Friday, May 01, 2009

Escaping

Last weekend was glorious!  We picked the perfect time to pack up the Camper and head out to the Catskills.
  
A return visit to the cottage where we had our pretend Christmas was the destination.  
Lucky enjoyed a few good games of catch in the sunshine.

It was lovely to see the place without all the snow.  On this visit we were outdoors for most of the time, catching up with various members of the Fella's family.
We went in search of the Spring Festival in Rosendale, but gave up and decided to stop and eat instead. (As this sign suggested!)
We have yet to find the perfect county hideout to buy, so future house/land-hunting trips are definitely on the cards.
Because of the heat, I didn't get an awful lot of knitting in.  But did manage to come home with this little beauty.  But its too hot to wear just yet!
Pattern:  Tempest Beret by Kate Gagnon.  From Knitscene Magazine. Winter 08/Spring 09. *
*I had bought the magazine while in Savannah as it has an article about Cathy Carron.  I had met Cathy last year.  I spotted her knitting in one of my work's buildings so I went over for a chat.  She is a lovely, friendly lady and a very talented knit designer.  She was waiting for her daughter who occasionally models for the company I work for.    
Yarn:   1 1/2 balls of Rowan Kid Classic Shade 823 (most probably discontinued.  It's been in my stash for many years!)

We were away in the country for Easter weekend too.  We stayed in a wooden lodge by the Delaware River, with Llamas for neighbours.

The animals were not just confined to the grounds either.  I was joined by this pair as I cozied up by the fire to work on a secret project.....


The Fella had baked some ultra delicious cookies for our trip and came up with a brilliant idea to make them even better:  Put a generous dollop of ice-cream between two of them and eat before they make a sticky mess all over the place!! 
Notice in  background:  Good, strong, dark beer, secret knitting project and row counter.  You could say that I had a rather lovely evening!

We recently had a visitor from Scotland stay with us for a few days.  She's also a blogger and got me thinking that I really do need to try and keep up with my postings.  I know that I don't get anywhere near the amount of visitors to my site as she does to her's but for those of you who do check in from time to time,  I hope to be more frequent with my updates!

Because I have been neglecting to post, I do have a few things to show that have been kicking around for a while.

Pattern:  Spring Beret by Natalie Larson, (available as a Ravelry download).
Yarn:   Blue Sky Dyed Cotton.  Using bits left over from my Limey pattern.
I didn't have enough to knit it as full as the pattern suggested, so just fudged it as best I could.

Pattern: Camden by Ashley Adams Moncreif
Modifications:  Knitted body longer with a long rib start. Made the neckline into a deep V.
Wore it a couple of times to work and received compliments on both occasions - can't be bad!!

The necklace/scarf is some very soft yarn that a collegue at Anthropologie gave me.  It's lovely and light and may be some Twinkle yarn but it's unlabeled so I can't be sure.

My friend, Jason, is a great photographer and recently took some shots of a few of my things.
As a bit of a thank you I knitted him this hat.  (Beautifully modelled here by one of my work-mates.)
It's based on my Bean Beanie pattern but made much bigger because he has a huge head!!

I-cord cranked out on my CSM - may become some sort of scarfy thing.  But for now it sits coiled up like a poisonous snake!!

My first pair of machine knitted socks!!!!
They are a little on the loose side, but very cozy none-the-less!

Here is the start of the hem-hanging.
I do hope to spare some time to learn how to use the ribber, as that will make for much better fitting socks.  I'm very pleased to say that it didn't take me long to get the hang of the heel and toe shaping.  Now if only I could crank them out whilst snuggled up on the settee!!

Other non-knit related stuff.  (Although, in my life, many things are very easily related to knitting!!!)

Take my love of stripes for example?  Look how I could be inspired by these wonderful colour combinations I saw here:
That's a layout for a gorgeous blanket right there!

Whilst stitch-ripping, I noticed that my discarded threads fell to my desk to form what looked to me like a headless hunter with spear:


Look at the email I received while I used the shelf above my computer as an anchor for some macrame:
It's not looking good for bikini season!!

Happy May everyone!!


Friday, March 13, 2009

Southlands

Yes, I've been knitting but it's either been secrets or work, so I can't show any of that on here.... I did make this though, and I love it!!


Pattern: Soft Kid Bubble
by Laura Irwin
from Boutique Knits
Yarn is KnitPicks Andean Treasure, which is gorgeous. So lovely to knit with that I've gone right ahead and started to make Camden with the same yarn but in a warm chocolate colour. Mine will have a V neck. I've just got the sleeves to do. Pics will follow, (sometime.)


A couple of weeks ago the fella and I packed up the car with bags, snacks and dog and set off on a 12 hour drive to Hilton Head, South Carolina. We started out at midnight and drove south through the darkness. It was exciting for about the first 20 minutes!! I love the idea of a road trip but get a bit fidgity and frustrated when confined to a small space for such a long time.
We shared the driving but I am unable to sleep while traveling so I was thoroughly exhausted on our arrival in the south.
Dawn broke somewhere in North Carolina where the scenery consisted of empty fields, then petrol stations and fast food stops at every intersection. The boredom was broken by the sight of huge brightly painted billboards advertising the coming attraction of  
South of the Border. We had to stop there. It was around 8am so nothing was open.

I loved all the brightly coloured animals - the car looked right at home there!

After a quick nose-powder, I went looking for my traveling partners.  This is where I found them!!
I'm sure I could've unloaded a few greenbacks at the giftshops but we couldn't wait around for opening time.  It was back on the road to complete our journey.

Lucky loved the beach!
She had a blast running in and out of the surf.
I had not planned my wardrobe accordingly and laughed at how ridiculous I must've looked trying to run through the sand in heels!!
After spending some time with the fella's folks, (it was his step-dad's 80th birthday!!), we headed a little further south to Savannah, Georgia.
I fell instantly in love with Savannah.  It was the Spanish Moss that did it for me.  So creepily beautiful.  I took about a million photos of the trees.








I popped into Wild Fibre where there was a very friendly group of knitters settled in for the afternoon.  Wish I could've stayed longer!


We stayed in a lovely hotel by the river.






It was sad to leave such a beautiful and friendly city.  The southern accents cracked me up - it sounded like everyone was putting them on!  Thats probably what people think about me!!

The drive home was long and tiring.  We don't plan on doing it all in one go again but with a dog in tow and only 2 days off work we made the best of what we had.

It was someone else's birthday recently.  (Well, officially he only gets a birthday once every 4 years, but that doesn't seem very fair!)
I baked!!
He requested either banana cake with chocolate icing or chocolate cake with banana icing.  I went with the former.  It was yummy!!

More birthdays... Happy Birthday to Mumbly & Soft Jack for the 13th and 14th respectively and for my big sis, Liz, on the 24th - Have a fabulous time in Mexico!!!!

Completely unrelated - Don't you love what my new ice cube tray makes?

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Christmas, Home & Away

Christmas with the family in Attenborough was blissfully relaxing.
When my parents had asked me what I wanted when I visited, my requests had been simply, "Couch, telly, big mug of tea and a tin of Quality Street."  And that is what I received.  Along with my 6 year old niece and 3 year old nephew to play with everyday - good times! 
Kate teaches Soft Jack how to use her new video recorder.
Nice long walk on the 'Natch.
A lovely evening at the farm.
I even managed to get in a bit of knitting!  Snuggley, soft scarf for Mumbly out of Springtide Farm Cashmere.

My week of rest went by far too fast and I had to fly back to the US and get on with my hectic work life.  It's not all bad though.  I do get to do a lot of knitting and am working on some loopy textures.....
Last weekend I got to celebrate Christmas all over again!
This time we had a true White Christmas in a gorgeously cozy cottage in the Catskills.
Signs of life through the snowy skylight.
Bit cold out for a naked dog!
Our home in the woods for a couple of days.
The car needed digging out!




I think we were the only people in the world celebrating Christmas on January 10th!
It was a brilliant idea!!! (Even if I do say so myself!)
Happy 2009 everyone!