It's been HOW long?!

Hello blog - remember me? Lanky girl, slightly dippy at times, knits a LOT, pretends she can do other things too?

Yes? See I knew it would all come flooding back!

I think I last updated at the beginning of September. Actually I think the last time I noticed the date it was the beginning of September. The little man who lives in my computer and flicks the time and date over, who I have generally found to be reliable, informs me that today is the 27th of September. If anyone finds the last few weeks floating around in the ether I would be most grateful if they would return them to me; I suspect a conspiracy somehow involving the international date line and perhaps a super strong gravitational pull exerted by the International Space Station to make the earth turn faster. (Mary, is that worthy of your colleague!?)

So what really happened - well it was the beginning of September, and I had three days off work. We went to the wedding of my chief bridesmaid in York on a peerless hot and sunny day. The bride wore purple, the guests were a select bunch but great fun, and the groom, who I hadn't met before, was (as expected) a really lovely guy and a perfect match for my dear friend E.

E and I shared a house together in London; I moved north for my job and to be in the same county as H and she moved even further north after she found herself only a few trains behind the Edgware Road train on July 7th. I don't see anything like enough of her and it was lovely to catch up. She has also been through some of the not so great things that I've been through in the last year and we're both kicking ourselves for not sharing sooner.

After that we headed west to the furthest edges of the Lake District for a four day weekend which was wonderful. We climbed mountains, went on lakes, saw sheep trying to jump off mountains and ate Kendal mint cake in its proper setting. I (still) have a gazillion unprocessed photos from that trip so I'm saving those stories for another day!

While I took those three brief days off work, work, as is its want, had a little explosion and the Monday I got back to work I arrived at 8am and left on Tuesday! And I think that's where I've been ever since. The down time I have had has mostly been spent catching up on housework and convincing my husband that I am a real girl and not just a figment of his imagination that flits into being between 6.30 and 7.00 every morning.

Life is a little quieter now and I have a lot of catching up to do so if you get a comment from me that seems horrifically behind the times, mea culpa!

I took some pictures at the beginning of the month and even loaded them into flickr and onto the blog page, but alas, no words and no pushing of the publish button. So here, without further ado, is the tip of the iceberg!

First up, I've been quilting:


This started out life as a Hoffman fabric Bali Pop (their version of a jelly roll), in Mint Choc Chip, to which I added a lot of my favourite burnt orange. I hinted at the quilt in my last post, these are all of the blocks piled up and waiting to be sewn together.


Progress made - not much. I did lay them all out and decide the order and I have sewn four of the twelve horizontal lines and sewn the four together. I love the way it looks, I just have to finish sewing up the lines and then think about borders, backing, the quilting itself and the binding. Look for it to be finished in 2020!

Embracing autumn (shortly before a long weekend that was distinctly summer), and by autumn I mean that orange, I also finished another pair of socks, this time for me.

H and I avoid matchy matchy socks, no matter how much we both like the same yarn, it's just too his 'n hers cabled arans, dripping into each other's eyes over a heathery backdrop for us. I made Nancy Bush's Spey Valley socks, for H for last Christmas in Misti Alpaca sock yarn and he loves them.

So, well, one thing led to another, the Misti Alpaca yarn fell out of the cupboard, I really didn't mean for us to have matching socks, but before I knew it I'd cast on for another pair of Spey Valley socks:


Ooops. Perhaps if we don't wear them together no-one will ever know. Apart from you of course. Shh, don't tell.

I am a very very big fan of this yarn, it's soft and lovely and fluffy and completely justifies its handwash only status.




It also glows with every colour I love - what's not to like about toasty feet for the winter!