Primeval Socks finished!

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...

... 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...

... 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...

... 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...

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...

... 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.

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...

... 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, ...

... 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...

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...

... 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...

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...

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. :-)