Stitchy Pickings

Hello everybody.  

I've been trying so hard to get around all of your lovely blogs in the past week but time just seamed to run away on me. But this week I hope to have a lot more me time to knuckle down and get some serious blogging done!  There is so much that I need to catch up on.  I feel like I've been living in a bubble for the last year while everybody else was getting on with some seriously beautiful crafting. 

 I'm so far behind that only last night did I get to watch The Bletchly Circle.  

I SO loved it.

I was having a girlie night in with my mother and catching up on some much needed relaxation and down time, I noticed that the two series were up on Netflix and we sat down and watched every episode. It was two in the morning before the last episode ended and I was glued to the screen the whole time, interrupted periodically by my Mum telling me to close my mouth and stop drooling over the clothes.  

The clothes. The clothes.  Oh the clothes!!

They made me want to take out Cissy, my trusty sewing machine, and get making right away.

If only I was that talented!

One thing that I could do last night in peace and quiet was to sit down with my knitting tucked neatly on my lap.  I much say that I love this little stitch pattern.  It is not as boring as stocking stitch but not too complicated that you have to concentrate it all the time and not be able to watch a bit of telly at the same time. 

 It is a Stylecraft Alpaca pattern and has a lovely vintage feel to it.  I think that it'll be the perfect little cardi for a summers evening or a walk on the beach.  Can't wait to see it finished.

This is the other little baby that I'm working on at the moment. It is from Rico Designs in Melange Glitz Chunky.  It is an absolutely fantastic yarn to work with, so soft and tactile.

I wanted a quick knit after Christmas, to get my knitting year off to a good start but this has taken forever to get finished.  I ran out of yarn just as I was getting to the top of the back piece and have been waiting for the right yarn to be delivered since.  It's such a joy to knit that I'm sure that it won't take too long to finish once it arrives.

Just before I go, I thought that I might introduce you to the newest member of our clan, Fred.

The poor little fella was abandoned in the middle of the countryside when he was just a small pup.  He was found by a relation of my husband's and taken in but he couldn't stay there forever but I begged and whined and cried and when that didn't work, I throw a temper tantrum until the Hubby gave in and agreed to let him come live with us. He's been cursing me every day since then.

The least i can say is that Fred is a whirlwind of destruction.  never to be left home alone lest he eat toys, furniture, yarn or his favourite of all, books.  He takes them out of the bookshelf and nibbles on the cover and even if he's stopped and the book put away, he will always go back to the same book until it's totally destroyed. 

 Go figure!

And the worst of all?? 

He always, always eats the end of the book first!!

Hope to chat you all on your blog's soon,

Rosie

What Will I Do NOW????

We woke yesterday morning to a beautiful bright blanket of snow.  It was a day that I had been dreading for a few weeks now.  It has been on my mind during the day and creeping into my dreams at night.  I had an appointment in the hospital for tests and I wasn't sure how long I would have to stay in.  Now I love a break every bit as much as the next woman but I could easily think of several more desirable places to go.
After several hours of being sedated, poked and prodded, x-rayed and scanned and injected with needles that looked big enough to use on a horse, they told me that I could go home once I found out the results from the consultants.
Firstly they said that I had a hernia.  Fair enough I thought, I do take a bucket load of medication each and every day.....this is not an exaggeration by the way!  This is something that I can deal with.
Next they told me that my fibro is slipping back to what is was before and presenting itself in some different symtoms.   That too is okay.  I've been fighting it for the last nine years.  I'm just going to have to fight a little bit harder.
But the most crushing of all came last.  When I had thought that I had a trapped nerve in my shoulder last week from crocheting, I was wrong.  I had thorn the dorsal muscle in my back.  The proper name was big and had lots of letters in it and could only be pronounced by a champion at tongue twisters so the doc gave me a simpler one to remember.  He told me that I must rest lots in the next few weeks and try to stretch it.  But also I mustn't do any knitting or crochet........WHAT??  Me not do any knitting or crochet.  Is he mad?  I would go mad.  This is the only thing that keeps me anyway sane.
But he said that I must just grin and bear it.
Today was my first day of going cold turkey and the yarn withdrawal was cruel.  Several times I caught myself picking up my WIP and starting, only to be screamed at by one of the kids for being naughty.  I know that I'm going to be dreaming of nothing but yarn for weeks until I can once again wrap that lovely soft yarn around my fingers as I hook in and out and make some bright and colourful granny squares for the campervan blanket.  And what of the toddler blanket?  If I don't finish it soon, it will have to be a teenagers blanket!!

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Before I go, I must thank everybody for their help with my sewing machine query.  I've had a lot of tips and ideas to try from your comments and emails.  From talking and singing to the machine (I might leave out the singing one through, I've known tougher machines than this to come to a screaming halt at my singing) and thread and bobbin changes to even rebuilding it with the help of youtube.  I'm sure that I shall figure it out soon.  I will have to as I now have no other craft to keep me sane for the moment.  It will give me an excuse to catch up on my sewing jobs and not be so easily distracted by my yarn stash.

Thanks for listening to my ranting on.
Rosie x

Knitting Nutter

My energy levels have been at an all time low over the last few days.  True to my promise to myself, I've walked the dog every morning.  Unfortunately all I was fit for after that was to surround myself with yarnie comfort and knit and crochet to both calm and sooth.
I managed to finished another Christmas present.  This cute little bag was such fun to knit.  Being the twit that I am, I lost the pattern but I think that it is one by Louisa Harding.  I used Lambs Pride Worsted and Irish Tweed.  It's a slip stitch pattern which I think is the best for things like handbags because it forms quite a robust material.  I lined it with a lovely dark green cotton that was a lovely contrast to the outside.

I also finished a cute little colourful mittens for my son.  He's been asking me for ages to make these and even bought the wool himself.  I've been doing the 'Mittens and Gloves Galore'  by Marly Bird on Craftsy.  As I've said before, I love doing craftsy courses.  It is great to be able to follow it at your own pace and it also comes on a mobile app. Brrriliant!  So waiting for the kids outside the school or long journeys in the car is now a lot more interesting.  Unfortunately like everything crafty, it gets addictive and I keep finding new courses that I want to take and new things that I want to learn.  Even things that I had never even heard of before and hadn't previously known that I want to know it!!!!!


Before I go, I need to ask for a bit of help with something that's been driving me loopy lately.  I'd love to know how to put in breaks between topics in my post.  I've seen some blogs that have gorgeous little hearts or stars or the like but I just do not know how to put them in for my posts.  Are your posts written on Word?  Is there something that I'm missing out on in my toolbar.  I'm not the best at computers and since I started this blog I've learned so much and  I'm hoping to keep on improving it all the time.  A little help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Rosie xx

Going Vintage

Chaos has reigned once more on this little house of mine.  After labouring to clean all of the linen in our hotpress, or airing cupboard to everybody else, after the builders left the house caked in cement dust, my heart sank this weekend to discover that the pipes in the house next door had burst and the water had seeped into our hotpress and destroyed all of the contents once more!  Much screaming and pulling of already thinning hair ensued!
So to cheer myself up a little, I headed off to the local antique fair.  And with my beady little eye I found a beautiful set of dessert plates just begging me to bring them home.  They may not be perfect with their little chips and cracked glaze but I love them more for their little imperfections.  I shows that they were well loved and used plenty.  And they are certainly going to be well used here too.

This is the cake plate.  It may be a little cracked and warn but just look at the beautiful detailing on it.  Who couldn't just fall in love with it!












There are five cake plates in total and the design on each is completely different.








I was also going through some of my material stash because I've started my chrimbo present sewing and I found an old tablecloth that my mother used to use in her house a lot when we were growing up.  Because some naughty little mouse had a nibble one or two corners of it, it was put aside to be made into a bag of some description.  But when I saw it, it brought back a lot of memories and I no longer have the heart to take the scissors to it.  I love it just the way it is.  Perfect!

Well obviously it could do with a bit of an ironing!  But I never did say that I was the queen of the rubber glove and feather duster brigade and I am severely allergic to the iron.  Well that is what I tell the Hubbie anyway!

I also finally managed to finish my purple waistcoat from the pattern by Kyoko Nakayosho.  I really struggled to find a button that I really liked for it.  The only problem that I had with the pattern was that the number of stitches for the arm ribbing was very small and I had to rip them back and pick up extra ones.  Other than that it was a great challenge and now I am quite happy with the final result.

The light wasn't great today so sorry that the pic isn't that good.

Oh and one more thing I forgot to show you the finished mittens.  I really love them.  I knitted them in fine merino and they are so snug and warm.  I'm wearing them all the time.  I decided to cast off the top and thumb a little snug on them so that they don't get all baggy and loose because that is one thing that really drives me batty.  So far it has worked!

Well that was my weekend.  Eventful as ever.  Hope that you had a good weekend too.
Rosie xx

Lucy's Beanie

Poor little Lucy has been home from school this week with a very bad throat infection.  She is rarely sick but when she is it hits her hard.  I feel so sorry for her as she hasn't been able to eat for the last few days.  So to cheer her up and keep her warm in this horrible damp weather, I knit her a little beanie.
It is in a Mirasol wool and silk blend yarn and if I'm honest it wasn't much of a pleasure to knit.  Seed stitch is pretty when finished but tedious to do.  I know that I wouldn't ever do a jumper in it.  I'd loose my mind!  But I also found the yarn very hard on my hands.  It brought me out in a horrible rash on my hands and especially between my fingers.  I certainly wasn't sorry to come to the end of the beanie.

After giving a good wash in some soft wool soap, Lucy tried it on.  It fits her perfectly but I think that she'll only get this winter out of it. 

Best of all though is that she loves it.  So that makes it all worth while.

Ta Dah!

I've been determined to knit a pair of fingerless mittens for myself before I go to Germany.  I've made plenty in the past but always the simple ones that have no thumb gusset.  I was totally terrified starting this one if I'm totally honest.  Thumb gussets are one of those things that I've forever been afraid of, like fair isle knitting, aran jumpers (and people wearing them!), the size of a crocheted bedspread, the boogy man under my bed and a running gingerbread man!
But I decided that I was going to face at least one of these fears and I signed up for the 'Gloves and Mittens Galore' course on www.craftsy.com. I love craftsy courses. They really help when there are no classes available to you.  And living in the Irish midlands believe me when I say that there are absolutely NO classes being run in the area.  But with craftsy they are alwaya there whenever I have time to spare.
I was much more hopeful after watching the class and so I picked up my dpns and started a pattern that I got from ravelry by designer Susie Rogers.  Here's how the first mitten turned out:

Very blurry picture.  Sorry about that but I was trying one-handed photography.

I'm really proud of the thumb gusset.  It's not totally perfect but not bad for a first attempt.  There'll be no stopping me now.
What are you scared of?  Is there an obstacle that you've overcome lately?
Chat you soon,
Rosie xx

So Much To Do......

If I'm honest I don't really know what I'm at these days.  Christmas is coming and there is a lot of crafting to be done.  I'm full of ideas for presents and decorations for the house and I still haven't got my mincemeat made for my mince pies.  My problem is that I just don't know where to start!  And another of my big problems is that I've got a habit of starting a tonne of projects all at the same time and never seem to get anything finished.  I get too bored doing one project at a time and it's only been a few times that I've managed it.  And there are so many beautiful patterns out there to inspire me and tempt me to cast on a fresh set of stitches.
I do love that great feeling of achievement I get when I see a project finished.  It's something that I don't get from anything else.  I like to sit down to a nice meal that I've cooked or a scrumptious cake but I never feel like jumping around and shouting out the window, "look what I've made".  I can clean the house and do all my chores until the house gleams but I don't ever want to walk proudly into my knitting group wearing a nice Mr. Muscle shiny bathtub now do I?
Tomorrow I'm going to be brave and sit down with my dear little notepad and make my Christmas list (not for Santa...that one will come later on St. Nicholas' Day.  Hopefully he'll listen this year.)
The most important jobs first.  Sewing during the day because I can knit at night and when the kids are doing their homework.  I'm heading to Germany at the end of this month with my mother to visit the big bro.  We are going for a week so that is going to take more time off me.  And then when we get back, advent will have started.  And advent is such a big thing here in this house for us.  The stairs have to be decorated and small sweet bags hung out for Santa's elves to fill for the kids if they have been good that day.
Ahhhh I think I'm going to go mad.  But if I'm really honest with myself, I'm looking forward to Chrimbo this year for the first time in a long long time.  I'm more relaxed in myself.  More secure and I've finally accepted my condition.  As somebody once told me "it is possible to find happiness in acceptance".

Another promise I'm making to myself is that I want to take care of my blog properly and update it more often.  Every time I sit down on the sofa and take my laptop out, my dog Molly, jumps up beside me and lies right across the keyboard, nudging me and giving me those endearing eyes that say "please tickle my belly".  And if that wasn't bad enough, one of my cats, Nina, has a habit of sitting on the back of the couch behind me rubbing my head with her paw!
I often sign on to blogger land intending to write a post but I get so distracted by everybody elses beautiful pages that I spend all my time reading them and before I know it, it's already bed time.
So I'm hoping that with all the crafting I'll be doing over the next two months, I'll definitely be posting more news.  And hopefully there'll be some fab pictures from Munich and Salzburg.

Thanks for listening to my mindless rambling,
Rosie xx

PS  Can anybody out there help me please?  Whenever I have found new blogs that I would like to follow, I would click on the Google Follow This Blog button and that blog would automatically pop up on my reading list.  But the last few times that I did that, I had to copy and paste the address into my reading list.  Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong here?

Insomnia and Revamping An Old Knit

With all the disruption over the last couple of weeks I've really struggled with sleeping.  Walking around the house at four in the morning looking for something to do is no fun at all!  One night my daughter put her big teddy, whom we call Abominable, into my bed so that a cuddle from him would help me sleep like it helps her.  Well I'm not joking you when I say that I squeezed that poor teddy senseless that night.  And you'll never guess what... I slept the whole night!  Needless to say I've brought him to bed every night since and I've always slept like a baby...literally.  Maybe Lucy discovered a cure for insomnia.

One of the nights I was up and looking for something to do I decided to revamp one of my handknits.  I made a short little cardi a couple of years ago from some lovely wine Rowan Cashmere chunky.  Sadly I've put on some weight since and so I haven't worn it much lately.  I crocheted on a trim and some button loops in a dark green merino and found a nice set of buttons in the jar.  

Sorry for the poor piccies. I think that its turned out okay.  What do you think?

Chat you soon,

Rosie xx

Short Row Craziness

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who left such lovely messages and words on my last post about the sad passing away of poor Nutmeg.  It was very kind of you all.

Now down to something a bit more cheerful, knitting.  I've been working on this waistcoat for some time now.  It is a beautiful design by Kyoko Nakayoshi.  And oh boy was it a learning curve.  It was a first for a lot of stitches and techniques.  It was the first time that I attempted doing a reverse cable stitch but slowly got the hang of it and by the end I didn't even need to look at the pattern.  Here I also learned to perfect my wrap and turns.  They always drove me crazy because I hated the way that they looked when I had to pick up all the wraps at the end.  And I think that I must have ripped back this knitting about five this because I was so unhappy with my short row shaping.  But I eventually got a link on the internet and it said to always lift the wraps up from the knit side and place them behind the stitch to be knitted.  On the knit side the two stitches should be knitted together from the back of the loop and on the purl side they are just purled together normally.  It leaves the wraps totally invisible.   

I'm still not sure about the colour of this though.  That's always the danger of buying yarn over the internet, you risk not getting the colour that you expect.  What do you think?

Now just being so close to finishing this, I have to put it aside.  I have a wedding coming up on the 20th October and I need a wrap to go over my shoulders and keep me warm.  So I'm knitting against the clock.  I love knitting to a deadline if I'm honest.  It makes me work a lot harder on it.

I chose the Illyia Shrug from ravelry and Garn Studio Merino Extra Fine.  I love the colour.  And it matches perfectly with the trim on my dress.  Now that was a lucky internet buy!!

Anyway I better go now.  I've got the Hubby's jeans to mend too.  

Rosie

xx

Winter Is Coming Yippeee!

My favourite time of the year.. winter.  I love that now the evenings are getting shorter and there is a slight nip in the air.  I've always thought that there is something very romantic about winter.  It makes me think of cuddles on the sofa beside the stove, walks with the kids in the frosty forest all wrapped up with woolly scarves and mittens.  I love going from a cold frosty world into the comforting warmth and love in our home.
But that does not mean that I don't want colour.  At the moment I'm gone ever so slightly pea green mad and I'm working on a scarf pattern from The Knitter and a sock pattern from Interweave.  Woolly, warm but still bright and cheery.  What more would you want.

Fishing Socks

I finished my sons fishing socks today and even though the season is nearly over now, I bet that he'll get lots of use out of them as wellie socks when the cold weather starts.  He loves them and I delighted about that because we could never find any jumper patterns that he actually liked.
I have not done out my basic sock pattern out for you here because I'm still working on one that's as clear as possible.  I'll keep working on it.

Ready At Last

I'm finally finished my mothers Christmas present at last.  Last years present!!!  I didn't have time to finish a scarf that I was knitting for her so I decided to parcel up what I had finished together with the wool, needles, pattern and a drawing of the finished piece. But unfortunately it somehow got left behind in my Mums house and I didn't find it again until last week.

I designed this because my mother dislikes long scarves that you have to wind around your neck about a million times to prevent you from tripping on it.  The buttons I added so that she can make it as close or as loose on her neck as she likes.

I really like this water ripple pattern.  It was really easy to work as it was only a four row repeat and it made the end result soft and warm.

CraftyRie

I've just discovered this and I think that it is great idea a directory for all the mad crafters out there.    I've just spent hours looking through the different blogs.  Inspiring to say the least.  Pop over.  Believe me when I say that it's well worth it.  http://craftyrie.blogspot.com/
http://www.craftyrie.com/2011/10/universal-craft-blog-directory.html

Being Busy

My most favourite colours in the world have always been green and yellow and what else would produce a more perfect way of showing them off at their best than mother nature in this simple native cowslip. Beauty in simplicity.  Having two young kids is mad and very hectic at times but when I see something like this I'm often stopped in my tracks and I just have to take a moment to admire it.






In the last couple of days I've taken to my sewing machine and tried my hand at patchwork for the first time.  I picked a small project for myself and decided on a pot holder in some of my favourite fabric remnants.  A few short hours later I was finished totally.  And it may not have been perfect but I was quite delighted and pleased with myself.  But within a few short seconds of using it, I let it slip from my hand and it burned to a cinder on the stove top.  What a wally!!

I also made this cushion cover this week from a feather and fan shawl that I had knit but was too short even after it was blocked.  And as I hated to see all my hard work go to waste at the bottom of a drawer I decided to make it into something that I would see every day.  There is nothing better than having a piece of knitting with old fashioned stitches in your kitchen even if it's only for under your bum.