Sara's Little Dabblings

Cross Section of Wool

2011-07-26T23:08:00.000+01:00

Hello :)

Sheepish post. Literally! Oh dear...

Just came across this and thought it was pretty funky. Life's gone a bit nuts the last two months or so, hence the lack of knitting and posting. I'm getting back into things now though, I have some baby clothes to make for my (now 7 months, it's gone so quickly!) pregnant friend :)

Travelling Bags

2011-06-01T11:45:00.000+01:00

Morning :)

Thought I'd do a quick post to show what I ended up putting in the travelling bags.

I had a few duplicates, so these went into one bag, and a similar amount of colours went into the second. All in all, I've really enjoyed taking part in the whole thing :)

365 Project

2011-05-27T00:38:00.000+01:00

Morning,

A quick post before I try and force myself to sleep. Swapping back to days tomorrow, and I already know it's going to be horrible trying to make it to work by 8.30!

I've started a 365 project today with Leah and G. They are both on day 4, so I'm 3 days behind but that's not such a big deal. I wanted to do one back in January, but a 52 version - one for each week instead of each day. I thought it would be much more manageable, but I just wasn't getting the 'big' pictures I thought it needed, and I also struggled to motivate myself to use Lightroom as it involves fighting my laptop. But I want to get into my photography more, and I need to get into the habit of using my cameras more often.

So I've decided this time that my 365 is going to be random. As in, it's not going to restricted to anything. Some purists would argue that a 365 project has to have at least part, if not all of you in the pictures, a self-portraiture 365. I'm not quite ready for that yet!!

I'm going to use it as a way of charting the days, almost as a visual diary. If I've done nothing but drink miso soup all day, I'm gonna take a picture of miso soup, or it could be something totally different. It depends on my mood! I'll also be taking pictures on my phone and uploading them straight if I'm out and about and nowhere near my laptop. If I don't, I'm not sure I'll remember to upload them and then I'll fall behind.

Fingers crossed with the three of us doing it, that will be enough prodding to keep us on the straight and narrow!

xx

Travelling Squares

2011-05-26T01:35:00.001+01:00

Morning,

I've just finished watching The Prestige (really good, I'm getting into Christopher Nolan films now!) and while I was watching it I made 3 squares for my blanket. I have a lot of individual squares from travelling to work etc, I normally make 1 a day at least when I'm not reading my kindle all the time! Had to finish The Book Thief before I could do any more though, but that's all over now (awesome book btw). I'm up to 55 squares in the blanket, which isn't quite wide enough yet, and 21 individual squares that are set aside to introduce colours randomly all over the blanket and to widen it further.

So I've ended up picking out 10 balls of yarn from the travelling bag. Here's a quick picture of them all:

First up, I made a square of the sparkly rainbow yarn you can see at the bottom of the pic. It's quite funny, since buying a Colinette creative pack and noticing how much thicker Colinette Jitterbug yarn is to 'normal' sock yarn, I've been able to spot the Jitterbug yarn balls in the travelling bag a mile off! This is one of them :)

The sparkly thread running through it doesn't really show up in the picture, but it's there :) It's quite subtle, I love it. I might have to buy a little more...

Next I decided that an area with predominantly purples, pinks and blues needed a different colour. I was gonna go green but didn't have any to hand. So I went for this ball instead. It's so small that my scales didn't want to register how much it weighed (they are only 1g scales) and there's definitely not enough left for another square. Nice though. Not Jitterbug ;)

This one is Jitterbug! Went with orange to brighten up the area. I'm aware that my favourite colours are blues, greens, pinks, purples and turquoise/teals so each time I get a ball of yellow, orange or red yarn I make doubly sure to keep hold of it and put a few squares in!

Not a bad haul I don't think! Night all!

Travelling Bag

2011-05-25T11:35:00.000+01:00

Morning,

The first of two travelling bags arrived this morning. Had a slight moment of panic when I realised that both were headed my way and I wasn't sure which one this one was due to it not being labelled! I guess that's what you get for being greedy!

All trussed up in the bag.

Spilled out onto my bed. I've picked out 8 balls so far (most of which are out of view) that I'm going to either whittle down, or replace with some of my own. I haven't 100% decided yet.

Finished!

2011-05-22T15:52:00.002+01:00

Afternoon!

So last week I left it as a half finished bag with up to the handles sown together. This morning I got back from Watford and seeing as it was all nice and sunny decided that it would be a good day to throw open the curtains and do some sewing in natural light!

I sewed the handles together in three different ways in the end, not very good at this reversible malarky! I got there in the end though, and ended up with this...

Yay! A fully reversible bag! I turned it back inside out though and went over the handles again as there was one area where I'd run too close to the edge of the polka dot lining and I was a bit concerned it would run.

So after doing that, I then turned it back to the right way around, and then decided that I couldn't be arsed to hand sew the handles because I never intended to actually make it reversible anyway. So I did the lazy option of sewing straight across and doubling back across the top of the two handles, making a loop. And got this...

Ta dah! My first finished sewing machine project! Regardless of the fact I actually started it in January then ran aground, I reckon I could make one of these in a few hours if I started another one. It's surprisingly roomy - I don't really pay attention to those 1/4 inch seam allowance notes yet :S - and believe it or not, there's a full skein of sock yarn sat in the bag in that picture. This is my knew knitting bag (see what I did there?) and it's gonna be awesome :)

xx

Productive Morning

2011-05-13T18:41:00.002+01:00

Woke up today bright and early, and the sun was streaming in. Thought it was a good time to dig out my sewing machine again and make progress on the Japanese knot bag I started back in January!

I cut out the fabric wrong and then had to order another fat quarter, only for it to get lost in the post and then sort out a replacement...

Anyways, with fresh eyes it was a lot easier. And I realised that I had only cut the fabric wrong in the main fabric pictured above, which I have 2 metres of. Hadn't needed to order more after all! It's a pretty blue polka dot fabric though, and I'm sure I'll use it up.

Cut out new fabric, ironed on the interfacing, then did the same for the circular base except that I cut it out of the incorrectly cut fabric to save on time and fabric as I'd already ironed the interfacing on back in January.

Then it was simple to pin the fabric twins right sides together, and sew up the sides from the bottom. Trickier was pinning and sewing on the circular base!

I've done both now, so all that remains is the handles I think! I'm using this tutorial here which is fab :)

xx

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Mam's Socks

2011-05-02T11:07:00.001+01:00

Morning,

I promised to have these finished this weekend before I left, so just adding a few more rounds of ribbing and then casting off.

xx

Kool-Aid Yarn

2011-04-19T17:27:00.000+01:00

Evening,

Just a quick post to show you the results from Sunday...

Quite pleased with it! There's a little more red than I had planned in there - I used the same volume of red and blue but red has covered a much larger area, but I do like it. I'm going to use it for my May pair of plain vanilla socks I think! And then the leftovers will go in my sock yarn blanket :)

Kool-Aid dyeing in stages

2011-04-17T10:59:00.004+01:00

First grab your yarn, and your kool-aid sachets. Choose your colours wisely ;)

I bought my kit from DT Crafts and this is their method.

Unwind your skein of yarn. Posing it for a picture is optional.

Let the yarn soak for up to 45 minutes. This needs to happens so that the dye penetrates the wool completely, otherwise it goes blotchy. Depends what effect you're after I guess!

Note: This one just looks like spaghetti, my previous skein (90% alpaca, 10% nylon) looked like curly noodles after soaking!

Pour your kool-aid into an empty (clean) bottle. Note how the powder is white, yet magically turns blue when it touches water!! :)

Make up all the colours you need while the yarn is soaking. It doesn't take too long.

These are Ice blue raspberry (blue), lemonade (yellow) and strawberry (red).

Take out the yarn from the water it's been soaking in, and squeeze the excess water. I squeezed a bit too much, and by the time I got to the second and third colour had to put some water back on it. A spray bottle might be an idea if you have one, to keep it damp.

I'm awful at not tangling yarn while handling it! This is how not to do it! :)

Pour/dribble/drizzle/chuck your dye over the part of yarn that you want that colour. This time I did it in sections, the first time I dyed I did vertical stripes, which means very short colour repeats, and much more blending of the colours. Check underneath to make sure you don't have any white bits, and fill in the gaps if you don't want them. You can gently squeeze on the yarn to get the dye to move around a little more.

Once you've done all the sections, you need to 'cook' it to fix the dye. The citric acid in the kool-aid just needs heating up. Scoop up your yarn and put it in a pot. Add water because it's really important that it doesn't boil dry. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

(You can also do this in a microwave - put in a microwave suitable container, add some water and heat on full power for 3-4 minutes in 30 second blasts. When I did the first one mine took longer, I wanted to be sure that it was bubbling!)

(You can also steam the yarn on the hob for 20 minutes, or for 5 minutes if using a microwave steamer.)

Just to show the almost finished object :)

Simmering away nicely :)

Take the pot off the heat and allow to cool. Once this is done rinse the yarn well - insects are attracted to the sweet smell of the kool-aid so make sure you double rinse it!

Once rinsed, lay out flat to dry, you don't want gravity over-stretching your yarn and ruining it!

Once dry, rewind into a skein until you want to wind it into a ball. It's better to leave yarn in a skein until you need to use it, as winding yarn into a ball puts tension on the yarn, stretching it.

Have a lovely Sunday :)

Dying to have fun

2011-04-17T04:34:00.001+01:00

Morning,

Went to bed at 9pm so now I'm wide awake and apparently unable to sleep for more than 5 hours straight.

I was working today, well yesterday, so on my way home I popped into the supermarket near work and picked up a new 20cm stainless steel stock pot. It wasn't too expensive, but I would have preferred a larger size ideally.

It's going to be my new dye pot. And that must be true because I've written 'Sara's dye pot!' on it! I'm gonna have a go this morning hopefully, before I go to work, planning on splitting an undyed skein of yarn I bought off eBay into half, and dyeing it some wacky colours for the sock yarn blanket.

I'm also thinking of buying a lot of 5 skeins of sock yarn and some acid dyes and just having a go. Hence the stock pot, for kettle dyeing. If anyone has any recommendations for acid dyes please get in touch :-)

Have a lovely Sunday xx

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Yarn Porn

2011-04-14T22:10:00.000+01:00

Evening :)

I promised to show what lovely yarn had arrived this week!

First up is the package from The Knitting Goddess. It contains a Take 5 mini skeins pack in Flower Power, and 4 individual mini skeins.

All laid out in their colourful glory :)

Left to right: Sunset mini skein, Take 5 Flower Power mini skeins (attached to the label), Ocean mini skein, Turquoise semi-solid mini skein and Bollywood mini skein.

Bollywood, Ocean, Turquoise and Sunset.

I also had a Jitterbug creative pack from Colinette Yarns delivered. I was a little dissapointed with it though, not really my kind of colours at all, and the whole pack just screams 'BEIGE/BROWN!!!' at me!

There is a little hidden gem in there though, I love the hot pink skein. I do also like the skein next to it, with flashes of pink running through it. The skein on the left is 107g, almost a full skein so I think I will keep it intact for a pair of socks.

There isn't much to the mini hot pink skein but it should be enough for 5 or 6 squares! :)

The last shot is just the collection of yarns wound into balls that I'm knitting from at the moment. You can see that the pink Colinette, and Ocean and Sunset skeins from the Knitting Goddess have already been put into use! I'm making individual squares from smaller skeins, so that I can dot the colours around throughout the entire blanket, rather than have concentrations of colour in a one area.

Happy knitting :)

xx

Sock Yarn Squares

2011-04-11T10:51:00.000+01:00

Morning,

Here's a quick update so show you progress on the sock yarn blanket so far. It's beguiling, because it seems like it's growing really quickly due to the squares being pretty quick to knit, however I'm gonna need about 700 of them!!

Actually, having taken the picture it really doesn't seem like I've done anything at all! I've done a lot of individuals because I've been making 2-4 squares from the same yarn due to rapidly running out of yarn scraps! I've bought a Colinette creative pack, and some gorgeous mini skeins from Knitting Goddess so hopefully supplies will arrive soon! I've also signed up for two travelling swap bags through Ravelry, and picked up mini skeins through Folksy and Etsy. I'm also thinking of biting the bullet and buying another dying kit, this time using acid fast dyes which seem to have stronger, bolder colours. If that goes well I might be tempted to start selling mini skeins myself as there are a lot of people knitting sock yarn blankets!

I've also had a load of sock yarn arrive from Ravelry destashes and a sock yarn club, so I'll get on with taking pictures of those in the next week or so :)

Happy knitting :)

xx

Promising Beginnings

2011-04-08T10:30:00.028+01:00

Morning :)

I started on my sock yarn blanket yesterday, and immediately realised just how long it's going to take!

I'd like to do mine so that it's big enough for a double bed, although ideally I'd prefer it to be larger than that so that it can drape over. And seeing as it's going to be a few years before I can buy my own bed, when I do eventually buy one, I'd like it to be a tiny bit bigger than a normal double - a queen or a king ideally. Which means I have to make one that's huge to begin with.

I do have a fleeting fancy of making a single though, because I know when I move I'll have a single bed and I think that would look really great - and possibly more achievable within 6 months! But I know I'll probably never want to do another again, so I'm going to just have to suck it up and supersize it :)

What you probably don't realise, but I know full well, is that each of those squares took me the best part of an hour to knit (I'll get quicker) and are only 4.5 x 4.5 cm. Yep, centimeters! This is gonna need thousands.

It's enough to make a girl turn to...

And buy some....

When the going gets tough, the tough goes shopping it seems!!

xx

First Square

2011-04-07T11:30:00.001+01:00

First square of about 1,700!

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Growing nicely

2011-04-04T18:26:00.001+01:00

My TAAT are swimming along. I've already done more thank this, but I didn't have time to take a picture before I left for work. They are now 19.5cm long, and ready to begin the heel.

These are size 6 socks, and I'm going to give them to my mother. The yarn is Debbie Bliss cashmerino, which as you might be able to guess is made of merino and cashmere, with a little rayon thrown in for durability :-)

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Its a new month!

2011-04-02T22:15:00.001+01:00

So its a new pair of socks :-)

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Finished!!

2011-03-25T20:18:00.000Z

It's surprisingly hard to take pictures of your own feet!

First Attempt at Dying Yarn

2011-03-24T17:13:00.009Z

A month or so ago I bought a Kool Aid dying kit from DT Crafts. It was really good value, and came with comprehensive instructions and 12 sachets of Kool Aid so I thought 'what the hell' and bought it.

I had it delivered to the family home, as the house I'm renting in now doesn't have a microwave and I knew that you needed a microwave to 'cook' and fix the dye. However the instruction booklet also details how to do this in an oven, or on the hob so I brought the kit back up with me to Reading :)

I used a sachet of Lemon-Lime, Grape and Berry Blue Kool aid, and this is what I got!

The colours are a little more faded than how they were when I initially poured the dye on, but I love the overall spring feel of it.

It looks even better skeined up! I wasn't amazingly impressed with how it looked to begin with, but each time I see the skein I feel a little more happy about it. I'm thinking lacy socks maybe, or something which will show off the variegation but (hopefully) avoid colour pooling. Difficult I know! I didn't think about how short the colour repeats were going to be as I trickled the dye on, that was after when I realised that most of them are only going to be 2-6 stitches long! So the overall effect will be interesting I think!

(I rinsed the yarn well, but it still smells sickly sweet! I laid it out in the conservatory to dry overnight/next day. When I went to check on it in the morning the conservatory was full of flies! It was horrible :( Mam used some Raid and we left it for half an hour. Had 'fun' sweeping up fly bodies afterwards :S)

Yarn Winding

2011-03-24T17:13:00.007Z

Evening,

Last week was my first chance to use a yarn winder. My knitting class leader has one, and brought it with her so that I could wind my latest purchase into a ball so that I can use it. I'm thinking it will be awesome in a pair of Leyburn socks off Ravelry.

It's an oldie but a goodie :)

The yarn was custom dyed for me due to a slight listing mix up. I love the colours running through it :)

You can just about see my nosty in the background. Using a yarn winder is a hell of a lot quicker though!

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A Yarn Conundrum

2011-03-24T17:06:00.003Z

This post is primarily to ask for suggestions!

This skein arrived last week as my latest skein from YarnAddict's Not Just Socks Club.

It's 50% merino, 50% silk and is dyed in subtle pale green and silver/grey colours. It's perfect for the spring. However I'm slightly reluctant to use it for socks because there's only so many socks I can justify as house socks knowing that the yarn won't stand up to hours of walking around in work. The silk/merino blend will need careful handwashing, and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it!

It's also not a great picture. So if anyone has any suggestions, please get in touch!

xx

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An Awesome Way to Spend the day!

2011-03-24T17:03:00.002Z

Cheers!

xx

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First one down...

2011-03-07T23:34:00.001Z

Finished the first of a pair for my March socks :-)

xx

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Knitting Mojo Returns!

2011-03-03T11:25:00.000Z

Morning :)

I'm busily typing this blog post and ignoring the state of my room. It needs a good spring clean. Putting that on the to-do list!

I believe I have my knitting mojo back :) Partially if not completely - I've bought yarn (naughty!) and I've been knitting, I think that counts!

I was watching TV on Monday night after my knitting class - yep, it's back for the next 5 weeks - with a focus on 'family learning' which basically means knitting baby clothes. I took my KAL shawl with me and worked on it while at the class, but stopped fairly soon after getting there because we were focusing on mitred squares (an amazing blanket made this way can be seen here on the Mason Dixon KAL blog).

When I got home I was watching TV and it felt really odd not having something to work on while watching it. Plus it had just ticked over to Midnight and 01/03/2011 - Happy St. Davids Day everyone! - and that meant that if I started a sock project it would count for my YOSS Sock Club.

So I cast on! Using these 2.5mm Opal bamboo dpns for the first time. I've not used bamboo before. They seem alright so far. Sometimes they seem to drag and it can be quite difficult to get through the stitches. It feels like they need oiling a little!

I'm using this Regia yarn. It's the Kaffe Fasset design line. I have a problem in that I have bought 2 different colours of Regia yarn, and not been 100% with either. This one looked amazing in the picture... Having said that, I do like the short repeats every now and again, it makes a wave style effect every now and again. Just not 100% on the colours overall. The other was a replacement for an out of stock colourway that the lady on the phone assured me was nice. It's blue and beige...

This is where I got to before I turned in last night. This sock is growing *really* fast. I've kinda shocked myself. All that (about 6-7 inches) in a day. I started on the heel last night, it's definitely my favourite part of knitting socks, it's magic :) I'm going to Cardiff this weekend and this will be on the train with me :)

I went yarn shopping last week, and these arrived at my door. These are hand kettle dyed by Ruth of Ruthmel1 on Etsy. She has amazing colours! I'd love an unlimited budget to try all of her yarns! The largest skein (Storm Cloud) is gorgeous, but the other has been replaced by a custom dyed one that Ruth made for me this week due to a photo mix up on the listing. The new one is gorgeous, and my very first custom dyed skein!

These are the other two skeins from my 'payday yarn spree' on the same day. The flash doesn't really show it, but the second skein is sparkly :) It's going to make the most amazing, soft and sparkly sock. I know just the project for it!

xx

January Swap Partner Make

2011-02-25T12:53:00.001Z

Howdy,

Remember a few weeks ago I took part in a swap organised by Jordan of In it to knit it?

In the parcel I sent her were some cute Hello Kitty buttons that I found online. Jordan's been pretty busy and made some slippers finished with the buttons, and if you visit her blog post here you can see them!

Have an awesome Friday!

xx

Darkroom Shenanigans

2011-02-24T13:08:00.002Z

Afternoon :)

I'm a happy little bunny today. Yesterday I had my darkroom induction and I was kinda dreading it. The whole loading film in the dark and screwing it up thing.... when I worry about things I worry about them far in advance!

I met Andy at 9.30am at the only spot on the Reading Uni campus I know, which is where our meetings are usually held. The Darkroom is housed in an old nuclear bunker building though, which involves walking to the other side of the campus, crossing the lake and then finding the 1960s building with a water tower on top of it! I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to get there smoothly when I go on my own for the first time!

Regardless, we got there and then got settled in. The room's fairly small, but will fit 2 people quite comfortably. Three would be pushing it! The door to get in is a tiny corridor with a lightproof door. It's the lightproof door that the fun lies behind!

Andy started off with showing me things one step at a time. So the first step was to load my film onto a spiral and place it in a developing tank. Andy demonstrated, then I practised twice and then it was time for the actual thing. Off went all the lights!

Things went pretty smoothly as you can start to feed in the film to the spiral using the feeder before you need to turn the light on. However I did manage to get the film to pop out of the holder at one point, so Andy intervened to fix it. The second time it popped out I did it myself :) It's really wierd trying to pass something in the dark to someone that you know is stood in front of you but you cannot see at all!

Once it was loaded, the lights got switched back on. Then we mixed up the developer and it was time to start! This stage goes pretty smoothly, so long as you keep an eye on the timer! Once the developer, stop bath and fixer have been done, the tank is flooded with running water for 5-10 minutes to wash away any remaining chemicals and silver.

Half the water is poured away, and two drops of wetting agent are added to the remainder, and the tank is shaken for 30 seconds. The tank can be opened with the light on because the film has been fixed. The spiral opens and two clips are attached to the film on either end. One is weighted and placed at the bottom, the film is then squeegeed and hung up to dry in a drying cabinet. It's then cut into strips of 6 negatives.

That's the film developing done!

Productive Morning

2011-02-19T12:19:00.000Z

Howdy :)

I've been busy so far today (for me, on a rare weekend off)! I definitely didn't buy 4 skeins of wonderful yarn, but I definitely did finish my roll of colour film while taking pictures of random things around the house. And I definitely have just (hopefully) successfully loaded and started a new roll of black & white film. I've showered, eaten and theoretically I'm now ready to leave the house and start my photography trip.

Aim of the day: Take at least 5 photos to be entered into a competition for the local university's history department, using the list of places I've been picking out this week.

Realistic aim of the day: Wait for the rain to go, then venture out to the river at the bottom of my road and take pictures of the two 'historic' bridges, wander into town and take a few more but not all the ones on my list.

I really don't like being out and about taking photos on my own. It's a confidence and scared of being challenged thing. If I'm with someone else, or in a group that's perfect but I'm worried (hopefully for nothing) that I'll be stopped and asked why I'm taking pictures of landmarks! It's the same in London, I don't like taking pictures of things too much because the terrorism paranoia is even bigger there. I don't imagine Reading gets many tourists taking pictures, so I should stick out like a sore thumb!

Wish me luck! :)

xx

Trying to get the Mojo back

2011-02-18T09:31:00.000Z

Morning :)

Shameful confession of the week time! I haven't done any knitting in at least a week. I was knitting Theodora, a mystery Knit-a-Long, and progressed very nicely twice. Then I dropped a stitch and just could not for the life of me figure out how to get it back! It's a kerchief/neck warmer thing, and the first half is worked in linen stitch which looks great.

I received an *amazing* parcel on the weekend. A month back I bought a Let's Knit magazine that came with 2 free skeins of Cookie yarn, a brown/beige and white yarn with various slubs and tufts along it. I didn't like it, however on Ravely a couple of people were asking if there were any spare to be sent their way. I sent mine to Marie and did not expect to receive anything back. However Marie is a lovely soul, and insisted that she did. A week or so later, 6 balls of wool turn up on my doorstep! (In the post, obviously ;)) I was gobsmacked, so a MASSIVE thank you to Marie, I really, really appreciate it. It was such a nice thing for her to do :)

The only knitting related thing I have done this week is to wind my very first yarn cake! Last week a skein from my monthly Sock yarn club from YarnAddict arrived, and while the colour wasn't too my taste I quite fancy making some nice and cozy socks for Mam out of it. It's made of 70% superwash Bluefaced Leicester wool, 20% silk and 10% cashmere, so it should make a lovely treat for Mam :)

I'm also still taking part in the February YOSS club so I'm thinking I'll knit them up in stocking stitch as 'plain vanilla' socks.

I also have a pair of gloves on the go, an apple cosy, and Gu's shawl - which is nearly finished but I kinda want to turn it into a cape.

It's all just gonna have to wait until Monday because this weekend is already booked as a photography weekend! Need to use up the rest of my colour film and then use a roll of B&W for my darkroom induction on Wednesday, plus there's a competition with a Sunday deadline that I should like to enter...

xx

Darkroom Fun!

2011-02-16T06:58:00.001Z

I finally made it to a PhotoSoc meeting last night and made friends with the lovely Andy who has booked a darkroom induction with me for next week. Excited!

xx

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Folksy Lustings!

2011-02-06T12:54:00.002Z

Morning :)

I've woke up with a horrible pounding headache today after staying up until 3am knitting the first half of Clue #1 of the Criminal Knits Mystery Knit-A-Long so I thought I'd have a browse on Folksy and easy my pain!

If you weren't already aware, you can follow Folksy on Twitter which is how I found the tweet about some of the latest featured sellers who I went to visit...

So here is CoCo Crafts of www.cococrafts.co.uk. I love their bags! I've picked out about 8 that I would be very, very happy to buy if I wasn't skint - always the way! I have my own little wish list with what I would use each bag for!

(All photos are from the item descriptions, and copyrights belong to the shop owners, not me.)

This Dawn clutch is gorgeous. A lot more grown up than I normally go for, but perfect for nights out or when I'm dressing up, I just love it!

This is Bethan who is just lovely. I love this style of bag, and the longer handles means that it's easier to put the bag on your shoulder, and the roomy bag means I can put everything I need for work in it!

Bethan even comes in a range of gorgeous colours and fabric combinations!

This is Laura who would live inside my Bethan bag :)

Laura also comes in awesome different colours and fabrics, which just means that I want to buy them all!

This is Gemma, who is very cute and perky! She'd be a knitting project bag, for an awesome pair of socks!

Sian would be awesome to wear on nights out because I always wear little bags that go across my body so that I can dance for hours without having to the awful 'dance around your bag' huddle, or the 'keep one arm tightly pulled in on your handbag' dance!

I realise that I could have just said at the top 'GO SEE THIS SHOP!' but that wouldn't have been half as fun as this post! Why do I always find gorgeous things on Folksy when I can't afford to buy things?! I'm just my own worst enemy lol.

Happy start to the day

2011-01-28T11:08:00.000Z

Morning!

I was woken up this morning by the postman (quickly followed by a bit of a hangover headache - went for sushi and wine last night with my housemate).

I opened the door to receive a box, which I eagerly opened to find it contained this

I have no idea what this is! I bought a nostepinne, but none of the pictures I've seen of nostepinnes look like this - confused!

Any idea?

Then the doorbell rang again, with a different post man (from the same company bizarrely). He came bearing German gifts...

Oh yeah! I never knew they included a pattern and some gummy bears - cute! Sabrina is a lot darker than I anticipated (this picture has been taken with a flash) but I love the colour.

A close up of the scarf pattern that came in the package.

Sabrina sitting in the natural daylight (most of my pictures are taken in my room with 3 bulbs).

I quickly ran to dig out my other skeins of Wollmeise to compare them. I definitely go for a certain 'set' of colours, in yarn and everything else!

I think Sabrina feels at home already :)

Thanks Wollmeise!! Mam would love these :)

I also had my first issue of my Making magazine subscription arrive, so I can take that to work with me to read this afternoon. A yummy skein of Wolle's colour changing creations cotton yarn arrived yesterday too (more on that in another post as it's earmarked for my first ever Knit-a-long) so it's been a good 24 hours for presents in the post!

Blimey!

2011-01-26T23:51:00.001Z

Blimey, I go 'away' for a few days and my visitor count jumps to 700?!

Thank you for dropping by! :)

Normal service (eg lots of shopping, and some pictures) will be resumed very shortly.

I'm currently working my 23rd day of the 26 days in the month so far, and my brain is more than a little fried. Lots of sleep and sushi are helping though!

I cast on an apple cosy tonight, that helped too :)

xx

Cute 'n' quirky swap!

2011-01-21T23:01:00.000Z

Evening!

Today is definitely good. Just got back from work to a parcel. Turns out it's from a swap I'm currently taking part in! The theme was kawaii critters, organised by inittoknitit94 in the Cute 'n' Quirky Ravelry group. Jordan has an awesome blog, which you can pop along to have a look at once you see what my gifts were! ;)

As there were only 3 of us from the UK taking part this time, we did a round robin style swap. So my partner was called babyjenny83, and she posted to me, while I post to Jordan who herself posted to babyjenny83! A nice little circle :)

Cute right?! There's a little card, a lip pallette, a penguin mirror, a magic towel and some cute blue nail varnish :D Thank you Jenny!

This is definitely my favourite item of them all, it's adorable!

Haven't peeled off the peel off covers yet :)

The little flower inside the lip pallette kit is so cute and dainty :)

I had fun with this one :D

Unfurling in some warm water...

Love it! It reminds me of Curious George, which is such a good film. One of my favourites, after I watched it for the first time in uni I tracked down a Curious George poster online and it had pride of place on the wall above my desk :)

I'll be posting my pictures of what I sent once I know Jordan's received it - no giving the game away by accident!

xx

Full of WIN!

2011-01-21T07:56:00.000Z

Morning!!

Yes it is 7.45am, and I would not normally ever be seen at this hour when I'm on lates but last night I thought, well I've been normally getting up at 8.30 this week, so why not try an hour earlier and see if you can catch any Wollmeise. This stuff is like catching fairy dust - sells out in minutes, so I wasn't expecting to get anything.

YEAH BABY!!!

Log on, see stuff on the in stock page. *happy dance*

A skein of the gorgeous sabrina (100% superwash merino) is aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall mine!

*Stock image from Wollmeise.

It's a gorgeous colour! More of a turquoise/green teal than a blue teal I think. Time will tell! I'm hoping that seeing as it's from Germany I won't have to pay tax on it because it's from an EU country.

Happy :) Good morning!

xx

My First Socks!!

2011-01-18T21:28:00.002Z

Evening,

I am rather proud of these babies :)

They fit perfectly, and are knit in Abstract Cat Crafts Pool Party. Love them! Go get yourself a skein and join in the fun :)

Ravelry Stashing

2011-01-18T11:54:00.001Z

Morning,

There was lots of lovely sunshine this morning when I woke up. It poured down all night, and now it's nice :)

Yesterday was a good day. Work went pretty smoothly (always a plus!), then Jamie and I went to Yo! for some sushi afterwards. They have a 40% off deal at the moment. Mine came to £14, and Jamie stupidly refused to print out a voucher and his came to £34 :S I did tell him! He didn't want to bother with registering and printing. I bet he's done it today!

After that it was time to head to my knitting class. I met my friend who also goes at the bus stop so we had a good catch up on the way. She's been ill with flue over the last 3 weeks or so, so I hadn't seen her since before Christmas. Last time I saw her she had finished her first sock and was on her second (both fairly small). This time she's finished a pair of massive long socks in Regia yarn. They looked great! And the funniest thing (for me) was that one of the leaders had cast on her first pair of socks in the exact same yarn on Saturday on the class trip to the Knitting Reference Library. (Which I will post about again!)

Last night, due to popular demand, we covered crochet. When we were are the knitting library we found a great book of crocheted toilet roll holders. We all thought they were hilarious, and started asking Gabrielle if she'd show us how to crochet so we could try to make some.

It's a lot different to knitting :) The yarn wraps around the opposite way, and I wasn't very good to begin with. Well, for the first hour or so I just couldn't get an even tension on my foundation chain. After the 3rd or 4th try, I managed one that wasn't too shabby, then tried to learn how to do a double crochet. That took a while! I got there in the end though, and by the end of the 2 hour class I was quite happily crocheting along!

After I got home having promised myself that I wouldn't sleep until I'd finished my socks, all I wanted to do was crochet! Was a very odd feeling! I put on some Criminal Minds (Ravelry has got me watching it) and finished the socks off just before midnight. Then I did a little happy dance in them, and wore them all night to sleep!

This morning when I woke up the first thing I thought of was of trying to crochet something. Then I noticed the sunlight, and grabbed my camera and most of the yarn that I've been buying recently! It's taken a while, but I'm going to update my Ravelry stash, because I don't like not having pictures for yarn. Bit of a completist attitude, but I want to see them!

So for your yarn viewing pleasure, here are some of my most recent purchases :)

Pout from Abstract Cat Crafts.

Tom's Mam bought this for me :)

I joined YarnAddict's sock yarn club (they have a lace one too) and this lovely, squishy skein was the first months prize :)

This is an oldie. I had this in the Beginner's Knitting workshop at the Knitting & Stitching show in October 2010. I love the texture of it, but I'm not sure I'll ever use it.

Some Regia sock yarn to play with.

Some Zitron Filigran laceweight that I haven't picked out a pattern for yet, but I'd like to make a shawl or a scarf I think.

My Wollmeise arrived! This beauty is a WD 100% superwash merino in Fuschia.

These are the 3 skeins together. Left to right: WD Fuschia, Twin Ballerina and WD Vergissmeinnicht (Forget Me Not) at the back.

In their sunlit glory :)

Cupcake Needs

2011-01-15T00:52:00.001Z

Oh hell, I just found these.

Want!!

I already kind of have a cupcake liner collection problem and I might be slightly obsessed with polka dots..... These are from the amazing shop The Cupcake Social on Etsy.

Go buy!

xx

Officially turned!

2011-01-13T00:16:00.001Z

I like turning heels, I hate picking up stitches :-(

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Starting the heel

2011-01-12T18:12:00.001Z

Just about to start the heel of my second sock. This is one of my favourite bits :-)

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I have great news!

2011-01-12T09:44:00.000Z

Morning!

It's Wednesday today and the last two days have been pretty nice to me.

On Monday it was the return of my knitting course, week 7. It's been going really well and I like everyone there. Although my partner Betty hasn't been for the last 3-4 classes so I'm hoping she's okay. We covered lace this week, and it's given me a bit more confidence to have a go at some lush shawls and scarves I've seen on Ravelry. I suspect that I wasn't doing yarn overs correctly before, which would explain why the scarf I tried for Angharad back in October which needed lots of them every 3 stitches didn't look right! I haven't tried doing them since then so I can't really remember how I was trying to do them.

Good news!! Gabrielle (the class leader) announced that (it looks like) the course will be continuing for an extra 6 weeks, yay! There'll be a 3 week break after we get to week 10, and then the 'new' course will start for 6 weeks and finish just before Easter. This means there'll be even more things to learn :)

Bad news! My jumper is too small. I've always known I'm a tight knitter (something I desperately need to rectify) but so far it hasn't been too big a problem because I haven't done anything apart from socks that need shaping. Well this time it is. My front panel with the diagonal rib pattern is too small by 3 cms, which is a fair amount! And that's with using an already bigger size of needles than the yarn ball band recommends! So I'm going to frog it (unravel the whole thing) and start again casting on 68 stitches instead of 64. It's not too bad, I'm not really attached to the whole thing as yet, thankfully!!

Good news!! I can put my socks in as my project for the class instead! Yay! And *phew* because I suspect I won't get the jumper finished in time otherwise.

Good news!! Knitting trip to Winchester on Saturday to visit a museum which is free and part of the course.

Bad news! Tom isn't impressed that I won't be visiting him instead.

Good news!! Last night we got out of work at 8.40pm. We normally leave about an hour later on Tuesdays as it's one of our busiest nights. We still had shit loads of samples, we just got through them really quickly somehow! Plus we had luck with 2 of the last 3 couriers not having anything for us :)

My second pair of socks is now about 3 inches long. I'm knitting the stocking stitch rounds until I get to the heel. I hate this part :( It's never ending.

xx

xx

New year, new lusts!

2011-01-04T19:42:00.000Z

Evening!

To distract myself from my chest infection I've decided to post some lovely things I've found on Folksy :) (All photos are from the item descriptions, and copyrights belong to the shop owners, not me.)

First up...

I'm loving my greens/blues/teals lately. I love the teal bits in between the beads, and how the colours all mesh together. I need to find some sock yarn in this colour! You can buy this lovely bracelet from AMIdesigns :)

In keeping with the blues/greens/purple phase I'm in, I found this yarn 'Petulant' from Spinning a Yarn. I think this colourway would make gorgeous socks - it's not too girly for work with the stripes of grey, and it would look really good even knit up as a plain stocking stitch sock :)

And last but not least....

Anybody feel like buying one of these in a size 10 and sending it my way? ;) I adore this dress from Dig For Victory, and this particular dress is just the latest one from their shop that has caught my eye!

Need to STOP! (And I don't want to)

2010-12-31T08:28:00.002Z

Morning,

Does it count if I made a new year's resolution to stop spending as much money on yarn if I buy them before it hits midnight?

I bought 2 skeins of yarn yesterday. One from Goddess Knitting, and another from a little shop called Wollmeise.

Yep.

I fail at not spending money on yarn. I ordered the Goddess skein from the website direct, but the Wollmeise is coming through swaps with ever-so-kind-and-enabling Ravelry users. I'm also in talks to buy another 2 skeins, just waiting for the payment details.

Excited! I'm getting a skein of 100% merino Ballerina (a luscious purple that I've seen a gorgeous shawl for, my first lace work?), a skein of 80/20 twin WD Vergissmeinnicht (Forget me not which will make lovely socks) which are lovely, and (supposedly) lastly a skein of 100% Fuschia which is a shocking bright pink that would make amaaaazing socks :D

Now I'm really impatient for them to arrive (which will take aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages, and I'll have to pay for customs probably) and then not buy any more for the next 3 months. Which will probably be really easy, on account of how hard it is to actually buy them from the online shop when there's an update!

At midnight tonight I can start making my sock for this month's YOSS sock!

xx

Crafty New Year Resolutions

2010-12-29T01:04:00.000Z

Morning,

I've decided to make some crafting new year resolutions. Care to join in?

This year I intend to:

- learn to use my sewing machine properly, and make a garment that I can wear
- knit more socks!
- complete my knitting course, and my project for it
- update this blog more often
- complete a 52 photography project (1 picture a week, minimum)

At the moment it's fairly open ended, which for me is good because I get tied down in specifics and then if it doesn't look like I can do it then I give up.

I'm going to join and knit up more socks as part of the Ravelry group 'Year of Stash Socks 2011' which aims to get people using all the lovely yarn hidden away in stashes and make some lovely socks to display them.

I'm going to sign up because as of right now;

- I have 5 skeins of sock wool that I need to use before I buy more in the next Knitting & Stitching shows, and so that I can get better at knitting overall.
- At least one pattern of the 2 provided each month will be free, so that will help budget wise - and I won't be buying yarn and then not using it, which will also be better for my budget as it will (supposedly) stop me from buying any new yarn!
- I liked knitting my first sock, and I want to see where it goes :)

I also subscribed to Making magazine yesterday, so that will provide lots of lovely inspiration for dressmaking ideas, and the more crafting I do the more pictures I take of what I make, and the more the blog gets updated!

It all ties in very nicely! What are your new year resolutions?

xx

Merry Christmas!!

2010-12-26T12:08:00.000Z

And a happy new year! I hope you all have time to do something you like over Christmas :)

Yesterday was lovely. I had a sewing machine!! Well excited about that, does anyone know of any blogs with sewing tutorials on? I've not used one before so I'm looking forward to doing new projects and learning as I go. There is a dressmaking for beginners course run by the centre where I attend my knitting course, but it's 15 weeks long and it's going to be too difficult for me to rearrange all my shifts in work so that I can attend them all.

I also had a brilliant knitting solutions book (I'll get the proper name soon) which is written by an experienced knitter and is basically full of answers and solutions to problems knitters may come across. I've only had a quick flick through but it does look great - a brilliant Ravelry alternative if I can't get online as well!

I made a chocolate log yesterday, I'll post a picture soon. It looked pretty good (even if I say so myself!).

Unfortunately 3 out of the 4 of us are ill with something, but it's still nice to be home even if I am ill!

Merry Christmas xx

Finished!!

2010-12-21T23:33:00.002Z

Evening!

Only a quick post as I'm desperate to go to bed (and the toilet, but that's the Guinness talking)!

I finished my sock last week and I love it! I've ordered another two skeins of wool from Abstract Cat yarns as a Christmas present to myself!

I've also started and completed a scarf for my friend Angharad. She picked out some Sirdar Squiggle yarn in 'Applejack' back in October and I've been wondering for ages what to make with it. It's a super chunky yarn made of two chunky yarns twisted around each other - and each strand is variegated which means there are different colours running throughout it! Took a long time, and some Ravelry advice but I decided on a scarf pattern in the end. Actually only took about 3 hours to knit from start to finish, really quick and it actually looks pretty good to! It uses twisted drop stitch so each stitch opens out and shows the construction of the yarn with the double strands. I think it looks pretty good, and it should be nice and warm and cosy!

xx

Sock Progress!

2010-12-15T03:28:00.000Z

Morning!

Gosh I haven't updated my sock report on here for ages! I literally spent the week before last knitting my sock every spare moment I had - on the bus, breaks, at home... Then an expansion for one of my favourite games was released and I spent a week pretty much just playing that!

I've completed the gusset (which took forever). Knitting 7 inches of stocking stitch is really tiresome and boring, to the point where I was just getting bored of the whole thing so the game was a good distraction.

However I'm pleased to report that tonight I have finished the toe shaping! Yay!! I'll post a picture when it's finished, but I think I've just got the kitchener stitch to do to stitch up the seam on the toes. Not really looking forward to it as it does look a little confusing on the tutorial I'm using (Silver's Sock Class) but if I can turn a heel then I can definitely do it :D

More pictures soon!

xx

Turning the heel!

2010-12-03T21:25:00.002Z

Well, not quite. But I'm getting to that point! Exciting :-)

xx

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Inspiration

2010-12-02T23:43:00.001Z

I know exactly what to with my other skein of Pool Party :-)

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Ripped my Sleeve

2010-12-01T10:17:00.026Z

Evening,

Monday night was Knitting Night. Week 4 of the Knitting course. I'm really enjoying it so far. I'd nearly finished my sleeve so I took it along with me, and Gabrielle came to have a look at it. Me being impatient and overeager - it turned out I'd read the pattern wrong, and instead of doing increases on each end of a certain row, I'd only done them on one side. I ripped back 82 rows! Then started another so that I can steam the kinks out of the old ball so as to not affect the tension in any way.

Bit of a horrible day in work last night. It seems like everywhere apart from Reading has had snow this week. One of our courier collection points was snowed in, and meant that instead of us getting ~100 samples at 5pm when there were lots of us around and plenty of time to process them, we were told we were getting 120 of them after 10pm!

Didn't make the for the best evening. We finished all the samples by 9pm, and then had to lose 1.5 hours. Thankfully I had my knitting with me so I did about 12 rows of my sleeve which is good.

The exciting news for yesterday is that more wool arrived! I naughtily bought some more Abstract Cat yarn last week. I blame Laura (the lady that makes them) for making them look so pretty! She currently has a sale on (so be quick) and I picked up two skeins of Pool Party. I'm not supposed to be buying any until after Christmas but I justified it because it was on sale... hehe!

I rolled one into a ball while I watched a documentary on iPlayer, thankfully it didn't take very long!

I did think about using them for a shawl or something, but I've impulsively just cast on my first sock!

It's so pretty :) There's plenty more left on Abstract Cat if you fall in love like I do!

I didn't fancy knitting any more of my sleeve, and this week was Sock Knitting focus week on the Knitting course. We have two ladies making their first pair of socks on magic loop, and on Monday Gabrielle brought in several pairs of hers to better show how to construct and turn the heel, and finish the toes.

I've been saying that I was going to make socks for a while, I bought my 2.5mm dpns two days after I went to the Knitting & Stitching Show back at the beginning of October. Well now I'm finally using them! I'm using Silver's Sock Class as a tutorial, which has plenty of pictures of the different stages on dpns and I'm trying to get used to holding 4 needles at once!

Wish me luck!!

A Sleeve!

2010-11-24T22:46:00.001Z

Sorry for the bad picture!

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Have a look at these beauties!

2010-11-23T22:26:00.001Z

Evening :)

How cool are these?!

I randomly found this link and saved it so that I could post it on here, they are fab!

Last night's knitting class was fun. Three people couldn't make it so we pulled the tables together and sat ourselves around one giant one, instead of around 4 separate ones. It made a big difference, and it was much nicer and easier to talk to everyone.

I showed Fabba my trick of picking up dropped stitches, or whenever I need a helping hand by using a knitting marker pin that one of the class leaders hadn't seen before. In turn, they checked my pattern and made sure it was okay, helped me work out my right and wrong sides for my knitting and I got stuck in with my sleeve!

Tonight was Photography night (PhotoSoc). It's the first one I've been to this academic year, as I've just been busy in work, ill or just didn't feel up to it! Bad habits :( Tonight was a practical studio session which was unlike the one last year in that last years was specifically so that the DramaSoc could get shots done for an upcoming play programme. Tonight's was more on different types of lighting, different ways of setting the shoot up to achieve different effects etc. And I got to have a go! Last year I only had my digital compact, which while fully manual is not ideal! I couldn't attach the flash sync, so had to try and time my shots to catch the flash set off by those doing the photography with SLRs using the flash sync. Kinda difficult! Plus at the end of it all, even thought I got some good shots, the ISO noise rendered them useless.

Tonight I had my (borrowed) SLR and now I just need to have a look and maybe do some tweaks before I can put them on Flickr :)

Happy Sara :)

xx

Casting on a sleeve

2010-11-18T06:53:00.002Z

Morning,

Just thought I'd pop this up quickly before I head to work.

Cast on a sleeve last night. This is the cuff, 10cm of K1, P1 ribbing. I don't think it's looking too bad so far...

xx

Got my wool, I'm good to go!

2010-11-15T17:55:00.000Z

Evening,

Life is pretty good (hopefully). Dat's currently in the middle of his triple bypass operation. It was scheduled for Wednesday but an earlier slot came up, they asked if he wanted it and Dat said yes.

I've just bought my yarn for my jumper pattern! I started a vintage knitting course last week. Last week was about meeting everyone, talking about the course and picking some patterns that we each liked. I found three I wanted to do, and after having some trouble with my favourite (second most difficult of the three) I'm now making the easiest pattern. I've not made a jumper before so it'll be challenging. It's a 36 line repeating pattern so I'd best not mess it up!

I've got a green/turquoise chunky acrylic yarn. It probably won't me amazing but I'm learning :) At £1.79 a ball it was most definitely a shit load cheaper than the other yarns I saw on the weekend!! Huge difference between £180 and £15!

Will post a pic of the colour when I manage to take some in natural light :)

Knit Cafe book

2010-11-13T19:28:00.001Z

Evening!

I hope you're well. I'm freezing and watching the boyfriend go kart at a random spot in London. It's his friends birthday and they were supposed to start at 5.30. They started an hour later, but are only now actually racing!

I'm pretty content though. I visited Loop and I Knit today. I was hoping to buy some yarn to knit my vintage jumper pattern but I worked out it would cost me about £160 to buy the necessary amount in Loop. Gutted :-( It was full of gorgeous yarns, and I was quite happy to stand, look and stroke! Tom was with me and a bit bored though, so we left and went to the pub to see the second half of his favourite football team play. Compromise eh?!

After that we travelled to Waterloo to visit I Knit. By this point I'd decided I was going to make the other jumper pattern, which is slightly easier and knit in DK on 7mm needles instead of 4-ply on 4 different sizes! It was still pretty expensive to get the necessary amount of DK though so I gave up.

I'll have to try again at Jacksons on Monday. The most expensive 4-ply they had was £4 a ball. Granted it probably won't be as pretty, but I think I should play it safe to begin with until I know the pattern and know I like the end results!

On the way to go karting we walked past a discounted book store. I picked up a copy or Knit Cafe for £3.99 which is well worth it (rrp £9.99).

I've just read the entire thing while waiting for the go karters. There's a few patterns in there I just know I'm going to make! If you find a copy take a look.

I'd love it if there was somewhere similar in Reading, I love the whole feel, idea and philosophy behind it. If I could open one, I would :-)

Have a good evening!

xx

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Quiet one?

2010-11-13T14:33:00.000Z

Waiting for Tom to finish his pint and watching his football game so that we can go to Waterloo to buy some wool :-)

xx

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My vintage knitting pattern!

2010-11-10T23:12:00.001Z

On Monday I went to the first class of the Generations Together, Knitting Together course I enrolled on.

We spent 2 hours talking about the course, what we hoped to get out it it, knitting, yarns, and looking at hundreds of patterns.

I picked out 3 that I liked, and most importantly (for me) that I would wear. I see lots of gorgeous patterns but I'm never sure I would wear them. These I would :-)

I got some photocopies done so that I can make them even after the course finishes.

I've chosen to make the one in the picture for the course. It's from an Elle book of designs from France, 1984. It's the kind of thing I would wear with jeans or leggings, day or night :-)

It's knitted in 4-ply which is the same as sock wool, so its gonna take a lot of time but I'm looking forward. It'll stretch me, which is good as there are plenty of ladies there that will be able to help me.

It's a sweater so it involves making up, changing needle sizes, diagonal ribbing, and shaping. I wouldn't have dared try something like that otherwise. I can't even work up the nerve to knit socks!

xx

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Christmas cards are done!

2010-11-01T00:19:00.001Z

This is a sneak preview of one of the Christmas cards I've done this year. I won't post the finished ones in case an intended recipient sees them, but I'm glad I have finished them.

I've been doing these while giving my wrist a rest from knitting.

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Lucky, Lucky Man

2010-10-28T11:40:00.002+01:00

Morning,

My grandfather had a heart attack on Monday. He died three times. He was running for a train to go to a Ramblers meeting (he's a really fit man for his age) and had run up 2 flights of stairs, across a bridge and down 2 flights of stairs. He bought his ticket, sat down on a seat on the platform and keeled over.

Incredibly luckily there was an off duty policewoman and an asian student also on the platform. Someone noticed Dat had collapsed and they both knew first aid and went to help. They did CPR on him for 20 minutes until the ambulance came. He had another heart attack on the platform during the CPR, and another inside the ambulance where they used a defibrillator and brought him back again.

This all happened at 9am. I turned up at the same train station at 10.30am, got my train from the same platform quite happily and went home. There were no signs of anything having happened.

I then had a text from Mam at 3.30pm to say that he'd collapsed and she'd be in touch. Over the next half hour or so she told me what had happened.

He's currently in Coronary Care which is basically intensive care. They're hoping to move him onto a normal ward soon, if not already, as his blood pressure and heart rhythm are stable now. We're waiting for a bed to become available at a larger, specialised hospital. They rushed him to the nearest available one when he collapsed, but it doesn't have the necessary equipment to see whether he needs a stent or a bypass operation. He'll be moved to the larger hospital to have the tests and the operations if needed.

He doesn't remember anything from Monday. The off duty policewoman turned up at the hospital afterwards to return his rucksack which had been left on the platform in all the fuss. It had his car keys etc in it, so when Dat had come around he'd been fussing over it. This incredibly nice, good person went to the hospital and asked around to track him down and return the rucksack. She met Dat and my Auntie who was with him, and they got to say thanks personally to her for saving his life, which is an awesome thing. They are going to try to track down the Asian student to thank as well.

He was very, very, lucky.

Stocking up!

2010-10-27T21:38:00.001+01:00

Plenty of fun for the next few weeks :-)

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Postponement :(

2010-10-27T12:59:00.000+01:00

Afternoon,

Just got off the phone with a lady from New Directions. My knitting course is being postponed for a week while they wait for a few more people to enrol :(

It now starts on the 8th instead of the 1st, which wouldn't be a big deal except that now I have to get people to swap shifts with me again, and it will involve two people instead of one straight swap.

Little bit irritating but can't be helped.

xx

Pizazz!

2010-10-25T22:07:00.000+01:00

Howdy!

On Friday this lovely package was delivered for me in work, it certainly cheered me up! (The pictures were taken at home, not in work - no twister bed covers in work unfortunately!)

(I'd already been impatient and opened it in work, and then wrapped it up and opened it again to take pictures of it :)

Ta dah! Isn't she gorgeous?!

I'm completely in love. The colours are gorgeous (although still having camera colour issues, it's even more beautiful in the flesh/yarn).

It didn't take very long to wrap into a ball either - unlike the 1000m laceweight yarn I bought in the Knitting & Stitching show which took Mam and I three hours to do!

I'm chuffed, now I just an easy sock pattern for me to make my first pair of socks with!!

Don't forget you can get your hands on some of this if you visit Abstract Cat Crafts on Folksy. You just need to make an account and off you go! I highly recommend it :)

Manic Weekend!

2010-10-24T23:41:00.000+01:00

Evening,

I wanted to post yesterday but life got in the way :)

I came home on Saturday morning to help decorate my brothers bedroom as a surprise for his 17th birthday. He's currently in Canada for the next week with school, and has no idea it's being done. The old Manchester United stuff has been binned, and the new stuff is coming in!

Mam first mentioned it when I asked what she'd like for her birthday two weeks ago. She replied that she didn't want anything, but it would be a big help if I could do the painting for Daniels room if they decided to do it. Based on this I assumed that I'd be spending Saturday afternoon painting!

Nope.

I got off the train and went straight up to see my Grandparents to collect Mam who was looking after Gu (she needs a carer). Neither Dadcu or Mam could decide quite how the wood of the new furniture they'd bought on Thursday looked, so Dadcu and I went to the furniture store to see it. They both remembered it as being quite dark, almost black.

Does this look almost black to you?!

(The dresser, not the chest of drawers!!)

This is the floor in his room at the moment. We were trying to match it which proved a little difficult. We figured with a red tinge (the furniture is rubber wood that has then been treated and originally looks more like pine) that a dark floor and white walls would go well.

Once we got to B&Q we decided that the walnut was the best as the mahogany would have too much red in it. Except that the mahogany has been discontinued. That's pretty much where Saturday ended.

This morning we went looking again. We eventually found a shop with the 2.5 ltr tub of varnish in stock, but he sticker for dark oak was lighter than the medium oak! So we befriended a man in Focus who made a deal with us: We could have the 2.5 ltr tub of dark oak (which was £47.99!!!) and take it home with us and test a patch. If it wasn't what we wanted we could refund it, even though we'd opened and used it. That was really kind of them, so that's what we did.

We decided that it should be okay, and tbh Mam and I were not really in the mood for any more driving! Instead we emptied and sorted through everything in the room. We hoovered and washed the floor. Then I got rid of all the blu tac off the walls, and we tackled these things while waiting for the varnish to dry:

The theme used to be football, so there are a lot of football stickers on the wall! Or used to be :)

Unfortunately taking off those pulled some of the paint off. Bit annoying but no big worry.

My foot and my painting jeans :) It's been quite hard getting my camera to pick up an accurate colour, quite frustrating.

Once the varnish was properly dry, we then started re-arranging everything so that we could clear half the room to start varnishing the floor.

We took a break to top up on some liquids! (The rose was mine :) )

And then it was time to varnish! The tub came with it's own pad-on-a-pole that we used.

It came out a lot darker using that. We did the patch using a brush because if we'd used the pad and the colour hadn't been right, there's no way we would have been able to refund it.

By this time it was 6pm and I had to leave to go and look after Gu while Dadcu went to Choir practise. Mam finished off the half, and when I came back it looks like this:

Dark oak did indeed turn out to be dark in the end!

Folksy Lusting

2010-10-22T01:25:00.000+01:00

Howdy,

Thought I'd cheer myself up by browsing Folksy - always a dangerous idea!! (I've used smaller photos as I don't want to annoy the sellers. Click on the links to see the item in full!)

I bought myself this on Tuesday (to celebrate pay day, plus I couldn't resist!):

It's available from Abstract Cat Crafts and I just love it. I'm looking forward to trying out my new dpns when it arrives. Each is hand dyed and hand painted, and I just *want*.

[I should probably explain I own about 100 pairs of socks, and each one is different. I kinda collect them :) So my colourful sock urges have spilt over into yarn buying!]

I'm lusting after the Bejewelled, Doodlebug, Gershwin, English Country Garden, Hippy Chick, Big Top and Birdhouse yarns that are listed at the moment! I'm being very good though :) I might add them to my Christmas wish list!

Next is this Nellie The Elephant photo frame from Marge Designs. I have a similar box frame that I bought when I was 11 or 12. It has a teddy bear sitting on the toilet, reading a newspaper in his bathroom. I loved it then, and I love it now. Something about it tickles me :)

I love these owl earrings from Szeya Designs, they're exactly the style of my friend Liz. She always had the quirkiest, coolest earrings in school and these would be right up her street :)

And finally this Petal print from Arty Herberts. Each print is unique and is part of their 1 million pieces of art project. This one is number 0627 :)

What have you found on Folksy this week?

Happy browsing!

xx

Emergency Executive Decision!

2010-10-21T23:46:00.001+01:00

Evening,

I've decided to stop with the shawl.

1) I'm not enjoying knitting it any more, because I'm stressing myself out trying to knit it as quickly as possible. When each row is taking about 15 minutes to knit that's not exactly possible.

2) I opened it up fully on my 32" circs today and I have made a lot of mistakes from rushing. There are about 6 holes that I don't really know what went wrong, but I don't really want to give Gu a holey shawl! There's also a dropped stitch that I'm lucky hasn't run but stayed put. It's about 6 rows back though, and at 149sts per row, that's a lot of work to frog.

3) The killer: I don't think it's going to be big enough. I've checked the pattern again and I'm fairly sure that the designer was using a chunkier yarn than I am. I'm using DK yarn but the pattern says you should be able to get 4.5 sts per inch. That's not DK gauge. Gu's a size 16 and it's going to go around her shoulders, and I just don't think it's going to be big enough :(

So what's the plan of attack?

I'm going to take it home with me and cast off. Without cutting the thread. Then I'm going to measure it on Gu when I visit and see how much bigger it needs to be. Then I'll have fun(!) frogging the entire thing back to the start, and rewinding the yarn back onto the balls again.

Then I'll start again. But I'm going to go slowly, and aim for Christmas. I'll be saving my wrist, and my sanity!

xx

Knitting Aches and Pains

2010-10-20T22:54:00.001+01:00

Evening,

I'm starting to be in pain now.

My job involves a lot of manual labour, which puts me at a higher risk of developing RSI. I injured my right wrist 4 months after I joined, through shaking bottles (part of the job and needs doing about 150-300 times a night). It took 9 months for the pain to disappear completely. The occupational health nurse told me to get trained in more areas - very helpful!

My wrist started aching yesterday, but I have an on-going problem with another aspect of my job exasperating the old weakness so I assumed it was from that. I didn't do much knitting last night, but I did about an hour or so this morning.

This afternoon while knitting at my tea break in work, I started getting a cramp like pain. I assumed it was because I was trying to go fairly quickly so that I could finish the row and return to work. I don't like leaving my knitting in the middle of a row!

This evening while working I noticed that the cramp pain never fully left, which is not a good sign.

I may not be able to finish this shawl after all :(

xx

Shawl Update

2010-10-19T02:34:00.000+01:00

Morning,

The shawl is coming along nicely. I've done up to the 4th increase which means it's grown from 13 to 121 stitches which is pretty time consuming. I've been knitting for about 6-7 hours today, it's time to go to bed soon!

It's now long enough that it sits on my shoulders and is about 8 inches in length. That'll get longer after blocking which I haven't decided quite how to do yet. I know I'll probably end up taking it home on Saturday and blocking it there with Mam's help, and hopefully it will dry by Sunday or Monday morning and I can give it to Gu. If not, I can leave it in Mam's capable hands and she'll deliver it for me when it's ready.

I reckon I'm about 40% through now. The pattern states that a shawlette will probably reach increase row 8 or 9, and I'm halfway between increase rows 4 and 5 at the moment so I'm halfway technically. However seeing as it still needs to increase from 121 to 241 stitches the slowest part is still to come. Each row is taking me about 10 minutes to knit or purl. I've watched 6 episodes of Merlin and 1 episode of Mock the Week today! I have to have something on to watch or I just get bored and put the knitting down. I think it's the sheer amount of stitches per row which are putting me off slightly, I loved making my scarf!

It's 2.30am so definitely time for bed now, night!

xx

Hoarding Again

2010-10-18T11:31:00.000+01:00

Morning,

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Today is the Tom's birthday, and he decided that he wanted to go see his favourite team play on Saturday for his birthday treat. He supports Aston Villa, so we had a nice day in Birmingham. Wandering around the shops in the morning, then some lunch and a train to Villa Park.

I've cast on a new shawl for my Grandmother. The pattern can be found on Ravelry. It's simple enough but I think it looks pretty cool. It's my first time using circulars, which I'm kind of enjoying so far. The pattern's kicked me up the bum a few times already though! The first time I realised that I'd been doing the M1 increases the wrong way - instead of lifting with the left and knitting into the back of the loop, I'd been lifting with the right, transferring it onto the left needle then knitting into the front. Silly Sara! I spent 25 minutes on the train undoing that whole row on Friday on my way to see Tom. I've already done one row of increases like that but it's too far back and close to the neckline so I'm going to leave it.

Last night after working out how to do the M1s (and knitting using a darning needle because the increases are so tight) I realised that I had double the amount of stitches I was supposed to and had been on autopilot doing K1, M1 increases instead of M1, K2. So I then had to undo 3 rows very carefully to get back to that, using the darning needle to put the stitches back on the needle (I'm hopeless at frogging, I normally always drop stitches) and then knit the whole three rows again.

I'm doubtful I'll get the shawl finished by the weekend as I would like (I'll be going back home for the weekend so I could give it to her then) but I'll do as much as I can. Finger tip pain permitting!

I hit the craft shops yesterday afternoon. I've been meaning to make some Christmas presents this year since around July. I finally tracked down the two things I need to make them, which was no easy matter. Thankfully one of them was reduced by an unexpected £2.50 which helped alleviate the fact that the other wasn't £7 as I'd thought but closer to £12!

Oh well :) Now I just need a bigger room to put everything in, as usual!!

xx

Family

2010-10-10T11:49:00.000+01:00

Afternoon,

I have a small stash of scrapbook paper 6x6 that I've had organised according to colour for over a year now. Last week I wrote a letter to my friend, and decided to use some of my stash. I came across one sheet that I bought in a pack off Ebay which I love. I think it's especially relevant to her, so I've decided to post it to her, but I want to write some of the quotes here.

It's a piece of 6x6 covered in different quotes and sayings, on a brown background in different fonts, sizes and colours. Kinda like a Subway art sign.

Families are strange and wonderful
Nothing is crazier than family
Fam-i-ly n. I. A group of relatives, especially parents and their children
The family is one of nature's masterpieces - George Santayana
Nothing says home like a family together
In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future - Alex Haley
I love my family

xx

My Blanket

2010-10-10T10:51:00.002+01:00

It was my Mams birthday yesterday so I'm back home for a few days. I took my knitting with me to show Mam seeing as she was the one who introduced me to it.

Mam has a needle case with about 20 needles in it that she's given me! It's got straight, double pointed, cable and circular needles. I'm hoping I can get her to keep some of the duplicates and get her back into knitting. Probably wishful thinking though.

While looking for the case in the attic, she found my baby blanket that Gu made me. I'm the only one of the grandchildren to have one, I was the first of 4. The blanket is gorgeous. It's made in a cream baby wool, and in an intricate leaf lace pattern. It must have taken months to complete! She was a really talented knitter. It's taller and wider than I am 23 years on so I snuggled up under it last night while watching the tv feeling loved and cosy.

For the time being it's going to stay at home safe, but when I get a house of my own its going to have pride of place.

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The Knitting & Stitching Show - Haul!

2010-10-08T23:04:00.000+01:00

These are my pictures of my Knitting & Stitching Show 2010 haul.

(Please excuse the messy bed, I was about to climb in for a nap :) )

General spread picture :)

This is the copy of Let's Knit and the contents of the goody bag it came in. Behind /under it is the copy of the book with 70+ designs.

The pile of leaflets and business cards that I picked up on my way around. If I liked a stall and wanted to keep the name for future reference, I picked it up! Fair few about ribbons and fabric, as well as knitting yarns and supplies.

The show guide. To be perfectly honest I could have done without it, as I already had a map from the workshop letter. I barely used it, but it does list the details of all the exhibitors and vendors so may be useful in the future.

I loved these mini buttons :) Not entirely sure what I want to do with them yet, but they are gorgeous.

I picked up these stars first, then the buttons above. I absolutely love polka dots, and my favourite shape is a star. These are just me all over :) The minimum £10 for card purchases helped out a little...

This is my stash from the Beginners Knitting workshop. I chose to go for 4mm needles which meant that I had a choice of this black/grey tweed wool, the same in blue or a purple/burgundy colour. As my jacket is purple and I already have a blue scarf in the making, I decided to go for the grey/black. Might make something for my Dad someday.

If you chose the 6mm needles then you got to choose between this rainbow coloured yarn or a light purple yarn. The rainbow yarn looks kinda natty, but is incredibly soft. I think it's a polyamid/merino blend. We were invited to take a second ball of yarn and I was the only one who chose the 4mm out of 5 people :)

These are kits! The red polka dot (see the polka dot obsession?) makes up a cupcake which I plan on using for a pin cushion. The black polka dot kit makes up a waistcoat for a wine bottle. It made me giggle loads when I saw it, and I usually buy a bottle of wine of my Dads birthday, so I've decided to make this for him. (He'll never see this blog so it's safe to post!)

These stamps are so pretty, the heart one especially. I enjoy making cards (when I'm in the mood for it, I go through phases in everything). I'm pretty sure I've seen the butterfly stamp in a book, in a chapter that taught different stamping techniques. All the same, they were both reasonably cheap and pretty!

These are my skeins. The teal on the left is the most soft I've ever felt (and expensive at £13.99!) and the purple sock yarn on the right was close behind at £12.50. How have I gone from buying balls of Sirdar Big Softie at £2.45 a ball to these at £13.99 a skein!?

Individual shots. These have also gone on my Ravelry profile.

Now I just need to figure out a sock pattern, and what to do with the other!

The Knitting & Stitching Show - Update!

2010-10-08T21:53:00.002+01:00

Evening :)

Warning: A VERY long post, sorry!

I'm a very happy girlie tonight! I visited the Knitting & Stitching show today. I can't get over the fact that I was there for 6 hours! I left the house in such a rush in the morning I didn't eat, and I didn't want to sit down on my own and eat there either, so I had breakfast at 5.15pm which (shamefully) was a BK meal. My feeble excuse is that I needed something quick so that I could grab it and jump on the train because by then I just wanted to get home!

I found my way there pretty easily, so I must be getting the hang of the underground thing now. I only had one scary moment and that was at Kings St Pancras Station on the way home. I'd been following signs for all the other lines (there are 5) but hadn't seen any for the one that I needed yet. I stopped and double checked that I was supposed to be changing there, then carried on blindly and found the line about 5 minutes later.

I left Reading and jumped on the H&C then changed at Kings. On the Picadilly line I found a woman who was sitting and patiently knitting something in the round. Whatever it was it was tiny! Must have been for a baby. When it was our stop and she stood up, I asked if she was heading the same way and we followed the crowd of women to the shuttle bus stop. Thankfully the shuttle buses went one after another continuously (or seemed to) so I got there with time to spare. Alexandra Palace is huge!

I was the first at the Learning Curve workshop room so I sat down. Then a woman came in who introduced herself as Lisa and the tutor. She was really friendly so she stopped me from feeling nervous or anything. She's part of the Craft Guerilla group and normally teaches knitting in a pub in London, so is well used to teaching beginners!

Note: Craft Guerilla have a craft book coming out in the Spring. Each person has written a chapter on their area of expertise, and Lisa has written the chapter on knitting. We were each given a booklet which is the chapter, so we have advance copies (and got to be proof readers) which is fun.

Another person joined us and for about 10-15 minutes it was just the two of us so we choose our needles and yarn (either 4mm or 6mm needles, with different yarns to correspond). Then we started casting on but had only got as far as making slip knots when another two ladies joined us. They quickly got themselves settled in with needles and yarn, and we continued.

Everyone picked it up pretty quickly. We were shown the long tail cast on which is what I used to cast on my scarf after following a video online. It makes a really pretty first cast on, and also gives you the first row of knitting. Then we frogged it and learnt another way of casting on using both needles which isn't quite as pretty. It involves doing the first part of the knit stitch, but pulling the loop onto the left needle instead of the right to make your stitches. During this another lady arrived. As she already had some knitting experience she picked it up really quickly and got stuck in with us.

Then we started knitting and away we went! We each did about 6-10 rows while Lisa came around to see if we were having any issues. I purposely dropped a stitch so that she would be able to show me how to pick it up again so that was really useful. I'm not 100% sure I'll remember how to do it when it comes to it but I'm gonna give it a go first before I frog the whole thing! I remember Lisa saying that my stitches were neat and tidy, because the dropped stitch didn't run and make a ladder, so that was good.

Then we started purling. Purling is my weak spot, so after I finish my scarf I'm going to have to make a 'practise scarf' and just purl for ages to get used to doing the tension like I did with knitting. Instantly my neat rows started getting a bit looser. Then we did some ribbing as everyone was picking knitting up so quickly and we had the time to do it. I wasn't pulling my yarn from the front to the back before swapping stitches, so I ended up going from 12 stitches to about 18 with lots of holes! Not very pretty! We then learnt how to cast off which was good. We had 15 minutes left at this point so we cast on again and did some more while looking through the booklet and talking about following patterns, and a cardigan Lisa's been making for the last 3 years.

Then it was 12.30pm and it was all over. We said our thank yous and goodbyes. Then I started my way through the first large hall I came to (which turned out to be the exhibitors hall). I spent about an hour wandering around. At first I didn't want to buy anything but I soon broke that! Strangely, the first things I bought were for sewing (a cup cake that can be used as a pin cushion) and not to do with knitting at all! This hall had exhibitions from various different artists, textile graduates and displays from companies.

I then wandered through to another fairly large hall which also had a restaurant, a lovely, lovely smell, and lots of tables and chairs. I wandered through the stalls which were more of a guild themes. The Quilters Guild, the Embroidery Guild etc. I then came back into the corridor I first went to, walked to the end of it and looked at my map. And realised that I hadn't yet been in the Great Hall which was twice the size of the halls I'd been in so far!!

By this point it was 2pm so I had a quick phone call to Mam to find out what size circular needles she has - Mam doesn't knit any more and has a case full of needles in different sizes that she's giving to me this weekend when I'm at home. Then I started browsing.

Oh the shops :) I spent about £91 altogether at the fair, including the £11 entry and £15 workshop fee. I found so many skeins of wool that I just loved the colours of, but were stupidly priced at £12-20 EACH!! For 50 grams!! I kept refusing to buy them and carried on wandering.

I visted the Let's Knit stand which made the very same issue of Let's Get Crafting that started me on this knitting malarky 4 weeks ago. They were selling goody bags of the next issue which hasn't hit the shops yet, and differing freebies for £3. The magazine sells for £4.99. I picked up a bag that contained 3 bottles of black fabric paint (Oooh and I also found some freezer paper, first 'shop' I've seen it in!), some 5mm knitting needles that are topped with 'luxury beads' and 2 balls of acyrlic wool that I doubt I'll ever use. The fabric paint will be fun to play with though!! That was the main reason I picked that over other bags which contained 5 ball of wool, or crochet hooks etc. When I went to pay the guy showed me the Let's Knit book 'The Knitted Gifts collection' which normally sells for £9.99. If you bought it with a goody bag it was £2, so £5 altogether. So in it went. It has 70 patterns in it, and I've already seen a few things that I think I'd like to make.

I carried on wandering and then visited a stall where I fell in love with some 45% silk, 55% merino hand dyed yarn in a dark teal/blue colour. I asked how much it was and was told £8.99 which I thought was fairly reasonable as it knits on 3mm needles and the skein contained 1000m. I went to pay and found out it was actually £13.99. BUT I bought it anyway. I love it. It's so soft, it's like stroking my cats at home. I kinda don't even want to knit it, just keep it and have it looking pretty. Oh dear!

I then bought a skein of purple sock merino yarn for £12.50. It's very pretty but not quite as soft as it doesn't contain any silk. I'm gonna knit myself some purple socks! Yay!! I fell in love with some gorgeous purple skeins in Colinette's Yarns but it was £12.95 per skein and I just couldn't bring myself to spend any more, knitting is an expensive habit! (Note: It's cheaper on the website, but I definitely seem to remember it being more like £12 at the stall so I might have linked a different skein). Maybe after payday, or for Christmas. I have to get my hands on it sooner or later!

I'll post another post showing my haul from the day :)

It took me 2 hours to wander around the last hall, and by the end I was so tired from not eating and carrying heavy bags I was barely looking at some stands (that were embroidery etc). At 4pm I decided to leave so as to not get caught in the underground rush hour. I don't mind standing on normal trains, but I hate the crushes on underground trains.

I got back to Reading just before 6pm, sorted through my bags then went and had a nap! I was so tired, I ate on the train and it made me very sleepy. I woke about an hour ago and started typing this up, so I can post it and get on with some knitting now!

xx

Just Because Card

2010-10-07T10:55:00.001+01:00

Howdy,

I'm quite a big fan of the Let's Make Cards magazine. I don't have much money to build up a stash of goodies with, and each issue has a fairly big stash of freebies with it. I may not use all of them, or hate some of them (hehe) but there are usually quite a few bits that I like.

It's love/hate relationship though, because every issue is themed, and sometimes the theme is good/bad/ugly. An old issue (33 I believe) was Flower Fairies. I'm not a fan but my grandmother is. I'm never sure when the new issues come out. I haven't been able to find a definite shipping date online and I can't afford a subscription to issues I don't like!

A previous issue that I picked up (as at £7.99 it isn't cheap and I therefore only pick it up every now and again) was a Wallace & Gromit theme. My family are all fans of Wallace & Gromit so I know that I'll be sorted for both my Dad and brother's birthdays which is brilliant.

When I picked up an issue 6 months ago they had a spotlight on Owls. As noted before, I find it hard to be creative sometimes, and this time I decided the card was lovely as it was, so I would make one to have it to hand for a nice surprise card to a friend. Here it is :)

While in Swansea for my birthday in June, I borrowed a necklace from Leah to wear with my dress. Unfortunately at some point (probably during my energetic dancing) the bottom half of the necklace detached itself and flew off. I never saw it again, I hunted and hunted!

A few days later while out shopping I found another necklace that was a similar style but I didn't like the length of the chain. I thought it might be nice to replace the one I had lost, so I bought the necklace for it's pendant and then had some fun with pliers opening up the links and transferring them. I got there in the end!

So I sent this mini present for Leah to say thanks for her lovely birthday present (which you can see here) and an apology for having broken her necklace along with a letter I wrote last week. I'm just glad the necklace didn't have any sentimental value because that would have been irreplaceable.

xx

The Scarf is Doing Nicely!

2010-10-04T13:36:00.000+01:00

Afternoon!

I've got a cheeky half day off this afternoon after completing everything in work super early. So I thought I'd come home and get some jobs done. I'm backing up to my external hard drive and burning to DVD all of my photo files. It's needed doing for a while, and seeing as it's only got 3.5GB free of 160GB there's no wonder my laptop has been struggling lately!

My scarf is coming along nicely :) Very happy, there are some rough looking bits where I've introduced the new ball of wool (there are 4 in there now) but to be honest I'm not sure how to avoid that without spit splicing - and that isn't possible with a 51% wool, 49% acrylic mix! I believe it only works for 100% wool or similarly high percentages of wool.

It's now as tall/long as me! I read on Ravelry after I'd reached this that is the ideal length for scarves. It's all based on personal preference though, and I've decided it's a little short for doubling so I've added the last of the 4 balls in, but I haven't decided whether to use all of it yet. At the moment I'm thinking of adding a fringe or something on the end (not pom poms! Knitting websites that sell knitting utensils seem to be obsessed with pom poms, yeuch!).

I'm also thinking of doing some hand knitting, which would give me a good excuse to go back and buy the Sirdar Big Softie wool I made my scarf from in all the other colours I love!

My 'Beginners Knitting' workshop is on Friday and I'm looking forward to it. At the moment I'm focusing (read: worrying) more on how to get there, as I hate travelling somewhere new on my own. Thankfully the tube strike is on the weekend, and not the Friday so I can follow the easier set of travel instructions on the Twisted Thread website!

Hope you all have a lovely Monday afternoon!

Making Magazine

2010-09-22T23:31:00.001+01:00

Evening,

I bought the new Launch Issue of Making magazine tonight on my way home. It was £4.99 and seemed to have a fair amount of new things to do in it. It's split into 6 sections; bathroom, living areas, kitchen, wardrobe, garden and techniques.

My overall impression is that the magazine is aimed at people a little older than myself. I like that it has a broad range of things so I'll definitely be keeping it and will keep a beady eye for future issues.

This issue contains:
7 different ways to alter a dress in a week (not the same one! It will be useful when I eventually have a sewing machine as that's the kind of thing I want to do),
Interviews and articles,
How to re-upholster a chair in 6 different ways,
How to make your own enamelled buttons,
Different ways of wrapping and presenting home made gifts,
A sewing machine special,
9 different cupcake icing recipes,
9 different pickling suggestions,
Some ideas for Halloween,
How to make bath bombs and lotion bars....

It also has some 'project cards' on 4 different things (eg. making piped cake decorations) at the back which you can buy a box for to collect them all. This issue also has a similar thing covering knitting basics which is also handy.

Keep an eye out and see if you like it :)

xx

Taking The Plunge!

2010-09-17T22:06:00.000+01:00

Evening,

This morning I took the plunge and booked myself on a 'Beginners Knitting' workshop at the Knitting and Stitching Show taking place at Alexandra Palace on Oct 7th-10th this year. There were only 5 places left this morning, so be quick if you fancy it too! The tickets for entry are £11 (in advance) and I paid £15 for the 2 hour workshop. I'm not convinced I'm casting on correctly, and while I now know how to cast off, I don't know what to do with the ends of yarn, how to stop my edges curling and how to avoid tension problems creating large loops on the sides of rows. Fingers crossed the workshop (which covers learning to cast on, knit, purl and cast off) will show me the correct way, and I'll be able to ask questions and get shown the solution if I come across any problems. Googling for video's is all well and good, but you can't get them to talk and interact back with you!

Kinda nervous already though!

xx

Ravelry

2010-09-15T11:06:00.000+01:00

Morning,

I signed up for Ravelry yesterday. So far it's been awesome! It's a huge site chock full of knitters and crochet(ers?)/hookers (that sounds wrong!) and loads of patterns that members can submit and rate. It also has yarn sellers on there, and if will keep track of your hooks and needles (a little similar to the Knit Cards app I have on my phone).

I spent about an hour on it last night, and now have about 20 patterns saved that I would like to attempt/save for future reference. There's some scarves on there (obviously, I am a beginner!) but also other random stuff, like a Tofu pin cushion which made me giggle a lot when I saw it, mug warmers, knitting elephants... you name it, it's probably on there!

They also have a huge forum, and members who contribute to Q&A sessions which are rather handy for the uneducated like myself!

YAY! *I left to answer the doorbell* The postman just dropped off some of the knitting needles I bought off Ebay on Monday. They're HUGE! (Very, very long.) I've just a little measure and all 5 are 14 inches long. Which explains my shock as the 4mm plastic ones I'm using now are only 8 inches. Vintage needles in old sizes 2, 4, 6, 7, 8.

Anyway, back to the post! I'm enjoying it so far, and I love the way that you can add projects to your queue of things to knit/crochet as you come along them while searching, or simply save them for later. Needless to say, the tofu pincushion went straight to the queue!

xx

Calling All Tweeters!

2010-09-14T12:17:00.000+01:00

Afternoon,

Just thought I'd see who out there is on Twitter. I've been on it for a fair while now, and would like to see more crafty people in my feed! Please let me know in the comments what your username is, and I'll come follow you (in a good way, honest)!

xx

Folksy Lusting

2010-09-14T12:00:00.031+01:00

Howdy,

Today I'm loving the Folksy people Peris & Corr. They're based in Snowdonia in North Wales, and I'm in love with their bags and Welsh cards (myself being Welsh too).

This hand printed Blackbird tote bag is simple, but stunning. They also have a gorgeous Magpie tote bag too. Both are £6!

I really like the ornate style of these card, plus (speaking from experience) it's really hard to find Welsh cards unless you made them yourself, usually. This one says 'Thank you'.

Cariad is Welsh for 'Love'. Both are £2.50 each. This one would be perfect for Valentines if you don't fancy making a card yourself.

xx

Folksy Lusting

2010-09-09T23:12:00.002+01:00

Evening,

I've been following American blogs for a while so I'm familiar with Etsy, but only recently discovered Folksy.

Here is a gorgeous item that I'm lusting after right now:

It's handmade and sold by 'madebylucy' and you can buy it here.

It's simple but stunning and I want, badly.

xx

Mam Knows Best

2010-09-06T22:35:00.000+01:00

Evening,

Not long got home from work so just a quick update.

I saw this pop up on a friends Facebook this evening. Not quite a poem but I still like it:

At the age of 4: Mum knows everything!
At 8: Mum knows a lot!
At 12: Mum doesn't know everything.
At 14: Mum doesn't know anything.
At 16: Mum doesn't exist.
At 18: She's old fashioned.
At 25: Mum does know about this!
At 35: Before we decide, let's ask Mum.
At 45: I wonder what Mum thinks about this?
At 75: I wish I could ask my Mum!

Simple enough, but it does sound fairly familiar!

Knitting update: Last night we unravelled the piece Mam started in order to teach me with. This morning on the train I started anew with 30 stitches. It now seems to progressing well, and I have rashly suggested I might make a scarf for someone, to which two people have put their names down! Oh dear!!

xx

I can Knit! (Badly)

2010-09-06T00:04:00.000+01:00

Evening,

In a related reprise of I can Crochet! (Badly). This week I bought a Let's Get Crafting Knitting & Crochet special issue. I brought it on the train home with me (intending to do it, and putting it off) and showed it to Mam while discussing the fact that I'd also brought home 2 dresses for alterations with me.

I bought a navy and white dress last week that I love the style and pattern of, but I'm not sure about it. The wide straps have button holes and attach to the dress via buttons so that the length is adjustable. I've only a small chest so it needs taking in again. However the dress also seems like it's straining at the front (it has an elasticated back), where there are 4 buttons down the chest. I don't want the top one popping open, but the fabric wrinkles and appears to be strained when all buttons are done up. So I'm not sure whether to keep it and alter it (and hope for the best, because the buttons would have to be stitched which would affect the way the dress sits) or to return it. It was £19.99.

I also have another dress I bought for my birthday. The adjustable strap plastic piece has snapped on one end, so it doesn't hold it's position any more. It's the same piece you get on bra straps, so I'm hoping it will be relatively easy to track down a replacement.

So this evening Mam and I sat down to go through the dresses and alter them. Out came her stash, and away it went when we realised that we couldn't actually make any headway on either. Then I remembered the magazine, and Mam started showing me how to knit. She has never been able to crochet (she says) so the extent of my crochet skills (casting on and the foundation chain) is more than she can do.

However Mam used to be able to knit, and she has lots of cardigans etc that she knitted for me when I was a baby. My Gran used to knit a lot, as did her Grandmother. Sadly my Gran's health isn't very good any more, and she's unable to knit or craft.

After saying she was rusty and unable to remember clearly, Mam picked up the wool and needles and started knitting away like a pro! So she showed me how to cast on, then how to knit and after a few rows how to purl. I've ended up with what looks like a misshapen flag due to my mysterious skill in adding extra stitches! It was 12 to begin with, and at one point was 16...

I really enjoyed it, and more importantly Mam did too. We even stayed up until 11.30pm doing it, which is REALLY late for Mam. She's normally in bed by 9pm and then watches tv until she nods off. I'm glad she enjoyed it, although she did say she probably wouldn't take it up again properly.

Hope you've all had a lovely Sunday like me :)

xx

Bank Holiday Weekends

2010-08-31T23:57:00.000+01:00

Evening,

Did you have a nice bank holiday? I spent mine in a field watching some of my favourite bands playing at the Reading Festival. My boyfriend and I stayed at my house instead of camping this year for a change, and it definitely made a difference. It made the whole experience seem shorter, and I did miss the camping camaraderie, but I definitely did NOT miss the mudbath from the three days of rain we had before the festival started! And being able to wake up each morning, eat properly and have a shower was blissful - and meant I had no hangovers.

On Monday I had a tiny bit of a 'spring clean'. My wellies and black boots were covered in mud, so I dumped them upstairs in the shower and let the hot water run for a few minutes while I got the broom out and swept the hallway downstairs. By the time I went back upstairs to the bathroom the steam had loosened the mud and made it a lot easier to scrub off.

I'd made a deal with my boyfriend that I would change the bed while he mopped the hallway (after I'd swept it), so while the burgers he was making were cooking, we blitzed them. Then it was time to put our feet up for an hour while we ate. We watched 100 Greatest Musicals. I've always been a musicals fan and thought I knew a fair amount, but we caught from number 43 onwards and I'd only seen about 8 of them! Must get more cultured!

After my boyfriend left I then dug out everything from under my bed, which took a while. My bed is on legs, so I have all my crafting bits and bobs under the bed. I also have lots of cardboard boxes for things that I need to keep boxes for - does anyone else keep boxes?! I never used to, but after working in customer services for three years I've learnt through other peoples mistakes, and right now I have the box for my tv, a mirror, my birthday present vanity table, an alarm clock, a necklace and earring display... I've kept them all as it will make it easier when moving back home and I haven't the heart to throw them, but in the mean time they gather dust under the bed.

I pulled them all out and dumped them on my bed, then pulled the rug from under my bed and swept it. Then I spent about 10 minutes sweeping underneath the bed as much as I could, which shamefully hasn't been done in over a year. I hate cleaning. By this time it was 9pm, so I then put everything back under the bed in a more organised way. I intend to pull my craft things out and organise them, as I have increased my storage space recently and it needs a good tidy.

Here's to a more organised end of the year! After all, tomorrow is September 1st, and the last quarter of the year!

xx

Upcoming London Craft Fairs

2010-08-22T11:06:00.001+01:00

Morning,

Some updates on upcoming craft fairs in the London(ish) area.

http://www.twistedthread.com/pages/exhibitions/viewExhibition.aspx?id=26

Twisted Thread's The Knitting and Stitiching Show 2010 is a huge event specialising in textiles. It's held in Alexander Palace on October 7th-10th.

http://www.bssbs.co.uk/

The second fair I found out about (that I am going to) is the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show which is also held in Alexander Palace on September 25th and 26th.

I'm definitely looking forward to going to the Scrapbooking fair, as I'm interested in sewing etc but haven't done any yet. There's a dressmaking course that starts in October I was interested in, but it runs for 15 weeks and means having to rearrange a lot of shifts with others in work which makes it difficult.

xx

Craft Haul

2010-08-18T20:00:00.000+01:00

Evening,

Not so much a haul as 4 items, but I went into The Range tonight on my way past. I've been wanting some waterbrush pens for ages now, so I thought I'd get one while I walked past (I normally make sure I cross the road before I get to the shop!)

So here's what I picked up tonight:

The bulbs for the light in my room are really hard to find so now I know they sell them there I'm going to have to buy some more! They need small screw ones, and normally I can only find the normal (large) screw bulbs. These two were £0.95.

They didn't sell single waterbrush brush/pens, so I picked up the value pack which was £2.99.

This was in a sale basket. It's missing the 5th (bottom) pot, so was reduced from £1.99 to £1.50. I have lots of brads etc which are sitting in a flat embellishment organiser at the moment. Each time I open it I'm paranoid of spilling it from using too much force, so putting the brads in here will save that as each pot unscrews from it's neighbour.

This block of 25g of Fimo Soft clay was also in the sales basket, reduced from £1 to 50p. The 56g packs sell for £1.59 so it was a pretty good deal. I've been reading and seeing people using Fimo clay in cardmaking, so it's been on my radar for a while. And 50p is not a waste of money if I try it and decide I don't like it!

xx

Ooops!

2010-08-13T21:34:00.000+01:00

Evening!

So one thing you might notice about me is that I'm easily side-tracked. Last night I fully intended to get organised...

As it was I decided to make a calzone from scratch, and by the time I was done doing that and had eaten it was 10pm. I began watching the Matrix which I've never actually seen from the beginning and then decided it was too late to concentrate on fully. I went into my room and logged onto my laptop, specifically old Facebook and saw that my friends had all been watching shooting stars! You can see the BBC news link that inspired me here.

I got up and went upstairs (my room is downstairs) and asked the two of my house mates that were in if they wanted to go meteor hunting. They were both up for it (lucky considering it was 10.30pm) and we all got dressed and ready to go.

I took my film camera which has a bulb exposure but I knew without a tripod there was no point wasting film photographing stars. I did take some pictures of my house mates silhouette'd against the trees while walking down the river path lit up in street lights though. We'll have to see how they come out. It was quite scary walking so late at night in pitch black, but after a while we got to the nearest park and went and sat/lay down in the middle of it. There were a few others out also looking up at the sky. There were some clouds but they cleared up after 10 minutes and we could just see a huge expanse of the sky.

We got home at midnight and between us saw about 30-40 which is brilliant! I saw about 15-20, including some huge ones. They left massive 6-8 inch (my inches of the sky, not literally!) tails behind them. My house mate Mariam had never seen one before and kept missing them, so we were adamant we wouldn't leave until she'd seen one. Finally all 3 of us happened to be looking at the same spot when a huge one went from left to right over us. And all 3 of us saw it :)

It was actually a really nice thing to do. Very peaceful and relaxing (once we got there!) and it's good to have a new memory with my house mates.

Hope you get to see some too,

xx

New Storage :)

2010-08-12T19:30:00.001+01:00

Evening,

I finally dragged myself to Argos to buy a storage tower like I've been meaning to for the last month or so. At the moment my 'storage' is putting everything I don't have room for under the bed. Unfortunately Tom broke one of the bed slats last month so before I can tell the landlord about it, I need to clear it!

It wasn't too expensive. £19.99 for a 4 drawer storage tower and 4 'free' shoe boxes. Link is here. I'll never actually put shoes in them - they are essentially large tupperware boxes - but I'd already earmarked them as storage boxes for my craft supplies. At 33cm x 20xm they are more than big enough to store peel offs, which I have more than enough of, and my Gran's collection recently boosted. Now I have an evening of tidying, sorting and clearing ahead of me!

I've been eyeing up some label makers recently, does anyone have any recommendations? I thought of getting the electronic Dymo ones, but I prefer the look of the embossed manual ones which I've heard can be tricky to use if you aren't very strong.

xx

New Pictures

2010-08-11T21:31:00.008+01:00

Evening,

These are some of the pictures I took on the weekend in Newquay recently. While out and about Tom and I found a bug we'd never seen before, so naturally we took lots of pictures of it! For some reason my blog doesn't like displaying HTML from Flickr so please click on the pictures to see them properly.

After some comments on Flickr I found out that it's a Six-Spot/Red Burnett Moth. It's one of the few moths that come out during the day.

A little bee to break up the monotony... :)

xx

Random Tip

2010-08-06T11:58:00.000+01:00

Morning,

I've been collecting glass jars lately for a project I have in mind. Some of them are stamped with the expiry date etc on the glass itself, instead of on the lid. It annoyed me until I realised that I have some StazOn Cleaner that I bought when I bought my StazOn ink (the ink is a permanent solvent ink that stamps onto metal, glass, ceramics etc). Getting it off would be a problem, so I bought the cleaner as well.

Job well done! It cleans my stamps, and it cleans the ink off of glass jars :)

xx

Sewing Cafes!

2010-07-31T08:15:00.000+01:00

Morning,

Just a quickie today as I should be packing right now. I'm heading home to help my Mam around the house today as her MS has relapsed and she's struggling right now, and then all of Sunday at my grandparents' house where we're clearing out my grandmothers craft room :( so that we can turn it into a downstairs bedroom for her.

When I was in work yesterday my friend pointed out an article in her magazine. I'm not 100% sure which one it was (she gets quite a few, especially now she's moving home and is looking for home decor inspiration). In it [paraphrasing here a little], it said this:

That sewing cafe's are gaining popularity, especially in America, where you can go and rent a sewing machine by the hour (like Internet cafe's but cooler) so that people without sewing machines etc can still craft!

That's an awesome idea and I'm half annoyed I didn't think of it first! The article went on to mention that it hasn't happened over here in the UK yet (there's my chance!!) but that it seems likely to, due to the popularity of craft workshops and groups such as:

The Make Lounge
The London Sewing and Craft Group
I knit.

Apart from The Make Lounge which I mentioned in a previous post, I never knew these places existed and I'm thankful that my friend showed me the article! She's seen me appear with different card magazines etc over the last year and a half I've been working there so she knows my interest in crafting!

I wanna go!!

xx

The Simple Woman's Day Post

2010-07-27T11:15:00.000+01:00

Outside my window… is a new day. I don't really want to get up and go to work early like I did yesterday so today I'm going to pop to the shops and buy some tomatoes and mozarella, then make myself a caprese salad for lunch in work today (I'm working late shift this week).

I am thankful for… generous friends. The last two weeks have been hard due to family health problems, and my friends have kept in touch with me, and stood by me each day. I've also been given a tripod by my boyfriends parents which is also incredibly kind.

I am wearing… a Fun Factory t-shirt. Fun Factory was my favourite night at the university's Union. My boyfriend jumped and caught it for me the last time I ever went. It holds special memories so I wear it rarely as I don't want it to get ruined.

I am remembering… what my grandmother used to be like. She has a form of dementia and is currently in hospital, a shadow of her former self.

A few plans for the week… work! Then on the weekend I'm heading home to help out my family. If my grandmother is to come out of hospital the downstairs front room has to be emptied and turned into a bedroom for her arrival. So I'm heading home to help out.

I am currently reading… Charlaine Harris's True Blood Omnibus. I started watching the show a week or so ago.

I am hoping… that it won't happen this week.

On my mind… I'm wondering how best to ask my manager in advance for extended 'special leave' for when the time comes that I need to head home for a funeral of someone very dear to me.

Hearing… cars drive by. And a plane.

I am praying that… that my mother recovers from her MS relapse quickly, and that my grandfather finds the strength to get through what's happening at the moment.

From the kitchen… a caprese salad. I also tried my hand at making two mushroom and cheese calzones last week. They worked pretty well. Oh and numberous cupcakes for a cake sale to raise extra money after I took part in Race For Life (Cancer Research UK).

Around the house… there are several things that need tidying and putting away. Not today though.

One of my favorite things… is my new Race For Life medal. It isn't perfect, but neither am I.

From my picture journal…

xx

Holidays!

2010-07-23T18:43:00.000+01:00

Howdy,

I'm going to go visit the boyfriends parents this weekend in Cornwall. I'm taking both digital and film SLRs, and my digital Point & Shoot camera - I'm ready!! (Oh and film, and about 20 new batteries hehe.)

I hope you have a great weekend, and hopefully I'll be able to post some new photos.

This week has not been great. My grandmother is currently in hospital and her official diagnosis is that she's to receive palliative care. Not great. My mam has also been in hospital as she's had a Multiple Sclerosis relapse, thankfully they have given her some steroidal tablets which should sort that out.

On one hand I really need to get away, and on the other I'm likely to brood and this could lead to some arguments. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

xx

Post Organiser

2010-07-21T21:22:00.009+01:00

Howdy,

Thought I'd share my first ever tutorial!

I got the idea for a post box/post organiser when I saw that another blogger had made one. Hers was black with some blue polka ribbon around the top, and even though I've spent hours looking through the blogs to try and find the link I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure I'm not going mad, so if you see it, please let me know so I can link it!

So to begin with I needed a box. Seeing as I'd just bought these I decided that it would be a good enough size, and relatively sturdy too.

(Oh, and if you haven't tried them, try them).

To begin with I cut the side off the box. That way it wouldn't be too high and more likely to topple over. And it can hold bigger sized envelopes. I stuck the end I'd opened closed using double sided tape.

This is what it looked like. I tidied up some of the edges to make it neater.

I had some acrylic paint left over from a paint-your-own canvas pack I picked up last year. I hoped the white would be thick enough to cover the box seeing as it's a pretty thick consistency.

As it was it still looked like this after 2 coats. It was a little better after the third, but not much. I used up all my paint and it still looked crap. Not good.

I ate one while I tried to think about what to do next.

In the end I found some white paper I had already. I used double sided tape to attach it all the way around the box, and folded the underneath like wrapping a present. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the box once it was done, but it looked a lot whiter.

It was a little on the thin side so I went and bought some patterned tissue paper in WHSmith (which I didn't realise they did). Two of my friends gave me presents wrapped in a similar patterned paper for my birthday, but I couldn't track it down anywhere. This was the closest I could find.

I wrapped the whole box in the tissue paper, and attached it using double sided tape again.

The insides aren't amazingly neat as I didn't want to trim the paper. It's pretty thin, and awkward to get your scissors and hands inside the box.

And here's the finished box :)

I'm pleased with it. It didn't show any sign of toppling over which was my main worry. So that's a good thing. And it fits in with the room well. The table it sits on is normally covered in post (downside of living in a shared house) so now it's a lot neater, and the room looks better.

It also goes pretty well with the paint decor, which as you can see is a pretty strong colour and hard to match to! (Please excuse the sloppy photoshop work!)

Hope that's easy enough to follow, I kinda made it up as I went along!

xx

I'm linking to:

Cakes Galore!

2010-07-19T21:35:00.002+01:00

Evening,

As I mentioned, I spent a looooong time yesterday making cakes. Why? Because we organised a cake sale to supplement our fundraising for this:

Yup, I ran 5km for Race For Life (which raises money for Cancer Research UK) on Saturday. I decided to do it on a whim about 3 weeks back, and started my 'training' two weeks before the race. I was pretty pleased with a time of 32 minutes :)

My work has a scheme where you can apply for matched funding if 3 or more employees take part. One person took part in the race with me (and kept me going), and another in a different department completed her race two weeks before. So we decided that between us we'd organise a cake sale.

I made a cupcake mix using this recipe from iVillage. I made 12 large (normal sized) cupcakes, and 16 mini cupcakes using mini silicone moulds. I've never used silicone moulds before but I was rather impressed. I picked them up from a Poundshop, and even if I never use them again I got my worth out of them!

I substituted strawberry flavouring for vanilla as I didn't have any, and used some leftover chocolate icing from a chocolate cupcake kit (see below).

My boyfriend was over and decorated these chocolate cupcakes themselves. They looked (and tasted) yummy. These were the first cakes to sell out when they went on sale!

There was loads of the icing left over, and it was a fairly runny consistency so I decided it would be a lot easier to just dip the mini cupcakes into the icing rather than trying to spoon it everywhere. It also makes them really smooth. My boyfriend thought I'd accidentally dropped the first one though :) The strawberry flavour wasn't very noticeable, so the chocolate/strawberry combination worked.

These were the 'large' cupcakes made using the same cupcake mix. I made up some icing and used one tiny drop of red food colouring. The whole thing went a perfect shade of pink so I decided not to tempt fate and to leave it as it was!

(The Race For Life encourages women running to take part wearing something pink - which makes for an awesome sight when there are 2500 women in pink running around a park.)

I also made some jammy fair cakes using a victoria sponge mix and some seedless raspberry jam. I iced those with white icing but didn't take any pictures of them. I need to figure out a way of stopping the jam from sinking and pooling in the bottom of the cases...

I decided to stamp some labels for the cakes so that people would know what was what. The jammy fairy cakes and normal cakes looked pretty similar as the pale pink icing wasn't too in-your-face pink.

I used a Papermania stamp from a Birthday themed pack I picked up in Hobby Craft for £2 in a bargain bin. I saw the same stamps on sale in WHSmith on Sunday for £7.99! That's probably what reminded me of this particular stamp and gave me the labels idea. I was going to cut each one out like this but my hand started cramping and I decided it was too fiddly.

So I stamped about 10 on some pale pink paper I already had and trimmed them to size.

I'm really annoyed I didn't take any pictures, but photography isn't allowed at work. Should have sneaked one on my phone though...

My running partner brought in a cool, chirpy multi-coloured polka dot tablecloth and loved the labels idea. She has pretty funky handwriting too, so she wrote the labels and we stuck them to the plates/tupperware the cakes were in.

Altogether we had a multitude of cupcakes, jam tarts, an iced banana & sultana bread loaf, coconut macaroons, 'dream cakes' (caramel shortbread) and chocolate brownies. We laid out the cakes at 10am, and by 5pm the coffee mug we put out for the donations was full! Looking forward to counting it tomorrow :)

I Did it, I Did it! (Properly)

2010-07-18T23:37:00.000+01:00

Evening,

Just a quick post as I've been busy making cakes for the last 6 hours (pics to follow).

Yesterday I ran the Race For Life 5km run. I completed it in 32 minutes :)

xx

Some Cards

2010-07-15T22:13:00.000+01:00

Evening,

I walked home from work today and got home pretty tired and weary. I didn't fancy sitting in front of the laptop immediately (like usual) so I decided to actually start making some of the LMC cards from the LMC magazine I bought a week or so ago.

Just these two to begin with :)

xx

I Can Crochet! (Badly)

2010-07-14T18:50:00.001+01:00

Howdy,

On Monday I took a wrong turn and came out of an exit I'd never been out of before. Next to it is a big Poundshop, so I went in and picked up a crochet kit.

I was expecting it to be badly made and it kinda is - the hooks and needles are plastic, the instructions barely legible and full of typos - BUT there's 5 balls of wool, it has plastic hooks and you gotta start somewhere right? Besides, no point spending lots of money to find out you hate something!

I couldn't resist :)

It's taken me 3 nights but I've finally made some progress. The instructions were quite confusing, the pictures aren't great and I even had a google to see where I was going wrong but couldn't quite put everything together in my head.

Eventually I watched a video and saw the step in action and realised where I was going wrong. Basically, I wasn't trusting myself to repeat a step because it looked hopeless - but after doing it a few times it turned into the chain shown in the instructions, yay! I was so excited I stopped immediately, took a picture and thought I'd share it :)

So now I have to continue following the instructions. It appears to promise that I'll end up with a flower if I follow all of the steps in the correct order.

[The fact that the steps start on D and progress to E, F, H and J hopefully won't be an issue.]

xx

I'm Running, I'm Running!

2010-07-08T10:57:00.002+01:00

Morning,

I went to the gym last night! I have now done 5k. I don't hurt too badly this morning either which is a huge relief. I'm working late shift tonight so won't be walking back from work, and it's probably best to give my legs a breather today anyway.

Out of the 5k I managed to run 2.5k of it. I ran the first km then found I got out of breath quite quickly (most exercise I've done since being in school) so I walked 0.5km then ran 0.5k and carried on alternating.

I have never spent 41 minutes on a treadmill before, not entirely sure I want to do it again! Anyways, it's for a very good cause as all the money raised is going to Cancer Research UK and I'm hoping to apply for matched funding with work to double the total amount raised. If you can, please dig deep :)

Thank you,

xx

Sushi!

2010-07-06T03:56:00.000+01:00

Evening,

I got kinda hungry and bored. And I had a rather large, rather ripe avocado that needed eating or throwing. The solution? Sushi!! Not the kind of thing I normally make on a 'school night' but I was feeling alert and awake after walking home from work.

It went with my mushroom miso soup quite nicely :) And I finished the rest off in work the next day, yum yum yum!

xx

Gutted!

2010-07-05T18:37:00.001+01:00

Evening,

I picked up a copy of the latest Let's Make Cards this morning. I'm looking forward oto using it, there are lots of bright, summery colours, and it looks like it should be fun to use.

BUT I am unhappy that I have only just found out about Bust's Summer Craftacular London that is being held on Saturday. I'm working the weekend and it's probably going to be too short notice to get anyone to swap with me, especially as the girl I would normally swap with is already signed up to work the weekend instead of another. I'd love to go, and I think the Fascinator workshops and Tatty Devine jewellery would have been fantastic to see.

If you're interested in going (and can attend) the website describes the fair as

An indie shopping mall in York Hall! With DJs, drinks, DIY and an alternative food court of sweet and savoury treats.

There are goodie bags(!) for the first 100 through the door, raffle and more. Admission: £2. You need to sign up for the fascinator-making workshops (1pm-2.30pm and 4pm-5.30pm) on the day and places are limited so get there early!

There's also this (which I love the idea of)

DANCE to DJs The A-Maisonettes, The Vinyl Vendettas, She Runs With Wolves (Ladyfest Ten); learn to Lindy Hop and Jitterbug with a special beginner's class by Swing Patrol from 5.30pm to 7pm.

There don't seem to be very many craft fairs in the Berkshire/London area, I wonder why?

xx

The Simple Woman's Day Post

2010-07-05T02:59:00.001+01:00

Outside my window… is another house. I live in a street of terraced houses. Not very inspiring, but at the bottom of the road is the Thames river, and on a sunny day it's gorgeous.

I am thankful for… having seen my Dad today. The older I get the better we get on, and he popped in today to take me to lunch (tapas) and a catch up.

I am wearing… a 'new' jumper that I picked up for 50p last year but never wore. I decided that I do like it after all, even though my BF said he didn't like it.

I am remembering… that I really need to take my library books back!

A few plans for the week… several trips to the gym, and some more crafting.

I am currently reading… nothing, but I intend to pick up more books from the library after work on Tuesday.

I am hoping… that the pictures I have taken on my new film camera will come out okay.

On my mind… that I need to sort out my bank account and ISA, and each day I delay it hurts me in the long run.

Hearing… old songs from 1956. I grew up listening to all kinds of music in the car with my parents, which means I have a rather eclectic taste.

I am praying that… that my Dad doesn't get made redundant as he fears he might.

From the kitchen… nothing today! I had a late lunch and then had some malteasers in the evening. My lunch filled me up. I intend to make a home made pizza this week though.

Around the house… several bugs are flying, they don't normally bother me though. I'd rather have the windows open than bake.

One of my favorite things… sushi, I could quite happily eat sushi every day for the rest of my life. And at some point I intend to try!

From my picture journal…

http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

xx