Forgive me Brian for I have sinned....big time

Ho hum, I really didn't mean to, ask Isabella. She'll tell ya (back me up here, fellow addict! :-)) there was a certain confusion about how the reserve price thing on ebay worked and in order to fully understand it I had to keep bidding and it just sort of happened............. meet my new friend. Lovely eh? Sooooo I have spent the last coupla days in denial. Guilt. Worry. Took my courage in both hands this morning and did that whole "Babble, babble, babble" thing and he looked puzzled, shrugged and said "you bought a loom?" So the reality (which he understood when I stopped hyperventilating) was better wasn't it y'know a loom, well, would've been worse yeah? Don't grin Isabella, I'm not buying a friggin' loom!
As if I hadn't sinned enough, I got caught up in sockiness, ask Colin, we both got really socky for a while there and this was the result. L to R Opal hand-dyed; Regia Canadian Color; Opal Uni and Marathon Tango. They are all lovely. Bought from here. Had a notion to do the Fiesta Feet in the two greens as I like the idea of a not-too-much-of-a-contrast between the two. On the other hand is there enough to make it visible or would all that fairisle sockiness be for nought? Well, I'm off now, as Ruth or even Ruth ( which do I link to now you multi-site hussy?:-) pointed out I might want to go be grateful :-))

For Judy.

Double the trouble, double the fun :-) Billy and James. Called them "My two cherubs" tonight (no, only one is mine but a figure of speech.....) and Bill said very indignantly "I'm not a big rocket thing" so Christ knows what his definition of 'cherub' is. Posted this for Judy, James' mum who was dog tired tonight but still running round after four kids. She reads the blog and thought it would be cool to see the boy on here. Sorry to those not obsessed with small, curly boys, the wheel is the only wool content.

Click the pic Jude and you'll get the babes BIG, so big, in fact, you can see all the dust in my house.........

Busy, busy.......

I really do like spinning:-) Which is good considering some pending news I have. (Later guys, can't get my own head round it yet.) I have started to spin for my first proper project in handspun. I figured I could put the stuff away and wait to be "worthy" or just get on with it, so I chose the latter. This is by far the most concentrated bout of spinning I've done since I got the wheel and I'm getting my spinning mojo on!! :-) This is not to say I'm not crap - but, hey, that's all part of the curve! I am spinning all my singles first - like Ruth from Winghams told me (see I was listening :-)) so I have the fun of seeing them s-l-o-w-l-y mount up. I am aiming for a thick DK, not too soft but softish (not very techy I realise!) I have a great waistcoat pattern from Cabin Fever called the Kimono Vest that I'm hoping it will look good knitted up in. Or maybe a nice shrug. Trouble with being a "big Girl" and wearing a shrug is you just look like you shrunk your cardi. Or wore the one you bought before you ate all the pies. Hmmnn, will see when it's spun.

Spinning cherub.

Take one spinning wheel, add cherub........................
There is another pic which shows the wheel better but he looks like we glued him there and screamed "SMILE" at him, which we didn't. Honest. He likes it. Really. It's just when he sees the camera he does that grimace thing, in common with at least 95% of all 6 yr olds. Oh, and he may look sweet but his party piece is the scene from Little Britain which starts "Dafydd Thomas you bloody fool you could've had a bit of cock there....." oh and he spent all of dinner, for which we were joined by MIL, singing "The internet is for porn" ( feel bad Anna? :-)) Oh and before you tut at my lack of parenting skills try having three boys of disparate ages and then try stopping the accident smallest one having a potty mouth interesting vocabulary :-)))

Bugger Blogger!!

Can anyone help me? I have added links lots of times but on the last two occasions the links I've added to the "Blogs I read" list don't show. They are there, run your mouse over the blank area between the lowest link and the buttons and you will see the hand icon and if you click the links they work but you can't see the sodding names. This is bugging me no end as I can't understand why. The links are just the same as all the rest why won't they work?? (grumble, mutter, whinge....) The only thing I can see is that the hand icon appers and disappears as it runs up and down the visible names but stays as a hand for the whole invisible section - does this mean bugger all, dunno :-(

Post-edit; The entirely wonderful W solved the problem. Thank you, you Angel of mercy :-) Who'd of thought one teensy little ">" would cause such a kerfuffle? I looked and looked but couldn't see what I'd missed out. Migraines eh, who needs 'em? Thanks again, my delicate sanity saved for a bit longer!!!!!

Just a quickie (ooh, er missus etc!).......

Just a quick update. Got a late invite to a charity coffee morning.. It was held today and I only found out at 3.30 p.m. yesterday so it was a bit hurried to say the least!! Burnt the midnight oil making these......... Cute huh? Now I just need to make lots more in every size imaginable!! Made myself a scarf this week aswell. Got the idea from one I saw at Winghams . It uses a whole hank of their pencil roving. Yum, lovely and warm and thick :-) Anyways the coffee morning went well. Very well considering I've got a migraine and a coupla kids found friggin' recorders to play with. Sweet. It was the first outing for the felt stuff and I got loads of interest and a few orders so I was chuffed. Sold several tie dyes too so all in all a good morning's work :-)

Happy Birthday to me!!!

41 today!!! Nothing planned, a day with the family and think the man wants to take me out later. Hmmnn, lovely. :-)

The "Haul"

Ta Da!! From the top then, clockwise. It looks grey, in real life it is a beautiful mixture of fawns, blues and greys; it's wool, alpaca, cashmere, linen and silk and feels like heaven. Next two balls of blue/green roving with a hank of sari-silk nestled on top. At the bottom is a wool/tencel mix in a deep rainbow colourway, shimmers like rain, it's divine. Next is part of about 500g of the most fabulous carded wool. The picture no way does this justice it has golds, reds, greens, a touch of pink, lots if colours all in there. This is essentially a one-off as they put stuff into the carder according to what they have and how they feel! Ruth put this in to show us how the machine worked and I liked it so much she finished off the run for me to take home. (Thank you, thank you! :-)) Last but not least, some silk hankies, mmmmnnnn! So there you have it, oh, and "Essentials of Yarn Design for Handspinners" by Mabel Ross and a back copy of Interweave. Not bad, not bad at all :-) These are the bits I show people when they say "So, what did you do there?" and then they go "Mmmmmmnnn....." and get that sort of nervous look in their eyes. Starting at the bottom , anti-clockwise (no-one ever does anti-clockwise :-)) There's a bit of silk, a lot of pretty ropey long draw, some Navaho plying, some rather funky boucle and a bit of fancy wrapped stuff at the bottom left which is the same carded wool as I bought. Nice colours, eh?
So, I am going now and may not be back for some time! Firstly because I'm gonna be spinning. Every day. Lots. Also I feel very lucky and very grateful to my babe for financing the whole adventure so I'm gonna go act grateful. (Y'know, dust, hoover, real golden syrup steamed sponge pudding and custard, sexual favours............. :-))

Wonderful Winghams

I'm home! To over excited dogs and children and a magnifiecnt man who has held the fort while I was having the best time ever!!! :-) Best. Ever. Ever. When they are all out tomorrow I will unwrap "the haul" and take a pic. What I have bought is fab but what I have in my head is beyond price - I know how to spin. This is not like saying "I'm good" coz I'm not and need lots of practise but now I'm not a hapless passenger of the spinning fates. If I want DK hardwearing or Aran softer wearing I know what to do to get that. I know what all the "groove thingies" on my wheel are for. How even it is is still in the lap of the Gods but I have begun to believe that I will stop spinning "ornaments" and start spinning so I can knit something with it. I am chuffed to bits. And knackered. Pics later.

Sorry Alice......

Here we go again!! Sorry Alice, I know you wanted the next snow ......

Jeez, the kids and the dogs, they really hate snow, you can tell can't you?! :-)

Hold the front page!

Ahhh, the postman. My saviour!! :-)

Sam's felted clog kit.

The daylight hours also brought a small child insisting I turn this.......

Into this.............

So order is returned to my life :-)

Is it a bird.................?

I am in the final straight ............................ these purty little tiles are going on the wall under the cooker hood. I've done the same thing before but didn't have enough tiles and had a tall cooker so who cared? We cared when one of Brian's customers gave us a new cooker. A new lower cooker. So while we were decorating (while I was decorating and being berrated for the speed with which I was doing it! :-)) the old tiles had to go as I couldn't match them and yesterday I started all over again......... Nearly done, just have to grout.
Not much knitting news I'm afraid. I am pissed off to tell you the truth because I don't really have anything to knit. Shock. Horror. I know, it's crap isn't it? As we have established I don't have much stash and currently have nothing in the way of WIP's so when I finish something - think it was the pink socks - there's no comforting picking up of something else to sooth that transition to the next new project. It's a well known fact that people who have several things on the go acheive far more as they don't fall into the "finish and don't know what to start next" trap. So we knitters have practised for years what big business psychology is only recently coming round to. You need lots of things part done to get you through the energy gap that comes with the "end" of a project. I am going to knit a sweater for a friend, the Annie Modesitt (sp?) cabled design from the December Interweave. The trouble is trying to get her to choose the colours. Could be a while. So I figured while I'm in the knitting doldrums I need plenty of spinning practise. This is some pretty variable fleece I was given and it has some "bobbles" in it that I am reliably informed are a "break in the staple". They're a pain, I know that much. Anyway this is not destined for greatness but it's good practise. :-) There is a very small amount of knitting news. Two Dulaan hats, one big, one small. And this.........
Is it a bird? A plane?? No, it's a th-th-thong!!!!! A friend of ours, Terry, has the slightly novel habit of stripping down to his skids when he's fishing. No private lakes here guys, we're talking on the canal or river bank wherever and whenever. No shorts for our Tel, so I figured this would be better gear for him. It' s pretty sturdy actually, more like a cricket box than a thong! :-) Bri has modelled it for me but was shy of a piccy - think he's realised pics=blog !! Now you're gonna have to be pretty "manly" to fill this baby, you reading this Terry? We want pictures!!! :-)))))

Baa baa white sheep....

Yup, three bags full. I figure since I'm sooo busy with other stuff, and since this years fleeces are not too far away I may as well use up some of this stuff. It is a real mixture, some is nice, some is very hairy and some is pretty crap. First lesson for this year; Label the fleeces so you know where the good ones came from. No doubt obvious to many, that one passed me by this time round. This is one bag load on the kitchen table. I keep thinking I should spin it but I have other stuff to spin, samples to try from Wingham Wool Work and some scrummy stuff from Pure Inspiration as well as bits I've already dyed and I am going to Wingham's next week and you think I'm coming home empty handed? Yeah right. So this fleece has to find another purpose. Tah dah!!! This is a coupla hours worth this afternoon - I'll post more when it's much bigger.
The T-shirt is what I really do ;-) The felting is new for this year, the T-shirts are what got me into having a stall. This is an old one of Brian's, a really popular colour, at one point I couldn't pick out my kids (not a problem usually in bright shirts!;-)) because every bugger's kid was wearing one the same!!!! Oh, and coz I feel bad about the lack of knitting content, here's a hat I finished a coupla weeks ago, a Cabin Fever pattern. Called the Inka Hat. I had lots of bits of Cashmerino Aran left from other hats I did for pressies so I got one or two extra colours and did this. Now I know you can't see a lot of detail on a navy sweater but this is my man modelling his one and only handknitted sweater. Took me 18 years to get round to, I wanted
to make sure he was staying around. He's wearing his felted clogs too but I couln't get him to put his feet up high enough. I did nearly get a shot of him for TutleyMutley, wearing only the clogs - to show her how nice they are. But he'd been out in the snow for an hour with no coat and felt it didn't do him, erm, justice.;-)

Ferrets like snow.

No knitting content, sorry. The second pink embossed leaves sock looks unsurprisingly pretty much like the first ( I will not suffer Second Sock Syndrome.... say it with me........ I will not....... ) Just ferrets today. Fidget and F.B. (he's a big lad, work it out!!;-))
Ferrets like everything, actually, not just snow. They have to be the world's most enthusiastic animals. They get hysterical with excitement over just about anything. Especially road-kill. (Yes he has got his nose pushed into the snow, for once this is not some weird thing I have made to appear by my crap photography!!;-))

Digitally unenhanced.

I have now found ALL the buttons on Tom's camera - thanks Ruth ;-) - and still the crap photos keep coming!!! Then in the midst of all the crapness, one, and only one, very close up but inexplicably in-focus shot of my "proudest-of" handspun. I know I'm cheating coz I did post it before but you can actually see it this time so it's like new stuff. Really. Just like new stuff. Sorry Alice but the ones of two felt scarves looked like a man trotting past on a camel had taken them. With a shit camera.
The thick and thin bits? I meant that to happen..........

I think, therefore I paint...............

This is what my life has become. The kitchen is a b"$£%^d of a room to do coz you can't actually move out of it. Not totally, so I end up spending half my time moving stuff about so I can paint very small bits of it and then shuffling it all along again :-( Never mind, I'm getting there - slowly. Not much knitting/felting getting done thou' and now I have a blog and a fan (Hi Rachel :-) ) I feel like I need to get my arse into gear and knit interesting things, make interesting felt and generally be a more interesting person! LOL
This is a pic of what passes for a "main road" around here. The village where I live lies atop a big hill. All roads going out also go down. What this means is when we have a goodish lot of snow, you have to ask yourself not "can I get out?" but "can I get back in?"!!! A neighbour didn't ask herself sternly enough this morning and ended up leaving the car at the bottom of the bank (local for "hill") and walking back up. All the kids were off so I took two for a walk with the dogs. In a moment of sudden at-one-ness with nature and all who sail in her I grabbed the middle one and said, "I really love you you know and I love being your Mum" I smiled down at him and hugged him and in a split second he replied, "Good, eat that" and smacked me in the mouth with a handful of snow. Bless.