Shh, It's a secret.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day off on Friday. As I hoped, I got a few little things finished off and knitted some more of Freya's latest creation. I also scooted out to the yarn shop and bought some red and green. Nothing spectacular, just man made fibers at £0.50 a ball. See I'd spotted something in my knitting magazine and had a plan. It only took a couple of hours to whip up an apple cosy!
Tony always takes a lunch box to work, with a sandwich and some fruit. His Valentines day lunch box always contains an extra little surprise, a chocolate heart or something similar. This year I'll dress up his apple. LOL Shh, for now it's all hidden away in my drawer. ;-)
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For those in the know, this is day 596. There is quite a list forming here, lots of little slips of paper to be made.
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I have ham and leek soup bubbling away on the stove, yummmmmm. I'm off to stir that then do a little boring household sewing before I head off to work.

Sock Frustrations.

A while ago, before Christmas I purchased some DPNs and some sock yarn, all those beautiful yarns cried out to me and I was so determined to knit some socks. Well I tried and tried and huffed at failure, how do they do it? I watched videos on Youtube and read countless tutorials and still made a birds nest! Somewhere amid all the frustration I came across socks knitted on looms, I recalled happily hooking away on my old dolly bobbin (One of my grans old wooden cotton reels, I still have it.) and I thought to myself, well that's easy, I can do that, I can knit socks after all. I went shopping and this book called out to me. I found it on Amazon with a look inside this book application, so I looked inside this book.
All those socks, all that advice all those pretty yarns, my clicky finger got busy and the book was on it's way to me. :-)
When it got here I flickered through it quickly before running out the door to work. Oh! I love those, Ooo, I must do these, yum look at that yarn, where can I buy that? That was all I had time to do for a few days, but each time I flicked, I drooled. So, the other day I was exhausted when I got in from work, I really couldn't be bothered doing anything, not even Freya's knitting, so I curled up with my new book and started to read. The author explains everything, from start to finish, working toe up or working down. There are patterns for all manner of sizes, ribbed and lacy socks. I could see me having hours of fun with this book. So aside from all these yummy yarns, what else do I need? An extra fine gauge sock loom. Did you ever try to find one of those in Britain? I wondered if anyone one else had been having similar frustrations, so I went back to Amazon to have a look at the reviews. Yep!! There is a lesson here. Next time I buy a crafty book from Amazon I'll be reading reviews before getting clicky! I'll have to wait quite a while for my extra fine gauge wondersock loom to come directly from the manufacturer. There WILL be loom knitted socks in my future.
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As you know my Hunney Tony has finally finished his degree. In April we'll be off to Harrogate for his capping ceremony. We decided to make a little break out of it and will be staying for a whole week. Anybody live nearby? Want to meet? Tell me where to shop and what to see. We'll do the Museum, he wants to go to the baths and we've agreed to take a train ride day trip to Whitby, all good stuff, but I'm not going all that way without visiting a crafty shop or two, maybe I'll find some sock yarn! ROTF
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Thanks for all the comments on yesterdays post. I think I'll take your advice and just keep on blethering about what ever comes to mind on the day. If you missed yesterdays post, look here for news about a couple of give aways for my regulars. Oh yes, this is post 595. :-)
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Today I have a whole day off! I have a few things I want to finish up and then I'll curl up somewhere with David Attenborough (You know what I mean!) and work a little on Freya's latest.

594

You'd better grab a cuppa, it seems I have lots to say today. My kettle just boiled, I'll meet you back here! LOL
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594? I'll get back to that later. Look, I finished yet another neutral cardigan for baby Freya.
It's the last one, now I get to play with some colour. Look at the buttons I found though, don't they look like toffee or fudge or something equally sweet and tasty.

They've been in my button tin for years, I really don't remember where I acquired them, but they do look a treat on this little cardigan. It's knitted using a Merino blend, what else?
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This one unfortunately is not a merino blend. It's not a very good picture either, no matter what I do, this one just doesn't want to come out right. This is an Aran weight yarn and is a blend of natural and synthetic fibres. I'm just about to start decreasing for the arm holes on the back. The cable is supposed to have bobbles in the flat area, but I don't put them onto the backs of baby garments, I will add them to the fronts and sleeves though.

Here's a better look at the yarn colour, isn't it pretty?

I'm still enjoying the relatively quick finishes achieved with baby knits, but I'm sure I'll get fed up at some point and have been planning quilts and returns to UFOs. A baby girl is all it took to get me thinking about my Butterfly Fling Jelly Roll UFO. (I have blogged about it somewhere if you want to go hunting) I dug out the box the other day, maybe I'll do some work on it sometime soon. LOL

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594? We're getting very close to 600 blog posts. That sounds like a good place to have a give away. My opportunity to send a gift to one of my regular readers. In fact I'll send one gift each to two regular readers I've had quite a few suggestions of names for this quilt, some of which I really like, LOL. I keep changing my mind. I think what I'll do is put all of your names into a hat and bribe one of my boys in to drawing a name out. So that's one gift taken care of, what about the second one? Every comment from a regular reader between now and post 600 will have a place in a second draw. (Only one comment per person per post please! Don't want you getting accused of spamming. Oh and you don't have to 'follow' me or advertise all over your own blogs either.) So if you comment on each post...594, 595, 596, 597, 598 and 599 you could have six tickets in the draw. Wow! In post 600 I'll announce the winners for both draws. No time limits, I'll just post when I post, but I will help with a countdown or reminders or something.

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Still with me? I said you'd need a cuppa.

I've been thinking about how to get a little more structure to my blog. I've seen 'Design wall Mondays' and 'Wordless Wednesdays'. But I don't have a design wall and I'm a chatterbox! I can't really post every day because some days I really have nothing to show or talk about. Would you like to see more random stuff, walks or home pictures or should I stick to my crafts? Because of confidentiality issues I really can't say or show much about my work. Today's entry into the draw could be a comment about what it is you like or would like to see/read on my blog.

Burns Night

Last night my Sunday dinner was a wee bit different. You may know that it's Burns Night tomorrow. (Tuesday) There is more than a little Scots blood running in my veins, so a celebration was in order. Due to work and life's commitments, we decided to celebrate Burns night a little early with our own Burns Supper.

For those who need to know, here's what goes in to a traditional Haggis.

It's a Girl.

Our pregnant friends have finally popped. Freya Lily came into the world on Tuesday at 9.15 am after a 20 hour labour. Phew!
So now Aunty Loulee gets to knit in PINK.
After she finishes the current project that is. This little cardigan with a moss stitch panel won't take long.

Of course there are several other neutral coloured garments already waiting to go to their new owner.

As well as a quilt and a blanket. I did make another blanket, but it has a lot of blue in it, I'm undecided about giving that one to a girl.

I found this beautiful yellow fleece blanket a couple of weeks ago and added it to the pile.

It was just too soft a pretty to leave behind.
And as Freya's parents keep sheep, a pair of sheep shoes had to be found. My hunney found these on EBay. :-)

I did consider knitting my own, but these were just too cute.
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I had a day out with Mum yesterday, we went hunting for pink wool. What else? As you see I found only one which met my specifications, all the other pink yarns I found had very high manmade fibre content. I think I'll be shopping online for something else girly.

I start work at 3 today, so after a whizz around with the vacuum I'll be putting on one of my wildlife DVDs and knitting the day away.

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Did you go here yet? To help me find a name for my latest quilt.