Escape to the country

Project progress has been a little slow of late due to the stitching on the Great Scottish tapestry. More about that soon. However earlier in the month, I escaped work for a holiday and headed off for an annual break with some stitching friends. We hire some farm cottages and spend the weekend talking, stitching, knitting and getting to see all the animals.

There are chickens and chicks



Dogs



Goats that go for walks and help with the weeding



But best of all are the alpacas







I managed to finish a pair of socks when I was away - the yarn is Knitpicks Felici in Time traveller. A very appropriate colour way for this lifelong Doctor Who fan.

Of secret projects and life in general

The past few months have really whooshed by for me. My job has kept me very busy and I've also started my MSc. Since my last post, I've actually started and finished the first module and I'm anxiously waiting for my results.

Various other things have kept me busy and there has been more secret craft projects going on. I'm very lucky to part of a lovely local knitting group in Glasgow and one of my closest friends in the group is getting married in 5 weeks. We decided a few months ago that we couldn't let this occasion past with out creating something special for the happy couple. After some quick discussions, it was agreed we would knit a blanket and recruiting the knitters started. there was a lot of secret conversions and much passing of parcels of yarn and finished squares everytime Elaine left the table at knitting group. There were even secret yarn drop offs at a local joke shop that one of members works in. 2 weeks ago, a lot of the participants got together at my flat to sew up and finish it off.

There was crocheting to be done






And sewing of squares





And then it was done









The pattern is from the Leisure Arts booklet Sampler afghans, 60 squares to knit and yarn is undyed Blue faced Leicester from Old Maiden Aunt yarns, probably the loviest Aran weight yarn I've ever knitted with. The dyed yarn goes on sale tomorrow and would really recommend it


Another secret project which I finished earlier in the year is this pin keep. The design is Amite by Jardin Prive and is stitched using silk thread from the Yarn yard. It was given to a friend for their birthday

May the fourth

Today being Star Wars day, I have a very appropriate knitting finish to share. One of my work colleagues is due to have her first baby very soon. Both she and her husband are fairly geeky (like me) and her husband is a huge Star Wars fan. When I mentioned that I planned to knit some things for the baby, she was very keen and the idea of some more non traditional knits appealed to her.

So I knitted a outfit very appropriate for a new born Jedi - Baby Yoda Hat and sweater with felted baby sized light saber




I knitted a couple of other things also

Tiny Shoes designed by Ysolda Teague in Old Maiden Aunt Sock yarn in Lon Dubh



And one of my favourite baby knits - Little pumpkin hat from Itty bitty Hats



I'm in the process of finishing a blanket and some baby socks, pictures to follow. The Mum to be is finishing up work in a couple of weeks so I'm planning to get the baby knitting finished for this weekend so I can hand over the gifts next week.

London Part 2, Iknit and the OMA trunk show

Finally getting around to blogging the rest of my London/Iknit trip. At the end of my last post, I had been sightseeing around London.

On the Friday, the Iknit weekender started. One of the big appeals of the IKnit event was the chance to take a class with Marjan of Yarnissma fame. Most of the socks I have knitted in the past are cuff down ones but I've been getting pushed into the direction of Toe up socks due to a combination of the Socktopus sock club and loving the look of Yarnissma's patterns. In the class Marjan explained the ins and outs of toe up socks and she also bought along all her sample socks. The sample socks were amazing to see - I have a couple of the Yarnissma kits so it was very inspiring. I completely failed to take any pictures of them however. I did finish my little sample sock



After lunch with some of the Gourock knitters and Catherine from the Glasgow group, it was back to shopping. Later on, I also got to meet up with Joy from Knitting goddess yarns and some of the other knitters from her Ravelry group. We all had a great chat and I got to catch up with Scully, who I have known for such a long time and haven't seen for a while. Some neighbouring knitters got enabled into Ravelry and Ysolda of Ysolda Teague designs wandered by too. I really love her designs so it was more than a little cool to meet her.

After all the shopping and chatting, I was only really up to relaxing on Ravelry and eating Sushi - two of my favourite things lol.



Saturday was yet another lovely day so I went off for a wander again before heading to Iknit. Piccadilly Circus was busy as always



I had more of a wander around Whitehall and Westminister. Lots of statues to see but sadly very few were of women. I did find one of Florence Nightingale.



And one to the Women of World War 2.



And then I was off to the Iknit weekender - the one and only picture I took there.



Once inside, I bought more yarn and some really brilliant buttons. I also finally managed to have a chat with Natalie from the Yarn yard who I keep missing at other events. Slightly ironic that we both travel from Scotland to meet there.



Speaking of the Yarn yard, I was also lucky enough to win some yarn in the P/hop raffle at IKnit. P/Hop stands for Pennies per hour of pleasure and is a fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres, a rather excellent charity that provides health care in areas where its is really needed. I had a very interesting chat about their work that gave me a little to think about.

This is the yarn I won. Very me colours.


On the Sunday, it was time to head home but before heading home, I met up with another Raveler and travelled out to the Old Maiden Aunt trunk show at Socktopus. I met Lilith of OMA in my knitting group. She doesn't get the chance to attend these days but I do see her sometimes so I really wanted to go the trunk show to support her as I knew she was getting stressed about it. Also I've been a customer of Alice of Socktopus since she opened her shop and I couldn't miss the chance to meet her too and visit her shop, especially as she is moving to within Stash. We arrived a little early and thankfully Alice and Lilith let us in.

There were a lot of people keen to get in.



And then shop for mostly purple yarn



Carefully examine the yarn and eat Brownies and jelly beans



And just knit and socialise.



The trunk show was fab and it was great to met lots of people who I only know via Ravelry. Also I got the chance to catch up with another Joy from Crafty threads and yarns as we completely missed each other at Iknit. Alice is so lovely and I'm so glad I got to visit her shop before she moved to Stash.

I bought some of Lilith's yarn at the show, which is a little ironic considering that I live fairly near to Lilith's studio. But holiday yarn is the best sort.

Post weekend update

I'm back after a fun weekend of stitching, knitting and relaxing with friends. The weather was pretty awful whilst we were away but we all had fun anyway.

The place that we stay at is a working farm with Alpacas and all sorts of other animals. The alpacas have just recently been sheared so they look a little bald.





For some reason this duck was trying to swim across a really shallow puddle on its own.



Prior to the weekend, myself and the other people at the GTG had been commissioned to make a wall hanging by the owner of the farm that we stayed on. The floral stitching that I shared recently was what I stitched for it.





The wall hanging seemed to go down pretty well. Whilst I was away, I managed a couple of stitching finishes.

Tending the blooms by Shepherd's bush



Santa's coming by Shepherd's bush



I'm hoping to get a lot more stitching, knitting and even some sewing done during the remainder of this week. I don't go back to work until Monday night so that leaves me with a decent amount of spare time.

Catch up post

I've been procrastinating as usual so this post is going to be a little full of news and pictures. The past couple of weeks have mostly been a hum drum mix of work, various crafty stuff and sleep. There was the minor excitement of my knitting group appearing on a local TV news show - if you are in the UK, you can see it at this link for next few days. It features about 4 minutes in. I'm in the background in a purple shirt, knitting a sock. It was a quite bizarre but fun thing to do.

Since my last post I've heard that two exchanges I've sent have arrived at their destinations. One of the exchanges was very overdue so it was a big relief to find it had arrived. I stitched Tending the blooms for Carol as part of the SBEBB SB exchange. The picture isn't very good sadly.



I also heard that Becky had received the Halloween exchange that I sent her as part of a personal Halloween exchange. Rather appropriately as Becky sent me a lovely SB Halloween needleroll, I sent her a SB design in return - Halloween ABC pinkeep.



I have managed to have a couple of stitching finishes for myself in the past couple of weeks. Both are Shepherds bush designs. First up The Gobelins.



And then today I finished Scatter Christmas cheer.



I've also managed a couple of knitting finishes. First up a knitted jacket called Anise from Rowan/Simply Knitting magazine, which I mentioned that I had finished in my last post.



Secondly I finished a design called Matilda Jane by Ysolda Teague. Its knitted in Rowan Wool cotton and took exactly a month of knitting. Its knitted in one piece from the top down, which is a fabulous way to knit things with there being so little sewing involved.



The weather has been truly awful here this past week with absolutely no natural light for pictures, hence the dark pcitures. Autumn has hit with a typical series of rainy, stormy days with gale force winds and horizontal rain. There's even a possibility of snow next week which is just awful.

Yay stitching

I've just about recovered from last weekend's stitching GTG and now its the weekend again. The GTG was lots of fun and I really don't think I've laughed so much since the same time last year. During the weekend, I dyed a couple of pieces of linen which I'll share pictures of once I've managed to get around finishing rinsing them and ironing them. Ironing is really not my favourite thing to do but I'l force myself lol. I also made a small trip to Wye needlecraft but I didn't go mad - I only bought a small piece of linen plus two mirabilia charts which were a particularly good price. We also had a stash giveaway in which I managed to give away a good amount of used charts and I gained a couple of pieces of fabric and two chart. All in all, it was a good weekend.

Anyway being around lots of stitchers certainly helped my stitching mojo, especially with all the finished pieces and WIPs that I saw. It helped so much that I actually finished a fairly long term WIP Happy Haunting by Shepherd bush.




I actually finished it on the train whilst the train got very close to Glasgow. Its one of the only good things about public transport - the ability to stitch on trains.
This was the retreat project from the 2006 Shepherds Bush retreat. I had planned to go again this year but being off work and still having back pain, I had to email to cancel. I'm a little disappointed but I had to be sensible.

Inpsired by one finish, I decided to pick up one of the numerous small projects that was waiting to be started and so I started, finished and finish, finished the Purrfect Bookmark from Cat's Whiskers. Its stitched on 40ct.



I'm off now to try and finish my multicoloured monkey socks. Next weekend sees the start of the Summer of socks KAL. I've joined in to try and use up some of my frankly too large sock yarn stash but I need to try and finish some of the socks currently on my needles as only socks started and finished during the time of the KAL count towards it. Currenty I have 3 pairs of socks at various stages of completion on the needles and it would be nice to start the KAL with none on the needles. That hasn't happened in a while.

New month, new look, new projects

June already, it seems this year is going very quickly. Anyway for the new month, I decided on a new look for my blog. I found a few different layouts I liked so there might be a few different layouts during the rest of the year.

There has been a lot of Little house needlework designs being stitched around stitching blogland lately so inspired by that, I've finished up one that I started earlier in the year.



Pumpkins stitched on 32ct lambswool linen. I plan to finish it into a pinkeep.

I've also stitched and finished a little kit given to me by Simone as part of the Here's to ewe SBEBB exchange. Its a dutch kit which came with all the bits to finish it as well but all the instructions were in Dutch too so I guessed when doing the finishing. I used the kit picture as a guideline.



I also managed to finish the first sock of another pair of monkey socks. They are knitted in Shelridge farm soft touch ultra like one of my previous pairs. It is so very soft but without being too fluffy and the stitches are very well defined in it.




This weekend, I'm off on my travels. Myself and 15 other stitchers are headed for a weekend away in some farm cottages. There will be lots of stitching, knitting, eating and drinking plus some shopping hopefully and a dyeing class by Kate of Sparklies fabric. We had a similar retreat last year which was lots of fun so I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully when I return on Monday, I will have lots of lovely stitchy progress to share.