KnitWit

Recharging the batteries

 

So, I have a new job which is slightly overwhelming and exciting at the same time. It is a great job but daunting at the same time. However it is all about rising to the challenge and remembering that it takes at least 6 months to really settle in anywhere. I have had a whole week off to prepare for it and catch up on all the domestic chores that I have been piling up since Christmas. It has been quite exhausting but also a much needed break.

Today I have finished the week off seeing my mum and sister for Mother’s day. It was a lovely day involving roast chicken, walks in the sunny university parks and a few little treats.

- Daffodils and paper white narcissi from the Isles of Scilly bought at the covered market. They smell absolutely gorgeous and buying them I had a little thrill that come June Mum and I will be back on the Islands for a couple of weeks.

- I knitted mum a dishcloth in Anny Blatt cotton which I brought back from my Paris Trip and parcelled it up with some soap. The colour of the cotton is so vibrant. It is like a slice of sunshine and I think it will look really nice in my mum’s kitchen. I loved the pattern and will definitely knit some more of these in the future.  Ravelled here. I quite like the idea of starting my own little stash of knitted dishcloths and homemade tea towels.

-  I made some florentines which was very exciting. I had wanted to make them since I first bought ‘How to be a domestic goddess’ and they seemed to me the perfect treat for Mother’s Day. They were really easy to make and a nice thing to do on a Sunday morning – I made all the batches before 9am while leaping around to Radio 1 and drinking copious amounts of tea!

Hope you all have had a lovely and relaxing Sunday!

Hibernating through Christmas

*sigh*

Christmas has been great this year and I’m still enjoying leave from work at the moment. I appear to have become really good at this relaxing lark and it will be a struggle to get back to work tomorrow.

At the beginning of Christmas week I was still Christmas shopping – frustrated by internet orders that hadn’t arrived and found shops completely frantic. Apparently no brown paper was to be found in central Oxford and in this mentally weakened state I made a pact with Felix that I would do all my Christmas shopping next August and spend all of December drinking mulled wine, putting up Christmas decorations and knitting, (and laughing at others who haven’t had this idea, mwah-ha-ha…)

Then Christmas spirit got me – the bluestockings christmas tea party got me feeling festive with mulled wine and mince pies. I invested in some new decorations* for my golden twigs (it apparently is a bird themed Christmas), went to see Kate Rusby’s Christmas Show which was lovely and her Christmas album has had me singing along with gusto while I wrapped presents. And I got practically everything done in time – no Christmas cards were sent this year but I did manage to deliver all handmade presents on time. (My “vouchers” for presents that haven’t quite materialised are stuff of family legend).

Christmas day itself past in a very nice blur, spend morning with Nan and then opening presents, drinking pink cava and finally cooking dinner with  my  sister for mum. (When I say cooked, I “helped” but H did most of the work).

Since then days have been filled with reading, walking, knitting, catching up with friends, watching TV (there was a bit of a James McAvoy theme to the films we watched but I loved Narnia and Starter for Ten is a firm favourite). Very peaceful. I always like a bit of a hibernate at Christmas and this was no exception.

*I am a Christmas decoration junkie. I think I’m addicted to sparkly, glittery tree bling. It is my inner magpie.

Not everything is as easy as yarn shopping

Recently one of my friends got married and the saga that became my wedding outfit was a bit epic. Many things were tried on, bought and returned to various shops. I cursed and gnashed my teeth, wishing I hadn’t stained the dress I meant to wear and wondered whether I could somehow just make an outfit.  On one particularly cantankerous day I found myself thinking “yarn shopping is soo much easier”. Maybe I could just wear wool to the blooming wedding and then I found this....
<enter sounds of heavenly choir>

I *heart* everything about this dress. It has seed pods on it.  The wedding was excellent fun...
In other news, I appear to be obsessed by mushrooms – this is a shaggy inkcap.

 I think it is an excellent specimen of a ‘shroom, I love how it looks. Apparently it is edible but I wouldn’t fancy my chances – it looks quite evil. I did in fact even start looking longingly at a field guide to mushrooms in a bookshop the other day and am excited that Autumnwatch* has done a downloadable fungi guide. NB. It appears that the 'Have Fun with Fungi' guide has been removed but there is still a very exciting  sounds of the night guide still up.

 Also my mum decided that key to her recuperation was beating the credit crunch through log fires – so J, my sister and I spent an afternoon stacking neat piles of logs all round her house. 2 cubic metres of logs makes quite a few piles! The toads will love it although I managed to look like I’d been up a chimney by the end of it. (I have an amazing capacity for dirt!)

Last night I watched the Picture Book programme about children’s books which I loved. (I have to point out that I was eating a bake using one of the Jamie Oliver pasta sauces, Red Onion and Rosemary, which was very tasty indeed and did add bliss to the event) I didn’t know that A.A. Milne served in First World War and was really affected by it so retreated to Ashdown Forest to write Winnie the Pooh after he was discharged. Also I recently discovered that Raymond Briggs' depiction of "blooming" Father Christmas was the first time a working class Father Christmas had ever been depicted which I thought was really interesting.

*For Autumnwatch viewers - I'm so happy that Nemo survived!

Upheaval

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a shocker with my mum being taken back into hospital which resulted in me swiftly decamping back home. I have to say that really the last few weeks have left us all feeling a little tired and bit like chewed up string. And now that mum has been discharged and is on the mend we are all starting to look forward to some nice quiet time to recharge. Although this has been a really stressful time there have been some good things in the last few weeks - amazing support from friends and family and very clever medical people being top of the list. However, there have been some highlights (mostly edible) that I’d thought I’d blog about.

 

Chocolate Hedgepigs - My sister, H, bought these for me after reading my last post.

River cottage yoghurt - possible the MOST Amazing yoghurt I have eaten in the world ever. De-lish. Very excited about River Cottage Autumn starting on Thursday and have been enjoying Jamie’s Ministry of Food (although it tends to make me cry at least once an episode). (I've also been throughly enjoying a bit of an E4 love-in with Hollyoaks and fostering a new One Tree Hill obsession - guilty pleasures!)

Crumpets and Malt loaf - I love autumn and I especially love that autumn is the best time of year for tea and tasty things. Hot buttered toast, malt loaf, crumpets and teacakes all become the best things to eat when it is foggy and wet outside. After reading Jane's post about maltloaf I bought some and remembered how much I love it (I think it is probably impossible to make yourself). I have also started drinking clipper organic earl grey and it is really very tasty and nicer than the twinings organic earl grey. This is slightly sacrilegious in my house because Twinings Earl Grey is a staple. I’m harbouring plans to make some crumpets at a later date to see how homemade ones taste.

Glossy magazines - I seem only capable of reading spy fiction or women’s glossy magazines at the moment. Mainly Easy Living although Glamour and Eve have also been devoured. I know an awful lot about this season’s makeup and vibrating mascara.

Amazing mushrooms on my mum's lawn - this is what happens when you don't mow the lawn for ages but such an exciting surprise.

New Bellowhead album, Matachin - My love of folk and particularly Bellowhead has been quite well documentated on the blog but I have been humming the tunes on this disc for the last couple of weeks. I saw Spiers and Boden perform at the Paradise Bar just before my mum got taken back into hospital and it was fab - really magical. Tiny venue and we were sitting very close to the front - was like having it in my front room. The audience was great as well - singing and even having a little dance! The new album took me a while to get into it because it feels fairly theatrical and overblown* musical hall in places but I love it now - songs about whisky and disease and some kazoo action. Looking forward to seeing them at Koko at the end of the month.

Knitting - I’ve been a bit of a roll recently and am really enjoying finishing projects. It's so gratifying! Who knew! Having been a process knitter for a while, short projects are upping my knitting mojo at the moment. I'm on a massive accessories kick - i have seen so many lovely mitten, slippers and hat patterns that I'm looking forward to cranking out some woolies to keep me happy this winter. It is a bit like nesting for winter or preparing to hibernate in a warm fug of woolly loveliness.

I’ll start with the most recent FO – Autumnal mitts. I’ve been a fan of these Garter Stitch Mitts for a while and once I saw this yarn I know it would be perfect. I discovered the yarn in a very small craft shop in Stony Stratford and it was very cheap. I'd never seen it before - James C Brett Wool Rich Ripple Double knitting. It is 50% wool and doesn't feel very wool rich but I loved the flecks of colour in the wool and it is my trademark turquoise blue.

Great knit - fast and fun and comfy, I think the pattern could be slightly clearer in how it is written out but all in all I really enjoyed them. Excellent mindless knitting for hospital visiting and car journeys. Ravelled here . I’m thinking about loads of different ones for the winter, I love these ones which look perfect for blackberry picking. I’m also thinking about making J some with fleecy lining for his poor cold fingers. Now back to slippers - I appear to have made one which would be large for an elephant.

*it should probably be noted that I'm quite partial to overblown and theatrical music - dog man star is my most favourite album ever.

Sibling love

So my little sister has taken up knitting, this in itself is quite unusual. She has resisted me and my mum talking incessantly about projects and yarn for the last three years with a brief foray into two garter stitch scarves. Then recently after finishing a square for Felix's blanket she took herself to The Knitting Hut and announced she was going to make her friend a bag. I think it is lovely. I'm so impressed that she decided not only to make the bag and felt it but adorn it with a knitted corsage. Since then she knitted my mum a bag and purse, decorating the flowers with seed beeds and inserting a zip. Its a slippery slope I reckon, only a matter of time before she is going to be on Ravelry and blogging. She is already talking about socks!

Bert

 

Photo: via H's friend, Helen.

This is Bert, he is 4 weeks old and is soon to be my sister's puppy. Isn't he sweet? I think he is just the model for the dog coat from the Pet Heaven book that I have been desperate to knit and foist on someone.

Expect many more gratuitous pictures in the next couple of weeks... It has been a while since we had a family pet.