I'm Back

I knew this would happen.  Two blogs and I haven't posted anything else since January. Well I am back.

It has been a very difficult few months as on 27th February I lost my dear old dad.  It was a great shock for me and my family especially my mother who has not been parted from him since they were married.  She is finding it very difficult to live on her own and gets very lonely.   I have tried as much as I can to help her out but I think she realises now that she has got to get on with her life, find new friends and things to do.  The other difficulty is that I have 3 brothers and no sisters so everything seems to fall on my shoulders. One brother is on tour all the time so cannot really help at all, one lives too far away to visit often and has quite a busy life with his 2 year old.  The other brother lives around the corner from my mum and says that he will help but somehow does not achieve this. Anyway I am sure all this will sort itself out.

On the knitting front I have been busy as usual.  I am knitting a Norwegian Cardigan for a friend. She asked me to do this at Christmas so that she can wear it next Christmas hence the colours.  She decided to have red and white.  I have really enjoyed knitting this and almost finished now.  The last row gave me a few problems when I couldn't work out how to decrease from 114 stitches to 80 and after much deliberation and a few trials and errors I got there eventually.  The IHeart socks are very slowly coming along but they are probably not needed now until next winter so there is plenty of time for them.  I have also started a 10 stitch blanket. This was printed in Slip Knot and someone at the Ash knitting group was making this and it was so good I decided to try it myself.  I found some wool King Cole Marble which is multi coloured (pink, purple, orange and yellow).  I have decided that I will give this to Victoria (my daughter) for when she goes to Uni in a couple of years time. Hopefully by then I will have finished it.

The City and Guilds is going well and I have now finished all my items.  My last item was a blanket made up of a variety of squares with 4 different patterns and 4 different colours. It came out well and I was really pleased with it. My nightmare was that when I washed it some of the stitching came apart and I had to sew it up. I don't quite know how this happened and I have never had it happen before.

In March I went to Skip North.  This was a really lovely weekend despite the fact that the B&B mucked up my booking and I had to spend 1 night at the B&B and 1 night at the Youth Hostel but this was not so bad as I managed to get my own room in the Youth Hostel as I was not looking forward to sharing with strangers.  Heather Murray kindly took me in her car and we had a good journey there and back. Thanks once again Heather.  I am hoping now to go to the Devon Retreat in October. This was another good trip last year.  Already looking forward to this.  Although I better use up some of my stash before buying anymore yarn as my husband is getting a bit fed up with the amount I have got and how to store it.

I have also recently had my kitchen refitted which was difficult to deal with around the same time as my dad's funeral.  It was 3 weeks of using my conservatory as a kitchen which my husband set up and actually he did not do a bad job as I managed to cook a decent meal every night rather than getting take-aways.  The kitchen is wonderful and worth all the stress.  I am now having my bathroom refitted which has meant the 3 of us are sharing the en-suite.  We have to work around each other in the mornings and also having to cope with workmen turning up at 8.00 in the morning.  It should hopefully be finished by the end of this week and we will have a lovely new bathroom.  We are then refitting the little bedroom.  This is where I kept all my stash. I have had to pack everything up and now looking for somewhere else to keep it. 

Well I think really it is not surprising that I have not written in my blog for a while. I have had so much going on.  I am now hoping that I will keep this up once again.

Ravelry: JoanneC's Striped Jumper

Ravelry: JoanneC's Striped Jumper

Waiting for the Snow!

It is very cold today and the forecast is for heavy snow in this area later this evening.  I do love the snow but I don't like having to drive in it.  I don't have any plans to go out tomorrow apart from dropping Victoria off at school, hopefully Michael (DH) will do this if it is that bad. Most probably the school will close anyway.  I however have to go to work on Thursday so I am keeping my fingers crossed that things would have calmed down by then.

On the knitting front I have decided to give up on the Bavarian cabled socks as it got complicated having to use a cable needle.  I frogged them back to the toe and started IHeart socks instead.  This is from the same book.  I am also knitting a scarf for myself in a pink and purple colour.  This is to go with my purple gloves I bought just before Christmas. I don't know where the pattern came from but it is a copy of a pattern my friend Chrissy (wheatiegirl) used for a scarf which she asked me to frog and whilst doing this I wrote down the pattern as she has forgotten how it was done.  It is at about half the length needed at the moment.  The yarn I am using is Fyberspates spaced dyed sock yarn 75% merino and 25% Nylon.  It is quite soft so thought it would make a good scarf.  There is nothing worse than having itchy wool around the neck.

I am quite enjoying this blogging but I am sure like most others my blogs will get further and further apart as life gets busy again.

New Years Day 2010

I have been thinking about starting a blog for quite some time and the 1st day of the New Year is probably a good time to start. I have also just been given a new laptop for Christmas which will also make it a little easier.

Well today has been quiet. I spent some of the day making batch of bolognaise sauce for my son Andrew to take back to Uni on Sunday and also made a nice lasagne for dinner.

Knitting wise I have started knitting a pair of socks from the toe up. This is my first attempt at doing this and although it took a couple of goes I managed to use Judy Becker's magic cast on. I am making the socks from a book called "Socks from the Toe Up" written by Wendy Johnson and the sock pattern is Bavarian Cable Socks. I am using 2.5mm needles although it suggests 2mm I just hope that this will not make too much difference. I am quite pleased with my progress and will post a picture of the result later on.

I have recently finished my 3rd project for my City and Guilds course. It is a striped jumper made in the round and although I had trouble with joining the sleeves to the body it ended up working out very well and I cannot believe that I have managed to work all this out by myself. I will also publish a photo later. I have now got to do all my back up work before the next class; this is the bit I do not look forward to doing.

Anyway this is the end of my first blog and I hope you enjoy reading it. Happy New Year.