kool aid

My niddynoddythingywingy gimmy came today along with 300 gs merino roving...now considering I don't have my wheel duh!!! what is one to to do with well play at dyeing it of course...so heres my first efforts. Didn't really know what was going to do but wanted a speckled effect for when I spin it ...(well when I finally become proficient enough). Still it was good fun and heres the result. The left is called "speckled egg" and the right "Brighton Rock".

Good weekend!

Had a brilliant weekend, DH and I went to London to see Mamma Mia, what a superb all singing all funny brilliant feel good show. Stayed at a lovely hotel City Inn Westminster, just a few yards from the Thames...(very good prices on Last min.com) take a look. Only thing was breakfast wasn't included and they wanted £19 plus £4 for tray carriage...yeah right. £23 for a breakfast...don't think so.

Anyways been having to think what to wear to my nieces 18 birthday party, she is having a fancy dress Disney theme. Was going to go as Cruella de ville..seems loads are doing that. So me and Dh are going as Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweep...should be fun. Will post piccys after but party not for another month yet.

On the knitting front...have finished one mitten and just cast on for 2nd. Have brought my niddy noddy for my hand spinning. Some white merino fibre and koolaid for having a go at my own dyeing. Looking forward to that one...brought Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook. That is an inspiration in itself. So now only 6-9 weeks for my wheel. Still lots I want to buy but am pacing myself. Am feeling I need to cast on another pair of socks...but I must be good and get mitten finished. All for now..x

Per chance!

Happened to ring the supplier of spinning wheel that I am coveting, he said he had none in stock until new delivery in 6/8/10 weeks...as the wheel comes from Canada is made in maple made by a chap called Gord Lendrum, hence the name Lendrum...anyway have ordered it from only distributors over here ( I mean how can a girl not, there it sits staring at you out of the screen saying "buy me, buy me..come on you know you want to"). Anyway have taken the plunge so still gives me plenty of time to sort out other bits and pieces and do a bit of reading. Don't laugh, thought I would give her a name....Mavis...so look forward to 6/10 weeks..



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PS

Smiles sweetly .... if you like reading my blog, please do say hi......love to read any comments. Have a good day all wherever you are or whatever time.x

One more step....

One more step along the way I go. Well postie brought me some Corriedale roving and BFL top...so am gradually collecting. Was so excited when opened the box, DH home for the day I looked up at him and grinned..."Now what am I supposed to do with it?...duh!!!!...still exciting getting it though. Going to purchase Ashford Book of Carding and my carders and last but not least a niddy noddy next. Then think will be all set, only probs is range the company where am going to purchase wheel and it will be 6/8/10 weeks from order....bohohoho...still gives me time to finish off things.
Anyway in sunny Sussex yeah right...hissing it down with rain...so me and DH are off for a spot of lunch somewhere, then this afternoon back to sort out our spare bedroom which is fast becoming a hobby room for both of us.

My quest.

Still doing my research, now yesterday was looking at carders as obviously will be something that I need when get my wheel....so goes to different internet sites....some say only need 48 point for most fibres etc, other says need 78 point will be the only ones I need to cover most aspects. Well asked a few questions and seems 78 point will do fine...honestly I wish these on line shops would make up their minds.

Didn't put much about it yesterday as soooo tired after darling Dad rushed to hospital via ambulance with chest pains...he has 3 stents and unstable angina. I had to go over to sit my Mum as she has end stage dementia. Needed to get emergency care sorted, ie nursing home if Dad was being kept in. Thank goodness they sent him home...it seems all is ok.....he says his heart is fine...sure it is....but it is the leads leading up to the engine that are furred up. Try to explain this to him but he just doesn't seems to get it. Obviously looking after his wife is putting terrible strain on him...but when I suggest respite care for him he just looks at me and recites their marriage vows "for rich for poorer in sickness and in health". My Mum cannot speak move, she is spoon fed but the love that goes between their eyes...I swear it would pull at the heart strings of even the most hardened person.
I cannot seem to make him understand that he needs to look after himself more...Mum is where she is and I don't know how much longer she will be on this planet...goodness knows how he will be afterwards, am dreading it, so many elderly people just give in. But in the meantime if I can just get into him not to go digging the garden....moving heavy stuff that there is me and his two strapping sons to help. Oh well.

So enough babbling on, got to be off to the bank and a bit of shopping..byeee.

Monday again!

Morning....Monday again...well I hope and trust that all had a lovely weekend. Me and DH's was relaxing. I went to a Spinning 7 Guild meeting where they were having a talk on Silk....no don't yawn!!!! It was very interesting...being shown from the cocoon and how the cocoon is spun to how they get the silk from the cocoon to the uses of silk etc...then there was lunch and in the afternoon, we had a play around with drop spindling silk on a tiny oh so cute spindle. There was one lady who was using a charka wheel and oh my goodness the delicacy of her spinning...I asked what she was going to do with it. She said "nothing"...she just spins it for the sake of it as she likes it. Erm is it me??
Anyway I then had the chance to ask lots of other ladies who had brought their spinning wheels questions and to watch and learn as I am gradually getting nearer to purchasing my wheel...I have decided after much deliberation and research that I am going for the Lendrum...the lady at the Guild spoke to me of this as she has had numerous wheels over the years and thoroughly recommends it..Lots of the ladies had Ashford Travellers and I asked her why none had this wheel...and she said they didn't know about it when they purchased theirs. I suppose it is a matter of personal choice....but also that it is made from maple and not ply and mdf is somewhat influencing this purchase. But to spread the cost I am currently purchasing my bits and pieces needed to go with it...also just bought some corriedale tops and
BFL in natural.....but in the meantime have just finished my socks.




Unfortunately the colourway has knitted up differently from one sock to the other...the left one is paler...very weird, as you couldn't see it on the skein. They have been knitted in Posh yarn sock weight...the pattern from the freebie sock book with Knit magazine. So will bid you a fond adieu and have a good week in whatever you do...ttfn

New Books

Received these two books and must say am very pleased with them, the first one Spin To Knit is brilliant, it explains things in laymans terms....well explanations that I find easier to understand and digest as to the previous book that I had bought which was Spinning in the Old Fashioned Way... I personally found this too confusing and for me went into too much depth, am sure it will come in use later on but for now...SPIN TO KNIT does it....

The second one is 200 RIPPLE STITCH PATTERNS.... again what a little beauty, definitely worth having in your library, especially if you like doing throws, afghans, baby blankets, cot/pram or whatever...think you could adapt to all sorts so a real winner...both from Book Dep.

Thinking about holidays!

Dismal dreary usual monday and my mind starts wandering back, to my last big holiday which was my first ever cruise. We have married 3 daughters off within the year and the year before, so DH and I were in need of some tlc and as the weddings had virtually broke our bank balance, we thought right our turn. So we decided to go on a very exciting adventure and went on our very first cruise on the Sea Princess... we set sail from Southampton on a sunny morning in September, the first step onto the sip was awe-inspiring, we had done all the necessarys on arrival at the dockside our suitcases were whisked away and the we stepped into this......well my jaw just dropped to the floor. Me and DH just stood there gawping, seasoned cruisers smiled sweetly, "Oh look cruise virgins"......still didn't care, I gawped and gawped.
Well we soon set sail after our 3 daughters waving us off, which in itself I found a complete chocker!!! silly Mum....anyway our first port of call was Cork in Ireland, sailing into the harbour the houses were all painted in different colours it looked so pretty like something out of the childrens programme Ballymory. When we left Cork all the locals gathered on the dockside and the local brass band came out to play us out, it was really magic. Then off to Dublin again in Ireland. Then we set sail for the rough yeuck part of the journey, we hit a force 8 gale coming off the top of Scotland, well believe me if you'd had a helicopter to lift me off, I would have gone, I was so frightened, couldn't sleep, husband said don't look out of the window. Ok what did I do, you guessed it looked out, now you see it now you don't, THE HORIZON THAT IS.....anyway fitfull night and next stop was Torshaven in the Faroe Islands, again very interesting. Next port of call wall if I recall Reykjavik, where we visited the lava fields and the Blue Lagoon, people had the chance to take a dip, I didn't.







Hubby was absolutely freezing, but it was soooooo blue, shame the photos cant' show it. Then if memory serves me well, we went to Greenland and cruised along an inside passge, honestly at times we didn't think the ship was going to go through, but it was truly breathtakin, mind you some cruisers who had been to Alaska, po-poed it, but it was good for us. Then I think we had two days at sea unfortunately more gales, force 7's, this time wasn;t too bad, people after dinner were falling all over the place, remember we were walking to the evening theatre to see a show and wish had had a video camera, slide this way, slide that, that even shut the decks off.
Next port of call was Newfoundland in Canada, paired up with a couple and toke a taxi ride all around. Last but not least we ended up in New York, but unfortunately didn't have as long there as would have liked, because the coaches couldn't get in to pick us all up from the quay side as unfortunately 6 cruises ships had docked with 2 hours of each other, it was total mayhem. But it didn't mar a very enjoyable first cruise, we've seen some lovely sights, met some lovely people but like all holidays, one seems to enjoy the memorys maybe sometimes more, don't know whether would do one again, felt very vunerable at times out at sea, miles from knowhere.

Me in New York, we had sailed through so many variable temperatures, so we'd had to take thicker jumpers and summer wear it was 23c in September.

Even managed a couple of dips in the hot tub on board.
Cork in Ireland and those pretty painted houses.



Going through a passage in Greenland to go and see the ice flow.


Torshaven if I remember rightly in the Faroe Islands.

Stitch show

Went to Brighton this morning to the Stitch and Craft fair, it was ok'ish, plenty for card makers and cross stitchers, in fact I would say about 60% of the stalls were aimed at the home card maker, there were only 4 stalls for knitters...boo hoo. But saying that there were some lovely pieces of work on the cross stitch stalls, particularly was a beautiful one of man and baby done in greys and blacks, I had to go and touch it to make sure that it wasn't a photograph.
But more excitingly came home and have found a Spinner and Weavers guild to go to and learn...am I chuffed???????...do birds sing. Spoke to a lovely lady and they have a meeting next Saturday where they are talking about drop spinning with silk and she said I can be hands on etc and she is going to bring her Lendrum spinning wheel for me to have a go on, will feel a bit shy first off but she had a lovely chat with me on the phone and because she is so in love with her craft her enthusiasm really rubbed off on me...so heres hoping. I can see that I think this is going to start to cost oodles of dosh before long...think I better starting saving my pennies, as the wheel that I was going to buy, she told me to forget it as I would be wasting my money. The one that she has recommended, (as apparently through all her years of spinning she has tried most of them) will cost me £70 more... eeek, but apparently once you buy it you will not need anything else as you can buy add ons.
Isn't it strange that such a simple craft as knitting from the raw yarn to the item can bring such satisfaction.

Media hype!

Why oh why in this country does the media (in my opinion) hype a bit of snow up...for heavens sake, all we heard last night was the cold front coming and blizzards going to dump 5/8 inches of snow on us.....traffic chaos, schools closing down....erm well was watching morning news and they were going to different places and the commentator standing there giving it large about there being 6 inches where he is, well maybe I was being a bit thick but all I could see where he was standing was about an inch or so dusting........now if we go back to my childhood which was in Brighton in the 50s/60s....yes I know maybe sounding a bit old foggish but then we had snow, real snow, blizzards drifts. I used to wake up and the snow had banked up to our front door and Dad would open it and it would be 5/6 feet high, Dad would have to shovel his way through and then neighbours all along the road would clear a pathway through on the pavement. I used to walk to school on the ice underneath my feet would be 4inch thick from compacted snow, or course I would chose to walk in the deep bits. It used to lay around for 2 or 3 weeks, blizzards were so thick you just couldn't see. Yes we still went to school, nothing like knowadays with all this namby pamby stuff going on....closing schools. The house I grew up in as a child was so cold in winter that I used to have ice form on the inside of the windows, yes folks the inside, my Mum used to bring a bowl of hot water up for me to get washed in bed, then I used to get dressed via a single bar electric fire in my bedroom where Mum would hold my school shirt in front of it to warm it up.... we had no central heating in our house, my Dads favourite phrase when I was a child and we had coal fires was..when I left the room "SHUT THE DOOR BEHIND YOU, DO YOU THINK YOU WERE BORN IN A BARN"...this is only 40plus years ago that I am talking about, but how much has changed in such a small age of time.

Morning!

Got any snow yet, supposed to get 5" tonight, should be fun. So hows the world with everybody in blogland, good I hope.

So heres the dishcloths did whilst away, easy on the mind, quick to do and great fun, lovely for inbetweenprojects. Knitted in Garnia Paris, you should get 2 cloths out of one ball.


Also, have started the socks from Knit Today freebie sock book, doing them in Poshyarns sock yarn on 2.5 circs, pattern is really nice and so good thus far.

Dilema

I seem to have a bit of a dilema, all brought on by myself. The problem being that there is so much that I want to knit and so much yarn that I want to buy.....and now that I have managed to get the hang of drop spindling, I THINK I would like to buy a wheel, but alas this is where the problem lies. Knitting at times even though it is supposed to be relaxing can and does stress me out......as I tend to have 5 Wips and a fair stash. It actually gives me a headache so I have at this moment in time taken to resolve my way of doing things, that is I have finished all but one of the wips and thereby starting to eat into the stash. But then I go and look at all the things that I would like to knit and I seem to just go round in circles and circles because I know that if I go on the route of buying a wheel this will eat into my knitting time and then I will want to spin loads of lovely yarns (well if I became good enough)...then I think is it worth the trouble with so much yarn out there already spun etc, as I like to support the small independants.
Oh of course then there is all the classes that given time I would like to attend and also would love to go on a knitting holiday but then would feel guilty about leaving DH behind as do everything together....oh botherations...never mind buying a bloody spinning wheel, need to stop my head spinning first.

Hello!

Thats better, me and DH been away down to Devon for a few days R and R...boy did we need it. Stayed on a lovely small holding where the cock crowed at 9 am not 6 as they were still in their pens. Looked out over a lovely coarse fishing lake and just up into the hills, our bedroom had windows on both sides so when you awoke all you could see was the beautiful greenery. The place we stayed had been a small barn which they knocked down and rebuilt just recently into a open plan kitchen/lounge/diner complete with my favourite cooker an AGA.....plus a wonderful log burner....had a big bathroom and also a wet room which was great fun. They had cattle and sheep for their own consumption and the eggs from the chickens. We just got up late, went for a drive late am found a nice place for lunch, visited villages that we fancied oh and unfortunately came across HRH Prince Charles "Poundbury"...erm wasn't quite sure what that is supposed to be...a quientessential country village? Also managed to do some knitting just made cotton dishcloths, nothing mind taxing but was fun.

Unfortunately on the way home just before Chichester in Sussex there had been a horrific accident, half of a small car was imbeded in the back of a articulated lorry, we drove by, they had shut the carriageway off completely....I just burst into tears, they didn't stand a chance and funny thing was me and DH had only just been commenting about how motorists drive too close to each other......the scene was a very sobering one.

So now ensconed back at our nest, hubbys back to work Monday bo hoo!! and I musty get back into the swing of things....anyways a few pics .....ttfn x




Thought hubby doing a bit of cooking, well don't want him to get out of touch!!!! hehehe!


A bit of greenery scenery...da.da....