The chain of events

It's all the fault of bloggers. I read on Anne's blog about the sale at Stash, which she'd heard about from Alison (who bought 10 skeins of Noro Blossom), who'd heard about it from Steph, who bought 4 balls of Cashmerino Aran. Anne bought 10 balls of Cathay and 8 balls of Alpaca Silk. And I wasn't going to get sucked in. But then I did. And now there's 15 balls of Jaeger Aqua on the way to me...

So what did you buy?!

Out of the labyrinth...

I had written a post all about my holiday but then there was a slight technical hitch. I arrived back from the Lake District and promptly came down with Labyrinthitis. Which is a totally crappy thing to have. Fortunately I was still at Mum's in Lincoln, rather than on my own down south. This meant that, not only did I have a week away on holiday, I then had 10 days off sick, which was a total pain. I went back to work on Thursday and have just about caught up with everything, and opened nearly three weeks worth of post (eeeeeek!), but I missed a meeting with my chartership mentor so that's delayed that for another couple of months.

I actually have several bits of posts written, as I got various podcasts listened to and books read


whilst I was away/being ill, so I will add those in over the next few weeks. I also haven't had a chance to reply to any comments from last time as I only had v. limited internet access whilst I was at Mum's, so apologies for that.

It seems strange now in the sunshine but we actually went on holiday in the snow! The mountains looked rather pretty...


Occasionally the sun came out and we went to Holehird Gardens:

and Wordsworth's Birthplace at Cockermouth

and attempted to go to Dove Cottage at Grasmere, only it was rather expensive to go in, so we didn't and went and had lunch in Grasmere instead.

I had a wonderful evening at the Keswick Stitch n Bitch, but forgot to take any pics. Anyway, it was fun and great to meet some more knitters and see what they were making.

We also had a day in Penrith (the church hall has a very reasonably priced cafe run by volunteers and serves supremely enormous jacket potatoes) and I spent rather a lot of time in the Bluebell Bookshop and then in Indigo Knits, where I bought a skein of yummy hand-dyed sock yarn.


and then perused the charity shops. Aren't charity shops in other places just fab?!

Monkey had a bit of an exhausting holiday, what with his family coming along (this is his cousin, MJ, who'd come along with my godmother)


and my nephews


And as for knitting... Well, I didn't get that much done due to small people being around. But I did learn entrelac from Yarn Forward magazine and started the Sarah bag pattern from there. This will be for a friend (whose birthday was actually at the beginning of April but I warned her it will be very late!). The yarn is James C Brett Marble Chunky on 5mm needles.

That's all for now! More updates soon...

Get Knitted workshop

Last Saturday I went over to Bristol for a crochet workshop at Get Knitted. It would have meant catching a train at 5.30am, and we all know I don't do early mornings, so I spent Friday night at Bristol Youth Hostel, a converted warehouse in the centre of the city. Which was rather plush - comfy dorms and even an organic wine bar with some very tasty homemade cake! And the obligatory Other Person in the Dorm whom you never actually see awake. Plus two slightly bizarre girls who had a loud conversation whilst in the loo together...

I met Penny in the morning and we caught the bus from the train station to Get Knitted (it's only about 10 minutes from the station on the bus, and the bus stop is very close to the shop). The workshop was taught by Sarah Hazell in a room upstairs, with plenty of tea, coffee (fair trade!!) and nibbily things to hand.

We were provided with packs containing two balls of Rowan Purelife organic cotton (VERY nice, if a little splitty) and taught how to do some crochet stitches. We made little cases to keep our crochet hooks in and also learnt how to make flowers:

Mine is a bit wonky. My case is nearly finished, but I forgot to take a photo of it.
And afterwards we had 10% off shopping in the store!

I went to stay with Penny and her husband (who made us a very tasty veggie lasagne) and cats on Saturday night, and, after we'd been to church on Sunday morning, we carried on with the crochet. Accompanied by tea (in a groovy Penguin Pride & Prejudice mug) and chocolate biscuits.

Before heading into Exeter to have some lunch looking towards the Cathedral. Note the Spring-like weather, compared with last weekend!

I hadn't bought any yarn for me for a while so decided to have a bit of a splurge at Get Knitted. Well, we did have 10% off...

This is a skein of Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn, in Velvet Bilberry. I'm intending to make a pair of gloves with this, as I want to have gloves and a scarf that match my Coronet hat. I need to look more coordinated for work, rather than the walking scarecrow I am at the moment...

So I also bought two skeins of Lamb's Pride worsted in Amethyst to make an Irish Hiking Scarf.

Then I found some Lana Grossa sock yarn in the sale bin, and couldn't resist this Meilenweit Cotton Fiesta. I've deliberately not bought any commercial socks for a couple of years now, so am now nearly worn through the ones I wear most of the time. Which means I'll soon be able to wear hand knitted socks all the time! But I've only got one pair of cotton ones so far, and could do with some more for the summer.

And I was going to buy the yarn for Juliaca, as I love that pattern. But then there was a finished Narvik on display in the shop, which I fell in love with and which would also be perfect to wear at work. And I couldn't afford to get the yarn for both, so Narvik it was. Narvik needs seven balls of Rowan Cocoon, which is lovely and soft.


I think that's all for now. I'm off on holiday tomorrow so probably won't be posting again for about a fortnight.

The amazing disappearing snow

I went back up to Lincoln for the Easter weekend (yes, the Lent carbon-fast has been a disaster - 1100 miles driven, although I have turned down the radiator in my room, which obviously cancels out the driving...). And I'm going to Bristol on the train next weekend. So that's OK then.

Saturday morning in Lincoln was grey and dingy:

although I did go to Knit Lincs to meet up with Nic & some of the others which brightened the day up.

Then on Sunday we woke up to this:

4" of it. Which had reduced to this by Monday morning!

But at least these two had a chance to build a snowman with some parental help (Auntie was still in her pyjamas)!

I hadn't seen Noah and Dylan since Christmas and it was amazing how much they had changed. Not so much growing, but Noah was talking so much more and has also entered the "why" phase. One conversation ran like this:
Me: I'm just going to nip to the loo before we go out, Noah.
Noah: Why?
M: Because I need a wee.
N: Why?
M: Because I drank a really big cup of tea a while ago.
N: Why?
M: Because I was thirsty.
N: Why?
M: Because I hadn't had a drink for a while.
N: Why?
Large series of crashes heard in the distance as Auntie goes to bang her head against the wall.

He also still didn't believe it was possible for grown ups to want to stay in bed for the morning and came to find me on the Saturday when I'd gone back to bed with a cup of tea:
Noah: Why you in bed?
Me: I'm asleep.
N: Why? (his expression saying "my auntie is a great big liar, she's not at all asleep")
M: Because it's the middle of the night (otherwise known as 8am) and when you get to my age you need lots of sleep.
N: Why?
At this point I realised that sleep wasn't going to happen and gave in and read him a story.

The previous weekend I had a very enjoyable few days in Bristol with Esme and Persephone and their humans:

I went to the City Museum & Art Gallery with one of their humans, which was fun, especially as it was free so you don't have that need to look at every single picture like you feel you have to when you've paid to get in. Or is that just me?

One of the humans also knits so we had a very peaceful evening of knitting, which was great fun. I finally got the little socks finished for my colleague's daughter's 1st birthday:

These are with some leftover Regia Canadian Color yarn.

In Lincoln this weekend I had a bit of a heart-stopping moment when I thought I might not have enough yarn left for this sock:

I just made it, although bear in mind the recipient hasn't tried it on yet. So I hope it doesn't need to be any longer. This is the Garter Rib sock pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, using the unbranded 4ply I bought last year at the Skep during Skip North. I don't think the yardage is as good as some other sock yarns as normally I'd have plenty of yarn for one sock in a 50g ball.

And I think that's all for now. I'm off to Bristol again this weekend for a crochet workshop at Get Knitted. YAY!! (and 10% off on the day...) And I'm going on the train this time so, not only less global warming, but more knitting time...