and.sew.to.knit

Well today is a holiday, no school, yeah!!
One tiny problem the littlest person in the house forgot to turn off his alarm clock, which is set for 6.20am, guess who got to get up to turn it off. It did mean that I got to see this wonderful sky at 7.15am. The camera didn’t have much battery and I really need to practice taking sky photos but this is the best one. For a great frosty view, hop on over and see the view from Vicki’s window.

It gets to this time of year and cooking becomes more of a priority. What is about the cold weather and food that make you want to feed everyone all the time. The boys and I are making our way through the Holiday Cookie magazine by Martha, one of my friends sent it to me at this time last year and we have managed to try out a fair few recipes. These are oatmeal and raisin without the wheatgerm as I couldn’t find any and with a bit less sugar. They are very yummy, the recipe makes about 4 dozen so I try and hide some for another day…….. yeah right, its worth a try though!!

Today I made an impromptu trip to the yarn store, it is about a 15-20min drive on the highway on a good day, on a bad day it can take forever. It is a mainly plassard store and the lady who works there is very nice. The other yarn stores that are nearer drive me insane, they have the stupid no touching rule and extremely rude staff, so I only go there when I really have to.
I needed to go to the yarn store to find yarn for a xmas project, it involves this pair of tights, this needlecord fabric and now these two yarns and now you have to wait to see what I can come up with! The colour is a bit more muted in real life but I had trouble getting it right….
Next up a finished pair of socks …Wooot!!

Its still pretty green looking outside, though there are some leaves around.
I took this yesterday of a Persimmon tree in my friends garden, I love the colour it turns.
This morning it was a lovely autumn morning cold, clear and sunny, I am hoping we have lots more leaves falling soon, I love scrunching in them.

Knitting, I have done a little but it is boring. I have lots of projects in my head but need to focus a little. I have signed up to sell some stuff at a couple of craft fairs at the beginning of December, so really need to get a move on.

Today the creativity was kind of sucked out of me because someone (me) stupidly suggested we bag up all the lego in 500g bags to sell at the toy sale at the end of the month! They also stupidly said that really the Megablox and the Lego should be separated…Duh!!! So far, I have sorted and weighed about 3 kilos of bricks, so am kind of skelly reading the tiny print on the blocks! Someone else (not me) suggested we build the big things HP Castle etc and sell them bagged with the instructions, NO WAY, I hate building lego with instuctions, I only like building things of my own invention. So maybe someone else will build them, or NOT!!!!!

Of course the bags of bricks are colour co-ordinated, why would they not be???

Today I received this in the post from Vicki,
this is my prize for being comment number
a lot, can’t remember what. What a fantastic prize,
thank you sooooo much, sock yarn,just my colours,
soap, smells great, a fabulous sheepy pin,so cute,
chocolate, sweets, hot chocolate AND a signed copy of
the Yarn Harlots book, amazing, thank you, thank you.

And so just for Vicki, photos of the fabric haul.

This is it all, looks like a jumble sale.

This is all the chintzs I will keep to make bags out of.

And this……..well all I can say is that they looks better in the photo
than in real life.

They are samples of really drab, 7o’s I think, prints, yucky horrible colour combinations, quite a few that were very nicely described as vomit coloured!

No knitting so far today, just playing with fabric and planning projects. I’m off to knit some sock, so that I can plan my next socks for me and eat some chocolate…hmmmmmm

…And fabric of course.
So first this is the fabric that actually came home with me yesterday as
I was inspired to do something with it.
So this morning I made this bag.
I needlefelted onto some denim and used the flowery fabric as the lining.
I gave it to Marie who gave me the whole load of fabric this afternoon, she loved it.

I have to say the rest of the fabric is still in my car, there is a HUGE amount,
3 bags, a box and 2 small boxes of ribbon and trims, ssshhhh, don’t tell Jim.

Its alright dear its not all going to live here, tomorrow I am taking it to my friends house to share with her, I will take photos then as someone asked to see the new fabric stash.

Today was the knitting bee and it was fun, lots of scarf knitting going on as its suddenly freezing here, very frosty.

One scarf knitter is about to take the plunge and knit her first cardigan aren’t you Mandy?

I forgot the camera though, next week, definitely. I did not get my sock finished I spent too much time talking and collecting fabric, will try to finish it tonight, its his birthday on the 20th so I have time, technically they were for last year but who is counting!!

I was also asked to take sock pictures with feet in them, I will once the right sized feet are around!

Well the socks are coming along slowly, I have finished one for my brother and the giant sock is well underway and might be finished tomorrow.

I sewed this bag at the weekend as a prototype, I am now going to try out, one a little smaller and one a little bigger to see how that works.

Today a friend of a friend called me to see if I wanted some fabric that she no longer wanted.
I was very near her house so went by to have a look. Unfortunately I had taken the bus into Grenoble so had no way of getting it home, I am going to pick it up tomorrow!!

Tomorrow is the Grenoble Knitting Bee afternoon, this will be our second meeting and I am really looking forward to it.
For as long as I can remember my aunts have had a weekly knitting bee, my Dad has 6 sisters. I love being there, it gives me a real sense of belonging, they don’t all knit any more but there is usually something else going on too. (My Dad calls it the Gossip Bee)

Just to be part of a group of women who are all different but who have something in common and to know that there will usually someone who can answer your questions and fix your mistakes is very cool.
So I decided the Grenoble women needed to have a knitting group, so far we are pretty international and the styles of knitting are varied. This I love, I come from a family of “scottish” knitters, but I have to admit to using circulars more and more. So to study how other people knit I find fascinating. So far the Austrian, Hungarian, Australian and Danish section of the group knit continental but all with different ways of holding the wool, its great. The Irish, English and Scottish knit english, I have tried to knit continental but I think it is something I have to practice more as I found it much slower. We have one non-knitter in our group but that won’t last long she will be converted….soon!
Hey, why does my spell check want to replace knitters with janitors??

Its finished

Swallowtail Shawl from IK Fall 2006

Handmaiden Seasilk in Berry

I love it and this is how I will wear it.

This is only my second lace project and the first time working from a chart, I did love knitting it, even the nupps, when I got used to knitting them a bit loose, thanks for the tip Mary.

No, this is not how I usually look to walk the dog!

My usual choice of photographer was a asleep as its tradition to spend the last day of the holidays in bed, so I had to make do with Jim, so apologies, this is the best!

I love the Jumper on the cover of the Fall Interweave knits but am having trouble finding wool that I get gauge in, any suggestions?

This is one project we have been working on this holidayWe started off with this,

Which became this,

and then this

Now just all the sewing to do.

Jamie has been collecting old jeans for the last 5 years to make a patchwork with.

I have to say for the past 2 years he has not been the easiest person to live with, teenage angst hit hard.
Needless to say every time I suggested we work on his project it was met with a firm NO.
I still kept every old, holey pair of the jeans in the hope that one day he would decide it was time and it was still something he wanted to do. And he did! (we do have enough jeans left over for at least one more quilt!)
We had such a laugh remembering who had worn which jeans and I laughed at him because he insisted on keeping the pieces with “nice” holes, I am sorry honey but a holey pair of jeans is just that!
He also took the longest time re-arranging the squares, I had to try really hard not to say anything, especially when Jim said in passing “he is so your son!”
I have no idea what you are talking about!

Jamie started a new school in September after fighting the system (and us) for almost 2 years. We got to the end of half-term with only one minor bunking off on the last day, this is a major achievement and I am very proud of him.

He is studying Mens Tailoring at school and apparently its fun, yeah!
We spent a long time coming up with other study options for him and to be perfectly honest, I thought he chose this to keep me happy, I had highlighted it as an option as a joke, cause I would have loved to do this course. (I did also suggest a Chocolatiér, sp?)

At home in the last 8 weeks he is a different child, he gets up for school with no arguing, he chats about his day, he asks me sewing terms in english, he talks about project work, he reads my Vogue magazine, he is not fighting with his brother so I am kinda hoping the teenage thing is over. Maybe I will be better at the parenting thing with the other two! Or with any luck they won’t feel the need to rebel quite so much!

This is part of what I am up to today, you don’t want to see the rest.

The thing about children is they get to an age when they really can’t decide if they want to keep toys or do they admit they are told old to play with them.
If they are too old for them, what then? Keep them for future generations? Give them away or throw them out? Jake is twelve and for almost a year there are certain toys that have not seen the light of day but they are still his and still dear to his heart. Its kind of sad to see your baby grow-up.

We do have a few boxes in my dads attic that I couldn’t part with Duplo and the Thomas the Tank Engine collection of trains, the Brio collection went to my niece at Christmas time and that was a big wrench for Jake.

In this apartment we have no extra space, so its time to make that decision, Jake has been in a horrible mood all day, I know why, he doesn’t want to decide.
So far we have chucked out all the rubbish and the broken guys! I put together all these guys, please don’t tell me if they are wearing the wrong clothes!
So we have some knex, lego, megablox and playmobil, its kinda scary how much there is but this stuff has belonged to all three boys, so about 13years of toy collecting……..decisions, decisions.

So on the knitting front, I am on the edging chart for my shawl so might be finished by tomorrow, no sock progress, there may be some later

Take one new lace project, add one new lace knitter, stir in 3 boys and one labrador and liberally sprinkle school holidays and wait patiently till disaster strikes.

It doesn’t take long, there you are knitting away quite happily on your second shawl project, thinking all the while, you have this chart reading thing all sussed out.

You get to the bit where you have to set up the first border chart, you think that you can do that while there are free range children and dog to distract you, wrong, its not going to work.

So after 2 attempts and 2 froggings you throw it in the basket, where it taunts you incessantly, you of course, were too sure of yourself to add a lifeline after the main body part, na,na,na,na,na.
Its not going to beat you because you want this shawl, its for you, there is no quitting!

And to prove it you get up when its still dark and quiet and you beat the shawl pattern into submission….well kind of, two more charts to go, I just need to get out of bed at dark o’clock more often this week and we might get there.

Today we celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary, I don’t have a wedding picture to scare you with so this was taken by my sister-in-law, I love it because its black and white, has some of my favourite people in it and one of my very favourite views of the west coast of Scotland with Arran in the background. Happy Anniversary Honey.