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.

The little girl and the lamb

Well, no further on the Baktus... so, sadly no knitting pics today. I should have some spinning pics but I got lazy and didnt get round to it.

However, this is not to say we havn't been busy. We butchered a lamb today.... we turned this....



into these ...


...manageable portions of lovely fresh lamb. We also made haggis, i miss haggis an awful lot and the only way to get it here really is to make it for yourself, so we did.

mixed meat and spice

and toasted oatmeal

which we then put into portion sized sausage links (rather than in the traditional sheep's stomach). I think that the mini-haggis dont look bad for an amateur.



My little girl was hitched in her little walker to keep her occupied while we worked. At one point I thought she seemed particularly quiet....



Yup.... she was sound asleep, with the musical keyboard and flashing lights going off... she just slept on....



I got video footage of her too, it made me laugh so much to see her.

Wool washing

Well, the fleece finally arrived and i got to work washing it...


After a few baths it looked like this


Amazing isnt it... just dishwashing soap makes such a huge difference. So now i am carding my way through it and starting to spin it bit by bit, its lovely.

The other thing that arrived was this...

An exceptionally kind gift from Rani... she even put in some Reeses christmas bells... they only just made it into the picture. I feel utterly spoiled. It's really hard to even get woolen yarn here and we dont get any handpainted....at all... its lovely and I'm really excited about what i can knit with it. These skeins however....

Are destined to become a little dress for Rafaela. I think I will do the 'liitle sister dress' with it.
I can't wait to cast on... but my 3mm needles are still busy with this....

I hope to have it finished over the weekend. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Yikes.... it's New Year!

Well.... Happy new year, I hope 2010 brings new opportunities and lots of joy your way. Hopefully this one wont go by as quickly as 2009 did.

Lets catch up shall we....

The week and a half leading up to christmas saw us snowed in with temperatures of -19 C ....which is pretty cold. Outside looked like this



And driving looked like this....




.... yes that is ice on the inside of the window..... so we avoided going out unless it was absolutely necessary. This meant that I had a little time to do this....



Yes, you are looking at the finished nativity...."what nativity?" you may ask... well... when I started this blog, I shortly thereafter started a knitted nativity, which has been unfinished since. So, after 3 years and much nagging on my hubby's part, I have finished it, and we had it set up over christmas.

I also got some more gifts made....


heat bags for my grandmother



A fun little outing bag packed with goodies for Yasmina (fostered little sister who is 3)



And a patchwork tablecloth for my mum (sorry about hopeless upsidedown photo).

And we set up the christmas tree




We spent Christmas day with my folks and stayed there for a while. We got Rafaela a baby walked for her christmas.... she absolultely loves it, though she doesn't look impressed in the Photo

Finally, I'll share the joy I have over what my lovely Husband gave me for christmas. He says it's combined christmas and birthday (he hadnt given me anything for my birthday this year)

yup.... it's a .....


Spinning wheel...can you believe it? isn't it beautiful... I'm thrilled and I am also getting the hang of it now.... look...



close up....



that's my first spun and plied lot off the wheel... it's about 67m of thick yummy yarn.... it's so exciting. I have ordered 2 fleeces to prepare and spin.... I'm really enjoying myself.

So.... that's us all caught up, I do apologise for the silence but I am sure you all had enough to do with christmas and new year hope you all had as great a christmas as we did.