Bristol

I headed up with the girls to Bristol, to visit my brother, his partner and my nephew (only 4 months old).
Everytime we visit i am always impressed with how much walking the girls do, without complaining, because there is so much for them to see and be absorbed in.
This holiday was no exception. All around the city they have large statues of Shaun the Sheep, and we walked around searching for them.

My favourite was the wool, crochet and knitted sheep; especially after I had just brought some Regia sock yarn from sew and sew around the corner.

Knitting

I immediately cast on the blue regia for DD#1 60 stitch cast on cuff down, 2.5mm Addi circulars. UPDATE; for sock #2 I changed to my 2.5mm Karbonz

But I also frogged the Zigzagular socks so that I can cast on a follow as the pattern states, cuff down rather than toe up.

Axx

Portsmouth

My hometown and what a busy place to be in this last week.
We were taken over by the America's Cup, a sailing competition, over the weekend.
The weather was not particularly good for the whole weekend, but we enjoyed sitting on a rather quiet section of the beach on Saturday to watch the race. The girls enjoyed the beach time and built sandcastles.

Then in the evening, amazingly, I was invited to the evening concert with McBUsted, Wet,Wet,Wet and Spandau Ballet performing. I loved Wet,Wet,Wet, or I could rephrase that...i knew all the words to their songs (hehehe)!!

Axx

Dorset Holiday

We went on a very relaxing holiday to Dorset. We headed to a glamping site called Bloomfield Camping. We found it on the coolcamping website.
What a wonderful surprise! With only 4 tents set up each with their own kitchen shed, fire pit , table and chairs. Fantastic views all around of Hambledon Hill.

We had a very relaxing week away. i got time to knit, read , walk and take in some beautiful views. It was a place for quality family time.

Knitting

As I said I had time to knit.

I cast on casual cardigan from Knit, Wear, Love by Amy Herzog

I'm working on size 34 in DROPS Lima in a rust colour on 4.5mm straight knitpro Symphonies

While I was away I finished:

Ocean Bubble  in DROPS baby silk alpaca in grey and red. Wow, such a soft and smooshie yarn.

Axx

Video podcasts

So, as I had said I would add a list to the video podcasts I watch.
To be honest I do watch these when I am at the gym, on the bike! or I watch them while I have a quiet moment and can knit too.
I like the way you feel as though someone is there talking with you while you are either peddling on a bike or knitting away, kind of comforting.

Here's my list (so far...)
In no particular order, I'm just typing up my subscribe to list, all these can be found on youtube, I have tried to link to websites too.

Geeky girls knit

Yarmgasm podcast

junkyarn

The Canadian Knitter Podcast

A Homespun house

Minerva Turkey Knits

YarnderWoman

thestashbuckler

Knitting Expat Podcast

little bobbins knits

Teahouseknits Podcast

Dianne Brown

Manda rine's

a wee bit knitty...

Fairy Little

Elizabeth Green Musselman

in a sKnit

Stitched in Sweden

Sara Wright

Fuzzy Love Knots

Peggy May

SusanBAnderson

fatsquirrelfibres

and to help me with fiddly knitting techniques..  VeryPink Knits,iknitwithcatfur

And I must mention all this started with knitmoregirls podcast, which i love and got me into watching the podcasts. I listen to Yasmin and GiGi in the car, I now need a longer car journey.

Here is also a list of vendors at iKnitFandango

Happy watching, and let me know of any other great podcasts I can start watching or listening to.

Alice xx

IKnitFandango

At the station, Ready for a two hour journey, knitting in my bag!

Thank you for my free bag, Gerard, it made my day.

Look at all my goodies, I could have brought more, thankfully I had a budget.

Last minute, I went up to London to iKnitFandango. I procrastinated for a while before hand, and I had mentioned it to mummy, but there were kid activities going on so I thought I shouldn't go. Thankfully, my mummy sent me a text on Friday asking if I wanted to go, and I am so glad I did.

After a successful trip to London for my mum with a chance meeting with Stephen West of westknits, she wanted to meet with other knitting gurus. I'm rather jealous as she has tickets to hear Kaffe Fasset speak on Thursday too. I suppose it is one of those things we can look forward to when we get to give up the day job.

So, back to iKnit. It was organised by the owner of iKnit London. And he had chosen a beautiful venue, the royal horticultural halls, they were beautiful light and airy. The WI were there running the cafe, it was lovely to have fresh sandwiches and delicious cake, encouraging us to stay a little longer.

In the hall were lots of different yarn related stalls. I was so busy chatting with stall holders and my mum, that I completely forgot to take photos! So I will try to create links to etsy, websites, or other links with the stalls I looked at. 

My main aim was to get to spincityUK, Voolenvine talks about her drop spindles and I knew I had to get one. With my birthday just around the corner, my mummy kindly brought it for me. I just hope there are some special fibres to work with wrapped for later. There were a few fibre stalls, but I was just a bit over whelmed by it all, so next yarn show I think I'll be on it.

To be honest, the best part was looking at all the indie dyers, what amazing colours, in the wonderful natural light. I came away with amazing colours, and so did my mum! So some more projects to come...

The best part of the day, 2 train journeys of two hours each way knitting time! 

I've completed the wurm.

And put a dent into my Sweden spring shawl too. I think I need to get some more stitch markers to be able to see my progress.

All these ideas I'm getting from a variety of podcasts, I will add a list to all the different ones I'm enjoying at the moment.

Thank you to all the podcasts and instagramknitters that I follow. As I would not have known about iKnit and had such a lovely day with my mummy (and my daddy came too, he enjoyed looking at the different finished projects).

Thank you iKnit for organising such an event. 

Now, I need to join a local yarn group, just got to find the energy after work and the courage to just go for it!

Alice xx

update to add: I will create a new entry to give a list of video podcasts and links.

Blogging in the evening

 I thought I would try and add some pictures of the knitting I'm attempting

The yarn here I brought from Hobbycraft, I was desperate to cast on a shawl and chose stitched in Sweden 's Sweden Spring Shawl and I hope to include it in her KAL.

I love the idea of the knitting online community, but I struggle with been consistent and regular with even just watching podcasts let alone commenting on ravelry group chats.

Here is a wurm hat, another ravelry pattern. This was been worked on at my gym after I had taken the littlest swimming. She wore me out, especially as I had already run a rounders session for school sport!

Now I would love to add an inspirational quote.... Maybe I will add his later

Axx

Wicked Wooly Washing again but with the ending

I know that washing isn't really exciting but, I remembered the kids foam squares and had to try it out. This post is a little shakes because I am using my iPad rather than the laptop and I can't see what I am writing. The iPad does however let me post pictures. I'm not sure which is better?

I have added the blogger app to my iPad, Here's hoping to better blogging. I am clearly a newb here and it will hopefully continue even when the summer term begins!

Edited to add.

' The hours absorbed in beauty are the only hours we live' Richard Jeffries

Reading is not my best subject

 

I have been knitting socks for some time now. I have made at least 10 pairs, which does not seem many to some but to me it is loads. My first pair where made with my sister helping and guiding me along the way with hints that she had found from the internet. Then in my infinite wisdom I believed I could do it!

I have brought a variety of books with ideas in and cobbled together a mish-mash of styles and patterns that generally turn out to be wearable socks. My favourite book is still Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee (that book has travelled). Now all the time I have been doing this I have spent little more than £4-£8 on yarn. If I had seen it on special in Lidl I would even buy there. So with this in mind, I wasn’t too concerned with the outcome as long as someone could get their foot inside and wear them. I love, loved my socks.

But to my horror last night I realised that I had not been knitting the pattern correctly.

On the heel flap the pattern calls for *Sl1, K1*, repeat * to end. I had been reading this as: Sl1, K to end. There is a big difference to the pattern and my interpretation. Well, sock 1 had been finished, so I turned to by husband and said sock 1 is wrong. He muttered and smiled at me. I continued to show him my mistake and went on to explain that sock 2 would be different. He muttered and smiled adoringly back to me. Sock 2 is indeed different, it has a super squishy, comfortable heel flap. This goes on to explain why my heel flaps are wearing a little thin. Happily, my husband doesn’t mind wearing odd socks, and probably won’t notice.

Why am I even bothered by this, you could ask, it’s like this…

I decided to splash out on sock yarn. I had spent much more than usual because I wanted to support the great indie dyers on Etsy and across the UK. I was meant to be knitting a great pair of socks to show my support of all things British. (I have been working on British Values at work and how to promote this in Schools). Have I failed?

Of course I haven’t, I have done better than that…. I have learnt something new. Next pair of socks will be better for it.

My next challenge will be to join a KAL. Summer term is busy at work, but I am always looking for ways to enjoy the time I can find.

*As my husband turns to me mutters and gives me a super, wicked smile.*

 

‘The wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.’ 

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

Easter Sunshine

Since my last profound statement....I will bog more. of course I have not managed it at all. But that is Ok, you should do as many things as you love to do... my main love is knitting.
When work gets too busy I am more likely going to give up on other things rather than knitting.
Already the girls and I have had a week away from school, which is about enough time to recover from the job and all the learning. Now we can get on with the holidays.

A brief glimpse of sunshine, a thankful ray of sun through the window and with this the promise of a brighter week.
My eldest is learning to cycle on the roads this week; a course called Bikeability. I'm sure I remember it being called cycling proficiency when I was a kid. We had the bike out last week in the wind and the rain in preparation, so hopefully she will learn lots and become a better cyclist. This is especially important as we live in a very busy city with lots of cars about.
So whiles she is out on her bike, youngest and I will get into my classroom and tidy up the mess I left behind. But enough of that...
I will try to be back and give a knitting up date. I'll leave you with a picture of my socks with yarn  from BritishBeaKnits and the pattern is yarn harlot's basic sock from knitting rules.