Unravel 2014 (A little late!)

It's been so long since I posted there's little point trying to summarise the last 4 or 5 months. There's been good and bad, ups and downs, giggles and tears. But rather than dwell on that I want to tell you about Unravel 2014 (Which was in *ahem* Febuary!) at the Farnham Maltings.

I go every year to this wonderful wool and fibre festival. And this year it was a bit special as I decided (with a couple of friends) to make a weekend of it and stay in the Travelodge at Aldershot and take a weekend away from caring for Mum.

Unravel is my favourite festival. It's pretty local to me when i'm at my house, and even from Mum n Dad's it's not too far (although it's very very close to the Aldershot Travelodge! just saying')  It's full of indie dyers and shops.

I was fairly restrained:

 I failed completely on Saturday - it was very crowded and I just couldn't settle to look at anything (yes the small hangover may have contributed slightly to that)  So the only things I got on the Saturday were are the spindle bag (far right in the picture above and from Hill Top Cloud to protect the spindle I bought from there last year) and the T pins which I needed more of. 

However we went back on the Sunday, and altho some stock was quite depleted, it was so much easier to look and concentrate and I saw loads that I just hadn't seen the day before, consequently: 
BFL from Jilly bean to try to understand the concept of dividing colours and making spun yarn that doesn't look like a muddy puddle - well that's the idea - but luckily i like muddy puddles anyway so either way it's a win.: 

 

Sparkly fluff in a batt just because it's pretty: 

 

Fyberspates faery wings - which is more expensive than i would normally treat myself to - but it's to knit the infinity scarf song of the sea that I think we all bought (?) and i love the colours: 
 

And altogether with Rachel's book and the spindle bag and t pins from yesterday: 

 


It was a fabulous weekend. I laughed so much I hurt and my friends made sure that I enjoyed every minute of our time away.  

i Knit too!

I wonder if you all even remember that i knit?  I'm not sure that I do ;)  Well I thought i'd show you a few things i have made during these past months.  Some with a little story to tell and others just to pass the time.

These socks for example:

These were knit from sock yarn that  a friend sent when they first knew mum was ill and i had no yarn with me.  I made them for Mum, and they were knit during the hours/days/weeks she was in a coma and we were waiting. One of the first times she moved her hands properly was to feel this ball of yarn.  (If I remember it was merino - it'd make me move out of a coma too :D)

The next thing I made was a colour affection. made for Mum for mother's day. I bought Holst Garn Supersoft for this as I wanted to try their yarn.  I loved knitting with it (and it had that lovely sheepy smell that all knitters love) It's washed up lovely and soft (for a pure wool, it's not merino soft!!) and generally i'm really happy.  The only thing I would change is that i think the two shades of green are too similar. (in fact in the photo you can't even really tell there are two shades of green)  i'd make the shawl again.:


Then there was a Cinnamon Toast shawl made from Sparkleduck galaxy (Which does actually have a little bit of sparkle in it *squeeeee*).  Now this is my favourite make of recent months.  The ruffly edge gives it a real swish factor (you know like the good looking blond bombshell with the hair flick - well this is the equivalent in shawls!) and some weight which made it feel good to wear (and also alerts you to when it was falling off, which  I have found to be an issue with others (maybe I fidget too much?).  My row gauge seems a bit out, I did a full extra repeat on top of the full shawl depth, and still i feel it could have been deeper.  But then i'm very long from shoulders to waist so maybe it's just me.  I really love it though, one of my favourite ever knits.

I also made a second one in ice yarns merino viscose. This was a quick make for a weekend jazz festival. I knitted it on 5mm needles and i do actually have some yarn left so may at some point undo the ruffle and add an extra body repeat:

Finally I have a commission knit on the needles now. I needed to wait until life was more settled and I could concentrate a little, and also until the evening temperatures had eased off a little...... I've only done the back and one front so far but i do love knitting an aran. No photos yet - next on the agenda!

It's beginning to look a lot like .......sssssshhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ohmygoodness, I've been so busy with knitting and the Crafters' Barn and normal work and trying to keep the house clean. - Did you miss me?  The Barn has of course got quite busy as we near Christmas, and I am trying to share one product a day on our Facebook page to encourage people to move outside of their normal sellers, it's been good fun tho' perusing through the sellers directory or searching for strange things in the search box to try to find items that are a bit different.

So, just a really quick summary of how the last couple of weeks have been:

I've been playing with the knitting machine (excuse the bathroom mirror photo!) - it's a reversible hat with a contrasting brim, so you can wear it with a folded up brim, in all red stripes:

 Or inside out with an unfolded brim, in blue with red

 and of course both other options inside out and right side in, brim up or down.  The idea worked well, but the finished article is HUUUUUUUUGE, so i need to re-calculate the tension as this would have fit Shrek :D

In Spot-dog news, we went out and bought her a new bed this week. She needed one anyway but I saw this one which has a thermally reflective inside, so it's great for dogs with arthritis or other joint issues as they benefit from their own body warmth as it's reflected back to them. The bed was thin and rectangular around 3ft x 2ft with a brown fleece top and a sort of mesh/polyester bottom.



Or






It's just a screwed up pile of stuff:

Really, you have to wonder why you bother don't you?  And just look at the look on her face *rolls eyes*  

She's also had a bath this week - that was fun (not) although to be fair she didn't move a muscle whilst in the bath....... too petrified i think? LOL

Right, I'm off now to try to make the brim for a Camden Cap that i'm making in Alpaca. Although I can be very technical in my approach to crafting (i have to be as artistic skills are somewhat lacking in my repetoire, so technicality is all I have) but i'm just not envisaging this very well. So i'm just going to bite the bullet and have a go - what could possibly go wrong?!

T'il soon ♥

Autumn and business is booming!

Well finally I have ousted Spot from the blog and am here to tell you how life is and what I've been up to.

I've been a bit slack on the blog since the Crafters' Barn website went live. It's been a big task and I'd like to publicly thank KMS Web Solutions for all the hard work in getting my somewhat half baked idea up and running and knowing what I was thinking even tho' i often couldn't articulate it.

The Crafters' Barn was a really important project to me for a lot of reasons. As a few of my regular readers know, I lost a good friend to cancer last year and needed a project to keep me focussed and working in a creative way. (Strangely, book-keeping didn't really fit the bill?! - who knew?)  I had originally thought that I would just sell my knitting, probably on Etsy or somewhere like that. But the more I looked into it and worked out the commission rates, the more I realised that it was a pretty complicated calculation to work out how I could make money selling that way, and the longer I thought about it, the more I thought I couldn't be the only one that found it hard.

The Crafters' Barn therefore became a passion of mine. To provide a site for crafters to sell where once they had paid their monthly fees there were no more surprises (well other than paypal fees but we can't help that) Margins, overheads, profit markups...... whatever you want to call it could easily be worked out based on getting stuff on a site to sell rather than a differing amount depending on whether you did sell.

The fee structure was worked out to be approximately equal to listing 10 items in a month on the other main selling sites (which roughly charge 20p per item to list) and that is that. No more fees. *phew*

The site would be easy to use, and safe and secure. It is aimed at all crafters, but particularly those that maybe sell via facebook but are finding that increasingly difficult to administrate and small businesses that are just testing the water in online selling.  I aim to be a springboard to allow people to venture into the virtual world and build themselves a market, and then when they're all grown up, to watch them maybe go off and set up their own site when they are comfortable and have a good base clientèle.

 The Junior and Senior school of online craft selling if you will?

The shops have a few customisable functions. Email contact, logo, and facebook and twitter ID's can all be added to superimpose the banner on each shop. So shops can begin to market themselves and gain interest with their own branding.  Items can be put "on sale" at discounted prices, for ever, or for set periods of time to clear stocks.  And whenever I can I put little guides on to help people sell their items. For example I have a guide about SEO and using metatags, which many sellers don't know about.

All products are submitted to google, and we are already doing quite well in the search rankings for some items, but the more sellers we get who use their titles and descriptions well, the better we will do - my aim is to be first page for many handmade items.

Sellers can also register their own domain and have it point straight to their shop bypassing the Crafters' barn homepage.  http://noosknits.co.uk is an example (a little self plugging there!) So, if they are wanting to start building a business model they can do this, then move their domain off to their own website when they are ready.

The look of the site is young and vibrant. i love its quirkiness. Very different to most of the other craft sites, but fun for its uniqueness.  That doesn't mean we are not working all the time to improve the look, usability and functionality. That will probably be a never ending task.

So all in all that's why i've been a bit lax here with my posting. We have around 70 shops now, of which I think 50 odd currently have stock in them.  I am trying to fit in knitting too, I have finished a few items for sale in the barn, but they're not photographed yet. Plus I have a childs school cardigan on commission and a couple of cushion covers. The orders are racking up now for the chillier months. It's great.

In other news Chez Noo, there are five red silkie chicks that hatched last week - wanna see?????

The little one up top needed a couple of hours down my bra when it hatched as Mum let it get cold :(   But it perked up and now I can't tell which it was as they all look the same size and nice and healthy. So fingers crossed. 5 hatched out of 6 eggs - my best hatch rate ever.

Right, I need to be off to cook my tea

T'il soon ♥

Missing a party (or 6)

...... a lot of my family are on the Isle of Bute at the annual jazz festival. For numerous reasons I'm not there.  I have (hopefully) chicks hatching on Monday (although in truth I'm not expecting much)  I have a new website which is supposed to be Beta testing from today - although apparently I'm supposed to be able to retrieve the details of where it's held and how to get into it by psychic ability as I haven't heard from my webguy since 2pm when he told me he was uploading it? I'm also being taken away for two nights in a couple of weeks for my birthday (oooooh yes!) and we are going to Dove Holes jazz festival instead anyway. So I shouldn't complain really (and I'm not exactly.....sort of...... much)

But all of that doesn't make me feel a bit like i'm missing a party (oh hell yeah, I AM missing a party - in fact 3 a day and one or two all nighters probably)  So I am planning a weekend of crafting to make up for it. (Assuming I don't  attain the web beta login details by some form of  supernatural/clairvoyant brain surge).  I had ordered yarn to try to make this on the machine, but it hasn't arrived (I left it late, I knew it was unlikely - this is down to me mostly not having known what day it has been for much of the week).  But I am already handknitting Laika as I showed the other day, and I've done the body and 3/4 of one sleeve, so I reckon it's totally possible to finish at least the lace work over the long weekend, 1 1/4 sleeves and a hood, how hard can it be? (in 4 ply!). Especially now I have my yarn bras so don't have to chase 2 balls of yarn all over the place. (Have I told you how flippin' awesome they are? - no?  well that's all you need to know, they're flippin awesome!), or pick dog hair off them (you really don't want to know!)

So that's me for the weekend. A new audible audiobook will be chosen with great care (as much for length as for content as it has to last 3 non working days!), and I will settle in my newtome chair: (which has been cleaned since I got it and took this photo) and I will knit and watch the birds in the garden and cuddle spot and probably put a little TJ Johnson on the Ipod and whilst my family are there jiving away to the real McCoy, I'll be swinging my own little party here.... and loving every minute!

New Knitting - for meeeeee!

I bought yarn last year at Knitnation, to make Laika, and never quite got round to it.  Finally I have found time to get it under way, and I love it!  The yarn is Yarn Yard Twistle  (From TheYarnYard)

That's not a great photo because it's raining epically today, and this is the best my little phone camera could do given the lack of light - It's going to be wonderful though, and I love it already

Me, and instruction book and a LOT of coffee

Oopsey over a week since i posted. Time does fly doesn't it?

I have had dreadful toothache this week so feeling a little below par. Luckily dentist has found a broken tooth and I'm booked in for filling it next Wednesday morning. So the end is in sight for that particular problem.

The grass has had the first cut of the year (and lovely it looks too) and the hens are all beginning to lay. I am getting 2 or 3 a day now out of 6 hens, so either all of them are doing it some of the time, or some of them are doing it all of the time.  Whichever the case, they clearly think it's spring!

Knitting is, as always keeping me sane. I'm making a jumper for a client. No pics because I've only taken a couple on my phone and they don't look as good as they should. But it's coming along nicely and the body is just about done. Bottom up raglan (was going to be top down, but I couldn't place the motifs properly - clearly one stage too far for my brain!)

And in somewhat related news, yesterday I bought a knitting machine.  A brother KH836 and accompanying ribber.  It is 2nd hand but from a dealer so has been thoroughly serviced and is guaranteed.  It's a punchcard machine so has a little "growing" room for me, but was recommended as a good beginners machine.  The ribber and other accessories that I might will get will all fit more advanced brother models so all is good. Brother don't actually make machines any more, but there are plenty in the market place and I was assured that even if parts become scarce there are enough old non-working machines to strip and "cannibalise" so it shouldn't be a problem in the nearish future.

So, I've been scouring ravelry and the internet for information and patterns. I used to use a machine in my teen years, and was pretty adept at it. But now, of course, there is just sooo much more information out there to be read. It's wonderful.

So today, my plan is to run around with the hoover, dust a little in the middle (not round the edges!) and then sit with the instruction book, a notebook and a big mug of coffee

At least I can put snow and frost on my blog.......

I love winter. There I've said it, I love cold weather that makes your hands hurt, and frost with sunlight glinting on it, and snow....... I love wrapping up in my blankets, throws and handknit jumpers and snuggling in front of an open fire. I love walking the dog and hearing the ground crunch beneath my feet and seeing her camouflaged in snowy bracken, and coming home to a treat of hot chocolate steaming in a mug.

However, this year's winter has been a little disappointing so far (I know there is plenty of time yet). We had 12 degrees on Christmas day, and really apart from a good dose of bad wind (I guess even mother nature gets affected by Christmas dinner?) our weather has been very unentertaining. We're averaging around 10 - 13 deg C, and the sky seems to be grey more often than not. (There have been some beautiful blue sky days but just not many of them)

So, in celebration of my love of winter, I have slightly redecorated my blog in anticipation of just a few decent weeks of winter weather.

In other news the crochet blanket is going well. I have to wait for some more wool now as two of the colours were out of stock, and I've done all I can in what I have. 

I've also resurrected the wii fit, to try to lose the somewhat shocking 4 lbs I put on in just one week over Christmas! ooopsey! So that's what I'm off to do now

Have a great week everyone xx


Dec 2010, I am smiling in there - really! ;)

Just one photo for now

It's dull here today, grey, blustery and not very exciting at all. This has made it particularly difficult to photograph my latest finished object!! (yep, ladies and gentlemen, the blanket is finished)

So in the interests of not keeping you waiting here is a not very artistic shot of it.  Hopefully I will manage to get some nicer ones before it's all parcelled up.  There are a few ends that need sewing in tonight, but other than that it's good to go!

I've totally loved making this, the pattern is easy but not as boring as stocking stitch! I am somewhat disappointed in Rowan's technical editing though. The pattern had more mistakes than I would consider acceptable. Made worse by the fact that the mistakes were in the second and third panels which were obviously then copied and pasted down for the other panel instructions.  At one point the pattern said to repeat the last 8 rows when it meant the last 12, and at another point it said to knit rows 46-48 of pattern B, but pattern B finishes on row 40! it's not rocket science and whilst I appreciate that errata are totally understandable in something that doesn't actually make sense unless you knit it, I really think a company the size of Rowan should be able to do a bit better than this. It was an incredibly simple pattern so there shouldn't really have been any errors.

Anyway details as folllows
Pattern: Tweed Throw from Rowan Purelife Home book.
Yarn: Rowan Renew
Colours as pattern.

Knit on 6mm Knitpro interchangeable circs (longest cord I had!)
No mods made to pattern other than where it needed correcting!

Hopefully some more arty shots but this little beauty needs to be parcelled up and sent on her way.

D, I really hope you have cold winters where you are, my heating bill is likely to go up considerably now I've finished knitting this! ;)

Been over a week since I posted?! Gosh lots has happened.

Time can fly by so quickly can't it.

Firstly an update on the gorgeous blanket. It's now big enough to keep my knees warm as I knit it, always a good thing.

It's also now big enough to drape over my rocking chair (and it looks very nice there I must say! LOL)

So that has been consuming a lot of my time. Other than that I've had a bit of a week with Spot who needed the emergency vet on Saturday as she couldn't stand up, and has since been on anti-inflammatories and bed rest - she's not impressed!  Huge improvement though and seems ok again now, although the vet has today said there is definitely impaired mobility around her spine/hind legs, but seemingly no pain, so difficult to locate the exact problem.  We don't know what happened and are now going to get her off the meds to see if it happens again or what the situation is.  Trouble with Spot is she only has two speeds:- Asleep and 100mph! there's nothing in the middle for her.  We're trying to learn the command "steady" but I'm not having a lot of success .  She's 9 years old, so not ancient by any stretch but also it could just be the beginnng of old age arthritis.  I kind of hope it is rather than a nerve problem........ Oh well best just not to think about the possibilities until we know more.

So, there's been that to keep me busy (I've insisted on lots of spaniel cuddles!), a quick trip to London to see TJ Johnson and The Fallen Heroes  on Sunday (that was fun :D) and a bit of house tidying as I have 11 knitters, spinners and sewers round on Saturday for a craft day. (Sewers as in with a sewing machine, not sewers as in underground pipework!)  Not that the house tidying has got very far - I keep getting waylaid by dog cuddling. Oh well, I'm afraid I'm very much a "Take as you find" kind of girl, if none of them turn up to the next one I'll know the state of the house was a step too far! (it's not really that bad, just winter with a dog on house arrest and piles of yarn and fabric all over the place)

Right well it's getting dark here, so time to pull the curtains and get the knitting out........ 'Til soon xx

Arghhh! ground to a halt

There's an error in the pattern. I am fairly sure I know what it should say (but doesn't) but you know if i carry on then I will be wrong. If I stop and wait I will be right! - This is what's known as S*d's law! ;)

In the meantime, if you fancy perusing handcrafted items. Handmade For You UK is holding an online craft fair on facebook. The crafters' Barn has a few items in amongst it. It has taken the form of a series of facebook photo albums separated into gift categories. - Go have a look, you may just find what Granny wants for Christmas! ;)

I'll be back with more progress photos as soon as I can!

Guess what?

Yep!!! It's that throw again ;)

I don't care if you're bored tho' (and I bet all you knitters out there aren't bored one bit) But I so want D to have an idea of the journey of this, and also........ well you know I like memories!

I've just started using the blue.  One thing that I love about the process of knitting is "Colour". As those yarns are slipping through your fingers you notice (if you're looking!) every nupp and tweed and thread and fibre. These yarns have been incredibly cleverly designed. You can just about see in that photo above that in the brown yarn (It's called Trailer) there is the very occasional blue bobble (tweedy bit, nupp? - what would you call it?) which is almost exactly the overall colour of the blue I have just started using. I doubt you'd ever notice if you just picked up the knitting, but to have handled the yarn and seen every stitch wrap around the needle....... well you notice all sorts (fairies/pixies?!).  The Blue is deeper than this photo shows. Very slightly green - I suppose the overall colour i would call a deep petrol blue, but again it is made of so many strands and fibres of different colours. - I think I have only seen this colour once before - and it was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! ;)

Back to the knitting. x

Week 1 of the Tweed Throw

This week has gone in a blur of knitting. I can't deny I am LOVING knitting the throw. The colours are deep and mirror the amazing Autumness (ok i know that's not a word) that we are experiencing here in the uk at the moment.

Spot wanted to show you what I mean by Autumness!












I've finished the first tweed panel, and started the second.  The photos don't really do the colour or texture justice. The colours are deeper and warmer. My camera seems to want to brighten the whole thing so I've taken down the exposure level in picnik, but that's changed the intensity a bit. These are the best representations I can get tho'








I've managed to knit quite a bit this week, but I think progress will slow a little now. It's beginning to get that wonderful heaviness that only a wool blanket can have but it does mean I can't knit for more than about an hour and a half at a time without needing to give my shoulders a break.  This will be the case for about another 2 weeks, then it will magically become big enough to sit in my lap without the need to lift and turn every row. I already miss the warmth of it when I stop knitting and get up tho' as it sits on my thigh keeping the chill off.

There are other things going on Chez Noo, but they are drifting into the background as I just love making this.......... Bonfire night has been and gone, and Spot spent the night in usual terror. In the end I took her out for a drive which seemed to work rather well.

Right I really must get on - I'm wasting valuable knitting time!

oooh oooooh oooh ooooh !

Can't stop - I'm knitting! ;)

A commission.

So, as well as knitting self designed odds and sodds accessories for sale in The Crafters' Barn. I also knit as "a service". So either someone sees a pattern that they fall in love with but are unable to make themselves, or they want something specific designed and made.

A commission has come about in the former of the above circumstances. A lovely lady (who I will refer to as D) came from the USA to visit her daughter this summer and happened upon the Rowan Tweed Throw  while perusing John Lewis.

Now, one of my very favourite things to make are blankets/throws. For a whole bunch of reasons really:-  Firstly, because there is enough knitting to get your teeth into, and because of the general lack of shaping etc you can be so much more experimental with patterns, stitches etc.  Secondly, because they always fit! (and no I'm not joking there, there is nothing worse than making a garment for someone and the sleeves being too short, or the chest being too small (or large)  I truly have difficulty enough making things fit me, so knitting garments for someone else is always a challenge).  And thirdly and most importantly - because blankets become such an important part of a home life. They share moments with us. We snuggle under them on the sofa, we hide behind them in the scary parts of films, we cry into them, and laugh under them, we are ill under them and we just sit and hold hands under them. They share Sunday films on wet weekends, and afternoon naps when we're under the weather. In short they become one of the family. And if they are treated right, and made out of good quality yarn, they will last us many many years. (It is due to that last point that I now find  I have to make them for other people, because as the proud owner of 4 blankets, i have nowhere else left to keep them!)  So you see it is an honour and a privilege to be able to make something for a home that will become so much part of that home as time goes on. (well i surely hope that is the case anyway)

So, D has ordered the yarn and pattern to be delivered straight to me, and hopefully they will be here soon. I promise photos as soon as they are. And about 10 minutes after that, I will begin knitting (I'm allowing 10 minutes for finding the right needles but in all honesty I won't be able to wait even that long) and I have promised to blog my progress so that she can follow the journey of the throw, because as much as it will become part of her home in time, for the first 6 odd weeks of its life it will become a huge part of mine. And that my friends, is why I love to craft and why making things for people is so amazing.  When I started the Crafters' Barn I put the tagline as "Put a little handmade love in your home" and I really hope that that will never be more true than for this commission.

Some shameless plugging (or showing you my knits!)

Well now that I'm a business I kinda felt weird thinking about showing you all my finished items, because they're for sale and i didn't want to plug tooo shamelessly (!) But then I thought that as this is a knitting blog it seems daft not to really, so here are my latest finished objects! (I feel as if I am permantly attached to Barbara Walker's Treasury at the moment!)

So from the top: Merino Viscose cowl knitted in ICE yarns.
Second: Alpaca cowl in Garnstudio/Drops alpaca (mmmmm gorgeous)
Third: Baby blanket wonderfully modelled by Teddy Anne (noseless Teddy Anne as it happens, but I think noseless is the very least you can be at 43 years old eh?) Knitted in DROPS/Garnstudio Delight. Very nice yarn and machine washable.
Fourth: Merino/Cashmere Gentleman's keyhole scarf. Yarn is from Kingcraig in Brora. Quite a sturdy yarn, not soft like the baby merinos but lovely nonetheless and will at least stand up to a little 5 o'clock shadow!
Fifth: Alpaca/Merino/Silk Infinity scarf in Araucania Azapa. OMiGoodness this yarn is totally gorgeous. soft as anything. (and absolutely not suitable for the 5o'clock shadow - would be totally wasted on a bloke!)

So there you have it.  There are a couple more finishes but i haven't taken the photos yet.

In other news life is much as normal. Chickens, dog walks, hoovering (ok I lied about the last one) And generally totally enjoying this amazing October sunshine we're having.

Hope you are too?

Sad News & Ally Pally 2011

I'm sorry everyone, I've been AWOL again. It's been a bit of a fortnight if I'm honest, and although writing about it may well have actually been a good thing, i just didn't feel the love for blogging during it.

All you blog-readers should know, though, that my beautiful Silkie-mama was taken by a fox last week. So no more pictures of her. Super-sad as she was brooding 6 new silkie eggs for me. I had left the door to the house open as i was away for the day, and the fox must've found a way in. Tbh i do leave the house open often and have never had an issue, but there you have it, it's happened, and I'm gutted (and have to admit to bawling my eyes out at the time - especially as it was a bit of a raw day for me anyway)  So the fox has not only denied me my chicken cuddle, but has possibly cost me £120 in lost chicken sales (silkies sell well as they are such good mums), assuming a 50% female hatch rate. Plus it'll cost me every bit of £30-£40 to replace her possibly,( and that's money I haven't got at the moment). Although i won't do that yet as having such a little bird hasn't always been easy. She was way too small to be in with the big girls - plus she was broody every other fortnight, so she spent most of her life in her own house and run, but alongside the big girls so she could see them. But it wasn't always the most convenient of situations. So I need to consider carefully what to do next.  She was a wonderful mum though and she did me proud with around 6 hatches.

If she had already hatched the chicks i really wouldn't have felt as badly about it. She was getting old, and i s;pose the fox needs to eat as much as the next animal. And she would never have been worth plucking and dealing with for a human meal. And if they die naturally you are not supposed to bury them any more, so that would have meant a huge fire (a cremation service if you will)  So, another 6 months down the line and I'd have taken it much more pragmatically. But the timing sucks both financially and emotionally and I'm heartbroken to have lost the only chicken that would actually be cuddled! - She really was a little snuggler.

Anyway, moving swiftly on.......

Last Thursday Mum and i made our annual pilgrimmage to Ally Pally for the Knitting and Stitching show.  I took a certain amount of cash (and no credit cards so I couldn't be tempted to abandon my budget!) and am very happy with my purchases:

I got a 3 month subscription to The Knitter, and Molly Makes (not hugely impressed with the latter, but that's the beauty of a cheap 3 month sub!) I got a thread box (no an ice cream tub is not a suitable substitute).  "Crochet lace innovations" by Doris Chan. And three lots of yarn:  3 Skeins of pure silk, 10 Skeins of green Mirasol Sulka and 4 skeins of Subliime Kid Mohair blend.

We had a really lovely day, it wasn't overly crowded and we had plenty of time to amble around and decide how to spend our money. The highlight of my day was very definitely meeting Doris Chan, especially as i was wearing my Jewel jumper at the time. At this time of the year it is one of my most wearable jumpers, and i think I may have helped boost her book sales just a little! *blushes*.  So amazing to be noticed by the designer of something you are wearing though - especially if it's a make that you are happy with. It was definitely one of those Big Grin moments!

So there you go, a mixed week. But we are now starting a new one, and I have a smile on my face and a skip in my step, because life is too short not to have.  I have lots of ideas for the yarn I bought at Ally pally - all of which is destined for The Crafters' Barn. - So if you fancy any of it, - keep a look out in my shop.

Have a great week, and I'll be back soon xx

Update on lace sleeves sweater

Just wanted to share how this is turning out - i am loving it! - obviously being 4ply it's slow progress (and I'll never make it again in 4ply ;) ) but it's gorgeous so far:

I need to add more length then there is a lace panel that goes on the bottom, and the sleeves need to be knitted (they're lace, but given the name of the sweater that shouldn't be a surprise!).  I'm knitting this in Twilley's Freedom Gorgeous 4ply

Also i wanted to show you this finished Cami, I had forgotten to take a photo of it finished. it's stretched a bit on the straps so i need to stitch some ribbon or binding in them to hold them a bit tighter, but i love it and wear it loads.

pattern: Beaded Cami, heavily modified though with help from other knitters notes on ravelry! (and without the beads!) Knitted in King Cole Bamboo Cotton, colour Opal.

Knitting update

Right back to business eh?  The July challenge has taken a bit of a battering in the past few weeks so I'm not quite going to finish it. - It's close though, and won't be too far behind. i always find knitting harder in the summer - it's hot to handle wool for a start, and there are so many other things to do in the extended daylight hours. But anyway enough of the excuses - here they are in their present state:

The pattern is Leyburn and the yarn is Opal Snake.

I am also making a gorgeous top-down lace-sleeved, 4 ply top. The pattern is here (Ravelry link) and I am using freedom gorgeous 4 ply which is a bamboo mix.  it's coming out really nicely, but i seem to have far more stitches on the front than the back - no idea what I have done - I've not been concentrating as well as normal obviously. But I'm plodding on anyway as I have a fairly decent bust to fill the extra frontage (!) and will try to bodge the waist shaping to even it all out. - We will wait and see what happens.

That photo isn't a good colour likeness at all - the colour is fennel and it's a lot brighter "in the real" !

Everything else is plodding along as normal Chez Noo, the weeds seem to be growing at 4 times the rate of any flowers or veggies, as is the lawn (I say lawn but actually that's really just weeds too)  Spot is enjoying being a bit more restful in the hotter weather and the chickens are laying well. I do have some red-mite in the biggest house so house-painting/disinfecting/blowtorching will be happening this weekend. - As I say - all normal!

2 days til August!

July Challenge

Just a quick note to say that my July sock yarn challenge has been chosen and is well underway.

The yarn is Opal rainforest in Snake, and the pattern is Leyburn (Ravelry link).

 And here is a little progress shot:  

It's way further than that now, as I have completed the foot and am halfway or so up the leg.  I modded the pattern a little to have a bigger foot (pattern says 50 sts around)  I have 30 on the sole and 34 on the top. I am also doing a gusset heel, as i find short row heels a bit tight around my instep/ankle area.

Should get these done on time! ;)