Knitting progress, unPinning and um, backing-up

Well, I'm having (another) break from the damn blanket.... and have taken up a new personal challenge: knitting in the round! Ages ago I picked up a collection of needles and amongst them were a set of double-pointed needles which I had never used before and now finally I've discovered how to use them. I'm following a pattern found on Pinterest for some fingerless mittens, having been coveting a pair from Toast for some time which are beyond my means to purchase. They aren't quite as I would like, as the ones I had in mind had a pretty cable pattern, but I figure if I practice on these, I should eventually be able to work out a pattern of my own.

Five needles is bloody tricky!! That's all I can say. I've had to undo/redo several times and I haven't even got to the wrist yet! 

I figure, unlike the blanket which will be big enough to hide most of the smaller mistakes, these will show up every little detail, so I'm trying to be extra careful. Hard to do when you have to grab some time inbetween kiddoes to get it done! I'm using a 70/20 acrylic/wool blend which I found at the carboot a couple of weeks ago. Ideally I'd love to be knitting with some yummy merino, but hey, beggars and all that.

I adore Pinterest; I've always been a scrapbooker, collecting images from magazines and making collages or just keeping them as idea sparkers, so it's right up my street! However, the biggest danger with it is that you can easily end up Pinning endlessly without ever using any of the beautiful things that you find. It's mesmerising that way. So, I have decided to un-Pin some of the things I've found, by printing them out and working my way through the ones that seem usable.

Here's one of my kiddie/crafty pages... Feel free to come and have a look at my boards to see if anything inspires you! Let me know if you would like an invite to join, but I warn you now, you may blame me later for all that lost time spent Pinning!

In other news, the baby's getting bigger day by day! She's already 6 months, unbelievably. And weaning is going VERY slowly. She really isn't all that keen, though typically if you're munching on something, she's desperate to grab it from you!

Last but not least, a quick message to all you fellow-bloggers out there - do you know how to back up your blog? Not only was I completely unaware that you could do this, I had no idea you even should! The lovely Carina at Carina's Craftblog will show you how here - go ahead and do it now, it's easy peasy!

Take care my lovelies, have a good week x

Another girl!

Lucky enjoying the sun

Well, I had my 20-week scan yesterday and she's a girl! Jude really would have liked a boy, and up until now we had been talking of 'him', so although he's obviously happy that she's healthy and everything's fine, there's a part of him that is a bit disappointed. I think he really wanted a 'mini-me' to share his love of power tools with.... the girls aren't the slightest bit interested so far!

More good news is that Jude's finally been offered a decent job working for quite a prestigious luxury yacht builder which he's really chuffed about. The slightly bad news was that he had to start the same day as the scan, so he didn't get to see little wriggler in action! Ultrasound scans are just incredible: even though I'm totally aware that there is a baby in there, kicking away, it's quite mind-blowing to be able to SEE the valves of her heart beating, and look inside her brain.... The sonographer was marvellous - she obviously really loved her job - and she talked me through everything she was looking at whilst she was taking all the measurements. Often they are so numb to the fact that the mother is actually looking at her unborn baby that they just go through the motions of pointing out legs and arms, rather than, as this woman did, talk in real detail about what she could see and why she was interested in certain bits, like the shape of the top of the spine. Absolutely fascinating.

Mind you, I have always been fascinated by the internal workings of the body, wanting to keep any x-rays I've had, in the hope of one day making some artwork out of them, sort of an inner self-portrait. Of course, to actually do it properly, I'd probably need to have some pretty major surgery so I can't really see it happening. It's also surprisingly difficult to get permission to keep your own x-rays.

Leaf and driftwood mobile 

Back at home, we've been doing some crafty stuff with leaves, making mobiles and such. Today the sun is shining fit to burst so we've had all the doors open and actually spent some time outside, which is a huge relief after days of unrelenting rain. Mil is recovering from a chest infection so I'm keeping her swaddled up, and she has a funny rash all over which the nurse at the surgery couldn't identify. It's particularly bad on her cheek, but apart from being a bit itchy it doesn't seem to be bothering her too much. She's improved hugely since she started antibiotics on Tuesday, from being a limp bundle of weepiness to back to normal cheeky monkey.

My new nursing chair!

I've also finally started sanding down a rocking chair I got from a fellow Freecycler, which I had intended to paint white, but am now considering leaving as bare wood, perhaps with just a coat of wax.

Milly sniffing the lavender in the sadly neglected allotment

So much to do in the allotment, it's quite dispiriting: every time I walk through it to feed the chickens with the girls I tend to have blinkers on so I can't see the extent of the chaos. I half-heartedly pull a few obviously wrong bits up, but as much as I want it to be fairly natural and cottage garden-like, it still needs a certain amount of maintenance which I don't feel up to at the moment.

Lavender grown from seed this year, with Cosmos still going strong behind

And still no progress with any material projects..... I just haven't felt the urge for a while, even though I have a gazillion ideas and am starting to panic slightly about the big I have to admit I am thoroughly distracted by Pinterest, which I've just joined: and as someone who used to obsessively cut out pictures from newspapers and magazines to keep for inspiration - a joke in itself as I don't think I've ever referred to them once - it is a magical tool. Finally I can stop hoarding pictures on my desktop and have them all in one place which doesn't involve building an entire new storage system around.... yay!

All in all, a good end to what has been quite a difficult week.