fo friday: christmas knitting

well good news – i finished on time!!

hopefully my mum will like her shawl – as i won’t find out until the day itself it’s me modelling in the meantime!

check out some other gorgeous fo’s at tami’s blog.

hope everyone has a relaxing and joyful christmas holiday – i’m looking forward to being at home with family and lots of extra crafty time!

lesley x

wip wednesday

Tags

crochet, knitting, ripple, wip

i’ve had a bit of a slow knitting week – i know why as well…….christmas knitting.

much and all as i want to knit my lovely mum a shawl for christmas i’m really wishing that she hadn’t wanted one in the same pattern as my purple lighthouse shawl.  i love my shawl because of the gorgeous yarn and colours but it was really a slog to finish – too much garter stitch!

sadly my mum is more a fan of neutrals than bright colours so the yarn she chose doesn’t really liven things up either…

i’m on repeat 14 of 22 though so need to stick at it – just over 2 weeks before we fly home so would be nice to have it all blocked and wrapped by then – need to get at it really!

what i really want to be working on though are these….

my little ripple- it is quite mini as i was just testing out the pattern really – i’ve not been a huge fan of crocheting in rows, mostly because i hate working into the foundation chain – it’s horrible and i always seem to miss chains and end up giving up.  this one went surprisingly ok though so maybe there’s hope for me yet.  it’s going to need a pretty substantial border though for it to be a wee lap blanket.

and my tweedie pie cardigan.  i took a bit of a break from this with moving house but really want to get back to it – am just about to start knitting the pocket on the front so although i’ve not gotten very far it’s headed in the right direction!

head over to tami’s blog to check out what everyone else has been up to this week

lesley x

holidays are coming

what a sight in my local supermarket car park on the way home from work.

that along with christmas decorations in the office and a salvation army band playing on my walk home mean that holidays are definitely coming

a very cheery festive start to the week 🙂

all we need now is some snow!

lesley x

a very long over-due yop update

scarily it’s been over 2 months since my last update.  moving house and being without internet for a very long 5 weeks means that it’s now the first sunday of december and i am writing this sitting curled up in front of the fire surrounded by sparkly christmas decorations while the grey skies do their worst outside.

this is the first place i’ve lived with a proper fire and i never move from in front of it – fire, tea, knitting and a blanket around me – the granny image is fully complete now!

so what have i been up to in the past 2 months then?  apart from packing and unpacking quite a lot actually!  i’ve managed to tick 3 things off my list…..

after much badgering from my other half i finally chose a pattern and got knitting.  i chose a stephen west pattern – honegart – which was really quick to knit up and luckily i had a couple of train journeys for work that week to get it all done.  full project details are on my project page here.

and then the reason why i finally gave in to badgering from the other half – if i was knitting myself armwarmers for the cold weather he needed a hat too!

i love these armwarmers – my first attempt at doing cables and the pattern was super-easy to memorise once i got going.  messed up on picking up the thumb but can’t have been too obvious as the designer is now featuring the top picture on the pattern page here *grins*

and now for the 3rd and final item on my list – which i’ve just realised was actually the first thing i finished – a big chunky infinity cowl.  originally i had the gap-tastic cowl on my list but decided to switch it for this squishy pattern instead

so all that’s left to complete my cosy winter wrap-ups is a cosy purple hat and i’m done.

there has been a little bit of christmas crafting though that has delayed my hat being started….

the crocheted decorations are ravelled here and here.

i have been getting up to some other non-yop knitting but will keep that for another day.

hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend

lesley x

new home, new start

everyone all settled in finally including me!

crafty progress update to follow soon!

lesley xxx

fo friday……or puff of the week

Tags

fo, hexapuff of the week, hexapuffs, knitting

as “fo” may as well stand for foreign object for me these days friday’s are going to become puff of the week on those weeks where i don’t finish something proper.

puff of the week this week involves some embroidering and some photo-shop action – as i can’t face reading about how photo-shop actually works it’s very limited action really but i missed the daylight with the camera today so it’s more so you can actually see anything!

and so to my new favourite puff…

i think it’s vaguely recognisable as a flower so that’s good enough for me!

for some more finished rather than foreign objects head to tami’s blog for some yarney goodness.

lesley x

tuesday tallies

so i’m a little bit of a “one-a-day” fraud – more like a “one-every-other-day” at the minute really!

i do have some pretty little puffs to share though

24 square centimetres means i’m probably about 1% of the way there to my finished quilt – need to speed up to one-a-day at least i think!!

check out carole’s blog for some other lovely one-a-day project updates

off to bed to rest my tired feet after 4 days (and an extra 2 evenings!) solid teaching

lesley x

wip wednesday

Tags

hexapuffs, knitting, wip

i have new work in progress to share – very exciting! since i finished my shawl over the weekend i’ve been thinking about tackling something big that isn’t another shawl.  i’ve done 2 now and it’s still not really cold enough to wear either without feeling distinctly uncomfortably – both from prickly warmth and odd looks from people who are still getting the last couple of weeks out of their summer sandals!

and so then – i have just started with this…

my first gauge swatch!  i did get really quite excited by the fact that i got the stitch gauge spot on but was a bit off on the row gauge but as i ordered an extra 3 skeins of yarn i’m going to go with it and hopefully end up with lovely cosy cardigan – fingers crossed……

although actually since i’ve just gone onto ravelry to create the project i’m thinking i might re-try the swatch on bigger needles – i could probably do with an extra inch or two width so will re-try tomorrow i think.

only other active wip this week is my bee-keeper – one new favourite hexapuff of the week so far…

not sure how all the colours will fit together yet but i’m still definitely a good way off needing to worry about it – 10 down, at least another 300 to go to get a decent sized quilt!

for lots of other projects make sure to go and check out tami’s blog

night folks

lesley x

 

easy like sunday morning

Tags

fo, hexapuffs, knitting, yop

so it’s been a while……i have certainly been a lazy blogger of late, not necessarily out of choice, rather that sleep after 14 or 15 hour days at work has seemed like the more sensible option.  after a nice chilled weekend though i feel a bit more like i’m back on an even keel again.

my house no longer looks sad and neglected and i’ve had a lovely couple of mornings enjoying the pretty corner of my kitchen and pottering about pretending i can cook and bake.

in reality though it really is just lots of tea and coffee drinking and biscuit dunking whilst thumbing through cookery books wistfully!

a lazy weekend more importantly also means time to actually knit! and due to a really rather productive weekend for me i have actually finished something from my yop list – yaaay!

my purple lighthouse shawl all finished ♥ i didn’t bother blocking it partly because i didn’t think it really needed it and partly because i’m a bit like a child and couldn’t wait any longer to actually wear it!

i’ve got a bit of a dilemma now though – there isn’t really anything on my list that’s grabbing me at the minute and giving me that urge to cast on – instead i’ve got so many other new patterns and ideas for projects that i’ve come across and fallen in love with over the past few weeks that i’m torn!

so while i decide, it’ll be more hexapuffs!

this is my one a day project, although i confess i haven’t actually completed one since monday so have a bit of catching up to do! hopefully my first mini skein club package that arrived from the natural dye studio will help!

added to my recent buys from the knitting goddess i’m building up a large enough mini skein stash to keep me going for a pretty long while!

so off a-hexapuff-ing i go!

happy sunday evening folks

lesley x

one, two, buzz, four, five, buzz

Tags

hexapuffs, knitting, yop

did you ever play that game when you were young? to “help” us learn our 3 and 4 times tables my mum told me and my brother – we had to go round in a circle and work our way through the tables with “buzz” being every multiple of either 3 or 4.

i did of course discover later on that it wasn’t a multiplication game at all, rather a drinking game that becomes infinitely more amusing the more multiples, words and drinks that are introduced!

so where does this come in to my yop update exactly……….hmmmm well it all started a week ago.  a lovely sunny bank holiday weekend that unfortunately involved my other half working on saturday and then me working on sunday.  after dropping him into work on saturday morning i decided to take myself out for a little breakfast treat

bagel, coffee and a good book that i would have finished the night before had i not been told in no uncertain terms to turn the light out or face the consequences!

it’s the first reading i’ve done really since i started knitting and i almost felt as great a sense of achievement finishing the book as i have done when finishing a knitted or crocheted lovely!

i then decided to do a little charity shop mooching and go and investigate the LYS – i’ve been to this part of manchester many times before but had never really paid much attention to the shop much less actually ventured in and so venture in i did. 

this was a bad move from a yop point of view……..

tiny skeins of sock yarn – apart from the unbelievable cuteness and excitement at the massive old sweet jar chock full of them – can you guess what my first thought on seeing these lovelies was??

yep, you’re right……………….bee-keeper quilt!

what could be better than tiny skeins – no need to wait until i’ve actually finished some socks for scraps of yarn, because, let’s face it, i’d be waiting a very long time! 

in this past week i have therefore gone a little mini-skein and bee-keeper mad!  much experimenting with different needles, frogging, and testing levels of puffiness has ensued and my yop progress has suffered insomuch as there has been no progress at all!

instead i have 5 little perfectly (in my eyes anyway!) formed hexapuffs and the very humble start of my “one, two, buzz” quilt (see there was some point to that story!)

this is going to be my one a day project – so i will be happy hexapuffing for a while yet!  as you can see from the pictures my first few are a variety of sizes as only had one set of dpns to begin with but think i prefer the bigger ones so going to stick with those so may not need quite so many!

and actually since i’ve started writing this i’ve been feeling even more guilty that i’ve not done anything on my yop items so i’ve just gone and picked up my purple lighthouse shawl and done another set of short rows so i don’t feel quite so bad!

hope everyone is enjoying the last of their weekend – i’m off to do another hexapuff!

lesley x