I Love Mrs S

Lovely pink stuff from Hipknits arrived yesterday, it's a shawl kit. It's a peachy pink, the chunky one in the foreground is destined to be a hat for me, it is pinker than the others and I don't think it goes so I am whipping it out, the rest will be made up into a shawl though. There was some cashmere sock yarn too but I didn't take any photos of that today, maybe tomorrow.

I have done a little more to the beanie today but not much, that's the only problem with dk, it seems to take forever to grow, and it's for a nearly grown up head, I like newborn baby hats.

My bestest pal Mrs S came round today, she bought me stash. She bought me two balls of Sirdar Blur in a lovely lilac colur and some patterns, one of which is a Jean Greenhowe book of soft toys, I love her toy patterns. Mrs S did have an ulterior motive though, she is the Bursar at the local infant school and they have just got some chickens for the school, they came in their own egloo and they laid their first eggs today. Anyway back to the point, Mrs S asked if I would make a couple of the easter chicks (not sure if they were for the children at the school or for her), how could I refuse, it's more knitting. I Love Knitting. Mrs S loves the chickens, she wants to call one Audrey. I want a pig and I want to call him Boris.

Yay It Snowed

I love the snow, it's like Christmas. I was out walking the dog at eight this morning, unheard of, Stanley does not do mornings, but he was all excited, he has never seen snow before, we had a lovely time playing in it. Of course it is all melting now, and by tonight it will just be sheet ice on the roads, the council are pretty good at gritting, but we live in a fairly rural area so only the main roads are done, not the small minor roads that many of us have to use to get about, good job I have got a four wheel drive, not that I will be going out unless I really have too.

I will be making a huge pan of soup for lunch, but I did have to buy my boy some Heinz Tomato Soup, it's the only soup he will eat, don't understand him, when you compare tinned stuff to freshly made own stuff, it just doesn't compute.

Not much knitting going on at the moment, the leg warmers are finished, and I have started on a matching Beanie. Mr Roadside has asked for another Beanie, his apparently does not come far enough down his ears, he shouldn't have such a big head, it fits me beautifully !!

This is a picture of a the lace scarf I recently finished for a friend, it is done in Debbie Bliss Silk which is lovely, so soft and, well, silky. It is the Cathedral Lace pattern, a 32 row repeat, which is worth the effort, but I would recommend using stitch markers between stitch counts and most important of all, a life line, I would have thrown this in the bin several times over if I had not used a life line, it was frogged back several times until I used stitch markers between the stitch counts on each row, they made it much easier to keep track of where I had got too.

Hopefully there will be an improvement to the photos soon, I have pinched the Mr's camera, but cannot find the lead or disc to load it up yet, oh and it hasn't got any batteries in it either!

I met up with a few of the AY girls on Saturday, we had lunch in Pizza Express in Lewes, at one stage you could barely see the table for the books spread across it, my list of books to get has grown significantly since Saturday. Folk Gloves is currently heading my list of must get very soon, in fact I need it yesterday. It was great meeting up, putting faces to names and to spend time with other people that actually like talking about knitting, rather than my lot who just roll their eyes and nod their heads occasionally while trying to escape not too obviously!

Looking forward to the next meet up.

Bargain Friday

I love charity shops, you never know what you will find. No yarn today, but I picked up two magazines and a book for £2.25.

The book is the Debbie Bliss New Baby Knits and although it was published in 1991 the patterns would still be lovely for a baby today.

The two magazines are Anna, Burda Knitting and Needlecrafts, loads of these back copies are floating around on Ebay for not very much. One is 1990 and the other 1984, again a few patterns that would pass muster today and others you would fall around laughing your pants off they are so naff.

Again apologies for the quality of the picture, must find the misters new camera and pinch it ! I wonder where he has put it. Mine really needs binning.

Still working on the legwarmers only got about another inch of the ribbing done last night, I had a darts match, we lost as usual, we always have a great night out, we play a game we love and get to have a really good laugh, we also hold the record for the number of times we have won the wooden spoon, 6 years in a row, and looking at the league tables we could be on track for our seventh year. It's only a game.

Well I have narrowed down VLT project to three possibles, if I could get it down to two I could toss a coin to decide.

Gradually working my way through next months birthday knits, (so much for knitting for me this year) these are leg warmers for one of my nieces. Nice to knit when you don't want to think to much about what you are doing, just a basic tube on dpns.

Cast on 60 sts . 2 x 2 rib for 6 inches (top), stocking stitch for 10 inches, 2 x 2 rib for 5 inches (ankle). Gauge for 4 x 4 inches is 25 sts, 33 rows, 3.5 mm dpns, Patons Fairytale DK (shade 6360).

Adjust length and girth (9.5 inches) as needed, these are for a 12 year old.

Having just tipped out my "to finish bag", I have discovered (amazing what you forget about) several (5) bags to be sewn up and felted, another couple (8) to be sewn together, a few (3) hand puppets to be finished off, some pairs (6) of fingerless mittens that need ends weaving in and a couple of hats (4) that need the same. There was me thinking that I had been really good about finishing things off before starting something new, who am I trying to kid !!!

Sorry but have to bring up the weather, but how foul is it out there, I now have no fence between us and one of my neighbours, it has been totally destroyed, no good when you have a dog as nosy as ours, he will no doubt go say hello to the neighbours later, I am trying to keep him locked indoors for the moment, but that means remembering to keep the kitchen door shut, he has his own doggie flap to get in and out. The bigger problem is he can just about squeeze through an ordinary cat flap, guess who has got one of them, yes the neighbours, and Stanley hates their cat, it sits on our fence and torments the dog daily (as cats are want to do), so we may have a slight problem !!!! Cannot fix the fence until the winds have died down either.

Talking of the dog I had better take him out now, the lazy little swine (I know wrong species) has not moved from off my bed all day.

Stans the Man

Could not resist a picture of Stanley, he was being particulary cute for this one, actually he was just being nosy and was checking out the camera. He is a Jack Russell (with proper legs not stumps), and three years old.

No pictures of knitting today, batteries have finally died and cannot be bothered to go shopping, I am knitting though, well not right this second obviously. I am being wonderful wife and knitting the Mr a Beanie for his trip to Canada next month. He is going on a four day "conference", so that will be a ten minute presentation followed by ninety-five hours and fifty minutes of boozing, he has opted out of the ski-ing, (I wonder why!!!) The Beanie is a two by two rib in Twilleys Freedom Spirit, will take a picture tomorrow, may even load up the software for the Mr's new camera onto my computer, mine is a little ancient and the resolution is pretty poor, as you can tell, my photography skills are not all that either, but hey ho, my name is not David Bailey.

I think the family will have to starve tonight, my bum is not moving from this chair, I plan on doing knitting and watching the darts final, I've done the washing, fed the cat and walked the dog, let someone else do the dinner. (Some hope)

Back Again

Well I've come back again, you would have thought I had run out of drivvle last night, but no motor mouth is off again.

Thanks to the lovely people who were kind enough to leave a comment, at least I can say that my musings have been perused, I hope you may even come back occasionally.

I have actually managed to get some knitting done this week, shock, horror. I completed two pairs of socks, one of the pairs is for a small person so did not take too long. Nice easy knits these, it is the Classic Sock pattern from Nancy Bush's Folk Socks, (lovely book, really interesting to read and a good variety of sock patterns, the next project on the list from this book are the Mamluke Socks, not sure when they will be started, I think the lace knitting might take over all other projects for the forseeable future) both in 6 ply so really quick, hence why it only took me four days to do both pairs. The reddish colour pair are Mega Boots Stretch, (Lana Grossa), and the stripy was some Opal I had left from a pair of ankle socks I made myself a while ago, I reckon that I could probably get another small pair out of them.

Sock knitting has really taken me by suprise, up until I joined the AY Forum I did not even realise that you could knit socks, why would I, they were just another functional piece of clothing that you pulled on and never gave any thought too, well apart from their smell of course. They are now things of great beauty, lovingly constructed on what look like large cocktail sticks, (my Dad saw mine sitting on the coffee table this week and thought it was some sort of voodoo doll and I had been inflicting pain on some poor unsuspecting person, I know I am a bit of a people hater when I go supermarket shopping [how dare they go shopping at the same time as me], but I am not that bad !) Some people have huge stashes of sock yarn, all waiting their turn to be teased into lovely little socks to keep little toes warm and cosy, beautiful patterns await you at every turn, tempting, tormenting and teasing you, surreal colour ways, self striping yarns, super soft cashmere, I could go on forever, but I won't.

Suffice to say that I really love knitting socks, these two pairs takes my tally up to four pairs so far, but I can envisage many more in the future. Talking socks, I have seen some impressive stashes in the last couple of days, Kay, I am in awe of the collection you have put together, I only wish mine was even a tenth of the size.

Time to love you and leave you, hope you have a great weekend.

Hello $ xxxx

First post, this could be fairly mundane for anyone who happens to stumble across this blog. I have not kept a diary or written anything of any substance for many years, good intentions and all that, neither had I ever really given much thought to blogging.

I read them, daily, always flitting from blog to blog, usually only blogs about knitting. What is it about knitting that is so obsessive, you obsess about the knitting, the not knitting, the yarn you have got, the yarn you haven't got, trawling through every yarn shop known to man and woman, books about knitting, patterns, free patterns, patterns you can buy, patterns from charity shops as old as your gran, even dreaming about knitting. I spend most days talking about knitting as well, you can not get me away from the Angel Yarns Knitting Forum, it takes up any spare time I have when not actually knitting, or reading about knitting, or browsing for more stash for my knitting.

You may be able to tell that I quite enjoy knitting, but today I realised that my obsessive knitting etc is going to be severely rationed, I was offered a new job today, I am over the moon, could not be happier, but, it means I will actually have to do some work, I do currently have a job, but the actual work bit is very thin on the ground, so I read about knitting, talk about knitting, do knitting !!! My new job will not allow me to do this, I will apparently be a "pole and hole woman", this means I will be climbing into holes in the ground and up telegraph poles ,but the unofficial title sounds much funnier !!

Anyway, back to knitting. Yesterday my lovely postman bought me a new book, yes it is about knitting. A beautiful book, filled with beautiful pictures and patterns, Victorian Lace Today, I have not let it out of my sight since it popped through the door, I have a huge problem though, which one do I do first, there are over a dozen that I would happily cast on for in a heartbeat, and those are just the ones the really like today, the list may change or even grow by tomorrow, the more I look the more i would love to do.

When I physically started to put words into this blog I could not even think of the right word to start with, I thought I would never have enough to say and after a couple of sentences I would fade away into obscurity and give it up as a bad job, I have obviously got alot more to say than even I knew, may you always know where the off button is. Right stop me now, before I get writers cramp, (or should that be writers crap). Need to play around with the bits and bobs on here now. Maybe tomorrow I may even put up a picture or two. That fooled you it appears that I put in a picture tonight, that was so easy.

The two special guests in the chair tonight are Dolly the Doll and Elfie the Elf, both knit in assorted baby dk, the doll is a take on a Jean Greenhowe pattern and the elf was in the Womans Weekly Christmas Special, both were gifts for special little people last year.

Anyway off again.