Playing catch up

Hello! Remember me? Hmm, yes, well I had no real intention of blog-fading but the crazy busy that was the beginning of April turned into the crazy busy that was and still is the whole of April and probably May too!

I was seriously tempted just to post: "I'm back. Alive and well. Tired now. Bye bye sleep" at one point but by popular demand (Mandy and my Mum) I'm back with the mother of all updates.

So ..... where did we leave off - I suspect it may have been Easter. Easter looked like this:



And shortly afterwards it looked like this:



Shrink plastic boiled egg wrappers are a wonderful invention - and I still have a strip left for next year!

I also got out the latest in my infamous collection of wonderful cake tins - acquired from Williams Sonoma in Florida before Christmas and nursed home in a suitcase straining at the seams of the weight allowance and stuffed with yarn.


Two halves of lemon sponge cake, sandwiched together with lemon zest buttercream icing, drenched in melted honey and lemon and then drizzled with lemon icing - it's a good job it isn't quite the season for bees because this was sticky and wonderful and didn't last long - now all I need are little icing bees like the picture on the front of the tin label!

Easter seems a really long time ago now! Most of my time since then has been taken up with either work or looking after H who, with the spirit of timeliness characteristic of my family, was inspired while playing hockey to deflect a teammate's shot on goal that looked to be going wide of the mark, not with his hockey stick, so much as with his right hand ring finger backed up with his stick.

Oddly enough in the battle between carbon fibre stick, solid lump of plastic travelling at around 150mph and H's finger, it was the finger that lost. Cue trip to A&E.

His finger is now well on the mend and the skin graft needed to patch it all up is healing nicely but he has spent a week being able to do absolutely nothing for himself, and the last few days being able to do only a little something - so I have been spending time opening things before dashing off to work and then dashing home again. My parents-in-law came down for part of last week to keep him company which was great - and they cooked us a wonderful roast beef supper for our wedding anniversary!

In all of this crazy there has been a little knitting. The soft grey-blue sock that was a little camera shy the last time I posted has been finished - they (for there are two) are the Over the Garden Wall Socks, the second kit of this year's Socktopus Sock Club.
The pattern has you knit a relatively plain sock (but with a funky heel) and then knit icord vines up the trellis section in the sock, complete with flower buds



and peas in the pod


The yarn is Artists Palette Yarns Sweet Feet and it is luscious - soft and bouncy and cool and I love it.

The second finished knit that got as far as the picture stage is this little man:

May I introduce you to Ferdy - knit from Ysolda's Elephant pattern in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino; a Christmas present from my SIL. I don't know why he's called Ferdy, he very nearly got called Walsgrave which is where the hospital is in Coventry, but he put his paw down on that one and told us he was Ferdy.

I can't rate the pattern highly enough; it was easy to follow, very clear and the finished product looks like the one in the picture without having to be any kind of toy making genius, and there is a definite plus in not having to sew up tiny fiddly little limbs which never end up quite balanced when you sew them onto the body!

I finished Ferdy as H sat watching a football match and decided that he wasn't quite complete without a football scarf - some scraps of cream baby cashmerino and STR mediumweight and he's a true Celtic Elephant (or possibly Plymouth Argyle, Yeovil Town or North Ferriby United - it's up to him!). H thinks he's very cute and I take a childish joy in setting Ferdy up each morning as if he has been up to something in the night - playing on the playstation, watching telly, playing cards etc - for when H comes down later on after I've gone to work!

I have more tales to tell, mainly about the wonder that is Wonderwool Wales, but for now au revoir but not goodbye! I leave you with more tulip pictures that show how the uncharacteristic classy pale ivory start to the Dutch Appreciation Society has reverted to a more Carie-esque colour palette!