FO: Rose City Rollers Socks

The socks I started with great enthusiasm in February are finished! 

They fit me perfectly and will be brilliant to wear in the autumn. 

Next up, socks for my husband! 

A rash cast on

I don’t like knitting socks. You lovely people, if you’ve been here before, know I don’t like knitting socks. I mean, I’ve got my Mum knitting me a pair so I don’t have to. And then a few folks on Instagram encourage me and the next thing this happens… 

 I’m an idiot. 

Apparently I’m making a hybrid between a Rose City Roller and a Churchmouse Yarn & Teas basic sock. 

In the photo: 2.5mm needle, Skein Queen Entwist yarn and a fabulous project bag given to me by lovely Becki from Dartmoor Yarns. 

Casting on…

Ravine hat for me! In Neon Green Noro (swoon)!  

  I am LOVING my grey nail varnish! 

 
I have a new pair of handknit socks! I swapped them for a skein of Jilly Bean yarns that was the wrong colour for me. 😊 

 
And Mollie says hi… 

 

Christmas cheer!

D, Mollie and I went away for three days over Christmas, coming home yesterday. We stayed in a rural part of Staffordshire in a dog friendly B&B, surrounded by Labradors (two other guests and eight who lived there!) and just having a lovely time.

I spent a lot of time with my Rico cotton finishing the bathmat:

And finally on Christmas evening, it was done:

We also took a trip to Leek on the 24th and stumbled on the yarn shop in the quaintest arcade – which was having a Christmas Eve sale! I normally look up yarn stores and I hadn’t, so this was a genuine bonus. D took Mollie to a cafe (it was in an arcade so we were outside but inside if you see what I mean! I bought 10 balls of mocha coloured Debbie Bliss babycashmerino (as previously mentioned this is probably my favourite yarn that isn’t Noro) and four balls of King Cole Riot. This particular yarn is new to me and I just think the colour way is so sophisticated I had to have it.

The shop was The Wool Shop in Getliffe’s Yard; it was very well stocked with lots of brands and with a good price range. I don’t think they had any local hand dyed skeins or anything I couldn’t have got elsewhere but it’s definitely worth a visit. My only mild grumble was that while the women in the shop were perfectly pleasant to me, they were more interested in chatting to eat other and people they knew that popped in than to me. I was in the mood to buy wool and quite possibly might have spent considerably more than I did.

Next door was Sweetpea & Boo, a fabulous boutique that sold hand made collars and leads… Oh as soon as saw it we were always going to come home with something!

My wonderful D proved he is the perfect husband for a yarn obsessed person on Christmas Day by giving me some 4mm Knit Pro Cubics and two glorious skeins of Countess Ablaze DK yarn in the Bounty Hunter colourway. I hadn’t added them to a list and they hadn’t come from my LYS Marmalade Yarns (a shop he has quite wisely in the past gone into and put himself in the hands of the lovely owners) so he had made an effort to remember I’d been excited about a purchase from The Countess six weeks or so ago and also that I’d said I wanted to try the Cubics after Sam bought an entire set at the Knitting & Stitching show!

He also gave me other lovely gifts including a Cath Kidston backpack to match my little handbag, a Kindle and Chris Hadfield’s You Are Here – Around the World in 92 Minutes, which is fantastic. He also, rather more randomly, decided to wrap up two bottles of shower gel and two deodorants so he had some little gifts to put in my stocking…! He is adorable.

Other knitty gifts came courtesy of my lovely friends Sam & Josh who provided this amazing sock knitting book and some sock yarn you just unravel as you knit from a machine knitted piece!

While Mum gave me these very useful Knit Pro blocking mats.

I have had a lovely Christmas time and was very lucky to have both time to crochet and to receive all the gifts I was given. I hope you also had a wonderful time and were similarly spoiled.

Now, after a little tidying up, I get to decide what my next project is!

Ita Might…

So, here in Port Douglas we’re waiting to see if Cyclone Ita hits land. We’re likely to be right on the fringes of the storm, if at all, and have been assured that our hotel accommodation can cope with the storm….

Today D and I found an art gallery featuring only art by indigenous aboriginal artists and spent ages in there. We finally cracked and bought a very small picture (ie what we could afford!) because we liked them so much. It’s currently bubble wrapped to go home so pictures in a couple of weeks. As it was incredibly humid D decided to take the picture back to our hotel while I (not such an indefatigable walker) sat and drank a coffee in a charming book shop come coffee shop on Macrossan Street, Port Douglas. I also took the opportunity to knit a few rows on my sock – I’m doing the heel at present.

Socks for my Mum

Today is Mother’s Day in the UK and I had decided to give my Mum the Cookie A socks I finished in January, alongside some other treats. She was delighted with them so I got to do a photoshoot of them on their recipient then and there!

Lucy her spangold photobombed the last few 😄

Retirement cushion…

So, what started out as the back of the retirement cushion has been promoted to the front. For two reasons.

1. It is more beautiful than the green side IMHO.

2. More importantly I totally wasn’t paying attention when I did the colour change over on the green side and it’s wandering all over the shop…

Whereas the new one looks mostly neat:

Now, answer me a question honestly. Should I redo the green side? Is it noticeable?

Sigh.

I’ve been doing a little more of my 3×1 socks:

And a gratuitous shot of the yarn.

I love these colours! I think this might be my palette….

Stop press!! My friend Sam just sent me a message on Facebook with a link to THIS Bunny Mummy pattern. He’s threatening to do one for the summer; I’m now busting to cast one on too! I came across the Bunny Mummy blog through the new issue of Simply Crochet where she has a pattern for a gorgeous cowl printed. And of course I was going to check out the blog of someone who likes rabbits! But some of the stuff on her blog is fab! Do check it out. I just LOVE 💜❤️💚💙💛 her super cute owls!

Knitting on trains 2014 no 3

Saturday 8th February

8.30am Bristol Temple Meads – Birmingham New Street:

15.42 Birmingham New Street – Bristol Temple Meads (late running into Bristol):

17.49 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury (stopping train argh)

A few little Ta-dah’s!

Firstly I wanted to model my lovely yellow socks that I knit on hols:

It’s quite hard to photograph your own feet – Mollie did a fair bit of photo bombing!

I had a very stressful day today, but I did get a chance to knit on my other Socks with Sarah Churchmouse Classic socks for a bit…

yes, I’m wearing my yellow socks!

But after I’d done a little obligatory sock knitting, I did my first versions of the easier of this month’s Snowflake CAL patterns! Here’s no 29, Ice Crystal I:

in Galaxy chunky on a 5mm hook. And here’s no 30, Ice Crystal II

in Lang lace on a 2mm hook.

Knitting on trains 2014 #2

Tuesday 21st January

7.51am Westbury to London Paddington (delayed)

16.06 London Paddington to Westbury