A new rabbit hole to fall down and general waffle

Well, its been nearly two weeks since I last posted because I have been somewhat busy.  Plus the weather has been up and down, hot then cold, wet and windy, which always has an impact on my mindset.

Anyway, two days after I last posted, I found a new rabbit hole to fall down.  At the previous Saturday Knit Group, one of my fellow knitters had been knitting a project using some glorious colours of yarn, and on being asked where she got it, had replied that she had dyed it herself and followed up by offering to teach me.  That night when I got home, I was straight on the Internet buying undyed yarn and acid dyes!

So on Tuesday 30 May I drove to her house and learned how to dye my own yarn.  I was there about 3 hours, first of all learning how to dye the yarn, then how to overdye it and then how to do the speckles - #specklesaresohotrightnow!  I had ordered four skeins of undyed 10% superwash merino single ply in fingering weight and I also had a skein of undyed yarn that had been given me as a Christmas present year before last along with some KoolAid.  By the end of the session, I had five very different coloured yarns to take home and finish drying over the bath.  And what did they look like, you will ask.  Well, here goes:

The green is more yellowy than it shows here, but otherwise the photo is not too bad colourwise.  From left to right, purple with black speckles, turquoise with pink and black speckles, pink with turquoise and black speckles, green with black speckles and teal with black speckles.  The teal is the Christmas yarn and the others are the singles.  Now, if I remember rightly, the pink, the turquoise and the teal are single dyes and the purple and green were overdyed, starting off teal and then with red added to make purple and yellow to make the green (I may be wrong, but probably not by much).  And then the speckles are added by flicking dry dye onto the wet yarn, wrapping it up in clingfilm and steaming it.  I'm really pleased with them, although I have no idea what I am going to knit with them, and that leads to the next problem.

Do I want to dye more yarn for myself?  It would be fun, but the main problem is that of space for the kit required.  I have a one bedroom flat with limited storage space, most of which is already taken up with yarn, books, cross stitch supplies and family history papers.  One option would be to keep the dyeing pans in the garage, but then would it be out of sight, out of mind?  But it would feel so fabulous to be able to put on a new jumper and say "Oh yes, I dyed the yarn myself!"  I have time in hand though, the yarn suppliers are having a sale in September which gives me a couple of months to think things through.  I'll let you know what I decide.

In other news, Mum and I did the Race for Life on Sunday - 5km in aid of Cancer Research UK.  The route was nearly all on the flat and the weather was nice enough - not too hot and a bit of a breeze.  We got round in just under an hour - which included a brief stop to buy icecream - a couple of minutes longer than last year.  The problem this year is that Mum started to flag just before the halfway point.  We generally work on the basis that while she is still talking to me, things are fine.  This time it came down to me having to do the talking to keep her going, which was a bit worrying.  She went in for an X-ray this morning on her other hip - the one which hasn't been replaced - and she also has an appointment later this month to see her cardiologist to find out why she is becoming more breathless.

And on the weight loss front, I have a major Happy Dance to report!!  I went to get weighed last night and got my 1 stone award.  For those of you who are metric, 1 stone is about equivalent to 6.35 kilos.  I had lost 1.5lb at the weigh in after my last post and then another 2.5lb this week, which takes me to 1 stone 0.5lb.  This means that I am over halfway to my target weight.  I was so pleased with this week's weight loss, especially now that I can treat myself for getting my award.  Now what to get?

I'm not going to talk about the General Election, save to say that the result was better than anticipated but not as good as I would have liked.

And because there has been no real crafting and lots of words in this post, here is the next finished item in my What I did on my Holidays roundup.

Cross stitch rather than knitting, but I hope you won't mind too much.  This is a birth present for my cousin's little boy - as often happens with these things, it got finished after his first birthday.  The chart is Baby Express Birth Record from Dimensions (#73428), stitched on 14 count white aida.  It was a kit which I started on 5 January 2015 and finished on 18 March 2016.  I took it to my framer the following day, picked it up on 26 March and posted it off on 2 April 2016.  It now hangs in his bedroom - his older sister was a bit jealous, but calmed down when her Mum pointed out to her that she has a whale on hers, which he doesn't.

None of my current knitting projects are at a stage which is worth showing, but I do have a week off coming up at the end of the month, during which I intend to relax, chill out and knit.

All the best to you and yours, and I hope to be back with you soon.

2015 WIPocalypse - June Full Moon

It's hard to believe that it is June already - where is the year going?  At least the weather seems to be slowly coming to terms with the fact that it is supposed to be summer, so that's a plus!

If you look carefully at the left hand side, you can just see the first elements of the engine coming into being.  I have also started to back stitch the track in that area.  Plus next weekend I get to meet the future recipient.  My cousin and her family are coming up next weekend so I'm looking forward to snuggling the little one.

I still haven't quite finished the second headband for littlest niece, but I have knitted a flower to go on it.  I'm now wondering about a second leaf or a second flower and a second leaf.  However I have less than 10 days left before her birthday so really need to crack on with this one and get the other one blocked and buttons sewn on.

And the end is in sight on Hermione's socks.  I finished the last repeat on the foot today, so with a little luck I may be showing off a finished pair of socks in my next post.  And then I will be casting on my first toe-up pair (if I can remember how to do the cast on I was taught at the workshop).

In other news, I have a new car!  Things haven't gone quite as smoothly as I would have liked, but I now have a 58 plate Citroen C3, which drives very nicely, thank you.  All I have to do now is pay off the credit card :-( 

I also went to Slimming World this week and have lost 2lb, bringing me back down to 11 stone 8lb.  And today I did the Race for Life to raise money for cancer research.  I took my stopwatch and am pleased to say that I managed to walk 5km without stopping in 41 minutes 39 seconds, including the traditional sprint finish.  If any of you have either done or are going to do the Race for Life this year, I wish you all the very best - major Brownie points!

Back to work tomorrow, so all the best to you and yours, and may the frog stay away from your needles.

What I did on my holidays . . . .

So yesterday I got back from a week in Cornwall with my parents.  I had never been to Cornwall before, despite my brother in law being Cornish, so it was all new to me.

I am not a great photographer so please bear with me.  This is the cottage that we stayed in at Camelford.  It is a converted cowshed with two double bedrooms, a kitchen cum sitting room and a bathroom.  Out the back there was a small enclosed grass area as you can take pets there.  It was very comfortable and just right for the three of us, although the last time my parents stayed there, it took four adults and two children easily.

I did a lot of driving in a car much bigger than my own down very narrow twisty lanes where the vegetation at the sides was disguising thick stone walls.  By the end of the week I had become quite proficient on Cornish roads, so am feeling quite proud of myself.

This is a photo of the biomes at the Eden Project.  The ones in the centre of the picture house the Rainforest and the one to the right is part of the Mediterranean section.  When you consider that this place started out as a derelict quarry, it is truly amazing to see what they have created.

This is the harbour at Boscastle with the village in the background.  It is 10 years this August since the great flood which caused so much destruction here.  Dad and I walked out to the far end of the harbour (behind where I am standing) to look at the sea.

We also went to Tintagel on the same day, but it was very touristy and Mum's leg was playing up so I didn't see the castle.

This is a view of part of the Jungle at the Lost Gardens of Heligan.  I think that I preferred Heligan to Eden, but that could partly be because there seemed to be less people there.  Dad and I did the Jungle which is down in a valley with a boardwalk and a rope bridge and massive tree ferns etc.

It was nice to go away and see the sights and spend time with my parents, but it was equally nice to come home, sleep in my own bed and be back in my own space.

While I was away, I worked on Corgi and on my scarf.

And ta da!  This is a page finish!  Page 2 of Corgi was finished on 5 June 2014.  I now have two smaller pages to complete before the end of August - about 9,000 stitches so roughly 90 hours work.

After doing 40 rows of double ribbing, I decided that I needed to do the next 40 rows in something which would widen my scarf out again.  So the next stitch was 'caterpillars crawling', otherwise known as 'dash stitch'.  As you can see, my scarf has started to widen out again but it will still need serious blocking.  I also had to join in the second ball of yarn towards the end of this section.

In other news, I did the Race for Life this morning - 5km in aid of Cancer Research UK.  Normally Mum and I do this together, but she wisely gave it a miss this year.  I walked every step of the way without stopping and my finishing time was 46 minutes, 4 seconds.  Now I just have to collect in my sponsor money.

And finally Mum goes in for her hip replacement this coming Friday, 13 June 2014.  We are all quite OK about it, but if any of you would care to keep your fingers crossed or put in a word with the powers that be, that would be very kind of you.  I will give you an update in my next post.

I'll finish here as I am back to work in the morning and expect to have plenty to catch up with.  All the best to you and yours, and may the frog stay well away from your stitching.

In desperate need of a break

I just have to get through this next week and then I've got a week off work, and boy do I need it!  I last had a week off in April, but spent part of it at a family history conference and the rest staying with family.  It was great fun, but not exactly relaxing.  I badly need to chill out, defrag and wind down.  I've made a tentative booking to steal my nieces for a day and spoil them rotten, but other than that, I have no plans except to take it easy.

Mum and I did the Race for Life today, doing our bit to raise money for cancer research.  The weather was just about right - warm and sunny, but with enough of a breeze to make it comfortable.  We were a bit slower this year because Mum's legs were playing up, but we finished and that's what counts.  And it's always a really good atmosphere - all those women and girls giving up their time and putting in the effort - but then the sad thing is that of course everybody knows somebody!

Moving on to something more cheerful - stitching!

 All the cross stitching is done on Bouquet 4, so my plan is to get the back stitching done this week and then this will be finished!

And half a happy dance for Carnation - row 5 is complete and so page 4 is half done!  I took all of my WIPs to Patchwork Group this week.  Everyone was very complimentary, and there was a comment about the clever shading of the lilies on this piece.

So the plan for this week is to finish Bouquet 4, get the next three blocks of Carnation completed and work on Serena (she may even acquire a face).  The only drawback to this is that I am currently on chicken duty which takes up part of my evenings and this is open ended at the moment, so we shall see.

To finish on a bright note, I lost 1.5lb this week.  Another half pound will mean that I've lost half a stone in total, so fingers crossed for Thursday's weigh-in.  

All the best to you and yours, and may the frog stay away from your house.

Short and sweet

This is a couple of days late so I apologise profusely.  The weekend was not so good (the  Black Dog dropped by) and yesterday was Dad's birthday, which is why the delay.

I'm just going to show you my update photos and then I'm going to call it a night.

 Bouquet is not far from completion.  There are two more flowers to do and then the back stitch.  I may or may not have it finished for my next post.  I do have Patchwork Group this week, but I also have Race for Life on Sunday which will mean re-scheduling various chores and a subsequent loss of stitching time.

Carnation is coming along.  Here I am halfway through row 5, so nearly halfway through page 4.  I would dearly love to finish row 5 this week, but the same caveats apply as for Bouquet.  

Last month the Patchwork Group asked to see all my WIPs so this week I will be showing them Bouquet, Carnation, Serena and Train of Dreams.  It will be interesting to see what they say.

I'm still very tired but the weather appears to be cooling down a bit so I hope to get more sleep the next few nights.  I put on 0.5lb last week but I expected that because I had lunch at a friend's on the Saturday and a leaving lunch on the Wednesday, so it could have been a lot worse.

All the best to you and yours, and may the frog stay away from your stitching.

It's still too damn hot!

Despite two or three heavy downpours, causing localised flooding in some areas of the county, it's still too damn hot round here!  I managed to catch too much sun yesterday while visiting friends, so have that well cooked look down the side of my neck and left arm.  And then today I got bitten on the neck by my friend's vampire budgie from Hell - no blood but a painful experience!

On the stitching front, however, things have been going well.

 I've made good progress on Bouquet 4 this week.  That is supposed to be a blue teapot on a stripy tablecloth.  Still to come are the flowers and foliage, followed by the backstitch which will make it look so much better as usual.  

Next up is Train of Dreams.  What you see on the left hand side is just two rows more than a full page's depth of stitching - three blocks this week!  There has been another slight change of plan on this one - I have now decided that, as the lower pages of this piece are only 66 stitches deep, I am going to carry on stitching to the bottom and then work my way across to the other end.  I have now gridded the whole of this end, and am still enjoying the parking method of stitching.

Last but not least comes Carnation.  I now have to stand on a stool in order to get a decent photo of this piece.  I didn't quite finish row 4 this week, but hope to be well into row 5 by my next post.  But according to my stitch counting gadget in the sidebar, I am now officially a quarter of the way through this piece so I'm a happy bunny!

I also have a problem - I am desperate to start something new, but I dare not.  I don't have enough hours in the day as it is to do all the things that I need to be doing, let alone starting a new piece of stitching.  Mentally I'm tossing up between a new HAED (this time to be done on 18 count) and Lesley Teare's bird series from Cross Stitch Collection.  Neither project would be small or quick, and I really ought to put in more time on Mum's Guardian Angels than they are currently getting.  Also I've got some family history research that I need to get sorted this coming week so that I can get it posted off.

On the bright side however, I lost another 2lb this week, bringing me down to 12 stone 3lb.  If I can lose a further 1.5lb this week, then that will be my first half stone award.  Yesterday was not a good day though as I was visiting friends and therefore not in control.  All the same I am very happy that when I do the Race for Life with Mum on 11 August, I will be carrying less weight than  I was earlier this year.  

Hoping that all is well with you and yours, and that the frog stays away from your house!

Coming right along!

Although it is only a few days since my WIPocalypse post, I do have some progress to show you.

 I'll start with a photo of the Cat in its final form.  As usual, trying to show the real colour of the fabric has not really worked, but I can assure you that it has framed up really nicely and my only problem now is how to get it to Cardiff without any damage.  I have a week or so in hand and I'm hoping to be able to show the finished article to the Patchwork Group on Thursday before sending it off.

While I was waiting for the framers to open on Saturday so that I could collect the Cat, I managed to finish and backstitch the first flower on Delft part 3.  It's not a brilliant picture, but if any of you have any idea what sort of flower it might be, I should be glad to know.

Having completed the week's three blocks in time for my WIPocalypse post, I managed to get another block and a half done by close of play on Sunday, which is my cut off point for progress photos.  This puts me slightly ahead of schedule and I plan to keep pushing on this one.  If I can squeeze an extra block or half a block in every week or so, I might manage to get page 2 done by my birthday at the end of September, instead of towards the end of October, which would be a nice birthday present to give myself.

In other news, my former garage has passed my colleague's letter on to their solicitors, but there has been no formal response.  Following last week's little trauma, my colleague has written another letter to the garage, outlining the additional problem, asking who their solicitors are and saying that if we don't get a proper response by the end of this week, we will take action without further notice.

Finally, Mum and I did the Race for Life yesterday.  We finished in 53 minutes 2 seconds, having done 5km at a briskish walk.  The first woman home did the course in 22 minutes, but the chances of me running 5km at any stage in my career, past or present, are nil to zilch!  This was followed by a family birthday tea at my sister's to celebrate Dad's 70th, which was very nice, thank you, little sis!

2012 WIPocalypse - August Full Moon No. 1

And there is a full moon lighting up the sky again, and with two full moons this month, it really will be a challenge to get some good stitching in.

 I'm starting with a Happy Dance!  The Abyssinian Cat by Jayne Netley Mayhew is finished and even finished before yesterday's deadline.  I finished it on the morning of Saturday 28 July, washed and pressed it, and took it to the framers in the afternoon.   This photo gives a reasonable idea of the colour of the background fabric.  It was certainly interesting trying to find a suitable colour mount and frame for this piece.

This photo gives you more of a close up view.  Those whiskers had me using somewhat unparliamentary language, as it was not very easy to see where they were supposed to go, especially the ones that overlaid existing stitching.  However I am very pleased with it and will have another photo to show you when I have picked it up from the framer this weekend.

 I had serious doubts at the weekend as to whether I was going to be able to stay on target with Carnation.  Having spent my stitching time on Saturday finishing the Cat, I didn't post on Sunday evening because I had had another scare with the car in the afternoon.  Fortunately there was nothing too much wrong, although I had to take a day off on Monday to get over my fright and take the car to my new garage to get it sorted out.

However, despite all that, I have not only managed to complete last week's three blocks, but having been able to focus on this piece, I have also completed this week's three blocks ahead of schedule.  I am now well into row 6, more than halfway through page 2, and anything more I do this week will be a bonus!

While I was waiting for the garage to sort my car out on Monday, I did a bit on Delft no. 3.  This will now be my travel piece for the time being.  This particular chart is my least favourite of the four as it does not resemble any flower that I know of, whereas the other three are easily identifiable.

In other news, Mum and I will be doing the Race for Life again on Sunday, raising money for research into breast cancer.  This is a 5km women only event held at locations all around the UK and this year will be my 17th Race for Life.  Dad comes along and volunteers as a marshall - this Sunday is his 70th birthday - what better way to celebrate three score years and ten?  His blood tests came back clear, so now they want to remove a lymph gland for testing.

I would also like to thank all the kind people who have commented on this blog.  It really boosts my confidence when other people say that they like my work.  I really will try harder to leave comments on other blogs - that can be my Full Moon resolution.

Tell me why I don't like Mondays!

I don't like Mondays - they come round too fast, and I am definitely not keen on Mondays when the boss is off - they herald the beginning of a week of boredom and scratting around for something to do to justify my existence.  This morning I finished his filing, rearranged his cabinets and then spent the rest of the day bitting and bobbing for other people, and I've got another four days of this!

Anyway, update time.  Only two photos this time cos my Sunday was taken up doing the Race for Life so my Beetle piece didn't get a look in.

Poinsettia is coming on nicely (photo as of last night).  I've found that if I get it out of my bag at the same time as I sit down with my lunch and have it sat on the desk next to me, then I do work on it, rather than reading cross stitch blogs all lunchtime.  That is the penultimate petal starting to stick up there, so the last two petals to go and then some fill-in in the middle and add some gold seed beads.  Then I have to work out how to finish finish it into a Christmas ornament that is worth giving as a present, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

And here is Carnation also as of last night.  This photo represents 33 complete squares and assorted work round the edges.  So only another 4 squares to complete and I will be halfway through page 1 - not the next update, but possibly the one after that.

As I said above, I did the Race for Life yesterday.  Mum and I do it together every year and Dad comes along and helps out as a marshall.  It was not a good day for it this year - too hot really for a course with no shade, but at least it is flat all the way round.  The warm-up was quite good though - two hunky guys doing a nice sensible slow warm-up, rather than some Lycra clad gym bunny doing a pounding aerobics workout which is what we normally get.  Mum and I got round the 5km course in about 50 minutes - we do it at a briskish walk due to Mum's health issues - so we were quite pleased with ourselves.  Now we just need to get our sponsorship money in and off to Cancer Research UK.  I've already booked us in for next year's Race for Life series, but will have to wait until January before I can book onto a specific event.

Right, I can see from my sidebar that some of my favourite blogs have updated recently so I'm off for a quick read before making tomorrow's lunch.