Greek Salad In Greece

I know it's been ages and I'm sorry.  I said a good while ago I'd post when I had something interesting to say. Well, there's been a few weeks I've sat down to talk to you guys, but I never get around to pushing the 'publish' button.  Then when I do think about publishing, I feel that it's been too long and I should start again.

And so the cycle continues!

So..... Today I plan to sit here with my brew, my blanket around my shoulders (it's chuffing freezing around these parts!!) and I'm going to tell you what I've been up to in the last week or so. Then I'm going to press publish. 

Those of you who follow me on Instagram may rapidly become bored because there will mostly be lots of photos of my jollydays!

In my defense, it's been a good 6 years since our last foreign holiday. This one was only made possible by the generosity of friends and family. To those people, I am eternally grateful. I feel rested and ready to face the world again.

Let me start at the beginning. 

A long time ago Matthew's parents had a yacht in Greece. Zipcode was a fabulous little craft which was moored in a town called Nidri on a little island in the Ionian called Lefkas. Now, most of you won't have heard of this place as a tourist spot and there's a very good reason for that. A rather rich man called Aristotle Onassis bought an island off the coast of Lefkas called Skorpios. Aristotle really rather valued his privacy especially when he got involved with a rather famous woman!

He encouraged the islanders not to chase the tourist Drachma by giving the island money.

Because of all of this, Lefkas is still a very 'Greek' island. Yes, there are hotels and tourists do visit, but there are strict rules governing the development of the island and it's still beautiful and relatively un-marred by it's visitors.

When we were young and fancy free, Matthew and I would holiday in Nidri for a couple of weeks during the summer. We'd buy a package holiday which gave us our own apartment and we'd sail with Matthew's parents on their boat. It's been 12 years now since we've been. Sailing (in my opinion anyway) doesn't go well with small children who have no sense of danger!!

In those 12 years much has happened. Matthew's parents sold their yacht and many of their friends who sailed the Ionian built villas in the area. One such couple are Barry and Trish. They're great folk. They sold up in the UK and moved to Meganissi, another island off the coast of Lefkas. Barry is a building contractor and a very tallented one at that. He built his villa and a little holiday house next door. Ever since then they've been saying we should come out and stay. It was such a generous offer, but life just didn't work out in such a way as we could go.

Well a few months ago while visiting Matthew's parents here in Cumbria, Barry and Trish said we were coming and that was that. I decided that by hook or by crook we would do it!

And so it came that on the 23rd of this month I was crossing things of my lists as I packed cases.... Oh! And I realised that we only had one suitcase! So on the Saturday before we flew out, I was in Penrith buying a new suitcase!!!

Anyhoo.

When we used to go on holiday, we always used to go to my Mum and Dad's, they'd give us a lift to the airport and pick us back up. So habits are hard to break, and we decided to do the same this time.

Saturday morning I packed all our things and then settled down to chill. I thought we were nearly ready to set off when Matthew declared he had to go to a friend's  to pick up some wood. Ooookkaaayyyy!!!! I thought. The only way to deal with this was to cake up some yarn I'd had my eye on and start a new project. Here is my reasoning for this - I'd made myself a promise that I wouldn't cast on any new projects until my WIP list was in single digits. BUT!!! I'd packed all the little projects to take on holiday! 

I'd been itching to cast on some hand spun for ages. I had 2 gorgeous skeins winking at me every time I passed them! The first has been spun for ages. Cornfield - a merino from Long Draw James if I remember correctly. I spun it into a half decent laceweight. I decided while I was waiting for the boys to come back that another holiday project would be ok. My Thankful shawl is an excellent holiday project. It has a simple stockinette body and a lace edging that's not taxing and easy to read. Originally I wrote the pattern for fingering weight yarn, but the beauty of these body and edging shawls is that you can keep knitting on the body until you've got about a third of your yarn left and then start the lace. 

I'm going to make the lace edging on this shawl deeper than I'd originally designed. I'm going to knit the body until I've got 50% of my yarn left or a multiple of 29 stitches whichever happens first.  This should give me a nice deep lace edging which will go well with the delicate laceweight yarn.

Once the boys got back we set off for the Wirral. We joined my parents for a rather good roast lamb dinner, and then popped out to visit friends. My good friend Steph rather kindly borrowed my boy for the bank holiday weekend at the start of May. She was off down to Lego Land for Star Wars day. While they were there her son and mine took part in a competition to see who could build an X-wing fighter out of Lego the fastest. Ben and Peter won!! I think they were the fastest on that day but not the fastest over all. That aside, they won a goodybag of all things Lego. We went to Steph's to pick it up before we left for Greece. We had a good chat and giggle while the boys played.

Sunday morning dawned grey and damp. I was happy to be leaving the cold miserable British weather for a week.

Dad's garden looks green and lush in the damp

We arrived at Manchester Airport in good time. It's a great airport with lots of opportunities for a little retail therapy. I'd already decided to treat myself to a new pair of sunglasses. The Oakley pair I had are a good 8 years old now and the finish is peeling off around the lenses. I found myself a rather lovely pair of Maui Jim's. 

We had a burger each in Franky & Benny's. I found a piece of bone in mine! Geepers, I thought, good job I didn't break a tooth! That would have ruined the holiday!

Checking out the view while waiting for our turn

Our flight was delight about an hour but it wasn't a bad wait and before we knew it we were in the air. Since we last had a foreign holiday, Ben has decided he doesn't like to fly. He's been getting quite anxious about it. Being the good (?) phamacist I am, I decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. He's not a great traveller and often gets travel sick on coaches, so I gave him a sedating antihistamine! Put him to sleep a treat on the plane and he wasn't nauseous on the coach transfer either! (Win!)  

On Thomson Airlines now there's no inflight meal as such. You can order hot snacks from the trolley and that's about it. Matthew and I decided to have a ham and cheese toastie. It was rather good. However I found another piece of bone in mine! Someone out there wants me to break a tooth I'm sure.

The coach transfer from the airport was good. Just 45 minutes (and a rather hairy drop off at another hotel) and we were in our hotel. The hotel Bel Air is on the outskirts of Nidri town. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Good - we're away from the hustle and bustle of the restaurants and bars. Bad - we were right next to a storm drain. Lefkas is an island with huge (ish) mountains which run right down the middle of the islands and when it rains, it really rains! All that water comes running off the mountains heading for the sea. I remember 12 years ago the streets were knee deep in water after one such deluge. Thankfully because of these drains, the water clears quickly. HOWEVER, this isn't the rainy season and the storm drains are nearly dry. Not dry enough however, they're colonised by frogs and mozzies!!!

Lovely view of the pool from our balcony

So on our first night I didn't sleep at all well. If wasn't woken by the frog chorus Paul Macartney would have been happy with, I was plagued by the high pitched whine of mozzies eating me alive despite the copious amounts of repellant I'd plastered myself and the others in.  The frogs gave up just in time for the traffic to start. The bin lorry arrived at 6am and I gave sleep up as a bad job and sat up knitting!

We had a lazy morning waiting to head off to the ferry. It was a 15 minute walk which wasn't too bad despite the fact we were dragging our suitcases along behind us. (Note to self - pack lighter!!)

My pathalogical dread of being late meant we were a good 3/4 of an hour early for the ferry. We stopped in the taverna opposite for a cold drink and Matthew took Ben off to show him all the old haunts. I sat and knit - well, why wouldn't you? I had to stay there and mind the bags after all.

The ferry - not quite time to set off yet

On the ferry, waiting to set sail

Nidri. Pretty isn't it?

Checking out a new view

Land ho! Vathi is in sight

The ferry takes a mere 30 minutes or so to get over to Meganissi. Barry was there to meet us and took us up to our villa.

OH

MY

GOD!!!!!!

Don't get me wrong, I've seen photos of the villa on Facebook! I knew it was beautiful, but I had no idea just how gorgeous it would be! 

Brace yourselves for lots of photos - 

This is where I sat of a morning, catching the first rays of sunshine, knitting and drinking tea

The view isn't half bad

That evening we all went out for dinner in Vathi at a taverna called Stavros'. Matthew's parents and brother know the family really well, as do Barry and Trish. We had a wonderful meal and were made to feel like family. Ben wasn't sure what to make of the hugs and hair mussing that went on! He's not overly demonstrative at the moment, and he looked startled to have strange Greek men bear hug him! 

Tuesday marked the real start to the holiday. Barry and Trish have an infinity pool in their villa and they'd said we could use it whenever we liked. So, while the boys were still in bed I decided to go have a good swim. 

Forgive the hazy quality of the photo - I took it through my phone case. Not a bad view from the pool

See? I really did swim!

And that I did! Snag is, infinity pools aren't really designed to be properly swam in! They're for pottering and playing in. Theconsequence of me going full chat for the thick end of an hour was I flooded out their bar! Bugger!!!! Swimming in the pool was out!

I went with Trish into Vathi for coffee and to get some shopping in. Dear me I wasn't ready for Greek coffee! I was on a buzz for hours. When I got home, Ben whooped my arse at Top Trumps and there was significantly more knitting!

It's wine o'clock and time for more knitting - the Arrowhead socks are well on the way to completion

We decided to have dinner in Abalaki bay. I had gorgeous meatballs and pasta. Crikey me the portion sizes are huge! I did, however, make an impressive dent in the plateful.

Wednesday was supposed to be wet. Thunderstorm wet.  We were going to go round to a bay to swim, but we decided discretion was the better part of valour and stayed home. As it was the day was cloudy and there was a couple of brief showers but I was braver than that..... I sat in the sun and waited..... in the end the sun shone.

Spot the difference? Yes! You got it! There are threatening black clouds in the sky! Ptchar I say, I'm sunbathing anyway

At the end of a hard day's knitting and sunbathing we went up to Barry and Trish's for tea. Trish made the most gorgeous beef casserole EVER!! There was a whole bottle of red wine and a glass of brandy in it! Holy Sauces Batman! It was a bit good!

Oh, and I managed to finish the Arrowhead Socks. Soon I'll even write up the pattern! 

On Thursday we skimmed stones. Simple things are the best. I cooked my own chicken souvlaki. Not bad! Even though I say it myself.

New socks on the needles - Pansy by British Bea Knits. Great yarn. Quick sharp colour changes. Somehwere out there the boys are swimming

Chicken souvlaki - home made this time.

Friday I decided to swim across Abalaki Bay. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought. Half way across the water was really deep and rather cold. I got cramp in my foot. It took some doing to swim through it.

A change is as good as a rest - the Pansy socks are very nearly done by Friday so I decided to cast on another project. May Morning by Denise Bell. I'm using silk lace weight by Ripples crafts and beads from Hobbycraft. The pattern is really pretty and easy to remember

Saturday I started thinking about going home. A week passed so quickly. Every second was great. Ben and Matthew went for a walk while I packed up the house. They walked around to the next bay, skimmed more stones and had a great time. Me? I packed the cases, cleaned up and then took a quiet 5 minutes to finish up the Pansy socks.

Waiting for that ferry at Spartahori. Sigh, it's time to leave

These ferry guys know no fear. They just charge up to the landing and then put the engines in reverse. The trucks set off before the ferry actually stops moving! Scary Mary

We took the last ferry back to Nidri and went back to our hotel. Ben and Matthew had a quick swim in the pool (a tad cold judging by the colour of them) while I went to the nearest supermarket and bought all kinds of mozzi killer. In the end we splashed out and bought some air conditioning. 

On Saturday night instead of being kept awake by the cacophony of frogs, traffic and mozzies, I was woken by the wind tunnel effect of the air con unit I was sleeping under.

Sunday was time to go home. The coach to the airport didn't leave until 4.30 so we had time to spend at the hotel, we swam in the pool (still cold, but a good size) and  soaked up the last few rays of sunshine.

We landed back in Manchester to 11 degrees and a biting wind. For some reason the airoplane didn't stop at a gate, we stopped right at the end of the skyway and had to use a set of steps to get off the plane. 

Dusk falls. So do the temperatures!

We walked across the tarmac to the arrivals area. My Mum and Dad met us with the car and we set off home. Sideways rain and wind followed us home. We got home just gone midnight, sent Ben straight to bed and got the house straight. By jove it was cold in the house. We were met by 3 of the 4 cats. This was rather suprising, seeing as how they usually sulk and ignore us for a few days. The cold must have driven them home.

Today I woke stupidly early. I thought I'd get up and start working through the mountain of washing. I set the machine off and put the kettle on. I looked out of the window and saw the sun shining. Great stuff I thought, I can get some washing dry outside..... but no..... what was actually happening outside was rain. Granted the sun was shining through the rain, but it was raining none the less. There would be no drying outside today. The weather got steadily worse as the day went on. We've had sideways rain and hail! The met office has issued a severe weather warning for the next couple of days. 

For pity's sake! It's June!! The weather is atrocious. 

This holiday has been great. I've had a wonderful time with family and friends.

On the Horizon - 

Well, the holiday is in the past, but I'm clinging onto the memories. Tomorrow I'm back at work. Wish me luck I'm going in!

On the crafting front, I've really got to focus on In Dreams now. I'm so close to the finish, I think I've got less than 20 rows to go. Snag is they're getting more and more heavily beaded.

My cunning plan for June is to finish up some WIP's. To be honest, that was my cunning plan in May too! But I've chipped away at 3 long term projects last month. Granted I've also finished 2 projects started in May too. Oh, and I've started another 2 large shawl projects. So, I suppose my WIP list is as big as it was back in April! But my intentions are good! Honestly!

So, it's late, I promised to press publish and I'm really tired. So I will publish this tonight. But I'll edit it tomorrow to add in some links. But just in case I don't get back to adding those links - here is the Facebook page for Shamballa. If you're interested in independent travel to Greece. Check out the page. The villa is nothing short of stunning!

https://www.facebook.com/villashamballa

Have fun crafting guys. Hope to get back to you soon

Ellen x 

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain

Right,

Ordinarily

Yours truely

Gulps

Breaths

In

Violently........... When I think about colour. 

My pallet consists of shades of purple and black. If I'm feeling adventurous I add in a little blue or maybe grey.

However my comfort zone is being challenged by gorgeous and talented folk. The interwebs are groaning with delicious offerings from indie dyers. 

Call it Clown Barf

Call it Unicorn Farts

I call it inspirational rainbows. 

There are rainbow gradients in fibre and yarn.

OOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! 

The possibilities are endless

I've been lusting over fibre goodness in all manner of colours recently.

This beauty is from Spunwareoverarainbow on Etsy. It's 21 micron merino and it's begging to be spun up into something truely delightful!

Mandy dyes the most gorgeous fibre and yarn. If you ask her nicely, she even spins up the fibre and sells the handspun too! Based in Canada, there might be import duty for us Brits, but her prices are really good.

Closer to home and close to my heart - Nunoco are up to rainbow tricks too!

This is Candy and Lora's Harmony Rainbow Pack. A pack weighs 150g and contains a selection of inspiring colour co-ordinating blends, merino tops, firestar, silk and noil. Is it not a thing of beauty!?

Don't spin? Don't panic!!!

HandDyedByKate in Wales will make you rainbows to knit or crochet with!

This ball longs to become super stripey socks!

What if you don't like in your face bright rainbows?

What about this from Countess Ablaze?

This is Nerds Prefer Their Rainbows Darker. A custom blend of fibre that spins up into the most stunningly subtle yarn.

What if you'd rather have yarn that's more commercial, more reproducible? Well check out Deramores online shop. The choice of rainbow yarn is myriad. Here are a couple of my favourites - 

This is Araucania Botony. It's laceweight and crying out to be an airy shawl.

This is King Cole Zig Zag 4ply in the Rhapsody colour way.

OK,

So you're now armed with yarn. What are you going to do with it!?

From teeny tiny rainbow baby hats by Jessica M Anderson

To stunning rainbow ripple baby blankets by Celeste Young

To Martina Behm's stunning Endless rainbow shawl

You can find umpteen ways to brighten up your day with Rainbows.

Me? I'm off to sing a rainbow while I knit one up!

I hope you've been inspired to make rainbows part of your life too

This post is my submission to the Deramores Craft Blog Competition 2015. Deramores is the UK’s number one online retailer of knitting and crochet supplies.

The end of the challenge.

So, for the last 2 weeks I've been taking part in Teapigs Matcha Challenge.

The challenge is simple - have a dose of Matcha Green Tea every day for a fortnight and see how you feel. 

I have done just that. 

What is green tea powder? 

It is the whole powdered green tea leaf. By drinking the whole leaf you're getting all the goodness of that leaf. It's not like drinking a tea made from a tea leaf were you drink some caffeine, some flavonoids, tannins and some other bits and bobs, you get all the goodies the plant has stored in those leaves.

Teapigs matcha tea is made from high quality Japanese green tea leaves. 

Because you're drinking the whole tea leaf you aren't going to make a clear tea you might imagine. You are effectively making a suspension. The mouthfeel is different to a normal cuppa. 

As you'll know if you read last week's matcha post, you'll know that I really did not get on with hot or cold matcha. Having said that, it's s very personal thing. I know of 3 people who love matcha shots. Straight up. 

That's not for me! 

I LOVE matcha in juice. I've tried lots of different juices over the last couple of weeks, and I love it!!

My juicer had been the best investment I've made in a long while. It's seen plent of action too. 

So far my favourite is my trusty apple, carrot and orange juice.

The only snag with adding matcha is it does turn your lovely orange coloured juice into a very dodgy brown sludge colour. 

What are my results? 

The packet says that it might help me feel sprightly. 

Well

Erm

I don't I think I've been sprightly EVER!!

I'm a big girl who is idle at heart. I can't honestly say that matcha has increased my energy levels. In fairness there are probably more energetic corpses around! ;-)

So have I felt any difference for my matcha daily dose? Yes. I have

Another claim on the packaging is that matcha realises energy slowly over up to four hours. 

I can confirm that drinking matcha in the morning has curbed my appetite. I'm usually starving by 10:30 regardless of what our whether I've eaten. But now, I'm hungry at lunchtime. 

I'm going to try a second dose with my lunch and see how I go in the afternoon. I'll not me drinking matcha passed lunchtime though. It's quite high in caffeine, and I can well do without sleepless nights!

In conclusion, will I be spending my own hard earned cash on match green tea? Yup! You bet I will. I'm enjoying the juices and I think in the long run matcha might help me with my weight loss. 

I'd like to thank the guys at Teapigs for the opportunity to try their tea. 

I'd also like to ask them to save me a pot! I'm putting my order in shortly

Don't forget. If you fancy trying Matcha for yourself, you can save 20% with the code MATCHA15 

Green is good for you........... Right?!

I promised you a blog yesterday - I'm a complete failure. I hadn't factored in all the things that needed to be done. I ran out of time and I ran out of zing!

This blog is a catch up of the first week of 2015 and the first week of my Matcha Challenge. 

I put myself forward when Teapigs asked for bloggers to review their product. I was thrilled they took me up on the offer. A short while before Christmas my goodies arrived. They sent me their modern matcha kit. Is it a little bit sad to like their packaging? I love the cardboard box the kit was sent in - it says tea in transit all over it! How fab is that?! 

Any hoo I digress. The kit consists of a 30g pot of Matcha, a cute shot glass, an Aerolatte whisk, a 2 week check sheet, a measuring spoon and a teeny tiny button badge. Everything you need to get started. I have a warning here - that whisk has some oomph about it! Take care when making shots. I put my measure of matcha in the glass and then filled it just under halfway with cold water. When I turned on the whisk I nearly lost most of my liquid! The Aerolatte generates such a vortex, my tea nearly escaped! Just a little hint folks - put a small volume of liquid in the glass to susepnd your tea and then top up with more water. 

So, how have I got on?

Day 1 was New a year's Day. Poor Matcha. It didn't have much of a hope of making me feel perky that day! I should tell you now that New Year's Day was also day 1 of my Dryathlon (my poor liver!). I drank my Matcha as a hot tea. I wasn't enamoured. Not at all. Matcha is the WHOLE green tea leaf in powder form. Not just a freeze dried tea like an instant tea or coffee is, it's the whole leaf. Consequently I find the tea has a distinct vegetable smell and taste. One of my friends nailed it when they said it smells like henna! Ping!! The light went on! That's it! It smells and tastes like henna. 

That's a big bleugh for me!

Day 2 I tried the shot. Holy smokes it was vile! Thick henna liquid is not what I need in the morning. Coupled with waking with a horrendous head that if i didn't know better I'd have called a hangover, I was feeling rather sorry for myself and not enjoying my Matcha experience AT ALL! 

Day3 - a new low for Matcha. I made a latte. I should have known better, I hate warm milk and I'd never go for a latte in a coffee bar, but in the interests of research I tried it. The smell of warm milky henna was very nearly too much. I'm a good girl though, and I drank it all up. Day 3 was vile. I had a full on migraine all day. I seriously thought about jacking the whole thing in. But my "new me in 2015" drive was still on and I had bought a juicer. Folks on line had said matcha was good in juice, so I was thinking positive thoughts. 

Day 4 - Ta da!!!!! I found my Matcha Mojo. Matcha in Orange juice was a triumph!! I think how I had been feeling had been my body going through a detox of sorts. The headaches, hungover feeling, lethargy, and the upset in my innards (sorry folks, but it happened!) were all due to me flushing my system out. Sunday dawned and I felt better. Bordering on feeling good! I pottered about the house doing my chores and realised about 2pm that I hadn't had lunch for that matter, my breakfast had only consisted of my matcha/juice and a cup of tea. Hum, I thought. 

Day 5 - juicing is king!!! Carrot, orange and matcha!! A matcha made in heaven. ;-) I loved it. 

Day 6 - Two apples and oranges. Delish!!

Day 7 - One week in and a review. I don't think I feel that I have more energy. I'm a fat girl, so my energy levels aren't great at the best of times. The one thing I do like about matcha is the slow energy release. Normally, regardless of whether I eat breakfast, by 10am I'm starving. Even if I have a full breakfast I could eat again by mid-morning. 

Now, I'm ready for my lunch at lunchtime. I'm back at work now, so I'm having a bit of protein for breakfast -yesterday a boiled egg, today a slice of ham (the girls at work complained bitterly about the egg! How rude?!)

I'm feeling positive about the next week, matcha and I are getting along fine these days. I'm playing with juicing. I've borrowed a couple of books with juice recipes in - watch this space for more information. 

I'm exercising more. I'm swimming hard, walking whenever I can, and I'm using the cross trainer. Who knew it was more than a clothes horse! 

I'll drop another blog post at the end of this week with a 2 week round up. 

Will I buy more when my tin stats to look empty?

Yes. I think I will. I'm enjoying the mix of matcha and juice. I'm enjoying the slow release energy it seems to give. I think I'll try a dose at lunchtime for a couple of days and see how I go. 

I do have concerns about the caffeine content - 70mg per 2g measure- that's almost double my usual cup of tea, but we'll see how much it affects my sleep. 

To those of you out there who said they'd give it a whirl with me - tell me in the comments box how you're getting on with your matcha challenge. 

All hail 2015!

Happy New Year one and all!

Did you all have a good Christmas and New Year?

Was the weather kind to you?

Here in Cumbria the weather was gentle.  Cold and crisp on Christmas Day, wet and windy on New Year's Day.

We had a lovely Christmas. I worked a full day on Christmas Eve until 6pm. Matthew came and helped so that I could let the girls go home early. Normally it goes really quiet in the afternoon, but not that afternoon! It was bedlam. I had customers queued up the corridor until gone 5pm. But they were all good spirited about their waits, so all was well.

Dinner on Christmas Eve was once again provided by my MIL. She's a star!!! I was completely done in, and to be able to come home, be handed a glass of wine and a plate was wonderful. We exchanged gifts that night and Ben was completely blown away! His uncle Tony had bought him a bow. A real bow, not a toy one!!! His face lit up and he wanted to go straight outside to have a go. We suggested that flinging lethal weapons around in the dark was probably not the best plan, he reluctantly agreed.

Christmas Day dawned cold and bright. I was up for ages before the boys surfaced. I quite enjoyed the quiet time to be honest. I'm often up before them and I love the opportunity to sit and knit and collect my thoughts for the day.

We bought Ben an xBox One as his main present. We kept it until last. He'd wanted one for months and we'd said no. There's nothing wrong with the 360 he's got. It's a complete racket.There was a new game released this year that he wanted more than anything, but it was only being made for the new consoles. Honestly! These companies have us parents over a barrel. Any how, I'd saved up Nectar points all year and I had about £80 to spend so when I took that money off the price of the xBox One it made it the same price as his 360 had been.

Ben opened his presents and was happy enough, he'd got the things he'd asked for, but you could tell he was a little disappointed. Matthew had made him a shelf for his bedroom - now that he was going to have 2 xBox's he'd need some kind of way to store them so they don't overheat. He gave him the shelf and Ben was a tad bemused to be fair. I said I needed the loo, and went off to get his last present. He opened it and nearly fainted with excitement! He was made up!

We haven't seen him since

I fear he may lose muscle tone and turn translucent!

And me?

Santa brought be lovely shiny things too!

Ben bought me a ball of yarn. He went to my LYS and picked a ball of Opal Sweet and Spicy 2. It's the red onion colour way. I've knit it many times before and I love the colours. Ben know's me so well. It's funny, he went into the shop and couldn't be swayed by the owner Elaine, he knew what he wanted to get me, she couldn't suggest anything else. I've been into the shop in the last couple of days and she was gushing about how lovely Ben was, how polite and how funny it was that he knew what he wanted to get me. I'm very proud of him.

Matthew excelled himself. I got a lovely bottle of perfume. I knew I was getting that because he rang me from Debenhams in a blind panic asking me what I wanted. His other gifts where stunning. He made me a yarn bowl. He'd been out in his shed turning something for me the weekend before. It blew me away. It's made from sapelli I think. The thing I love most about it is the lip he's turned around the top so that your ball doesn't pop out! How clever is that!?

He also bought me a book. It's called Vintage Knit by Marine Malak and Geraldine Warner. There are 25 knitting and crochet patterns inspired and refashioned for today. As it stands there's not a single item of clothing in the book that will fit me, even with the reworking of the patterns the sizing hasn't been changed much. The women of the 50's just weren't my shape or size.

That said, I love it! Right now, it's full of inspiration. Stitch patterns, shapes, design features - my creative juices are flowing! I hope that one day soon, I'll knit a garment from the book, but for now, I'll just use them as a platform for other things.

My mum and dad got me a subscription to a yarn club. I'm so excited, my first installment should ship in the next couple of weeks. It's from Ginger Twist Studios there are 3 installments of yarn and patterns to create lovely accessories. Each yarn is a rare British breed. I'm just too excited for words.

Matthew's mum and dad got me something different. An amplifier for my iPhone. It's hand thrown by Stuart Broadhurst. I love it!

Christmas dinner was wonderful. A beautiful piece of beef with all the trimmings. Again - all hail my MIL!! Dinner was topped off with a game of Monopoly. Ben had been given a Penrith Monopoly board by Matthew's parents for Christmas, we had great fun until a tide of red wine stopped play and the money had to be dried out on a heater!

On to New Year's Eve. We had been invited to a party at a neighbour's house. It was great fun catching up with folk, eating good food and drinking good wine. Before I knew it Big Ben was ringing and 2015 arrived.

New Year's Day brought a new start.

I started the Teapigs Matcha Challenge. For those of you looking confused right now, Matcha is a concentrated green tea powder. It's full of goodies like flavanoids and amino acids. It's supposed to give you lots of energy and make you feel fabulous.

Disclaimer -

I have been given a Matcha kit by Teapigs to try and to blog about. I haven't been paid to big up their product, rather, to give my honest opinion.

So here it is - I am on Day 4 of the Matcha Challenge.
Day 1 - New Year's Day. A hot matcha tea. Was ever hopeful that matcha is a miracle cure for hangovers. As it was I wasn't really THAT hungover, more tired really.
Day 2 - A shot of cold matcha - holy smoke!
Day 3 - A matcha latte
Day 4- Matcha in orange juice.

Ok. Thoughts.

So far I have mostly been feeling rough. Nothing specific, just rough. Yesterday I had a headache/migraine all day. My innards (not to put too fine a point on it) have been rough too!
The Matcha challenge started on New Year's Day, a day I started other things too. I started the Dryathlon to raise money for Cancer Research (if you fancy donating you can click on the word Dryathlon and it will take you to my JustGiving page)

I think that my body is going through something of a detox at the moment which may account for my feeling lousy.

I'm thinking that the migraine yesterday was the worst of it, and I'm thinking positive thoughts that I'll start to feel better from now on.

I'll blog a brief blog on Thursday to let you all know how I feel after a full week.

It's taken me four goes to find a way of drinking the matcha that I like. The hot matcha and the shot weren't nice at all. Matcha is basically freeze dried whole green tea leaves. It's not the tea made from green tea leaves that's been dried. Consequently there's a distinct 'vegetable' smell and taste about it. It's reminiscent of sprouts, now I like sprouts, but I'm not that enamored with drinking them. The matcha doesn't dissolve. It's suspended in what ever vehicle you choose, so by the time the hot tea had cooled sufficiently to drink it, there was a definite sludge at the bottom of my cup. I was a good girl though, and swirled until I'd re-suspended it and took the full dose. The cold matcha shot was hell! In such a small volume, the resulting liquid was thick and sludge-like. It took 2 rinses of the glass with more cold water to get the full dose. I shan't be repeating that anytime soon. The latte was the worst. I should have realised it wasn't the best plan because I don't like warm milk! Eejit! The latte made be balk (sorry guys!) The milk seemed to make that veggie smell and taste worse. But I'm a good patient/guinea pig and I finished the cup, swirling the dregs to get the full dose. And so onto this morning, matcha in orange juice. Not bad!!! There's still a distinct odour of sprout about the glass, but it went down a treat!
It's the way forward.

I bought a juicer yesterday, so I'm thinking that tomorrow's matcha dose may well be in a freshly juiced concoction. This morning I had a cup of tea, a matcha/orange juice and a glass of apple and kiwi juice. I didn't feel hungry until gone 1pm. This could be a good thing!

Now I've found the way I like my matcha I'm feeling happier about the rest of the challenge. Hopefully once my body has flushed the remaining muck out of my system from the festive excesses I should start to feel the benefits of Matcha.

If you fancy giving it a go, head on over to Teagpig's website you can get yourself the goodies to do your own Matcha Challenge use the code MATCHA15 to get 20% off. What will be your favourite way to drink matcha?

Feeling the love -

Well on the domestic front, my kitchen has been feeling the love today. We bought a kitchen unit off eBay months ago and it's finally been installed in the kitchen. It took so long because Matthew had to strip about 40 years of paint off it! I'm happy with it. One half is a cupboard with 2 shelves and the other has 3 drawers. The bottom drawer is really deep and it's now got the recipe books I use most regularly in. The cupboard had got the coffee machine, my food processor and my mixer in. So now they aren't clogging up my work surface, but they aren't so far packed away I can't get to them to use them.

On a crafting front I've done some knitting and spinning over the last fortnight.

Firstly the spinning.  I've had some BFL/silk on the wheel for months. It's a commercial blend I dyed myself a while ago, a tonal purple colour. When I started to spin it I had decided to spin it right through and ply it with another fibre. As I spun it I have to say that I got bored.
I seriously considered just navajo plying it and getting it over and done with. But once I had it finished, I was intrigued - how would it look plied with a contrasting colour? I had a mooch through my fibre stash and found a braid of Wensleydale/Mulberry Silk 70/30 from Juno Fibre arts. It's nothing short of gorgeous. A beautiful silvery grey and shades of purple. It spins like butter. I split the braid into quarters lengthwise and I'm spinning each quarter straight through end to end. The braid was lighter than I anticipated at 91g so I know I'll have more of my purple singles than the Juno when I'm plying the two together. Whatever's left I'll ply back on itself. Maybe I'll even have yet another go at plying from a centrepull ball.

On the knitting front, I cast on Christmas socks on Christmas morning. I wound Ben's yarn into a ball by hand, I put it into Matthew's yarn bowl and I cast on for a toe up sock. I worked up to my usual 72 stitches and then I had a peruse through the Vintage Knit book Mathew got for me. I found a rather lovely looking sweater. The stitch used throughout looked ideal for a sock. It was a kind of rib. On the first row you knit 2 together then knit into the back of the same 2 stitches thus keeping your stitch count right.

Holy moley what a nightmare! The pattern did say it was a fiddly stitch and they weren't kidding. The knitting into the same 2 stitches was tricky. I kept dropping a stitch or splitting my yarn. The fabric it made was lovely, but not worth the effort for a whole sock! I wonder if knitting the sweater on bigger needles with more drape to the work might make the stitches easier to work. As it was, not a good look for a sock. So I ripped back to the toe and started again. I'm working a simple travelling cable now. I like how it's progressing.

I've also worked on the Congo Sally socks. I've finished the first one and I'm not too far off the heel turn of the second.

What about those colourwork socks I hear you ask?! Erm, well, about that.... it seems that going up 2 needle sizes wasn't enough to make them fit. I need to work out how to make colourwork fit, so before I try again I've got some research to do. Needless to say, I've ripped them out completely. I think I'm going to work a simple travelling stitch pattern using the blue Natalie Fergie yarn.

And that's about it for what I've been up to.

On the Horizon -

I'm not a huge fan of New Year's Resolutions. I just set myself up to fail. So I have aims for life.

1 - Spin 15 in 15 - spin for 15 minutes each day.
So far so good! I've spun every day so far.
2 - Operation sock draw - have 12 new pairs of socks just for me.
I've got 2 pairs almost half done already!
3 - 40 weeks to 40 - be happy in my skin by the time the big 40 dawns
I'm on the way, I've taken up the Matcha Challenge, I'm doing more exercise, and I'm watching what I eat. Fingers crossed all goes well
4 - Write every day
I have a page to view diary. I'm writing in it every day. Nothing too deep or meaningful, just a few thoughts
5 - Be less of a potty mouth
It's hardly very ladylike after all!
6 - Clear some WIP's - I have 2 pairs of socks, 3 lace shawls, a cardie and a blanket on the go. I really must clear them away before I start anything else.
7- Stash down! I'm not going to bring yarn into the house unless I've used up twice as much already. This doesn't include my Christmas present obviously!

I think that's quite sufficient!

I hope you all have a happy and prosperous 2015

Oh, by the way! THIS is post 100, so check out the Ravelry group for a giveaway thread. I'll close it next time I blog.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to check in.

Ellen x

You wouldn't swatch for socks........... Would you?!

Well you wouldn't, I mean honestly! The joy of sock knitting for me is that I know that for my foot I cast on 72 stitches and knit away on size 2.25mm needles and my socks will always fit. I must confess, that my mother-in-law may have received a lot of socks at the beginning of my sock knitting career until I hit the formula I needed to perfectly fit my foot. But still. Hey ho!

So I've decided to design some colour work socks. I'm using the yarn from my secret sock club as my base colour from Natalie Fergie and the leftover Araucania Ranco from last month's sock yarn club as the contrast colour. Now I've knit these yarns before and I was confident that I could just knit away with no problems. 

I'd charted the colour work, cast on using DPN's, knitted an endless inch of ribbing and set about working the pattern. I knit 2 pattern repeats and sat back to admire my handy work. 

Hum I thought. 

I transferred my stitches onto a large circular needle to try it on. 

Did it fit?

Nope. Not even close

It was so tight it wasn't even funny. 

It would appear that my tension while knitting colour work in the round is MUCH tighter than I anticipated. 

Needless to say I've ripped it out and gone up 2 needle sizes. We'll see if that helps. 

So do you swatch? I must confess that despite completing a great course on the joys of swatching by MSkiKnits I'm still not enamoured with the process. For a large project that I'm going to spend a great deal of time and money on I will swatch, but for something little like a sock, nope, STILL not a chance ;-)

I think of each sock as a learning curve. When I come across a new technique or process, I knit according to the pattern and see what happens. I suppose each pair of socks are swatches in their own right. I'm happy to work like this, because I know I have a very deserving recipient of all socks a tad too small for me. And if they turn out too big? Well, then they're boot socks. Problem solved. 

This might not work for you, and I can well understand why. So I think I'm trying to suggest you swatch. If you've never done colour work in the round, never cabled in the round, never worked in the round at all! Swatch. Because your gauge is highly likely to differ from what you're used to producing when you work flat. 

That said, I'll keep chugging away at my socks, and they'll be published in the new year at sometime. 

Still on the subject of socks however, I've been asked to do a workshop on sock knitting for beginners. So my question is this- if you've never knitted on a sock, what would you want to know about? 

So far I've got a section about your equipment- yarn and needles; a section on the construction of the sock; one on cuff down and one on toe up. I plan to get the attendees to knit teeny tiny ornament socks to demonstrate each version relatively quickly. I plan to design each little sock with a different
 heel (heel flap and gusset, and short row) and toe (wedge and a round toe of some sort). This way they will have the wherewithal to make 4 different socks when they go home. I'll send them off with a couple of patterns for grown up feet too. 

Have I missed out anything obvious? 

Feedback would be gratefully received. 

There are only 2 sleeps to go until the big Ho Ho Ho!!!!

Are you ready? 

I am. 

And if there's anything not done - tough! It's staying not done!!! 

Feeling the love -

I have been a good girl. I concentrated on finishing both pairs of socks I had on the go last time I wrote. Steph's are wrapped and are now sitting under her tree. Jean's are also wrapped and ready to go. I must confess to being a little worried about the colour. As I knit it, especially in the rib sections I fancied it was looking 'dirty'. A kind of grubby cream colour and I wasn't keen, but now they're washed and blocked I'm happier with the whole thing. If Jean doesn't like the colour, I can always dye them for her. 

I also made a crocheted hat for Ben. I used chunky yarn from Hayfield. I love the speed of crochet. Especially when you're using a 6.5mm hook! A couple of hours and it was done. 

Ben wasn't up for modelling it, so here's a rather odd selfie 

With what was left I made a new rat bed. Ages ago I made them a hammock and it's been washed that much it fell apart, so making a new on has been on my to do list for ages. Thankfully James from the DancingGeek podcast did a live episode the other weekend. The 4 hour marathon (yup FOUR hours!! And each minute was great fun) gave me ample opportunity to start and finish a new bed. This time I decided to make a tunnel-type thing. I figured having a roof would keep them warmer in the winter. 

It's a hit!

I've also been working on the Sun Ray shawl. Remember it?! It's been languishing for ages, but I'm cracking on with it now. I've completed chart D and I'm now slogging my way up chart E. I say slogging not because its unpleasant to knit, it isn't. But I'm now up to 880 stitches and over the next 100 rows of chart E my stitch count will grow to an eye watering 1520!!!!! 

Holy Stitch Markers Batman!!!!

So needless to say, progress is slow! And it's only going to get slower!! I think I'll just keep you updated each time I complete a chart. Otherwise you'll not see much difference from week to week!! I do lovel how it's turning out though! It's going to be utterly stunning when it's finished. 

I may have has a little sock withdrawal after finishing Jean and Steph's socks. So I cast on a pair of vanilla socks using Opal in the Kongo Sally colourway. It's a fab colour with purple, fuchsia, lime green and slate grey. I'm thoroughly enjoying knitting it. 

As I mentioned earlier, I'm also on with designing another sock. It's nothing fancy, but I've been itching for colour work for ages. There's not a lot to see yet, seeing as how I had to undo my first attempt, so I'll show you more next time. 

33 weeks to 40. 

Erm?! I've miscounted somewhere!! 

Last time I wrote I said I'd increase my activity. I've continued to swim and I've walked the dog further than normal. Not great, but baby steps. Yes?

On the horizon -   

Santa's coming!!!!!!!!!

I wish everyone out there a wonderful, restful and happy Christmas

I'll be chillin', knittin', eatin' and drinkin'. 

I'll be working on my socks, the shawl and on the workshop notes and patterns. 

On my count down to 40 I think I'll just sim to keep moving. I don't think I'll get a swim in this week, but I'll try to do some exercise each day. Wish me luck!

I'm also going to do some research. In the new year I'm going to do TeaPigs matcha challenge, so I'm interested in finding interesting things to do with green tea powder. I can't wait to start the new year with a bang. 

So I wish you all a Merry Christmas and I'll write again soon 

Ellen x 

PS - this is my 100th post! And my 100th project was listed on Ravelry this week. Whoop whoop!!

40 weeks to 40

I've been thinking llllooooonnnngggggg and hard. For weeks in fact.

I've written to you guys umpteen times.

Each time I pressed delete not publish. 

Why?

Because I had nothing to say. I spent ages wracking my brain and came up with what I thought was drivel.  

Self editing can be extreme. 

In all fairness, I'd written some good stuff, some could even be classed as witty. 

B U T

I read some wonderful blogs. With stunning photography and thought provoking prose I looked back at what I've put out recently and decided I fall short. 

I thunk and I thunk. 

And I've come up with a cunning plan. 

I am going to blog, but I'm not going to beat myself up about the frequency of my publications. I
enjoy sharing what I've been up to. But on the whole my life is rather average. I often feel that my writing falls short of entertaining and you've better ways to spend your day than waste it here with me. 

I've also been thinking about my future. As the title suggests there are forty weeks until I reach my fortieth birthday. 

Well, in actual fact there are only 38, but that doesn't sound quite as snappy. 

Part of my reflection over the last month or so has involved a lot of inward searching. Where am I going, what do I want to achieve, how am I going to get there and will I like myself when I get there?

Lots of questions, and frankly I've been flailing about trying to find the answers

Baby steps

Each week I hope to focus on one goal. Be it finishing a sock I'm knitting, losing 2lb of arse lard, or exercising just that little bit harder. 

It's the little things that add up to a massive elephant sized achievement. 

Basically I want to hit 40 running.  Who knows, I might even RUN!! I want to look in the mirror and not want to cry and hide. 

I'm already the thick end of 2 weeks behind, but that's ok. My first 3 tasks are - 

1- make the commitment to pull myself up by the boot laces

2- swim hard. 

3- get a move on with Christmas

Number 1 is easily done. I've publicly made the commitment. Now you can hold me to task if I slope off and hide

Number 2 is started. I'm swimming twice a week at the moment. I swim for about an hour each time and I do sets of 20 lengths of drill. Different combinations of strokes, arms and legs. I do work hard, but I must confess that I rarely push myself past the pain threshold. Well, on Tuesday I made a change. I decided to cut out a lot of the drills and focus on swimming hard. I changed my set to 100m of front crawl, 100m of Breast stroke,100m front crawl arms only and 100m of back stroke. I added in tumble turns. Oh dear lord!! It's so weird how just changing from touching and turning to tumble turning increases how tired I feel at the end of a set! The one thing is that I need to get a nose clip, it's most unpleasant getting half a swimming pool rushing up into your sinuses. 

Number 3 is a bit wishy washy sorry. It's hardly SMART. But until today I've been rather lethargic
about the whole festive season. I blame Ben. He's grown up a lot over the last year and this one is the
 second Christmas since he found out THAT thing (I'll not say more in case there are little eyes looking at this page). It didn't affect me last year, I think I wanted to make it as magical for him as the year before, but this time I don't know. It just feels average. It's been compounded by the fact all he really wanted was an Airsoft gun. We've discovered he needs to be 18 and accredited to have one. So that's put the kibosh on most of his Christmas presents he wanted. I'd be eternally grateful for any ideas of what to get an 11 year old boy for Christmas. My mind is completely blank. His mind is too caught up in the agony of waiting 7 years to get his gun!

In an effort to gain some festive momentum Ben, his Nana, and I went to The Winter Droving. It's a wonderful celebration of the season held in our town.

(Ben hates having his photo taken - can you tell!?)

This year was the third year it's been held and it was nothing short of stupendous. The weather held, the town as filled with wonderful vendors selling their produce. The air was filled with gorgeous smells - mulled cider, fresh baked pizza, curry hot roasted chestnuts (we're very cosmopolitan!). Local folk sold their handicrafts from baking to art it was amazing. The whole day was topped off by a candlelit, masked procession through the streets. wow! Ben wants to take part next year, so I've been looking for masks to make. I think I've found just the thing, and I'll keep you posted with my progress next year. 

Here is my video of the procession, if you're near Penrith at the end of November next year, you should definitely come and spend the day.
http://youtu.be/YlkRzaETdLg

Feeling the love -

Gosh it's been ages since we spoke about what craftiness I've been up to. 

So here it is. 

I finished Lefie by Martina Behm. It was a fabulous knit and one I think I'll cast on again. I'm thinking handspun next time.

Did you notice the artful angle of my photo?  I've been reading Stephanie the chief Space Cadet's blog posts on improving your project photos. She says to shoot ACROSS your project. 

This is Maddie from my knitting group modelling Leftie. Can you see the lovely artwork in the background? There are so many beautiful things in the gallery. I could happily go broke there!

I've also finished my first sock club socks. My first yarn was Opal from their Little a Prince range. I decided that as far as possible I would avoid vanilla socks for my sock club, so I went for my Scalloped a Tulip Socks. I know I shouldn't be quite so delighted with myself, but the combination of yarn and pattern is lovely. 

Since I last wrote, I've knit another sample of my Thankful shawl. I knit it because I wanted to test my re-writes of the pattern. I published it and I'm delighted with it. A few people have even queued it! I'm eternally grateful to my test knitters HarryCat1 and Kateblu2001. Their input has been invaluable. 

It's will be soon on it's travels and I hope Mel likes it. I used Nimu yarn again. This time I picked her Torva base. A rather delectable blend of merino, cashmere and nylon. It was a joy to knit and it's blocked out a treat. 

I've cast on new socks too. My second sock club yarn is Araucania Ranco Solid in a natural cream colour. I'm knitting Cookie A's Kai-Mei socks for Jean for Christmas. It's a satisfying knit and surprisingly the ribbed leg didn't completely sap my happiness! The foot has an interesting pattern that's easily remembered. I really need to motor on, I've finished the first one and I need to guard against second sock syndrome. 

I've finished the first of Steph's Christmas socks too. I really need to pick the second one up and get it finished. I'll need to drop it off at Steph's shortly. There just aren't enough to hours in the the day are there?! 

I have also worked on the In Dreams shawl. I think I've just about worked 2 rows in a month, so it's hardly worth showing you a photo, but I'm hoping to get back to shawl knitting as soon as I clear some socks! 

On the Horizon - 

A return to blogging with regularity 

Putting up the Christmas tree. Ben is pestering. But I've no idea where it's going to go. Matthew keeps putting large pieces of furniture in tree sized spaces!

Finish 2 pairs of socks

The matcha challenge - heard of it? Matcha is a green tea from Teapigs. It's been ages since my last order from them (bulk buying is great!). Teapigs make the most divine teas. They use real leaves, not that icky dust that you usually find in teabags. I digress, back to their green tea. Matcha is a concentrated green tea powder you can make into a simple brew, or add to shakes, juices and you can even bake with it! It's packed with antioxidants and other goodies that will help give you a kick up the bum and help you feel fab. 

I'm thinking of giving it a whirl. Who knows?

Week 37 of my 40to40 challenge. I'm going to increase my activity. Hold me to it guys!