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. :-)

FO!!!

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...

... 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...

... 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...

... 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! ;-) )