B and her husband, who have been the most amazing guests, but more of that later, wanted to see our old house, and since yesterday they had also planned to travel to London for a few days of sightseeing, we thought we'd shorten their journey by bringing them to the station in the Midlands rather than in York or Doncaster.

Good thought, only such a misfortune we'd picked the probably hottest day of the year for that car journey!

Still, it was nice to be back in the Midlands, if only for one afternoon. I packed a few boxes, attempted to hoover the house, and realised that if I didn't sit down immediately I would most likely pass out. Maybe pregnancy makes me more susceptible to the heat?

In any case, B and C's departure for London went smoothly, just as the rest of their stay so far has been. They were amazing. Sure, they had announced that they would try to help a bit with our house renovation, but I sure did not expect them to clear half the garden AND paint the bathroom! We even had some more help at the weekend, in the shape of one of D's old university mates, who rang up on the Friday and announced that since his girlfriend was working at the weekend (they are both medics), he was planning on coming up to see us for a spot of gardening. Together the three men were an amazing team - a huge area of the garden is now cleared of brambles and they even managed to bring 4 trailer loads of the stuff to the local recycling centre!

This inspired me to do a bit of gardening myself - I try not to do too much, especially since one of our neighbours just had her baby 4 weeks early because she'd been decorating. With the house looking the way it does we can NOT afford an early appearance of the bean!!

Anyway, I added to the few plants which I had already planted in the neglected border next to the kitchen door:

It still looks chaotic, but I'm ridiculously pleased with myself, simply because it looks like someone is living in the house now. It's strange what a difference just a little bit of care makes to the look and feel of a place...

As a thank you to our friends, we took B and C to Bridlington on the Sunday night. I'd never been, and I'm not entirely sure it's my kind of place. It's too much like the stereotypical English seaside resort, with amusement arcades, fun fairs, and lots of beer-swilling, beer-gutted guys in shorts... Still, for a visit it was fun, and we had a lovely dinner of fish and chips and ice cream. Hmmmm!

On Monday poor D had to work again, so I took our friends to York for a day out. It was already rather suffocatingly hot, so we opted for a leisurely day of shopping rather than a big sightseeing tour. I only showed them the Minster, because even if you don't do any sightseeing I think it's a necessity to at least have a peak into this amazing old building, and then I took them along The Shambles, were we spent an enjoyable hour in the Earl Grey Tea Rooms.

I also managed to sneak into the yarn shop there - Sheepish - which I had looked up a while ago when we started thinking about moving here. It's the cutest little shop and the owner was lovely. Of course I couldn't resist buying something, so I treated myself to this:

I've been meaning to buy this for some time now, mainly because I want to make Butterfly, but there are quite a few patterns in there that I quite like.

And last, but certainly not less importantly because of it, look what arrived on Tuesday in the post:

It's a pair of the cutest little baby socks for the bean, plus a lovely postcard, all from the amazing Sherrill over at Baa Bonny Belle. Thank you Sherrill, the socks are beautiful!!

Actual knitting content!

2006-07-14T15:03:00.000Z

It's been a glorious day today, and I've been quite busy, first cleaning (B, my best friend since school and her husband C are coming from Germany tonight, so I was hoping to make the house a bit more presentable) and then enjoying myself by sitting in the sunshine in the garden.

Mike the plasterer finished with the first floor and took himself off, so I was left with a house that looked a great deal like I had been involved in some mud wrestling the day before - dried and caked plaster everywhere. To make things worse, for some reason the electricity cut out in the morning (perhaps all the water that Mike had been sloshing around the sockets?!), and the trip switch refuses to listen to reason and always flips back to 'OFF', so I wasn't able to vaccuum-clean anything. I used a broom, wearing an enormous dust mask that made me look scarily like the 'Empty Child' from Dr Who, only without the goggles.

Managed to get rid of some of the dust, but as it got increasingly difficult to see with all the really fine dust being stirred up by the broom, I finally gave up and turned my attention to our disgusting inside/outside downstairs toilet (it's in a kind of conservatory/outhouse thingy so I can't make up my mind if it is in the house or not), which right now is the only one in the house. Spent a good hour cleaning, including the removal of the most colourful selection of assorted fungie and mildew that I had ever seen in my life (I actually took pictures, it looked that grotesque - not that I would dare show them to anyone), which I discovered hiding underneath the wallpaper in an alcove with a little window. The room doesn't really look any different now (although the absence of obvious mildew IS an improvement), but at least I KNOW it's clean...

After that, I was exhausted, so I sat down in the garden with a cool drink, some water melon, and my knitting. YES, I have indeed been knitting! And I even have a picture, so this blog can return somewhat to it's original purpose:

These are the beginnings of a log-cabin blanket - for the bean, obviously. It's surprisingly fun to knit this, despite the fact that it's all in garter stitch. The constant changes in colour keep it interesting.

Also, as if to make sure that this day was going to start off in the right way, this morning two (!) packages were delivered. The first one was some beautiful Alexander Henry fabric that I ordered a while back from the US:

I love the retro look and the vibrant colours. I have several yards of each, so I see a skirt and a Nappy Bag in the future, but I may still change my mind.

The second parcel was from Hello Yarn and contained some fibre which I treated myself to for the submission of my thesis (any old excuse to buy fibre...):

It's a delicious blend of 80% Merino and 20% Tussah Silk in a mix of colours including orange, purple, brown and grey, and I can't wait to get my wheel up here to start spinning it!

So there you go - actual crafts content in this blog! Who would have thought it?! ;-) And now my poor computer batteries are almost empty (still no electricity in the house), so I'd better post this quickly and return to the garden for some more knitting and sitting in the sun...

Summertime, and the living's easy...

2006-07-10T14:40:00.000Z

Unbelievable, how time flies. I thought it was barely a week since my last blog entry, and instead it's much closer to 2 weeks! Well, we have been busy...

The last week and a bit have been occupied with varnishing bathroom floors, getting rid of the stubborn dust which seems to be in limitless supply in this house (is it breeding somewhere? It seems to only explanation), small attempts at gardening, and generally settling in.

There isn't much furniture in the house yet. We have our camp beds and I have a small desk in the makeshift bedroom, which doubles up as my office. D's office is finished. We have a TV and a few mismatched chairs on the dusty (!) concrete floor in the unpainted room which will one day be our lounge. D has managed to free two shash windows, which means that at least we have some fresh air. We have a little bathroom and a makeshift kitchen in the unfinished old cottage next door, we have a washing machine (we brought it this Saturday from our old home - it really shouldn't be as exciting as it is!), and we have 9 fruit trees laden with apples, pears, plums, and cherries. I have bought a tomato plant and MIL has given me two pots with French beans, which desperately need to be planted. I have a sweet-smelling jasmin which I want to plant in the corner of the garden closest to the kitchen window. There are some knitting supplies and now there is the internet and a phoneline - a connection to the outside world.

Life is good. Simple and stripped down to the essentials. It's an adventure. So far I love it.

Germany and knitting for babies

2006-06-21T10:57:00.000Z

Still in Germany, enjoying the hot weather - or rather, hiding from it. I love the sun, and I love the heat, but right now it is making me incredibly slow, so I've spent hours and hours indoors, when really I should be outside, enjoying it while it lasts. I'm off back to the UK tomorrow (with an overnight stop in France to break up the journey and prevent me from being over-cooked after 10 hours of sitting in a car without air conditioning), so I should really soak up all the sun I can get!

I have been busy here, though. There will be more pictures when I get back home and after the house move, which is bound to mess things up for a while (I don't have an internet connection sorted for the new house yet... come to think of it, we don't have a phoneline yet either!), but for now, I have to say that even after years of living in the UK and really getting to love the country, I am in love with my beautiful hometown. Isn't it pretty?

Above is a street in the centre, and below is the view I enjoy from the balcony of my childhood room:

I've met up with some friends while here, including an old school friend of mine whose baby is due in 3 weeks. We even managed a big belly picture! Other than meeting up with family and friends, I've been knitting. My sockapaloooza socks are finally in the making, and I even have an FO to show for - the baby cardigan for the friend of mine who gave birth to a little girl a few weeks ago:

The pattern is the Baby Yoda Sweater from Dogs Steal Yarn, and I have found it a quick and satisfying pattern to knit up - hopefully it won't be too warm to wear, though. I have used a 100% cotton yarn (Debbie Bliss), but it still seems rather thick and warm to me...

Other than a quick hat and booties a while back for another friend, this is the first bigger baby item I have knitted, and I love it. Soooo quick and rewarding! I can see lots of baby wear in my knitting future!!

I have also managed to go through all the stuff I have kept here - isn't it amazing how easy it is to forget what you have stored somewhere? While going through my old wardrobe I came across all the different fabrics I have collected over the years. How could such a load of goodies just slip my mind?!

Needless to say, I am taking all of it back to the UK, plus a whole load of other things I have not photographed yet, such as three old suitcases, all turn-of-the-century, which used to belong to my gran and an old aunt, and which I was never able to take with me before, because they are not particularly suitable for transport on a plane.

Right, and that is it for now, more when I get back to the UK and things have calmed down a bit after the move...

Hello from Germany

2006-06-12T10:18:00.000Z

Just a quick hello to the blog world. I am enjoying some free time and am settling alarmingly well into my new routine of leisure... I predict a nasty waking up when I get back to the UK and have 6 days to write a conference paper, but for now I am enjoying the sunshine and the reading of none-work-related books, and the knitting time. I have even brought my camera so I can take pictures of my progress! First knitting-related update will come tomorrow, when I can present the baby cardigan that I made for my dear friend N, who just had a little baby girl. After that, it's a mix of socks, baby cardigans and blankets for which I have brought yarn with me.

Something else, though, which ocurred to me yesterday - do any of you have any wishes for stuff I could bring from Germany? Sockyarn? Rebecca magazines? Something from the Season Store, which is just round the corner from here? Let me know, because I am here by car, so transporting anything back to the UK isn't an issue. :-)

Hullo? Anyone still there?

2006-06-07T13:45:00.000Z

*looks around cautiously, listens to crickets...*

Well, that's been longer than I had anticipated.

How have you all been? I will have to sit down for a long session of reading all your blogs!

I can't believe that my last post was at the end of February and now it's June. JUNE! Everything always takes longer than you think... soooo much has happened in the meantime, or, well, not sooo much, but what has happened has been fairly big, at least for little old me.

1) I have submitted my thesis - THIS MORNING! The last few months have been a complete nightmare, and I can't remember the last time I've had time off, but it's finally done. 368 pages long and bound in the naff and ugly red leather-imitation binding that the universities want. I submitted my two copies this morning, and now I am trying to get used to the idea that no matter what I still want to change and re-write, and research, I just can't. It's done and I will have to let it go, at least until the Viva, which is another nasty thing looming over the horizon, but we won't think of that yet. :-)

2) We are expecting a baby at the end of September. So all you wise people who commented on my post about the sudden obsession with ginger that I was developing in February - you were right, I was indeed pregnant. I'm 23 weeks now, which again makes me realise how long I've been MIA for! We even had the 20 week ultrasound scan and know that the little bean is going to be a boy.

3) We are moving up North at the end of June. The house is still a disaster zone, but never mind that, we are moving anyway! At least there is plaster on most walls yet, and the office for D is painted and will have carpet in the next few days (he has to start working there from the beginning of July, so this was a priority). Still no kitchen or bathroom, but we are getting there - I've stuck some tiles on the wall, and we've found a bathroom suite and have bought an oven and hob for the kitchen, so things are moving in the right direction.

Right, that's my three big news. Quite enough for me, but I think the pregnancy is making me mellow - I am taking it all in my stride. Right now I am just looking forward to sitting in the sun for a little while, driving to Germany to see my family on Friday, and staying there for 2 weeks for some more sitting in the sun. And knitting. Lots and lots of knitting. I've missed it so much, but last week was the first time I've even touched a ball of wool for months. There are sooo many things in the pipeline, though - a baby cardigan for a good friend of mine who just had a baby girl, some baby things for our own little bean, and finally my long postponed Sockapaloooza socks. Thankfully I've been blessed with a fabulous and very patient and understanding sock-pal, who didn't mind waiting a bit longer for her socks. They will be a priority as of now!

I shall post pictures of 1) the thesis, 2) the bump, and 3) the house in the next few days, when the batteries of my camera are recharged, but for now I am heading off to sit in the (totally neglected and hence totally overgrown) garden. I've even bought a magazine so I can read something suitably mindless. ;-)

I admit defeat...

2006-02-26T14:24:00.000Z

Until I submit my thesis, not much is going to happen, not knitting-wise, not spinning-wise, and definitely not regarding blog entries. I will finish my Sockapaloooza assignment, obviously, but other than that, I doubt there will be time.

I miss it all, being crafty, writing, and reading about what you have all been up to, but something has got to give and right now it just can't be my work. I've got something like 4-6 weeks to edit everything I have written so far and to come up with a conclusion that will make sense to me and to others, and just now, looking at the picture above of our Victorian ruin in Yorkshire, it occurred to me that really, my thesis is in a similar state. The walls are there, and the roof, but to be habitable it needs a heck of a lot of work.

There have also been other things, recently, which have taken up a lot of our time, but all that will have to wait until I submit.

I hope you'll still remember me when I eventually get back - I certainly will remember you, and I can't wait to catch up!! For now, take care of yourselves, and until hopefully very soon. Hugs to you all! :-)

Mission Control - We Have Lift-Off!

2006-02-14T18:13:00.000Z

OK, maybe not lift-off, but there is finally, FINALLY, a finished object! Yes, Norah Gaughan's Side-way Ribs Cardigan from Knitscene is finished and guess what, I've even taken a few pictures. I've tried to cut most of the clutter in the background off, so do me a favour and just ignore the rest, OK? My room looks TERRIBLE. There is a little path to my desk and another one to the light switch, and that's it. The rest is a wild mix of books, and photocopies, and knitting and spinning utensils, and cats, sleeping amongst it all. But enough of my awful office, this is the cardigan - first from the front:

As you can see, the two sides don't meet - and nor are they supposed to. I could draw them together with a big button, but I think it really looks better when it's open like this.

And another shot from the side so you can see the ribs a bit better:

I am pleased with it, although it's substantially warmer than I thought it would be. Maybe my yarn was a little thicker than the yarn that the pattern asks for, or maybe it just is one of those patterns that are vaguely unsuitable for the season they are meant for, but the knitted fabric isn't as airy as I thought it would be. I am planning on washing and blocking it into shape, though, which will probably help. The sleeves are a bit long and narrow for my taste, so I will pull them a bit to make them wider, and I am thinking that this will make them a bit more airy at the same time.

Other than that, it's good. It's comfy and cosy, and, as I said, warm, so I have been wearing it all day today. And I am so pleased with the mottled colour - it's exactly what I wanted it to look like. My first big project from handspun yarn!

Ginger is good for you!

2006-02-12T11:32:00.000Z

I've been obsessed with ginger recently. I drink ginger cordial, ginger beer, ginger tea... D told me yesterday that he thinks I've gone ginger mad. This was after he'd found the second bottle of ginger cordial. ;-) This new craving for ginger is so odd, in particular because until a few weeks ago I was less than enamoured with it. Not that I hated ginger, but, well, other than the occasional ginger snap I was not particularly partial to it either. Isn't taste a funny thing?

In knitting-related news: Work on the Jaywalkers is slow. What is it about knitting socks that makes my knitting speed slow down to a snail-like pace? I could probably knit an entire sweater in the time it takes me to finish 1 sock, never mind a pair. In fact, I HAVE almost finished the Side-ways Ribs Cardi that I started not so long ago. As promised, here are a few pictures:

And, for no particular reason, a close-up of the sleeve:

I have finished one side and am about half way through the second side of the cardigan. So far I am so pleased with how it's turning out. The handspun is soft and the resulting knit seems light and airy, yet warm. Just the right thing for spring or autumn or maybe a cool summer evening. I can't remember who said it, but I have to agree - knitting with your own handspun is magical. There is something really special in seeing fibre transform into a garment.

It also seems like I have calculated the yardage right - look at what I have left of the 10 skeins:

3 small skeins left! This should be just about enough to finish the rest of the cardigan and to assemble it all together. Can't wait. :-)

Just checking in...

2006-02-09T11:05:00.000Z

Ack! Where does time go?!

One minute it's the beginning of January and the next thing I am forced to realise that it's almost mid-February. Scary, I tell you, scary!

Anyway, since I haven't been around in the last 2 weeks or so I thought I'd better check in quickly. Life is crazy at the moment and between writing up, house restauration, looking for jobs, and trying to keep things in general ticking over there is just no time for anything right now. Last night I woke up at 2.30 am with a panic attack about the vast amount of work I have to do until March. I feel faint just thinking about it.

It doesn't help matters that D seems to now have some kind of vile stomach flu and lies groaning in the bedroom. Poor guy, he feels terrible. :-( And what are my chances of NOT catching this bug when most people near me seem to have had it in the last week or so? Just what is needed when you feel you have too much to do as it is - to be knocked out by nausea.

With all that happening, there has been precious little time for knitting or spinning. Work on the Side-ways Ribs cardigan continues slowly and so far I am pleased with how the handspun knits up. I will have a picture of it in the next post, promise! :-)

For now, all you you, take care, and I hope all is well.