Not much to show for a whole two months!

We've been staying with my parents since 1st July as we're moving house but had to wait to exchange and complete. Hence I've had loads of time this summer to do loads of work. I did a lot of knitting at first, but got more and more frustrated as the exchange on our house was taking so long and couldn't concentrate on anything. My poor cardigan has been neglected for some weeks now, with a finished back and fronts and one nearly finished sleeve. Not a good effort at all!

However, I have finished something, though even that's only in the last couple of days as I determined I had to have a complete "thing" to show.


Yes, its my spinning! I love how it looks on the spindle. Its funny because the colour of the yarn goes really well with the colour of the wood.


I wrapped it round the back of a chair after soaking it in tap hot water with shampoo for a while.


As you can see, there is way too much twist in it after drying. I think I've been rather too generous with my spins and need to spin far more gently.


I rewound it once dry to pull it tight again to try and get rid of the kinks but I don't know how this will knit up. I'm planning on leaving it like this for a long while so hopefully it will just stay in this position when I remove it.

My lucky parents have the product of my art foundation and fine art degree courses in their garage, and I've been looking though my old paintings and found one I'd forgotten about.

Its of one of my old housemates and I remembered when I saw it that she had it on her wall in our student house in third year. I don't know why it's come to have spent so long in the garage but I plan to take it to the new house and find a home for it.

We've been spending a bit of time making little design boards for each of the rooms. An old friend has recently renovated a house a similar age to ours and has used Little Greene and Farrow and Ball paints. They're such a beautiful finish; so highly pigmented and nothing like Dulux, which I suppose we'd have used if it hadn't been for seeing our friends house. We're so excited about moving in and making it our own.

An injury

Oh dear, I have already sustained an injury from my sudden running enthusiasm. I have been very surprised to find that I actually really enjoy running, after years of mocking runners and thinking how dull it looks. Don't get me wrong, I've always been into sports, very much so in fact, although as often happens when people leave school and sports clubs are less convenient to go to, I have badly lapsed over the last couple of years. But due to this enthusiasm, I decided to go for a run when I'd only been the day before and should have had a rest day. I have ended up pulling a muscle in the top front of my thigh. Walking is fairly difficult; getting into a car is very painful. Lesson learned I think. Until I've reached a better level of fitness, I certainly won't run without giving my muscles time to recover!

Other than that, my cardigan is really progressing well. I've not got too much to go on the fronts and back (knit in one piece on a circular needle)

The photo is pretty bad quality but you get the idea.

I've found the perfect button to go with it as well,from my newly enlarged stash of buttons. It only needs one, so a great project if you have a random button you want to use... or perhaps rather a large effort to go to just use one button. I guess it depends how crazy you are about them!

On Saturday I met Juliet from Artist's Pallette Yarns at Cirencester Craft Fair. I've met a couple of knitters at events now, andI have to say again that they're always so friendly :) Anyway, her yarns are beautiful and I'd love some of her fibre when my spinning improves. Which reminds me, I went to Nailsworth yesterday and came upon (or more appropriately, hobbled upon) Olivia Dell's World Textiles and Folk Art shop, which doesn't appear to have a website, but is full of fasciating stuff. I bought this book on spinning from her.

Its "Your Handspinning" by Elsie G. Davenport from 1964 and now out of print. A sought after book according to Olivia... but it contains these fab illustrations, of which these two are examples.


I think it will be rather useful as I carry on learning to spin. I was also excited to find that there is now a Cardiff Knitters group on Ravelry, although unfortunately nearly all their meet ups are on Thursday evenings, which is when we have Bible class at our church and I don't like to miss it. There is a group some Tuesdays though so I will have to try and get to one when we're back in Cardiff.

If anyones reading, hello and thanks for dropping by. Please say hello :)

I've missed you :(

After weeks of not being able to do anything creative, unless you include artfully arranging things in boxes to be put in storage, I finally have time to get back into it, and also to post on here. You may have understood from what I just said that we're moving house, in which case you would be correct, but we are staying at my parents until we complete. Goodness knows how long that'll be! But it's wonderful being at home. You always retain an affinity with the place in which you grew up, and I've been appreciating the beautiful countryside by bike and by legs! I've also decided to take up running and purchased a new pair of trainers the other day which have an exciting slot in the inner sole in which you can place a sensor for an i-pod or a sportsband. I'm not so keen on the idea of listening to music as I run, particularly in the countryside, as I like to appreciate my surroundings and hear the birdies chirrupping away, but I like the idea of the sportsband which tells you how far you've run, how many calories burned etc.

Ok, I've just said I've been able to be creative again and talked about fitness... hmmm. Well its always been a big part of my life, just as I've got older it tends to be in fits and starts. All I've really done is picked up my knitting again and I've now got to the end of my second pattern repeat on the fronts and back of the mohair cardigan, so not much more to show. However, a dear friend of my parents from our church had some very large supplies of buttons which she was giving away to a good home. So I rooted through and found some lovely ones.

These were some particular favourites. I love the simple but effective patterns and the way they feel old yet modern at the same time.

I've also been doing some spinning since I last posted. I love how you can pick it up and put it down so easily so its been good for when I haven't felt like concentrating on knitting but have wanted to do something. This colour is just beautiful.

I'm going to have a lot of this as well. As you can see, its way more consistent than the last (and first) yarn I spun, in my last post, so I'm planning a shawl probably for this. I guess I'll have to see how much I end up with. Its 100g in weight.

I found this random ball of yarn the other day when we arrived at my parents.

Its certainly pre knitting and I think I must have bought it while I was at uni to make something for a party. No doubt it was going to be cut into 2" lengths and made into something like a lion's mane for a fancy dress party. In fact I think that is what it was for, but I made the mane from fake fur and cardboard instead! So now this can actually be knitted into something, though goodness know what.

My first spin and other stories

I haven't felt like writing much here recently. I've been really busy with life, which I'd rather, but I also haven't had any finished projects to show. Then I remembered I hadn't posted my spinning yet, which was rather exciting and I'm really looking forward to having another go.




I'm planning to knit a hat with it, as I thought I should knit something with my first effort.

The mohair cardigan is coming along nicely and is really enjoyable to knit.


Here is the main pattern, although for some reason blogger keeps turning my images around. This and the image below should be rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise.


In the magazine that the pattern is from, someone has done a practise swatch for the lace pattern. I was quite amused to discover, after the swatcher declaring how great it was that she had made the swatch as she could refer back to it when working on the real thing, that it is actually nothing like the pattern instructs. The pattern proper is correct but the border, so basically the whole of the wavy part at the bottom, is completely wrong.



I hope she didn't rely on it too much!

I'm rather excited as I have a new job starting next week. Ok, its unpaid, but I'm so looking forward to interacting with people in a work environment again. I'm going to be volunteering in a charity shop just down the road. I've been thinking about it for a while, and yesterday there was a big sign in one of the charity shop windows (there are many on this particular street), asking for volunteers. I went and asked for more information and had a nice chat with the assistant manager; I'm starting next Tuesday!

Nursery rhyme purse and a spindle

I made this little purse one day last week when I should have been working on my patchwork.



The fabric is a delightful print called Mother Goose and Friends and is covered in sweet little images from nursery rhymes and childrens' tales. On the purse is the goose who laid the golden egg, four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie and inside on this sweet little patch are the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.



I haven't yet decided what I shall use it for as I'm a very practical person and not one to change my handbag every time I leave the house, or move the contents of my purse into another. No doubt I shall find some little thing to keep inside.


And I finally removed my spindle from her box on Friday when I had a visit from my knitting friend. Originally I just planned to show her the fibre and spindle but of course my husband had to have a go and then I was inspired to attempt it myself later on in the afternoon, not by my husband's efforts I might add! I took to it immediately and instead of just spinning a small amount I decided to use all the fibre that came with the spindle to make one batch of yarn as I though it would be nice to actually make something from my first spinning efforts. Here's a sneaky peak.

The more I spin the more consistent it gets and the yarn is now coming out in what looks like aran weight, though the first few metres I know will be rather lumpy and uneven.

I've also designed a new header for the blog but for some reason it doesn't want to upload. Hopefully a more exciting looking blog will be here soon.

Sickly sweet nostalgic quilt

This is the quilt I've been working on to finish for the exhibition in a couple of weeks time. I have so named it because although I love the combination of fabrics it is rather sweet looking, and nostalgic because my mum gave me all the patterned fabrics I have used in it.



For the binding I made strips out of the remaining fabrics. I was originally going to turn the back over to the front but that would have been so dull compared to how it's actually turned out I'm glad I didn't.



I love these two photos below. They remind me of linen stacked in a cupboard. I love the look of neatly folded linens and fabrics, even folded towels. It is essential the edge showing is the soft folded edge however, as if end edges show it spoils the overall effect I think.



I'm looking forward to seeing this hanging from the ceiling at the exhibition. I'm going to produce some information about the quilt to hang on the wall and maybe some cards for people to take away. I'm really excited at the thought of people looking at my work again after so long.

3 new species

On Saturday we went to the Forest of Dean again and had the excitement of seeing three new bird species. We went first to Nagshead nature reserve in the hope of spotting some Pied Flycatchers. Apparently quite a few people had been out looking for them and waiting a long time. We were strolling down a path through a bluebell spotted forest to the lower hide and there was one, just sitting on the fence wire!

It then spent a little while flitting about in the trees next to the path so we got a good look at him. He was very sweet, and fluffy like a long tailed tit.

We then went on to Cannop Ponds which are pretty much around the corner from Nagshead. There we saw a new tit, though we couldn't determine whether it was a marsh or willow tit. Apparently those are the two closest looking birds there are. We also had the pleasure of spotting a Redstart, high up in a tree.

Apparently Cannop is a good place to spot them! I stole those photos from Marno, he's the bird photographer, I just look through my binoculars, although this often results in me getting a better look at them in detail as I don't have to mess around with getting the right setting, I just look. Its funny, since becoming interested in birds, the more common species become less exciting. I used to get really excited if I saw a chaffinch, but now I want to see rare birds that are hard to spot. I still love the more common birds though. Tits and Robins are among my favourites.

Just a quick creative update. My cardigan is starting to take a little shape. I've nearly finished the border and the pattern is forming which is really exciting. I'd love to understand stitches to the point of being able to write my own patterns. I'm also making the binding for my quilt, which I'm going to continue with now. I hope you have a pleasant day x