I have an apprentice and pleased as Yoda am I…..

One of the things I have always imagined when I looked to the future of myself with children was sitting teaching them to knit and this afternoon that dream was realised. My eldest , who is about 2 weeks away from being 8, was watching me sew name labels into her younger sisters school uniform and asked if she could help “I’d really like to do some sewing…..or knitting…yeah, that’s what I realy, REALLY want to do…..”

So, I found some suitably sized needles, large size so they are easy to hold and knit up quickly but fairly short so they are not unmanageable – I finally dug out some old wooden needles that were my grandmas (she used to call them her “string vest” needles) they are 10mm needles but only about 11″ long and being wooden they are nice to the touch. Then I dug out some wool – I decided on Twilleys Freedom. It’s 100% wool and very soft to the touch, it’s fairly chunky so the knitting grows pretty quick and the couple of balls I dug out were in a variegated blue so the fabric would knit up a little more interesting than a plain yarn.

I cast on 15 stitches for her and showed her how to make a knit stitch and she was off…

with very little input from me aside from the odd screamed “Help, mum…it’s all gone wrong” as the stitches slipped off the needles or she wrapped the yarn the wrong way! She sat working away happily shouting out excitedly every time she finished another row and, after about an hour of knitting she had produced this –

It may only be 6 rows of garter stitch but to her it’s a real achievement and (so okay, I may just be a proud mum) I think that’s pretty good for a not-quite-8-year-old who has never knit a stitch before! She has informed me it is going to be the longest scarf in the world, EVER! and that she is going to knit every day.

My husband walked in as she was knitting and said, “oh no – a convert. What have you started?” I prefer to think of her as an apprentice and I’m rather proud of myself as well as I’ve never taught anyone to knit before.

Well, as things begin to settle down and life is beginning to feel “normal” (whatever that is) so hopefully this is the return of blogging. I’ve not stopped knitting, although these days quite a bit of my creative & artistic energy gets used up in helping small children make junk models or beaded jewellery or finger paintings or fairy cakes……

First, with the hope that this is not going to turn into a “mommy blog” I have to share a story. When I told my best friend her reaction, after she stopped laughing, was “Well, now you are definitely a mum – you’ve got one of ‘those’ stories!”

So, yesterday morning my youngest is following me around upstairs whilst I’m putting away laundry, tidying bedrooms etc. I leave her stamping around in her bedroom to go into the bathroom. Whilst I’m in the bathroom I notice, as you do, that the sink needs a clean and that, of course, leads to the bath etc and so I’m in there quite a while and haven’t noticed it’s gone ominously quiet outside.

As I open the bathroom door and look out onto the landing I see my youngest freeze in one of those “freeze, I’ve been caught” poses. She is standing in the middle of the landing clutching a large container of baby powder (now empty), she is white from head to foot, there is a trail of white leading in and out of both her bedroom and mine. There is white powder up the walls, on the doors…..everywhere….and she just looks at me and says “oh!”.

Later on the same daughter somehow (we are not certain whether this was accidental or on purpose) emptied a large quantity of bubble solution over our cat….we didn’t find this out until after the kids were all in bed and the cat came in looking very bedraggled and sorry for himself….picture me trying to clean soap solution from a long-haired cat who really doesn’t like being washed, what a fun evening.

On the knitting front though I’m currently working on Gigi from www.knitty.com for me. The yarn was bought on eBay and comes from china so I have little idea what it is. It seems to be a sock weight or similar and is in a deep, scarlet red (which doesn’t photograph well) and black.

When I bought this I had no idea what I was going to make with it I just thought it was interesting and it was a bargain. I also bought a pack of the same yarn in a green/yellow/orange/white combination because I can’t resist a bargain.

So, when I checked out the latest edition of knitty.com and saw this -

I immediately thought of my chinese yarn…and knitting with yarn from china whilst watching the Olympics in Beijing (wooooo! Go Team GB! Congratulations to my heroes Chris Hoy & Bradley Wiggins) seemed very appropriate.

So far I’ve completed the back and am halfway up the left front, the patterning on the back looked great but with the shorter rows on the front I don’t know whether I like the pooling…..

I’m also not sure if it’s going to be too small. I’m knitting the smallest size, XS, as the sizing given seemed right for my new shape (6 months into having 3 kids, giving up an office job for a job where I NEVER sit down I’ve lost over a stone…..and I was only a touch over 9 stone to start with!!!) it’s knitting up rather small. Let you know how it turns out.

I’ve also got out my sewing machine and dusted it off to make this gorgeous little sundress for my middle daughter -

I can’t even remember where I got this rather pretty gingham with embroidered butterflies but I came across it whilst clearing out some cupboards a few months ago and it was just crying out to be a sundress. Whilst walking past the sewing shop in town this weekend they had this on a roll outside the shop door

It was incredibly cheap so I’ve bought enough to make a second dress for the youngest daughter so she can have one as well…her favourite saying at present being “how..how…how ’bout me?” whenever anyone else is given anything.

To round off this creative outpouring my eldest daughter and I made apple pies this weekend. The deep dish apple and blackberry pie looked so delicious that we ate it straight out of the oven so I’m afraid I only have photos of the remains….it did look fantastic though! This was our first try with gluten free pastry for pies and it came out quite well. As gluten free is always more crumbly the shortcrust had a lovely crumbly, crunchy texture…quite pleased…..oh yes, and the apples and blackberries were picked from our garden. Apple pies always make me think of my grandma who loved to make them and taught me a lot about making pastry – the secret is cold hands and don’t mess it around!

I tried to resist but inevitably, with the arrival of 3 little girls, a tide of pink has engulfed my house – toys, clothes, bedding, walls. I have to admit I was never averse to a little pink myself and have a sizeable quantity of pink items in my own wardrobe but now my washing line resembles an explosion in a candy floss factory!

And by the end of an afternoon this is what our lounge looks like (and this was on a fairly quiet day!!!)

The pink has now reached my knitting and, unable to resist, I have made them something pink. Admittedly it’s a very pale shade of pink and in fact it is not knitted but crocheted. Summer has arrived with a bang here in England and my girls are in need of summer clothes so I searched through my stash and found 4 balls of Rowan All Seasons Cotton which was my free gift with my Rowan subscription this year. The pale pink colour and the cotton content seemed perfect for a little lacy cotton number and from 4 balls I could probably manage something for both the younger two.

A quick search on Ravelry for a pattern (I love being able to do that!) came up with the Spring Fling Halter by Jaybird Designs. Since teaching myself to crochet last year I have (excuse the pun) become hooked but have yet to crochet an actual garment, just granny squares, lace edgings and amigurumi.

This little halter top is fantastic, it took less than 3 balls to make the size 2T and 3T so I still have a ball and a bit left and it took me only an evening to make each one. So after 3 hours in the company of my 3 favourite men (that’s Gil Grissom, Horatio Cain and Dr Gregory House) I had a finished top.

(check out the model pose from my 3 year old!!)

And here’s a close up of the shell pattern at the bottom.

It’s very satisfying making things this small – you get a very fast return on your efforts and (thankfully) at the moment the girls love wearing things I’ve made for them so I’m making the most of it.

Just a very, very quick post to say thanks to everyone for their kind wishes – all those good vibes must have worked because the adoption panel have approved us!

Slightly scary to think we may soon find ourselves with an instant family…..:)

Off to open a bottle of wine with J and celebrate now…catch you later

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Tags: adoption

Whew, just realised it was over a week ago I posted last and it’s not for lack of things to say…quite the opposite really.

So, when I spoke last we were getting ready for our Annual Barbecue, this has become a fixture in our social calender since we invited people round for a barbecue on our 1st wedding anniversary…actually before that I used to have an annual summer barbecue for my work colleagues years ago when I was single and then a second one for my friends. Since Jon and I got married we’ve carried on inviting our friends and family over at least once during the summer for a big get together.

We have smaller gatherings with just a few friends all through the year but twice a year we invite everyone. One of these events is a pre-Christmas Mince Pie and Mulled Wine party for just our friends, not family. We have this on the last Friday before Christmas as a chance to spend time with our friends before Christmas as we are all focussed on our families over the Christmas period. This event is always very relaxed with maybe 20-30 people, we have parlour games and everyone gets a present from Santa’s Sack – it’s a bit like a bran-tub affair with lots of very silly, cheap presents.

During the summer we have our barbecue which seems to get bigger every year, all our friends and family are invited and we provide meat and veggies for the barbecue with everyone else bringing salads, desserts and drinks. It’s a wonderful day every year, a lot of our friends have children so they are running around the garden playing swingball, quoits, climbing our trees or playing on the swing. It’s open house all day from about 2pm so people come and go depending on the age of chidren who have to be taken home to bed, people working and coming over later in the evening…this year over the course of about 12 hours from 2pm to 2am we had around 30 adults and a dozen children aged 10 months to 9 years old passing through our garden.

Here are some of our photos – click to see them larger or to go to Flickr to see the rest –

As you can see from the pictures the weather was VERY good to us, probably one of the hottest sunniest days we’ve had all year…very similar to the weather 7 years ago

As the sun went down on our barbecue it stayed fairly warm and there were people out in the garden till pretty late, we lit the candles and torches and one of our friends put on a show for us with his “Fire Poi”

As usual, a lovely day and not enough time to talk properly to all our friends.

Since then the weather has turned and it’s been cold and today it’s wet and windy so I think we picked the best day!

I’ve been doing plenty of knitting this week but most of it is secret so I can’t show you much – I’m in several Swaps at the moment and I know my partners are checking blogs so can only tell you this much.

This is a project for the HSKS3 swap

As you can probably guess, my swap partner is in Hufflepuff House!

I’m also working on this for my hubby

ok- so that’s just a bag of yarn I know! From the colours the observant amongst you might see the Harry Potter theme here as well, bought this about a year ago for the Gryffindor colours and it’s been lurking ever since. This is being knit into a top secret project for J (no peeking….)

Non secret knitting has been started -

I finally decided between the three projects I’ve been wanting to start – Rogue, Eris and Arwen - and went for Arwen from Interweave Knits Winter 2006. The yarn was purchased specifically for this project (or whichever of the three I decided on) with an Angel Yarns voucher I received in Secret Pal 3. I’ve made a couple of adjustments to the pattern.

As I’m substituting Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK for the Debbie Bliss specified and this has a lower yardage on the ball band I wasn’t totally sure I would have enough yarn. It was going to be tight anyway so I decided to knit the hem facings with a different yarn, this i an airforce blue Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK I’ve had in the stash for a while. Contrasts well with the baby blue Jaeger.

Also, rather than sew the hem facing up and have to do invisible stitches (and I hate sewing stuff anyway) I used a crochet provisional cast on with waste yarn –

and then when the body was the same length as the hem facing I took out the waste yarn, put the stitches on another needle and then knit together one hem stitch with one body stitch across the row. I think it looks very neat –

I’m knitting this on my Brittany Birch Needles (birthday present from hubby) which I really love using, they are so smooth and so light!

I’ve completed the back of the cardigan and reached the sleeve on the left piece of the cardigan. For anyone not familiar with the pattern it is an unusual construction in just 3 pieces. The back is knit as one piece, then the left front is knit, when the armhole is reached stitches are cast on to form the sleeve, the shaping is done with short rows and the sleeve is then knit along with the body thus knitting up and over the arm. The sleeve stitches are then cast off and the left side of the hood is then knit in one continuous piece with the body. The right side is knit the same.

I’ve knit the left front to the sleeve and currently working my way over the shoulder… I’d forgotten how much I love cables…

More swap news, I recently hosted a swap on swap-bot for Knitting Accessories – send at least 2 knitting accessories (stitch markers, row counters etc) to your partner. My partner was Marie Sierra and she sent me this wonderful parcel

 - includes a skein of Plymouth Encore DK, a box of green tea, a hand-knit wash-cloth, some lavender sachets in this beautiful pink organza bag

and best of all (I actually squealed when I opened it) the book Amigurumi: Super Happy Crochet Cute by Beth Doherty. I have wanted this book for so long, it isn’t sold in this country – I could get it on Amazon but I’d have to pay huge amounts of postage so this was so lovely to receive as a gift

J has already requested the monkey on the left of the picture!!!

That’s about it for now – I’ve just sent off two swap parcels so will write about them when they’ve been received.

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Tags: SP3, HSKS3, barbecue, amigurumi, arwen,

In a bid to make me blog every day I’m picking up this meme from BellaDia to make an “Encyclopedia of Me”. Every day I post something about me based on the next letter of the alphabet so here we go with A

A is for Adoption  

This word seems to have been dominating the lives of my DH and I for ever. We first enquired about the possibility of adopting in February 2006 and since that time we have been on preparation courses, had our house assessed, been interviewed about every aspect of our lives and attitudes to parenting, had our friends and family complete references and be interviewed and we finally feel like we are getting near the end of the process.

We have one more interview with our social worker and then she has to write a report based on all the information gathered to go to a panel of experts (social workers, doctors, teachers, foster carers, adopters etc) who decide whether or not we are suitable.

All being well we should have our panel on 28th September and then we wait to be matched with suitable children. It;s starting to feel a little more real now and we’ve even begun to decorate rooms and child-proof the house and garden.

Wanting and hoping for a family has been such a big part of our lives for so long that it’s hard to imagine now that it might actually happen.

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Just got back from a lovely weekend break in the English Lake District with DH and BB. We were camping on a wonderful site near Boot in Eskdale

when we arrived on Saturday the site was packed – it has 75 pitches and all were occupied. By Monday afternoon there was just our two tents, two camper vans and two other tents in a different field!!

The weather was pretty good, we had rain at night a few times but only one afternoon when we were actually caught out in wet weather and that was just for the last mile when we were heading back to the site.

Did some beautiful walks along Eskdale – here’s a sneak at some photos, just click to see them in flickr.

I did manage to get a little bit of knitting done in the evenings – working on the Sock Madness sock (I’m out of the competition but still knitting the patterns) This round came out on Friday just before I left so I printed it out and took it with me –

..this is as far as I got, it is a very short sock – the small pattern band is the “leg”, the second larger band is on the foot, the picture on the right is the sole of the foot with the heel to the right (yes there is a pattern on the sole!). The pattern is called Mad for Fair Isle and is based on batik patterns, the pattern is by Tina Lorin

I’m using 4ply sock yarn from Angle Yarns in Denim and Rose Pink and 2.5mm bamboo dpn’s.

technorati tags:sockmadness, knit, knitting, sock

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Thought I’d let you see my current project (well one of them) -

The pattern is by Debbie Bliss from her book Cashmerino DK, however I’m knitting it was published in Simply Knitting in December 2006 which is where I’m knitting it from. I’m knitting it in Merino DK rather than Cashmerino because it was in my stash and I fancied a pillar box red cardigan.

I’m afraid the colour doesn’t photograph well but the lovely cable details do –

the cabling pulls the waist in to give a lovely fitted shape. It looks much longer and thinner than it will be when finished as the ribbing needs blocking out.

However, I don’t think I’m taking this project with me to the Lake District tomorrow – we’re camping so I think I’ll need to take a pair of sock, much more portable. Let’s see how much I can embarass DH and Baby Brother (6′3″ and 35 but always Baby Brother to me) by knitting in the pub in the evenings.

The plan is hill walking during the day, back to the campsite for a wash and a glass of wine outside the tent then pub for dinner. However, looking at the weather forecast last night it seems the glorious sunshine we’ve been experiencing for the past week is about to end – oh dear…

Oh yes, and Star Wars – it’s 30 years today since it was released – I remember to this day going to see the first film, one of the defining moments of my childhood and I still watch the films on a regular basis.

An exhibition of Star Wars props and costumes opened in London today so I may have to drag DH there!

May the 4th be with you!

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I seem to be going through something of a “Purple Patch”, I was uploading photos to flickr and when I looked at them all on the screen it was just a sea of purple! And then this morning I got this –

- my final “reveal” package from my Sockret Pal who turned out to be Ruth, and it’s an extravaganza of purple/blue/pink! Ruth was also my spoiler in another blog and that plus an accidental email she sent me a little while ago had tipped me off that she was probably my Sockret Pal, but that’s ok, I still got a surprise with what she was sending me and she’s really spoilt me this time by sending all this stuff

First, my handknit socks which are just perfect.

Child’s First Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush in Lorna’s Lace “Iris Garden”- anyone who reads my blog regularly will know Ive knit this pattern a couple of times but always for other people, now I have a pair for me and they are so comfy and soft

Next out of the box was this -

Ruth tells me these are from The Yarn Yard, yet another UK online yarn seller she has pointed me at (you’re doing nothing for my bank balance you know !!) They are both 4ply 75% wool 25% polyamide and don’t they look perfect together? Have to find something special to knit with these.

The third package was -

a pencil case – to use to keep my dpn’s, and crochet hooks (Ruth knows I’ve been learning to crochet) and inside a really useful notebook, some Brittany Birch 2.5mm dpns and (the best of all) some sew in labels that say “Handmade by Wendy”.

I’ve been wanting some of these for ever and actually saw some on Ruth’s blog and asked here where they came from!!! – she wouldn’t tell me

My gifted items are going to look so professional from now on.

The next packet out of the box was more (yes more!!) yarn

A ball of Tofutsies which I have been seeing cropping up on blogs and been intrigued by, can’t wait to try. The other ball is the remainder of the Lorna’s from the socks “in case of alterations” as Ruth put it – no alterations needed however…so this could become some more squares in my “memories” afghan I’m planning

The last package was ….

…this beautiful book. Ruth and I were in an afghan square swap a little while ago and I have been talking with her about crochet squares as I’ve been trying to learn so this will be great for practise and inspiration.

Aren’t I just the luckiest Swapper anywhere?

Adding to my purple day is my second try at a scarf for ISE4, the first just doesn’t seem right for my pal….can’t say exactly why but it’s just “not her”. So yesterday on our way home from Cornwall when we stopped at Trago Mills in Newton Abbot for decorating supplies (don’t ask me to explain Trago Mills, it’s a West Country thing!) I had a quick look in their arts & crafts department and found some Patons Spirit mohair blend in a purple self-striping colourway –

I took it along to my Knitting Group when we got back to Marlow last night and cast on with 6.5mm needles and just used a basic “old shale” stitch pattern so it isn’t just straight striped. I’m much happier with this. It’s coming out pretty big – 41 stitches and 6.5mm needles means it’s about 11″ wide and so far with a little bit of the first ball to go it’s about 18″ long. I have 4 balls in total so that would give a completed length of at least 72″. My partner says she likes long scarfs so hopefully that would be long enough!

Despite being wide and long, the mohair and the stitch pattern mean it’s very light and very soft – should be a lovely warm scarf I think.

I was asked about the Old Shale knitting stitch, it is in a really old book of traditional knitting stitches which I have and in that book is used in a shwal. Here’s the pattern for my scarf (such as it is!) knit in any yarn you like using the appropriate sized needles and casting on as many stitches as needed to get the width you want. I’ve given the directions for what I did using Patons Spirit which is a mohair/acrylic blend with a ball band tension of 13sts/17rows to 4″ on 6.5mm/UK 3/US 10.5 needles.

Cast on 40 sts (or any multiple of 6 plus 4 edge stitches).
Row 1: knit
Row 2: k2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Row 3: k2, (k2 tog) 3 times, *(yo k1) 6 times, (k2 tog) 6 times* repeat from * to * to the last 8 sts, (k2 tog) 3 times, k2
Row 4: knit (this gives a garter st ridge which just added a little bit of texture, if you prefer the alternative is to repeat Row 2 and keep the whole thing in st st)

These 4 rows form the pattern and are repeated until (1) the scarf is long enough (2) you run out of yarn or (3) you get bored – whichever comes first!

Finally this post, I promised pictures of the gifts I was given visiting our friends in Cornwall on Saturday. So here they are –

Lucy painted me a beautiful Springtime picture with chicks and eggs, as you can see it has pride of place on our kitchen notice board

She also made me a sequinned Easter Egg which is so pretty and is now hanging on my tealight tree

Lucy is not feeling very well at the moment as she developed Chicken Pox on Monday – right at the start of school holidays for Easter – Get Well Soon Lucy xxx

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Having a lovely weekend in Cornwall – yesterday we went down to my f-i-l’s boat. He is about to put the sails back after the winter and needed someone to go up the mast and re-attach some of the halyards. As I was the lightest amongst the assembled party, I was the one volunteered.

Here I am getting into the bosun’s chair -

and here I am going up the mast –

after I reattached the halyard and came back down, my f-i-l said “I should have got you to take a cloth up and clean that antenna” – see that round thing at the top of the mast? That’s the antenna and it’s covered in green. So, after a cup of tea and some negotiation on price up I went again.

My m-i-l suggested that I should ask for payment in skeins of wool – what a great idea, I told f-i-l I’m sending my next Paypal invoice for online yarn purchase to his email address!!!

The evening was spent visiting our good friends Tracey (Gwelva Kernewek) & Graham and their daughters….I do think of them as good friends, despite the fact this was actually only the second time we’ve ever met. We met Tracey online and have been communicating for a long time and we then discovered she lived just a few miles from J’s parents here in Cornwall.

We had a lovely evening, J impressed the girls with his prowess on Grand Turismo on the PS, we shared Pizza and exchanged presents.

I was given a lovely picture and a handdecorated egg – I’ll post some pictures when I get home. Thanks for having us gang we had a brilliant time….arriving back in the early hours this morning.

Thought I’d share some pics of the other members of the family, the Newfoundland Dogs ;

Bosun-

and Otto -

here I am with the two of them, to give you some idea of their size…yes they really are that big and weigh more than twice as much as me

This lunchtime we went to the Ferry Inn at Bodinnick for a pub meal. I tried out J’s new camera phone to take a panoramic picture of the view across the estuary to Fowey

this is J having a pint of cider in front of the pub

When we got back J and I walked down from the house to the beach at Talland, about a mile and a half straight down.

To our surprise the beach cafe was open and so we had an ice cream

and a mug of tea

it was lovely sitting in the sunshine looking at the sea, just the recharge we both need away from every day life. And, ok so it’s not knitting content on a blog that is supposedly about knitting but it is sort of knittin related – On the walk back up to the house we saw these little guys –

aren’t they the cutest? Of course I’m looking at them thinking “Hmmm, wonder what that would spin up into…?”

Here’s a picture of Talland Bay to finish with – enjoy!

technorati tags:talland, cornwall

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