Busy Being Retired

Ten weeks into my husband's retirement and we have settled into a lovely routine.  We potter around the house and garden, go for long country walks and watch a lot of sport on television.

We've been enjoying plenty of walks along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.  The canal is 127 miles long and this year there have been celebrations to mark 200 years since its completion.

Burscough

Lydiate

It really is a beautiful and peaceful place for a stroll.

And besides all this loveliness, I'm finding lots of time for knitting.

The past six weeks have flown by in terms of my knitting projects.  I've been joining in with a stranded knitting KAL with one of the groups I belong to on Ravelry.  I've put links to the relevant Ravelry project pages for each project.  Since chatting to you last time, and sharing my Fair Isle cardigan, I've completed my first ever pair of Fair Isle socks.

I can't believe I have put off knitting colourwork socks for so long, because I enjoyed knitting these so much.  I'm now busy browsing all the colour work sock patterns on Ravelry and I can't wait to start another pair.

I've also completed this cute Bumblebee Hat.

I was inspired by one of the other knitters from the Ravelry group to make this pattern.  She had had issues with the size of the hat, so I reconfigured it to match my favourite hat recipe, keeping the charts from the original pattern.

It was such a joy to knit and I couldn't put it down once I started.

So a very productive six weeks in terms of stash-busting.  For the four projects I finished for the KAL, I used 532g and 35 different colours in total, all in 4 ply weight.  Very satisfying.

And if that isn't enough, I knitted up a shawl with the Cuddlebums yarn I bought at Yarndale in September this year.

I love the little pops of colour in the pink background.  I used a favourite knitting pattern (it's free on Ravelry) called Age of Brass and Steam.  It's simple but very effective.

Lastly, I've been at the sewing machine again.  This time I made a simple skirt.

I used the skirt sections of my favourite Simplicity 2444 dress pattern and added a waistband.  I'm very happy with the fit and will be making more skirts like this in the future.  I would have liked to have shown you a picture of me wearing the skirt but to be honest, I don't trust my husband's photography skills!

I've recently bought two lots of new dress fabric and one lot of skirt fabric, however, I'm in the middle of decorating one of the bedrooms so crafty projects may have to take a backseat until the decorating is out of the way.  So until next time, I'm off to my pasting table to get suitable sticky.  Enjoy your week.

Tour de France Time Again

Here we are more than half way through the Tour de France and I haven't up dated you on what I'm doing!  How lax of me.

Last year, I joined in with the Tour de France group on Ravelry and did some stash-busting.  I managed to complete 11 items and used up 768g of very old stash.  This year, although I was tempted to just work on one major project for the three week duration of the Tour (the Yellow Jersey), I decided that my stash-busting mission is still very much ongoing, so I should repeat last year's endeavours, sprint for the line and go for the Points Jersey (the Green Jersey).

So far I have made three pigeons!

Two Coasters using my Eveline's Motif Pattern.

A pair of very red socks.

A colourful meditation mandala.  I made this up as I went along - great fun.

Some pretty bunting using my Daisy Chain Bunting Pattern.

Three coat hangers, incorporating my Floral Embellishment Pattern.

I'm currently working on a shawl.  It has an applied lacy border and I'm just over a quarter of the way along the edge.

I've also recently cast on some mittens and I'm hoping to fit in a few more small items and another shawl!  I've only got until 24th July, so time is of the essence.

Last month, I finished two more pairs of socks whilst watching the European Championships (congrats to Portugal).  Usually I only knit one pair of socks from each of the 100g of sock yarn I have, but because I prefer to knit ankle socks, I find that I have about 45g leftover.  So, these two pairs of socks are knitted with the same yarn, but for the second pair, I have knitted contrast toes, heels and cuffs.  This used but virtually the whole of the 100g, so I was pleased with this.  For both these pairs of socks, I again used the Sockmatician's Toe Up recipe, which is now firmly confirmed as one of my favourite recipes.

I entered my four pairs of socks that I knitted up during the Euros into The Sockmaticians Toe Up KAL and whilst watching his latest podcast I was very excited to hear my name mentioned and find out that I had won a skein of fingering weight yarn - Thank you so much Nathan.

This weekend, besides the Tour de France, we will also be watching the first cricket test match between England and Pakistan, the Open Golf from Troon and there's also some darts on.  It's hard work being a sports fan!  At least I should make excellent progress with the shawl.

Until next time, happy crafting to you all.

Happy and Productive

Hello Everybody, I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  I had a wonderful Easter break with both of my daughters coming home to visit.

We visited grandparents, had a lovely meal out, baked brownies and made an apple crumble.

We visited the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery and we watched the recent film Suffragette.

We had a night out at the pub and ate lots of chocolate.

And my lovely girls took me out for a feast of cakes at one of our local cafes.  All in all an absolutely perfect weekend, why did it have to end so soon?

And obviously there was plenty of knitting done.  Over the past week, since finishing Eve's cardigan, I've managed to make excellent progress on other WIPs that were lying around.

First of all, here's a picture of me and Eve in our twin cardigans.

Eve was delighted to receive her own version and wore it most of the weekend.

I completed the grey version of my Olivia cardigan pattern and wore it most of the weekend!

The yarn was recycled from this cardigan which I never wore.  You can see details of the project on my Ravelry page, here.

I also completed my socks for March.  I used a plain coloured sock yarn for a change because I wanted to knit a lacy pattern and felt that self striping sock yarn wouldn't show the pattern up properly.

The pattern for these socks is the Petunia Dursley Double Eyelet Socks by Erica Lueder, a free pattern on Ravelry, and it's so pretty.  I'm entering these in a Harry Potter KAL that's currently running on Ravelry.  Details of my project are here.

I have also caught up with the Block-a-Month Crochet along that I'm following.  Here are my March squares.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips Square

Starburst Square

Tears from Heaven Squares

I now have the equivalent of 8 large squares in total.  The plan is to make 16 squares for a medium sized lap blanket.

All this activity has meant a significant reduction in my stash.  I'm looking forward to totalling it up at the end of the month.  I also managed to off-load over 500g of acrylic DK yarn to Grace for her ripple blanket - although this felt a bit like cheating, but if it gets my stash totals down I shouldn't complain.

I've still got a few other WIPs lurking around but I think I can treat myself this week and cast on a few new ones.

Wow, uploading a blog post and sorting the photos always seems to take more time than you think - as least I'm up to date now.

Enjoy your week and I hope it's a good one.

Treats

Thank you so much for all your lovely good wishes for my birthday last week.  I really appreciate them.

I had a lovely birthday week with the wonderful surprise visit of Grace on the evening of my birthday.

I was so lucky to receive some fabulous presents, including a gorgeous project bag that Grace made for me.

I just love the polar bear fabric which Grace bought specially for me because she knows how much I love polar bears.

There's a lovely snowflake charm on the zip and it's lined with pink snowflake fabric.  It's just the perfect size to hold my latest sock project.

She also bought me this ball of sock yarn.  I love the colours and can't wait to cast on with this .

I have been ill the last few days - thankfully not on my actual birthday - so I've slept most of the last few days.  I've missed reading your blogs, so I'll be catching up today.  It'll be nice to get back into a normal routine. I hope you have a lovely week.  Bye for now.

Look Who's 55!

Yes my birthday has finally arrived and here we are the birthday girl and boy.

I'm not sure which one of us is wearing better (I should have put some make up on before taking the photo!).  My teddy bear suffered considerably during my teething years and became threadbare at an early age, hence the extensive darning and patching.  He's a Wendy Boston bear - one of the first washable bears, and he went through the washer quite a few times when he was young.

For his 55th birthday, I decided to knit him a new outfit - he's been wearing his 40th birthday outfit (a Fair Isle jumper and baggy green trousers long enough).

The new outfit makes him look rather like a Hipster, don't you think?  So I'm assuming he's having a bit of a mid-life crisis!

I have so enjoyed being 54, I feel sad to let it go.  It has been a wonderful year.  But I'm embracing the year ahead and all that being 55 brings and I hope that it will be as much fun as the last year.

I have a day of treats planned so the year is already off to a good start.
Bye for now. X

What a Jolly Weekend!

Hello Everyone, I hope you are having a lovely time.  I am truly blessed at the moment as I am having a wonderful time.  Tomorrow is my actual birthday, but as you know I've been celebrating for some time now and have no intention of stopping for a while.

This weekend my husband and I went up to Kendal for a short stay.  Kendal is only one and a half hours drive up the M6 from us so it is nice and easy to get to.

The hotel we stayed in had a swimming pool which was wonderful.  We were only there for one night but we managed to fit in quite a few swims.

We also did a lot of walking and sightseeing.  We climbed up to Kendal Castle, which is just a ruin but has spectacular views across the Lake District.

We visited Kendal Parish Church which is beautiful - and found lots of angels.

I spoilt myself with a gorgeous ball of Juniper Moon Farm lace weight yarn (50% merino, 50% silk) from Williams' Wools - I just couldn't resist it and it is my birthday!

I managed to bash my toe in the swimming pool and I have a colourful and painful bruised toe now - the colours match my new yarn!

The sun shone and it wasn't too cold for walking around (we were well wrapped up) - just perfect.

Did I tell you that Kendal is only one and a half hour's drive away? - well coming home yesterday it took four and a half hours because the M6 was closed between Kendal and Lancaster!  Oh well, the silver lining was that I had some knitting with me, so I got plenty done.

Have a good week.  Bye for now.

Finishing off the Year

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas.  It was wonderful having the girls back home, catching up and doing all the things we love doing together.  Eve has gone back to London now, but Grace and her boyfriend are still here for a few more days.

It's been a lazy few weeks and I've enjoyed plenty of knitting and crocheting time.

I knitted these mittens for the girls for Christmas.  They're lovely and snug.

Full details of the pattern (which is a free one) and the yarn used can be found here.

I also made some socks for my husband.

Full details of these, here.

I finished the crochet shawl I was making myself - another hot pink one!  I need to branch out into some new colours.

The yarn is gorgeous and soft and the pattern a nice easy one to work with.  Full details on Ravelry, here.

Grace and I cast on some socks on Christmas Eve.  I wanted to try something different than the usual recipe I use, so I made these toe up, using Judy's Magic Cast On, Fish Lips Kiss Heel and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind off for the cuff.

I love the colours in this yarn and I particularly enjoyed the toe up construction of the socks.  I will be using this recipe again when I cast on for January socks.  Full details of my socks can be seen here.

And my final project for 2015 was some more fingerless mittens.  No particular reason for making them apart from I love the colours in the yarn which was leftover from some socks Grace knitted me earlier in the year.

Full details of the project are here.

We have nothing planned for tonight.  A few beers and a cosy evening with hubby looking back over the year.

It has been a very good year.  Nothing sensational happened to me,  but I've been happy and busy and I finish this year on a contented note - the best way to end the year.

I have my jar crammed full of happy memories of the year and I'm looking forward to reading through them all this evening and reliving the happy times.

Whatever celebrations you have planned for tonight, I wish you a very happy New Year.  Here's to another jar full of memories for 2016.