It's Snow Day Fir Going Oot



Today, I am having a snow day. "Snow day" is a Stateside term I have become familiar with recently and means a day in which things are cancelled or delayed by snow, heavy ice, or extremely low temperatures.
Whilst conditions presently aren't too bad in my little part of Scotland it looks set to get worse as the day goes on and so my Knit Club tonight is cancelled.
I'm not going sledging or building snowmen..I'll leave that to the kids. This little old lady will have her knitting out and a lovely cuppa by her side (and more than likely a small heat-seeking dog as well).

I shall also be flicking through my new knitting book 'Colours Of Shetland' by Scottish based designer Kate Davies. I have long since admired Kate's designs and been a fan of her blog so it was a great pleasure to meet the lady herself at a recent book signing in nearby Pittenweem (at a lovely little yarn store called The Woolly Brew).

It was also great to see in person all the knitted samples that appear in the book. I especially liked the Puffin Sweater that Kate was wearing herself that day and hope to begin it as a project myself sometime this year. All the patterns in the book are knitted with wool by Jamieson & Smith, one of Scotland's last remaining traditional Shetland wool producers.

2013...I'm Back! (again)

Me & My Mister

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2013 was to restart my blog so here I am back on Blogger after a 11 month hiatus. Did you miss me?
While I could fill this post with what I have been doing/thinking/dreaming of since I was last blogging I shall spare you all the details for now (suffice to say, you ain't missed much..lol). However I will be sure to reflect back on 2012 happenings in future posts to let you know where I am in life now.

Still married (20 months done!)
Still knitting (increased stash of yarn!)
Thankfully it has not yet got to the point where darling hubby has made me choose between the two.

Happy Valentine's Day

First cards as 'marrieds'

Today is of course Valentine's Day, and in our house..the first as Husband & Wife. Some may be cynical about such a day..putting it down as commercialised nonsense but for me any excuse for added romance (and gifts!!) gets a big thumbs up. Bring it on!
You can keep your red roses and champers however..I'm much more easily won over with a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit.
Seriously, I am so lucky to have such a thoughtful partner..he always buys me the cutest little gifts that have obviously taken some thought and time and knowing that can be just as lovely as the gift itself.
I received the sweetest set of Russian nesting dolls (to add to my collection) with messages of love inscribed on them, a knitting book, Russian doll earphones (I didn't know such a thing existed..they are too cute!) and some panties with dogs on that look just like my Patch.

My romantic booty

What did I gift my husband? Monogrammed hankerchiefs, a pair of cargo trousers and some cherry nougat...who said romance is dead? lol.

As I write this he is cooking dinner (yes ladies..he is a keeper) and later we are going out to the cinema to see the Woody Allen movie 'Midnight In Paris'. If he's lucky I might buy him a hot chocolate..lol.

Happy Valentine's Day to All.

2012..knitty dilemma

Hand knit poncho..gift from a lovely friend

After rearranging and sifting through the chaos that is my yarn cupboard I made a pact with myself that future knits would be:

1. Mainly for myself (I've knitted a lot for charity and as gifts but not much for me)
2. Well executed, finished and sewn up before another is cast on
3. Using yarn only from my stash...or bought from proceeds of destashing.

However, it's 12 days into 2012 and I have not cast on my first knitting project for this year yet. What's wrong with me? I have not lost my knitting mojo I am merely being indecisive..but it's driving me crazy.

Last Autumn I bought 5 balls of Patons Wool Blend DK.."enough to knit myself a sweater", I told myself at the time. It was an impulsive buy..I didn't have a pattern in mind but the 'sale' ticket was too difficult to walk by. The total price tag was less than £18.
The yarn is  a really nice shade of airforce blue with a tweedy fleck about it and being merely a wool 'blend' it is machine washable (and not too itchy!).

Hours and hours (and days and days) of browsing patterns on Ravelry have shown me that my bargain buy may have been a phrase my husband often quotes.. 'a false economy'. All the patterns I favour are knitted in Worsted not DK...ahhh.

So my question is do I go out and buy some worsted yarn or keep hunting for a DK pattern?

Happy 2012 by the way!!!

Back to Blogging..Bye To Xmas

Scottish royalty dontcha know?

Yeah, I haven't blogged for ages. I have a dozen feeble excuses but the most feasible is an amalgamation of pure laziness combined with laptop trouble. My Dell laptop was 6 years old..full of junk and barely ticking along which was not helped by our extremely slow Internet connection. Trying to post a single photo on this blog took an age, so planned posts were often abandoned midway.

On Boxing Day (after a couple of months indecision..and driving Hubs nuts by my incessant 'going on') I finally bought a new laptop. Being the frugal Scottish wifie that I am I didn't want to spend much money on a machine just for checking emails, online shopping and of course blogging. I'd seen spanking laptops with all the bells and whistles at purse tightening prices. I'd seen cheap laptops that were the ugliest pieces of plastic ever to exist and with processors not much more advanced than my old Dell Inspiron.

My new purchase was PC Worlds Boxing day special. It's a HP (Hewlett Packard) with a 2nd Gen i5 processor (which I have learnt is possibly more than I need to do what I do). The best bit is it was £399! Chuffed!

The photo at the top of this post is of my little brother and I on Christmas Day. It was a great day with my mum, bro and SIL here. My lovely husband did all the cooking. Despite good company, fabulous gifts and yummy food it's nice to get back to 'normal' again..lol.

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Easy 'Peasy'

My W.I.P has become a F.O and for those who do not understand knitter's lingo I will translate. My 'Work In Progress' has become a 'Finished Object' and I can now rest my needles and breathe a sigh of relief. The pattern for this knit is called 'Peasy' and is available via the knitty haven  that is 'Ravelry'. The pattern was not difficult but for me it was long and this is my first ever completed garment for myself..yup a cardi for the ole knitting lady herself..lol.



Circular needles to hold so many stitches



The pattern is a top-down raglan knitted on circular needles (but not in the round) It's knitted 'all-in-one'. You cast on  the front left side, then the sleeve, back, other sleeve and other front. It means a lot of stitches and for this particular pattern a lot of long rows of stocking stitch. Easy but tedious. The front consists of a small lace panel which for me was an introduction to lacework.



After the lacework & sleeves completed

 Pleased to report the finished cardigan fits well and although I took it with me today ironically it was too warm to wear it. Still I'm sure it won't be too long until this changeable Scottish weather denotes cardigan wearing opportunities.

metal floral buttons



September...and weather for soup.

Recently we had our first organic veggie box delivered from Bellfield Organic Nursery and much to our amusement there was a couple of vegetables we had never encountered before. I think it's fair to say before now most of our vegetables came from a can...prewashed, pre chopped. In our organic treasure chest came 8lb of potatoes, 3lb of carrots, 2lb of onions, beetroot, lettaces, a savoy cabbage (complete with very organic slug!), courgettes, baby cauliflowers and the ones we pondered upon...a kholrabi and a romanesco.



Romanesco



Kholrabi

Over the last week of August and now into September we have seen the temperatures drop somewhat here in Scotland. We have not had the greatest of summers (unlike the heatwave England seem to have experienced) with only a few sporadic hot days some time ago now. Autumn is definately upon us..the nights are drawing in (it's getting dark out by about 8.30pm already) and the central heating has once again been switched to 'on'.


It seems to me it's time to look out those woolly garments and most definately time to make soup...yum! With a wealth of vegetables that's exactly what I set about doing much to my husband's dismay..he doesn't really like me in HIS kitchen..lol.


lots of chopping



let the cooking commence



stick tae yer ribs



The result was a very hearty red lentil and vegetable soup which even Hubs agreed was delicious. I have a feeling we are going to have a cold winter in these parts and my soup will be just the ticket in months to come.