Tuesday 28 September 2004

Feeling perkier (he he!)

I am feeling much better this morning, I have a full blown cold but I can actually think in straight lines again, and last night I managed to do a good amount on my Noro tank. Hopefully with a bit of effort I may be able to finish it tonight!



Since Anth was rather poorly last week, he had taken to snuggling up on the sofa, with a pot of fruit tea, knitting his jumper and listening to radio 4. I have to say this is my favourite thing on the planet, and I sort of thought that he was doing that because he just couldn't do anything else. But yesterday morning, his first morning back at work, he just said, "Oh I don't want to go to work, I want to do my knitting and listen to radio 4". I was rather dumbfounded, and last night we were walking home from work, and I mentioned we could have something nice for tea to cheer us up, and anth again said, "OH yes! and we can cutch up (welsh slang for cuddle up), knit and listen to the radio" Again, I couldn't believe it! So we knitted and knitted and in the end I had to tell him to stop, because he kept saying, 'just a bit more'!

And get this, He even sat and looked through my new 'Knitting on the Edge' and was deciding which lace and cable pattern he liked so he could design his own scarf to make for his mum for christmas!



Yesterday I decided to book my places at the craft fare in the Welsh museum, only to find out there is not a christmas one this year! There is one in the town centre, but it costs about £60 - £70 a day. I don't think it is really possible to have a place for three days only, it's for serious crafters. So I was really dissapointed, but at least I can start on all my christmas presents and time my self doing things, it will be good practice, I think I will determine not to buy anything this year and make all my presents, anyway my mum has declared that we are not having any christmas presents this year because she is giving all the money to an RSPCA animal shelter, I have to admit I thought this was a rather fabulous idea!



Here is a picture of the wool my friend brought me from monmouth market. The big Skein is Jacobs wool and the lighter brown ones are Manx something, I'm not too sure, but its definately scrummy, and will make great scarfs and hats. (appologies for the plastic bag on the left)

Wool1_2



Monday 27 September 2004

Bleah!!

I don't feel very well today, so the post is going to be really basic.

I have finished the back and am halfway through the front of my Noro tank, I love it.

I took my orange shawl thing home, and my mum thought it was absolutely beautiful, so she says I need to make some more, she took a picture of me in it, but what a suprise I forgot to bring it home, so she'll have to email it to me. Anyway this november there is the Cardiff Knitting and Stitching show and the theme is water so I am going to make one in greeny blues and see if I can have it exhibited in the knitting and crochet guild section. I also went blackberry picking with my dad yesterday, I haven't done that since I was a child, we had loads of fun, I ended up with a massive icecream tub full, and can't wait to make blackberry and apple crumble, with custard, HMMM I'm perking up already with the thought!

Pic's tomorrow.

Happy knitting.



Wednesday 22 September 2004

Wool coming out of my ears!

I was feeling rather sorry for myself this morning because I am itching to get knitting but I am so busy and even this evening I am working so I can't knit :-(. Then my phone rings and my lovely freind Jasmine, who stayed with us for a while, phones me on her mobile from a local welsh market and says 'oooh there is some lovely hand spun wool made from jacobs sheep fleece and another fleece, and it's spun at the farm up the road, would you like some?' I said um, YEEEEEESSSSSS! And then she even told me she was going to buy it for me as a gift!!! What a lovely girl! I am sooooo lucky!

Moral of the story? Preach about your obsession people, PREACH!



By the way you may be noticing the theme; 'moral of the story' cropping up alot lately, this is due to over exposure of star treck where there is a moral in every tale.



Pictures on their way!



Tuesday 21 September 2004

Um I though this was more exciting that my bizarre ranting so I really will put it first! (rant on post below!)

Secret Pal, thankyou sooooooo much, my parcel is really lovely!

Here is what she sent me!

Secreat_package

There are some scrumtious sented moisturiser creams, we can't breathe in our office because I had to try them all! And an wonderful kit for making a felted necklace from Habu yarns, which looks great fun!

I can't wait to try it! Thankyou its really different! I love different things!



Bizarre happenings in the Brown household with out coffee!

So on honey moon I drank no tea, only espresso, therefore when I got back to Wales, tea tasted of ditch water: so I decided that I just might give up coffee and tea altogether and see what happened. As a result I've had headaches and felt like crap but nothing really bad.

However, on Sunday I had rather a bouncy day, then yesterday I felt incredible, I had so much energy I was flying, no need for an afternoon nap in my office (Note here, I'm kidding, I don't really but I always feel like I want to.) I had a great afternoon, but got home to a caffeine withdrawn husband, who is not taking it as lightly as me, (he has fever, sickness and other unmentionables). But my bounciness just strengthened his resolve to keep away from our new espresso maker.



So I thought to my self with my new energy; "I'll go and do an amazing shop in Sainsbury’s and get loads of very healthy food for my sick husband". So off I went and spent nearly two hours in there carefully choosing my food, and chatting to people I hadn't seen for ages, it was lovely, with the hugest trolley of shopping, I came to pay and I realised that I didn't have any money not to mention that it cost a fortune. So being the nice staff that they are, they popped my trolley in the chiller, and undeterred I cheerfully drove home and got my purse, nearly getting petrol on the way, but remembering at the last minute that I didn't have any money, thankfully, that might have been more complicated! And went back and paid an extortionate amount of money for my very healthy food. Got home and anth looked a picture, lying on the sofa with 2 jumpers, a dressing gown, a woolly hat, and the heating on!



So now it's nine pm, and I’m usually crawling around struggling to stay awake, and clean my teeth, but NO! I took everything out of the fridge cleaned it all, cleaned the kitchen and made my self a gluten free fish finger sandwich! Made Anth some bread and jam and a cup of caffeine free tea. settled down and went to bed happily.



Woke up this morning with tonnes of energy and decided what he needed was a special Juice blend made in our juicer, so I popped some apples and carrots in it, and it made a funny noise and black bits came out in the resulting juice! Oops! In my enthusiasm I managed to not make sure it was correctly fitted together and I have mangled it up completely.



SO not only did I spend loads of money on juiceable fruit and vegetables but I have just mangled a very expensive juicer. Oh but it doesn't end there, so I made porridge and blended some cranberry juice and blueberries, Note here: Don't try this at home, it’s very sharp and dry, even I had stomach cramps after that! So I then had to get ready for work, in-between trying to pacify my sick husband. So nearly there, but no keys! I searched for a LONG time and then went out to check the car, and as I walked back to the house they were there dangling from the door from last night from the shopping, we could have been murdered in our beds! Note here, however I am still calm and still happy.



So what’s the moral of the story? well there’s two actually, No coffee = too much energy, which equal using things you can't normally be bothered with and breaking them, going shopping when you normally get a takeaway, and spending much too much money because you are cheerful enough to by fruit and veggie’s. Basically the equation is No coffee = Very expensive, but a clean kitchen.



Monday 20 September 2004

Mondays pictures.

I had a lovely weekend, doing lots of things with the kids, and also managed so squeeze alot of knitting in between activities. Although I was banned by the knids from taking my sock knitting into the bowling alley! I guess its ok to be an wicked stepmother but not an embarassing one!

Anyway, so here is a picture of my finished wedding socks in action, although please note the ends still needed to be woven in in this picture!

Feetinsocks

Its a bit blurry because I have a habit of waggling my feet around in excitement.



Once I had finished these I decided to have a go at making a felted bag from my columbian wool, however I need the hugest crochet hook on the planet so I left that one and decided what I should really do is have a go at making my own pattern for a stripey tank from my Noro silk garden. I did have to rip it a few times, but we are well on target now. Here's the picture:

Noro_tank

I'm very very pleased with this, if it works well who knows where the pattern may be?

Finally I try hard not to let my kitties near my wool because even though they are really well behaved, I don't really want cat hair in it. However, I think when we were on honeymoon the kitties made the most of us not being there, and were allowed to get into rather naughty habbits, so imagine my amazement when I wandered into my art room and found monkey sunning himself on my stash:

Naughty_boy



Friday 17 September 2004

Lots of things to Tell.

So yesterday I popped into town with A for lunch and we happened to go into the LYS, and they are having a sale on rowan and Jaeger, and various other yarns, there were also lots of new novelty yarns in. So I restrained myself but noticed that there was some denim cotton identical to the rowan denim and it was reduced to £1.30 for 50gms, I remembered that A had expressed the desire to knit a sweater from denim people, but it would have cost at least £50, so we riffled through the pattern book in the store and he brought himself enough to make the jumper and it cost £24 altogether! So he has now officially got a stash! Thats so cool, and I can stop feeling guilty, (i'm only pretending I don't really, I love having a stash)

Then in the evening we had our stitch and bitch meeting and had a few guests to it, there were four of us knitting which was brill! It was really lovely to meet the new knitters and chat about dreams for yarn stores and hand painted yarns. It was great!

Its not long now until the knitting and stitching show in london, and Marie and are are trying very hard to save our yarn expenditure for then, but its soooooo hard! Gosh I'm so lucky to have such a great life.





Wednesday 15 September 2004

Dear secret pal!

Hello lovely Secret pal,

Have a look at the comments Marie has written about mail stuff (its in one you left the last comment in), I'm not sure if this explains it? I have checked at the depo and it hasn't arrived.



Thanks Marie, see you tomorrow evening, I really looking forward to our stitch and bitch.



Tuesday 14 September 2004

Ranting about knitting does pay off!

Well! So my friend calls me up and says to me 'would you like to meet for lunch so I can say good bye?, because I am going away for a year to Spain!', I said 'of course!' So we meet up she says to me, oh I brought you a little something from Columbia! So I hold my breathe because what I want more than anything in the world is hand spun wool from the hills, and guess what it was? Here is the picture:

Wool_from_brazil

I tried to contain myself: it smells deliciously of sheep and is beautifully unevenly spun, and I just couldn't calm my self down, It was the most beatuiful stuff I have ever seen. Something as unique and special as that would beat a pack of Rowan any time, and thats saying something.

Suffice to say, I shall stop worrying about ranting to all my friends about wool because it looks like they do take notice of me!



Monday 13 September 2004

At last some pictures but only of wool!

So I spent the weekend going mad about heels of socks and finally found the formula from socks 101, which is my favourite. The first sock which is completed, I turned the heel and made it up as I went along because I didn't have any instructions in france. But strangely it fits, I just left 2 stitches each time on the end and knitted short rows it worked great but I prefer the fit of the formula. Here is my progress.

Wedding_sock_1

Notice the stripes on this wool, its amazing, the completed sock has really thin stripes, the second sock has the same number of stitches but I knitted it tighter and the stripes are so thick and look beautiful! How wierd that knitting tighter could make such a difference to the design!



Secondly I have finished a stole made from 4 different yarns: Kid mohair, rayon, a boucle, and one of my french novelty yarns. This is my first peice for my store, at christmas, I'm really not sure how to price this though, any tips?

Here is a picture of it folded:

Stole_2

I just need to weave a few ends in and block it.



Finally a sample of some of the wools I brought from france: they are all novelty yarns, and I'm going to make some scarfs with them for my stall.

French_wool



Finally, Dear secret pal, I have been waiting for the postman every day like a child, but alas nothing has arrived, when did you post it?







Friday 10 September 2004

resisting posting

I'm resisting posting until I have some good pictures, the batteries have run out in my camera and mum pleeeeeeease send me a photo of me knitting on my wedding day!

However, I just got THE knitty emial and had to rant about how brilliant it is! My god I'd pay a fortune for those patterns, the laces are beautiful and I absolutely love clapotis I have to make it now!!!! I also think that the hallowig is brill. On the knitting front I am finishing off my wedding socks, and am half way through a scarf made from 4 different yarns, shiny burnt orange rayon, mohair, boucle, and some french novelty yarn, suffice to says its a bit scrummy. There will be pictures I promise.



Wednesday 8 September 2004

Hello!!!!

I'm finally back and will be posting photo's like mad very soon! Knitted socks on honey moon and there are some yummy yarn purchases to see!! Have had loads of ideas for things, and I have decided that I will have a stall at christmas at the the Welsh Museum. So I've got to get started making things. ;-)

Happy happy knitting.