I've been away!

The stash down is going well. Better than the diet, actually! Once I completed those socks for hubby, there was some yarn left. As luck would have it, I needed something to knit in the car on the way to the airport (more on that shortly) so I cast on for another cute baby hat. I love this hat pattern! (I’ve actually completed but not photographed another one)

Pattern: Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap
Yarn: Leftover sock yarn.
Needle: 2.5mm and 3mm
Modifications: Instead of a crochet chain or i-cord, I have omitted the cord under the chin
Verdict: So cute! I still love it!

While we were away I mostly worked on a crochet shawl – since crochet hooks are okay on the plane. (that said, I bet I’d be able to sneak small wooden needles onto the plane too, but I haven’t had the courage to try yet!) but it’s less-than-half finished. (it’s also a Nerd Wars Dissertation for team Browncoat – yep, I couldn’t resist playing again!)

So, where were we away to? Well, I’m glad you asked. We spent a fortnight in a place called Taba Heights, up on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.
The weather was warm, the food was good, and we had a very relaxing two weeks. Mostly, we snorkelled, and when we weren’t snorkelling we were relaxing on the beach, or in the pool. We even played a round of mini golf. All round, it was great.

The view from the rear of the hotel

Overlooking the golf course at the side of the hotel

Enjoying the sunshine in the hotel gardens

The beautiful lagoon view

Relaxing with my crochet shawl on the beach
(it was so warm I even sat in the shade sometimes!)

This man rode up and down the beach on his camel
waiting for someone to ask for a ride.
We didn't ask - I didn't enjoy my last camel ride!

And since then? Well, it’s been hard getting back into work. I’ve been involved in a reasonably interesting but taxing project. I’m enjoying it but it means I’m quite tired of an evening!

We did take the time to do a spot of gardening. There’s a thin patch of dirt in front of the front wall at my house, and it’s been a source of annoyance to me since we moved in. It was full of weeds and there was nothing nice in it. So, we set to. I’ve used some interesting Pinterest pins about gardening to achieve this, and I really hope that it works properly.

Two more projects!

Two more projects gets me to my 6 for Nerd Wars for round 3! Woo!



I finally finished spinning this yarn

 

Fibre: A Little Bit Sheepish Merino
Colourway: Vampire Rock
Spun using: Highest ratio on the Ashford Traveller
Spin direction: Z (wheel turning anticlockwise, spin to the left)
Plying type/direction: 3-ply, S (wheel turning clockwise, spin to the right)
Yarn Stats: 100g / 247yards (12 wpi, approx sport weight)
Verdict: Nice! I love the long stripes. I think it needs to be a shawlette of some sort.

And I crocheted these slippers



Pattern: Men’s Padded Sole Slippers
Yarn: Cascade 220 in grey
Needle: 5mm
Modifications: None
Verdict: Nice. I like the padded soles. They’re a bit loose for hubby though. I’m going to try fulling them slightly and see what happens then.

And I got a little bit of gardening done. A very little bit. I’ve planted some more beans and peas in some seed trays, I’ve also planted some chilli plants. I don’t know how well they’ll do, but I have my fingers crossed!

Here are my squash plants.



I’ve transferred these to some lovely bigger pots and put them in the greenhouse. The next stage for these guys is to be planted in either the grow bag or the garden. I’m experimenting.

Quick Roundup

Alas, between my sister's wedding and the other randomness that's always going on, I haven't blogged much. Also, I lent my sister my camera (it does underwater) so I haven't been taking as many photos lately.

I do have some things to share though, so without further ado...

More Knitting!
Remember this yarn?



It was crying out to be something nice, wasn't it? Well, I decided on Argosy because I thought it would work well with the colours.



Once it was blocked I posed it on my pea structure (I'm hoping to grow peas this year!) so that I could count it for my Nerd Wars Unity - terraforming!



Would you believe that those are iPhone photos?

Pattern: Argosy
Yarn: my scrappy handspun
Needle: 4.5mm
Modifications: None
Verdict: Brilliant! Exactly what this yarn needed to be. My squares aren't very square, though perhaps I could have evened that out in the blocking.

Now that I've finished that I've been working on hubby's slippers again. There's a chance that he might get them in time for our one year anniversary coming up soon! They're actually quite nice and simple, but I've been procrastinating about making the custom insoles. Tsk tsk. It's not that they're going to be hard to make, and I'm almost at a point where I can't continue with the slippers without them. I don't have an excuse!

I have completed some spinning too, but I haven't taken photos of that yet.

Speaking of peas (as I was back a few paragraphs) I've got quite a few things on the go from a vegetable perspective, as I'm sure you remember me writing previously. Well, the chilli plant is all but dead, I think it's been too cold for it in the greenhouse with all the cold and rain. I've bought some seeds though, so I'll hopefully be able to get some plants going in the house instead. I have six squash plants which I intend to pot-on this weekend, though I'm not sure I'll risk them going outside just yet.

I'm also going to hopefully put some peas outside soon. I have one really strong looking little plant in the greenhouse and two or three reasonable looking ones in the seed propagator. Ideally I want 12 plants on each bamboo frame.

The weather hasn't been good enough for me to get out and weed the potatoes, or to earth them up which needs doing soon too. The ones in the potato bags need another layer of soil too. I'm quite hopeful that there will be potatoes, though we will see. If it goes well this year I'm thinking about re-arranging the whole garden!

I've had some success with the second seed planting of Brussels Sprouts, which hubby is quite keen on. And there's also some Swiss Chard on the go in that same seed tray. The beans and peas are not doing so well in there (though the peas are doing better than the last lot) so I may have to plant another round of those. I'm also hoping to arrange a bit of a swap with a knitting friend who also has some tomato plants. I may have to have a bit of a move-round in the greenhouse to accomodate them all though! Or else get myself another plastic plant shelter. I gave my old one to my mum!

I'm learning all the time though, and I already think that next year I might plant more varieties of tomato, but fewer of each plant. I'm also going to have a re-think about how early I sew some things. That said, if I get a nice early crop of tomatoes then that's fine by me! If I get myself out there either tonight or over the weekend (weather permitting!) then I'll take some more photos of how it's all going.

Just before Easter I was fortunate enough to find a discounted loom for sale from the lovely Wingham Woolworks. I called about it and they shipped it to me really fast! I was very pleased! It’s a Kromski Harp, 16 inches wide with a 10 dent heddle. If that was all Greek to you, let me explain…

Kromski make all manner of crafty things, including spinning wheels and looms. One of the looms that they make is called the harp. It’s a folding rigid heddle loom. A rigid heddle is the bit which the threads go through. A 10 dent heddle is a heddle with 10 dents (or spaces) per inch (I think).

Anyway, it’s a lovely thing of beauty. I got some books to go with it, one of which contains some patterns for weaving bags. But first I had to do some practice.



I warped the loom (that means I strung on the long bits that go back to front and through the heddle) with some cotton which I have previously made baby jackets from. As it’s cotton it doesn’t stretch much and I’m told it’s a good fibre for a beginning weaver to use.
Then I used the same yarn for the weft (that’s the bits that go left to right, under and over the warp threads) and made a strip of fabric.

It’s great fun! And so fast! I’m working on a bag pattern from the book now. I have some other bits and pieces for the bag, ranging from cotton and fusible interfacing to lining fabric and buttons. Some of these are new (like the yarn) and some are from my stash (of fabric and buttons!)



Oh! I didn’t mention before, I also dabble in cross stitch! I’ve been working recently on a panel from the Quaker Tapestry known as “the co-operation donkeys”. I’m quite pleased with it (though the back isn’t very neat) and I hope to frame it.
(sorry, no pic yet!)

Over the long weekend we (me, hubby and the in-laws) did some gardening. We weeded a good portion of the garden out the back in order to plant some veggies. I’ve put two rows of potatoes in (one row of “early”s and one row of “main crop”). I’ve also built some wigwam structures for growing my peas up (they’ll also need something a bit thinner to grip, but this is good for now.)

I’ve got tomatoes, peppers, salad leaves and a chilli plant growing in the greenhouse,



and courgettes, butternut squash, peas, beans, chard and Brussels sprouts growing in trays on the windowsill



I’m also growing some decorative plants. We weeded a section in front of the wall and I’m going to plant some summer flowers out there. I’ve also planted some daisies in a propagator, and I plan to use those with some other decorative summer flowers to make a nice planter or two. It’s actually quite fun (well, not the weeding. Weeding is just hard. But the planting is fun!)

I’ve started knitting up that handspun from the last post. Keeping to my word, I’m making Argosy.



Sadly for hubby, this scarf is prettier than his (grey) slippers, so it’s getting all of my crafting time that isn’t weaving at the moment. On the up side I am almost finished with the scarf so it shouldn’t be long before I get back to the slippers. They were trucking along before I started the scarf, so I anticipate them taking only a short amount of time to complete.

Of course, all of these things can be entered into Nerd Wars for round three! I’m still waiting to get my official cube-melting badge for round two, but I am scored for 6/6 challenges! Brilliant! The scarf, slippers, woven bag – that’s three projects! Giving Geeks this time is about disasters, so I’m thinking about donating to MSF, but I’m unsure about that. Then I only need to think of one more new thing to make because the final challenge in round three is all about WIPs (works in progress) I reckon I’ll spin some more yarn and maybe finish knitting the baby jacket I’ve been designing.

Veggies!

One of my Christmas gifts was a set of indoor propagators, and some packets of seeds.

I've started putting them to use now! Here's the first of the three on my south(ish) facing windowsill.



I've planted 2 seeds in each plug - I'll "thin" them to one plant when they start coming through. I've planted 5 plugs of tomatoes. There's some built-in redundancy there, I'm not sure I want 5 tomato plants, but I'd rather have more than I need than have them fail (my squashes failed like that last year)
I've planted 15 plugs of onions. I may plant some more of those, I'm not sure yet. I think you get one onion per seed.
Finally I've planted 20 carrots. These are an early dwarf variety, so I'll definitely want to plant some more.

I've also got some seed potatos.



On the left are "Arran Victory" - a heritage variety of potato with purple-ish skins. These are a maincrop variety of potato. The others are "Duke of York", a nice early crop there, good for salads so the packet says.

I'm quite excited about these. I've made a note of the planting in my RHS diary, and I'll be keeping track of my future plantings and their progress in that book too.

Well, I'm off back to my knitting now. I love having creative hobbies!

Crafty is as Crafty does

I'm plotting some more crafty adventures.

last week I picked 450g of elderberries. My Mum has also picked me about a pound, so if I pick just two more pounds of elderberries, I can make wine to my Dad's recipe. He's bringing me some demi-johns for doing that with. I also hope to make some plum wine, as the neighbours gave us a bucket full of plums!

Well, as you can imagine, there are more plums than I need for the wine. I'm also going to make some jam. The trouble is that I don't have any jam jars!
I do have about 600g of raspberries which are also lined up to be jam, but I've frozen those. I bet I can pick another punnet of them tonight too.
So, I think I'll need to buy myself some jam jars. (Though my Mother-in-Law has offered that I could have some of hers, which might be a cheaper solution!)

So, wine, jam - how cool! Anyway, we also identified that the tree/bush behind the shed is not, in fact, a blackthorn bush. Therefore it doesn't have sloes on it. It's a damson tree, and so I have also picked 450g (about a pound) of damsons. I'm going to make damson gin with some of them, and I might make damson rum with the other half if I can find a small (35cl) bottle of cheap white rum.

We're also making a scarecrow for the Bugthorpe Scarecrow trail. I'll post pictures once he's up. We're starting tonight by making a papier-mâché head.

On the fibre craft front, I am still working on the hoody, but I confess it's not really appealing to me at the moment. I just need to get to the top of the arms and it will be interesting again! I guess it's all down to my orangutan-like proportions - or so it seems! I've rarely met a jumper (hand knit or bought) which has sleeves the right length. Most often they are too short - the cuff leaves my wrist bone exposed, or in some cases they look like 3/4 sleeves even if they're not meant to be! Sometimes they are silly long though, but that's less of a problem!


I did cast on something new, a cowl. The pattern is Lava Flow Cowl (Rav Link) although I have made some amendments because of my yarn choice.



The yarn is actually much lighter than in that picture, it's the Llama yarn that my parents brought back from America when they went.

This arrived in the post this morning



It's greener than that (the joy of taking photos when it's rainy and miserable!) but really nice. It's 30% cashmere 70% merino from Colourmart. It's going to be something for Hubby for Christmas. He has seen the yarn (I had to check when it arrived, I was a bit worried about the green-ness) but that's all he's going to know about it! It's lovely stuff, I've already skeined it and I plan to wash it tonight. This is because Colourmart yarn is usually weaving or machine knitting yarn and as such is usually oiled. I want to make the most of the 150g I have, so I'm going to want to pick the most appropriate needle, and not have to make a swatch. (That and I hate swatching)
Then I want to re-skein and wash the bargain red yarn from the British Wool Weekend because it smells a bit fusty. Trouble is that it's probably twice as heavy as the Colourmart yarn, and it's laceweight. So re-skeining that could be a bit of a nightmare! I may have to do it into 100g skeins! That's going to have to be a project for when I'm a bit less busy. This week in my evenings I have to:

1. help with the scarecrow
2. pick elderberries
3. pick courgette
4. pick raspberries
5. pack for visiting my sister (and travel there on Friday)
6. organise present for upcoming birthday
7. go to Slimming World

I think that's all. But that's a lot to fit in to the next three evenings! I guess it's better than vegetating in front of the telly though, right?

For a change...

I guess the last few posts there’s been a bit of a fitness/weight loss overload.

So, I’ll talk about something else today!

We’re still in the process of moving house. I’m hopeful that we should be able to complete at the end of August, though it does depend on our seller (the person we’re buying from) moving out in time. I don’t know what stage she’s at now.

I’m quite excited about the new house, it has so many things that we’re looking for!

We have some enquiries with our solicitor at the moment regarding some of the information in the deeds, specifically pertaining to the covenants. I suspect that I am better not detailing any of them here, for the time being at least.

Anyway, there’s so much scope for doing the things I’ve been wanting to do but not had the space for. Ranging from more dying and getting into spinning to growing vegetables.

Here are some of the things I’d like to be able to do in the new house:

• Grow Veggies including potatoes and carrots, squash, aubergine, tomatoes, peas and strawberries!
• More Dying not really good in an unventilated room with cream carpets which I was using in our current house…
• Spinning I’ve been spindle spinning, but I’d love the space for a wheel. After that I’d love some more hours in the day!
• Growing dyestuffs this is on top of growing veggies – my own dyers patch, what fun that would be!
• Chickens I’d love some pet chickens. I’m talking two or three, not many.
• Bunnies! I love bunny rabbits. Guinea pigs would also be an option.
• While we’re on animlas: Doggy! Ok, this is a long term thing, not something for the shorter term, but I would love to have a dog. Preferably a big dog. My favourite breeds are Great Danes and Wolfhounds. I love Setters too, but all that hair!
• Painting and I don’t mean rooms. This is something I’d like my fiancé to be able to do more of too. We have an easel, it will be nice to have space to put it up.
• Cooking and dinner parties our current kitchen is small, we don’t have much space for people. The new place will be large enough to have a reasonable number of people round! I don’t claim to be a brilliant cook, but I can follow a recipe quite well*.
• Sitting out I’m truly more excited than I should be about the prospect of getting a patio set – you know a couple or four chairs and a small table. Maybe we could upgrade the barbeque too! Alas, there isn’t likely to be much time left this year where outdoor cooking is acceptable.

I’m sure there are millions of other things I could add to this list!
But I’ll stop now.

In my current garden I have bought two more herbs. We visited a small nursery when we were back home, and they had some quite nice plants there at very reasonable prices. I picked up an apple mint (why yes, I do like mint. How did you guess?) and a small lavender called Melissa Lilac.

*when I say quite well, I mean with only one or two substitutions or changes. It’s a bit like knitting patterns, a recipe is just a guide!

Training, and not knitting!

This morning I was at the gym again. (I know, that’s no excuse for the chocolate I’ve eaten today. Diet is something I need to work on!) I have been working through the programme that I’ve been given by my Personal Trainer. It starts with some high-intensity low-weight cables. I like that; it gets my heart rate up. Once I’ve done that I do squats (I’m using a 15kg bar right now, aiming to get the form before I up the weight – do it light, get it right!) and dead lifts (also 15kg) and then clean-and-press (10kg) which isn’t the same exercise as the one we do in body pump. Then I have around 30 minutes of cardio work, which takes about 40 minutes including travel between machines and stopping to breathe so I don’t die.

I’m getting on okay with the cardio. It’s something I really don’t like doing which makes it a challenge. Even when I was doing quite a bit of running, I never liked that. I spend time on each of the static bike, treadmill and cross trainer. I don’t really like any of them, but I know that I need to get my cardio fitness up.

Still, at least I’m doing something in the gym, and it really does make me feel better for the rest of the day!
Well, until the aching sets in! I’m looking forward to a nice long hot bath!

On the knitting front, I haven’t been! I know – it’s a shocker. I bought a big bunch of new yarn recently – the pictures I took of it are rubbish!
Some of the yarn has plans. The bamboo is being made into a bag (as mentioned before), the Noro Silk Garden Sock is going to become a shrug, all being well. I need to do a bit of planning on that one, like deciding whether to knit it in stockinette or in garter – or something else! I don’t want to do any fancy patterns; Noro SGS is beautiful enough on its own.
The other Noro, I don’t know what I’ll do with that. I’ve been toying with the idea of some sort of felted thing, although it’s expensive yarn for felting with! Failing that, perhaps something smallish – a vest top or a shrug maybe. I have 5 balls, which is about 500yds I think. should be enough for a vest – especially if there’s openwork/lace somewhere on it.

A friend of mine kindly provided me with another herb! Yey! Now I have another variety of mint, Apple mint. It’s lovely, and was the other one I considered getting at Yorkshire Lavender.

So, it’s all good.

More about that...

As I posted yesterday, I’ve bought some new herbs. I don’t know where this desire comes from, but I love having plants, growing things in my garden is so interesting, so much fun, and the results are beautiful and tasty!

Last year, I bought a collection of herbs from B&Q. this consisted of (as seen in the green tub picture, left to right) chives, sage, parsely, oregano, coriander (which is an annual and died over winter) and Thyme.
Now I also have Dill and Coriander (both annuals), lemon thyme, oregano and French Tarragon, and basil (in the green pot, because he lives indoors) – these were all from B&Q too, and three (yes, three!) varieties of mint. I have peppermint, spearmint and garden mint. I am considering getting some apple mint too, which I really like. I love mint; it’s a great smelling herb, and pretty to look at too. I’m trying to learn the difference between the types of mint in looks, as well as smell (from the smell it’s easier!)
Fiancé’s mum picked up some chocolate mint, which she tells me chickens are meant to like. That has the most amazing mint-chocolate smell to it! She also bought some lavender. I quite like lavender, especially as it is a nice strong smell which can be used to mask the wool smell in a house full of wool!

I’m quite excited at the prospect of having a proper garden to grow things in. I like vegetables and salads and fruit – and I love the idea of growing my own! I could spend hours in the grow-your-own section in B&Q, or perusing in a garden centre.
I’m also looking forward to having space (and hopefully time!) for chickens. I will probably wait until we’ve settled in properly before introducing chickens – perhaps after the wedding (though we’ll see, I’m not usually that patient!). The main thing I’m worried about is being able to find someone to look after them when we go away, and as that would be for three weeks after the wedding, that’s quite an ask.
Chickens need to be let out in the morning, and shut away in the evening.

The crochet I flashed up yesterday is a new bag I’m making, Inga's Haekelbeutel (in German) (Rav link) – it’s a cleverly constructed bag made from granny squares crocheted together. since I quite like making granny squares, I thought this would be a great item for me to make. as usual, I’m not using the yarn called for. I’m not even using the weight of yarn called for! I might end up having to line the bag, which I might have to do 1) before I make it up and 2) by hand.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. My sewing machine, threads and most of my fabric stash never made it to storage (friends’ house – many thanks guys, you know who you are) so I should be able to line the bag without too many problems – though it might be as easy to do it by hand, though I detest sewing by hand, so I have to consider that thoroughly!
I have noticed that my newer squares are a bit tighter – I’m not sure if I’m crocheting tighter, or what. hopefully I can block them all to approximately the same size, prior to crocheting them together. I just have to decide what order to do that in, once I finish making the squares. I’m on 5 of 8 in the blue-then-brown pattern, I’m doing 8 others in brown-then-blue.

Herbs

I've bought some new herbs. We went to Yorkshire Lavender this weekend and there was a lovely selection of other herbs there, including some varieties of mint that I fancied having. Well, we also went to B&Q and I ended up with several more herbs, so on top of the six I already had, I now have some pretty new ones. I've also been doing some crochet...

Busy Bank Holiday Weekend?

For us it was.
We visited my folks on the Saturday and bought some exciting local food and such while we were there. Smashing black pudding and raisin sausages, Lincoln Blue cheese (yum!) and flour from the local mill (yes, a real windmill!)
Earlier on Saturday I had received a parcel of two sticks.
So we went to B&Q and bought some pots for the sticks (they'll be roses when they grow up).
While we were there I got a little carried away, and we bought compost (we did need that) some lettuce plants and a herb set. (pictured: herbs)
And then, well then I really got carried away... And what did look like this: Now looks like this: On the up-side, there's plenty of room for me to plant more things (the Lettuces are going in next to the rather sad looking flowery thing in front of the ex-bush, but I need to protect them from slugs...)
I think it's lots better, and the garden looks bigger.
This weekend, I'm planting some pak-choi seeds in pots and ripping out a kitchen, or starting to. I'm planning on photo diary-ing the kitchen renovation.