I need a rest!

Good evening good people

How the devil are you all?

Well?

I am, I could do with a lie down as I've hinted at already, but I'm well.

In a couple of hours I'll retreat to my bed and before I know it, it will be time to get up and get back on the hamster wheel of life.

Once again my weekend is a blur.

I finished work on Friday, went straight to the leisure centre where Ben does karate and did a 30 minute swim while he trained. Once he finished, we went home and had a very quick tidy around the house while we awaited our guests.

This weekend our friends the Fisher's came to visit. It's been ages since we've seen them, so it was great to catch up on. We had a wonderful night chatting and a smidgen of alcohol may have been consumed. I had a very productive night - more on that soon.

Saturday was an odd kind of a day. The boys went out to gather wood for our worryingly empty wood store.We ladies (and Ben bless his heart) mooched about the house, psyched ourselves up for a brief jolly around town before heading to the supermarket for something to eat for dinner. Once we collected supplies we then retired back to the house to start the roast dinner. The Fisher girls where rather surprised to find me with my hand firmly inserted up a chicken's backside (well, in actual fact I was loosening the skin over the breast, but that doesn't sound nearly as funny). Chicken suitably stuffed and prepared, it was unceremoniously dumped in the oven while we went to play in the pool.

Now at this point, I should clarify that when I take kids to the pool for a fun session, it is not my habit to get wet. To me the pool is for swimming in not playing in.  I swim up and down for an hour or so and get out. The idea of playing about in the pool is alien to me.  When I suggested taking the Fisher females to the pool I had forgotten that the junior-most Fisher is only 6 and therefore needs to be accompanied in the water. I gave serious thought to leaving Mrs Fisher in the water with her two girls and Ben while I sat in the spectators area and knitted.

REALLY - serious thought!!!

But in the end I decided that it wouldn't have been the most charitable plan to leave them all to it in the water while I chilled on a bench with a brew and a knitting project.

So I got wet. To my delight and the kids' disgust the inflatable which is usually present in the fun session was broken so there was less splashing and buggering about. The pool was still busy though. Ben and Mollie (the eldest Fisher child and a confident swimmer) did their own thing, racing, diving and generally having a whole lot of fun. Mrs Fisher, Sophie (the 6 year old) and I all hung out together. Sophie is not as confident a swimmer as her big sister, but she did really well swimming her first 50 metres! Go Soph!!!

At the end of a surprisingly quick hour we got out and the kids had a slushie each to refill their sugar tanks while Mrs Fisher and I had that brew I'd been fantasizing about.

Despite my reticence I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Once home preparations for dinner where in full swing and all went well. The evening was dedicated to wine and helping Mrs Fisher get to grips with crochet.  She is a fellow leftie and had struggled to conquer crochet in a predominately right-handed world.

She did fantastically! I think she's set to crack on by herself. She made a good start on a granny square and has a crocheted teddy bear in her sights.  I wish her all the luck in the world. Hopefully next time I see her that teddy bear will have many crocheted friends.

Feeling the love -

This week has been all about the crochet.  My knitting and spinning projects have been mostly ignored.

The wheel has had a couple of rotations. My socks have had a couple of needles filled.  My shawls have looked longingly from their bags at the outside world, desperate to feel the love.

My attention has been almost exclusively aimed at my sock yarn blanket. On Friday night it was finished.  I say Friday night, but in actual fact it was silly o'clock on Saturday morning when the end got woven in.

By later on Saturday morning the kids where already fighting over who was going to snuggle under it! I mean, there is no shortage of crochet blankets in this house! But the newest one is the favourite.

Saturday I faffed.  I faffed on my sock club socks, I faffed with my shawls (both of them!!) I even spun some. But my focus was on Mrs Fisher's crochet hook, so not a huge lot was achieved.

Today is Sunday.  I have mainly been doing the housework I should have done over the last couple of weeks. In between loads of washing I've been flitting over many of my projects.  I even felt my fingers twitching towards the bag which contains my Hana Hou remains!! Don't hold your breath, but it may get cast on again soon.

On the horizon -

Next week is a week to survive.  I am on holiday the week after, so I'm definitely on the countdown.  So is Ben bless him, it's half term while I'm off. To start the holiday we'll be heading down to my mum and dad's house for their 40th wedding anniversary.  After that, I'm not sure what we'll get up to. I can assure you that I should be catching up on the month's worth of housework I've been ignoring over the last few weeks (I'm a social butterfly! What can I say?)
However, I'll probably take Ben somewhere for a couple of days.  We'll see.

On the crafting front, it'll be a minor miracle for anything to get finished any time soon.  I'd love to get chart 3 finished on the In Dreams shawl.  I've made some progress on Leftie,wouldn't it be great to cast that off!?
Wouldn't it be a minor miracle to get a sock or two finished!

We'll see

Hopefully it's going to be a really short week, followed by a really restful one!

Fingers crossed!

Have a great week guys!

Ellen x

A blog post of Two Halves

Last weekend I wrote to you. Honest, I did!!!!

I saved it and neglected to press the publish button! 

There are days I worry! ;-)

So, here are last week's thoughts - 

Ailments are like buses-

You're waiting at the bus stop for ages, then two come along together.

My back continues to annoy me, then WHAPPOW!!! I get slammed with Ben's back to school cold! 

Where's the justice in that?!?

I'm not playing this game anymore!!

On the life from I have nothing to report. The boys are settling into the school routine and all is well. At work, the flu vaccine season has started and I've been stabbing anyone who'll sit still long enough ;-)

Feeling the love- 

Do you remember my cunning plans from last week? Finish Hapa and finish at least one of my opal socks? 

I've achieved neither! 

It's not that I haven't been knitting. I have. But not on those projects. 

Mostly this week, I have been working on the In Dreams shawl. It's a thing of beauty. I'm approaching the halfway mark on chart 3 of 9. The beading is time consuming, and given that it happens on what on other shawls would be the rest row, it makes for slow progress.  

Despite this though I LOVE it! In all fairness, I'd make faster progress if I didn't stop every couple of rows to admire my work!! 

I have worked on Hapa mind you. I'm now on the final stripe before the split. On reflection, I think I should finish it before I work any more on In Dreams. 

Then of course there's my sock club. Those poor Scalloped Tulip socks haven't even made it out of the bag this week! Bearing in mind Wednesday is the start of October, I should get motoring on them. 

So this week's blog is short and sweet, sorry about that guys, but virus DNA is affecting my crafty mojo and all I want to do is take a couple of paracetamol and go back to bed!

On the horizon - 

I'd really like to say that I'll put In Dreams down and work on Hapa and my socks. 

I'm not sure I can though! 

It's such a lovely project. 

Who knows. Maybe when you come back next week I might surprise you all with an FO. Maybe even a HO!!

But don't hold your breath!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shamed into writing - 

This last week saw me conquer that evil virus. Not without taking casualties mind you. I'm still plagued by a cough. But I'm better. So I'm not complaining. 

Today during my lunch break I caught up with Mel over in North Carolina. I'm sure I've mentioned her new blog before, but just to remind you, Mel is no longer a single handed knitter and to reflect this she's focusing on her new blog WithMelDotCom. Mel mentioned my blog and I thought that I'd better write something quickly!!  

Thank you Mel for making me get my finger out and write again!! 

So onto the nitty gritty. 

This past week has been busy. Flu vaccinations continue apace. This weekend we joined friends for a jolly to Blackpool. For those not in the know, every autumn Blackpool puts on an illumination show down the promenade. It's a must visit at least once in your life. Let's just say that you can see all life there! Blackpool is something of a Mecca for hen and stag weekends. My eyes were opened I can tell you! 

Moving swiftly on!! 

We went to the Sealife centre, we went up Blackpool tower, watched the sun set in the Tower's coffee shop and looked at the Illuminations from the tram. 

While sipping my tea I chatted with a lovely old chap. He was also admiring the view, whiling away some time until he could enter the Ballroom. He had travelled all the way up from Cornwall to fulfil his dream of dancing in the Tower Ballroom. I hope he had a wonderful evening. 

While we ambled down the beach I took the time to google local yarn shops. Funnily enough, I found one! My good friend Steph and I couldn't resist. So with the aid of google maps we found Johnson's Wool & Needlework. An Aladdin's cave of yarn, buttons, ribbons, fabric and all things you could wish for. It's run by the lovely Suzanne Johnson. Her passion for her craft is obvious. Not only that though, she has a passion for her town. She's heading up a team of shop owners who offer niche poducts and services. Not to miss out we also visited a shop selling diecast models (Matthew bought an airfix Landrover kit) and a rather fabulous comic shop (Ben bought a Walking Dead Comic).

Me? What did I buy? Well restraint is my middle name as you all know! I bought 3 rather lovely balls of cotton and a tatting pattern. Once I got back to our room on Saturday night I soon realised that my tatting knowledge is not nearly good enough to be able to read a pattern. 

Note to self - invest in a learn yerself tatting book ;-) or bob down to Zena 's for a quick lesson. 

It is compulsory to buy rock in Blackpool. The North is the home of rock in my opinion. Rock must only be pink, mint flavoured and contain the name of the place you're visiting. No other flavours or colours or seniments can be tolerated!  There's a gent who uses my pharmacy. I'm sure he won't mind me telling you he's a grumpy old git with a heart of gold. He walks past my counter on his way to his doctor and shouts "Morning Ladies" regardless of the hour. He gives me dogs abuse and expects nothing less in return. Whenever I have time off he complains bitterly that I didn't buy him a stick of rock. Today I gave him a stick of rock and told him to get his laughing gear around it and quieten down..... I love the bones of him really ;-)

We left Blackpool early on Sunday morning because Ben had a karate competition. I must thank Hazel of Le Papillon Hotel for getting up at such a horrible hour to see us off with bacon butties. 

This was the first competition I'd been to where the whole club was participating. Before it had only been the youngsters. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the brown and black belts spar. The fights were astounding to watch. 

Before we get onto the knitting, here is a quick montage of the weekend. I hope you enjoy it

Feeling the love - 

In the first half of the blog, written a little while ago now, I wanted to finish Hapa. I did finish it but I ran out of yarn. So the split at the bottom of the shawl isn't nearly as long as it should be, but I love it. It's kept me snug and warm this past weekend. Winter is getting a grip on Cumbria and wooly handmades are becoming essential once more.

Huge apologies to Stephanie of Space Cadet Creations for the rubbish "bush" background!! In my defense I took this photo before I read your blog! - a must read by the way.

I have a HO too. I finished the first of my yarn club socks. 

If you recall I'm making my Scalloped Tulip socks. I knit the first one as per my original pattern. I do like it but I felt the urge to tweak it on the second sock. This time I'm adding  a slipped stitch detail to the central stitch. I'll see how I like it in the finished sock and update the pattern. So far, though, I'm liking it and the slipped stitch isn't proving to be a chore to work.

I'm not sure you can really see the difference in this picture, but from where I'm sitting it looks good - honest. 

The love has been liberally spread around over the past few weeks, so I thought I'd do a quick recap. 

My sock yarn blanket is perilously close to being finished. A long time ago I made 3 huge magic knotted balls of sock yarn. I'm onto my last one, and when it's run out I'm calling this project finished. It's plenty big enough to snuggle under while I work on it. There's no photo as it's currently living in my office and it's my lunchtime project at the moment. 

Once I cast Hapa off if felt the urge to work lace. So this week, I've added a few rows to both the Sun Ray shawl and the In Dreams shawl. 

Sun Ray is now almost halfway done. I'm at 800 stitches per round, so progress is slow but still very satisfying.

 As always lace looks like nothing on earth until it's blocked and sadly it's crushed onto a woefully short needle. 

In dreams is also progressing nicely. 

It's so pretty! I just want to look at it! The beading is slow going, but I do enjoy it. I'm loving watching the pattern emerge. A stunning creation 

Because I was travelling I decided to cast on a vanilla sock. I cast on using Opal Sweet and spicy 2 in the Star Anise Colourway. I didn't make huge progress, but it did serve its purpose keeping my hands busy while leaving my brain to socialise. 

Whenu has seen some action too over the last couple of weeks. She's had the second half of the Nunoco Jewel Bug Batts on her for months now. 

I chain plied it to preserve the colours and got a heavy fingering weight yarn measuring 170 yards out of the 50g batt. It's still waiting to be washed and thwacked, I'm hoping it helps it chill out a bit because right now, it's got a full twist worth of energy when you hold up the skein. 

The fact I've already agreed to give up the In Dreams shawl has been playing on my mind. I've been paying close attention to the Ravelry threads in my group and there are some stunning projects on the go. Some folk are spinning for their shawl!  This got me to thinking. What if I could spin for this shawl too? To that end I've put some BFL/silk I dyed ages ago on the wheel. I'm checking my consistency regularly. I'm going to spin the 100g straight through and then ply it with another nunoco product. This time it's top. It's a stunning blend of merino,silk and firestar in the Cobweb colour way 

I'm excited by the contrast in colour. I'm hoping that it will barber pole nicely and I'll get some lovely colours shifting throughout the piece. 

On the horizon - 

Well it seems that my WIP numbers continue to increase despite my best efforts!! Next week I'll probably focus on a couple of my projects in an effort to have progress to show you next weekend. 

Oh, by the way! My social butterfly status continues as we have guests next weekend. I'll write to goy as soon as I can. 

Have a great week.  

Ellen x 

I Can't Think of a Good Title, So This Will Have To Do!!

Good morning good people 

How the devil are you?

It's a beautiful day in Cumbria. The sun is shining and the sky is a gorgeous blue. I look out of my window and I can see fog burning off the Eden Valley below me. The birds are singing their hearts out and I feel all is well. 

Last week when I wrote to you I had just been signed off work. I felt posistive that some rest would sort it out and all would be well. 

How wrong I was. 

On Sunday I decided to cheer myself up and dye my hair. I was so careful washing the dye out. Taking extra care with my back. I felt chuffed with the colour and leaned forward to wrap a towel around my hair and BANG!!!! Something went. Big time. 

I stood there and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was so ridiculous. 

The consequence of this was that I spent the week trying to recover from the excruciating back pain I caused on Sunday rather than the just plain bad back pain I had on Thursday. This means that when I went back to work on Friday I actually had more pain than when I went off the week before. 

"Nuts" thought Ellen. 

I've given up on the painkillers as they make me sick before I can take enough to help with the pain. 

So essentially I'm no further forward. But the physiotherapist and doctors agree it's not sciatic so I don't qualify for a scan. Basically I'm none the wiser and neither are they. 

So I get on with it. There are folk out there worse off than me. Enough about the back then. 

But thank you for your well wishes over the past few days, they were greatly appreciated. 

Feeling the Love - 

You'd think that a week off work would mean I have lots of progress to show you today. Bless your heart 😉

The consequences of taking the painkillers was a very fuzzy brain which was unable to focus on anything for a decent amount of time. 

I had it in my head that I wanted to finish Hapa. I'm making the largest size and my erratic counting of garter rows means that my shaw is likely to turn out somewhat larger than Mel planned. I have plenty of yardage so I've no worries about running out of yarn. 

I kept slogging away at it and I'm very close to the end. I've got the last couple of stripes to do before the split. I think that I may have gartered myself out. I was struggling with the fact that there were just too many stitches on my cable. I've swapped to a 150cm cable now and it's less crushed and I'm hoping that by next week it should be done. Fingers crossed 

Monday  was the cast on for my "Knitstostaysane Sock Club".  I may be a little obsessed with my new sock!  I'm using Opal sock yarn, a yarn with blues and pinks from the Little Prince range. 😍 and I'm knitting my Scalloped Tulip Socks - a free pattern on Ravelry 

I'm sorry but I may have spammed Instagram a little with progress pictures!! 

What can I say?! It's pretty!! 

The only other project to see any action this week is my 'I Dream of the Sea' shawl. What you see here is my second attempt. I started using 3.25mm needles as instructed in the pattern, knit until the beading was supposed to start and pinned it out. 

I'm using recycled yarn from a commercial sweater and I'd put it at a cobweb weight. Consequently the sitches looked too wispy, too pulled out of shape when I pinned the work out. I asked the girls in the Evenstar Ravelry group for their opinion and in the end I ripped back and started again with 3mm needles. I'm much happier now. 

You probably won't see this project often, only when I reach milestones. I've no plans for finishing it any time soon. I don't want it to become a chore. It's far too much work to get sick of it and let it hibernate. 

On the Horizon - 

I'm hoping to finish Hapa this week. 

I'll definitely finish one sock. It would be great to finish the pair, but honestly it's unlikely 

I'll work some rows on the In Dreams shawl 

I really need to cast on another sample and re-write my new shawl pattern. 

Have a great week guys 

Ellen x 

A New Slice of Crazy Pie

Good morning folks

For the first time in 12 years I have been signed off work. I'm gutted! My back has been bothering me for ages now, and finally I've given in to peer pressure and gone to the doctor. She gave me some pain killers and told be to go home for a week.

So, here I am, lying on my bed a little bit puddled but feeling better.

Let me catch you all up on the last couple of weeks.

Ben's start at new school has gone well. He's happy as a sand boy and doing great. He's loving his new school, all the new subjects he is taking and is thriving. I'm still having kittens each day, but he's taken the whole thing in his stride and seems frankly confused by my worry! That's the way to be though, yes?

Last weekend was our local Village Show in Askham. For the first time ever I decided to enter. I put 4 entries into the Handicrafts section and one into the Photography section. Matthew entered too. He put in a turned box he'd made.

Considering it was our first time out, we did rather well!

Matthew got a first for his box, and I got 3 firsts and 2 seconds. I'm really chuffed.  I'm delighted for Matthew, he always sees the faults in his work. No one else can see these faults, but he's never totally happy. It was lovely to be able to prove to him that his work is great! Someone completely neutral thought his handiwork was excellent.

I'm already planning next year's entries. My sensible brain tells me that  there is little point seeing as how I've no idea what the categories will be next year, but my competitive brain says "Get crafting!"

In other news, tomorrow Sunday 14th September is the next grand cast on in the Evenstar KAL group on Ravelry. We're all casting on In Dreams by Susan Pandorf. Feel free to join us in a huge slice of crazy pie! I've completed the swatch ready for tomorrow and I'm really happy with the bead and yarn combination. When the beads arrived I was worried about how blue they were. But when they're threaded on the yarn they look great. I can't wait to cast on. 

Feeling the love -

Another slice of crazy pie was started on Monday this week. A friend tagged me in a photo on facebook.

It seemed that I just had to 'knit' this for her husband. After I finished ranting about the differences between crochet and knitting I found the pattern and mailed it to her (it's free on Rav, so don't panic about copyright infringement!).

However, the more I thought of it, the less I could resist the gravitational pull of that lump of crochet! (That's no planet!!!) Before I knew it I had some sock wool and a hook in my hand and a Death Star was under construction!! The simplicity of the pattern was ideal seeing as how the pain radiating down my legs was quite distracting and I just couldn't concentrate on my other projects!

I finished it on Friday. I don't think it looks too much like one of those Pinterest fails you see, but I think I'll need some lighter grey yarn for the stitch details next time. It was fun to make and Ben quickly decided it was his! I have, however, discovered that lots of folk need crocheted Death Stars in their lives so I now have a waiting list for them! Saints preserve us!!!

The enforced inactivity has made me think long and hard about my WIP list. I really need to clear the decks somewhat so I also finished Ben's socks. I had been hovering around the heel turn for ages and seeing as how he wanted them to be ankle socks, they were so close to being done it was silly to leave them any longer. Besides which, the rate Ben's growing at the moment, he'd be out of them before he got to wear them!!

It's an awful photo, sorry, but to be honest I just couldn't be faffed! How bad is that? My artistic mojo seems to be being squished by painkillers. Harrumph. 

The next WIP on my hit list is a project I haven't even told you about!! It's a great pattern by my good friend MSkiKnits. This woman's talent knows no bounds. I love this shawl. It's called Hapa and it's a lovely blend of two yarns. The colours are combined in a way completely new to me, so there's no carrying yarn up the sides of the piece, no floats, and no ends to weave in. Joy of Joys!!

I'm using  2 hand spun yarns that I spun ages ago. They are by no means perfect - thick and thin, over and underspun, erratically plied. They really don't have much going for them! Someone once said you should use your hand spun quickly, or else as you get better you won't want to use it because you'll only see it's faults.
How right that person was! As I'm using these yarns I'm seeing nothing but their flaws; but despite this, I love how they're knitting up. The crispy, overspun areas seem to be softened in the fabric; the thick and thin areas add character to the rustic garter stitch pattern. I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

What amuses me no end is the fact that despite me being a reasonably accomplished knitter, I still can't accurately count garter stitch rows!!! I kid you not! I actually had to watch a YouTube video! Any how, after that confession, I'd say that I'm probably about a quarter of my way through the knit. I think it'll become my mindless knitting. The soothing regularity of the garter stitch may become my salvation in the weeks and months to come as my other lace projects progress.

I have also worked on the Sunray Shawl. I've been faffing around with needles for ages. I had been using brass finished Addi needles. I love my Addi's but I was finding the brass finish too 'grippy. I like my lace stitches to slip over the needles. I was also finding that the 100cm cable was just too short now that I'm over 600 stitches in the round. I decided to go back to my Knit Pro interchangeables. Now, I now the wooden tips are more grippy than the brass, but I have a 150cm cable for them and I thought that some of my problems stemmed from the fact my stitches where becoming crossed over as they were crushed on the cable. I transfered the stitches over on a rest row and then tried to knit the next pattern row. Disaster!!! the Knit Pro interchangeables are just rubbish for lace! The join where the needle tip meets the cable can best be described as a canyon where lace stitches fall in never to be seen again! I'm now slogging my way through this round and waiting for a new needle to arrive in the post - another Addi but this time with a 150cm cable and nickle finished tips. I'm hoping that this will solve my problem.

When I decided I needed a longer cabled needle, I of course went shopping. I do like to spend my money locally whenever possible, but my LYS owner (bless her cotton socks) doesn't like knitting on circular needles so she doesn't stock many and those she does stock are Pony (bleugh!!!) so the internet was the way forward.  I usually shop at either Deramores or LoveKnitting, but neither had what I was looking for. I searched Addi on Google and came up with Addineedles.co.uk. WOW!!! All the Addi needles you could every desire are there! I was very restrained and just got the one I needed, not the umpteen I wanted!!
So now, with some good luck and a following wind, I should be able to make good progress.

On the horizon -

The big deal is, of course, the In Dreams cast on tomorrow. There is no time pressures in this KAL, so I'll probably just keep you posted with my progress as and when I reach milestones.

I have come to a decision - I have lots of sock yarn..... I know!!! Shocker!!!!

It sits in a large supermarket shopping bag. Mostly I've no idea what I want to do with it. I bought it because I liked the colour, or the feel or (coughs) the smell!

Well, I've made a decision. I've made my own sock club. This is nothing new, I've read about it or heard about it on other blogs. I pulled out 12 random skeins of yarn. Placed them in bags marked 1-12 and used a random number generator to decide the order 'they arrive'.

The first yarn I'm using is Opal in the Little Prince series. It's a blend of blues and pinks and it's just lovely. The great thing about pulling out all my yarn is that I've found things I'd forgotten I had!
The other thing I decided to do for my sock yarn club is to knit patterned socks. I've been knitting mindless vanilla socks for ages. I love the portability of the vanilla sock, but I think I'm falling into a rut with them.

So my sock yarn club works as follows - I will use the yarn in order that my random number generator dictated. I will search Ravelry for pattern ideas based on what others have made with the yarn. I will commit to using at least one club yarn a month. I will NOT buy sock yarn until I've used up these 12 skeins

This way I've got a year to knit 12 pairs of socks and use 12 skeins of yarn which would otherwise be languishing in my stash. I'll probably have the odd pair of vanilla socks on the needles too over the coming months - sometimes vanilla is the only way forward after all!

I'm really hoping I can get the last of the Jewel Bug fibre off my wheel in the next week. It's been languishing there far too long.

So, until next week.

Have a good one

Ellen x

New starts

Good morning. 

Happy Labour Day weekend to you all in the States. 

Happy Sunday to those of us who aren't! :-)

As the title suggests I'm looking forward to new starts this week. 

My baby (11 years old, but he'll always be my baby) starts secondary school on Wednesday. I'm a nervous wreck. He's completely nonplus. 

September also sees the start of a new epic KAL over in my Evenstar group on Ravelry. There's a thread entitled 'The consequence of Evenstar' I encourage you to check it out. We will be casting on In Dreams, another of Susan Pandorf's stunning patterns. This one is a half pi shawl with a measly 5000 beads. 

Yes, that's right! FIVE THOUSAND BEADS!!! No pre-stringing here, each one is placed individually. I'm not sure if this pattern will break me, but I'm going to thoroughly enjoy finding out!

As with the Evenstar KAL, there are no time pressures here. If you complete the pattern in a week (?!?!?) or a year that's great. The group is there to motivate, inspire and listen to your howls of frustration. 

Why don't you join us for a little slice of crazy pie this autumn?

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend here in England. We had good friends come and stay with us. They have a whippet called Floyd and while we walked our pooches down the lane our boys cycled. It seems that while the boys cycled they were also searching in the hedgerows. 

They found these three ma-hoo-sive mushrooms!

Which I promptly fried up for dinner! They were gorgeous. So fresh and mushroomy. I know it sounds daft, but the mushrooms you buy in the supermarket don't really taste of much. But these suckers taste divine!!

Feeling the love- 

Since I last wrote to you I've finished my It's All xraymd's fault socks. 

I'm sorry for the less than inspirational photo. I know I promised no more sofa shots, but I just realised that I didn't take a glamorous shot, and now they're in the wash!!

I also finished the With Mel shawlette. I was a little worried when I was knitting it that it would be a little small on me. Mel and I are poles apart size-wise! Once I'd cast off I felt a little better about the wingspan of the shawl, but I decided to block it hard too. 

It wraps just nicely over my shoulders, but I think I'll mostly wear it as a scarf

This is how I wear most of my shawlettes. I love how it turned out. I'll be knitting it again I'm sure. Check out WithMelDotCom for the pattern. 

 The Sun Ray shawl has also come out of hibernation this week. It dawned on me that September and the In Dreams KAL was looming. I thought I should clear off as many big WIP's as I can. I've made some progress up chart D. The snag is I spend an inordinate amount of time just gazing at the shawl! I'll knit a row and just look at it for a while! It really is lovely. However, I need to accept it's beauty and crack on with it! I'm no way near half way and looking is not progressing! 

I've also discovered the joys of washi tape..... I know, I know, I'm always last to the party! 

I have astigmatism in both eyes and even with my glasses I sometimes struggle to keep them going the same way (I'm special! I know ;-) ) when I look at complicated charts, sometimes my eyes will wander down to the row below or above. When I'm using the iPad and PDFexpert I can highlight the row I'm on, or enlarge the image so that I can only see the row I'm working on. This pattern is from a hard copy book though. I photocopied the pattern and I've been crossing off the rows as I knit, but sometimes I still wander off. Now I've put a piece of washi tape on the pattern though, I'm finding it much easier. Can't find washi tape? Well a low tack masking tape from the DIY store will do just as well and no doubt be a damn site cheaper too! 

I've worked some on Ben's socks, but not a whole lot. 

I've worked on that blasted sock yarn blanket. That ball just refuses to get smaller!  The only consolation is that it's now plenty big enough to snuggle under while I work on it. The weather has turned positively autumnal this last week. Dewy mornings and a distinct chill in the air. We've had the fire lit on more than one occasion. 

I've spun too this week, but again, I've not made a huge amount of progress. 

It's been one of those weeks when I've dabbled at lots of things and got nothing to show for my efforts! 

Hey ho

On the horizon - 

I'll be dabbling again I imagine! I could really do with winding my In Dreams yarn into a cake and swatching. Cast on is the 14th of September, so I've got a while yet. 

I'm hoping and praying that Ben survives his first days at big school. This is a huge leap for him and I'm sure he'll have a great time. I'm such a worry wort

Have a lovely week guys

Ellen x 

Can you spare a minute?

If you wouldn't mind, would you please read this blog post:

http://withmeldotcom.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/angry-and-sad/

It's from my good friend Mel.

It's an emotional post, it made me well up while I was in work (that'll teach me to sneakily read blog posts at work :-&)

If you can, and you want to please help.

Spread the love 

Thank you
Ellen x

Only Lefties are in their Right Minds

Happy Sunday folks!

I last wrote to you at the very beginning of my holidays, and here I am already at the end of them! I'm not quite sure where those 14 days went, but this time tomorrow I'll be knee deep in work, the memories of the last two weeks fading fast! ;-)

It has been a busy two weeks, I've lots to tell you about!

I've ticked many things of my to do list.  Sadly most of them are housework related and therefore far too boring to tell you about. Suffice to say, my cream carpet was returned to it's original glory for all of a week, now, sadly there are dirty marks on it again from a welding project brought into the house by the other half - sigh.

We went to a local exhibition centre called Rheged. There are a few shops there selling Cumbrian wares. The exhibition hall changes frequently. At the moment there is a Lego exhibition on by Warren Elsmore.

The Olympic Park in London

The Trevi Fountain in Rome

It was quite a sight to see - buildings from around the world made of Lego. The centre piece was St Pancras Station. Stunning. 

 My only complaint was that it wasn't very inspirationally displayed. St Pancras Station sat in the middle of the room with the other buildings under glass set on plinths around the room. It felt like they'd been plonked there. The room wasn't decorated, there was no flow, odd. There was, however, a couple of tables in the entrance to the exhibition where children could build their own Lego sculptures. Over all it was ok, thankfully it only cost us £1.50 each. If it had been any more, I'd have been a tad miffed.

There has been much crafting this week, so let's get to it!

As promised last time, here's a photo of my completed fulled single yarn. I'm really rather happy with it, but lord knows what it'll become.

Feeling the Love -

What a fortnight it's been. I've made progress left, right and centre, but there has been only one FO! My Enforced Monogamy socks are done. All hail sport weight socks I say!

There is quite a lot of yarn left over. I think that together with my other Regia 6 ply, it may make a rather cute stuffie!

OOOH! OOOH! OOOH! I lied!!! I have another FO!!!!!!

I'm really rather pleased with myself! I made a skirt!!!! I know!! Get me!?!?
(sorry for all of the exclamation marks, but I'm really chuffed!!)(sorry again)

This is one of my Camp Aloha Friends projects. I'm delighted with the results.
It's an A-line skirt with an invisible zip. It fits a treat. I'm so happy with it I might even be tempted to try my hand with another project sooner rather than later.

Definitely done with the FO's now. Promise.

I do have a couple of HO's though. Both Ben's second socks and my It's All Xraymd's fault socks have felt significant love. Ben's second sock is still a toe, but my second Thanks sock is racing down towards the toe.

The Thanks socks have been an interesting knit. I'm knitting along with Andrea and I'm helping her wrestle with the chart aspect of the pattern. I'm having to knit and conciously think about what I'm doing. Rather than blindly following the instructions, I'm thinking about what I'm doing and why, how can I best describe this in plain language to someone who's never knitted from a chart before. It's been an eye opener and seeing as how I have a pattern out at test knitters now, I'm thinking about how best I can change the instructions to be more clear. Stand by! In an effort to describe the sock to those who've never knitted it before I made a quick YouTube video.

In other Camp Aloha Friends news, a little while ago I made paper beads with using a tutorial from Zena. I knew I wanted to make stitch markers with them, it just took me a while. So Friday I got out my equipment and had a play.

Now, our Camp Director, Mel, wanted us to take a step in her shoes. She wanted to think about what it is to teach or coach someone. She asked us to put together a tutorial, she told us to think about anything, any task, and work out a way to present the information to someone else. "Stretch yourself" was her only guidance. So, I thought that making our beads into stitch markers would be a nice tutorial. I set up the camera and started. Sadly, however, I neglected to factor in the disruption two 11 year old children can have on your plans! It took many takes, and in the end I settled for the best of a bad bunch! The end result sees my hands wander out of frame often, but you can't hear the kids hollering and having fun, so it's the lesser of two evils!

It's been a fortnight filled with helping. At knit night a couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies came in wearing a Leftie by Martina Bhem. Much cooing over it ensued and Karen decided she must make one! It is, after all, an excellent way to use up all of those sock yarn scraps. Karen got stuck! She emailed me for help with the pattern. So, I brought up the pattern on my ipad one morning, got two balls of sock yarn that hadn't been put away yet (*coughs*) and cast on. I followed the pattern past the first leaf, making notes as I did to clarify the pattern instructions and emailed them to Karen and ripped out the swatch I was playing with. Karen informed me she is flying with the pattern now. I was left thinking of all the colour and yarn combinations that Leftie would look good in. I was reminded of the yarn I used to make Inspira and Mara's Mitts. How lovely would the body of the shawl look in that dark fading black colour of my Inspira? And those leaves would look great in Mara's yarn. Hmmm, I thought. All of my sock yarn scraps have been made into gigantic magic cakes for my sock so new yarn may have to be purchased (*coughs* again). A quick trip into town saw me return with a black ball of Jawoll Magic and a gorgeous 50g ball of bright rainbow happiness that I promptly lost the tag of! Both are singles, and are knitting up lovely. I'm happy with the results, but picking up wraps when your yarn is a single who's sole purpose in life is to split and cause probems has proved tricky! But I'm inspired to keep on knitting, both Zena (littleyellowuke on rav, instagram and twitter) and Deb of the World of Imagination blog are also knitting it and their progress photos are inspirational.

I'm loving how the leaves are slowly changing colour. I'm also weaving in my ends as I go. The idea of leaving them all to the last minute fills me with dread.

I've spent a great deal of time on my sock yarn blanket. I'm about halfway through one of those giant magic cakes I mentioned earlier. I've got another two made and I'm thinking that when these are finished, I'm going to call the blanket done.

Since I last wrote, Mel of the Single Handed Knits blog and video podcast has had a revelation. She's moving away from that blog and has started another. With Mel Dot com is a thing of beauty. The photography is nothing short of stunning and, as always, Mel writes in a wonderfully inspirational way.To celebrate her new blog, she's designed a lovely shawlette. She has been giving the instructions for the pattern in weekly instalments. I did some stash diving and came up with a ball of Opal Say it with Flowers. I'd scored it a while back on ebay for a song, but didn't really know what I'd do with it. It's a hand dyed effect yarn with red and blue mixing in the middle to make shades of purple. I wasn't sure how it would knit up in Mel's pattern Menehune. It's knit with an applied edging and I was concerned that I'd end up with odd striping as I knit that edging. As it stands, I'm really happy with my progress. Here I am, Sunday afternoon, and I'm already waiting for the next set of instructions just hours after Mel released this week's video.

On the Horizon -

I'm hoping to at least finish my Thanks socks this week, I hope to make progress on Ben's socks too.
B
U
T
Mel has thrown another WIP-shaped spanner in the works! Tomorrow sees her release another pattern. Hapa is another garter stitch shawl with fabulous colour work. I've caked my yarn ready.

I'm using two skeins of hand spun. The blue is spun from BFL batts I bought at Woolclip a while back. The red is Merino from Forest Fibres.

So between going back to work and having new shawl goodness to work on, I'm not sure that my existing WIP's will see much action!

Have a great week,
See ya!
Ellen x

P.S. This week's photography is courtesy of Ben. He wanted to help. I think he did a good job! naks Ben x Love ya!! ;-)

If my head wasn't screwed on........

I'd forget it!!!

D

O

H

!

!

!

Good morning good people! How the devil are you all?

This morning the blog comes from the Wirral. I'm visiting my mum and dad for a couple of days at the start of my holiday. 

So far my holiday has been a catalogue of errors. Starting on Friday night. 

We had had a lovely night with Matthew's family, catching up and having a great fun. It was the first time in ages I'd had more than one glass of wine. In fact, I'd probably had three and was a little bit tiddled if I'm honest. It got to about 10 pm and we decided to go home, Ben was getting tired and we had to pack up and leave for my mum' handy on the Saturday morning. 

I had just settled down on the sofa with a SOFT drink when my mobile rang. 'Unknown' came up on the screen. I have to say I was in two minds as to whether or not to answer it. I did and a nice gentleman from Cumbria Constabulary advised me that the alarm was going off at  the health centre where I work. There was an unsecured door. I had to go down and sort it. 

Thankfully Matthew hadn't had three glasses of wine and was able to drive me down. So, rather than getting ready for bed as he'd planned, poor Ben was bundled into the car and we all set off to town. Thankfully I work just 5 minutes away. As we pulled up into the car park I could see two police vans and a police car parked up. I realised that this was not going to be a quick job! I introduced myself to the officers and asked if they'd give me a lift home when this was all sorted. I told the boys to go home and settled in for a long wait. 

"Why the wait?" I hear you ask. The police officer who seemed to be in charge had decided to call in a dog to search the premises before he'd go in and see what was happening. We were stood in Penrith. The dog in question was in Workington about 40 miles away! Thankfully said dog had a handler who had a car, so he was about 30 minutes away. 

I chatted with the police officers while we waited for the dog van to arrive. Once it did, what appeared to be a pre-pubescent boy got out! (Dear lord, I felt SO old at this point!) he was lovely and jolly and had a huge Alsatian dog who was excited to get to work. A brief search later and it was deemed safe for us to go in and try to sort the alarm out. 

At this point I should state that I only have a key for one door in the health centre and for my pharmacy. Each doctors practice and clinic have their own alarm systems to which I have no access. All I could do was to make sure it wasn't my alarm going off (it wasn't! Phew!) and lock the offending door behind me. 

At this point I'd like sympathise with the good folk of Penrith because I think that alarm will have sounded on and off all night! Sorry guys, but there was nothing I could do about it! I couldn't even work out which alarm was going off!!

A lovely young police officer gave me a lift home in a police van. I'd like at this point to clarify I was sat in the FRONT of the van, not in the back ;-) I could feel the curtains twitch as the van pulled up outside my house at close to midnight!!

A great start to my holidays. 

Saturday saw the usual state of affairs start. The Met Office issued a severe weather warning for rain and floods. Sigh!

I wanted to get down to my mum's as soon as possible before the weather got too bad, so I rushed around the house, packing up bits and bobs I'd need for the trip. Clothes, toiletries, knitting. You know..... just the essentials! 

On the way to my mum's I needed to stop in at Manchester. It isn't strictly on the way, but it's close enough. Matthew and I had decided to buy a kitchen cabinet on eBay. The gent selling it had delivered a kitchenette to us a while ago, but this time the purchase coincided with my trip to mum's so I decided to pick it up. This side trip added an hour onto our journey, so I was doubly keen to set off. I cleaned the windscreen, topped up the fluids and off we jolly well went. 

As we got further south the rain became heavier, in places I was only travelling at 40 miles an hour because of the surface water. We arrived safely and the unit fitted snug as a bug in a rug in the back of my car. I discovered you can lift the bottom bits of the seats lift up so the backs lie flat! Every day is a school day! 

After a really hairy trip down the M53 we arrived safely at mum's and unpacked the car. 

Travel bag - check.  

Hand bag - check

Knitting bag - 

Knitting bag - 

KNITTING BAG ? ! ? ! 

OH! Holy yarn balls batman?!?!?!?! 

Where was my knitting bag!?

I text Matthew, praying I'd left it at home, because otherwise I'd left it on a pavement in Manchester!!

Thankfully (ish) I'd left it at home!  This put me in the horrible position of having NO knitting for the next 3 days?!?!?!?!? 

This is BAD people!!!!

There was nothing for it! I'd have to find a yarn shop! I can't last 3 whole days with no knitting! It can't be done!!

Off we went to Voirrey. It is a craft shop in Brimstage, a small village on the Wirral. Once upon a time Voirrey was a wonderful shop filled to the rafters with cross stitch kits, yarn and other fabric goodness. My heart sank as we approached the door to find shelving outside with loom bands and other cheap tatt on. This didn't bode well. 

As you enter the shop on the left hand side used to be where all the silks and fabric could be found for cross stitch, now it was full of children's toys. If you turned right you used to find the cross stitch kits stretching as far as your eye could see, now they adorn one wall the rest of the space being filled with assorted bits an bobs, none of which was overly inspiring. 

You travel further into the shop and you still find the fabric emporium, the one area that remains unchanged and still lovely. You move further in to find the yarn section. I was bitterly dissapointed. If you look at their website you'd have positive,excited thoughts about the yarns they stock, the notions and patterns. Sadly this wasn't backed up by what my eyes saw. Most of the shelves had a single row of  yarn on. Some were completely empty. The yarn was uninspired. Lots of acrylic, cheap and cheerful yarn. They did have a selection of sock yarn, but the rest was that icky stuff that essentially knits itself into frilly scarves that have never seen a sheep! 

I picked up a ball of Regia self striping sock yarn, but they didn't have DPN's in a size I could happily knit up socks with so I set it down. The only sizes they had where 4mm and 2.75mm. So I plumped for the 2.75mm and a ball of Rico Superba Country 6ply. It's a subtly variegated black/purple colour. 

I also picked up some lovely sparkly buttons and some fabric I'm hoping to use to appliqué onto my Camp Aloha Friends skirt. 

On the whole I'm sure you've picked up that I was dissapointed with my trip. It strikes me that Voirrey is confused about what it wants to be. It's spreading it's resources too thin, some focus is required so that it does a few things well, rather than trying to be all things to all men. 

But still, I had one project to work on now, and I cast on a vanilla sock as my mum drove us home. I was rather chuffed with myself actually. I managed to do a Turkish cast on using DPN's. Happy days. 

The afternoon was spent raiding my mum's paper crafting stash. I wanted to make some tags. I'd made some with bits and bobs I had at home earlier at camp and I was happy with what I'd come up with. I knew that I wanted to play more with the idea, so after picking some papers, cards and embelishments Mum, Ben and I settled down to some crafting. 

We had lots of fun. I also made some writing paper. I can't wait to sit quietly and use those sheets and send them off to some special folk. 

Feeling the love - 

In my bag that is languishing at home are the projects I wanted to share with you, so photos will follow next week. 

I worked on Ben's socks this week, I turned the heel and I'm now working up the leg. Thankfully Ben doesn't want the socks to be too long, so in a couple of rows I'll start the ribbing. 

I also worked on the shawl I'm designing. I'm still enjoying the project and I'm happy with how it's turning out. Hopefully I'll have a pattern written up ready to be tested sooner rather than later. 

I also started another pair of socks. I am taking no responsibility for these socks what so ever! I received a message from 'xraymd' Andrea asking for some pointers for knitting the Thanks socks. We've exchanged a few messages, and I decided to knit along with her. I'm knitting the pattern as originally written by Regina Satta this time, the only modifications I'm making are in the way I'm making the increases and decreases. I love this sock. The way it's constructed makes it feel like a super quick knit. I've turned my first heel and I'm now racing down the foot. I even did the heel as written, my first heel flap and gusset since I discovered the Fish Lips Kiss Heel so many months ago! I'm using 15cm DPN's that I bought at Woolfest and the gusset is so much easier to work on them than the usual DPN's I use for socks. I think I'll keep my old ones for FLK heels and use the longer 15cm ones if I'm wanting to make gussets - fewer problems with stitches falling off and running for the hills!!

Last week I took the plunge and fulled the BFL/silk singles. I wound it onto my niddy noddy and I was pleasantly surprised that it only broke twice. I was convinced it would fall apart. I put plenty of ties on it and then gave it the shock of it's life! Ben helped me as I plunged it from hot to cold water. He especially liked thwacking it on the veranda rail.

Doesn't look like much right now does it?!

 I had put the skein in my knitting bag along with my niddy noddy so that I could re-skein and measure it. I suppose that will have to wait now! Ggggrrrr

Any hoo

On the horizon - 

Who knows!?

The next 2 weeks are my own. I've no real plans, so I'm excited to see what I will get done

On the crafty front, I've got 2 pairs of socks to finish, 2 shawls, a skein of yarn to re-skein and measure, a skirt to make, a project bag to weave fabric for and then put together and who knows what Mel has in store for us in August. I can't wait!!!

I'll keep you posted

Have a great week

Ellen x