Away for a week!

School starts again for my kids again in just over a week, so this week we're going away for a few days. I'm going to visit Kerry and her family and meet Phoebe, then we're going camping in Scotland for a few days so I can see Ally. I'm really looking forward to getting away for a few days and I'm taking plenty of knitting with me too!

Lazy Day!

I've done hardly anything else all day long after finishing that shawl this morning. I finished it around 7am, started Askew which I did a couple of centimetres of, then I decided that I had to sleep, so I went to bed for a couple of hours. When I got up I went online and spent the day catching up with all the stuff I haven't looked at since starting the shawl, it feels really weird to think I haven't knitted since 8am as I've been knitting every chance I've had and it feels strange not to have needles in my hands lol.

I'm wracking my brains as to which projects to take with me while visiting Kerry and Ally, not sure how much opportunity I'll get while in Scotland, but I'm sure I'll find something!

It’s finished!

I didn't go to sleep last night and I've managed to get it finished! Hooray!!!

Nearly there!

I took my shawl to show the others at the knitting group last night -- it's been such hard work, I guess I just wanted reassurance from experienced knitters that it's all going ok! Daft, eh!?

I just hope that it'll be finished by Sunday and that I won't run out of wool! Anyway here's today's pic for all you interested peeps lol

Shopping for Isis

Isis destroyed a few of her toys a couple of days ago - literally pulled the stuffing out of them! So I bought her some new ones today, we got this huge long thing that's got TWO squeakers in it…she's racing around the house having great fun!

Tick, Tick, Tick – will I have enough wool??

I didn't get as much done last night as Tuesday nights are cinema-and-Tesco's night with mum. We went to see the new Mummy film, compared to the others it was bloody rubbish!

My main worry now is that I'm going to run out of wool before the shawl is actually finished, I've been amazed at how much I've created out of those little 25g balls, but I'm really starting to worry. If I run out and have to order more, I won't be finished by Sunday!

Made loads of progress!

Sometimes I love being an insomniac - I got loads done on that shawl since posting on Sunday morning...I was going to post last night, but I'd over done it and given myself the mother of all migraines - I had to find my way to my bed and get undressed with my eyes closed.

I've done so much on this shawl that I've had to decrease to smaller needles, get a load of this!

Ravelympics closing time

I've just found out that the closing date isn't today - I've got until the end of the closing ceremonies which is 4.59pm 24th August!

That means I've got a good chance of getting this shawl finished then!

I'll be up all night tonight as it's WWE Summerslam and I always watch the main events live!

I wonder how much I can get done tonight...

Shawl progress

Well, it's the last day of the olympics and it's not finished - gutted! Oh well, I'm still going on with it, it goes fine until I hit one of the pattern rows - they're all K2tog and yarn overs and I always end up with one stitch too few or too many at the end of the round!

I'm now on Pattern row 7 and it's a decrease row too - got to the end of that last night and had about 9 stitches too few so I frogged the entire row!

It's driving me crazy lol - as you can see, I've now incorporated ALL of the colours and the pattern is definitely noticeable now, which is how I was able to find a stitch that I'd dropped yesterday!

I reckon that if I hadn't dropped that stitch (which took me 20 minutes to find as it was in amongst a hole cluster!) and managed to complete a pattern row first time without having to undo it and check it every 30 seconds as I go around, I might well have finished within the Ravelympics time limit. I'm not too disappointed (I just wanted the right to brag lol), I don't consider myself a novice by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not an expert either and this is the first time I've knitted lace and in all honesty, I've thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn't feel at all worried about knitting this again for someone else!

I'm also bloody annoyed as I wiped my other computer now I've got this one then discovered that all the patterns I've downloaded and bookmarked aren't on this computer and I can't remember where I found most of them.

I'm not going to bother looking for them until I've cleared some of my current queue of projects - I've got wool to do at least 4 projects - that'll keep me going for a couple of weeks anyway!

Shawl progress

Managed to get loads done last night and I have now joined in the fifth colour, only one more shade to join!

Shawl progress

Well, all is going reasonably well, I'm just about to start decreasing inwards and I've added the third colour - it's coming along nicely, but I don't think it'll be finished by Sunday lol

Shawl progress

I've finally joined in another colour! I did the first pattern row last night and discovered that I had too many stitches - do you know how HARD it is to accurately count 576 stitches?? It took me 4 hours to get it right, I ended up with a headache and sore hands lol, anyway, here's todays pic! It's going great (when I don't have to count stitches LOL)

The newest recipient of my knitting

Kerry finally went into labour yesterday and Phoebe was born at 11.23pm last night weighing 7lbs 8oz, she's very pink and chubby and gorgeous - can't wait to give her a cuddle. The picture of Kerry holding her was taken 10 minutes after Phoebe had been born.

Shawl progress

I've finally finished the border! It's now one big circle, I've picked up the 576 stitches and I'm working towards the middle. I was going to post this last night, but went to bed with a migraine! I know now that it's going to progress quite quickly - I hate doing short rows (the border was only 10 - 14 stitches), now I get to work in the round!

Shawl progress

The Cinnamon Latte shawl I'm doing for the Ravelympics is going well - I've decided it will be a gift for my mum who is going on one of the final QE2 cruises in October. She says she's got a nice outfit to wear with it.

The border is almost complete, I've done 63 out of 72 scallops, once I've done 72 I will join the ends together to make a ring, then i will pick up 576 stitches and work in towards the centre - I'm hoping the actual shawl will knit up reasonably fast as I'll be constantly decreasing.

It's not very clear in the picture, but I've placed a yale key in the centre of the (almost) circle for a size comparison.

Mel moved, romper finished, shawl progress

Mel and her family moved yesterday into their new house, I took the boys down and we all pitched in - at one point her front garden looked like this: It took most of the day, but we finally had everything piled up in the lounge by dinner time lol, I've just received a text from her saying that so far they've managed to get Laura's room sorted - everyone slept on mattresses on the floor last night lol.
I've finished ANOTHER romper suit for Phoebe, it's very pretty and looks adorable, but I must be honest the pattern was SOOOOOOOOOO boring!

I've started a shawl called Cinnamon Latte for the Ravelympics, I've never knitted lace before and I had to frog a few times before I caught the jist of it, but I finally managed to get going and this is how much I managed in a few hours - it doesn't look like much - that's an A4 piece of paper it's lying on, but I'm proud of it lol. If I remember, I will try and post daily pictures of my progress.

Winge time

We had a knitting meet up on Monday night at Medina Quay, most of us turned up which was great! When we arrived, we found two older men sitting at our table. They asked if they could stay at the table with us women, but I said 'only if you knit' lol - he refused to believe that I was part of the knitting group and demanded to see my work.

Yes, I knit AND crochet and I have piercings and tattoos! Why do people find that so hard to believe?

My son Matt came home last night after spending a couple of nights at his girlfriend Kara's house - he didn't get up until nearly 1pm today, then around 3pm asked when I was going to do laundry. I told him that laundry would only be done if clean stuff was taken upstairs AND put away and dirty stuff was bought down and sorted into the laundry bin.

He shot off upstairs to sort his laundry out, bought it all downstairs and I stuck some in the machine - when it had finished, I took it outside to put on the line - he followed me out and said "wouldn't it dry quicker in the drier?"
Outside looks like this:
He doesn't get why the hell I'd pay the electric on a tumble drier if I can use the sun and fresh air!

Teens - dontcha just love em - roll on term time again!

On the plus side, I did manage to get some sunbathing done, which is great for my psoriasis, but that means I didn't get any knitting done so far today - I'm off to cook dinner then make up the romper suit I'm currently making!

A New Toy!

I decided I should spoil myself, so I bought a new toy-get a load of this!
It's a Hewlett Packard laptop with a touchscreen, bluetooth, card reader, DVD rewriter & lots of other toys lol it's even got a pen so I can write directly onto the screen which is exactly how I wrote this post!

Isis

Took Isis for a walk in the park today on the way to visit Mason, my godson. She had a great time running about and I managed to get a few pictures before cam batteries died!
We spent a couple of hours visiting with Mel & Mason (who's miserable because he's teething!) then walked home through the park.

Knitting goodies

I've received a few goodies today, a new bag:
this will act as a handbag and a knitting bag, it's got large compartments and lots of little pockets for odds n sods.

I also got a Knit Picks Binder for all my knitting notions:
this holds all my needle tips and other stuff I need for all my knitting, great innit! Many thanks to Allison for getting this to me so quickly. I got my set of Options from her, Kerry bought them as a birthday present and because we told her it was a present, she wrapped the set in Forever Friends wrapping paper - I almost cried cos it was so sweet!

I also received some magazines that I ordered from Rowan, luckily they arrived safely which was surprising as the envelope split, but now I've got Big Easy, Scottish Island Knits, Big It Up, Scottish Inspirations, The Next Big Thing & Big Just Got Bigger, I only had to pay £3.95 p&p and they sent next day DHL!

I also received Plus-Size Knits and Rowan magazines 20, 32, 36 & 42 which I bought off eBay.

It was like Christmas!!!