This is a meme I pinched from my friend Birana from her blog A la maille suivante, she’s in Quebec and her blog is in French so I hope I’ve translated this correctly !

4 Jobs I have had in my life

 - newspaper round

 - working in a Garden Centre (Saturdays when I was at school)

 - working in Do-it-All (Evenings when I was at University)

 - Chartered Accountant (for ever……)

4 films I can watch again and again

 - Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

 - Sleepless in Seattle

 - Lord of the Rings

 - Star Wars

ok, that’s a bit of a cheat, LOTR is 3 films and Star Wars is 6, if I had to pick one from each it would be LOTR 1 – The Fellowship of the Ring and Star Wars 4 – A New Hope (or just plain “Star Wars” as we knew it 30 years ago)

4 places I have lived

 - Didcot

 - Borehamwood (1 year lodging with my grandparents Monday – Thursday whilst at College)

 - Bristol ( years at Polytechnic)

 - Marlow

and they are the ONLY 4 places I’ve ever lived

4 TV series I watch

  – House

 - Bones

 - CSI (Las Vegas for preference)

 - Holby City

4 places I have been on holiday

 - Egypt

 - Turkey

 - Tunisia

 - San Francisco

these are about the only 4 exotic places I’ve ever been, normally I go camping in the English Lake District or rent a cottage in Wales!!!

4 things I do every time I go on the Net

 - check my email

 - check the blogs I read on Google Reader

 - check my friends on Facebook

 - write my blog/upload photos

4 things I would NOT eat for anything in the world

 - well, meat as I’m a vegetarian

 - sweetcorn (corn on the cob), I hate the smell even!

 - tortilla chips

 - pickled beetroot

4 places I would love to be right now

 - on a hilltop miles from anywhere

 - by the sea

 - in the pub with friends

 - right where I am (on my sofa with DH, a glass of wine and Springwatch on tv) is pretty good actually!

4 people I tag

DH (Jonathan), Tracey, Roo, my Secret Pal (you know who you are!!!!!)

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Since I started up my prize draw for Breakthrough and blogged about my Moonwalk efforts I’ve been constantly amazed at the generosity and willingness to help of the knit-blog community.

The swift responses to my pleas for prizes, the number of entries in the draw (nearly 300 at the moment- still 10 days to enter) and the other bloggers/webmasters who have plugged the draw on their blogs and linked back here.

So, thanks to everyone and here’s another knit-blogger doing her bit –

Dorothy, who blogs at Knitting stuff and going on and on is raising money for the Canadian Cancer Society by walking in the Relay for Life on the weekend of June 8th. She is also offering prizes on her blog for every $10 (that’s canadian dollars) pledged and she has some lovely prizes on offer.

Go check it out.

technorati tags:cancer, prize, draw, raffle

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The cobweb shawl is growing very fast – I’m really pleased how quick this is knitting up especially as it’s a gift I only decided to knit at the very last minute and it needs to be finished before the 14th June.

Not only that but I need to complete a pair of socks by then as well as it’s a wedding gift for the bride and the socks will be for the groom – and he has very big feet so they wont be quick socks!

This is the progress as of last night -45 repeats out of 62 needed. Once the body is complete there is then a knitted on border to do all round the edge – I’ve never done a knitted on border so that will be something new to add to my repertoire and much more fun than sewing on 5 metres of border as I have done with baby shawls in the past.

Close up of the Melon Pattern

This currently measures 11″ wide and 40″ long, when finished the shawl should be 17″ by 72″. If I’m 2/3 through the repeats I estimate 60″ (unstretched) when complete but there is then a border to add – I’m estimating an inch all round so this will need some serious blocking to get to the final measurements.

I’m toying with the idea of adding beads to the border as I knit, I have some silver ones and some pink ones to choose from. Would love to get everyone’s opinion on whether it needs beads. I’m thinking as it’s a wedding present and I’m hoping the recipient (who is getting married abroad) will be wearing it when dressed up for dinner on summer evenings that it needs a bit of “bling”???

On the other hand, at the moment it weighs nothing – it really is a cobweb – and adding beads may take that away (although they are tiny seed beads)….perhaps the weight of the beads in the border will help it drape????? Help!!!!

technorati tags:lace, knit, shawl, cobweb, mohair

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OK, so you have just under 3 days to enter my blog contest and win a surprise yarn prize. The prize will come from my stash and it will be some quality yarn I promise (and maybe a few extra little surprises).

All you have to do is suggest a pattern for me to knit with my Kool Aid handpainted sport weight merino yarn –

Leave your suggestion as a comment on the original post which is here

I will close the competition at midnight (Bristish Summer Time) and draw a winner on the 1st June.

There is almost two weeks left to buy a ticket in the prize draw – click on the banner at the top of my blog or click here.

technorati tags:prize, contest, competition, dyed, dyeing, koolaid, yarn

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This is a long blog post as I’ve got loads of news to catch up on…

I promised more photos and full story on the Moonwalk last weekend. This week I’ve been feeling jet-lagged from missing a night’s sleep but otherwise fine – no aches and pains which is good.

This is mum and I with our medals in Hyde Park around 7.30 Sunday morning.

Ive been feeling jet-lagged all week but otherwise ok, no aches and pains to speak of so the training was worth it! I’ve collected around £560 from sponsorship which I’m really pleased with. The event was good but I didn’t enjoy it as much as when I took part 3 years ago. This year there were 15,000 entrants – nearly 3 times as many as 2004 – and that is just too many.

We never got clear of crowds and so were unable to get a good power-walk pace going, you were constantly having to slow, overtake and worst of all stop completely to wait to cross roads. This happened 3 times in the first 5 miles and at one point we had to wait for 14 minutes before we could get across, each time you were just getting a good pace you had to stop, get cold and then get your pace going again.

I don’t think either mum or I will do this event again, we will definitely do some more power-walking but we’ll find other events or plan our own and get sponsorship for Breakthrough.

Which reminds me – still time to take part in my prize draw! And tell your friends about it, link on your blog, put up a poster ….whatever.

Knitting News

I’ve finished my first crochet project – ever!! It’s a simple granny square cot quilt in Rowan Handknit Cotton DK, I love the bright colours.

I have loads more of this yarn as I purchased the quantities to crochet a full size blanket and only made a cot quilt so I may do some more crochet with the remainder. This quilt is a baby gift for a friend so I’m glad I got it finished in time. The baby is due in the summer and I wanted to make something summery – a bright cotton quilt seemed suitable and I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

I knit these super-quick this week, they are knit to a basic top-down pattern from The Natural Dye Studio in their Alpaca/Silk sock yarn. Amanda from Natural Dye Studio is running a competition for the Sock Yarn Club members to submit a photo for the cover of her pattern.

J is going to take some photos tomorrow for me to submit to Amanda – hopefully we may get some sunshine.

This is more Natural Dye Studio knitting –

A lace shawl in cobweb mohair in a lovely purple shade. The pattern is the Melon pattern shawl/scarf from Victorian Lace Today and I’m knitting this as a wedding present. I’ve only got a couple of weeks to get it done but it’s knitting up pretty quick. So far I’ve done 18 pattern repeats (out of 62) and I only cast on yesterday. It’s a 6 row repeat pattern over 10 sts and very easy to memorise.

Finally some of the many birds living in my garden –

This is one of a pair of wrens who often visit my patio – they spent a couple of hours this afternoon hopping round in this bush right outside my lounge chirping very loudly at each other. The picture isn’t brilliant as it was taken through the glass of the french windows.

Another visitor was this starling who perched on the table on the patio outside the lounge. Today we’ve been cutting the grass and doing some tidying out in the garden and also seen robins (they always come to see what we’re doing in the garden) a green woodpecker, the collared doves who nest in a bush in the garden and on Thursday a sparrowhawk which came and landed on the sundial/bird bath. Possibly the same one which killed a pigeon on our lawn a few months ago (see J’s photo on his blog here)

technorati tags:crochet, cot-quilt, sock, knitting, wren, starling, moonwalk

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Here’s my medal to prove it -

More pics and full story later, had no sleep from when I got up at 8.30 Saturday morning till I got back to my mums house at around 10 Sunday morning and I had an hours nap on her spare bed. Got about 9 hours last night but off to work now so just a quick post and I will post more photos and full story later.

Basic details – 26.2 miles completed in 7 hours, around £480 raised for Breast Cancer charities.

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Yes, the Moonwalk is finally here.

So, the training is done. The bra is decorated. Tonight at 23.40 BST I will be setting out to start the 26 miles around London.

At 4pm this afternoon I’m off to pick up my training partner, Karen, then we head over to my mum’s house to get her. My dad is then driving us to the bus station in Oxford to get the bus to Marble Arch. We should be there by about 7.45 and we then head into the “Playtex City” – a huge marquee set up in Hyde Park where we can get our pasta/rice meal and wait for the start.

I’m a little bit nervous now…even though I know we’ve done the training, and I’ve done the Moonwalk once before in 2004.

I’ve raised around £480 in sponsorship and the possibility of more if we finish in less than 7.5 hours! I’ll let you know how we get on – with photos of course – once I’ve recovered!

Update on Prize Draw

I’ve had over 240 entries so far but there is still 3 weeks to go and so still time to buy a ticket to win some wonderful prizes.

Talking of prizes, I have had some more donated by the lovely Sue at Get Knitted – she’s donated 3 skeins of Fleece Artist 100% merino – aren’t they gorgeous?

Go to www.wendyswoolies.com/raffle to check the full list of prizes and enter.

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I was reading this post on Stephanie’s blog about her 24 year old baby blanket and it got me thinking….over the past 9 or 10 years, since my friends started producing children, I must have knit at least 11 baby blankets/shawls (that would be Ceri, Ben, Thomas, Michael, Zoe, Gemma, Luke, Isaac, Sarah & Jacob) with one WIP at the moment – that is the baby AND the blanket are WIPS!!!!.

Most of these were lacey shawls like this one

knit from this pattern, which has been so well-used it is now held together with sellotape! The pattern has two different shawls and on the occasions when a friend has produced a second child I have had to remember which style I knit for the first.

Whilst writing this I realised that I have very few photographs of the recipients with their shawls although I know that all were used as I saw the babies on many occasions with them, I just never thought to take pictures for some reason. I will have to ask the parents to search and see if they can find pictures for me.

Anyway, I’m digressing from the point of this post which was, reading about Stephanie’s 24 year old baby blanket which she still has I wondered how many of my blankets and shawls will still be owned by the recipients in 24 years time. Will they keep them and bring them out for their own babies? Will they remember who it was that knit the shawl for them all those years before?

In most cases I have known the parents for most of my life and hope that in 24 years time I will still be in contact and so will be able to remind them.

I myself have three blankets that were crocheted by my Nan -

she used to turn these out like a factory and give them away to the Salvation Army to be handed out to homeless people on the streets. Her friends from church would give her all their left over balls of wool and she would make these wonderful multi-coloured blankets. Occasionally she was given a whole packet of unwanted yarn and so would knit a solid colour or a solid with a border. Then someone would tell her it was too nice to give away and they would be raffled at church or bought by a friend.

She also made them for us as children and the blue one with the white centre and border used to be on my bed when I was a child.

The blue blanket is single bed sized and the two pink blankets are smaller – about 45″ square and these were knit by her later in life and given to me I hope that when we finally get the adoption approval that I will use these on my childrens beds – my Nan would have approved of that.

I love the idea of items being made by one generation, used by another and then handed on down – the sense of continuity appeals to me. I would love to think that my knitting would still be bringing joy long after I’ve gone.

technorati tags:crochet, shawl, blanket, heirloom

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OK – as everything on my blog seems to be about contests and prize draws at the moment here’s another one at Ali’s blog. Go check it out and tell her who sent you!

For the contest I need to post my summer knitting goals so here goes –

1. Complete this –

it’s for a gift so I do have a deadline!

2 Complete this –

it should be this –

Jasmine from Rowan 39

it will be finished THIS summer (it’s been a UFO for the past two summers ‘cos I needed to learn to crochet to finish it!!!!!) I really want to have this to wear on those summer evenings.

3 Knit the tank-top from One Skein Knits in the cobweb mohair from The Natural Dye Studio.

4. Knit something beautiful with this -

my first Kool Aid dyeing experiment – if you want to suggest a pattern for me you could win some yarn – check this post

there’s probably lots more but these are the important ones!

And don’t forget to check out the prize draw!!!

technorati tags:contest, competition, yarn, rowan

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well, the title should produce some interesting key word searches landing here!!!! As promised, photos of the fully decorated bra for the Moonwalk

It started out as a plain white Playtex Wonderbra, I dyed it with “Swirlin’s Strawberry Starfruit” flavour Kool Aid to send it this lovely pink colour. I like the fact that the stitching didn’t dye so it looks like it’s pink with white embroidery round the sides and back!.

The large stars were iron-on rhinestone motifs, the smaller stars were little iron-on shapes and the really tiny sequins came as a long string which I was just going to iron on to the straps. However, I forgot they are elastic and when I tried it on the strings of sequins on the straps all separated. I then realised they were really easy to pull apart and fis on individually all over the bra. The final touch was the two pink organza beaded corsages which I bought and sewed on.

I do still have a beaded fringe to sew around the bottom edge but this is pretty much it.

oh – and the “strawberry flavour”? As I dyed it with strawberry Kool Aid it smells of strawberries!!!!!

There’s still time to sponsor me before next Saturday/Sunday here or if you want to take part in my prize draw to win some yummy yarn then you have until 9th June and you can enter at www.wendyswoolies.com/raffle.

The final result of my Kool Aid yarn dyeing experiment turned out very well (in my humble opinion!) here it is with the clogs that inspired the colours.

I love the combination of colours, I’m struggling to get a photo that shows how vibrant they are as the weather here is wet and grey – if we ever get any sun again I’ll take some photos outside.

The yarn is sportweight Merino wool and I’m now looking for ideas of what to knit with it….any suggestions just send them in. There’s 100gms and I estimate about 310 yards possibly a little more. The colours are really summery and, take my word, they shine in the sun!!!

So – a contest. Just leave a comment suggesting what I can knit with this fruit-flavoured yarn and I’ll pick one suggestion on 31st May and send the winner a yarny surprise from my stash!

I am open to suggestions for anything – doesn’t have to be socks!

technorati tags:moonwalk, koolaid, dyeing, bra, moonwalk, contest, competition

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