I've been having some very strange dreams over the last few weeks. In each one Mr C and I are both old and sat in a cold room in what must obviously be our home. There aren't many possessions around, but I'm somehow charged with making the whole place feel more homely. I go out and buy things from the charity shop and make curtains for the window and find a little jug to put flowers on the table in, but in these dreams we're both sat there freezing cold in the evening listening to the radio.Every time I've woken up from this dream I've felt the urgent need to somehow ... read more
Jellyfish hat
Well I've finished the hat that I was aiming to produce as Christmas present using the Patons Baroque yarn that matched what my mother in law was using to make a scarf. I had to give up on the first pattern for the simple fact that I couldn't follow the pattern and after a couple of wedges was totally lost with a completely different number of rows on the needles to what I was supposed to have!The yarn is pretty horrible to frog though and I ended up having to give up on the cast on row when taking it back as the fluffiness had just caused it all to be caught up so ... read more
Am I a Yappy?
According to tonight's thelondonpaper it seems that I'm a "Yappy". The article doesn't seem to be on their website so I'll summarise here for you.Apparently a "Yappy" is a Young Aged Pensioner; young people who rather than go out, instead stay in and knit, make jam and tend their allotments. In an article by Johnny Vaughan he asks whether or not this is a result of the credit crunch that's currently hitting us, or possibly something else.Thinking about it I've probably been a Yappy for a while now. I don't (yet) have an ... read more
Another knitting project
I'm trying to a be a bit imaginative when it comes to Christmas presents this year. My Mother in Law S is also doing the same. I got an e-mail from her the other day to tell me that she was knitting a scarf for my brother in law's girlfriend using Patons Baroque and thought I ought to know in case I fancied making a matching hat. Mr C and I started our Christmas shopping in Welwyn on Saturday afternoon and I hence picked up a couple of balls of Baroque in the same beautiful sea palate of colours that S is using. Having had a quick look on Ravelry there ... read more
Completed Cosy
By now all the knitting is complete and my sister's birthday gift wrapped. I'm pleased to say that I've finished the tea cosy, and in time for when I see her on Friday evening to celebrate her birthday! (Apologies for the photos not being that great - I've just not been home during day light hours this week and my photography skills in artificial light aren't all that great!)I'm thrilled that the small tea pot I bought in St Albans over the weekend fits fantastically well (and goes with the colour scheme rather well). Now I just have to hope that my sister ... read more
Time flies when you’re busy
I'm not too sure where time is going to at the moment. So much seems to have happened since the weekend, in addition to two full days at work! Mr C and I are in the middle of selling our flat at the moment. Sadly, the current credit crunch means that we're unable to buy our dream home in which to start a family and instead we're taking the slight different move of renting our flat back from the people who are buying it from us. We figure that this should leave us in a better position to rejoin the housing ladder once everything is sorted. This means that there's ... read more
Nearing completion…
Well the knitting part of my tea cosy is now complete - I just need to make it up. The only slight problem (as a few people on ravelry have said) is that it comes out to be quite small, and I don't think it will fit a normal sized tea pot. Luckily I found a cut little tea pot in a cookware shop in St Albans this afternoon and I think it will fit that.Now I just need to make sure it's finished before I see my sister for a birthday dinner on Friday night... ... read more
Tea cosy mania
I think there must be a bit of a tea cosy thing going on at the moment - I'm quite amazed by the number of people who seem to be coming to this blog having googled "tea cosy" or some similar phrase. I also seem to keep coming across mentions of tea cosies in pretty much every thing I read, especially on other people's blogs.I then came home from work today and found another of those Amazon e-mails suggesting something new to read - only today's was for Wild Tea Cosies by Loani Prior. Now I have to say that this book ... read more
Half way there
On the second attempt I've managed to get half way through my battenburg tea cosy, and I'm a quarter of the way through the second half as well.It's not looking as big as I expected, but then again the tea pot that the one in the book is shown on doesn't look much bigger than the tea cup next to it. It may well mean that it will be too small for my sister's tea pot, but then maybe I should just extend the gift so that it includes a new (small) tea pot as well. ... read more
Knitalong
I get quite a few e-mails from Amazon and I have to admit that quite a few of them end up not being read properly. However, I am a big fan of the recommendations that they send out and have discovered quite a few good authors via this route. I've not really tried out the system for non-fiction books, but having now bought quite a few knitting related books I'm starting to get some interesting recommendations into my inbox. One that arrived recently that I took advantage of was Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together by Larissa and Martin John ... read more