The many moods of Mr Dog

Mr Dog, a shining light of optimism hoping that the new term will be easier and more enjoyable.

Mr Dog, green with envy for all the people who are still in bed at 6 am in the morning.

Mr Dog, angry because he knows there's another 6 weeks of getting up at 6 am to come before half term.

Mr Dog, relaxed because he is confident in his abilities.

Dickenson Pullover

I finally finished it. I can't say it is the most flattering look for someone of my figure, it also feels way too big, but I really enjoyed knitting it and it's really cosy and warm. It is the ideal jumper for keeping warm whilest working during the cold winter months and for going for walks on cold days.

I don't think I ever felt annoyed or resentful of this jumper while I was knitting it, even when I ran out of yarn. I do really like it, even if it does make me look very wide. I'm wondering whether dying it to a dark brown, navy or maroon might be more flattering. I'd appreciate some oppinions.

Shopping Bags

I did say before Christmas that I hadn't made many presents this Christmas. One thing I did make was a set of shopping bags, inspired by Kay and Amber's efforts (though not following the instructions), by a desire to use my neglected sewing machine, and by a rather nice Svalbard shopping bag bought for me by my mother-in-law. I'm quite proud of my efforts. They're quite sturdy. I was going to make some more but I managed to get my sewing machine jammed with the fur from the top of Christmas stockings. I'll get it sorted evenutally.

Working in a winter wonderland

It wasn't until I sat down and started reading other people's blogs today that it occurred to me that I should probably have marked the new year with some kind of end of year post. Maybe the fact that it hadn't occurred to me before is a measure of how much regard I actually pay to new year. It has to be one of my least favourite celebrations, mostly because of the enormous pressure to do something original and exciting, while getting ridiculously drunk. All this is topped off by having to kiss a lot of inebriated strangers. I find that nothing you do ever really lives up to expectations. The advantage of being older and boring and married is that I can now legitimately stay in with my close family, eat a nice roast dinner, drink bubbly and play pictionary. Very nice it was too.

For the first time in several years I actually have a new year's resolution. It is to work less during my own time. That means getting over my worries about lesson quality and trusting a little more to my abilities. Some of my best lessons have been ones I have spent only a short amount of time preparing. I've not made the best of starts. I spent today preparing Y7, 8 and 9 lessons in a highly inefficient manner, with about 50% of the time spent staring out fo the window and running over to take pictures of the snow. I do like to get ahead.

The snow today has been fab. Sadly it's now melting. It's 1.9 °C out there at the moment. During the middle of the day it was two or three inches deep and looked magical. The kids on the road were having a great time pulling each other round on sledges and having snowball fights. We don't get nearly enough snow these days. Although I don't want to grumble too loudly as I do have a long commute. Here are a selection of snowy scenes.

The Eye of the Storm

Today I'm enjoying the brief lull between Christmas and New Year. Our guests have left and we're here on our own for the day. I really enjoyed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It was quite relaxing and we went for a walk all three days instead of just sitting in the house. All in all a good Christmas.

The birds had a very good year. They got this lovely bird table, from my brother and his fiance, along with mountains of food (mmm meal worms). They're already using it although they fly off every time I get out my camera.

One of my favourite presents is this necklace from Graeme.

I managed to do some knitting. I finished my gloves.

I started a pair of Slippery Socks from Knitty in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino (Quarry Hill), that I bought at Windsor Button in Boston, MA.

I also spun some alpaca and started plying it.

I wanted to see how the yarn felt like to knit with so I started a thin, moss stitch scarf with it.

I'm still having a problem with overwinding the yarn when I am plying it, though my singles are coming out more evenly. I'm in serious need of some instruction from someone more experienced who spins with double drive. Because of the overwinding the scarf doesn't feel as soft as I would like. I'll keep experimenting until I get it right. Though I'm sure the new term will slow down my progress.

I hope you're all enjoying your Christmases out there. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Christmas Treats

What have I been doing with my week off, I hear you ask. Well the answer is pretty dull. I've been doing a bit of sewing (which is secret) and some present buying/wrapping (also secret). I've also spent some time in the kitchen making Christmas treats since both our set of parents are staying with us for Christmas. I iced the Christmas cake. I had to put icing stars all the way round because my icing covering was so uneven. I'm also annoyed with myself for placing the large star off centre. I was momentarily distracted while doing it and then it was too late. I think it looks OK. I can't quite decide whether to add some silver balls to the stars or not.

I'm also quite proud of myself for making my own chocolate log, filling it with homemade cranberry sauce and icing it too. I'm still a little worried about how it will taste but I'll find out soon enough.

People in glass houses...

...should keep an eye on their husbands.

This is our new greenhouse which arrived on Tuesday. It was a wedding present bought jointly with contributions from lots of different people. If you're one of them, thank you very much!

I have wanted a greenhouse for a long time so this is exciting for me. I've already started planning what I'll be growing in it, so I was more than a little upset when this happened.

This is what happens when your husband gets back from his work Christmass doo at 11.30 pm and goes out to do a full inspection of the new greenhouse. Fortunately we have two spare panes of glass and he wasn't hurt. In retaliation I plan to break all his presents as he opens them on Christmas morning.

I love Wingham Wool Work

I had a vague memory of buying the yarn for the Dickenson Pullover (see last Tuesday's post) from the Wingham stall. I sent them a sample and a letter and the lovely people called me yesterday and said they'd found a few more hanks of the same in their stock and would I like to buy some. I can't tell you how happy I am. I had a nighmarish vision of knitting some kind of Frankenstein jumper with a different yarn or having to frog the whole thing. I am saved from the horror. I don't imagine the yarn will make it here for Christmas, but I don't care, because it's still a good Christmas present to get.

Hooray! I made it to the end of term. I feel totally exhausted but it's so good to be sitting here on a Sunday night knowing that I don't have to go to work tomorrow.

Friday was a half day in school and pretty pointless. I did recieve a few gifts of wine and chocolate from the children in my form class. One girl gave me this huge hamper of bubbly, truffles, a champagne flute and a small Christmas cake. I feel like I deserve it. They've been hard work.

When I got home I decided to get in the Christmas spirit by getting out all the decorations and lights. I couldn't manage to lift the trees into the house myself so I ended up having to wait till Saturday to do the decorating. They're not large trees but they were already in the garden when we moved in so they were free. One is in good shape and the other is a bit out of proportion. I like having a living Christmas tree. So far there has been minimum shedding of needles too. Graeme was feeling left out when I was taking photos and wanted to be included.

I also spray painted some pine cones that we picked up last week while out walking.

I finally finished these rather dull plain socks, from the hand dyed (by Lucy and I) blue faced leicester yarn I got from WoolFest. I started them in September. I should have finished them weeks ago but I was found them very boring to knit. I wasn't feeling up to anything more complicated at the time. Knitting them on 2 mm needles didn't help.

I usually only allow myself one sock-weight project at a time, so finishing the socks left me free to start making myself a pair of gloves. I'm using the Hooray For Me pattern by Marnie MacLean. I decided to make the fingers full length for warmth. The yarn I am using is Lana Grossa Mega Boots Stretch. I like the way they're turning out. Hopefully it'll be relatively easy to match the colour sequence for the second one.

It occurred to me this morning that I've been quite selfish with my knitting this Christmas. I think I've only made one thing for someone else. Usually I make something for most people. This term has been so tiring I just couldn't face a string of deadlines in my knitting. I wanted to keep it relaxing. Maybe I'll start some projects for other people with next Christmas in mind and keep them till then.

Running Out

I don't have enough yarn to complete my Dickenson pullover. I don't know how. I had about twice the suggested weight of yarn. I know it's not the suggested brand but it's a similar weight and knits to tension. I only have enough for just over one sleeve. You'd think I'd know better by now.

Please take your seats

Yey! It's now December. There's only two weeks left till we break up for Christmas (God bless private education). That's 10 more times I have to get up at 6am and drive into school in the dark this year. Woo hoo!

Last week's trip to Harrogate completely wiped me out, so yesterday we had a relaxing day at home. I had a good clean round, so I no longer feel like everything is filthy. Our new sofas arrived. We've only been waiting 5 weeks, which in sofa ordering terms is pretty good. I can't tell you how many years I've spent wanting a comfortable sofa to sit on. During that time I've been the temporary owner of various pieces of revolting student furniture (one containing fleas and some very hard places where you could nearly knock yourself out if you sat down too quickly), part owner of a very short, cheap sofa and latterly of my DH's rock hard, low backed sofa. During the last few months in this house we've also been enjoying a variety of garden furniture. So you can imagine my excitement at receiving this little lot yesterday morning.

You'll notice that despite now having a variety of places to sit Graeme still chooses to sit on the floor. If you look closely you'll also notice that he's watching Strictly Come Dancing even though I've only just come into the room.

We also did a bit of gardening yesterday afternoon. I finally consigned the sweet peas to the brown bin. Amazingly they have still been producing flowers, despite a couple of frosts. I decided they weren't going to make it much longer and I don't get much chance to be home in the light to do this kind of thing. I cut off the last ones and stuck them in a vase.

After a trip to the new Sainsburys (oh the excitement), I had a go at felting using some of the roving I had bought from the workshop to make some felt balls. I didn't quite get the hang of it at the workshop but they're looking quite good now. I think having hotter water probably helped.

Last but not least, I finished the back from the Dickinson Pullover (Interweave Knits, Fall 2007). I'm using some chunky spun wool I bought from Wingham Wool Work at WoolFest 2006. It came in 2 big 500g hanks. I've never been quite sure what the yarn wanted to be. I've been feeling really cabley at the moment and this pattern was ideal for the yarn. It's taken just a week to do the back, which isn't much bearing in mind how little time I have. I hope the rest is just as quick.

Knitting show my arse

Yesterday a group of us (Impressionist , Glenda, Emily, Pinkphish) drove down to Harrogate and paid £12 to get into the Knitting and Stitching Show. Most of us had been last year and though it wasn't our favourite show ever it yielded some interesting purchases and we had a fun day out. I'm afraid to say that this year we were less than impressed with what was on offer. There was no big Rowan stall with bargin books, no House of Hemp and just a lot less knitting stuff generally.

I did manage to purchase some pom pom makers, which I've been wanting for a while, some lovely lace weight alpaca and some possum yarn, which I would otherwise not have got. However, considering the number of people there, which caused a massive crush and the quality of the stalls overall, I don't think we'll be making this trip again.

It wasn't all bad. We had fun on the journey, during lunch and afterward in Costa Coffee. It was lovely to see Dawn who met up with us and came away with one fabulously large button. I think we're pretty much in aggreement that we won't be coming along to this show next year. We also agreed that we quite enjoyed going somewhere together and that maybe we should find a better destination for it.

Brass Monkeys

Once more I am behind with writing my blog posts. I haven't written anything about the felting workshop I went to last weekend. I really enjoyed it. Tomorrow I'll take some photos of what I made in the daylight (if there is any).

The weather is quite cold at the moment. We had some snow yesterday morning. Even my cynical GCSE group of 15 year olds stopped being teenagers for a moment to get excited about seeing the snow fall. Being at the coast it didn't last long.

I finally managed to deliver my friend Helen's birthday present. Only about 3 weeks late. Over the 20 years we've known each other we've developed a long tradition of being late with presents. It never really seems to matter. Part of the present was these cable wrist warmers and scarf I made on a whim a few weekends ago.

Now the weather has turned cables suddenly seem much more attractive than lace. I even managed to overcome my inate feelings of cheesiness and use one of the labels I had made last year.

Now I must go as we're off to the Knitting and Stitching Show today. I can hear the yarn calling to me.

Fireworks and Comedy, with a Touch of Sadness

Last night was the now annual Maths Department Guy Fawkes fireworks on Druridge Bay beach (Northumberland). We arrived just before sunset to help with carrying wood, fireworks and barbecues and to help set things up in the light. After the frightneningly strong winds we've had this week the weather was relatively mild and the tide low. When it started to get dark we were treated to a fabulous sunset. Here is one of several photos I took from the sanddunes

Sam put on a fabulous display as usual, despite being hampered by the winds. For the past couple of years people have regularly been attending the pub quiz at the Lonsdale Pub in Jesmond. Every time the group has won the winnings have been put into a pot and that was used to buy fireworks and food for the evening. Here's a short movie of Sam's first explosions of the evening.

My camera keeps putting lines into shots when the light is low. Anyone any idea why? Is there something wrong with it. It sometimes puts darker lines in too.

We left the fireworks early to go and see Bill Bailey's Tinselworm show at the Newcastle Arena. It was a good performance. As you might imagine it wasn't a very intimate gig. Apparently it was the largest audience he's ever played to. Not entirely convinced that that was good for us. He is also playing Manchester and Sheffield to sold out arenas. Both those venues are much larger so we won't be staying the largest croud for long. Anyway, at least we got to see him.

The sad thing today is that my very good friend Cat's father passed away during the night. It wasn't unexpected but it's a sad end to what has been a very difficult and upsetting few months, if not years for the whole family. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

Things like that really make me appreciate having both our sets of parents around and in good health. Long may it last.

Birthdays and Pumpkins

It's taken me nearly a whole week to get round to writing something about my birthday. While I didn't particularly enjoy having to go to work on my birthday it wasn't a terrible day. A lot of the kids remembered it was my birthday and one even gave me a card. Graeme got me a curry dinner and we had some nice fizzy wine.

I got some fab gifts from family and friends. Thank you everyone. My parents got me a wool winder and swift for which I am very greatful. I love the simplicity of wool winders. I've wanted one for ages. I have to stop myself from winding all my skeins into balls.

At the weekend I had a small party with some good friends. It was lovely to spend time with people. I feel like work is sucking up so much of my time at the moment that I don't get time to enjoy my friends. Before people arrived I had a go at carving three rather large pumpkins. I decided to shun the traditional triangular eyes and pointy teeth and go for some more interesting designs. The results were mixed. The bat ended up with a hole much too large.

But the spider and the cat turned out very well I thought (if slightly wonky).

Dawn brought along a 4th

And Graeme decided to carve a turnip, for the sake of tradition (up until a few years ago we never had pumpkins available for Halloween in the UK). It certainly smelt the scariest out of the bunch.

Only 5 weeks and 3 school days till our school's Christmas holidays. Yey!

Fetching for Me

Last year Glittr gave me two balls of Frog Tree Alpaca with a note suggesting I make myself a pair of Fetching wrist warmers. Though I have knitted 6+ pairs of them for other people it wasn't until it started to get cold that I realised I'd never made any for myself. So, on Saturday I cast on a pair at the Centurion and finished them on Sunday morning. I forgot what a quick knit they are.

Pigiphant?

After a trip to Hobbycraft on my way home from work I finally got to finish a couple of my animal creations. I can't help feeling a bit like Dr Frakenstein as I sew on the legs and head, cackling to myself. Mu, ha ha ha!

Firstly there's Lion, who is a present for the new baby son, Matthew of our friends Helen and Phil, born last week. I managed to snap a photo when he was out exploring the garden this morning.

"Roar!"

Then there's this beasty which I was referring to as an elephant right up until friday night, when I put on the ears and it took on a more piggy look. It has now been rechristened Pigiphant.

Pigiphant is made from the remnants of a ball of regia. Lion is made out of remnants of DB baby cashmerino (yellow), baby alpaca (off white), yellow handspun (not by me) and scraps of black.

On the bright side....

I've been feeling quite sorry for myself for the past week or so. I have a horrible cold. I've managed to keep going at work but I spent last weekend just sitting on the sofa, or laying in bed. I thought I needed something simple and chunky to occupy myslef with. I found this Drops pattern for a cardigan on Ravelry. I happened to have some yarn I bought a few years ago in Boyes, Chester-le-Street in the correct weight. The yarn was for the first cardigan I had ever knitted for myself and when I finished it it was huge and ugly, so I frogged it. The yarn has been in my stash ever since. I finished the cardigan last night (I would have finished it on Wednesday night if I hadn't misread the pattern). Here it is (apologies for the fuzzy photo taken at 6am on timer):

I used some elephant buttons I bought at the 2006 woolfest. I spent some time trying to decide whether the use of the elephant buttons made it look like a child's cardigan. I'm still undecided. I welcome oppinions.

Animals

I was feeling a bit off my knitting a couple of weeks ago and I've been having a serious urge to crochet for a while now. I borrowed some Japanese crochet books from Lucy and thought I'd use up some odds and ends. Here's the first of my creations. Graeme has cristened him Fiver.

I've since made a lion, a bear with a frog hat on and am half way through an elephant. Unfortunately I somehow lost my sewing needles this weekend and the poor elephant is in pieces on the living room table. I can't order any more and I won't have time to go anywhere that sells them during the week. Oh for a truly local yarn store.

I was listening to Cast On yesterday morning and Brenda was discussing how difficult it is to get dress making supplies in this country. This struck a chord with me, following the demise of Fenwick's craft section during the last few weeks. I've been thinking about how it happened. I don't think it's because there's no demand for that sort of thing. If there weren't places like Hobbycraft would go out of business. I think it's the perceptions of people higher up the company that it's not worth bothing with. They've been running the section into the ground for a while. No wonder the customers stopped coming so much. What makes me feel doubly sad about it this week is that because there's no post I can't get internet supplies at the moment either.