Hoarding Again

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

Just Because Card

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

Grandmother's Birthday Card

I hadn't posted this earlier because for a little while I was dithering over whether this was too girly to use as a Valentine's day card. The dilemma was solved by making another Valentine's day card using a Let's Make Cards magazine idea and deciding that I preferred that in the end :)





The little stamp on the back is an Inkadinkadoo 'Handmade with love' sentiment.

xx