New arrival

                

Isn't it funny the way things happen when you're least expecting them?  Meet Amy:

Our cats usually sit in the window, on top of the bookcase; in general they enjoy catching the sun and being nosy.  We live in a very mixed area, and there are a lot of students in our street.  Our house is right on the street so sometimes we have people stop and look at the cats and we've got used to this.  The other day a Chinese student from three doors along knocked on my window and indicated he wanted to speak to me, so I went to the door.  He said he had a cat but the landlord of their rented house had been told by a maintenance person and he had phoned to tell them they weren't allowed to keep pets in the house. (HOW EVIL...though when I think about the damage inflicted on my furniture by years of having cats I can sort of understand...) He said they knew we had cats so would we take theirs in?  My immediate reaction was to say no, three cats is more than enough. however he asked would i at least look at her.  He and his girlfriend brought her to the house and I fell in love immediately! How could I not take this poor little tiny kitty in? After all, we ONLY have three cats already...plenty of room for a little'un.

Updating

updating soon my impatient yarnies!

Thou shalt covet......

I thought I'd share some of my recent finds with you. I defy anyone to resist the temptation!

First, this week's Posh Yarn update; available on the website from 8pm tomorrow (Sunday 27th February) If you see anything you want, make sure you visit the website a few minutes before 8pm and refresh your browser contunually because once the yarn is available it will sell out within minutes, often seconds! What's not to like? But you'll need to be very quick! I shall not be buying anything this week though for the simple reason of resisting the urge to buy yet more purple-related sock yarn!! Sometimes there are some beautifully multicoloured variegates in shades I absolutely drool over, but this week, although everything is beautiful, as usual, the skeins I covet the most are purple-based, and I have to use up some of the purple sock yarn I already have before I can justify buying yet more!

Incidentally, they have some free patterns; my favourite is the one for the Slip Up Socks.

Next, a fabulous MWK (Men Who Knit!) website, which I found while I was looking for video tutorials related to the Kromski Sonata spinning wheel; I am waiting for mine to be re-delivered (the saga continues in a moment....sigh!) and in the meantime looking at other people using theirs is the next best thing! So...I found this guy on You Tube, with a link to his site, Crafty Andy. He is a gay Californian who loves yarning, and he has a Sonata! I love him!!! His website has some lovely patterns for sale; mainly lace scarves/shawls and amazing hats! Really, there is something rather sweet about photos of a guy sitting with a Star Trek book, wearing a delicate lace shawl! I have every respect for guys who knit, spin and/or crochet and who aren't afraid to show off their stuff! So let's hear it for Crafty Andy!

My next discovery is this knitting pattern blog, Sonnentaler; it has these fantastic One hour Mitts pattern. It made me chuckle! It would actually take me about eight hours, even with chunky yarn, as the pattern recommends! Some people knit really fast, and some....er.....don't!! These mitts remind me a lot of the Toast wristwarmers (from A Friend to Knit With, one of my absolute favourite knitting blogs) which I knitted last year using some of my own handspun merino/alpaca/silk from - yes, yes, of course - Limegreenjelly. But these mitts - unlike the mitt version of Toast, Toasty - have a proper thumb (i.e. with a gussett). I'm going to use up some of my handspun merino/silk, holding two yarns together I think rather than actually plying; this is one of my favourite ways to knit bulky because you can change the colours as you go along.

I don't have a baby to knit for, but if I did I would have to knit this amazingly different little Kurbis hat in the shape of a pumpkin, also from Sonnentaler. Let's not forget, the Primavera socks I'm knitting in Dream in Color Knitosophy (in the Strength colourway) are also from Sonnentaler.

I've been browsing on Etsy again (oh no!!) I have plenty of plain, natural colour merino for practising spinning when my Kromski Sonata arrives, but in the meantime, I am perfectly within my rights to look at beautiful, handpainted OOAK luxury fibre! Here are a few of my favourites, in order of preference:

Spinning Awesome Good's BFL/Tussah in Kalypso is my first choice this week. I love the way they have arranged it, very attractive, and guaranteed to suck in helpless fibre addicts such as myself! Beautiful!

Then in second and third place come two amazing offerings from Cincinnati-based FiberOptic; both in pure 100% BFL, they are Ultraviolet (left) and Bramble. My fibre stash - unlike my sock yarn stash! - is somewhat depleted, so I do have justification to buy a few more braids. I've just bought some LGJ Merino/Camel/Silk from one of my Raveler friends, Mary from Folsom in California. Now, if the fibre's colour name Kiss rings a bell that's because the last thing I bought from LGJ was also Kiss, but in Merino/Baby Camel. When the one from California arrives (think how many miles it's travelled from Leonard-on-Sea to California, then back over the Pond to Newcastle....!) I'll photograph them side by side for comparison. I LOVE camel! It's really soft, and baby camel is so soft you can barely feel it!! I'm gonna spin spin spin when my wheel arrives, and may ply these with merino or Corriedale from Forest Fibres in one of their fabulous colours.

This brings me to my fourth place Fab Find this week, the epic-win bargain that is their Ashford Corriedale Sliver 5-Colour Pack 5 x 100g for £13.99!! The customer chooses the colours. This would be really useful to have for plying with my lovely LGJ fibre! As I remarked in a recent post, combining a handpainted fibre with a plain one can look amazing! I guess I would have to choose the Indigo, Chilli Pepper, a couple of purple shades, and one of the natural shades. If you're anything like me, you'll just like looking at all the lovely colours together.

Now to the ongoing saga of my eagerly awaited Kromski Sonata. I saw it listed on ebay and won the auction the next day - amazingly with my opening bid. The listing included a Kromski arched Lazy Kate, a large Kromski niddy noddy (which I have wanted for ages!), a pair of Ashford large hand carders (which I have always wanted to try out) and about 500g of various fibre. All for way less than I was going to pay for an Ashford Traveller alone! Anyway....the seller sent it by 24-hour courier on Wednesday and told me it would arrive by Friday. It did indeed, but when I was at work (despite the seller asking them to wait until after 3). So I phoned up and asked to have it delivered on Saturday but was told "We don't deliver on Saturdays, except for Saturday deliveries".....um, am I the only one who thinks this sounds a bit hard-of-thinking? It does look as if I'm not going to get it for another couple of days anyway. I might have to request Tuesday for delivery instead of Monday since I'll be off work and more likely to be at home when they come. Either way, I'm going to have two days to practise spinning, so I'll have to go to Waitrose tomorrow and stock up on microwave meals!

Right....I'm tired and need sleeeeep!! Watch this space.

Pete Kitty and Kromski Sonata

Very quick post, I am now totally excited as my Kromski Sonata will be arriving any day. YAAAAAY! I got quite a bargain on the'Bay; it's only 6 months old and has barely been used. This is a sales photo - more when mine arrives.Last post I mentioned I had few pics of little Pete....our third cat. He's just a little bit dim! Anyway, this is Pete, note intelligent expression on his face LOL

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Spinning into Spring 2011

So here we are at long long last, blogging again in 2011! I have been extremely neglectful of my poor blog, but I'm making it a sort of New Year sort of resolution to make it regular again!
Here's a quick reminder of what this blog is about, i.e our delightful cats, and of course knitting and spinning! First off, Spangle, our gorgeous fluffy 8 year-old female (also above):

Then of course let's not foget Thom-Cat, the devious, manipulative and extremely spoilt tabby, he's almost 3 years old and it's a miracle he hasn't come to a very sticky end! (Please please don't send in emails of complaint about cruelty to animals; it's a joke! He is also a very cute, affectionate and loving creature - when he wants something that is! But we love him very much and even though he is the most evil animal on the entire planet and the naughtiest cat I have ever had in my life, I wouldn't part with him for the world!)

We have a third cat, Pete, but rarely manage to take photos of him as he runs away! So next is a photo of my latest knitting project, some ribbed handspun wristwarmers/fingerless gloves. They are knitted using merino/tencel from limegreenjelly over on the fabulous Etsy. The colour is "One Life Stand". Those of you who knit fingerless gloves will know there are several ways of knitting the thunb, and for these I've chosen to knit a gusset (in stockinette rather than the 2x2 rib of the rest of the glove) I cast on 64 stitches onto dpns using a ball of yarn which was different shades of purple, then alternated between other balls in three slightly different shades. I haven't really followed any pattern, I was going to make "Toasty" but then decided to make them ribbed, because they would be much more forgiving!
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The photo below shows where I'm up to with the second glove. I've just begun the thumb gusset.

At Christmas I took part in a fibre swap on the limegreenjelly forum/group (what is the difference?!) and recently received a fabulous package of goodies! I received 100g each of black merino from Forest Fibres (more on them in a moment) and gorgeously soft BFL/Sea Cell from limegreenjelly. I've seen this fibre in the shop before and I wanted to try it but then didn't in case I didn't like it. My mistake; my loss!! I shall be buying more of this fabulous stuff as soon as I can! It is quite simply wondferful. Anyway, my Swappee has spun about half of each then plied them together to make the lovely yarn you can see in the bottom left hand corner of the bottom pic. Also included were a set of hand made buttons from Shunklies (another of my favourite Etsy shops!), a beautiful handmade-looking knitting project bag (big enough for several smaller projects or a larger one; and with small pockets all the way round the inside) and a wooden/rubber ink stamp which will look brilliant using the gold ink I just happen to have a pad of; I intend to use this to make little hand-made labels for my handspun/knitted gifts!

Sadly you can't see the box of Belgian chocolte truffles which were also in the package because they were eaten immediately! I've lost so much weight over the past six months that I can now afford to stuff my face with goodies every once in a while. But I can assure you they were lovely!

Anyway, I mentioned Forest fibres: this amazing little online shop sells everything a passionately loony hand spinner might need. They sell different types of fibre, everything from hand dyed to natural rare breeds fibres. And they also sell Ashford spinning wheels, looms and so on.

I've been looking at wheels for several months now, trying to find a good quality used one and also looking at new ones too. Forest Fibres is where I've decided to buy from, and at last I've got it down to a short list of two: the Traveller, for the fact it is very portable, and the Kiwi because it is so reasonably priced. I'll probably end up going for the Traveller because it's suitable for beginners and also for different types of yarn.

That's all for now, but as I have a whole week off at work (unless I am asked to cover at very short notice) I intend to catch up properly and let you know about all the desirable stuff, new patterns and other coveted items I've found recently online!

ZERO WASTE!!! What a lovely thought....

All knitting ans spinning activity has temporarily been suspended due to illness. However, this doesn't stop me from surfing the net for interesting and useful sites. Such as, this one for Zero Waste Week

Between now and the 6th I shall be posting all kinds of useful stuff to help you reduce waste, particularly food and other essential resources. But I won't lecture. Oh no.

This site Love Food Hate Waste, came up when I searched for 'leftover food recipes'; there are more, which I shall list later. Watch this space.

CUTE......Or WHAT?!

Have you missed seeing the Miscreant on my blog? He hasn't missed you! He has been too busy perfecting his "manipulative purr-cry" which as scientists have discovered cats learn to do with just the right combination of purring and appealing/unbearable meaow so that their Human will have to choice other than to give in immediately to their demands!! As well as this, he has also been busy with his regular hobby of torturing small garden mammals until they die of fright, whereupon he carries them into the kitchen (if someone, i.e. me, has not thought to close the window and the back door after letting him out) and dumps them on the rug. Just occasionally he manages to sneak a live one in.....I've been told this is actually his attempt to teach me to catch them, because he just sees me as another cat, albeit a dismally inept one, and I found this mentioned in someone else's blog too. However, I prefer to continue thinking he is just an evil and devious creature, out to annoy me by whatever means possible and/or necessary!!

And the third is of lovely adorable fluffy Spangle......


.....And you've seen nothing until you watch this!

And for Simon's Cat fans here is the very latest, brand new video!

Wow! Gorgeous cards!!

Check out these lovely handmade cards from Spirited Moonchild on Folksy!!!

SOCKS SOCKS SOCKS.....

Not much time to blog today but suffice to say I will be casting on for some lovely socks, using my latest aquisition (above), which is Esme from Posh Yarn, in the rather fabulous Theatre Shoes. Kind folk have suggested several patterns for this purpose!!

I also cast on for some Turkish socks from my Socks - A Spin-Off Special book, these are a double-knitting project, and I'm using Manos del Uruguay Clasica in deep red semi solid, and some Elann Peruvian aran in a deep purple.

I'm supposed to be working at the minute; well, we all need a break sometimes! I'm researching funding sources for young people's projects and also resources and activities to spend potential funding on! If only they were yarnies.....

Do watch this space, I'll be back again soon!

THE WEEK OF JOY!!!

So....in the past seven days I have increased my level of joy by around 500%!!

On Friday I had an interview and got the job I need to kick start my career. I am still actually in complete disbelief, even though I do know I really deserve it! I feel like this has kind of just landed in my lap, through chance conversations and being in the right place at the right time and so forth. Nevertheless I have worked hard to get back to 100% health and motivation and I do have all the requisite experience and all that, and some.

On Friday evening I managed to snaffle this from Jo's shop; 100% Merino, "Stupid in Love"

I had also promised myself a yarnie treat if I got the job, and so on Sunday I was ready for the update on the Posh Yarn website, and bought two skeins of Elinor sock yarn. Also 100% Merino, they are "Viva Las Vegas" (top of this post) and "Bazinga!" (below).

All three treats arrived today, so I sepnt a good quarter of an hour sniffing, stroking, squishing, holding up to the light and in general just drolling. The colours of the Posh yarn are simply not done justice by the photos! They are utterly fabulous and as soon as I've finished the second Switcheroo sock I'm knitting in Silkwood Sock Yarn (in 'Firefly) I shall be spending some time choosing which of the Elinors to use for my next sock pattern and also deciding which pattern to knit. I am tempted by Pomatomus and also by Hourglass. Though I think Hourglass might be better for a more monochrome yarn, such as my Knitosophy whereas Pomatomus will show off the variations in colour and shade with really great stitch definition in the Elinor.

At the same time as all this I've just started spinning some LimeGreenJelly Merino/Cashmere/Silk in a gorgeous plum/purple/deep pinks colourway, "A Song for the Lovers". I'm spinning it as fine as I dare and hopefully I'll then Andean-ply it and knit some fingerless gloves (Susie's Reading Mitts) I fully intend to have several more pairs before the autumn comes, and will also be selling/gifting some too. My eventual goal is to be able to spin finely enough to be able to ply it and still have 350+ yards. In my humble opinion, anything less is simply not sufficient for a decent project.

I promise lots of photos next time!!

Hopefully next week will prove to be just as good as last and I can keep this Cheshire Cat grin on my face just a little longer......? Please??!

GET YOUR AUTUMN/WINTER WARMERS!!

This year I have been asked about wristwarmers and socks availability.

These will be available to order from September 1st and you should allow two weeks from ordering to receipt. Prices vary, from around £5 for infant sized to £20 + for custom-spun adult sizes.

There are several designs, from single colour, random multicolour, striped, lace pattern, plain or ribbed for your/his pleasure.

See below for ideas

I havent blogged for a while but will definitely be regularly updating now I have mny new PC. Look out for more goodies over the next few weeks. Bye for now loveys!

Hadrian's Wall's Birthday and a Visit from the Dutch

It's so long since I last blogged that I am not even going to try and catch up. Apart from to brag about my perfect 100% score test I took the other day when I went to sign up for my course. No big deal though since it was a basic litercy/numeracy test. I don't know which is worse: the fact the test was so patronisingly simple or the fact I am apparently the only person to score anywhere even near top marks. It wasn't just easy for me, it was primary school easy. Shocking really, and just goes to prove my theory that school is holding kids back. But I will refrain from writing a pro-natural, autonomous learning essay here. (It's all in my book anyway!!)

At the weekend there was a celebration of the fact Hadrian's Wallis now 1600 year old. The wall was lit along its entire length from Segedunum in the East to Of course, living practically on top of the wall itself, and being extremely proud of the Northumbrian fraction of my genes and of living here in the most beautiful part of England, I was really excited at the thought of the wall lit along its length, as if would have been every night hundreds of years ago. To try to get more of an idea what it would have been like back in the days before the National Grid and light pollution, there were calls for households and local businesses along the route of the Wall to power down from dusk, so there would be total darkness lit only by the large flares burning every 150 metres or so along the Wall. This blog, of an amateur photographer,has some great photos, taken I think from Once Brewed. The official Iluminating Hadrian's Wall blog has some too. This video on the Guardian website is pretty good, if a bit too short :-(

Below is a photo of my adorable niece, when my brother and schoonzus were here with her - on a short trip over from Leiden - a couple of weeks ago. It astounded me that at 5 she is so computer-literate - I got her on the Dora site and it very soon became clear she had visted the site many times before!! Here she is playing a very conservation-concious game starring Diego.

Mik, El and Saartje were here a couple of weeks ago and I gave Saar her little handspun hat. She did look cute!! She was so happy to see Thom-Cat again, and he was unbelievably well-behaved and as we expected, he went straight into "Devoted Animal" mode, instead of his usual default mode (manipulative, destructive, devious pest!) However, in the photo belowyou can see the look on his face says "See how much attention I'm getting!!"




I recently attended a West End Transition Towns group (and I think the best thing to do here is just have a link to explain it all.) It's like Tyneside roots, all mature and grown up, and indeed a few of the people involved are ex-Tynesdie rootsers. It's all based around Peak Oil and Greening our cities and alternative, renewable sources of energy and so forth. Common sense. They're planning to have a knitting group which will have demos and workshops and so on, maybe coinciding with Time Exchange events. I have been trying to think of something I can do to earn T.E. credits and thought of giving demos in spinning, dyeing and also viola and violin lessons, making small woolen items to sell, such as baby bootees and soakers. I want to earn enough to have my garden completely dug and a couple of raised beds put in; and my hallway floors sanded!

I have also been spinning, spinning, spinning....

I spun the lovely Strawberry Fields Forever merino/bamboo, and am knitting two small things with it: a little bag for Saartje, which I will probably fill with little chocolates and some stickers etc. as a Spring presie; and a small pouch for myself which I will probably make into a Fanny Pack - there! I said it!! Rob was asking me what it was going to be and when I told him, he said "I've heard everything now!!" "What do you mean?" I replied."A KNITTED sanitary towel?" So, yes, he thought I said "pad" rather than "pack".

I also spun the gorgeous A Fine Romance in merino/baby alpaca/silk:

Mm-mmmmmmmm!" It is knitting up into a yummy pair of Toast wristwarmers, which I shall wear with my new tops. I got these lovely v-necked, thin rib, three-quarter sleeved tops in a slub cotton jersey from Next. Perfect for dressing up or down.

It was Mother's Day on Sunday; I got chocolate and - from Josh - the fantastic "Mum" gift box from Lush. I must admit, I had coveted it, even more than I covet the Blue Moon Sock Club. In this lovely box were two types of soap: Miranda and Porridge; Sakura bath ballistic, Happy Blooming bath melt and Dorothy bubble bar; Yummy Yummy Yummy shower gel; Vanilla Dee-lite hand and body lotion!!! The box itself will be perfect for keeping my special yarns, as I am now hopelesly addicted to gorgeous sock yarns!

I bought some Silkie Socks that Rock in The Incredible Shrinking Violet:

Dream in Colour Knitosophy in Strength, and Posh Yarns' Esme in Plaid.(Photos soon)
I have also recently bought more gorgeous fibre from the talented Jo at Lime Green Jelly!! I don't know why I would ever want to buy it from anywhere else!! This was last week's choice:

Sweet Dreams (yes, yes I know: AGAIN! I had to!!) in Merino with 30% silk:


A Song for the Lovers in Merino/Cashmere/Silk:

And last night I grabbed two from the latest update (which appears to have sold out immediately, and the shop is now emptier than I have ever seen it!) I made the choices from the Flickr preview beforehand then as soon as the update was live in the Etsy shop my fingers were flying!!! The one at the very top of this post is One Life Stand, in merino with 30% Tencel, and this one, which I know several people coveted due to the blend of luxury fibres, is Language of Love in merino/camel/silk:


I've also been browsing the Loopy Ewe, and plan on buying some stuff from there as soon as I get some more spare cash. Hopefully I will have a better income in the next couple of months! I am going to start applying for full time jobs, which shouldn't be too difficult. My reward will be the Ashford Traveler spinning wheel I have coveted for the past month or so, or similar wheel which hopefully people at the Centurion group can advise me on. I've been thinking I would really like to start spinning more often, and also start dyeing my own fibre. It would be nice to make some sort of living out of it. I think the difference between some of the hand dyed fibre you see and the likes of Jo's and similar is that Jo's looks like it has been dyed and then over painted with accents here and there. It makes all the difference. you do need an eye for colour, which I have. I got a half pound of merino to experiment with and I intend to give some of the results away for people's reactions.

So...it is almost 1a.m and the Internat students next door are making a racket, so i am going to knock on their door and ask them to keep it down and then I'm off to bed.

Handspun Chic!

Well, here we are again and once more I am extremely recalcitrant in my blogging! I've been ill and also had a busy week, and in fact have a busy week ahead. But it's the weekend and Ellen and Saartje are here and so it's time to relax, unwind, chill....oh, and shop of course - mustn't forget the shopping!! We went to the Fair Trade Market, and as ever, I wanted everything but ended up buying nothing because I couldn't choose. At Lush it was a different matter of course and I bought some heart-shaped soap and a couple of bath ballistics- and Saartje and I secretly bought Ellen a Mother's Day bath ballistic 'lolly', in the shape of a flower! Must drop hints to the boys for my own gift!
I also received - from Nederland, though I believe they are available here now - some Yes to Carrots stuff:a fab little gift kit containing face and body items which smell gorgeous!
I finished Saar's hat and it looks fab - and she looks fabulous in it (she looks fab in everything which isjust as well as she is the sort of little meisje who can be dressed immaculately with braided hair first thing in the morning and by 9.10 a.m is looking like she's been dragged through a bush!! That's the best sort of kid - a real kid! Of course she never stops talking either....but it is actually quite cute listening to her. She is of course Thom-Cat's very best friend and Thomas' response has been to go into "Devoted Animal" mode, even allowing her to tickle him and stroke his fur the wrong way!!

Excuse me amoment while I shout at the TV; Supernanny is on and there is one of those new breed of 'Mums' who keep their toddler like a baby, in nappies,with a dummy and (baby) bottles of formula, and refer to themselves in the third person....As an advocate of self-regulation and autonomy in infancy and childhood I watch such programmes with a mixture of disbelief and annoyance!!

Anyway.....I made some delicious soup at dinnertime; was going to make pasta but Ellen is carb-free at the minute, or at least low-carb. I made the soup with onion, carrots, leeks and red lentils and it was amazing. El ate two bowls of it. Saar did her usual thing of asking for an egg then not actually eating it but she ate her slices of turkey and her broodje up fairly quickly when I said she could have some ijs after she ate her food!

I received the fibre I ordered from Lime Green Jelly..........

Strawberry Fields Forever in 70% Merino/30% Bamboo

Yesterday's Dreams in Cashmere/Silk

.........and I have ordered some more gorgeous blended stuff from Friday's shop update:

Be That Easy in Merino/Silk which I may ply with something else for a scarf)

Sweet Dreams in Merino/Cashmere/Silk

I already have that in Merino/Tencel. I am going to do lots of spinning this week, and I have at last decided on a new spindle, a really good one from 1st Crafts on the Isle of Wight.

This place was recommended by Jo; I decided to try seeing if using a really good spindle will save me having to buy a spinning wheel. I got the hang of spinning using a spindle and although it is now a lot easier, the spindle I got to start on, to see if I took to it, is dire! I can't imagine not ever spinning again! Totally hooked,especially with gorgeous fibre available. I even got some undyed merino the other day which I intend to hand paint and maybe sell it. Handpainted fibre - when it is done really beautifully - is highly sought after these days, and if I find I'm good at it I shall buy some good quality merino in bulk and a few colours of wool dye and then get stuck in. I also want to try designing my own patterns but I need to get a couple of stitch 'bibles' first!

Speaking of which, the other day I went to the new library in town and I snapped up a copy of Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns by Cookie A! And have ordered a few books for reservation - yes, all knitting books!!

Finally, what's on the needles at the minute? Nothing much at all really: the second of a pair of April May wristies I'm knitting in Colinette DK, and Kernel which is hibernating.I have bought some Silkwood sock yarn and some Noro Kureyon. The Silkwood will be great for one of the Cookie A projects and the Noro might be nice for some armwarmers - long ones. At the minute though I'm looking for a nice pattern to knit with some Cash Iroha I have, so I'm going to finish here for today!

The Hat....

This is the start of the gorgeous hat I'm knitting for the klijntje. You can see in the above photo one of the earflaps and the variegated colours of my gorgeous handspun 'Spingle' yarn. The whole thing was slightly too small for circulars so I put it on dpns. Speaking of circulars, my new Knitpro tips are too thick, at 8mm and 10mm because I seriously overestimated how chunky my handpun would turn out. It's okay, I will use them sometime and they will be great for teaching Saartje to knit.


I've cast on for another pair of wristies, these ones in Colinette DK (hand dyed 100% wool):


I'm going to make the same ones as I knitted for Fiona the other week, ie April May, (pattern from Yarn Zombie) because I love the simple semi-lace design which is part of the ribbed effect. This wool is so lovely. Wish I could find more, but it was a one-skein listing on EBay which I paid £2 for. I got some Noro Kureyon to make a scarf, probably Palette off Knitty, and some Schoeller & Stahl Fortissima Mexiko and Four Seasons Hot Socks Dream sock yarns. Not necessarily for socks, but possibly for baby bootees for Wor Nat's friend's baby-to-be (well, it's already a baby - I meant, when s/he is born)

I was really missing Josh - he has been away for the past three (long) weekends, which is great - he is after all a young adult with a separate life etc. but he is back now and at College. It is really starting to dawn on me that in the next few years I will be Alone. But look on the bright side: I will be able to have the biggest bedroom, plus a separate knitting and spinning room, as well as a totally spare bedroom! I will get some more cats haha!!

I'm counting the days now - 12 - until the Uiterstegrachters arrive!