Folksy and Misi

I've been admiring things on Etsy for a while, but the dollar pricing put me off, especially once the exchange rate began to move in the wrong direction (for me).


Then I read on Nic's blog about Folksy, which is like a UK version of Etsy. And I got hooked stalking things on that. A couple of weeks ago I bought a couple of things from Nic's shop, NicsKnots, pictures below:


A needle roll for DPNs with SEEPS on it!! BAAAAAA

And this really cool cat drawstring bag:

I'd also followed Nic onto Misi (which is similar to Folksy) to have a look. And ended up stumbling upon the perfect present for a friend, from a seller called Mad about bags

Haven't sent her it yet, I hope she'll like it!

Thank you for all the comments about my last post - we enjoyed reading them (he does read my blog, and yes, he has seen the size of my stash. Although he's only seen the boxes and chest etc that it's stored in, rather than the whole lot strewn all over the place, which would look far scarier...)

I'm missing my garden. I've been reading people's updates about gardens and planting things, including Yarnstorm's gorgeous pictures, and I'm missing doing things in my garden. Waah. I'd only just discovered that I liked gardening, so I only really had 18 months of doing it, but I enjoyed it in that time (we'll ignore all the Sunday afternoons I spent moaning about having to go outside to do stuff instead of curling up with a book).

So I planted some herb seeds for my windowsill:

It's not really the same, is it?! Now the weather is better I'm also missing having the garden for hanging washing outside. The airer is a bit of a permanent feature in my living room. I want my garden back!! I hope my tenant is taking good care of it...

The recent lack of knitting

The eagle-eyed may have noticed a massive decrease in the amount of knitting I've done over the last two months. There is a reason. Exciting things have been going on in part of my life that appeared to be in terminal decline. And I'm very happy about it. ;-)

Yes, Monkey and the nephews are no longer the only men in my life. Actually, are they men at all? One is a knitted monkey and the other two are small, noisy, energetic sprogs who like making Play-Doh hair with garlic crushers and making their Auntie get up horribly early to read books about Big Diggers when she's on holiday with them.

Anyway, a picture I took with a certain someone, as we wandered along the South Bank and watched sunset over the Houses of Parliament.



And I may have got slightly diverted into Stash on the same day and came away with some Koigu PPPM (you would have thought a trip to a yarn shop was enough to frighten any man off, especially on a first date, but not this one). And some people, like Nickerjac, Grit and Michaela saw him (briefly) that day!

Other places we have wandered over the weeks:

Cookham, where we had some lunch, then had a look in the church (bits of which date back to the Saxons), saw Stanley Spencer's grave and then

wandered by the Thames in the (sort of) sunshine.

Another time we wandered along the Thames a bit further down and stopped at Boulter's Lock,

which was evidently a bit busier in Victorian times.

We've also wandered around Wandsworth Common. This is the station, which featured in the film "The Waiting Room", which I borrowed from him a few weeks ago. I loved the film, it appealed to my soppy nature.

And there's a great bookshop (LibraryThing link) nearby too. Very small, but one of those independent ones that somehow manages to pack an enormous amount into a tiny space.

I've had a similarly detrimental effect on the number of books he's getting read...

Have you read...

... "Lullabies for little criminals" by Heather O'Neill? I'm meant to be reading it for Reading Group next week, but I'm not getting very far. It doesn't sound cheerful from the plot summary in the link above, but I'm not even that far yet - only on page 25! I just can't be bothered to pick it up and read any more of it.

I finished reading "The believers" by Zoe Heller last week, and I'm wondering if that had something to do with it? I picked this one up at the library as I'd enjoyed (probably the wrong word? More like "found compelling and got sucked into it"?) "Notes on a scandal" and thought I'd try something else by Heller. I wasn't too impressed with this one either, once I'd realised I couldn't care less about any of the characters and the fact that nothing really happened until page 82?!?! Apparently one of the things Zeller does is produce unlikeable characters but I'm not sure where the incentive is to keep reading if you don't give a damn what happens to anyone in the book? According to the reviews quoted in the Wikipedia article: "It has been called a "cruelly clever new novel", "an observant and unsentimental family drama that pits rationalism against faith", "at heart an American novel: a larger, more considered, layered and utterly assured study of a family driven by political passion whose personal lives refuse to comply with prescribed ideology", and simply "a brilliant, brilliant book".

Maybe I missed something? Still haven't decided whether to carry on with "Lullabies..." but if I procrastinate much longer it'll be the Reading Group meeting and I won't have read it so the problem will be solved.

In other backward steps I frogged (again) the Herringbone/No purl monkey socks and began pattern attempt no. 3 with the sock yarn. Has my concentration suddenly become really bad or something? I can't ever remember having this many book and knitting failures all at the same time?!

This time I'm attempting the Rib Fantastic pattern from the "Knitting socks with handpainted yarn" book. I'm loving the book (see, I can still read and enjoy something! Maybe it's weird novels that are the problem?) and found the introductory chapters really helpful in terms of different styles of handpainting/dyeing and what to look out for when you're deciding which pattern to use.


I've also knitted half of a tea cosy for a friend's birthday (which was on 3rd April, but I only gave her last year's birthday present at the beginning of March so I'm not doing too badly really...). The pattern is from the RYC Home book and the yarn is some space-dyed DK I bought from Wingham Wools.

I have also been playing hunt the button. I've nearly finished my Suri cardigan and needed five small buttons. Via Twitter Blueadt suggested trying Duttons for Buttons in Harrogate and Anne suggested Dragon Yarns, both of which I liked the look of. But then I got an email from Kangaroo, whom I'd forgotten sold buttons and they had some I really liked. Except of course there's a minimum order, so I ended up ordering more buttons...

These are cheap and cheerful black plastic buttons, along with some sweet little Rowan ones:

and I couldn't resist some of the Debbie Abrahams hand-made buttons, even though they're too big for the cardigan.


I've been playing around with my veg box delivery order too. I use Riverford Norton, which delivers from Hampshire, and I had been getting the mini fruit & veg box every week, but that never includes potatoes or onions, so I've switched to alternating between a mini fruit & veg box, and a mini veg box with extra fruit bag. Except I then invariably find I prefer the look of the other box contents that week so end up switching around again.

Still, this was last week's mini veg box - looks rather good, doesn't it? I consumed the last of it tonight with an omelette!

Lent 2

These are the activities from the last couple of weeks of Love Life Live Lent:


• Make a list of things you want to say sorry to God for, say sorry, then throw the list away.

Haven't got round to this one yet.

• Buy a coffee and give it to someone on the way to work.

This one seems to be aimed at commuters & I don't pass anywhere to buy a coffee on the way to work. So I made coffee for my colleagues instead.

• Do a chore or errand for a member of your household.

I got round the lack of anyone else in the household problem by offering to help people out with a few things. So far, I've babysat a museum for part of my lunchbreak, went out at lunch to buy chocolate for a colleague, and out another time to buy teabags for another colleague!

• Hold a fundraising tea break.

Not quite sure how I'll achieve this one? I did buy some books at work for a charity appeal for the local hospice. Can that count?

• Think of 3 blessings of the day and be thankful.

This was actually relatively easy, if rather thought-provoking. The day I did this was the day of the soup run in Slough, during which it poured with rain. It was easy afterwards to feel very thankful to return to my warm, dry flat with ample food to eat and plenty of clothes to wear.

• Today why not slow down and savour an experience, e.g. a meal, a piece of music, a few pages in a book.

This is Boulter's Lock on the Thames on the outskirts of Maidenhead. It's a beautiful spot for a Sunday afternoon walk in the March sunshine. We stopped to watch a boat going through the lock, and also had lunch on a terrace overlooking the river (which got rather cold after a while).

• Try to walk or cycle a route you would normally drive.

I couldn't do this this week as I was recuperating from a stomach bug, but next week it should be light enough for me to cycle to work on the cycle path. It doesn't have lighting, and I don't really want to cycle through Slough (can't think why...) which means waiting until there's enough daylight for the cyclepath.

• Half the world lives on £1.40 a day, can you?

No. I think it costs me at least £1 in petrol to get to work (see above, I suppose I could have cycled), plus I usually spend around £4 a day on food, so even when I cut that right back it is still very difficult. Plus it costs around £1 a day (averaged over the year) for electricity (no gas connection) for my flat. Rent works out at £19.56 a day and council tax at £2.40. Water works out at 43p a day. So it costs me £28.39 a day just to have a roof over my head, transport to work and food. No, I can't live on anything like £1.40 a day.

• Do a garden or neighbourhood tidy-up.

I've been trying to keep the communal bin area for my block of flats tidy. It tends to attract fly-tippers dumping stuff, and I hoped they'd be discouraged if there wasn't already piles of junk already dumped there. Plus the delightful man and his friends in the flat below have a tendency to leave beer cans all over the grass outside, so I've been collecting them up and putting them in the recycling bin. And feeling depressed that it's costing me £19.56 a day just to live here. But then I should count my blessings (see above) that there's a roof over my head...

• Limit yourself to only checking email or texts once today.

I suggested to my boss that I did this on a work day, but I don't think she was impressed. So I did it on a Saturday instead, but that was a bit of a cheat as I went into London for the day, with no email access!

• Buy something from a charity shop and reverse haggle.

I think this could be an interesting one to try. I haven't been near a charity shop for a while, but once I've cleared out some clothes (see Lent challenge somewhere above or maybe in previous Lent post?) I'll go to Oxfam!

• Offer to babysit for friends.

I've offered to babysit for a colleague, who has a really sweet daughter. These are the socks I knitted for her first birthday last year. Nothing actually arranged yet, but I did offer!

• Give someone an apple today.

I was all primed with an apple ready, but then I forgot about it! Oops.

• Why not use a "buy one get one free" and give one away?

Have yet to find a BOGOF offer that's both something I actually need and also something that I can imagine someone else wanting.

• Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth today

Easy peasy. Already do this one.

• Have coffee or lunch with someone you don't know well

Was a bit stumped with this one, as I wasn't sure where to find someone I don't know well to have lunch with. In the end several of us agreed to brave the (very intimidating) dining room at work on Friday and talk to some people we don't know. Unfortunately we'd forgotten that school finished for Easter on the Wednesday so the dining hall wasn't open on Friday.

• Defrost your fridge and then think about climate change.

Fridge defrosting now!


Haven't thought about climate change yet!