Oh my God - it's May!!

I know in my last post I said I couldn't believe where the month has gone but when my DH pointed out that it was actually May now I really was surprised! So in 8 days time my DD is 2 years old and the week after that we'll be getting our bathroom done - absolute chaos! And a party to sort out as well (and I've not even done invites yet!!!). I think I've been in my own little dream world where time and dates have no meaning... until things like Birthday Parties and builders coming pop up on the horizon! Ah well!

Well I have finally got my spinning wheel out and been doing a bit more spinning lately and Chris came over last night to have another of our 'Spin-ins' which was nice as DH has been on a late shift for the last few weeks so I've missed out on my Knitting Group which is about my only contact with the adult world without DD tagging along! I've finally spun up some of the Cotswold Curls that I dyed months ago now and it called to be spun finely and I think this will become socks - that way if it's too lary a yarn you won't really notice them hidden on my feet! LOL! The colours are great spun up (pictures to follow later) the purple and blue are really vivid and bright; the green a bit wishy washy; the yellow is actually almost Mum's Blimey Limey and the orange is more peachy so it's not quite the rainbow I had pictured but it will be fun and funky at this rate if not a bit bright!

Butterfly is knitting up quite nicely and is a quick knit - the pattern was learnt with Jaywalkers so there wasn't that awkward stage of learning and making mistakes. At this point I've nearly finished the first sleeve and so will only have one more sleeve and the collar to knit before sewing it all up - just in time for the warmer weather!!

I found this test on Riggwelter's site and thought I'd have a go and I think the results are quite accurate - DH would definitely agree to the 'quite moody' part! And I definitely like my comfort.

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are very passionate and quite temperamental. While you can be moody, you always crave comfort. You are not a very grounded person. You prefer dreams to reality. For you, it's all about possibilities. You believe that people see you for how you are, not how you look. But deep down, you know that's not exactly true. Your near future is in a very different place (both physically and mentally) from where you are right now. For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

Right I'm going back to Butterfly - there will be a FO for you soon!! And I will slowly catch up with everyones blogs - there just seems so many now to visit! Thanks for all the comments and support!

Stop Press: I was just about to sign off and publish this when the post arrived and brought an exciting package from Riggwelter who's competition I won a while back (now she's another busy lady!). Before I even opened the parcel it was interesting - such great writing on the label and inside were some lovely chocolates! Now I really must get the camera out quickly for these as I don't think they'll last too long in this house! Thank you so much Angie!!

I'm still here - honestly!

Where has the month gone? I've been meaning to post for ages now but have been so tired of an evening that I couldn't face sitting at the computer and so I've sat and knit instead. Saying that though I've not really had a load of time to be able to knit as gone are the days when Emily would have a nap so I've less time to be a everything in. I really want to get some spinning done as well soon so I'll have to make myself put my knitting down one evening!

Spring has arrived in our village and brings with it the impressive avenue of cherry blossom with I just love. So Emily and I have been out admiring the blossom in between playing on the cricket field (yes it really is like a stereotypical English Village with cricket on the green!) and we thought you may like to see it for yourselves!

I do have some knitting content for you as well in the form of a progress shot of 'Butterfly' form 'Noro Knits' (I think). I'm using my American Noro-esque yarn which is lovely to knit and the colours are lovely as well. And wouldn't you just know it - the pattern for this is virtually the same as for Jaywalkers!! Speaking of which since I made them I've seen about 5 or 6 Jays and I've not seen any for years before now - magic socks!
You can also see the kind gift from my wonderful benefactress (Mum) of a set of Boyes of my very own!! And fabulous they are too! Anyway I'm keeping this short and sweet today as I'm hogging Mum's computer to update this for you and we have plans afoot to venture out into the rain for some food shopping and maybe some beads in the new local bead shop - fingers crossed for beads large enough to spin with!!

I've met my Matchmaker!

Or: 'Under the influence of others!'

Well Mum has not long left for home after a lovely (but busy) visit up here. As usual we've crammed a load in and managed to get a load of knitting bits done as well. I'll leave Mum to update on her knitting etc but I will say that both she and I have fallen off the yarn diet waggon! But I'm sure you'll understand when you hear that we visited one of my local yarn shops to see if we could get more yarn for the Poppy project as seen in an earlier post. Mission accomplished - the last 2 balls are now safely snuggled with the rest of my stash - more later about Poppy. However the lure of a yarn store closure reduction caught both Mum and me. Plus Chris from my knitting group was there as well to encourage browsing and buying! Needless to say we left the shop with more that my 2 extra balls for Poppy. But look at it - could you have resisted a half price pack of Jaeger Matchmaker DK? The colourway is called 'Watercrest' and could have been sat in the shop for years. The shop is full of old discontinued yarns sat on the shelves and is a real treasure chest of bits that haven't been around for years and newer yarns and it will be a real shame to see it go but the poor lady who owns it lost her husband just before Christmas after years of trying to get him to retire and now just wants rid of the shop and their son has no interest whatsoever in continuing to run it.

And the yarn has already got a project assigned to it from 'Lace Styles' so I at least know what I'm going to do with it and don't feel that it will be sat in the house for years trying to work out what to knit with it. That was one of the nice things about having a yarn diet, going through the stash mountain and working out what was going to be what and seeing just how many project could be made just from what I already have to hand.
Now there's more new yarn for you to see only one of which is another naughty diet breaker but firstly take a look at this beauty:

This is some of Posh Yarn's beautiful 100% cashmere lace weight yarn. Now some of you may remember I had some lovely cashmere/silk lace weight in Emerald Isle from Posh Yarns as seen in my blog header and may be wondering why I'd get more in so similar a colourway (Gem by the way). Well I had a little problem with the colour coming off on me and the lovely Dee very kindly swapped the yarn for me as the colour hadn't set properly on the first lot (something, I'll hastily add, that had occurred at times with the deeper colours but that Dee had managed to fix now so never fear!). What a pleasure it was to deal with Dee from Posh Yarns and what beautiful yarns - I still would heartily recommend them despite the green hands! Anyway, despite the change of colour this is still destined to become 'Melon' from VLT, especially as Mum's looks so beautiful and she's testing the pattern out for me!! So this will be wound into balls and cast on imminently!

Next we have some lovely merino sock yarn that kind of snuck in the house on the excuse that sock yarn was exempt from the diet! Lovely and soft and very zingy but I love it! BTW- have you spotted my colour of the month/year yet?! LOL!

This next lot of yarn I'm please to say doesn't break the diet because it's some homespun from some of Yorkshire Woollyback's beautiful Jacob sheep. It's such a lovely soft fleece that it's been a pleasure to spin up so there'll be more of this with the plan of spinning enough to make a waistcoat. I think I may be a while before I'm knitting this up though as I've only got 122m plied up so far!

Anyway on to some FO's!! I've finally finished Jaywalker number 1 which is a very snug fit - not sure if I've made a mistake, the gauge is out or that I should have done a larger size! Either way it's very tight getting it past the heel of my foot but once on is so comfy that I'm flying through the 2nd one ready to start wearing these!

And yet another FO for you (even though calling 1 sock of a pair a FO is a bit of a cheat!) is my Colinette Tagliatelle jumper from the pattern 'Either.. Or'. This is a lovely quick knit - just a shame I've been dawdling lately!

So there you have it I have finally finished things to show you all. I was going to write more but as it's such a lovely day I think I'm going to sit of the front door step in the sunshine and try to finish Jaywalker 2!