Project Spectrum - the new triad

June welcomes in our latest colour triad, red, black and metalic. If I'd had my camera over the weekend there's a perfect room at Upton House- an art deco inspired bathroom that has black floor, red accents and walls coated with a thin layer of aluminium - you feel as if you've fallen into a fire engine!

In terms of crafting this one if a bit of a challenge for me as nothing currently on the go or waiting in the wings really fits although there are a few things on the boundary ( a cardigan covered with metalic buttons and some sock yarn that is red, pink and purple).

Instead my challenge for the weekend was to find my PS triad in photos.

Happily the garden has not let me down:

A beautiful deep red poppy with a black inside
A row of Salvia "fury", chosen for their brilliant colouring and set off by lots of silver foliage (you can just see the cotton lavender in the background).

But that's all a little easy, how about something more complicated - can you guess what this is?
Clearly it's a picture of my ceiling ( a nice tidy bit of the house to show you!) but the patterns are my metalic, this is the light reflected onto the ceiling by a jumble of upturned CDs lying in the sunshine - like this

See, red and metalic - and quite intense light - probably doesn't do the CDs any good though!

Things that are decidedly not finished

From the knitter who appears to be winning prizes left right and centre for "self-explanatory blog post headings".

A minor correction: Smocking not smoking. I've never smoked or even been tempted. Having said that I've never smocked either but Peggy's dress - that's knitted mock-smock - not a whiff of doubt about it! Thanks Tanya - I had such a giggle when I realised the typo!!

Hmm... which leaves us with Aimee. I industriously picked up the first sleeve last night and, in the company of Little Miss Sunshine, happily completed the sleeve. Today I decided to trial run the sleeve because I was a bit worried about the length so I sewed the side seam, the sleeve head and the sleeve seam with running st in a smooth yarn and tried it on.

Conclusion: The sleeve is too long and does not match the stripes on the top of the sweater.
Solution: rip out a sleeve head's worth of Kid Silk Haze - grr

The deed is now done and whilst ripping the KSH was a little painful (and involved careful scissor work to free some of the yarn) it will be better for it and I love both the look and the feel of the finished sweater so it would be stupid to spoil it now (note to self, keep repeating this mantra and feeling of pain in solar plexus will go away; note to fellow knitters - send sympathy - it was a lot of unpicking of a very clingy yarn)

Whilst tomorrow is another day I have accepted that given the work I need to do over the weekend, finishing Aimee in the very near future is unrealistic.

However, as we are now in a new Project Spectrum triad I do need to finish it soon. Watch this space!

Making Mud Pies

It's all action here!

Fond readers of this blog (ie Mum and Dad) may have noticed that H and my attitude to our garden is a little haphazard - we buy things we like, we plant them, we attempt to look after them and we see how we go. We also painted our bench blue (enough said!!).

However, heavy clay soil not withstanding, we do aspire to a pretty garden and so far our scheme of municipal bedding plants is doing great. Our trip to the westcountry at the weekend saw a little "raid" on the parents cold frame as inspired by this site which has some very useful tips including cadging plants off your nearest and dearest (well that's how I read it anyway).

Parents you may have thought it was a spur of the moment decision to fill our car with your spare plants but now that I am safely 200 miles away I can reveal my malice aforethought (actually we were just going to beg for cuttings but you are as always wonderfully generous and the plants are great).

It is also possible that this plan was not fully known to H when we chose to take his nice shiny car as opposed to my slightly tired car! oops!

Anyway... on Monday we popped a few lettuces in a small trough, yesterday H drilled me some drainage holes in the big trough and this evening I have been pretending to be gardening but in reality it's been mud pies all the way! Yippee

The finished product? (and we use finished in the loosest possible way!):

This is the veggie patch - a lot of lettuce, two tomato plants and a courgette. Lovingly placed near the back door so that I can scare away the pigeons by making funny faces through the glass!A newly planted flower bed - cracking photography this evening - even I can't tell what's what in the picture and I planted it all. For those in the know we have some red Silvia, some Geraniums, Cosmos, Cotton Lavender, a Hebe and some foxgloves (oh and some pre-exisiting Roses!).

H thinks it is very pretty and I was rewarded for my valient efforts with a wine gum. Clearly gardening (even of the heavy digging in our solid soil) is considered reward enough whereas excessive housework has on occasion promoted the arrival of yarn in the house - now where did I put the hoover?

Lest you think I have entirely abandonned ship and gone over to the green side I have the following knitting progress reports:

Aimee: nearly finished a sleeve, is slightly longer than when last photographed.

Peggy's Sheep Dress: nearly finished the back, is slightly longer than when last photographed.

Conwy sock: nearly finished the second sock, is slightly longer than when last photographed.

Tired Roses scarf: is lurking.

I do promise pretty pictures when I am finished something, until then I leave you with a floral tribute to the outgoing Project Spectrum triad of pink, green and yellow:

Back with a vengance

Hurrah the gremlins have been exorcised! It turned out the gremlins were not so much in the computer (phew) as in the power supply to the wireless router which had gently fried itself hence no internet and a very confused computer. All is now well (she says touching all available imitation wood and crossing fingers and toes).





Anyway, did I mention I've been making pretty things. Less internet does seem to equal more knitting (who would have thought!) so here is the beauty parade:

First up - the current sock in progress. Looking at the picture I appear to have taken a shot of the back of the sock which has various elements of shaping in it so you can't really see the braid pattern - I promise it's there and will be much more visible when the sock is on a foot - I tried to put it on my foot yesterday and broke another needle - oops. The yarn is Lucy Neatby Celestial Merino in Sugar Maple and the pattern is Conwy from Socks on the Road - the pattern is more time consuming than some but I love the yarn and the finished effect so who am I to complain!
I have finished the first half of my Tired Roses scarf; my cunning plan is to knit the first half, knit on the edging, knit a bit of the second half, knit the second edging and then knit until I run out of yarn and then graft the two halves together. If I end up with slightly more repeats on one half than the other I don't think it will be that noticiable and I can already see that when it's properly blocked it will look very summery.
Something pretty in green for Project Spectrum - 8 rows of stst at the moment, I'm waiting for some black and no I'm not going to tell you what it is yet - all will be revealed in time - guesses in the comments!

I think yesterday I was having a touch of finishingitis what with completing half of the scarf and the edging. I also rescued Aimee from the bottom of the knitting basket and finished off the front. It didn't take that long and leaves me wondering why it has been neglected for so long. Now all I have to do are two sleeves and then she will be ready for the summer!

Today has been spent seriously tidying our lounge and trying to find somewhere for all the yarn and paint to live - I think we're getting there but I have definitely earnt my knitting time today. So, the podcasts are downloading (yippeeeeee) and I'm off to curl up on the sofa but with what? Sock, Scarf or Sleeves - the choice is ......... entirely random!

Hope you all had a good weekend

Silence

Silence may be golden but I find that while the little gremliny virus inhabits our home computer and the internet and all things lovely that go with it are off limits (or very severely limited) I miss blogging and I really miss my commuting podcasts. All I can say is that I’m going to have a bonanza when we are restored to life (hopefully this weekend).

For the moment you will still have to imagine the pretty things I am making; the tired roses lace scarf has got a little longer, a gorgeous pair of Nancy Bush’s Conwy socks are on the needles in Lucy Neatby’s Celestial Merino in the Sugar Maple colourway, I have a partially started project in green and white which will eventually be a sock (possibly) but we’ll have to wait and see. I also have magically acquired some green baby cashmerino and two skeins of Monet in Jitterbug. The latter is for socks and the former – we’ll again you’ll have to wait and see.

In conclusion, being taken away from the internet makes me buy more yarn. (See it’s not my fault really). I tried to convince the girls at knitting that it was really loft insulation but the fact that it is insulating the floor of my study or the ceiling of my kitchen perhaps undermines that theory.

In other big news I have had a cunning plan. As the plan has now been running a week and is therefore a distinct plan and not a figment of my imagination I can feel free to share it with you. Every day I have to travel to the station and then catch the train to work. The parking for the station has gone up astronomically recently and it is now about half of my season ticket for the train. So I’ve hopped on my bike (or rather H’s bike, it has a more comfortable saddle!). I now cycle to and from the station which takes about 15 mins each way. The parking is free, I get to cut the queues at the traffic lights the exercise is beneficial and it releases some yarn funds – what’s to loose.

The only slight disadvantage is that it has rained every single day since I started doing this – please tell me it’s not related.

If you’re reading this from the blog page and not through bloglines etc then you will see that Achilles the tortoise has made a major jump forwards (most un-tortoise like). Although I am still running as well as cycling I think as they are Carie-propelled miles rather than engine driven they count – I shall try to get 50 of my miles running and the rest will be covered by the cycling!

I felt very virtuous going out running last night albeit for a small lap of the common given I had just cycled home AND it was raining. When I started out it was only freckling rain but it quickly matured into a full blown downpour – delightful.

Actually it meant no-one was playing on the deathslide by the time I got there so I had a couple of runs as a warm down!

All this virtue was amply rewarded by the arrival of the new Interweave Knits. I wasn’t too enamoured of the last copy and none of the patterns particularly jumped out but this one has some stars. I think the boot socks will be perfect for my sockpalooza pal, and I love the Notre Dame pullover and I am secretly tempted by the Kate Gilbert one shouldered top. Full credit goes to H who was greeted by the news of a new magazine with some really great patterns and managed to look delighted at the prospect of more yarn in our house – one of many reasons why I married him.

The gremlin is due to be evicted at the weekend I hope so full service should resume shortly.

See you soon

In which we discuss many completely unrelated topics!

Knitting News (beep-de-de-beep-de-de-beep)

1, My socks are finished

Socks, meet the blue bench; Blue Bench meet Rolling Thunder. Perhaps slightly more carnival band type thunder than the american indian type thunder Knitty envisaged but if you're going to have lound socks you might as well go the whole nine yarns and add turquoise beads.

H gave me the yarn for Christmas and I love it and the way it fits the pattern - definitely kismet.

2, The update you really want to see:

The picture isn't fantastic and the whole thing will need blocking but the third row of blocks is now finished as of this morning. This pattern is great to knit - I highly recommend it and Baby Cashmerino makes a great fabric and so far seems fine as a substitute to the discontinued Debbie Bliss wool cotton and you get a little bit more of it to the ball.

The baby is still due May 14th and as far as I know has not made an early appearance. If I can finish the next tier during next week, one or perhaps two during next weekend then I'll have the bank holiday weekend to put the borders on and block it and give it to the hopefully pleased parent of the baby-to-be. It's all in the power of positive thinking/self delusioning (is that even a word?)

Yarny news or The Stashbust is over
And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, Ill say it clear,
Ill state my case, of which Im certain.

Ive knit, all from my stash.
Ive knit on each and evry highway;
And more, much more than this,
I knit it my way.

Rip backs, Ive had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And knit anew without exemption.

I planned my charted lace;
Each careful stich knitting every day,
But more, much more than this,
I knit it my way.

Yes, there were times,
Im sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could warp the space time continuum sufficiently to accomplish.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I stayed up late and knit it out.
I faced my stash, needles in hand;
-And knit it my way!
(with apologies to Frank Sinatra who is by now surely turning in his grave!)

Having completed the stash-bustalong yarn free period with only the purchase of present yarn one day before the end of the period bringing me even close to cracking it is possible that some yarn may have come home with me today and more may be arriving in the mail in due course.

My chief evidence for this is that I found these under the poinsetta while it was airing today.

On the left is a new pair of socks for H and on the right is Jitterbug Blue Parrot that is a million times prettier in real life than in the photo. Of course the only way that they could have arrived here is by sensing my need for them and creating some form of transportation to my house. "Didn't you just have a yarn binge?" I hear you ask; ..........now why would you think that...!

Truly random topicsRandom dead donkey - this is delicious if you like your cider - proper cider (ie dry not alcoholic apple juice) with a dash of blackcurrant liquer - oh does this hit the spot!

Anyway, after that ramble I shall leave you to your evening's entertainment and I have to go and finish preparing for a rather exciting weekend - more on that later!

Babies wait for no knitter

And that means only one thing - the first baby is due on May 14th and I need to get cracking on this blanket. With my first gratuitous blue bench shot of the day, look what arrived on Saturday morningOr in close-up so you can actually see it rather than just admire the blue-ness:
That's a LOT of baby cashmerino (two blankets worth I hope). I virtuously did the shopping on Friday night and Saturday morning and went for a 4 mile run (please note progress of Achilles across the tracker bar) before I went to Web of Wool to collect it (please provide own angel and polishing of halo noises!)

In the afternoon we went to visit a friend down in the middle of nowhere in the Cotswolds and I ensconsed myself on the bench in the garden while H and F played football. The boys then decided to crown me with a tiara of daisies and provide me with photographic evidence for the blog comme ca:
Posting that not particularly flattering picture of me gives me every justification for showing you what happenned next when I turned the camera on the boys!!
H and F discovered that contrary to their childhood belief, if they can't see me I can still see them - who would have thought!!

The boys take flight!

So that was Saturday - I knit and chatted to H and F and to Poppy the cat and we watched the latest Bond film again - a wonderful day.

Sunday was another beautiful day and my day mostly looked like this:

Please note the following items essential to an afternoon's knitting:

1, The sunhat - important so you are not dazzled by the quick flashing addi turbos and the cream yarn
2, Ipod - podcast catchup heaven
3, Garden chairs enhanced by many cushions
4, Plastic crate to allow yarn to scamper round in so that it doesn't get dirty
5, Interesting but not taxing knitting
6, SUNSHINE!

I did move around the garden with the sun, starting off on my blue bench and ending up in the conservatory and there were laundry intermissions (hanging up and taking down of) but that was pretty much my Sunday afternoon. H was playing golf so the real question is, am I a grass widow or is he a yarn widower? Answers on a postcard!

And the result....

The first two rows of blocks - there are six in total and a nice little edging - anyone else think I'm a little crazy/over ambitious/secretly have discovered how to warp space and time and would like to know how? All I can say is love the pattern and love the yarn - it's a good job too seeing as baby No2 is due in July!

For my piece de resistance I present a flower whose name I have forgotten but which I have christened Project Spectrum Flower - pink, yellow and green!

A time for new life

Happy Easter one and all.Easter is a time for new life (see Hamish yesterday) and today our new life is in the garden:

I love how in the last picture the camera has picked up the sneaky little viola in the corner rather than the main bunch - serendipitous photography!

And the knitting?

Well I have to say it is very nice to be able to share what I'm working on. The lace scarf continues at a meditative pace - it's coming along quite fast and I have 2.5 repeats done as I type (I'm planning to go and finish the third shortly) and I think each end will probably have 6 repeats - each repeat being about 3.5 in long but really I'll just knit until the yarn runs out! No picture today due to lack of decent light for photography.

The sock was cast on yesterday and currently looks like this:

With apologies for slightly iffy photography - see references to poor light above.

Although I have discovered from past experience (the invisible dolphin socks) that purl stitch patterns do not work particularly well in self striping yarn as they get obscured by the stripe - this yarn and this pattern work together in a wonderful example of kismet and turqoise beads just set the whole thing off. This yarn has all the colours of project spectrum and some and it demands a flamboyant pattern because even just plain stst socks would turn heads in this.

I love it and I can't wait to wear them with pride.

Another sunny day

Well what should a girl do with her new blue bench?

(1) Eat breakfast on it and (2) introduce it to knitwear - do you want to see something pretty?

This

is 435 metres of curious yarns' pure silk laceweight in a colourway named Tired Roses. Curious Yarns are having a little hiatus at the moment and I hope they will be back soon because not only do they sell wonderful stitch markers but this yarn is beautiful and I want more in lots of different colours!

Giving in to the inner colour junkie I have also rescued this to meet the new bench:

This is self striping yarn that I have already threaded up for Knitty's Rolling Thunder socks from the Winter 2006 Knitty. I started then a while ago on 2.5mm needles but they seemed too big so I'll try the 2.25 the pattern calls for and see how we go.

Today's expetition (as another bear of little brain would say) was to the farm for some Easter food and while there we met this gentleman:

This is Hamish - I defy you not to utter an uncontrollable "aaaaw" at seeing him - he is very cute and usually lives in a large henhouse next to the farm shop but was out today to say hello to everyone for Easter!

Having executed all inescapable chores I settled down in the garden this afternoon for another day of sunbasking and some lace therapy.

This is the first repeat of a pattern I'm making up myself and I'm enjoying getting back into the swing of lace knitting - it doesn't have the flow of stocking stitch and although it does have the tangled mess look at the moment I have sufficient faith in the blocking process for lace that it will all even out in the end! (NB the earlier picture gives a better indication of the colour)

Now if you'll excuse me Doctor Who is on and I need to go and cast on a sock.

PS - we will gloss over the result of the boat race, suffice to say that our boys put up an excellent fight and I only realised too late that I was wearing the wrong colour jumper.

Just wait until next year

It's the time of the season

Farewell to Blue, Grey and White of winter and hello to the new April/May colours of Pink Yellow and Green for this new sector of Project Spectrum. To celebrate even the plants in the garden have arrived on cue:

Sadly the pink ones blew over in the wind and I didn't think petals on the ground had quite the same effect!

However, before I do consign all of the blue/grey/white yarn to the back of the stash for a bit, time for a little reflection on the last two months of blue projects. We have two pairs of socks in blue and blue/purple , my wonderful trellis scarf, a set of hat and mittens and last but not least my refined raglan. (plus two pairs of bookbooksecret socks). Gosh, that's actually quite a lots of knitting - no wonder my house looks the way it does!.

I have LOVED the blue/white/grey (although there wasn't much grey) and it has seemed so appropriate to be knitting in those colours to match the outside world and it has matched very well with my UFO and Stashbustalong which finishes round one at least on 15 April.

In the last two months I have finished my oldest UFO (the trellis scarf) and knitted up the largest amount of yarn that has spent the longest in my stash when the deep blue alpaca finally told me what it wanted to be.

Looking forward I can happily embrace yellow pink and green with my Raspberry red/pink Aimee that needs finishing, some yellow white and green varigated dishcloth cotton which I am very tempted to use to make this although I think that this is very clever and might be rather fun. I also have one skein of delicious silk laceweight in the colour Tired Roses which is soft green and pink and is just wonderful to look at. I've written myself a pattern for a scarf based on a few other patterns I've seen around - if it's a success I may tell you about it!

I also know of a couple of babies in waiting who belong to families fully deserving of knitted goodies to welcome their arrival into the world and as they are both summer babes it seems cruel to inflict knitted jackets which won't fit by the time it is really cool enough for the bambinos to wear them (plus I have no idea whether they are boys or girls) so this time it's blankets - more specifically Debbie Bliss' Alphabet blanket x2. Blanket production will start as soon as the current knitting is finished and this time I will be able to share some progress as neither Mummy-to-be reads this blog (I think in one case and devoutly hope in the other!)

My current knitting is still the bookbooksecret socks of which I have finished three of my remaining 4 - I've been knitting up a whirl. However, spring has arrived and despite trying to stave off second sock syndrome I retreated to my garden today and what started out as a plan to weed one of the flowerbeds turned into a full scale weed of two large beds (they were very weedy) and planting them up with summer bulbs and a few violas, pansys and antihurrums for instant colour - it's going to look fantastic come the summer (or possibly not - soil depending!)

For the moment it looks like this:

and while I can see that the beds look very flat there are things that will grow pretty tall (two packets of sunflowers for a start) and I can't wait - roll on the summer.

Her hat is a creation that will never go out of style; it will just look ridiculous year after year.

(Fred Allen)

Hurrah the hat is finished - do you want to see?

Now I should probably add in a little disclaimer before I let you see the picture. Point number 1 is that nobody, but nobody looks good in a photo designed to show off the hat and not the person wearing it. If you don't believe me then google some of the blogs and you'll find that people in their hats look very different to their normal photos.

The other thing is that this was the travelling hat of a girl who that morning had got up at 5.45 to travel from Norwich to London to Court, then from London to the office and from the office to home. Also said girl only went to bed at 12.30 the night before because she was out entertaining clients (it's a hard life I know!). Needless to say - this is the picture of a very tired person.

Et voila!

I asked H to model it rather than me so he did:

Ok so do you want to see it properly?

The inside is very pretty too - in the picture above you can just see the green peeking through at the bottom and here it is in all its glory:Details (such as they are):

The yarn is all Alpaca Select DK weight alpaca in various colour - the dark blue is left over from my refined raglan and the rest is part of a scarf kit which best friend gave me from Christmas which has been split up to make mittens and now a hat. The green is Debbie Bliss Pure Silk which was left over from a tie front cardi that was also a Christmas present.

I cast on 120st with a provisional cast on with the green and knit in the round on 3.25 mm needles until I ran out of yarn then I knit 1 row in cream, purled for the turning row and started on the front. The fairisle pattern is pilfered from the Shetland Hat pattern in Rowan's RYC Classic Alpaca book and I added an extra row of little diamonds on the top to add a bit of length.

When the length of the outside of the hat matched the green lining I unpicked the crochet cast on, knit a round to match the last round on the outside of the hat and then knit the two together for the next round.

Whilst it doesn't match my mittens it does tone rather nicely and I love it - it got a good test this morning helping to tidy up a friend's garden in a cold northerly breeze.

So as project spectrum's grey, white and blue months come to a close I think I have knit all of my intended projects - although there are many non-knitting things that I meant to do but haven't quite got round to.

I now have two pairs of blue socks (ones for me to keep rather than for the BookbookSecret), a finished lace scarf, my refined raglan and blue and white hat and mittens - what more could a girl want and all from stash (some of it older than others!).

Now for more bookbooksecret knitting - hurrah and happy weekend

Did I mention Spring?

I may have been slightly optimistic on that one - yesterday afternoon the weather started to look a bit like this:

(That hazy bit in the picture - that's not entirely my photography, that's hail).
Then it all looked a bit like this:

That gentle carpet of white is I assure you dear reader entirely made up of hail. Hail which remained on my car windscreen until this morning and which is still blown up in a little icy heap outside our front door.

Now I appreciate Mother Nature's effort to make a final contribution towards the grey (sky), white (hail) and blue (my hands) of Project Spectrum but seriously if we're going to do the winter thing I want 10ft snow drifts and weather that makes it impossible for me to get to work and leaves me only the option of staying curled up on my sofa knitting.

It is entirely possible that this is how I spent yesterday but we will dance sketchily over that little point!

Now for some yarny tales:

First - what do you get when you put the beads on the wrong end of you yarn (or rather in the wrong order on the available end)? Answer: an excellent game for kittens involving two people, a lot of beads and the stairs!

It's a little hard to see in this picture but the squiggly line is yarn and the green and red vertical line is the beads on the yarn hanging off the bannister (and those are my stripy socks). If you are very lucky you end up with this: Which has now turned into part of a sock which is hiding because it is secret.

For the purposes of the yarny tale we will also gloss over the fact that due to a counting error I had to cut the yarn and rethread a whole load of beads to complete the pattern - my kitten game certainly kept H amused and in typical kittenish mood he kept holding the yarn at the bottom of the stairs where I couldn't see it so I'd come all the way down to work out what was going on before I realise I'd been pranked again!

I also cast on this:

This is a blue hat - honestly I know I stretch the powers of imagination a bit but really it will be.

The green is the inner lining and is the remainder of the Debbie Bliss Pure Silk from the tie front cropped cardi I made in early Jan - wonderfully soft and warm with alpaca for the outside - perfect!

H is away this week and with perfect timing I had a treat waiting for me at home comme ca:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Having acquired said man it is further acknowledged that his wife can never have too many hand-made socks ... and as socks are my travelling knitting (well the hat is at the moment but we may gloss over that too) it is adittionally acknowledged that the wife can never have too many sock pattern books (trust me on this one, there's another one on order!).

I loved Nancy Bush's Folk Socks so I can't wait to dive into these two treasures so that's where I'm off to now.

Finally I leave you with a treat - well I would if I'd worked out how to show you tube clips but instead please pop over to Agnes' blog and check out this - I promise it will make you laugh outloud

[Note to parents. To make this clip play, press play. It will take a couple of seconds to load and then it will play from the web page - you don't need to save anything or do anything. Oh except do turn your speakers on otherwise while funny you may miss the full impact - now go, what are you waiting for?!]

Gaaaaaa

That kind of sums up my reaction to today - much much pressure and no less than five phone calls with people ranting at me - gaaaaa - quite!

Now, time for something pretty

My finished Spring socks of doomy brightness. The yarn is Opal DK weight and I have no idea what the colour is as it is something which H bought me for Christmas - wonderfully snuggly and loads of the ball left - we may yet see me (a) work out how to knit toe-up socks and (b) make a pair of footsies with the leftovers - anyone know any good pattens or guides?

In the meantime I have another yarn adventure to look forward to - another pair of test socks for Anna's new book this time in the project spectrum colour of grey. Cunningly in threading the beads (shh - yes it has beads) onto the yarn we threaded them onto the wrong end of the yarn so I am about to see whether I can pull them through to where I need them by standing at the top of the stairs and letting gravity assist while I re-wind - may all your thoughts be with me!

Spring is Sprung

Farewell to winter (not that it ever really happenned but farewell anyway).

Reasons I know it is spring:

1. It is March. Although I am convinced mentally that it really is only about 20th January I am reliably informed that it is in fact 11th March. Whilst I am concerned that my efforts to warp the space time continuum in my favour appear to have backfired rather alarmingly I must accept that it is now the third month of the year and expecting 10ft snow drifts is slightly unrealistic. To be honest expecting 10ft snow drifts purely because I spent the winter in the middle of England and not perched on the edge of a cliff in the Westcountry was a little unreaslistc too but hey, a girl's got to dream.

2. On Thursday when it rained you could smell it in the air - this never happens in winter and it is a lovely clean smell (although I rather suspect it to be the product of water on warm tarmac) remeniscent of thunderstorms (another weather favourite - you have no idea how much I would love to see Thundersnow) and late afternoon showers.

3. Things are coming into bloom:

Ok, so that last one didn't exactly grow in my garden but it did appear - does that count?

4. The latest sock went to meet the outside world:

It is DK weight wool which doesn't exactly fit the spring theme but it smells wonderfully woolly and the colours turn into beautiful project Spectrum-esque stripes - another wonderful Christmas present ball of yarn from H who (if he happens to be reading this) should be encouraged in these things!

Because it's so lovely and stripy I stuck to a fairly simply stitch pattern - I'm just using the Socks of Doom pattern from Sock Wars slightly adapted to lenghten both the ribbing and the leg length as I don't need to complete these in a weekend.

5. I only needed my Refined Raglan to go to the farm today the coat and mittens stayed at home. Whilst this may be due to the superlative warming powers of the alpaca I'm calling it Spring - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!