Showing posts with label yarn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yarn. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 December 2011

A December Day Off

We had thought of going to Arundel WWT today but the forecast wasn't great and although we have a voucher for a free book (as we recently joined) it would have been a bit of a rush as Tris was off to his friend Joel's house at 2. We went to Middle Farm and bought Garvo layers mash and duck pellets, half a sack of which I am going to give to Joel's mum in lieu of payment for board and lodgings for T...

After a stop at Harper & Eede to look for a rake, which we didn't buy, and a fleecy-lined shirt for me, which we did, we went to the Green Man for lunch. It does great food and big portions so Tristan went off full and happy, even though he is struggling to get used to the button fly on his new jeans.

On the way back from delivering Tris, we went to Martins Wood Farm and had a look at their chickens as they stock hybrids, not that they've got a lot in stock at the moment.

My yarn from Jamieson & Smith has arrived:


It's very 'wool-y' after the cashmerino I've been working with! - but I want to have a go with knitting something and see how it goes. I've been asked by Amber to crochet her a hamster so I'll start that shortly...

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Bees, bikes and yarn

Amber has had a bad cold which has required lots of iPlayer and You Tube to get her through the worst of it and to save a row I let her have my laptop, but I have stolen it back for long enough to do a quick blog post. All my wool from Stash arrived yesterday:


I realised, being rather new to the whole yarn lark, that I had sort of slightly mis-ordered, which resulted in me being rather a sad bunny when I thought I might have to send it back. However, having spoken to Nicky we decided I could probably salvage the situation with a bit of creativity. I want to knit Tristan a woolly hat so having never tackled knitting with circular needles or Fairisle/stranded knitting and with 2 end-of-year exams looming, I thought there was no better time to start such a project. Tristan, of course, is overwhelmed with joy at the thought of one of his mother's hand-knitted creations for his birthday just as any 14 year old boy would be. At least that's why I presume he didn't really say anything when I measured his head.

Here it is thus far though:


I'm on row 4. Or was it 3...

My lupins seem to have burst back into life meaning they have been flowering pretty much non-stop since May:


And the bees are still working the Himalayan balsam by the river. It's tricky getting pictures but they are coming back to the hive with bright gold pollen which according to my chart (yes! really!) could be ivy or balsam so although it is a pernicious weed, it's very good for my girls getting ready for winter. They've kicked all the boys out now as they would use valuable resources and I'm hoping to have a look in the hives once more before the winter to check they've enough stores.


Rosie and I cycled to town today which was nice and surprisingly quick, although perhaps a library trip wasn't very wise as my basket was laden and I had omitted to remember that it's slightly uphill all the way back. Still, R enjoyed it and it was great to use my new bike; it ran really well and I hadn't realised how much I had missed not having one.