A bit of a holiday

Last week we ventured down south to visit Graeme's brothers and their families, and to have a few days of holiday. We hadn't met our newest niece yet and wanted a chance to see everyone while we were still more mobile. It was great to see everyone, but I was so busy sticking ballerina stickers, helping people on and off the trampoline and providing cuddles, that I forgot to take any photos.

In between the two weekends we visited Stonehenge, Bath, Wells, Glastonbury and Bristol. Despite being told it wasn't worth it I really enjoyed Stonehenge. Maybe it just feels more relevant to see a Neolithic construction when you've been studying that period for several weeks.

Bath and Wells were both really attractive places. We even made it into the new thermal spa. I thought they might be funny about letting a pregnant woman in, but they just told me to avoid the steam rooms and drink plenty of water. I was very grateful for just being able to float for a couple of hours after all the sight seeing.

Glastonbury was a bit of a disappointment. Just a lot of new age type shops and hippy types hanging around. We went up to the Tor, which if nothing else is geographically quite impressive. It just appears out of nowhere.

We weren't to impressed with Bristol either as a sight seeing place. It might have been more interesting if I'd been a bit more energetic and walked around a bit more. I was running out of energy at that point and it had a lot to live up to given the previous places we'd been. We did visit the SS Great Britain, the first steel hulled steam ship, built by Brunell.

We also made it to Get Knitted, but I didn't buy much since WoolFest was not long ago. We finished up with the National Arboretum, where we saw a lot of very old trees and some new discoveries.

Retrospectively I would have liked to have a longer holiday or spend more time relaxing, but then we wouldn't have been able to see the family, which was quite important to us. We now have a house full of baby equipment, kindly passed on by them.

WoolFest2009

I figured out on the drive over that this was my 4th WoolFest in a row. It doesn't seem 3 years since I first went but there you go. Time flies. This time I took my Mum along with me to share the love. Most of the usual stands were there with lots of yummy fibre, although I was a little bit disappointed there were more stalls selling balls of yarn. There seemed to be a lot more felting stalls this year.

After admiring the fantastic handmade baskets the last few years I finally gave in and bought one to tidy all my knitting mess into in the living room. As well as being quite simple in design and therefore looking great, the wood has a really good smell. It was made by Phil Bradley.

I didn't buy an awful lot else. I got some lovely fibre from Felt Studio. The first is a 50/50 baby camel/silk blend, which is extremely soft.

And the second is this BFL/Alpaca/Bamboo blend, which is also quite soft and in a larger quantity (100g).

I got the obligatory buttons from The Button Lady, a set of DPNs to make up my depleted ones, and some rather dirty to feel, bargin bin, black yarn to felt with (£2/500g).

I really enjoyed going again this year, although I must say it felt like hard work lugging my overweight self around. I look forward to being more mobile next year.

A long week

It's felt like I long week here, because I've spent most of it at home with a stomach bug. Not really much to tell, so I'll mention a couple of other things I managed to get done last weekend.

I finally finished my maternity sweater, which I was proudly at the bus stop on Tuesday morning, before I decided it might be better to come home. Here is it.

I made some curtains for the nursery. They could probably do with some weights for the bottoms, but I haven't been out all week to be able to get any.

I managed to do a bit of spinning on Friday night/Saturday morning and here is the result. It's blue faced leicester (BFL) humbug, from Wingham Wool Work. This is the first spinning I've done in ages. I span the first single back in March and only just got round to spinning another. I'm not sure what to spin next. I'm thinking I should probably try and use some of my handspun in projects before spinning anything new.

I'm hoping I'll be able to get back to normal this week before WoolFest on Friday, but it's taking me way longer than I expected. I'm not a very good patient.

Quilt

During the last 3 weeks I've been making panels for an activity quilt for the baby. I decided to do it after seeing one a friend had bought and wondering if I could make something just as (if not more) interesting. It's also a good excuse to use up odds and ends and make silly patterns and shapes. Plus it was really hot at the time and knitting in wool wasn't filling me with enthusiasm. Here is the nearly finished article.

I've never really quilted much beyond cushions before. I have done the piecing together for larger items but never the actual quilting. In the blue square I want to add some chewable rings or a mirror or something. I thought I'd have a look around and see what was available.

The flowers, mushrooms and snail have bells inside. The ladybirds are on elastic connectors (wrapped in ribbon). The quilted leaves lift up, but I still need to paint some insects underneath them. The light blue fabric with stars makes a crinkly noise when it is touched. If you click on the flickr photo you can go to that site and see the notes I've put on it.

Anyway, this has kept me entertained for a few weeks and I'm quite pleased with the results. I think if I did another one I could make it much neater and improve on some bits, but you live and learn. I'm sure the baby won't be inspecting my stiching. It will be a while before it gets used anyway.

Whitby

This weekend my Mum celebrated her 60th birthday. We had a long weekend in Whitby, on the North Yorkshire coast. The weather wasn't as good as it has been, but it could have been worse. We didn't really get caught in the rain at all on Saturday and Sunday was even a bit sunny. We had a walk to Sandsend and back.

We had a lovely fish supper in the Magpie, and I bought some Gansey wool in Bobbins Wool Crafts and Antiques, which is in the old town. I'm intending to knit the Whitby pattern, although when I'll get round to it I don't know. It feels like something I should do at some point.

We went to Whitby for our Summer holiday several times when my brother and I were quite young, so it was interesting to visit it again. It hasn't changed that much.

I made my mum a birthday cake. I thought it should be something special, but I've not got much experience of this type of thing. It took me a few evenings last week. I don't think it's bad for a first attempt, although it is at risk of looking a bit like a colour-blindness test. The ladies in Cake Classes and Cutters in Brunton Park were really helpful.

Wedding Number 3

This weekend saw us attending our third and final wedding of the year, unless someone is going to surprise us at the last minute. Despite planning to be there in plenty of time, we managed to totally miss the ceremony and spent the time sat on the M1 instead, which then closed, due to an accident. After an interesting, map-less detour we eventually managed to get back on track and arrived at the reception just before the rest of the guests. This was the scene that greeted us.

This later became our supper.

The weather was amazing. We had a relaxed Pimms reception in a garden, overlooking Rutland Water. The weather was possibly the best of any wedding I've been too. It was great to see many of my Leicester friends again.

Jonny and Emma both looked very happy, although as usual I completely failed to take any decent photos of them. This was the only one I managed, and unfortunately the back of someone else's head features almost as highly.

The nice thing about this wedding was that there was plenty of everything to go round and many of the guests really appreciated the ample supply of wine, however unfortunately I was not able to be one of them. There was a fantastic cheesy disco with a live band. Sadly jumping up and down with a bump turned out not to be very sensible so I only danced a couple.

Thanks to Emma and Jonny and their families for their wonderful hospitality.

Knitting Update

In answer to Spinning Fishwife's question, yes I have been knitting some baby things, I've just been really crap about taking photos of them and putting them on Ravelry. So, there are various jumpers and cardigans. 2 in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, which despite being inpractical and expensive is possibly my favourite baby yarn. Patterns from the Baby Cash 2 book. The darker one is a chocolate colour. I had trouble getting the colours right in the photos. I'm wondering if the greenish one is a bit girly in colour. It might yet become a present.

A couple more from Natural Knits for Babies and Mums, by Louisa Harding. One in blue Jaeger Matchmaker Merino and the other in stripped mystery yarns, costing £1.50 from the John Lewis bargin bin (we suspect this is Cathay, but they had no labels).

I also knitted some booties and a hat from the same book, in Washed Haze.

This Owl Vest in Jeager Matchmaker Merino DK.

I also crocheted the blanket below (being blocked) from left over sock yarn and some blue Hermit 4-ply crepe that I inherited from Graeme's Auntie Irene. I was actually looking out my sock yarn ends to give to people at Tuesday Knitting for their own sock yarn blankets, but when I got it out I felt like I had to make something with it myself. Each little ball had it's own memories and I didn't want to part with them completely. Don't worry ladies, there's lots left.

So yes, I have knitted some baby things, and before anyone says anything, don't panic, they're all in different sizes, from newborn to 12 months. I'm not a total looney.

I also made a difficult decision last week. I was knitting Vivian by Yosolda, in Rowan wool yarn, but it's been waiting for sleeves since I became pregnant. I haven't been able to bring myself to finish it because I know it won't fit any more. I know the bump will go but I'll be stuck with the bust for a while, so I decided it was destined for the frog pond. I loved knitting the bottom section and I could have kept it, but I hate that feeling of projects that have been hanging round half finished for months or years.

So as a quick knit I decided to make a Liesl for myself (another Ysolda pattern). It only took a few days and it's a nice spring item to have to keep my arms and shoulders warms, since it can't seem to get about 12 degrees C here. I can't decide whether it makes me look fat, but as G points out I'm quite large anyway.

Finally the money shot. A profile, for people who keep asking me if I look big yet. I know it's got a way to go, but it feels pretty large to me. I used to have a waist.

Boating

Last weekend we joined Graeme's parents for a long weekend on a canal barge on the Coventry canal. I'd never been on a canal boat before and it took me a while to get into the swing of things, or rather the saunter of things. Fortunately they had already had the boat for a couple of days and knew what they were doing. Graeme drove the boat for some of the time. I spent most of it sitting at the front.

As holidays go I don't think I'll be queuing up to spend a week or more on a canal (some people said they were out for months at a time), but it was very relaxing. I managed to finish a pair of plain socks and one of my fruit loop socks (I'll take some photos this weekend). It was good to catch up with my in-laws, and I saw plenty of ducklings, goslings and moor-hen-lings while doing this. I also saw a kingfisher at one point but even my lightening photographic reactions aren't up to catching that.

Mercifully the weather was sunny, so we were able to sit out. People were friendly and helpful. Working the locks was welcome exercises, although I did get chastised by a few people for cranking the handle in my enlarged state. If I followed everyone's advice I'd be in bed for 9 months, and I've seen plenty of pregnant women with toddlers under their arm or in a pushchair with a couple of bags of shopping. All in all a good experience, even if it wasn't a life changing one.

Just to make up for the pitiful lack of knitting content over the last few months, here of a photo of the Last Supper, depicted in full knitted glory, from Tamworth Cathedral, which was quite beautiful.

Wedding Number 2

I'm a bit behind again. What a surprise!

A couple of weekends ago we went to Kay and Ed's wedding in Sheffield. Kay and I have been friend's since Mr Boulter's maths class, or was it school orchestra? Though we probably haven't always kept in touch that well. It was nice to see her and her family so happy. It was a relaxed affair, with a jazz band (loved by babies), bacon sandwiches and a disco later on. Continuing along the theme of being a bit crap about taking photos at events, the best one I got was this.

This is the second wedding I've been to since my enforced sobriety. I must say it is noticably more difficult to get up and dance in front of strangers when you look like a beach balls and you're stone cold sober.

I hope Kay and Ed had a lovely honeymoon (part I) in Barcelona and they have a long and joy-filled life together.

A Mediteranean Wedding

Last week we were away in Cyprus with my parents and other family friends, to celebrate the marriage of my brother to his long term girlfriend Michelle. The wedding was on Tuesday, but we were there the whole week and ended up having a lovely holiday in the sunshine too.

Michelle looked lovely and so did my brother and the groomsmen, poshed up in their tailcoats (my dad wasn't very keen on that at all).

They got married at The Church by St. Paul’s Pillar in Kato Paphos (Ayia Kyriaki Chrysopolitissa) and then had a reception on a boat called the Wave Dancer, with fireworks and a mini-casino. There were about 34 close family and friends there. They'd even gone to the trouble of getting someone to correograph them a first dance with lifts and twirls.

Unfortunately the windy started to get up during the day and by the end of dinner the boat was rolling around on the waves and we had to head back to harbour. I felt sorry for the poor man in the motor boat next to us who was in charge of the anchor. We hardly felt a thing by comparison.

I know they'll have some fond memories of the day. They've already been together for 8 years and have a solid relationship. I wish them every happiness in the future.

As well as the wedding we managed to take in plenty of historical sites, eat lots of yummy food and do some swimming in the hotel pool (the sea was a bit rough most of the time). I can't say I got much knitting done with some many people and things to do. How lazy I am.

Changes

Yesterday was the last day of my teaching job in Sunderland. I wasn't expecting much fuss as I have only been there for 18 months (5 terms) and my form class had seemed particularly non-plussed about the whole thing. In the end it turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable.

My form got me a card and a present, although I think that was the idea of one girl's mother, rather than a spontaneous gesture from the class. Most of them are only 11 and still have the idea that I live at the school with the other teachers. I also received some vouchers and a card from the whole staff, and other presents and cards from my department + people in our building. The head of Physics thought it particularly amusing to buy me a pack of pampers. The others in our building got me this cute Einstein baby grow, amongst other things.

and a big bunch of flowers.

A lot of the older kids said how much they'd miss me and I even received a spontaneous round of applause from one class. It was nice to feel that I might be missed. I've been feeling quite negative about myself recently. I will certainly miss most of the staff, who've been very supportive and helpful. I'll also miss some of the pupils. There are some of them I would really like to see achieving and going on to university.

You might wonder why I'm leaving. I certainly won't miss getting up at 6am and having to drive over 30 miles to get there. I also won't miss being constantly on display and all the marking and admin. Aside from all this I'm looking forward to doing something a bit different.

Right now I'm off to Sheffield for Kay's hen do. Dinner at Wagamamma, followed by Little Shop of Horrors at the theatre. I think it'll be a good night.

Some finished items

I have totally neglected my blog recently. Things are happening in my life that have felt quite private, and given the unwanted attention this blog has got in the past from hostile readers, I didn't really feel like making them public. Trying not to write about things left me at a bit of a loss as to what to write at all, so I've just written nothing. Sorry, to those of you who still bothered to come and look.

I finally wrapped up some things to post to Dawn for her stall. I found knitting things to sell more difficult than I had expected. It's hard to know what people will want and nothing ever feels quite good enough. When you make a present for a friend part of its worth is in the time you have invested for them. Items for sale do not have the same sentimental value. Somehow things don't seem as valuable and I found it hard to motivate myself to finish them. Anyway, here's the selection. I hope some of it will sell at least.

In the Pink

Looking at my blog, you'd be forgiven for thinking that, unlike everyone else, instead of making a new years resolution to blog more, I'd made one never to blog again. This is not true, I've just been incredibly lazy about it, mostly just post-Christmas apathy. Having finally recovered from all the Christmas knitting, which I was so sick of I didn't even photograph, let along blog or put on Ravelry I decided to embark on a couple of new projects.

The first was a cardigan for myself. Ysolda Teague's Vivian cardigan from the The Twist Collective, which I am loving making. I am suffering a temporary hiatus while I acquire some 5mm DPNs. I thought I had some but it turns out I have everything but.

The second project isn't really my project at all but Dawn's. Some of you may have read Dawn's blog "Cod Liver Oil". Dawn was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and after some stressful times completed her treatment in the Summer of 2007. She was helped a lot by a charity called Breast Cancer Care and has decided to raise money for them. Her husband Jim is running the London marathon, because he's slightly mad that way. Dawn is baking cakes to sell and is already turning a profit. I am going to help by making some small things for her to sell on her stall (e.g. Ipod covers, purses, amigumi animals, flower pins). Pinkphish has also offered to help. If anyone else out there wants to get stuck in leave a comment and I'll get back to you with some instructions. I'm not only happy to be helping a charity that helped a friend so much, but I'm curious to see if it's possible to make things that will sell for enough to make it worthwhile.

Failure

I made it to the end of term unscathed (apart from a cold) and have been on holiday this week. I have enjoyed being on holiday but I must confess to being a bit bored as everyone else is still at work and once all the Christmas stuff was done there wasn't much to do that was any fun. I've defrosted the freezer and cleaned out some cupboards. Exciting stuff.

I've knitted a lot of stuff for presents this year but failed to take photos of most of it. I was so eager to wrap things and get them in the post I totally forgot about it. I also completely failed to put things on Ravelry so it looks like I'm a completely lazy knitter who hasn't made anything for weeks.

I did manage to take a photo of the Christmas Cake I made and iced. It's a really good example of my expert cake decorating skills, that I wheel out once a year. Graeme has named the snow men Hattie and Beanie.

Jacobs

I mentioned a while back that a colleague of my Mum's had given me the fleeces from her 8 jacobs sheep. While I don't mind washing raw fleece I absolutely detest carding fleece. I find it boring and messy. I am also clumsy so I have carded my hand a couple of times and drawn blood. I think I mentioned before that I decided to spin it in the grease and see what it came out like.

That was around the time of WoolFest (early June). At WoolFest I started knitting a swatch, which I intended to felt and turn into a little bag as an experiment. The swatch got a bit out of hand and ended up becoming a jumper. I span the fleece as I was going, so it gave a an opportunity to alternate crafts.

A jumper out of Jacobs does not sound like a tremendous idea. It's not particularly soft. I don't find it itchy as I do other fibres though and the colours look fantastic.

I finished the jumper in August, but was reluctant to wear it as I think I split for the neck too late and it makes my bust look big. After leaving it sitting for weeks on end waiting for me to decide what to do I finally wore it out. It doesn't look so bad, and as Graeme points out, my bust is big. I'll let you judge.

Tagged

Cate tagged me to do this thing. Here are the rules:

1) Link to your tagger and list all these rules in your blog.

2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs

4) Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

The facts:

1. This is the first time (to my knowledge) that I have ever been tagged for anything. Is this just because I don't spend much time reading people's blogs or that noone reads mine? Probably both I think.


2. I have trouble with names of any kind, to the point where I sometimes can't remember the names of close friends or everyday objects. This sometimes makes life quite difficult, particularly at school. 'Thingamy whatsits' only gets you so far.


3. Looking at maps and holiday brochures gives me the runs. This makes planning things difficult.


4. I have a secret love of tinned ham (Pek not Spam), even though the thought of mechanically reclaimed meat slightly repulses me. I particularly like the jelly bit round the outsides.


5. On the same theme I also really like eating the fat from ham, and most other kids of meats. I realise this is incredibly unhealthy, and makes many people feel ill so I don't do it much these days. I can't help enjoying it when I do though.


6. I once sung for the Queen at the opening of the Sheffield Arena. It's not as good as it sounds though. I was one of many children in the Sheffield Junior Choir. The Queen never spoke the whole time she was there. She was really far away. It could have been anyone. All she did was pull a curtain off a plaque.


7. I appeared on an episode of Test the Nation as a 'Rocket Scientist'. I am not a rocket scientists but their researchers were getting a bit desperate. The only real rocket scientists in the UK are all in their dotage and so they started settling for Space Scientists instead. I really enjoyed the whole thing (apart from the demeaning lab coats we were forced to wear - what rocket scientist wears a lab coat?). Everyone on the team was really fun to hang out with (except Colin Pillenger who was a bit of an arse and the guy who got the highest score who was really competitive). We got to share a green room with the Bikers team, who were a really good laugh. The researcher admitted to us that we weren't what they were expecting at all. Makes you worry about people's images of scientists.

Anyway, that's my lot. Hopefully they were at least a little bit interesting.

The people I tag are:
Impressionist (if she has time)
Snaterkat
Emily
Kay
Lisa
Dawn
Emma

Birthday Presents

My birthday was over a week ago now but I have been very lazy about writing about it. I usually look forward to, and enjoy my birthday a lot, but this year I ended up feeling a bit grumpy about getting older. I suppose the whole thing just sneaked up on me and I feel like I ended up down-playing it a bit too much. I couldn't think of much that I actually wanted present-wise, so my family and various honourary aunties all made monetary contributions to the purchase of a new spinning wheel. I wasn;t sure what I wanted to get. I just knew I wanted something a little more reliable and versatile than my current one. While I love my own wheel and enjoy the fact that it has obviously had many years of use it is just a little bit too eccentric for a beginner like me to do more than spin the same kind of yarn over and over again.

I tried a few different ones and eventually plumped for a Kromski Sonata, which is a folding wheel, with Scotch tension. While you wouldn't want to carry it on your back, the idea of being able to pack it away and take it on holiday really appealed.

I already spun some of the silk merino I got free with it into a thick 2-ply. Some of it is a little underspun but it looks like a good, even yarn by my standards. It is certainly much chunkier than anything I'd be able to produce on the old wheel.

Thanks to all the contributors. It means a lot to me. :)