Echoes of a Dream

Self confidence - what self confidence?!

Woah - I haven't posted for over a week now. I had meant to write on Monday after the children went back to school but I had a bit of a ........hmm what shall we call it now?  A bit of a major upset at school (great timing on your first day back!). The details don't really matter - suffice to say that I was criticised by a parent for the way I ran my lesson - and I took it badly. My, did I take it badly! I was so upset and I discovered that my self confidence is just barely held together with the finest of threads. I was upset for most of this week and spent ages going over everything in my head. I didn't do much else - I just wallowed. I didn't agree with everything that was said to me but I realised that there were some things that could be improved. More than anything though I was shocked at how much it knocked me. I started to wonder if I was desperately self absorbed or very vulnerable.

In the end I decided that I could either learn from the experience or just keep being a victim and I finally felt able to move on yesterday. That's why I just couldn't post anything till now. I couldn't pretend everything was hunky dory and I didn't want to go on and on about it here. Gosh there was a time (pre-children) when I could take these things in my stride - what the heck's become of me? Was I harder then?

Anyway, as I said it's time to move on and to tell you what we've been up to instead.

Look what I knit yesterday - a girl bear:

I don't know if I mentioned it before but Wylie gave Amber a book called 'Knitting for Peace' this summer. Well, Amber was very taken by some of the projects in this book and particularly the Mother Bear Project. She decided to get some girls together to knit a few bears at school. Well, inspired by her, the other hand work teacher and I decided that we'd get a couple of our classes to knit bears too and we decided to have a cake sale today to raise some money for the wool. Here's a copy of the letter that Amber wrote to the everyone in the school:

Dear Parents,

During the holiday I was given a book called 'Knitting for Peace - Make the World a Better Place, One Stitch At a Time'. It has stories about people that knit things like hats for premature babies; shawls for cancer patients; jumpers for orphans; blankets for the old and infirm and teddy bears for orphans in Africa.

Everything in this book really touched me but especially the teddy bears. Some of these traumatised children are so poor that they use broken glass bottles as dolls so these bears really mean a lot to them. One of the stories in the book was about a small girl in Zambia who was ostracized at school for having AIDS. She told her teacher that her teddy bear was the only thing in the world that loved her. It was buried with her when she died.

And so when I read this I wanted to do something about it and to get some other people involved. My Mum and I talked about it and she and ( ) decided that it could be a handwork project for classes 4 - 7 this term. It would be great if we could send off at least 50 bears.

But before we start we need to raise money for the wool, stuffing and postage that is needed so we thought we could do that by having a cake sale on Friday.............etc etc.

Amber, Class 8

Isn't it lovely? A number of parents came up to her today and said they'd been really touched by her letter. Agggh, I'm so proud of her.

Well, we've had the cake sale and we raised £110. We're going to get our wool from Get Knitted who are offering us a good discount and I'm hoping to get started in a week or so. Do click on that link above for the Mother Bear Project to see what it's all about. I take my hat off to this lady and infact to all the ladies in the book (Knitting for Peace) who do such amazing things for others. Infact, my own friend Wylie knits shawls, together with some ladies from her church, which is part of a project mentioned in the book. It's called the Shawl Ministry and you can click on the link to find out more. Thanks Wylie for inspiring us so much AND for starting something just by leaving that book by Amber's bedside when we came to stay.

So, first week at school has gone by. The children, well Amber especially has loads of homework now but I did get them to quickly make these the other day for our young friend who is going off to Uni next week. They're all made from dyed blanket. The bright pink is Dylon and the other two are plant dyed:

The builders are still here and the porch has definitely come on:

we weren't happy with the levels in the garden and made a drastic decision to cut down a tree as it was in the way basically. It's made quite a difference to the view now and you can see that house more clearly.

but it does mean that the lower level can be wider which is good and we'll plant another Rowan tree on the edge of the orchard to replace this one.

Other than that my parents are off to India on Thursday so we're popping there tomorrow to say bye but that's after we've been to the open day at the Black Country Museum.

I should just say sorry to my dear friends who've all be waiting for replies from me - Jodi, Wylie, Kristin, Sarah, Val, Tracy. Sorry ladies. I'm back on form now and promise to write in the next day or so.

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PS I'm not fishing for sympathy or asking you to side with me this was more off a - 'look what fourteen years at home has done for my self confidence' post. If you do leave a comment please refer to that point. This post may well be read by people in my school community and I do not want to start anything!

Owls AND knitted fruit!

I was about to launch into a new post about an hour ago when I heard the most dreadful caw-cawing outside. I went to investigate and I was met with a scene from The Birds (the film by Alfred Hitchcock). Birds eveywhere, swooping and flying around a tree in my neighbour's garden. Well, I exaggerate slightly. I rushed back to get my camera but only caught the tail end of the mob and look what they were doing:

They were going for this owl - you can just see a magpie and blackbird to the left of the owl. I think I might have run upstairs to the attic to take this shot.

Like an intrepid reporter I ran downstairs, donned my shoes, FORGOT the binoculars and I went to investigate. I thought the owl might have flown off by now but it was till up the tree when I got over the lane and I realised on closer inspection that it was a baby:

See how fluffy it is and it was totally happy for me to watch it from the ground:

The magpies came back to peck at it every now and again so I went off to phone The Barn Owl Centre to ask them if I should do anything. Ofcourse, I was hoping they'd say 'go and save it Mrs and bring it to us' but what they said was that I just needed to leave nature to run its' course and that hopefully the parents would come back for it.  It's such a sweet fluffy thing and I hope Mummy and Daddy come back soon although I wish the children could see it when they get back from school.

I think this baby actually came from a nest in a tree in our garden. Do you rememeber that I saw an owl one morning flying to this tree? Well, about two weeks ago we were having a cookout (a lovely word I've learnt from my American readers) in the garden and we saw this owl again, circling the edge of our garden. Tom said "I wonder if it wants to get to the tree and we're stopping it". Lo and behold as soon as we moved away the owl flew to the tree with a mouse in it's mouth which it deposited in the hollow and off it went again. The hollow was full of chirping and we realised that there was a nest up there. Since then I have caught glimpses of the male but never the babies or Mum. It seems as if the babies have left the nest now and one is stuck up a tree. They're Tawny Owls by the way. Keep your fingers crossed please - I don't want it to be pecked to death.

So what else have we been up to when we're not out in the garden trying to catch glimpses of owls and babies in the drizzle. Well, on Friday morning I was invited to a knitting group and I needed a quick project to finish in an hour or so. Looking through my wallet of patterns that I've saved from Web I decided to knit a carrot. I didn't realised then that I would spend the entire weekend knitting other fruit and veg to keep this carrot company. It became quite addictive as I went from one fruit/veg to another and was a great thing to be doing while it poured with rain all weekend:

Incase it's not totally obvious you have - a courgette, tomato, carrots, aubergine, pear, strawberries and an orange in the middle. They look really nice in a basket on the table (but the light was bad so here you have in a basket in the garden):

If you want to make some yourself the patterns are here and here. The courgette is actually the pattern for a cucumber with a knobbly top and the pear is the pattern for the aubergine with slight improvisation. I'm not clever enough to make up my own patterns but I can improvise a bit. They're really quick and easy to make and just that bit more challenging. So, why not have a go yourself even if you don't have any children that will play with them. My children, after the initial - 'WHY are you knitting vegetables Mum' just keep picking them up a squidging them especially the aubergine.

I haven't got much more to say for once and I want to go and see if the owl is still there. Meanwhile take a look at this lady's knitted fruit and veg - she's the one who wrote the strawberry pattern and inspired me in the first place. Do you know that her strawberries have been viewed 12,276 times.  Is that a record for a craft photo I wonder?

OK I'm off to don raincoat, boots and grab binoculars cos it's pouring again.......................

jute baskets

Well it was wonderful reading all your opinions about leaving comments on blogs and moreover hearing from many of you who took the opportunity to delurk. The last post and your comments really made me think about why I have a blog and what I get from it.

I know that having a blog has really pushed and encouraged my creativity. Through blogland I've discovered new ideas, skills, patterns and inspiration. I might have tried some of these if I didn't have a blog but actually because of the blog I've tried them all and that's partly down to the encouragement I've received from my readers. However, I've never wanted my blog to be just a showcase and I've noticed that personal opinions and things about my life have crept in more and more. For me blogging is a conversation and not a performance. I don't blog to get your applause - I blog to share and connect.

Well this all leads me rather nicely to today's post which is a pattern I want to share with you. Earlier this week I decided to clear out my favourites folder on the computer - and boy was that a task. If I see anything interesting I tend to save it - so it was time to sort out and get rid off and cut down. In the process I printed off a couple of patterns that I'd saved and one of them was for some Beaded Jute Baskets here. I took a fancy to these and on the way to school one afternoon I discovered a ball of jute twine in the local gardening shop - so without knowing what thickness I needed I bought it.

Now I've mentioned before that I cannot read patterns so I got Amber to show me the basics (after which the pattern made sense to me!) and here's what I produced - four lovely jute baskets to store my earrings, the yo-yo's I've had on the go for months, Amber's clips and hairbands and some shisha mirrors:

Here is a close up of them. Click on each pic to get a bigger view:

Now don't go looking at my stitches too closely will you? I added beads as with the pattern but I only seemed to have tiny beads so had to make do with those.

This was a really quick and easy project and I learned something new and got to understand some new crocheting terms. Amber thinks I might even be able to make an amigurumi animal if I can make these.

If you fancy having a go yourself - and I really do recommend it - I've taken a few pics to help you. The pattern itself only has pics of the finished baskets. Firstly, the stuff I used was this:

The pattern says to use 2 ply jute and this is 3 ply. Looking at the baskets (in the pattern) I'd say the stuff she used is thicker than mine but I'd bought it already and decided to make do. I used a 5mm crochet hook cos that's all I had but I could have gone a bit bigger. 7mm was too big - I tried - so maybe 6mm would be fine aswell.

The whole thing is made with single crochet and the increases are just going twice into one stitch. So firstly you crochet the base like so:

and then you build up the sides:

that's the first row of the side and before you know it - it's finished:

For some reason mine do not look anything like the pattern but I don't care - I like them - so there. It's probably because the jute I used is thinner which makes the baskets less sturdy. So if you want them sturdier you'll need thicker jute. All in all a quick activity - well it was quick once I'd mastered it and cheap - the jute cost £3.50 and I've made five baskets (fifth not pictured).

Incase you're wondering I felt so confident after basket number two that I improvised a bit on the next ones. I wanted them to be wider and shallower so I crocheted an extra round on the base and stopped working after row 10. Finishing off with round 14.

So there we have four very useful little baskets for one's clutter. Give it a go yourself - it's fun.

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It promises to be very warm this weekend - hurray - so we're planning on having a camp fire in the garden tonight. Food cooked outside always tastes so much nicer doesn't it? I'm hoping to pack 'em all off to the outdoor pool tomorrow morning so I can do some dyeing - as you know I've only done yellow and brown so far.... I've been distracted by strawberries and jute baskets it seems.

Before I go I have to tell you about a beautiful sight I saw yesterday. I had just stepped out into the garden yesterday morning when something huge flew across to one of our trees and landed there. About a minute later it flew back and I realised that it was an owl. A beautiful tawny coloured owl. I only saw it for a matter of seconds really but I just stood rooted to the spot. It was so beautiful. Now I've seen owls before - tame ones but I felt blessed to have seen this one. It was almost as if it was revealing itself to me - it's the one that hoots each night from my neighbours wood. Soppy aren't I? I do the same if I ever spot a fox, deer or badger around here.

Hope you all have a great weekend my dear readers......................

bit of a show and tell

Bit of a show and tell sort of post today I'm afraid as there's not much news around here at the moment. Except, I suppose that the children went back to school yesterday and I moped around the house all day as I usually do after a school holiday. The blooming weather didn't help either as it was cold, grey and drizzling all day.

Oh well, at least we had wonderful weather for the whole of the holiday and we got out for a walk over the fields on Sunday afternoon. I took my camera with me and captured a few lovely things. Crab apple blossom just coming out. I love the colours:

Lichen and moss covered trees everywhere:

We found some lichen on the ground and brought it and some broken branches back. I soaked the lichen for a few hours and it sprung back to life:

There were rabbits everywhere and I managed to catch one - on camera that is:

Ofcourse I couldn't resist a close up of a dandelion:

and Tom took one of the local church peeping through the trees:

Then it was back home for supper, bath, school bags to get ready and ofcourse no-one could get up the next morning.

As I said what a morning it was. I'd resolved to take more exercise and to start walking to school everyday and we did manage it but I had to scrounge a lift on the way back as it started raining. However, I was very good and I went for a long up-and-down-hill walk whilst Tom took the boys to cricket practice last night. Isn't it amazing how a bit of fresh air and exercise can change your mood, give you energy and exillerate you? I came back and re-decorated the house, filled the freezer with food and put on my best clothes for when hubby came back - ONLY JOKING!

Actually, I came back and knitted two strawberries instead. I'd seen this pic on flickr in the afternoon and desperately wanted to knit some so after a bit of searching I found the link to the pattern on peasoup's blog. Here are my efforts:

Aren't they lovely? The only red wool I had in the house was Tahki Donegal Tweed so I used that and I must say that the bits in the wool make the strawberries look quite realistic. The bigger one on the left was knit with 4mm needles and the one on the right with 3mm. I would say to use a smaller needle for your wool as it makes the stitches tighter. The pattern is here.  Here is a pic of another one I made with some wool from the charity shop this morning. The wool was doubled here and knit on 3mm needles too:

Well, I'm off to knit a few more strawberries - I'll leave you with a pic of another beret I knit at my Mum's last week with the aforementioned Tahki. It's the best of the lot I think:

Damn this was going to be a short post - show and tell I said but I just remembered something I read yesterday on a new (to me) blog.

It's this interesting post about blogging and readership by pinkpurl. She made a really important point about blogging being a two-way thing, an interaction. I blog - you comment and you give me some feedback. It must be quite an issue because back in January there was a de-lurking week when readers were encouraged to come out and stop being shy. I have to say I'm as guilty as the next person. Before I had a blog I used to read a few and be really inspired by many but it never ocurred to me to leave a comment. I was too shy and I felt that it was a special world that I was looking into and I didn't feel part of it. It didn't ocurr to me that the bloggers I read would like to have my feedback. Nowadays I have my fave blogs and I try to leave a comment on each one every week. But sometimes I don't know what to say - especially when I come across a new blog. It's almost easier to leave comments for bloggers that you have a 'relationship' with - ones that you've been reading for ages. Hmmmm.

What do you think? Do you feel shy leaving comments, do you feel that you have to be 'one of them' to comment or don't you know what to say? Do you think you should comment more often or do you think a fuss is being made about nothing? I'd love to hear your opinions ...............

Daffodils, hats and presents.

Oh my goodness I am totally overwhelmed by the number of comments I got for my last post. At the time of writing I have no less than 93 comments. Can you believe it? I obviously have a lot of shy readers who I've enticed out of the woodwork!

Seriously though THANK YOU VERY MUCH for all your lovely comments and wishes. It was so nice to hear from you all especially those who have been lurking for a while (as one commentor put it). It was lovely to know who was reading and who thought what. I wish I could reply to you all but it would take forever. However, one thing I try to do is go and visit the blog of someone who has left me a comment so I will do that over the coming days/weeks.

It's going to take me a little while to write out all your names and pick three winners so I will do that by the end of the week at the absolute latest. You see I've set myself a few tasks beforehand like sorting out all my dyed fibre, keeping the best curls and carding the rest. I started the job on Friday morning and it seemed to take forever. I need to take stock of the colours I have and the ones I haven't and then I need to get dyeing. Or rather I need to get mordanting first. (Oh how one longs to use Dylon sometimes and just open a tin and know that the job will soon be over. No, I don't mean it really. I love the plant dyeing but it's a lot of prep).

Look what I picked up this morning for £4 - about sixteen bunches of daffodils. I told the florist that I wanted to dye with them and as most of them were open she let me have them cheaply. I was hoping to get some flowers around here but when it came to it I didn't think it was the done thing to go around pinching other people's daffodils and I can tell you there is plenty of temptation - they're everywhere.

I ordered some more dyes last week and I've now got plenty of fleece to be getting on with. I have some lovely cotswold and some wensleydale and on Saturday I found a chap at the Farmer's Market selling small amounts of wensleydale cross which is nice and I also bought some brown bluefaced leicester cross from him. I washed it all over the weekend and it's ready to use.  However, the weather has turned a bit chilly here so I might leave the actual dyeing till the weekend. All in all I'll have some more bags of curls and carded for sale very soon.

What else have we been up to? Well, Amber has finished her beret and has worn it everyday so far.

It's slightly big but she loves it. I decided to have a go at it myself so I used up some of the indigo dyed aran leftover from Raj's tanktop. I went for the smaller size which sits quite differently on Amber's head. Still, it's a very nice pattern, very quick to knit and it would look gorgeous in red or grey. (It's actually Rohan who is wearing it in this pic).

 

Sunday was Mother's Day here and I was treated to homemade lardy cake by my husband. In a fit of insanity he decided to make breakfast but luckily was distracted from trying croissants and went for the lardy cake instead. I say distracted because croissants from scratch sound extremely difficult and we might have had to wait all day for them. Instead the poor man left his dough to rise overnight and was up at 7am to do all buttering, layering, rolling that was needed for these:

This confection(?) has no less than 8oz lard, tons of sugar and 8oz of butter in it so you can imagine that it was utterly delicious. Sadly, both cakes vanished within a few hours. In our house LOVE is trying to turn your wife into a tub of lard.

The children made lovely cards and gave me such nice gifts as usual. They take it so seriously which is touching when one thinks how seriously we take their celebrations. Here are a couple of their presents. Raj spent ages making this card for me - he sewed on the buttons and embroidered the stems and leaves:

and Rohan made me this little pincase at. So sweet:

I must just show you what he made for a close friend of ours for her 60th birthday. She's suffering from depression and wasn't really going to celebrate her birthday but we made her come over for tea and showered her with thoughtful presents:

I gave her the sock book, the knitting wool and the alpaca walking socks. Amber crocheted her a brooch, Rohan made her the little bird which I have to show you a close up of and Raj made the oak chopping board with Dad. Tom cut it to shape and we let Raj loose with the electric sander on it. It came out a treat and it's complete with woodworm holes! Here's Rohan's bird:

 

Isn't it just amazing? This is my son who struggles with anything crafty. He decided to make a bird as our friend likes bird watching. So I drew a bird shape on a piece of wood, Tom lopped off the corners and Rohan went too with his carving knife. He sanded it and oiled and decided with Tom's help to put it on a  base. He was soooooo thrilled with the result. Needless to say I didn't want to give it away in the end but I did. I hope he makes one for me sometime.

Well, I'm off to boil up my flowers. I'll just leave you with a link to a place in the Forest of Dean that used to be famous for it's wild daffodils. I was told about this place last week when I mentioned to someone that I wanted to try dyeing with daffs. Sadly, we didn't make the weekend walk that was on - it was just a bit too far to go. Click here and here to see for yourselves.

What do you think..........

I've done it. I've finished the scarf. Finally finished crocheting trebles into the 1200 stitiches last night and I did it without watching anything. I was going to put the DVD of 'The Go Between' into the computer and crochet in front of that but guess what it wouldn't play and I wasted about 30 minutes trying to figure out why. Never mind - it got done and here it is draped around Amber's neck in a dangling down fashion:

and here it is wrapped around the neck (please excuse the cast off thread hanging down):

Strangely it only used up three balls of wool whereas the pattern said five. So I'm wondering whether to carry on trebling which would make the curlycues wider and more flouncy I suppose. Or shall I just leave it as it is? It seems flouncier at the end than the beginning for some reason - I suppose my tension wasn't right. What do you think? Carry on or leave it alone and what shall I do with two balls of emerald alpaca wool?

By the way the bolero Amber is wearing is also made from alpaca from the same company. I didn't knit it though. I paid a lady at the WI to do it because I had already started it once and got the size wrong and I couldn't bear to reknit it. I've learnt my lesson on doing tension squares though....oh except with crochet scarves!

I don't seem to have started anything new this week just been doing a lot of finishing off which is a blessed relief. I finished another gnome this morning. This one is from blackberried fleece and the colour contrasts between a lovely bright purple and grey mauve:

I fancy starting another dishcloth this evening a la Mason Dixon, the pattern for which seems to be printed on the wool label. Or shall I start another hottie with all that Kid Classic I bought off ebay sometime ago? Better get supper out of the way first...........

Curly whirly scarf

Here is where I'm at with the curly whirly scarf that I started on Friday. As I said in the previous post I'm using alpaca wool bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show from Alpaca Select. I bought five balls but I'm not sure that I'll use them all. I first saw a pattern for these scarves at a website called curlywhirlies which seems to be soley devoted to these scarves.  It has lots of free patterns on the sidebar and I particularly liked this one from woolly wormhead. However, in true Simmy fashion I took one look at the instructions and decided that it was too difficult and that was that.

Until Friday ofcourse when I saw one displayed at the Alpaca Select stand. They were selling patterns and the wool as a kit. The lady assured me that if I could crochet a flower (I was wearing on of my brooches) then I could certainly crochet this scarf. So I went for it - I think the colour did it for me really. I just decided that I had to have something in this colour. The pattern I have is very similar to woolly wormhead's one and I started with 300 chains and trebled into each chain twice:

which is what makes it kink:

Then you keep going on and on to the end and start all over again:

I won't give you the exact pattern as it must be copyrighted to the girl who wrote it but as I said it's pretty similar to the one I mentioned. I have to say it is a bit tedious/boring to make and I found that I did more at my parents because I watched the telly there and had more opportunity to sit around. But hopefully I'll have it finished by the end of the week. As you can imagine the latest dishcloth on the needles has been cast aside which had already cast aside Tom's tanktop.....I have a queue of knitting waiting.

Aside from the show we had a lovely w/end at my parents. Ate far too many pakoras/bhajis which my Mum and I prepared in the morning. Gosh I wish I could cook like my Mum she just throws handfuls of this and that in and makes THE most delicious food. I watched like a hawk what things she put in and wish I'd taken my weighing scales. I'm going to try them at home one day and when I do I promise I'll pass on the recipe (well only if they turn out OK!) We also had marrow curry which is the only thing in my mind you can do with marrow - equally delicious and we came home with most of it for supper tonight. Whilst Tom and the boys went to walk off all the fatty food Amber and I popped to the shops and I bought her an early birthday present:

It seems that kurtas or kaftans are really in at the moment and we saw lots of girls wearing them with jeans. Popped into a shop and we chose this one from a range of yellow, orange, light blue and maroon ones. I don't think the photo does justice to it actually cos it's very sparkly. She looks gorgeous in it and is wearing it to school tomorrow - they'll think she's going to a party.

Dishcloth heaven

Girls, do you know what is going on over the water? Did you even know that people KNIT their own dishcloths and actually wash dishes with them?  Well, I have to confess it was all news to me when I stumbled across a chat/forum on flickr the other day. Some poor soul naively asked what the point was of knitting dishcloths, did they absorb anything or just look pretty. She got a barrage of replies which I waded through. Have a look for yourself here ( and while you're at it look at some of the 800+ photos of dishcloths on flickr too). Well, by the end of it I was converted and I had to make one myself. Someone helpfully put in a link to a site full of patterns and I picked the Baby Fern Dishcloth. I found some cotton in one of my baskets and here's what I produced in a couple of hours (couple of hours because I didn't cast on the right number of stitches so had to undo it twice - it was late and I wanted to show you something this morning, honest!):

It's very quick to knit up but I wonder if I can bear getting it dirty - haha.

Anyway, I have solved one of my Christmas present dilemnas. I am going to knit abut a dozen of these as presents for my sisters, the in-laws, kindi teachers and anyone else I can think of. Incase you want to join me I have been doing a little research (forgive me if I'm preaching to the converted).

One of the yarns ladies in America are using is called Peaches and Creme (there is other stuff but I decided to stick with investigating one brand) made by Elmore Pisgah. I e-mailed them and asked them where to buy their stuff from. Seems you can get it directly from them. Here's their website. You can buy 1lb cones or balls/skeins which are 2oz. The lovely Flo who I spoke to said she thought a skein would make two dishcloths. There are about 100 colours to chose from. I'm going to do an order this morning and I did toy with the idea of some of us clubbing together and sharing the postage. Let me know if you want to - I could pay on my visa and divide it when the order arrives and you can pay me by cheque or paypal I suppose.

It seems that one of the dishcloths everyone is knitting is called the Mason Dixon Ballband Dishcloth from their book. It's very pretty but having just had a splurge on Amazon I cannot buy another book. With this in mind I set about looking on the web for patterns and believe me there is no shortage. So make youself a cup of coffee, kick everyone out of the room and have a quick look here, here, here, here, here, here and here - maybe not a quick look.

Incase you still need convincing here are some reasons I can see for knitting dishcloths:

1. A very quick knit.
2. Unusual present
3. Great way to practice new patterns.
4. An excuse to buy some scrummy yarn.

Hey, maybe we can have one of those knit-along things that knitting blogs have. Always wondered what they were and how it worked?

Well, I'll leave you immersed in dishcloths. Must go and pick my colours of Peaches and Creme.......

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By the way I was just looking for dishcloth cotton in the UK and I came across this on someones blog.

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Dishcloth Cotton.You are a very hard worker, most at home when you're at home. You are thrifty and seemingly born to clean. You are considered to be a Plain Jane, but you are too practical to notice.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Not sure about the seemingly born to clean - have you seen the dust and cobwebs around here and as for plain Jane - boohoohoo.

Tom thinks I'm more Mohair:

You are Mohair. You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with others, doing your share without being too weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely refuse to change your position once it is set, but that's okay since you are good at covering up your mistakes

Films and a bit of knitting......

I collapsed into a bowl of breakfast cereal after that last extravaganza of a post so as it's nearly tea-time here, or is it supper- time or dinner-time even (6pm so you decide) I'll keep this one short and sweet.

Amber and I had another w/end to ourselves and we managed to catch up on some old films, eat walnut whips and the odd bar of chocolate. I think we did have some proper meals in between too. I don't watch films that often and I can't remember the last time I went to the pictures so we had a bit of splurge. We got through Gone With the Wind, Jean de Florette and Manon des Source in two nights (one of them lasting till 1am). Jean de Florette is such a great film and what an ending.

The good thing about all the film watching was that I managed to get some knitting done so consequently I finished Raj's tank top this morning. It was such a quick knit and the pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple very easy to follow. Here it is all washed and ready. (I don't normally wash my knits straight away it's just that I was worried about the colour running!)

I used the madder dyed wool and I'm really pleased with the result. Well, onto Tom's one now. I think I'll start that one when we go to Wales on Saturday.

Amber, who has just peeped over my shoulder reminds that me that we watched Bend It Like Beckham too - for the third time. I love that film, it reminds me of my upbringing!  In between all the film watching I tended some pots with walnut dye in them and I managed to make a list of all the books, with ISBNs that I need to order for the parent's library at school.

I'm going to leave you with a pic of my 'laboratory' as I jokingly call it. It's where all the dyeing sits and soaks, cools, where the wool gets carded and where fleece gets left to dry. It's a mess but a creative one.........

If you want more detail have a look at the photo on flickr I've put notes on it.

Knitting... but it's not winter?

I don't usually knit in the spring and summer. It's an activity that I keep for sitting by the fire in the autumn and winter months. The rest of the year I find that I don't tend to sit in our sitting room because it's not as cosy without the fire, therefore no knitting. But the weather is all over the place and with my Mum being ill and my going up to see her quite often I've started a couple of knitting projects to keep my hands busy. I also feel very guilty about the amount of wool I have in my stash. I bought quite a few skeins at Easter from Coldharbour Mill and then the Kid Classic from John Lewis that I used for the brown hottie. As if that wasn't enough I bought some more Kid Classic off e-bay for a bargain (to be made into more hotties). So I thought I really ought to start using it up winter or not.

This is the french market bag from knitty that I've wanted to knit for ages. I'm not mad about the colour combination I've used but that's all I had. Boy was it tricky to start off. I challenged myself to doing it the hard way so I do feel proud of myself that I managed to start off with two stitiches on each of the four needles. I didn't twist them at all (but I did curse a lot). We're going up to my Mum's this morning so hopefully I'll be able to knit in the car and this evening (Tom's driving by the way).

Amber, inspired by my hottie has started one of her own. She's using this pattern but as we didn't have short enough circular needles she's doing a front and a back seperately. I'm a bit concerned about her tension and therefore the size of the piece but it'll have to stretch and maybe we can make the back piece a bit wider!?

My time with my sister and her children went far too quickly. We have all had such a wonderful time. My sister went up to my Mum's yesterday morning and I had all six children. Then a friend of Rohan's popped over and I had seven but I swear seven is easier than three. They took themselves off for a picnic breakfast down to the stream in the morning and in the afternoon I took them to the park and playing field. I sat and knitted for two hours (any opportunity I can find) and they played football. Then they played on the swings and things and we came home 3 hours later. They had such fun. Then after supper all six went up the road to use a neighbour's trampoline while I - no I didn't knit - I tidied the house. Ofcoourse, they were nice and tired at bedtime but hungry again. So after a round of toast each they collapsed into bed (four in one room and the oldest two in their respective rooms). I also collapsed into a chair read 'A Room With A View'.

This was supposed to be a quickie before we shoot off. My Mum maybe coming out tomorrow and I am going to try and bring her back with me cos my Dad can't look after her (he's 87). Thanks for all your kind wishes for her recovery. Now I have to pack a little and find six children and get them into the car.