Visiting

Well, part of the long silence has been due to our long awaited trip to Britain. Philip and I have not visited family and friends in Scotland together ever (I know, that's shameful isn't it?) and since we have a little girl, we thought it was high time we got ourselves over for a visit.

We drove all the way over with my parents... yes, that was a little nuts, but at least we got to see my grandfather, aunts and uncles and as many of our friends as we could squeeze into our short visit.


Rafaela loved meeting all sorts of new people and even though she was exhausted, I think she did benefit from it... OK so she probably didn't benefit from the lollipop someone gave her...



Philip got to enjoy a brief paddle in the sea



While Rafaela napped on the beach


We went to Loch Lomond with friends


We have loads of pics of Rafaela sleeping in different places, here are a couple of our favourites..

The beanbag nap


The Luton Airport nap

When we got back, it wasn't long till her birthday. Rafaela was 1 year old and decided it was the perfect time to start walking. She's been walking a week now and she's realized how much more convenient it is than crawling. It's really fun to watch he go. We'll post pics soon.

Bits and bobs

Well, I finished the Caera cowl, it knit up absolutely beautifully and I love how it looks, unfortunately I can't post a pic as I think the person due to receive it reads my blog. However, for all you ravelers, please feel free to peruse my pics here

I also, in a fit of sheer insanity, cast on something else, however, I believe it was a wiser choice of pattern... the dropstitch scarf, I have knitted it before, so I don't need to look at the pattern. Here's a sneak preview.



There was another pattern I wanted to knit and I checked the needle size required and I thought 3.75mm... no problem, I've got those needles. You see, a few years ago when I took up knitting, I bought about 30 sets of needles on ebay for £10 (in fact, it might have been more needles than that) and since then have completed my collection as I needed with bits and bobs, however, it seems that in all my knitting I have either never needed 3.75mm.... or I just made do with another size. So, I thought I would try out the new spectra flair acrylic tips from knit pro. They are much cheaper than the metal or wood tips which suits my 'bare minimum' price range. I ordered them a few days ago and was very happy when they arrived today... that's really fast delivery for me as they came from the UK.



I bought them at the ebay store of www.P2tog.com and I would happily recommend the shop to anyone as they were very efficient and well priced (items and postage).I can't wait to try them out!..... Oh yeah, and the little lady knitting card is a needle size conversion chart.

Last of all (then I will let you go) a while back I did a swap with a fabulous etsy shop. I received an email from Elizabeth, of Creations by Elizabeth, who was interested in a swap (involving nappies) so her end of the swap was these absolutely gorgeous fabric letters for Rafaela. We will put them on a little rail in her bedroom (once we have built her bedroom that is)


As you can see, there's a good reason as to why I don't get anything photographed these days!



Ok... I know I promised that would be it but just a quick not to say that I am having a sale on all my handpainted roving, just in case anyone is interested.

Outbacktus and Caera Christmas

Ok.... so I realised I never posted pics of the Outbacktus (lacy baktus) when it was finished, so here we are...


I love how it came out, it's a gift for someone.... and I don't really ever want to knit another one, it seemed stupidly difficult considering how uncomplicated the pattern is.

I also thought I would explain a little why I don't really knit (or blog) these days...

This is what just one wee section of my livingroom looks like after 10 minutes with Rafaela... Oh and she's making a quick getaway to mischief elsewhere... Multiply that by a house and you see my point.

All that said, I was feeling a little crazy last night, so I cast on a christmas knit. I would like to make a few knitted gifts for christmas presents so I thought I would get started (though, whether I get it knitted in time is another thing entirely)


This is the Caera Cowl which I am knitting in new lanark donegal silk tweed granit and cobalt. I love cables, I love how beautiful they make knits, but this was a prime example of why I should check out the instructions of a pattern more clearly before I commit to a knit. This is the description of one of the cable patterns

"C5B _ Slip next 4 stitches on cable needle and hold in back, K1; slip 3 of the 4 stitches on the cable needle back into the left hand needle; then (before knitting the stitches) bring the cable needle with the last stitch to front between the needles, passing to the left of the yarn: then k3 stitches from left hand needle; then knit last stitch from the cable needle."

Talk about a pain in the needles.... looks like I might have to concentrate a little while I knit this. Still, at least it's a cowl and not a whole jumper!

Found the uplink cable!

Well, I finally found my camera cable so I finally have recent pics of Rafaela available, so I thought it was time for a wee update on our girlie.

She's 10 months old now... can you believe it? As you can see, she quite literally gets into everything.


She loves to help mummy with the washing.


And she has this odd little habit of howling.... yes...like a little were-baby. I thought I would upload a video to demonstrate this curiosity.



We recently packed up her baby-walker and got out this little rocking horse.


This little Tri-ang rocking horse was mine when I was about her size.



It was a second hand tatty little horse with a plastic head which my dad bought for 50p (about 75 cents) and my mum thought 'oh no, what on earth is he going to do with that'. My dad cleaned it up, removed the broken plastic head, painted it, got an old piece of wood and sat one night carving the new head for my little horsie.


As you can see, Rafaela appreciates it as much as I do.


You may also have noticed we did manage to get our grass cut. Rafaela is in her element in the garden which is lovely, and in-between the dreadful storms we have had, we all spend time sitting in the garden enjoying the flowers and the weather.

So that's about it from this little chicken at the moment, I'll leave you with a photo of her contemplating the complexities of grass...

Finally a productive post!

Well, I've been merrily following all the lovely things other people have been doing but havn't managed to get round to posting about my FO's. I have momentarily misplaced the cable for my camera, which means I can't show pics of the Sun bonnet I finished for Rafaela, but I promise to do so as soon as I find the cable.

However, if you take a peek at my mini-etsy shop on the side bar, you can see what other things I have been up to. I decided to take up hand painting roving, some for personal use, as I cannot afford to buy it, and some to sell, so that I make a little money somewhere. I think it looks lovely, the pics arn't the greatest because etsy makes you shrink them down to load them up. This one is my favourite of all



I called it 'Stormy shore' and it's lovely soft Blue Faced Leicester. I really enjoyed dying them too.

Anyway, I'll hopefully post tomorrow with pics of the bonnet and maybe some other things I have been up to. Thank you all for your kind thoughts regarding the storm. We did have more bad weather but nothing else as bad as it was, thankfully. We havn't managed to fix all the damage yet, that's going to take a while.

Storm of the century

We had a huge storm today. It hit our little village with a force that no-one here has ever seen before, especially at this time of year. Our power was out all day, the rain beat so hard on our old windows that it eventually poured right through them and flooded our hallway. We heard terrible breaking sounds and cracking sounds, though we couldn't see what caused them until the storm settled a little, enough to go out and inspect the damage.

The storm blew our front fence over and knocked part of the roof on the main house off


It also blew the end off of our other out building



There are other minor bits and pieces, but we were blessed compared to our neighbors. The widow next door had a hole the height of my body in her roof and the courtyard was full of broken down trees (one of which had fallen through the roof causing the hole)

The other neighbor had the trees in front of their house blow down



and they had considerable damage to their roof, including the loss of their chimney.



The people on the street rallied to help one another. The old bachelor across the street had no damage to his house and came out to help us put the fence up temporarily (it will have to be replaced), he then went next door to help the old widow.

We live in a rural agricultural village, people without much money. They farm their land and raise their animals. this storm is a real blow for them, not only is there damage to their property, but, like us, they also have considerable damage to their food crops in the garden. Not only was there considerable damage today, but there are more storms predicted, so it will be a case of patching up as much as we can, securing everything and bracing ourselves for the coming weather.

Well I'm here now and that's what counts!

Well I hadn't realised how long it had been since I updated my blog. I just got absolutely swamped. I apologise for falling off the grid, I hope you are all well, I'm going to catch up with you all soon.

So where was I....well, first of all, it was spring and we have an acre of land, that's a lot to plant and it take a good while to plant it all.

As you can see, we also need to trim our grass!!

I also had a lot of nappy/diaper orders on my etsy site, which I have been frantically sewing in the evenings after my little tot has gone to bed.

On top of this, I took on another job, a part time as a medic in another charity that run a home for the elderly. The job has a lot of work to set up systems initially, so I was a little run off my feet and exhausted. Though it's starting to get a little easier now that I have finished most of the set-up done.

Lastly, our little tootsie has mastered crawling and getting into things and it looks as though we are not far off walking, as she is already standing herself up against things and coasting along.

She's such a little monster, we have the most fabulous fun with her, she never stops moving from morning to night, she has so much personality, most days she doesn't nap and she's brimming with energy. She now has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth which, when she's not using them, she likes to grind them together. yuk!

So that's about where we are just now, hopefully I can get some more blogging done in the next little while. Can't promise it will have any knitting though...

Swaps and spring

Well, its been a while hasn't it! I started back at work which clearly just throws life upside down, meaning no knitting, no crafting, no time whatsoever till now. Also doesn't help that I have misplaced my camera.... oops! So I took pics with a different camera for this post.

Let me just tell you about the the Seven days of Special swap that I took part in. My swap partner was in New Zealand and managed to get her swap together quicker than I did (take a look at her gorgeous blog, puts me to shame!)... as if that would be hard! It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't get a chance to blog about it, so here we go.... the packages were individually wrapped in these cute little packages made out of a craft magazine, which was gorgeous, with little stamped numbers for the day i was supposed to open them.

Here's a little overall view (minus the edible chocolate pineapples)



A close up of Millie the mouse, made for Rafaela.... her head is made from a 'birds of australia' tea towel...so sweet.


A lovely card of vintage buttons from her own collection


And a gorgeous vintage copy of Villette by Charlotte Bronte....



I really enjoyed taking part in the swap, I hope that she will enjoy my parcel as much as I have enjoyed hers!

It's spring here now and while we had a cold dip into the minus again this weekend, it is in general getting warmer and brighter. We have loads of work to do around our land if we are to accomplish what we hope this year so it's busy busy busy here.

Proper Pics

A photographer friend of ours recently came for a short visit to us in Romania. She took incredible photo's of the work my folks do and their day center and so we begged her to take a couple of pics of us too.

This is just a little post mainly for the benifit of friends and family who would like to see more pics of our growing little monster...

My girlie and her auntie

Checking out her toes...
Obsessed with the camera flash. She kept looking straight at it with this stunned look on her face.

Having a good giggle at mummy tickling her tummy


That's it for pics just now, though I added one on the side bar. She has bother her bottom teeth now and they are really sharp, I hope she doesn't work out how to bite me, though I think I am being a little over - optimistic.

Busy Busy and Broken down

Well, I have spent the best part of the last 3 weeks housebound. Our old, tired and irritating hunk of junk car played up for 3 weeks. We were paying for one trip into town with 2 days at the mechanic (who is very kind to us thankfully) we were repeatedly towed, rescued and picked up by various members of my family, until last friday when we decided it might be time to make a huge sacrifice and buy another car. No sooner had we decided this, than the car actually just gave up. So while the old car settled down for a long rest on the driveway, my sister picked us up to go look at some used cars. We finally settled with a VW Golf, diesel engine as it's more economical. We couldn't really afford it, but we also can't afford not to have a car as we live in a village and transport is crucial, including for my getting to work. So, we are very excited about it all, if not considerably poorer.

Frustrated days at home meant I could catch up on some things I had to get done, as well as having a little time left for knitting.

I finished my wee one's 'dress' but it looks like it will be a better top for a one year old than a dress for a 6 month old baby, so that's probably what it will be. The wool worked out beautifully for it, so pretty.




I have also been spinning....but not for myself. I have an order to spin 1000 yards of wool for someone on etsy. The shetland moorit tops are absolutely delicious...


This is the yarn spun and navajo plied (as per request)



It's really lovely, my hubby is jealous I am not knitting him a soft jumper (sweater for those of you picturing my husband in a dress).

My first nappy (diaper) order went down well, my client received them and was happy with them, which I am glad about. I have another little idea in the works that I am hoping to start selling soon.... will keep you posted.

So, that's pretty much it from this wee corner of the world for the time being. It's snowy still and cold so we can't start work on our garden yet but that's going to be a priority soon too. Rafaela is learning to crawl, she can get onto all fours, but she seems to start moving backwards when she does. She's still blowing her raspberries and has also progressed to sticking her tongue out too... which is embarassing in the quiet intervals at church.

National Raspberry Day

I thought I would brighten up your day with a little glimpse of what our girlie did all day long yesterday


Yup....all day long

Spinning, snow and snoozing

Well, I finally managed to get some pics of my latest spinning adventure. I won this lovely fiber in a giveaway on Phatfiber before christmas.

which has spun lovely colours

I was looking through my piles of pics and I thought I would post this...



One of my baby pics... followed by one of Rafaela


My wee girlie... she's much older than I was in my pic... in fact, I can hardly believe she is almost 5 months old now.I took this one of her last night while she snoozed on her daddy's arm... it amazes me how much she has grown.... she's so long!


And her favourite pastime is eating her fists...


We've had freezing fog, which is beautiful, but impossible to photgraph and then its started snowing again yesterday and hasn't stopped yet, but thankfully it's not been as cold and the pipes have not frozen again like they did before christmas.