The Bear Necessities

Christmas Swap Parcels

2012-01-05T20:29:00.001Z

So here I am back at last. Christmas is always great but juggling children, babysitters, new jobs on top of it all has proved trickier than I ever imagined and far more exhausting. Anyhow, enough with the excuses, this post is long overdue. I took part in the We Love Lucy Christmas swap and while I've posted a sneaky peak of the parcel I posted, I've still to post about the one I received in return. So here it is in all it's glory and it truly was a jam packed and well thought out box of goodies.

So where do I start?

Here's the handmade part, a flannel and some locally made soap and some earrings made by Teresa herself. The cutest little lighthouse which is hanging from my tree as I type.

Lots of yarn and all things I'd find it hard to source myself. Some Knit Picks cottons for me to make my own flannels with and the Bernat holidays yarn, red and sparkly (my favourite colours) and some Heart and Sole Sock yarn which is nice and soft and some super squishy alpaca fleece for spinning. Now I just need to find the perfect patterns.

Buttons, cupcake cakes, nail files and a note pad, a candy cane shaped pen. All christmassy themed. A pair of red gloves and a handy little project bag. Finally one of the tags on the parcels was this really pretty little red heart (also now hanging on the tree) and the pattern for a cute little bear.

All in all and truly lovely package and filled with lots of things that show that Teresa had taken the time to get to know me a little. Very thoughtful indeed.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, I should have got this all documented before Christmas and I truly wish I had. If I'd realised beforehand quite how busy and tiring the last few weeks would be I might have thought twice about doing the swap but truth be told, I'd probably have done it anyway. I really enjoyed putting the parcel together and I've been really lucky with my swap partner this time around. With my lack of communication recently, not sure my partner feels the same. Having been on the receiving end of a dodgy swap myself in the past, I understand entirely where she's coming from which makes me really disappointed with myself as I should have known better! Anyhow, here endeth the self recriminations as overall it was a great swap.

This week I have mostly been ....

2011-12-11T17:02:00.000Z

knitting mice and nursing a cold. Slightly strange combination but hey, it's the festive season and that's where I'm at. The knitted mice are a commission from my sister for a tea cosy for one of her friends. I said yes before I got the pattern and it's proved to be trickier than expected. Rather foolishly I thought I'd be able to knock a tea cosy out really quickly but as with all commissions, they're never straightforward!

Here's the body of the tea cosy and the mice .....

Oh my, all the ends! When it comes together it should look something like this, the sack of mice pattern by Debi Birkin. As always I've made a couple of mods to the pattern mostly because it seemed she was creating extra work the way a couple of the pieces were made.

The start of the week saw me finally get my package into the post for the Christmas swap over on the I love Lucy group on Ravelry. We had a rough winter last year with lots of family illness and ultimately we lost my grandad so I've not done a swap for a couple of years. I have to say it's been really fun to do again and my swap partner this year has been great. Teresa writes a great blog (far more regularly than me) and from the pictures she posts, lives in the most beautiful place in the states. If you want to get into the Christmas spirit already, her blog's a great place to start. Here's a sneaky peak of my parcel, am just waiting for it to be delivered now to see what she thinks.

Once the Chistmas knitting is all done, I'm hoping to have a play with my new inkle loom. Well, its new to me anyhow. It was free to a good home via one of the ladies at my knitting group, I suspect it's been gathering dust in a cupboard for a very long time. What I need now is a crash course in how to use it! I've found a couple of websites with tutorials that I hope will get me started but all tips and suggestions will be gratefully received.

There's no makers mark on it so if anyone know's anything about it, I'm all ears. It's tension peg (the sliding metal one) seems to be in a different position to the one's in the tutorials I've found so am hoping that's not going to make too much difference to the way it warps up.

Look at me, throwing in all the weaving terms. I've never used a loom in my life!

Buttons and daisies

2011-11-19T13:30:00.000Z

Sometimes it's the simplest things that make me happy. I think I've just found the perfect buttons for my almost finished gilet assymetric. Yet another set of wooden buttons but these are a little quirkier than you often find, all the more suprising seeing as they're "designer" too. I almost never splurge on Vogue buttons as they're often pretty pricey but these, I couldn't resist and the bonus being - I got staff discount too. How about that? There are definate perks to working in a yarn shop!

On a completely different note, here's a little something I've been doing on and off this summer, daisy squares. Cute hey? I came across this pattern a while back and loved it but then after bookmarking it, promptly forgot about it as I had other things on the go. It's the Daisy Pattern by Krochet Krystal and was published for use in her charity blankets. Unfortunately by the time I went back to it the pattern was unavailable apparently due to some rather negative comments made by fellow crafters. Something I was rather sad to hear.

To cut a long story short I loved the pattern so much, I reverse engineered it from pictures and the like on Ravelry and hey presto, I made squares! I've since emailed the designer and made some to be included with her comfort blankets. You can follow the story of how she started on her blanket blog. These ones are ready to be packed up and posted off and hopefully will end up as part of a lovely blanket that'll make somebody else very happy. I've got another pile of them using up odds and ends in my stash that I'm going to make into a blanket of my own. More of those later though.

It must be about time for some housekeeping

2011-11-06T11:48:00.000Z

Before you fall off your seat, no I'm not about to turn into a domestic goddess and actually do some housework. Maybe I'm having one of those introspective moments where I reevaluate my life, who knows? Either way, I have a new job that I'm starting in the morning and having had a troublesome couple of months with working, I'm really looking forward to it. Even when the work balance hasn't been quite the way I'd like it, I never really stop the craft work, lose a bit of enthusiasm maybe. Anyhow, I'm crafting again with a vengeance which is usally a good sign! I even went through the UFO pile (in search of a particular set of missing needles I have to admit) and frogged a couple of projects that are never going to be finished. I think perhaps there are a few more that need to go yet. I am a serial caster on-er (is that even a word?) after all.

So back to the housekeeping, new job, new broom etc. I know I've not been blogging much over the last while but I've also realised that my blog just isn't reflecting where I'm at at the moment so it's about time I had a little tidy up. Perhaps a complete overhaul?

Gilet Assymetrique pt 1

2011-11-05T10:00:00.001Z

Well, the knitting is done. Actually it has been for some months. Yes, it's my troublesome french cardigan, the Gilet Assymetrique.

It's a little further along than these pictures show. The assembly of the piece is now done, I've knitted on the button bands all it should require is the purchase of the buttons. However, months later I'm procrastinating. Still.

I should have been wearing this months ago but I have to admit I'm struggling a little with the pocket. Mostly to be honest I'm putting off the inevitable. All that remains now is for me to undo the provisional cast on and catch the stitches down and hey presto, finished cardigan. So simple you'd think?

FO - Purple Circle Socks

2011-11-02T16:39:00.002Z

Circle Socks, a photo by Bearium on Flickr.

Pattern: Circle Socks by Anne Campbell
Yarn: King Cole Zig Zag
Needles: 2.5mm (magic loop)
Size: UK 7

Lovely pattern, pretty straight forward and definately a good one for variegated or patterned yarns. A really good fit with plenty of stretch too.

This is the second time I've used this yarn and it's definately one of my current favourites. Good value and plenty of meterage - there's still a fair sized ball left even after knitting for my big feet.

Tension issues and other ramblings.

2011-05-02T15:09:00.000+01:00

The sun is shining, I should be out in the garden being busy but instead here I am inside balancing both a cat and a laptop on my lap. Not all that easy a feat as it happens. Anyway here I am, back blogging after an extremely long hiatus. Where on earth has the last year gone?

It's funny, looking back at my last post, I never did finish that blue cushion off. The two panels are sat upstairs waiting patiently. In the meantime, I have been busy as always although perhaps not as productive craft wise as I usually am over the winter. I don't know how those uber women do it, Anyone who tells you that you can have it all, a job, a career, a beautiful home etc etc... Personally I'm just not cut out for it, I've discovered I'm far happier working part time and actually enjoying life and everything it throws at you.

So the tension thing. After spending the last few months dicing with my Gilet Assymetrique - (that's a Rav link btw) fabulous looking cardigan, my first French pattern, total pain to understand (even with the handy translation), and I'm still not done with it. I don't think I've ever spent so long knitting one pattern. So I thought I know, I'm going to try something new that doesn't need any fiddling around with. I'll get tension straight away and bingo, I can have a brand new cardigan in a couple of weeks or so. Well, that was the plan anyhow. I found the most beautiful cardigan pattern - Talamh by Stolen Stitches, purchased it, found a suitable sub yarn (King Cole Moods Duet in a Kingfisher blue colour). After the total nightmare of running out of yarn with the G.A. (yes, I know, total school girl error, more explanations another time), I bought an extra ball and have done a tension square.

Now the pattern calls for a 3.5mm needle, the smallest size on my Knit Pros is a 3.75mm. UK needles of course don't come in a 3.5mm. I can't get tension with the 3.75!!! Ahhhhh. Insert much swearing. I put it all back in the bag and sulked. Still, not to be defeated, I'm going to have to dig out a set of 3.25mm straights and see if those work then it looks like I'll be ordering a new set of circs!

crochet crazy?

2010-06-11T17:50:00.000+01:00

I have been on a bit of a crocheting bender recently, perhaps a little inspired by Lucy of attic24 fame or maybe it's just that time of year. When I look at all the things I'm working on, I keep adding new crochet projects. It's not like I don't have enough things on the go already! I've dusted off a couple of old projects and finished them off too which is always a bonus. So how about some pictures then?

Always a sucker for all things mathmatical, I caved in and bought the "squaring the spiral" dishcloth pattern. I've been pretty disparaging about people that make dishcloths in the past, I probably will be again in the future if I'm honest. Still, I just love this pattern. Not sure I'll use it for a dishcloth though, it just seems too nice! I think I might do some more and make another cushion.

Now for something I've drag out of the UFO pile and also expanded on. My pile of squares from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks book. This square's called Willow. It started out as a stash buster as I'd no end of bits of blue yarn after everyone I knew (including me) managed to have boys. As much as I love blue, you can really go off it after a while and this languished with the other UFOs until I said I'd teach a Granny Square class at our last weekend meet up. I dragged this out to use as an example and thought, you know, I rather like those. I finished off enough to make up for a cushion side and then decided to make something different for the reverse.

I noticed this pattern on the back of a magazine and fell in love with it. It looked completely different in multicolours but I knew it'd work in the blues and hey presto, the reverse side. The pattern's called Pokey Dots and is available on the Coats/Red Heart site for free. My sister moved back home at around the time I started making this and fell in love with it. It's supposed to be for me but the little man has his eye on this so "we'll see" as I seem to say so often around here. Anyway, here's pokey dots mark 2 which is destined to brighten up Hazel's office chair.

It's not exactly subtle, but she loves it already!

Out and about part 2

2010-06-10T21:02:00.000+01:00

The thing about living near to the sea is that you have this wonderful free resource that to be honest, we really don't make the most of. We actually spend more time at the beach in the winter than we do in the summer as that way, we avoid the tourists! So anyway, in the spirit of trying to find lots of (cheap) things to do to fill up the half term holiday we decided to try out something new. Crabbing. So last week the little man and I headed off to our favourite seaside haunt (Brightlingsea) armed with a crabbing line, a bucket and a slice of ham pinched from the fridge.

I thought it would be a much trickier operation but popped the ham in the bag unwound a bit of line and lobbed it off the steps. Waited a few mins and reeled it back in to find this monster trying for a meal. A crab on the first strike. Admittedly not big enough to eat but certainly feisty enough to snap at our fingers. Next time we'll have to take a bigger bucket as there was only space for one crab at a time in it and we actually caught loads. Brilliant fun and a wonderful way to spend a sunny afternoon. We were as they say, hooked.

Fibreholics spoilers

2010-06-09T23:02:00.000+01:00

I finally collected all the cameras and phones today, scrabbled round and found some cables and hey presto, we have photos to share again. So here's my contribution to the latest round of Fibreholics. Can you believe it, the round went live on Sunday morning and sold out within 7 hours! The parcels are all beginning to arrive now so its hardly a spoiler but hey shrugs.

So, at the top we have BFL tops dyed in 'SkyBlue Pink' and here's the yarn content, 'Rhubarb Fool' on BFL sock yarn. I've got one of each to add to the shop in the next update. Actually, my dyeing mojo has been a bit m.i.a. for the last few weeks but dyeing the fibre again for this round has really given me a boost. I still have plenty more fibre to get dyed and a couple of new blends too but have some great ideas for colours. I've been updating the shop a bit today but still have a huge pile of stuff to get online including some new laceweights that so far, only the local crew have had their hands on.

Out and about, part 1

2010-06-09T22:21:00.000+01:00

What did I say the other day about being a more regular blogger? Anyhow, we'll gloss over that and get back to the business at hand. With the return of the sunshine of the last few weeks, we've been able to get out and about and what better thing to do that introduce one of your old childhood haunts to your own munchkin? So the other weekend on the way to visit my grandparents, we stopped off at Hylands Park. These days it's probably best known as one of the venues of the V festival but when I grew up, it was my local park and where we went most weeks to walk the dog.

There are acres and acres of grounds to walk round and apart from around the main house, it's allowed to stay pretty wild. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than wandering through all the wildflowers? When I was little, the house was just a wreck although the formal gardens were always kept up and they're still beautiful now.

The house looks fab since they've done it up, the white stone really glows in the sunshine. Nice cafe in the stableblock too, secondhand book stall, obigatory plant stall and touristy shop. In fact, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were at a National Trust property. Still, the cake was nice, the tea pot was huge, the sun was shining....

Found some rather cool art work in the grounds too with little animals and plants carved into all the nooks and crannies. We were all very impressed. It's by a local artist Michael Barter, you can check out his website too.

Do you have enough fibre in your diet?

2010-05-26T10:02:00.001+01:00

Now if i can just find an end....

It's all in a dyes work

2010-04-22T15:47:00.001+01:00

Sock yarns for saturday

A friendly postman

2010-04-22T15:10:00.001+01:00

Always brings treats!

Life is...... good, I think.

2010-04-21T13:36:00.000+01:00

I'm generally not a great one for writing long introspective posts, this is primarily a craft blog after all. However, until about a year or so ago, it also included odd snippets of my life with my little man as they so often influence the direction my projects take. Events as always overtake us and while angry and disillusioned with certain members of my extended family, I made the conscious decision to exclude those parts of our life and make this a purely craft blog. As always when you make decisions like that they invariably have an unintended side effect and I found that rather than blogging being a fun thing anymore, it had become a chore. Hence the sporadic posting of recent months.

Anyhow, I digress, back to the present day. Sometimes unexpected events happen to make you reevaluate your life and the way you look at things. I've had a fantastic Easter away in Manchester, most of it spent decorating my sister's house but I also got a glorious reminder of what my life was like before responsibility kicked in and grounded me - I got to spend a completely child free weekend away with the "grown ups". As much as I love my little man and wouldn't be without him, it also reminded me what I've been missing out on. Don't get me wrong, my life is pretty full but I hadn't realised quite how much I'd allowed parenthood to define me rather than being my own person. I've spent most of the last few days working out in the garden catching up on all the spring jobs. Manual labour is great but it also gives your mind far too much free time to wander and dwell on things that have happened.

So what to do now? I have some wonderful friends here, in fact I have more female friends at this stage than I have ever had in my life. They've provided so much support and encouragement over the last couple of years and I have definately grown as a result because of it, I am now designing more and have built a good foundation for my little yarny business. I've also realised, I'm not angry any more and that I can be the bigger person, that I don't need to allow someone else's bad behaviour to affect how I view the world. However, there's still something missing and I obviously need to get a better balance in my personal life.

I need to make some changes and while they may not happen all that quickly, I've an idea where I need to be going and I think of how to get there. That has to be a good thing right? In the meantime, I'm going to make the most of everything going on here and look forward to a fun weekend with my knitty friends. I can make random postings of things that have caught my eye and hopefully return to loving my blog again. Has it helped to get all this off my chest? I think so but I guess we'll find out over the next few weeks.

Mutant crochet?

2010-04-18T15:13:00.001+01:00

I think i have tension issues!

Water, water everywhere

2010-03-01T14:35:00.001Z

Who turned out the lights?

2010-02-22T22:01:00.000Z

I'm finally beginning to catch up on blogging but am back with a bit of a problem. While I carry on talking about things already finished and photographed, I can't get a decent picture of anything that's current! With this rubbish weather we're having, my usual light box doesn't work. All the natural light is too blue and it's bleaching out all the colours. Greens look blue, reds and pinks become purple.

Of course I say "light box" in the loosest of terms here. What it usually involves is a big board balanced on my bedroom windowsill covered in a white table cloth. There's usually such good light coming in there in the morning it makes for a great place to take pictures. It also means I have to have a blackout blind in the summer or be woken up at daybreak (but that's another story entirely). This is also proving problematic for getting yarn uploaded to the shop. Trying to tell people that the rather grey looking yarn in the picture is actually a beautiful shade of apricot just doesn't wash for some reason. So, new light box set up it is and quickly hopefully. I think I've still got some daylight bulbs tucked away in the cupboard. Fingers crossed they'll do the job!

Winter warmers

2010-02-22T21:25:00.000Z

Brr it's cold again! and damp and wet. That must mean it's time for a new hat or two. Actually it meant new gloves too this year as I lost one half of my favourite pair of gloves and the little man seems to have grown since last year.

Apparently, so he tells me, mittens are too babyish so we settled on a compromise and I made a pair that are a cross between the two. I've seen them describes elsewhere as "glittens". They make me want to hold my hand up and say "nanu nanu". Seeing as the yarn went so far, I made him a matching hat. It's just a basic beanie but the striping in the yarn really makes it stand out. This yarn was another find from the Woolcabin at Clacton.

So how about something for me, Ruth aka Woolly Wormhead decided to launch another mystery hat KAL this winter so here's mine. I love the hat and the colour's great - kind of a petrol blue. I should have knit the smaller size as it seems to have relaxed just a little too much. In the medium size on 4mm dpn's it took just over one ball of Wendy Mode.As much as I loved it, in the end it was frog it or gift it so it nows has a new home with one of my best friends. I'll just have to make myself another.

Now for some gloves. I've been eyeing up Julia Mueller's patterns on Ravelry for some while, she designs the most beautifully detailed glove patterns. These are one of her free patterns and probably one of the simplest but they really are the perfect fit for me. Paige brought the yarn back from the States for me last winter (Plymouth Happy if I remember rightly) and it knitted up really nicely. I have worn and worn these gloves, they are so comfortable and the pattern is really well written. It also helps that red is one of my favourite colours. I'm going to have to get on and knit up the red merino I span to make myself a new scarf/wrap to match them.

Lastly an actual Christmas gift. I made a Quincy hat for my (not so) little brother. Personally I loved it but I'm not sure he's actually used it. Still, it's the thought that counts and I have discovered another great yarn in the process. Stylecraft Life. This was the chunky but I've bought myself enough of the same colour in the aran weight to make myself a new sweater. Yes, I am making jumpers for myself this year before I make any more for anyone else.

Time flies ... again

2010-01-28T22:44:00.000Z

.....and new year has already come and gone! Add in the snow days and chaos it caused and I have no idea where the time has gone to. Anyhow, "Happy Almost February" everyone as it seems a bit daft saying happy new year a month late. This is just a quickie to say no the blog isn't gone and yes, I do know it needs some tidying but I just seem to have been manically busy the last few days. I have way too many pictures to post, projects to catalogue and I'm not finished being busy yet so in the meantime I leave you with a sunset totem to make you smile.

Knitting by Candle Light

2009-12-03T19:42:00.003Z

I love knitting lace but over the last couple of years I've discovered that much as I like the idea of it, I don't enjoy using laceweight. I do love sock yarn though and there are so many beautiful yarns out there. I always think that it's a shame to hide them away in your shoes though. If you buy something that pretty, why not show it off?

So, this is a little something that I've been working on for a while and when the lovely ladies from my knitting group offered to test knit my latest pattern, who was I to say no? So with extra thanks to Christine for knitting and modeling the two versions pictured, I bring you my Candle Light Shawl.

I designed it to be made from one 100g skein of yarn, you know one of those pretty indie dyed ones that we all love (mine included!). Why hide it when you can wrap yourself up in it and show it off? It's quite a simple lace pattern to remember and so it's a great pattern even if you're just starting out knitting lace. Maybe I'm overdoing the enthusiasm a little but it's my pattern and I do rather like it, I hope you will too. If you want to knit it yourself you can buy the pattern for £2.50 through Ravelry. Here's a little link that should take you there, whether you're a rav user or not.

The pink version was knitted in the Natural Dye Studio Nino using 4mm needles and the pewter coloured one was made from Posh yarn Lei on 3.5mm. They're both beautiful but completely different in size. It always amazes me how much difference needle size can make to lace, personally I like to use 5mm with sock yarn as I like mine nice and open. It all comes down to personal preference though. Anyway, happy knitting :)

FO - round neck crochet cardi

2009-12-01T21:47:00.003Z

Pattern: Top Down Round Yoke Cardigan by Milobo
Yarn: 8 balls of Mirage by Adriafil
Hook: 6mm

I absolutely love this cardigan and have worn it loads even with the current cold snap. (I have lots of long sleeve tshirts luckily!) The pattern itself is a bit of a strange one as you have to download and use Knitware design software to make it. The demo is free (available here) and once you start playing with it, really easy to use. Milobo walks you through a tutorial with the options she used to generate her pattern so you can make your own to fit yourself according to your tension. Once you've generated your pattern you just paste it into word (or something similar) so you can tweak it and print it. The wooden button was a charity shop find and it works really well.

This is the first time that I've use this yarn and I'm really pleased with it. It's a great colour and worked really well with the pattern. I think I'll definately be using it again, perhaps even for the little man as it feels like it's going to wear well and being machine washable is definately a bonus.

goodbye November, where did you go?

2009-11-30T22:27:00.001Z

It's been a fab weekend on the knitting front with another successful weekend knitting meet for Colchester SnB. The wind might have been whistling past the front of the hall but inside was warm and cozy with plenty of tea and cake to sustain us. I finally caught up with a copy of December's Let's Knit magazine too and so managed to check out the Fibreholics article. I had to squeal in delight when I saw they'd used a picture of my yarn to promote it! How cool is that? Actually Fibreholics continues to go from strength to strength - we completely sold out in less than 10 days this time and are planning for next year already but more of that another time.

Actually it was lovely to be able to just sit and knit and gossip all day Saturday with no pressure to be up and doing which I always have at home. Other than me casting on for a pair of much need gloves for me, there hasn't been much knitty progess here at all lately as we've been knee deep in paint and wallpaper and when I've not been decorators mate, I've been in school painting and making for the various Christmas events. Hmm, a bit of a theme developing here. As I type, we've just put the finishing touches to the sitting room walls and I can safely say, I'm all painted out for the moment.

I don't know what it is about our family, we always end up decorating in the run up to Christmas. I use the royal "we" there but it's only me and mum that actually get the work done. For some reason everyone else seems to evaporate about the time that all the stuff gets brought into the house. They're quite happy to be around for the choosing and purchasing part but the actually doing side of it is apparently one step too far. I'm beginning to realise as I get older that I am far more my mother's daughter than I ever thought I was.

Sorry this is turning into a bit of an epic, slightly random but picture free post so I think I'll finish here and be back soon with some pictures. I find that having not posted very much lately I have more to document than I realised. Toodle pip and I'll see you in December, which reminds me I must find that advent calendar for the morning.

Ally Pally or bust...

2009-11-11T16:16:00.000Z

It's funny, whenever I've neglected my blog for too long I always feel the urge to confess and it makes me giggle. Forgive me readers, it has been far too long since my last contribution .......... and I'm not even Catholic for goodness sake! Anyhow, this year continues to fly by. I honestly have no idea where the time is going. I now have a new internet connection - and one that actually works properly all the time too! So I really have no excuse not to post a little more often. The shop needs restocking too and I can't complain that I can't upload pictures anymore so expect a big update this week.

I made it to Ally Pally again this year and I have to say even though I had a great day, I came away feeling a little bit disappointed. Maybe it's just that my fibre tastes are moving more and more to the spinning side of things at the minute but you could really see the effect of the recession beginning to bite. I got what I wanted more or less but I was able to easily stick to the budget this year. There were several companies that I really wanted to visit but they weren't there. I think that perhaps with more and more of these yarn events happening, I Knit, Rav day not to mention Woolfest and Fibrefest, the yarn stores are being much more careful about where they spend their money.
Here's some of the Colchester knitters at the end of the day in front of the rather impressive knitted ship in the foyer. Looking at the size of some of the bags that people came out with, I was fairly circumspect in my purchases.
Roving from Piiku. On their stand they'd got some really impressive crocheted and felted mats mats made from some of this. I think this one is destined to be a table runner of some kind. I'm still deliberating at the mo. It might end up as a bag.
Jamieson and Smith shetland spindrift, enough for a pair of mittens.
and finally, sock yarn. It's fabulously red and is for a wrap/shawl to replace my ratty pashmina of the same colour. Other than some beads, in the end that's all I bought for me. Still, it;s what I wanted more or less and I certainly don't need any more sock yarn as my stash is overflowing.

Saturday already?

2009-10-03T22:09:00.003+01:00

I've been a bit of a rubbish blogger recently. There seems to have been so much going on around here, it's taken me far longer to get back into a proper routine this term than it ever has before. I don't know what it is this time, I've literally been working from one day to the next. Still, everything's finally back on song, the routine is set, my diary is up to date, the Macmillan coffee morning went really well and I can relax and start to enjoy everything again. I've been back to the spinning guild a couple of times this summer and am really enjoying it all. I managed to squeeze in a visit to Winghams on my way home from Manchester so now I have a beautiful new wheel that is occupying much of my knitting time - I've given myself back ache on more than one occasion from sitting at it far too long.I did manage to finish a few of my projects this summer and I've tried to be good about not casting on any more but having visited the Woolcabin this week, I've got the next big knit lined up. I've been knitting for everyone else all year and I'm determined to make myself some new cardigans for this winter. So anyhow, in now particular order here's a couple of finished items.
Another cardigan for my sister, this time it's the Buttony Sweater by Katie Marcus. The cardigan looks great but it's one of those patterns that's a bit more of a recipe rather than fully finished. I had to really faff around with it to make it work as typically, I didn't use the yarn suggested! This pictures of it in it's final stages, I didn't actually get a finished one as I left it with her to find her own buttons.
A Crochet Flower Hot Pad - I just had to make one of these to see how it worked. It used about half a ball of the Lidl cotton DK I picked up a while ago. It's almost too nice to stand your pans on.
Finally, here's another cute little project for the mighty midget A scrap cardigan (rav link). He chose the pattern and the colours, I added the hood and can you believe it, now he won't wear it! Little rotter, I won't be knitting him another one for a while, I'm going to make something for someone who appreciates it, ie me!

Are you a Fibreholic?

2009-09-16T09:30:00.002+01:00

Round two of the fibreholics bags has gone live, click on the sheep to go straight to the new website.

Check out the pictures of the samples that have been sent in, they're lush! I got to dive into the stash before it was all packed up and I can tell you now, there's some beautiful fibres in there. I'm surprised Carole didn't check my pockets before I left, I was really tempted to take some of them home ;)

Knit for Macmillan with Colchester SnB

2009-09-15T17:07:00.003+01:00

A small shop update and an special offer.

2009-07-28T22:37:00.009+01:00

This is the first of a few yarns I've added to the shop this evening and one of my favourite colours (well it is red after all!) - Burnt Red on a lovely merino superwash yarn. It could be yours if you stop by the shop and until the end of July, you'll get free postage on everything too.

Short and sweet.

2009-07-23T15:44:00.004+01:00

I've been having another one of those "why do I even bother paying for this internet connection" weeks again, hence no pictures today or for the last few days. Frustratingly, I have a pile of yarn to upload to the shop and am struggling somewhat to get it online. I'll have another attempt later but as it's also the holidays now, I have to fight for some time on the computer during the day with the mighty midget himself. We need to arrange to get out more but although we're well, the same can't be said for all of his little buddies. This swine flu business is becoming a bit of a nuisance and the rubbishy weather that can't seem to make up it's mind isn't helping.

Anyhow, back later hopefully with pictures as I've more things spinny to show, a nice haul of books from the library to browse and it's about time I did a round up of what's on the needles again. If nothing else, I need to get myself back on the knitting straight and narrow as I am a serial project starter and not a lot seems to be getting finished at the minute!

Tour de Fleece, day 6

2009-07-09T20:55:00.003+01:00

My spinning mojo is back again with a little help from the Tour de Fleece and I've been spinning up a storm the last couple of days.One upside of the MM being ill is that I have an excuse to sit and spin. (Not that he's actually that ill any more). I've been getting stuck into some of the fleece mountain that seems to be building up here and am spinning some more fibre from the lovely Sara of Babylonglegs. This is one third of a three ply spinners set that she sells in blue banana. I've already spun one single and am cracking in with the last. Looking forward to plying this one as it'll be my first three ply.

Just how big is a fleece?

2009-07-08T20:47:00.007+01:00

alternatively, I could have called this post, "things I have learned the hard way about washing fleece".

I'm a sucker for a freebie, I really am and who in their right mind these days says no to the offer of a free fleece or two? I'd asked my friend's father in law if he'd consider selling me one of his fleeces some while back. The answer was "no I can't but I'll give you one. What sort of fleece do you want? Why don't you come over and take a look for yourself...." Some weeks went by and I completely forgot about it until my friend's hubby said one morning at school "I've got a fleece in the car for you". Magic I thought and toddled along to collect it. "Do you want a coloured fleece? Dad can't sell them, they're piling up" More free fleece? Hell yes!

Now I've not been spinning all that long in the scheme of things and while I have spun unprepared fleece before, it's always been washed and prepped already. I'd not really considered the logistics of the whole business, or actually, how big a fleece is minus it's sheep. Bigger than I realised is the answer. It arrived all condensed nicely into the box behind but for some reason, it doesn't want to fit back in. It'd been skirted pretty well already so I decided to jump straight in and "have a go" and separated a chunk of it to wash. About a quarter of it in fact. It filled my whole bath. In hindsight, I'd have washed quite a lot less in one go. I also wouldn't leave it out to dry under a tree again. My learning curve has definately been a steep one but for a first attempt, it didn't actually trun out too badly. I didn't felt it and now have some nice soft coloured fleece to ready play with. I still have to pick out all additional vm kindly provided by my laburnum tree but we'll just gloss over that one for now. Onwards and upwards as they say. Roll on the next sunny day.

2009-07-07T22:44:00.003+01:00

Wow, what a mad few weeks it's been. I joined the PTA at the school a while back and we've been working hard to get things organised for the school fete last weekend. It was discovered that I'm one of the "arty" ones, and so I volunteered with my friend Marian to produce a set of picture boards and signs for most of the stalls. Hence the lack of knitting progress recently and also the lack of blogging updates. Here she is putting the finishing touches to the varnish on our boards. I've actually really enjoyed it all and although I was shattered after the weekend, I've rediscovered my love of painting so I shall definately be doing more. Probably on a bit of a smaller scale than these ones. Fun though aren't they? So anyway, from the sublime to the absolutely ridiculous, we are now in the midst of a swine flu outbreak. It seems that the mighty midget's school is the local hotspot and so now half of his class are being treated for it including him. It's so rampant through the populous, that they're not even testing anymore, they're just handed out the antivirus like sweets. I have to see the funny side of it though as we ended up seeing the doctor in the car park in the rain as they didn't want the MM in the building. Anybody'd think he was contagious or something?!

Our doctor's lovely and was really apologetic about the whole thing as he handed out the prescription and government gumph. At least we didn't get another one of those leaflets with the revolting sneezing man on the front of it. So that's it then, he's off school for the next few days and to be honest, he's getting bored already. By the end of the week I think I'm going to be a complete basket case. Well, that's assuming I don't have it too by then :s

Colchester knits again

2009-06-25T22:24:00.002+01:00

Colchester SnB
Originally uploaded by Bearium

Are you a Fibreholic?

2009-06-12T12:05:00.004+01:00

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a little group of indie dyers based in the UK who got talking one day about how it would be lovely to try everyone elses yarns and fibres. So someone said, well how about a box of samples? ...... and it snowballed from there. So anyhow, to cut a long story short, it's here and it's happening. Fibreholics UK is about to launch, the samples are finished and being boxed and we're counting down to the launch day.

So just what is it? Well, it's a way of getting your hands on some fabulous yarn and fibre samples from some of the best micro dyers around and without spending a fortune. The boxes are in two sizes - costing £10 and £20 and will feature a selection of either 5 or 10 different artists work depending on the size you buy. The first boxes are planned to go on on sale at Woolfest. Yes, really that soon.

You can follow the progress of the boxes and see a selection of the samples by following the blog or looking on the Fibreholics Ravelry group. So to get you started here's a quick peek at my samples.
Mini skeins of sock yarn, Popsickle (the bright pink) on Merino/Nylon superwash and Aniseed (the blue) and Hobgoblin (the greens) both on BFL/Nylon sock yarn. I've keep a couple of samples back of both of the BFL and am currently working them into my neverending sock blanket. Pictures of that to follow soon.
Now the fibre, there's Hubba Bubba on BFL - dusky pink and reds, real bubblegum colours and then Spring Greens on Falkland roving. I love them both and hope you do too. So anyhow, I'm a fibreholic, are you?

Thought for the day

2009-06-12T10:27:00.000+01:00

What is it about small boys and toilet humour? Pull my finger ..... enough said really!

Fibre for the shop

2009-06-11T12:52:00.004+01:00

I'm still doing battle with my internet connection but am persevering anyway. So here's a little taster of todays update - some fibre for the shop at last. It's all Falkland and Corriedale which remain some of my favourite fibres for for spinning. I'm trying to be good and resist pinching fibre from the shop to add to my stash but have to admit I have already have taken and spun some of the lime and blue on Merino. Oops.
Socks yarns to follow shortly although I really need to do some more dyeing too. I've some more of the Merino/Tencel and Merino superwash sock yarns and also some fabulous BFL laceweight. I've already test dyed a couple but have some more for the shop too and a question for you all.... Are you a Fibreholic?

Colchester Knits

2009-06-02T22:35:00.004+01:00

and here are the pictures to prove it.

We'll actually, not everyone's from Colchester we had ladies from Dedham, Ipswich, Chelmsford, Manningtree, Boxted to name but a few and twenty five of us in all. Much cake was eaten, new friends made, projects shared, yarns and magazines traded.

What was great to see too was that everyone was doing different things - it's not just about the knitting you know. We had tapestry, quilting, crocheting a little spinning going on too.

All in all, it was a great fun day and as there has been so many requests for another, we decided to make it a quarterly event. In fact, we have just set the date for the next one which will be Sunday 11th July. I'm sure I'll post more about it before then but if you want to be kept up to date, stop by the Colchester SnB group on Ravelry.

Hello

2009-05-27T16:36:00.001+01:00

So, it's been a while since I last posted but hey, I'm back. I do have my fingers firmly crossed at this point though. Was trying to find a nice picture to put up but I'm not quite sure where to start as I have projects and all sorts of other things to chronicle, not least the Colchester weekend knit meet which was fantastic. Anyhow hopefully my internet connection is back up running properly again and I'll be back soon with pictures :)

Travelling North

2009-04-08T22:58:00.003+01:00

as I said at the end of the last post, I suddenly realised I'd not been blogging again and I'm annoyed with myself as I'd decided I'd try and post more this month. We're a week into April already, it's the holidays and we definately seem to be stockpiling Easter eggs. I also have a huge shop update to get posted but as heading to Manchester again in the morning, it'll have to wait.

We've been making the most of the lovely weather and been outside in the garden for the last few days. It's beginning to look great and now that we've cleared the bottom of the garden, I have a whole new veggie patch to fill and it's twice the size of the last one. All of the plum trees are covered in blossom too so hopefully we'll have a bumper crop this year and we've had the first of the rhubarb already. Yum. Hang on a mo, when did this turn into a gardening blog?

So to redress the balance a little, how about some yarn? Homespun yarn at that. This is some of my favourite so far, it's BFL/silk from Babylonglegs. The first bobbin came in at 26wpi, the second at 28wpi. It's more or less consistent and the finished yarn came out if I've measured it right at about 16wpi. It's lovely and it's going to make me a fantastic pair of socks :D

I love hats!

2009-04-01T10:38:00.005+01:00

I haven't been completely unconstructive with my time lately, although the housework has slipped a bit as usual, I've been knitting like mad and dyeing away. Most of the last couple of weeks of new sock yarn hasn't actually made it as far as the shop though as the ladies of my knitting groups have dived on it instead. Still, can't complain the new yarn bases are a success and I'll definately be ordering more - the general consensus in Colchester seems to be that it needs to be superwash.

Although it's sunny again today, last week saw me making hats again. You can never have too many and I'm loving Woolly Wormhead's hats at the minute. My new haircut means I can wear beret's at last without looking really daft so I've finished a new Meret, made a Starburst hat for one of my friends and am considering doing another for me. I've also lined up Jared Flood's Porum pattern, Lisa's beret and a Flappy Cabler (sorry, those are all Rav links and I'm too lazy to find others). Never mind that I have a couple of pairs of socks on the go, I'm trying to finish two cardigans for myself, the mighty midget has put in a request for a jumper and I've also promised to knit dad a new aran. Are there enough hours in the day?

It's funny, I sat down to finish this post and suddenly realised it was a week old! Where on earth has the time gone? I only saved it to go and find some pictures of my finished hats. So here's me looking silly, wearing hats and yay, new hair.

Pattern: Starburst by Wooly Wormhead
Yarn: Wendy aran
Needles: 4.5mm

Pattern: Meret by Wooly Wormhead
Yarn: Sirdar aran with wool
Needles: 4.5mm

Rubbish pictures of me, but the hats are fine ;)

An award and some trivia

2009-04-01T10:11:00.006+01:00

My blogging mojo has been m.i.a. recently so although I've sat down a few times to write an update, it's not got much further than a draft. Anyhow, here I am again. I'm still snuffling away with my spring cold but at least I feel like writing now. Thanks to all those who take the time to comment when they drop by, I really appreciate it so I'd like to share my recent blog award with you all. Suse has nominated me for an Honest Scrap award and in return I'm to pick 7 blogs that make me happy and nominate them in turn by posting on their blogs. Finally, to list at least 10 honest things about myself.

So here goes, ten or more trivial things about me:

1. My sister and I are exactly the same height but she looks taller as she's slimmer.
2. When I got made redundant, I spent the whole of my payout and more on a trip around the world. I had an absolute blast and met some fantastic people and wish I'd been able to travel for longer.
3. I love being outside on cold winter days so long as it's not raining.
4. My mum started me doing patchwork in my teens to stop me biting my nails in front of the tv. The patchwork grew so much, it now covers a double bed. I still haven't finished doing the final quilting part 15+ years later although I use it anyway.
5. I can cover a double bed with yarn and that doesn't include the shop stock.
6. If I have a good book to read, I can lose a whole day and it's the only time when I still bite my nails.
7. I have really low blood pressure and if I skip meals, I get migraines.
8. I talk with my hands, just like my mum and sister and I've noticed recently, I've passed it onto my son.
9. I also have never seen the whole of Titanic. Five minutes of the "happy Irish doing a jig" was more than enough.
10. I've surprised myself the last few years in that I've really enjoyed being a stay at home mum and now I keep finding excuses to put off going back to work.

Right onto the nominations and I've a bit of a confession, I've actually not been great at reading everyone else's blogs recently as I've been so wrapped up in everything going on here. I think since I started using Ravelry so much, I tend to just read the headlines rather than actually going and checking out people's individual blogs. As much as I love Ravelry, it can definately make you lazy.

So anyway, here's a few blogs that I go back to time and again and one or two new ones:
Cinders muses about... Ruth has so much to deal with health wise but she soldiers on.
knitpurldrop Paige is a transplant American in Colchester, it's great to see her enthusiasm for all things English as she crams as much of the UK into her trip before she heads back to the US to finish her studes.
Laughing Mouse I'm looking forward to seeing how Scarletti is getting on after her move. She's struck out on her own with her kids which is incredibly brave.
Babylonglegs - Sarah is an incredible dyer and it's hard not to keep buying her fibre when I have more than enough of my own already.
I saw her STRANDing there, Megan spins, dyes, knits, crochets and is far more organised than me.
Confessions of a Graveyard Gypsy. Kate's a fearless knitter, designer and publisher.
and finally another Lucy from Attic 24 who's blog I found after a knitting friend's recommendation, her blog's so bright an colourful.

Thanks everyone and keep on blogging :D

Date for your diary: 25th April

2009-03-27T17:19:00.003Z

We're having our first weekend meet up and are opening our doors to anyone in the area, be it knitters, crocheters, spinners, felters - anything yarn related really. If you fancy a day out, it'd be lovely to meet you.

2009-03-19T10:52:00.003Z

Meet Molly, currently the most spiteful cat on the planet. She might look beautiful but don't let that fool you. Underneath the calm interior lurks one of the meanest cats around. Oh she might be nice and come and cuddle up to you at night but let her into your room and she might just leave you a little something on the carpet. The weather is beautiful, the litter tray is clean but no my bedroom is currently her spot of choice for doing her business. All I can smell is cat wee. It stinks, it's pervasive and this is now the second week in a row that I've had my carpet up and shampooed. I even caught her in action the other morning so I know that it's her. As much as I love her - I am never having another cat!

So anyway to cheer myself up the last couple of days, I have wandering around my garden enjoying the sunshine. Let's face it, this is England so you have to make the most of it while you can. Still, if it carries on like it's started, we could have a beautiful year to come. I'd best start crossing all my fingers now. Actually, it's a bit cloudy and much chillier today which is why I'm in the study composing this instead of digging in the garden. Mind you, having shifted almost a tonne of soil between us at the weekend and also mended the greenhouse I don't feel so guilty about doing so. There's always so much to do in our garden as I'm not the only fair weather gardener in the house. It's an old place too with a pretty mature garden and having mature trees means it's never just a straightforward job to trim them back. This year it's going to involve ladders and chain saws at some point and that's well beyond my remit. I'll stick to the flower webs and the veggie patch. We did a soil test in the veggie patch at the weekend and wow, did we get a surprise. We have the most beautiful, light, free draining soil. Like a lot of Essex, we're on sand and over the years we have piled barrow load upon barrow load of compost into it. By rights we should be able to grow the most fantastic carrots but they never get to more than 2 inches long regardless of the variety. Anyhow, the test showed that the garden is alkaline and not just a little. I'm not sure we'll be able to pour enough manure in it to be able to fix it. Well, certainly not this year anyway.So anyway, here's my pick of the spring flowers so far. Helebores poking out from under their leaves at the bottom of the garden. This is the first year they've done as well - they don't like our regular summer droughts.

Pulmonaria or Lung Wort or as my gran always called it, Jacob's coat. It flowers really early in the spring and then all summer you get huge green spotty leaves.
The first of the violas.
Frogs, lots of them but so far, no spawn. I found young newts at the weekend too while I was moving some of the stones about. They were obviously still hibernating so I covered them back up. Finally the winter clematis - about the only thing in the garden that's a bit late flowering this year. Mind you, that could just down to it being in the shadiest part of the garden. Ah spring is definately springing, before we know it it'll be Easter.

2009-03-16T21:17:00.003Z

I've just had the best day ever and I'm now sat here with the cheesiest smile on my face. It started out with a trip out to a new weekly knitting group (Monday mornings at Fillpots Nurseries in Boxted if you're in the Colchester area). I met some lovely new ladies, caught up with a couple of people that I hadn't seen for a long time and had tea and cake. Pimped out my shop a little and with the help of the others converted another knitter to start on her first pair of socks. I gave her some spare needles and a pattern and sold her some sock yarn - hehe, aren't I shameless!?

It's been gloriously sunny all weekend and I'm still on a high for working or should I say, skivvying in the garden. Then tonight when I picked up my emails, I had one to say my advert has been approved. I am officially a ravelry advertiser and of course, when I logged on, I saw my first advert. Ah, maybe I'm just easily pleased but hey, my little shop is being advertised on Ravelry. Yay!

FO - Hedera

2009-03-10T11:23:00.001Z

Hedera
Originally uploaded by Bearium

Hedera socks from Knitty. Knitted on my 2.5mm BB dpn's before I snapped one and using some of the Merino superwash from my shop. It's a lovely yarn to knit with and I'm really pleased with the way it's knitted up. I only got to play with it as it was a slight miss-dye but I might have to sneak another skein out.

Another lovely Cookie A pattern and a very easy knit once you discover the errata for the numbers on the heel. I'm still not sure I like the huge instep but I've been assured by Paige who altered it for one of her pairs that it's necessary.

What's your word?

2009-03-08T21:21:00.003Z

I came across this on Kai's blog this weekend, she lives with hope which I think is beautiful so I thought I'd have a try myself. Apparently I'm fearless.

Your Word is "Fearless"

You see life as your one chance to experience everything, and you just go for it!

You believe the biggest risk is being afraid and missing out on something amazing.

Sometimes your fearlessness means you're daring. You enjoy risky activities.

And sometimes your fearlessness means you're courageous. You're brave enough to do the right thing, even when it's scary.

What's Your Word?

I'm not entirely sure why I was quite so surprised especially when I stopped to think about it. I've been to university, I've travelled the world largely by myself and I'm raising a child as a single parent. Hmm, perhaps I'm more fearless than I realised. How about you?

FO - Clogs

2009-03-05T11:29:00.004Z

These have been on the needles for a while but finally, I cleared another project from the UFO pile. A pair of felted clogs (Rav link) from Fiber Trends. This is the largest size of the children's pattern and has felted down to about a ladies UK 4 or 5. They fit mum really well so hopefully she actually likes them and wasn't just being nice!

Needles: 9mm Denise interchangeables and dpns

Yarn: Rowan Big Wool Fusion - overdyed to suit mum
Size: ladies UK 4/5

This is my second pair of these and at the mo, I'm trying to work out whether I can rejig the pattern to make them large enough for me or whether to just bite the bullet and buy the adult version. I'm sure I'll make another pair before long as the MM tried these on as soon as they were dry.

Love to swap

2009-03-05T10:48:00.003Z

I swore I wasn't going to take part in any more swaps for a while but they're just such fun, I couldn't resist one more. So a little while ago I joined the UK Spinners Swap 3. There were pretty strict limits on the swap. In total, we were only to send 200g of fibre and a small non fibre gift. 50g of fibre was to be spun by me and the remaining 50g was to be sent to my partner along with piece I'd already spun, the other 100g fibre and the gift. We were all matched up into pairs - I was with Gina (aka Norfolkknitter on Rav).

We both had a bit of a chat, did a bit of stalking and then got spinning. For Gina, I chose some Falkland which I dyed into various shades of green and then span my half. I know I'm still a relatively new spinner but I was pretty pleased with the way it came out - it still amazes me every time you spin something how the colours change from the fibre to the finished yarn. I realised I forgot to take pictures of the rest of her goodies but I found some very pretty BFL fibre called "Out in the Sticks" from Wonderfulwool on Folksy. It seemed really appropriate seeing as we both do live out in the sticks. Then I made a set of beaded stitch markers and an orifice hook for her soon to arrive spinning wheel and then some sweeties which I suspect she had to share with her little girl. I really enjoyed putting it all together but it is definately so much easier when the limits of the swap are so specific.

So, what did I get in return? Some lovely Shetland from The YarnYard. It's really soft and in the most beautiful heathery tones.

Some very cute chicken buttons. I think I'm going to have to make something just so I can use them. They're great.

and finally, here's what Gina chose as my 50/50. It's Halo superwash from the Natural Dye Studio. I've bought various yarns from the NDS and they've all been great - Amanda does fab colours. Gina's spun this up really nicely to about a DK weight and then Navajo plied it to keep distinct colour bands. I've never n-plied before so there's a challenge for me - I just hope I manage to match it or a close to it as I can.

There was a bar of Green and Blacks chocolate tucked in the parcel too which of course didn't last too long although I have tried to ration it a little. All in all, a great swap. I've really enjoyed this one, thanks again Gina.

Pimp that competition

2009-02-28T14:38:00.002Z

I mentioned previously that I'd offered to provide the prize for the Phoenix Knitting Forums first competition so here's a peak at what's on offer to the winner. "Phoenix" and "Spring Greens".For a chance to win one of them, you need to be a member of the group and answer Mongrel's five questions posted on the AY Ravelry group by midnight on Sunday.

2009-02-25T16:48:00.003Z

I love heading off to my knitting group, I just wish I could go every week instead of once a fortnight. Still my babysitters are pretty accommodating and you can't have everything. It's something I look forward to as you never quite know who you're going to see and what they're going to bring. I'm sure we all go more for the chit chat than the actual knitting, I know I do! It's always nice when you can make someone's day too and from the look on Caroline's face last night, I delivered on a promise and I might just have made hers. Talk about making me warm feel all warm and fuzzy. So what did make her smile? Well considering I just caused her to splurge on a brand new spinning wheel, perhaps I shouldn't feel so smug. Anyway, having lured her over to the dark side with a trial session on my old traddy, I took home her undyed roving stash and turned it into these.It's all mystery fibre as she got it in a swap from somewhere and three balls of it turned out to be pencil roving. So, here's my very first custom dye order in some of Caroline's favourite colours. She couldn't stop stroking it all night - I wonder how long it'll take her before she has it on her wheel?

What's in a meme?

2009-02-23T10:00:00.001Z

This meme has been doing the rounds for a while but I confess I filched this from several other blogs including Kate's and Kai's. The tip is to mark in bold the things you have done, the things you plan to do in italics and leave the rest.

Afghan
American/English knitting
Baby items
Bobbles
Buttonholes
Cable stitch patterns
Cardigan
Charity knitting
Combination knitting
Continental knitting
Cuffs/fingerless mits/arm-warmers
Darning
Designing knitted garments
Domino knitting
Drop stitch patterns
Dyeing spinning fibre
Dyeing with plant colors
Dying yarn
Entrelac
Fair Isle knitting
Free-form knitting
Fulling/felting
Garter stitch
Gloves
Graffiti knitting
Hair accessories
Hats: Cuff-up
Hats: Top-down
Holiday related knitting
Household items
I-cord
Intarsia
Jewelry
Kitchener stitch
Knitted flowers
Knitting a gift
Knitting a pattern from an on-line knitting magazine
Knitting and purling backwards
Knitting art
Knitting for a living
Knitting for pets
Knitting for preemies
Knitting in public
Knitting items for a wedding
Knitting on a loom
Knitting smocking
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on one or two circulars
Knitting to make money
Knitting two socks on two circulars simultaneously
Knitting with alpaca
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Knitting with banana fibre yarn
Knitting with beads
Knitting with camel yarn
Knitting with cashmere
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with cotton
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Knitting with dpns
Knitting with linen
Knitting with metal wire
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Knitting with self patterning/self striping/variegated yarn
Knitting with silk
Knitting with someone else’s hand-spun yarn
Knitting with soy yarn
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Knitting with wool
Knitting with your own hand-spun yarn
Lace patterns
Long Tail CO
Machine knitting
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Moebius band knitting
Norwegian knitting
Participate in an exchange
Participating in a KAL
Pillows
Publishing a knitting book
Purses/bags
Rug
Scarf
Shawl
Short rows
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Slip stitch patterns
Slippers
Socks: toe-up
Socks: top-down
Steeks
Stockinette stitch
Stuffed toys
Swatching
Sweater
Tassels
Teaching a child to knit
Teaching a male how to knit
Textured knitting
Thrummed knitting
Toy/doll clothing
Tubular CO
Twisted stitch patterns
Two end knitting
Writing a pattern

Some of the things I think I've done but am not entirely sure what they mean so I've left them. Anyway it looks like I've done a fair bit already but I still have plenty left to try :)

New Year, New Beginnings

2009-02-22T19:00:00.000Z

When I first started looking into knitting online a couple of years ago I googled and came across a fabulous knitting community who welcomed me with open arms. I made friends, picked up tips, shared the highs and lows of life and knitting and discovered my local knitting group who I'd now be lost without. So it was somewhat of a shock to discover last week, with no warning, that the Angel Yarns knitting forums were no more. Not even the moderators had an inkling of what was to happen and the ripples of frustration and fury continue to flow. All the lost links, the depth of information shared, the friendships that had been built all lost at the touch of a button.

Anyway, as with all good things something will always rise from the ashes and so begins the Phoenix Knitting Forums. Built by it's membership out of love for something irretrievably lost and also no longer tied to seemingly dying yarn shop. Huge thanks have to go out to Traxia, Zyle and Peter for stepping up and building us all a lovely new home.

Now that it's no longer tied to one shop, we can also promote other people including indie dyers like myself. If you stop by the (I suspect) soon to be renamed Angel Yarns ravelry group, you can join in their first competition. This week the prize is going to be donated by me and if I understand correctly the questions will relate to my little shop. So for a chance to win a skein of my sock yarn, look out for the questions on Friday. The colour's still a secret but will be on a theme of "new year, new beginnings".

Here's one I made earlier

2009-02-22T12:27:00.004Z

I have been intending to post about spinning in Australia but to be honest, I have stopped and started the post I'd been writing several times and in the end, I gave up. I did manage to take a snapshot of one of my regular spinning haunts on the veranda though. You can just make out Ashford traddy I got to play with and the pile of fleece I also got stuck into. I've got some more pictures somewhere so I'll have to root them out too. So anyway, as the title says, here's one I made earlier. Yarn!I picked this fibre up from a lovely lady I met at the Atherton Tablelands Spinning Guild Meeting. She couldn't remember what it was but there was 200g and it was green and soft and I fell in love with it. I've still got a bit of the fibre left actually but I also have just under 400m of rather nice yarn and it's a fairly consistent 19wpi. My first ever homespun sock yarn!

This is one that I started before I went to Oz. I was a little worried that the single might have lost a bit of it's integrity having sat on the bobbin for so long but actually, it plied up really nicely. It started out as some of my own dyed Corriedale (above) and ended up like this.100g and approx 315m at 18wpi :)

It occurred to me the other day that I keep on spinning and not actually knitting any of it up so now I'm in search of suitable patterns to knit them all into. Suggestions for the slubby earlier yarns are always appreciated.

Water water everywhere ...

2009-02-12T17:40:00.003Z

and quite a bit of it seems to be in my cellar! Oh the joys of living in an old house in the country, the birds, the animals, the open fields, the flooding every winter. Ah well I guess you can't have it all and what would I moan about if I did? See that lovely reflective surface? Well, that would be the 2 inches of water covering the cellar floor as the pump had "forgotten" to switch itself back on. It normally switches itself on and off automatically and copes quite well but an hour with no pump produces this and it seems to be happening all too regularly at the moment. Cue me running around in mad panic, in my wellies if I remember first, stuffing my hand into the icy water of the sump to fiddle about with the pump. If I'm lucky, it's just an air lock and not a stone and it starts up again. Otherwise it's a screwdriver job and as I'm the one generally at home during the day, I just have to get on with it. Good job I'm a liberated, self sufficient, independant woman. Haha.

I think the pump's trying to tell us it's overworked. You wouldn't believe from the amount of water standing in the fields here that I actually live five miles from the driest place in England! I don't think we'd worry about it so much if the boiler for the central heating wasn't down there. For some reason water and oil don't seem to mix?! No central heating? In winter? Hmm, I think we'd best keep pumping!

Small shop update

2009-02-12T12:51:00.003Z

Just a quick update on the shop, I made my first sales! Yay. Thanks to Annette who bought some of my sock yarn and Paige who dived into my basket last week before it even went online. I've been updating the shop again this morning and have added the rest the sock yarns and some the first of the double knitting. Here's a quick peak at some of the DK. It's a really versatile yarn this as being handwash, it felts nicely. I've used it several times for hand bags as it gives quite a firm fabric when you knit two strands together. Not only that, there's enough for a pair of socks in each skein. Ok, hard sell over but it is really rather nice ;)

Catching up with the FO's

2009-02-09T15:44:00.000Z

Like so many other knitters, once New Year comes around again I find myself looking at all the knitting projects I have started, and in some cases finished, over the last year.

Pattern: Shetland Shorty from Knitty

Yarn: Sirdar Luxury Soft Cotton 4ply
Needles: as quoted, 3.5mm/2.25mm circs

As I'm relatively busty (you'd never guess from this picture!), I made the medium but now that it's been washed and worn a few times, I could have got away with the next size down. I also subbed the yarn and in the end only used 2 balls which was less than the quoted yardage even though my tension seemed spot on. Will I make it again? As much as I like it, probably not. Apart from anything else, the weather's not all that great around here to be needing summer cover ups.

Pattern: Fishy from Knitty
Needles: 4.5mm circs & dpns
Yarn: Wendy aran with wool and various aran odds and ends.

I love this pattern, it's such a fun and quick knit - pretty much done in a couple of evenings. I'd intended to make a blue and grey striped fish but was told in no uncertain terms that it was supposed to be a goldfish. Who can argue with a five year old?! A quick rummage later and I found the Wendy aran that my gran had given me. It's far too orange a red for me to ever wear so hey, hats it is then. I'm sure I'll make this one again at some point. I might even make myself one although I'm sure I'd get some very strange looks if I wore it to do the school run.

Pattern: Meret from Woolly Wormhead
Needles: 4mm dpns
Yarn: Stylecraft Life Aran

I have worn and worn this beret, it's so comfortable. I used slightly smaller needles than the pattern asked for and as a result, it's more of a beanie than the slouchy beret it's supposed to be. Still, that's made it nice and dense and warm and as it can be so windy around here during the winter, I wear it almost daily. I'm definately going to make another at some point but make it nice and slouchy.

New Shop

2009-02-04T20:00:00.002Z

Yes, I have decided that now we're back into the swing of things, the time is right for me to reopen the shop again. I've decided to leave Etsy behind and am going to stick the the local market for a while so I bring you The Bear Necessities on Folksy. Based in the UK with UK prices (no currency conversion to get my head round and constantly change). Yay all round. I know we should be supporting the free market economy and all that (sorry I've been watching BBC news again) but hey, buy British I say. It's something that I try to do whenever I can and with so many great indie dyers over here, why not?!

So anyhow, today I dove into the fibre mountain and set the dye pots bubbling with some new offerings to be ready for the weekend but in the meantime, I'm filling the shop with all my current stock. Here's a sneaky peak of the sock yarn and 4ply available. I've already added some aran weight that's just ideal for felting or knitting anything else you fancy. I'll be making handbags for the shop again and am hoping to be able to offer some handbag kits in the very near future. It's all very exciting :)

mmm fibre

2009-02-04T11:12:00.004Z

Lookie lookie, new squishy goodies! Actually, the postman has been really good to me this last week and it's not even my birthday til the weekend. I have a mountain of fibre and yarn to roll in and dye up and lots of new things to spin. This top one is my current favourite and has got to be the next thing on my wheel - if I can stop stroking it that is. It's some of Sara's "Biffle/silk" that I'd asked her to dye for my birthday but then I won her birthday competition too. How cool is that? It's luverly :D She's got a new shop on Folksy if you fancy some of your own and she does some absolutely fab colours.

Also hitting my doormat last week in time for my return from Oz was this shetland humbug from Shunklies. This one's destined to be a rather funky pair of socks as my spinning has finally reached the stage where I can get a more or less consistant 4ply equivalent. Yay. I think it's down to all the practice I got in Australia as with the weather being what it was, we got to spend quite a lot of time indoors. In fact, this is where I got to sit and spin - a bit different from my usual corner of the lounge in front of the tv!

Australia in pictures

2009-01-29T11:34:00.001Z

My creation
Originally uploaded by Bearium

Well the title really says it all. I never did manage to take a good picture of the rain but one of the other really memorable things was the wildlife. It wasn't until we started going through our pictures when we got back that we realised quite how many we'd taken.

Is it New Year already?

2009-01-28T15:44:00.003Z

La la la, where does the time go? That seems to have been a fairly regular opener over the last few months but hey we're home, over the jet lag and settling back into our normal routine. I'm sat here feeling slightly soggy having just beaten up some hand spun and am contemplating heading back out into the drizzle to collect the 'Mighty Midget' from school. He stayed for his first ever after school club today so it's a late afternoon. Mind you I did find myself going out at my normal time - I knew something was wrong but it wasn't until I'd actually driven almost to school that I realised what it was. I was an hour early! Still, maybe I'll remember a bit earlier next week.

So how was Australia? Wet is the short answer. Yes, really! Australia actually has rain - lots of it apparently. I guess the tropical bit (in Tropical North Queensland) was somewhat of a clue but as the last time I was there it was early spring I wasn't entirely prepared for what turned out to be an early wet season. Or for the insects that came with it! Still, you can't dampen the spirits of a five year old and most of the time he didn't care that it was pouring or that we kept getting flooded in. It all adds to the adventure.

Needless to say, he enjoyed himself enormously. Although even he didn't need any encouragement when it came time to come home. Seven weeks is an awful long time to be away from family and friends. I wouldn't say we were homesick per say but we certainly missed the company of all our friends. It's incredibly isolated out there. I live out in the country here but where we were staying out in the bush makes my village look like a huge urban conurbation!

The MM pretty much ran wild for the whole time. I did manage to get a little school work out of him but it was a bit of an uphill struggle. He just wasn't interested for some reason. Too many new things to see I guess. There was certainly plenty of wildlife to distract him and also the mountain of presents that "santa" had waiting for him when we first arrived might have had something to do with it.

With it being such a long flight, I thought I'd want to knit on the plane on the way over and was all prepared with wooden needles etc (which incidentally went through security without raising an eyebrow, offensive weapon my a***) but I hadn't quite taken into consideration the effects of long haul travel. No matter how prepared you think you are, it sucks. Although, travelling with the MM wasn't as bad as I was expecting. His first ever experience of flying was on a jumbo with his own personal TV that not only could he watch films on, he could play games too. Talk about spoilt, he's going to be so disappointed the next time he flies as it's rare we would ever go far enough to go on such a big plane.

Anyhow, that's about it for today's rambling especially as this time it's picture free. Next time, spinning, knitting and a few snap shots :)

The final countdown

2008-11-18T11:13:00.006Z

Wow, time flies. I can't believe it's been quite so long since I last posted. Anyhow it's all go here and we're now counting down the days til we fly off for sunnier climes. The tickets are here and after much nail biting and hair pulling, the visas are through at last. We're actually going to Australia!One week to go, now it's just the packing, and all the last minute things I can squeeze in before we go.

So tickets, passports, visas, suitcase, small child. Hmm anything else?

woohoo stash!

2008-10-23T11:17:00.000+01:00

or rather, lets take a look at what fell into my bag at Ally Pally.

I finally made it to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace this year and wow, what a revelation. It was a horrendously early start involving a couple of buses and a coach trip into London but boy was it worth it. Once inside and I got my first sight of the crochet hyperbolic reef, I even forgave the two ladies who sat behind me talking beading at the tops of their voices for the whole of the journey there (and actually all the way home again!). It's about fifteen years since I've been to Ally Pally - I went to my University May Ball there, and I'd forgotten quite how big it is. It's massive and for the show, filled wall to wall with every type of knitting, stitching, embroidery and textile craft need I could possibly have. I've never been to a "knitting show", let alone one on that scale and reckon I spent most of the first hour wandering round with my mouth hanging open. I'd originally planned to go along Nadia, one of my fellow Colchester knitters but a family funeral intervened and I found myself wandering around for the first hour by myself. Even though I've travelled quite extensively by myself in the past, I actually find attending these sort of events by myself quite daunting so I was really pleased when I bumped into Helen (another friend from Colchester) after an hour and we trundled around together for the rest of the day. I was pretty restained and am glad I went with a budget, it would be so easy to spend a fortune there although apart from a few special offers, there weren't many savings to be made for buying there and then. For me what was so great was being able to go round and have a squish of the yarn. Yes, I have to admit it, I spent most of the day stroking yarn like a real weirdo. Still with so many yarn brands on hand that I'd never seen in the flesh, it would have been rude not to. In the end I came home with mostly sock yarns and all brands I couldn't get locally so here goes, here's my photo haul. First the socks yarns, Lang Jawoll Cotton Jacquard, Noro and some Fabel. All of which I've been wanting to try. The Noro has a definate crunchy feel to it so I'm hoping it's going to wash up much softer - I have heard rumours of people using conditioner on it but I hope I won't have to go to those lengths. Baby alpaca laceweight from Knitncaboodle. I just have to have it, it's so soft! and finally some fibre from Piiku. I absolutely love the colour but don't think it's suitable for spinning. I can feel a needle felt endeavour coming on. Just wish I'd remembered to buy some needles for it.

So what gives?

2008-10-15T14:00:00.000+01:00

I promised a proper catch up a while back and so I guess I'd better spill what's been going on and where I'm at. There's not going to be much knitting content (if any) in this post so feel free to stop reading now.

So what gives? I mentioned previously that I was lacking motivation to write and well that's mostly because I've been a little stressed out by recent events. This is mainly a knitting blog so I've probably never made it clear about how my life is set up but basically I'm a single parent and I have a beautiful little boy who's now in school. I'm just beginning to get my life back on track. Or so I thought. We have a pretty good relationship with his family but at the end of the day, being on opposite sides of the world is never easy and it's been about three years since we actually saw the MM's father. So where is this going? Well that would be the sudden offer of plane tickets to Australia and the complete emotional roller coaster that it started.

I think I have gone from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other over the last few months and it's left me completely reeling. I swear I'm spottier now than I ever was as a teenager! From unsatisfactory meetings with the school headmaster to negotiating with the education board to take holiday during term time. I ended up writing almost an essay on the school holiday application to justify why exactly I am choosing to disrupt his education and how I'm going to work around this. I'm generally a fairly private person (yes I do know I write a blog) but have had to lay myself open emotionally to almost complete strangers. I've never felt more out of control in my life and I don't like it. I'm obviously more like my mother than I realised - I'm a closet control freak!

Just when I thought it was all sorted out and the tickets arrive, I get slammed again this time by the bureaucrats of the Australian government. Get this, to enable the MM to have a tourist visa to visit Australia, I now have to prove that I have the sole legal right to make decisions for him. So now, I have to go and find myself a solicitor and get them to certify copies of his birth certificate to say that yes, I have. Who'd have thought back then I'd have been so pleased now that his father wasn't there to register his birth?! Once I've sent that to them then will then "reconsider" his application. Getting his first passport was a complete breeze by comparison.

Still, there are lots of positives to this trip too and once I've finished detangling all the red tape we can start thinking about actually packing our bags. The trip's planned for the end of November so I guess I should really start counting down now.

Sometimes I've been happy, sometimes I've been gloomy but can I just say a great big thank you to all my friends who have listened to me and talked me down (or up) when I've needed it. I raise my cuppa to you all seeing as it's far to early in the day to be anything stronger. So anyhow, now that that's all out of the way normal service can resume and the (ir)regular knit posts can continue.

She spins!

2008-10-15T11:28:00.000+01:00

As you might have guessed from a previous post, I have a spinning wheel now, albeit a loaner and I love it. The day I picked it up, I went straight home, grabbed some fibre and started playing. In fact, I played with it so much that weekend, I gave myself backache and set off my elbow again. I had to stop knitting for a few days until it settled down. Still, it was worth it, I can spin. Well, sort of. I span two singles from the remains of the Corriedale from my spindle kit and ended up with marmelade yarn. It's pretty slubby and very bright but it's definately yarn. I signed up for the first of Diane's Spin tutorials and broke out the BFL from my PM Woolcraft splurge and merrily span away. I'm actually really pleased with this yarn, it's so soft and the colours are fantastic. It reminds my of Monet's waterlilies - a very happy accident as I just asked for a mixture of blues and greens.

Finally I span the Corriedale from Babylonglegs and now have this funky green yarn.I've no idea what I'm going to make with it any of it yet but who cares!

The thing about leaving it such a long time in blogging is that life moves on so quickly and I've been back to the Spinning Guild since I started writing this. I can't give all the ladies there enough praise as they are so friendly and helpful. I'm still spinning away on my borrowed wheel and loving it. I've currently got some of my own dyed corriedale on the bobbin (the berry coloured one on the right) and am making plans for the merino I bought. This time at the guild, we had a drum carder and hackle demonstration which was superb. I'm all inspired and seeing the simple construction of the hackle, I think I might have a go at building one. The guild do own both a hackle and a drum carder but I'm at the back of a long queue to get hold of either. Needs must and I can't wait that long!

FO - Crochet BSJ

2008-10-01T12:38:00.003+01:00

Well, strictly speaking it's not actually a baby surprise jacket, it's the All-in-One Crochet Cardigan pattern from Stitch Stud. By hey, it's basically a rather clever crochet version of the pattern without the catchy name. I used the US version and translated it myself as I was too impatient to wait for the UK one to come out but you can get both from his website if you click the pattern link. Hey ho.

Right the project details, I used Sirdar Baby Bonus DK and whilst it looks completely yellow on the picture is actually strands of yellow and white plied together. I know it's acrylic yarn but I go back to the Sirdar Bonus again and again as it's so practical and incredibly good value. The pattern used almost a complete ball of yarn. One of these days I will actually remember to measure the size of the finished pattern but from memory it was probably for about a 3 month size baby.

For some reason, I decided to use the 4mm bamboo hook that I got free with Let's Knit and while I persevered and used it throughtout, I don't think I'll be using it again. I'm not sure I like bamboo hooks (perhaps it's just the cheap ones?), in fact I have some bamboo dpn's too and again I find they're just a bit too grippy. Good for some yarns I guess so I'm not going to be chucking them out just yet. I'll be going back to my old metal aero's for the next project. I guess these days they'd probably be described as vintage but I love them. They're so smooth and the grip is in just the right place.

Will I make the pattern again? Yes for sure. I just need someone else to have another baby to give me another excuse to make it again!

I'm here, more or less.

2008-09-25T21:19:00.001+01:00

spinning 019
Originally uploaded by Bearium

Sorry not a very inspiring title for a post but it's been a funny couple of weeks and I just can't get motivated enough to blog. So I'll leave you with a hint of one of the things I've been up to and a promise of a big update soon with lots of pictures.

FO - Mitred booties

2008-09-10T14:19:00.001+01:00

Mitred booties
Originally uploaded by Bearium

I've been hoarding this pattern for a while now waiting for an opportunity to knit it up and now one of my friends is about to give birth, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Pattern: Party Popper from the December 2005 edition of Knitting Magazine.
Needles: 2.75mm bamboo dpns
Yarn: Patons Fairytale Dreamtime and Mondial Merinos Extra.

I've probably not even used half of each ball and the next time I do them I'll definately be using a self patterning yarn. There are enough ends to darn in without creating yourself extra work and adding stripes yourself!

Need more fibre in your diet?

2008-09-10T11:28:00.003+01:00

I currently love my postman, admittedly I have been stalking him for the last few days, but today he brought me this fabulous pile of squishy fibre - nearly a kilo of it! There's 100g an amazing blue green blend of BFL that reminds me of Monet's Waterlilies and then 250g of merino in scarlet, pink and purple and to top that 500g of undyed Corriedale. I'm not quite sure what to do first spin or dye. So in the meantime I'll sit and stroke it.For someone with just a spindle this latest splurge may seem a bit excessive but I have news. Spinning wheel type news. I took myself off to Lavenham last Monday to visit the Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers and met the most wonderful bunch of ladies (and one gent). I was absolutely blown away by their welcome, they sat me down had a chat, offered me some tuition and then uttered those magic words, "would you like to try my wheel?". They were incredibly patient as I messed up time and again but I loved it. I got to try an Ashford Traditional (which coincidentally was for sale), a Louet S10 a Kromski Polonaise (I think) and a Sonata. I think the Sonata was probably my favourite, the double treadle action seemed to be really smooth and I definately found it easier to master. Still a Sonata is a bit out of my price range for now but I can dream. I enjoyed myself so much I found myself signing up for membership there and then and to top it all, one of the members is going to loan me a wheel. She's moved onto an Ashford Traveller but has an old traditional sitting in her spare room unused. She just happens to be passing through Colchester on Friday so I'm going to meet her and collect it. Whoohoo!!

Learning to spin with a wheel is like learning to drive a car all over again but I can't wait to getting cracking. Roll on Friday I say!

15 minutes of fame

2008-09-04T12:41:00.002+01:00

Did I mention some while back I went on a secret knitting mission and got paid for it? I think I did and I've been meaning to blog about this again for a while. Anyhow, see those new batch of Lets Knit knitting demonstration videos, the ones from July onwards? that's me that is!

On the needles

2008-09-03T22:16:00.003+01:00

So in between trying to get everything updated for the shop, getting ready for the start of the new term and dealing with "the family" and what could turn be an ongoing problem with my grand parents, sometimes I do actually knit.

I managed to get my parcel posted finally for the UK Swap and the best news is that Caroline seems to be quite pleased with it. I forgot to take a picture of the bits before I posted it but if you wander past her blog here, you can take a look.

Having been bought a set of Addi Lace needles (thanks again Machelle), I've also rediscovered my love for the Mystery Shawl. I fixed the mistake and it's now going swimmingly. Well, fudged the mistake would probably be a better description. Having unpicked it and redone the increase row twice already there was no way on this earth I was going to do it again. Two extra stitches? no problem! A couple of discreetly placed extra decreases later and I defy you to find the "corrections". I have also discovered though that while I can sit and knit lace in front of the tv, taking it along to SnB is one step too far. We gossip too much for me to concentrate! Also, (sorry I'm wittering on a bit tonight) you see that tucked under the shawl? I finally got my sticky mitts on a copy of A Gathering of Lace and I am so going to have to find the money and buy a copy - it's superb! I'm always a bit reluctant to just send away for books as I like to know I'm actually going to get some use out of them first. The local book shops will always order things in but they don't carry a stock of knitting books, Colchester is obviously considered just a bit too provincial and probably not trendy enough. So I now have another whole set of things to add to my to do list.

More often these days I spin or dream about spinning. My latest ram raid on the Essex library service netted me these and I've been devouring them ever since. I would dearly love to buy a wheel but I just can't justify it at the moment. Unfortunately there are too many other things that have had to take priority (grr, Clarkes shoes!) and there's also the possibility of a trip to Australia in the next few months. Just the small matter of cutting through the bureaucratic nightmare that is our education system to make it actually happen. So anyhow I've been investigating the possibility of actually making one myself. I think I need to do a bit of further investigation but it could happen. Maybe. That is if I can resist the lure of ebay and the chap who's selling reconditioned Louet's and I can get over the "I want it and I want it now" thing that I have going on at the moment.So while I wait for my newest parcel of fibre to arrive, here's some progress pictures. Singles number two and three from the spindle. I still haven't plied these yet as they are so completely different and I also got sidetracked by the rest of the undyed Corriedale that came with this. I was in the middle of sorting out the stuff for my swap parcel when I suddenly thought, I know why don't I dye it and spin it up. After having a bit of a panic that I'd felted it by accident (I was probably being a bit impatient about it drying) it actually turned out rather nicely. When my new fibre arrives I think I might try and repeat this colourway or something similar to it for myself.

New Bags!

2008-09-03T14:12:00.000+01:00

Time for a quick shop update as today I'm adding the first of my hand bags so here's a sneaky peak. So long as the power doesn't go off again I'll be adding the rest of the yarn too. I've also had my first sale too (thanks Annette). Rightyho, best get a wriggle on or it'll be time for the next round of the school run again.

A little late but the shop is live!

2008-08-28T22:39:00.003+01:00

Well it's been a bit of a strange week over here at Bearium Towers and I think I'll be pleased when I return to the normality of the school run next week. Suffice it to say, the shop got a little delayed. Anyhow I'm pleased to say, it's live and you can check it out here. I still have lots more to put on there including some of my hand bags. I'm thinking about making up some bag kits too anyhow, I'd appreciate any feedback.

An award and an update

2008-08-24T14:30:00.002+01:00

Probably one of the things that keeps me blogging about what I do is that the wider blogging community are so friendly. You try things, sometimes you fail, sometimes you produce something amazing either way, there's always someone who's interested. They might be able to offer suggestions for improvements or who can inspire you to try something new or to go on and create something even better.A few days ago Machelle nominated me for one of the I heart your blog awards.
1. The winner can put the logo on their blog
2. Link the person you received your award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated

I'm going to give the first one to Vixx of Monkeyfeet. She's still a relatively new knitter in the scheme of things but has thrown herself head first into it with a passion and her business Wild Fire Fibres is going from strength to strength. I'm going to give another award to both Kate and Diane who continue to inspire me. Kate has produced some of the most beautiful knitted lace I've seen over the last few months and I am in awe of Diane's spinning prowess. Somewhere between all that they are finding time to produce The Inside Loop magazine. If you're not already reading it, why not? Issue 3 has just gone live.

I love Moggle's blog as apart from becoming a published designer recently, she writes great reviews. Kai's blog gets a vote too, I've been following her blog pretty much since I discovered the blogopshere. She's been learning to spin over the last year too and I've been ogling her wheels and fibre for ages. I'm beginning to see a bit of a common theme here as many of these blogs have quite a bit of spinning going on at the moment! I'll nominate Elaine too as she's been knitting up a storm recently and never fails to make me smile with her highs and lows. She always takes such lovely pictures of her projects too. Cinders blog is always interesting too as she somehow manages to juggle life, knitting and dyeing with her illness. I have to take my hat off to her as she doesn't seem to let it hold her back. Finally I'm going to add another blog that I discovered randomly through Ravelry. Well, not entirely randomly as I was searching how to build a spinning wheel and I came across She Who Measures, a girl definately after my own heart. She has this amazing small holding and is an incredible bodger of the "why buy it if you can build it yourself" variety. Very inspirational, I can definately see me trying to have a go myself in the near future :D

I could keep on adding more and more people as most of the blogs that I return to are pretty amazing. So if you're reading this, give yourself a pat on the back.

Right on to the update, it's been a bit of a battle to get near the computer this last week. Everyone's been stressed out and wanting to be online of an evening to wind down. So belately I'm pleased to announce that The Bear Necessities shop will be live by tomorrow morning. I was hoping to have been able to have got this done by last Friday so I'm determined to have everything uploaded this afternoon/evening even if it means trying people down to get them out of the way!

UK Swap: Yay, my parcel arrived!

2008-08-21T19:05:00.000+01:00

After the afternoon I've had (involving the MM, the kitchen sink and some plaster of paris), I have something to make me smile again. Here's my yummy smelly and squishy parcel courtesy of Machelle - isn't she a star?! Where shall I start? Well, there's yarn of course, a skein of very soft undyed slub yarn and a ball of Lana Grossa Mille in my favourite shade of red. My very first Knit Picks needles. Wooden DPN's in teeny 2mm size - I had to take them along to my knitting group on Tuesday night to show everyone. Another Addi Turbo to complete my set of 3mm circulars and some lush smellies. They're by Michelle Wishi and smell fab. There was a bar of chocolate but it's almost completely gone after this afternoon! and there's also some drinking chocolate which I can see me having this evening to unwind. The buttons are hand made by Machelle herself. I'll have to find something lovely to put them onto and perhaps take a better picture as well. Thanks once again Machelle, it's a fab parcel :D

Now I'd best get the last bits of my own one wrapped up and get it in the post too. I've definately got something to live up to!

You spin me right round

2008-08-19T12:03:00.002+01:00

This time it's all about the spinning. I'm having a bit of an extended goldfish moment at the mo - I have so many projects on the go, I'm not sure I'm making a great deal of progress on anything. There is a partially started jumper on the knitting machine, three new patterns in the works, I still haven't finished the crochet BSJ and I'm about a third of the way through my Shetland Shorty. Not to mention the countless other WIPs - I definately need to have a UFO busting session again.

Anyhow, back to the point of the post. Those of you that have been loitering around here for a while might remember that some while ago I bought a spindle starter kit. I did a little when I first got it but then I put it down again. Roll on a few months of me ogling everyone else's spinning on their lovely new wheels and I have the bug again. I would blame the lovely ladies over at the AY forum who are "spinning along" but to be honest, the urge was already there. The first batch was really lumpy, but by the time I'd wound that off onto a handy toilet roll and spun another spindle full, I was beginning to get the hang of it a bit more. I bodged myself a lazy kate type device using a couple of knitting needles stuck in the top of a box and a hair grip and plied (cobbled would be a better description) the two strands together and hey presto, I have something vaguely resembling yarn. It's slubby, it's very orange and there's only about 20m of it, but it's yarn and I made it. Woohoo! I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with it but I'm sure I'll think of something. At this point progress on all my WIP came to a halt, spinning fever had struck and I raided the cupboard for some more fibre. Yes, I really did have fibre stashed away already. (Some of it came with the spindle but I also had some from a yarn swap a while back.) So here's yarn number two. I've actually added a bit more to it since the picture was taken but look there's definately progress. There's far fewer slubby bits and I'm ever so slightly pleased with myself :D So much so that I went out and ordered some more fibre.
I keeping taking this one out to have a peak as it's lovely. My ultimate aim is to be able to spin my own sock yarn but I might not be able to wait that long to spin this. It's from the lovely Sarah aka BabyLongLegs and is 100g of Corriedale roving in Neptune. It's the most vibrant sea greens and I love it. Not only that it's got me thinking spinning wheels again.

FO - Baby Babette

2008-08-18T19:00:00.001+01:00

Baby Babette
Originally uploaded by Bearium

I've been meaning to update this for a while as this was finished for the start of the holidays. It's my Babette style blanket for my friend's baby who arrived on the last day of term and to my surprise has been called Lucy!
I'm really pleased I chose the Stylecraft Kon Tiki yarn as the blanket has turned out beautifully. In all it took almost 8 balls - 2 balls of each colour for the body of the blanket and one each of the two greens for the edging.
As much as I absolutely love it now that it's done, the sewing up was a real bind. Fair play to those that have made the full sized blanket, I think I'd have been suicidal had I got to stitch the full number together!

Brushing off the dust

2008-08-14T10:00:00.000+01:00

I may or may not have mentioned at some point that I have a knitting machine stashed away. Apart from a very brief daliance when I first acquired it, it's mostly been gathering dust in the corner of the spare room. Til now that is. I had one of those very bright ideas (the sort I often regret an hour later) that the mighty midget and I could have a play with it and perhaps make him a jumper. Knowing how he loves anything mechanical, I also thought he'd get a bit of a kick out of it too.

Finding the machine was no problem. There it was all tucked away in it's case in the corner, the manual of course, was another thing entirely. I fished around in my cupboard and pulled out a box of what I knew contained bits for the machine. Old issues of Knitting Machine magazines, pattern books, stitch libraries, piles of pre punched pattern cards and even a few blanks to make more. To my horror (and having just promised the MM a new "toy" to play with), the instructions were nowhere to be found! Two hours of pulling things out of my jam packed cupboard and once I'd finished sneezing from all the dust I had a sudden epiphany and looked in the boxes that I'd bought to store my yarn stash in. Sure enough, tucked away neatly were the instructions, a complete set of tools and another ball winder and even better, a swift.

Breathing a sigh of relief all round, we got on with the business in hand and now have a somewhat cleaner and definately far less dusty machine. I've oiled it and now it's running like a dream. Now I just have to work out what I'm doing with it. The MM has of course already had a go and after I'd cast him on the back for his jumper, he cracked off most of the back in no time.

The only down side of letting your five year old at the knitting machine is that he has this insatiable need to twiddle all the knobs and dials. So I am going to be counting all the rows up to the sleeves to try and match the fronts. For some reason I'm guessing that the 931 rows on the row counter may be just a little way out!Thanks for the comments on the Toucan socks. With the star toe, the decreases (or increases if you're working from the bottom up) are spread evenly all around the toe rather than being at the sides. You also go down to a far smaller number of stitches and that combined with the way that the decrease rows are spread apart is what gives you a much rounder toe. If anyone's interested, I'll post my pattern notes .

FO - Toucan toe ups

2008-08-13T12:44:00.001+01:00

Toucan toe ups
Originally uploaded by Bearium

Size: UK 6 made for Hazel
Pattern: my own, toe up with a star toe and afterthought heels
Needles: 2.5mm BB dpns
Yarn: Opal Rainforest Toucan 4ply

I really like the shaping that the star toe gives - it's a much rounder toe than many others. These are my first pair using an afterthought heel and it was definately a good way of matching the stripes. All in all, I was really pleased with the way they came out and Hazel has already ordered another pair this time long enough to wear in her wellies!

2008-08-10T23:08:00.002+01:00

Hello all, yes I really did seem to drop off the planet. The school holidays have arrived. We've been far busier than I expected - and to think that I was really worried that the mighty midget and I were going to be tearing each other apart by now! I even managed to wear him out on a couple of occasions. My, aren't they adorable when they're sleeping? Anyhow, we're home from our trip to Manchester and getting in to the swing of this holiday lark. Mind you, I was ready for a holiday from my holiday by the time I got back. I think my sister was pleased to get her house back too (she certainly was ready for a respite from the MM). Blog posting should hopefully be returning to normal again. I have some FO's, a new (well dug out of a cupboard) knitty toy to play with and some knitalongs too, oh and an etsy shop to launch. Yay! but first I need some sleep.

Real life, an interlude

2008-07-21T21:33:00.004+01:00

Wow do I have some serious posting catch up to do?! The blog's been a little quiet the last couple of weeks as it's been a little busy around here. With this being the mighty midget's first year at school, I hadn't realised how much they cram into the last couple of weeks of term! We've had the school fete, the sports day that had to be rescheduled because of the weather, the day trip to the beach. The meet the new teacher evening. It just seems to have been a never ending whirlwind! Still only two more days to go and then we can take a breather.

So anyway now to the pictures. The mummy returns.... somehow I managed to volunteer myself to build two 5ft oscars to decorate the entrance to the school fete. That'll teach me for having a glass of wine at tea time. Still, it was good fun. I haven't done papier mache on such a large scale for a long time. A couple of cans of spray paint later and we have the finished statue complete with red carpet. This year's theme for the fete was the movies (hence the oscars) and Class R picked the Little Mermaid and danced to the song "Under the Sea". They'd made head and wrist bands in class and we had to send them along in brightly coloured clothes. It was so cute!You'll have to excuse the slightly fuzzy photo's as I had to use my phone to take them. Last but not least are a couple of shots from sports day.

The mighty midget gurning as usual and an action picture from the sack race. Sometimes there are definate perks to this mummy business :D

UK Swap, Question #5

2008-07-15T12:22:00.003+01:00

1. Go Green!!!, 2. kalayo, 3. Gone Fishin', 4. papapapapapapaaaa..., 5. Star light, Star Bright, 6. Gizmo, 7. View from Beeley Moor, 8. Just hanging around, 9. ready for the party......???, 10. a good wine, 11. . And now for something completely different ., 12. 'stick' together, 13. This is your cat on drugs., 14. Language of the Genes, 15. top o' the card catalog, 16. zero gravity

It's not so long since I did one of these mosaics but hey, it was fun the first time round so why not again? Actually it's fun trying to see how random you can actually make the images while answering the question. So anyhow want to see how I got there?

1. Stop or go? go
2. Going out or Staying in? staying in
3. Small town or big city? small town
4. Happy or sad? happy
5. Straights or Circulars? circular
6. Red or Blue? red
7. Seaside or countryside? countryside
8. Fish or chips? fish
9. Surprises or plans? surprises
10. Wine or beer? wine
11. Sweaters or cardigans? cardigan
12. Pizza or Pasta? pasta
13. Chopsticks or fork? chopsticks
14. Early Bird or Night Owl? night owl
15. Knitting or crochet? knitting
16. Hot or cold? cold

ok, that's me done. Now off to find some actual knitting content :)

Another BSJ?

2008-07-09T10:20:00.001+01:00

It's been a few months since I made my BSJ and I've been looking for an excuse to make another to a while. Imagine my delight when I was browsing the BSJ group (Ravelry link) and discovered that there was a crochet version in the works. I managed to bag myself a copy of the pattern as soon as it was published and went stash diving for something suitable.Here's how it looked over the weekend (when we still had sunshine!). I'd ground to a bit of a halt at this point as I wasn't sure whether I'd made a mistake or not but then Monday night, I had a bit of an epiphany and it's now racing along again. If it carries on like this, it'll be done before the weekend.

Just in case you fancy a go, the pattern is courtesy of Stitch Stud and you can get it here :)

Revenge of the mystery shawl

2008-07-08T10:16:00.002+01:00

GKMSClue2
Originally uploaded by Bearium

also known as the mystery shawl strikes back.

Yes, it's started already and the mistakes are beginning to flow. I thought I was doing so well. I whistled through Clue 2 and decided to crack straight on with Clue 3 only to get to the end of the first row and discover I was short by a couple of stitches.

Everything was fine before the increase row and as my enthusiasm hadn't waned at this point I gamely frogged back a couple of rows. I noticed that I'd missed a couple of yarn overs so put them back in and finished the row. Decided it was probably a good idea to put all the stitch markers back in during the following knit row and guess what? I have too many stitches now! Argggghh.

It's been sat like that since last Friday. They published Clue 4 last Saturday. I'm really slipping behind :(

New shoes!

2008-07-08T10:01:00.004+01:00

I do have knitting progress, really I do but I have new shoes too! I haven't given up on the idea of some clear converse yet but these are really comfy and I reckon, big enough to wear socks with. Yay. Not sure that many of my current hand knit won't clash horribly with the shoes but hey, that just means I have an excuse to knit more.Now I just need to find a few more hours in the day. Ho hum.

Swaps again and goodies for me!

2008-07-02T09:30:00.002+01:00

I mentioned that I got a parcel last week as part of the last AY Knitting Forum swap, well here's mine in all it's glory. (I did battle with the camera and won) Look, I got goodies! There's a beaker with sheep on it, some pencils with more sheep. A big fluffy pen, some nail varnish with spangles in and some of my favourite chocolate, mint Green and Blacks! It was all wrapped up beautifully and tucked into the bottom was a fabulously soft green lace scarf. I will have to try and get a better picture because it's really hard to capture the colour which is a very deep green/blue. Will have to check what yarn Ruth used as it's lovely and if I get over my phobia of lace weight, I might have to get some more.

Thanks again Ruth :D

It's a mystery

2008-07-01T14:13:00.003+01:00

Having not completed last year's mystery shawl you might think it's a bit strange that I've signed up for another. This time around it's the Goddess Knits shawl and it's going to be a bit of a challenge. It's a Pi shawl, so not only will it be my first attempt at a circular shawl, it means getting to grip with laceweight. I hate to be beaten by anything and it was hard to admit last year that I was never going to finish the swan lake stole. Largely I put it down to my dislike of the yarn (jojoland Harmony) once I started knitting it. Well, less the yarn and more the colour I was using, it was a bit insipid. So remembering that I had a skein of screaming red lane bogosesia stashed away I decided to give it another whirl. I did a swatch and settled on 3mm needles and here we are with Clue 1 completed. (I opted for Chart A for those in the know) You can see from the number of stitch markers, I wasn't brave enough to just knit.

Now I'm part way through Clue 2, I'm becoming a bit braver and have reduced the number a bit. However, I'm beginning to wonder whether I should have used a smaller sized needles after all? I know lace is supposed to have holes but I really have holes! Arrgh. I think maybe I'm just a little too far out of my comfort zone.

Baby Babette

2008-07-01T14:12:00.001+01:00

Babette
Originally uploaded by Bearium

We have progress at last! Yesterday I finally finished the last square. The downside is that I now have to stitch them all together. Gulp. Hmm, how hard can that be? It's only a baby blanket after all.

Swaps and secret knitting revealed

2008-06-30T22:13:00.004+01:00

I can finally post about one of my secret knitting projects now that it's in the possession of it's new owner. I signed up to the last Angel Yarns Knitting Forums swap before I realised quite how busy I was going to be last month. It was a bit of a mad dash as I was juggling so many things but I got there in the end, albeit a little late. Paula aka Sockaholic got the parcel this morning and I think she's pleased with it all. The main part is a horseshoe lace stole in Jojoland Melody. Inspired by Jacqui who started a KAL for this, I used the stitch pattern from Heirloom Knitting and added a garter stitch border to help keep it's shape. It took two balls in all and once blocked it ended up 13" by about 56" - I actually lost the piece of paper I wrote the sizes down on so I can't remember the exact length :s Suffice to say, it was plenty long enough. I might make myself one at some point too as I rather liked it :)

I also made a little project tote, just the right size for carry round a pair of socks or something similar. I'm definately going to be making myself one of these, it's so handy. I used the tutorial on Drago[knit]fly's blog which was really helpful. I'm sure some of you are plenty handy enough with a sewing machine to have a go yourselves. Finally I added a skein of merino sock yarn in shades of blue. I'm hoping to be able to repeat that colourway because it really was lovely. Mind you, the yarn is so soft it probably wouldn't matter what colour you dyed it.

Hmm, I'm completely getting off the point. I also got a fabulous parcel in return from Ruth aka thegirlthatknits. Unfortunately, my camera is refusing to give up the pictures tonight (technology grrr) so I'm hoping to bring them to you tomorrow. It was full of lovely goodies but I'll wait for the pictures to tell all.

Sunday Surfing

2008-06-29T16:15:00.005+01:00

Ah Sunday afternoon. It's sunny, humid and the mighty midget and I are knocking around in the house by ourselves winding each other up again. Oh what it is to have the energy and enthusiasm of a five year old. We've been working hard in the garden today, well, I've been working hard, he's mostly been being "helpful". He's now got a newly erected swing and I get to have a break. Yay!

I did this the other Sunday and I thought it'd actually be quite fun to record my travels if I did it again. I start here at this blog and pick a blog from my blogroll. From that blog, I pick another and so on. The only rule being, I have to leave a comment on any that I pass through. I found a few nice one's to return to the last time around and I'm sure if I kept on long enough, I could get back to where I started but as my blog readership is still relatively small, that could take an awfully long time. Anyhow, here we go.

First up is Vikki aka Wild Fire Fibres with her impressive haul from Woolfest. I wish I lived closer/had some spare cash/babysitter etc and I'd have been there too. I'll just have to save up for Ally Pally and IKnit this year. From there to the Feral Knitter (loved the name, just had to peak) and she's fermenting lichens to dye with. I'm definately going to have to go back and see how that one works out. Crooked knitter leads onto Gnomiejo Knits who posted this great link to some clear converse shoes - perfect for showing off your handmade socks! I think I might have to check out if I can get a pair of them over here. More Yarn Than Time has found a treasure trove of a LYS, it's a shame Austin is so far away. Why aren't there more yarn stores like this in the UK?

Ooops, that's another hour wasted. I really should get some dinner cooked before the mighty midget starts raiding the biscuit tin again.

UK Swap, Question #3

2008-06-29T11:33:00.003+01:00

I've been a bit slack about joining in with some of the extra's that have been part of the new round of the UK Swap and tbh, I just couldn't get my head round last weeks question which was about who I'd like to invite for dinner. I must have been having an antisocial couple of days. Anyhow this one leapt out at me as being a SAHM, tv does play a fairly big role in my social life. I know, sad/boring isn't it! So, this weeks poser is:

Is there a TV programme you watch religiously?
What TV programme(s) do you avoid like the plague?
Is there a TV programme that you find works particularly well for knitting along to?
What was/is your favourite kids TV programme?

I'm a bit of a sucker for medical dramas and cop shows and also most things sci fi. Unfortunately, Dr Who is on at just the wrong time of night (ie: the mighty midget's bedtime) and lets face it, some of those episodes have scared me. Imagine how they must look to a five year old! I do try and catch it on Iplayer if I can. So anyhow, the only thing I'm watching religiously at the moment is Grey's Anatomy. Yes, I know it's totally unbelievable, pure escapism but I just can't get enough.

I avoid Coronation St, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks. In fact most soaps and yes I do realise that you could argue Grey's Anatomy is a soap too. I don't care! Big Brother 9 anyone? The previous 8 weren't enough?

It doesn't matter what I'm watching, I'll knit anyway. Unless I get too engrossed that is. I got lent the first series of 24 last year and decided to watch it while I was ironing. Only then I suddenly realised that I'd put the iron down some while before and I was just leaning on the board glued to the screen.

Ah, kids tv, that's a biggie. I've watched an awful lot of cbeebies over the last few years and to tell the truth, I'm fairly sick of most of it. There are a few exceptions ...... I have this little sister Lola, she is small and very funny....
From my own childhood though, it's been a while but I remember watching The Magic Roundabout and Captain Pugwash, Chortle and the Wheelies, Stingray, Fireball XL5. Some real old classics but I don't particularly remember a specific favourite. I don't think we actually watched a great deal of tv, well not kids tv. I've watched Blake 7 and Star Trek and Dr Who from a very early age. Some things, I guess you never really grow out of ;D

Anyone for yarn?

2008-06-28T21:34:00.001+01:00

baskets of yarn, originally uploaded by Bearium.

I'm finally getting around to catching up with all my posting so here's a little something to get me started. Yarn and lots of it. Well, the remains of my stall at the Summer Fayre. As you can see, there's plenty left which in some ways is a shame. The fayre wasn't as busy as I'd liked it to have been, but as I did sell some, I can't complain too much.

I love dyeing the yarns and making the bags but the stress of doing the fayres is far too much (especially will a mighty midget underfoot). So what does this mean? Well, the Bear Necessities will be going global with a little corner of Etsy.

Fancy trying some of the yarns I use to felt my handbags with? Perhaps a bag itself? Well, watch this space :D

Photo meme

2008-06-25T22:59:00.002+01:00

My creation
Originally uploaded by Bearium

1. lucy's evil twin, 2. Party in the Ice Box, 3. Monk in green, 4. I want to be where the Sun warms the sky, 5. OUT17292479, 6. suck up! a.k.a. you suck! :), 7. Six on a motorbike.... Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 8. Profiteroles, 9. coMfort, 10. Ducks in the Mail: At the Post Office, 11. Reminder to Self: Slow Down on the Caffeine, 12. I got my goodies!

Here's a bit of fun that I've seen on a number of blogs but I lifted this from Kai's. I'm sat here with a glass of vino looking for inspiration and I thought, what the heck why not? Want to have a go too? All you have to do is

A) Type your answer to the questions below in flickr search; use only the first page to pick an image, and
B) Copy and past your picture URLs into fd’s mosaic maker.

The questions are:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favourite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favourite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Busy, busy, busy

2008-06-20T14:30:00.005+01:00

well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Just a flying visit to say hi, I'm still here, bad blogger that I am. Well I've gone from going flat out to get things ready for the stall last weekend to getting everything finished for the mighty midget's birthday party tomorrow. As the saying goes, it never rains but it pours! I'll be glad come Saturday night when I can just sit down and take a breather. I think a glass or two of vino might be in order.

So, I'm off to collect the MM from school in a few minutes then it's back to get the cake and the costume finished before a final check through everything to make sure we've got all that we need. Who knew that children's parties could be so stressful?

Anyway, a proper catch up, with lots of pictures will follow by the end of the weekend (I hope, fingers crossed etc). To my swap partners, I haven't forgotten you. Sorry, I'm just late :s

Calling all Colchester Knitters

2008-06-05T13:26:00.002+01:00

I think I mentioned before that I'm doing a craft fayre in a couple of weeks well, it's fast approaching and I thought I'd invite you all along. See the poster below, that bit where it says, "handpainted yarn and knitted accessories"? that's me that is! I've sock yarn and some lovely merino 4ply to finish dyeing and plenty of feltable yarns too all in yummy colours. There'll be a handbags ready for a new home too, some shawls and maybe a few other goodies too. I'll be posting a few spoiler pictures over the next few days.

I'm hoping if there's room to be able to have a couple of chairs (or more) to be able to have a bit of a knit in so if you're local or in the area, I'd love for you to stop by and visit.

Frating Summer Fayre

Saturday 14^th June

at Frating Village Hall

Tombola	Refreshments
Farm foods and fresh fish
Plant & seed exchange	Local Historian
Salsa demonstration	Essex Wildlife Trust
Children’s garden with face painting and games

Health and beauty treatments	Shiatsu, Reflexology Sports Massage Nail Technicians Colour Analysis & make up
Craft Stalls	Cards, Silver jewellery
Ladies and children’s clothes and accessories
Hand painted yarn and knitted accessories
Natural home and beauty products

Come along and join in the fun from 3pm.

UK Swap Questionnaire

2008-06-03T22:20:00.001+01:00

So finally after much deliberation, here's my answers to the questions:

Part One: Crafting
Do you knit, crochet, or both?
both, I was taught them both in my early teens so theoretically, I have plenty of experience!?
What do you like to make?
mostly bags, socks, shawls but I also make toys, clothes etc as it takes my fancy or is needed by the mighty midget
Do you have a favourite project?
that I've made? probably my Noni bag although I loved the BSJ too
Do you have a favourite type of fibre or brand of yarn?
this one's a tough one, there's so many to choose from. I might have to come back to this one later.
Do you have a least favourite type of yarn?
funky fur! I know it has it's place in the scheme of things but it's a bitch to knit with
Do you do any other crafts?
not so much these days but I've tried most things. I really enjoy sewing but have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my current sewing machine.
Do you knit in public? If so where do you like knitting and what is your "portable" project?
Yes, usually in cafe's as I live too far out of the town to use public transport very often or while I'm waiting to collect the MM from school. Depending on whether my otn project is getting too big to carry about, it's usually socks.
What do you carry your "portable" knitting in?
I've a little cotton drawstring bag that came with a pair of shoes, I throw in the top of my handbag.
Are there any knitting gifts (book, toy, yarn, item, tool) that you have been lusting over?
Is there a limit? A spinning wheel! VLT, another set of bamboo dpns to replace the ones I donated. Addi Lace needles. I could go on.....

Part Two: Your Favourites
What is your favourite colour?
Scarlet and atm, leafy greens
What is your least favourite colour?
orange or anything tan/beige/grey they make me look ill
What scents/smells do you like? What don’t you like?
I love lavender and that really fresh smell after it's just rained. My perfume has been Hypnotic Poison for years. I hate any perfumes based around roses or violets and while I love to look at lilies, I can't have them in the house.
How do you like to pamper yourself? Pampering, what's that? um, glass of wine, manicure perhaps, ooh an undisturbed afternoon with a good book. (or any time to myself really.)
What goodies to you like to eat?
dark chocolate, the darker the better
Do you prefer tea or coffee while you knit? Any particular kind?
I drink both. I really dislike Earl Grey tea though and am currently drinking a fair trade decaf arabica coffee, otherwise I'd probably od on caffeine.
Do you listen to/watch anything while you knit?
I usually knit in front of the tv - mostly crime and medical dramas, NCIS, Inspector Linley, Waking the Dead, Midsummer Murders, House, Greys Anatomy although I've really been getting into Springwatch again. I don't actually have an ipod so I've never really got into podcasts, although there are some great knitting ones I keep meaning to listen to.

Part Three: About you, Living & Past-times
If you were a specific kind of yarn, which brand and kind of yarn would you be (and why)?
Don't know, nothing too fluffy
Where do you live in the UK? (General idea not address)
Essex/Suffolk border
Have you always lived here, or did you grow up somewhere else?
we've been here about 10 years, I lived in mid Essex before that
What is your favourite place in the UK?
probably Northumbria or the Peak District, it's the hills that does it
If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?
SE Asia as I had to cut it off the end of my backpacking trip although I'd love to go back to Australia too

What other hobbies do you have?

gardening, reading, puzzles

Part Four: The Theme
This picture may seem a bit of a strange choice but there's something about it that I find strangely attractive. I'm not sure whether it's the uniformity of the pots, the way the colours have begun to change as they've mellowed with age or whether it's just the sheer extravagance of having so many clay pots. I nearly used the picture dad took of me just stood there gawping at them all - I can only dream of being this organised in my potting shed!

Final Part:
Any allergies/preferences (fiber-wise or treat-wise)?
Anything we missed that you’d like your partner to know?
not that I can think of just now

Pimp that swap!

2008-06-01T16:05:00.003+01:00

Yes I did it, I gave in and signed up to the next round of the UK Swap. It's not as though I don't have other things to be getting along with but hey, I'll take all the distractions I can get. Seriously though, this'll be something to look forward to later in the year and who can resist stalking the postman for a squishy parcel? I have to blame Vikki for this as, if I didn't stop by her blog every now and again, I'd have been none the wiser.

Sign ups are open now to anyone living in the UK but will close tomorrow, 2nd June. It's your last chance, go forth and swap!

Holidays

2008-05-23T12:19:00.004+01:00

Yes it really is that time of year again, it's half term already. Now that the mighty midget is in school we are discouraged from taking holidays turning term term so we have to pay extra and go during the designated break. I can understand the school's point of view but it does get annoying when you're stung up by the holiday companies! So anyhow, we're heading off tomorrow on what has now become our annual pilgrimage to Northumbria. It's a beautiful part of england (so long as the nice weather holds out) and we've already been planning various things to do this year and of course, we get to spend time with Granny which is great. The cottage is booked, the washing is all done, there's just the small matter of packing once I've finished cleaning the house. sigh

So back to the rest of this weeks' news. Thanks for all the well wishes, the sickness bug is well and truly over and luckily (for everyone else) I was the only one who got it. I've also been on my secret knitting assignment this week. Getting paid for sitting on my bum knitting, who'd have thought it? It definately had one or two surreal moments but it's done now and you'll all know more about it over the next few weeks.

Now that's out of the way though, it's back to the serious business of preparing for the fayre. The holiday has really come at just the wrong moment in some ways but hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in lots of knitting time. I think my knitting bag for the week is going to be on the large side as I'm going to have to get a few bags knitted a prepped for felting on our return. Mum's offered to knit up a couple of patterns for me too (isn't she a star!) so hopefully I'll have a couple of shawls to add to the display too. One good thing about the stall is that I can use it to test knit a couple of patterns I've been working on.

I'll leave you with a picture of one of my current projects - a horseshoe lace stole.I can't fully take the credit for this pattern though as I got the idea from Jacqui and the lace pattern came from Heirloom Knitting. I knew that book was great but it wasn't until I started trying to write a shawl pattern myself that I realised what a wonderful resource it is. If you don't own it already, it's definately a keeper!

Bags and I ramble a bit again

2008-05-18T17:52:00.004+01:00

So, did you spot the not so deliberate mistake in the last post? It all got a bit confusing in the end, the post is dated Wednesday, I carried on writing it on Thursday and actually published it Friday. Oops. If I hadn't been feeling so rough I'd have sorted it out, I really must find out where it is I change the date on the post. I remember reading you can post date them somewhere, might be handy as it's almost time for the holidays. So just why was I all over the place? Well that would be the lurgy that the mighty midget brought home from school and generously gave me. He's disgusting healthy as per usual but I succumbed. I now have fabulously tight stomach muscles (and not from exercising I might add) and my appetite is gradually recovering. Anyhow, back to the interesting stuff.

I seem to remember promising an update on the blogoversary bag so without further ado, I present my most recent offering, the blogoversary bag. I still haven't thought of a better name yet but am I pleased with it? oh yes :) Here it is decorating our apple tree just before posting. It ended up as a rather useful sized tote, actually it'd make a great knitting bag. It's fully lined with a couple of good sized pockets inside and a draw string closure on the top. Perfect for keeping all your needles and yarns in place when you're out and about (hehe, have I sold it to you yet?). I deliberately chose a nice bright, contrasting colour for the lining and it works really nicely with the colours in the yarn. I think I'm going to go back and pick up some more of the lining material as I absolutely love the colour.

sunny skies and lack of knitting

2008-05-14T16:33:00.007+01:00

It's Thursday again already, has it really been a week since my last post? Time really does fly especially when you're having a mini heatwave which is really not all that conducive to getting any knitting done. So did you like that bag pattern then? Some people do apparently as almost 100 people downloaded it in the first 2 days after it went live. Holy cow, I should have charged!

I think I should have started this pattern writing lark a long time ago - I'm beginning to wonder whether it might actually pay for itself. Hmm, where did I put my notepad? Joking aside, I do have a few more patterns in the works so watch this space.

So what has been happening in sunny Frating this week? I mentioned before that the knitting has taken a bit of a back seat. Not for lack of trying mind you, more motivation. I agreed to do a stall a the village summer fayre next month (yes I really am a glutton a punishment) and whilst I do have a few things ready to roll, I need to get cracking and get a lot more done. That's where the problem lies though. I have far too many ideas swimming around but am having trouble just thinking about one at a time. Bah. It'll all work out in the end and the fun bit is that I get to have another dye fest as I'll be taking a couple of baskets of yarn along too. Goodie :D

One good thing this week was the delivery of the blogoversary bag which is now living in it's new home with a very happy Cinders. After a few last minute doubts, I was really pleased with how it turned out. Actually, I want one myself now as it's the perfect size as a project bag to take out and about. It also gives me a good excuse to reknit it again to check the pattern.

The weekend saw us paying a visit to my grand parents and with such sunny skies, it gave us a good reason to head over to Weald Park for a walk. Everywhere's so green and lush at the moment and the spring blossom is still glorious. The blue bells are actually getting a bit past their best but the chestnut walk is just coming into it's own and it'll not be long before the azaleas and rhododendrom's are in bloom too as they're just beginning to show colour. One of the nice things about Weald is the history and many of the trees are really ancient. Spot the mighty midget (and Nanny) under one of the overgrown rhododendrons. My family have quite close links to the park as my grandfather grew up there, mum played there as a child and we've all been visiting it as long as I can remember. It's great to be able to watch the seasons change there are know that it'll all still be there long after we're gone.

Little Felted Tote Pattern

2008-05-07T20:50:00.004+01:00

I've been threatening to publish some patterns for a while and here is number two and it's for my basic felted bags. It's rather unoriginally called my "Little Felted Tote" and you can get it here as a pdf for free. I'm still new to this pattern writing lark so if you make one, I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks and happy knitting :)