New in August

The monthly challenge:

• Read a new author, or just a book I’ve been meaning to for years
• Try a new ingredient/food/recipe
• Explore a new place
• Something knittingly new

My new author for August was Frances Brody, and I have now read four of her detective novels featuring Kate Shackleton. I enjoyed them, although there were a few anachronisms (they are set in the early 1920s) that bothered me a bit. Kate is a widow - possibly, her husband was missing declared dead in the war but she has not yet accepted that he is dead and continues to search for him. She was also adopted as a baby, so as well as having murders to solve, there is the potential for her past family, and maybe her husband, to mix things up.

My new food was smoothies. I have drunk smoothies in the past, but in August I started making myself a fresh smoothie every morning in the hope of improving my basic health level with an intake of lots of nutrients - that way I get the benefits of more fruit than I would manage to eat in the day. There is a huge difference between homemade and what you can buy in the supermarket, and I don't think I'll ever buy a carton of smoothie again! I've found that if I start with a smoothie in the morning, I'm more likely to make better food choices throughout the day. My husband has jumped on board with this and tends to appear in the ktichen when he hears the blender going, so now I have to share them - even telling him I'd put spinach in it wasn't enough to put him off!

My new place wasn't so much fun. A very precious person was admitted to the Teenage Cancer Unit at University Collegel London Hospital towards the end of August and I visited her there.

I didn't manage knittingly newness. I was so tired most of the month (one of the reasons for starting the smoothies) that I couldn't do much more than garter stitch a lot of the time. The beneficiaries of this were my mitred-square blankets, which are coming on nicely.

A year of makes - week 2

I had intended to blog this last Sunday as it's for the preceding week, but had to wait until my photos were accessible. 

Sunday (8 Jan)

I finished the pink thing – it grew into a snood after the realisation that it would be a very short scarf if continued in that vein.

Then as I wanted decided there might just be enough yarn left to knit some wristwarmers to go with it, I finished these warm socks to free up the needles I wanted for them.

I also decided to make another snood as I have a similar amount of the pink yarn in blue, so cast on for the snood despite the wristwarmer plan

I also finished cataloguing my yarns – more of that to come another time.

Monday

I cast on and knitted a wristwarmer. As I had a limited amount of yarn, I weighed before I started, knitted from the top down, and stopped when I'd used just under half of it. The second wristwarmer got cast on and started. 

I received a fabulous package in the post

A contribution to my blankets and hexagon quilt. Some of this has already been put to use.

Tuesday

I finished the second wristwarmer. I think both these and the snood are reversible although I'm not sure if you can see that from the photos.

  

Wednesday

I knitted some more of the blue snood. I also started work on clearing the dining room. This is where I'd like to sit and use my sewing machine.

As you can see, the machine is set up there, but sitting to use it is a bit of a problem at the moment! The usual state of the room has been compounded by things being put there 'out of the way' over Christmas and some boxes currently relocated there from the cupboard under the stairs as we're waiting for someone to come and sort a problem with the electricity meter. I can't blame it all on that though. The dining room has always been used as a dumping ground and we're trying to break the habit. There has already been a slight improvement. Those bars of chocolate over on the bottom left have been dealt with, for a start!

Thursday

I was struck down by a stomach bug, so needed to comfort knitting. Blanket squares were the way forward.

Friday

Still suffering from the stomach bug, I needed something simple and undemanding. These slippers (pattern from Peggy’s Collection) fit the job perfectly

The first pair were a little large for me, so will be a gift for someone I know with larger feet. I was intending to knit a second pair as a gift, so simply swapped their destinies. This turned out to be fortuitous because, as you can see from the toes on the right foot, I ran out of yarn for the second pair and had to finish off with a different yarn.

  

These are ever so cosy, but after wearing them a couple of times they've stretched a bit and got loose, but I think this should be solved by sewing a bit further up the front of the foot.

Saturday

Still needing simple knitting, Saturday's knitting was all about hexagons ...

... and blanket squares. No, I did not knit all this in one day. Yes, I do have a lot of ends to sew in.

Finished this week: 5

Cast on this week: 2

Total finished so far: 9

Total cast on so far: 2