A Very Glamorous Baby Shower..................

On Saturday 21st March a group of us from Ravelry who know Robynn of the Purlescence online knitting shop either as friends, customers or buisness colleagues put together a joint online and real time baby shower.

A whole group of us had been plotting online since last October to get together to create something very special for a very special lady for whom we all had great affection.

I apologise now as I have been a little late getting this post together. It has been a really exciting project to co-ordiante and one which was greatly received by the recipient.

Between us, all over the world from Canada, to Australia and the USA as well as Europe we have been knitting squares to create a Barn Raising Quilt from the book, Knitalong. We have had great fun in our own secret Ravelry group where we could discuss what we were doing without being discovered.

After decidig suitable colours as we all knew Robynn is in general not a pastels girl, it was off to select yarn and knit.

Just after christmas the squares started rolling in and then it was time to organise them and start the whole process of sewing up.

Thanks to Ling and Suki who came over for an evenings sewing up at my house to get the main strips joined together.

Anyway the final result was really great and we had a great time eating cake, playing in the yarn room and playing one or two games in ready preparation of the impending step into motherhood.

The blanket





The Baby shower













Well interestingly enough I am posting this on your due date so we will now sit and wait and all see what happens.

Fiorri du Zucca or Cucumber socks.....................

It has been a long journey but I have finally got there.

After recieving this package back in the summer I initially had delays getting started because of other deadlines. I think it was finally August when I got started and then came to a rather abrupt halt when I realised I was struggling too much with four needles when the pattern would work much better on magic loop.

At that point I hadn't knit using magic loop. I was also finding the whole lace chart reading a new and exhausting experience. They got put to one side as the September Hopscotch socks arrived, which was a good thing as these forced me to learn magic loop and toe up adding to my skill set to go back to the other later.

I then made a little more progress by switching to the circular and finishing as far as the end of the first cuff/leg and then came to another halt at the heel cup. Alice had used a new type of heel construction I hadn't come across before and combined with having to apply that to the lace chart I again put them to one side.

The last package of the year arrived and I was determined to get them done clear of the deadline so I could get back onto the Fiori socks. So with Tear my soles dashed off over New Year I now had to get the Fiori finished there were no other excuses around to distract me and I had that wonderful carrot of completeing all the socks to get my badge and I wasn't going to let these beat me.

So it was off to several evenings at Socktopus shop for help guiding me through and a few phonecalls to the socktopus sockclub helpline (Alice while in the shop) to get me through.

And yes I finally made it before the end of year deadline.
Here are my finished socks which will always be known affectionatly by me as my Cucumber socks (well they are in the courgette family).





I knew by this stage once I got past the heel it was down the straight home with the reward of only having to follow the chart on one side of the needle. I had finally got into the rythmn of the pattern, but it had been a long time coming.





These socks will always be worn with special pride as I know how much I had to learn to complete them.

Happy Wedding Day Gabrielle..................

Dear Gabrielle,

I hope you have the most wonderful day.
Sending you lots of love and hugs for this very special occasion.



I hope the garter fits well and brings you and Brian all the best on the start of your new journey together. Looking forward to seeing you again in July when you come over to visit.

Valentines meal for 4................

Ok so with the credit crunch and babysitting we decided the best way to have a lovely Valentines meal was with our friends at home. Feed the kids pizza early on and stick them in front of a DVD and then let the meal commence.



Starters


Parsnip soup with bacon

Main course



Seabass with Olive mash, scallops and some fennel thing and asparagus.

Dessert



Chocolate pudding with Green and Blacks icecream and a strawberry to finish.

Plenty of alcohol was also consumed and a good time was had by all.

Been keeping a secret............................

I have been keeping a secret since half way through last year which I can finally show you here.

Back in June 2008 I was asked by Jeni of Fyberspates to knit up a sample for her in her lovely scrumptious yarn. Well the pattern is now available on her website for purchase so do go and have a look. Just click here.

So here are my pictures of the knitting up and the final product.









This colourway is Olive and is the chunkier version of scrumptious. It only took 5 skeins to knit the whole thing in the small size. This yarn goes a long long way. It only took 240grm to knit my Hey Teach.

This is such a lovely yarn and is the same stuff that I knitted up my Hey Teach over christmas. The colours are really vibrant and it is a pleasure to work with. It was the reverse stocking stitch on the fishermans sweater on how good it looked with the scrumptious yarn that inspired me to make the changes to the Hey Teach pattern.

You can find the yarn here.

House Sorting quiz for Socktopus Sockclub

SOCK(topus)CLUB House Sorting Quiz My Result: Yarnacre Cottage yogicknitter Welcome to Yarnacre!  A Yarnacre loves life, enjoys the good times and rolls with the bad. You're easy going, love love yarn, and don't mind taking a risk now and then (ever finish a knit with 4 cm of yarn left? Oh yeah, you're definitely one of us!).  Adventure! Daring! Lots and lots of yarn!  Yarnacre Cottage's mascot is a monkey.  The House colours are cinnamon and granite. Quiz School Take this quiz & get your result

SOCK(topus)CLUB House Sorting Quiz » Free Online Quizzes

Snow day......................

School is closed so we have built a snowman and I am going to spend the rest of the day knitting. Maybe a bit of comfort baking too!