WOW

A finished quilt top (despite promising myself not to start anything new till the damn blanket's finished - gah!) This is the Sunshine Quilt, which I've promised to Milly, as she's next in line for one despite it's huge size. Also finished the back for it as well, so now I just need to go and buy the middle!! And I've decided to quilt it with simple diagonal rows, so hopefully I'll get it finished pretty quickly. 

We all went to Jessie's school this afternoon to see her receive a WOW (Worker of the Week) award which she is very proud of :-D The certificates are handed out every Friday to those children who have excelled in some way during that week and this is Jess's third. Her teacher said that she has been particularly impressed with Jess this week, and it's great that they are encouraging the kids to value positive attributes like kindness and helpfulness along with the usual academic stuff. Of course it vanishes as soon as she's back home with Milly...... bicker, bicker bicker!! Poor Jude, having to put up with all of us girls! 

On a slightly gloomier note, Jude's back home as his great new job seems to have fizzled out. Long story but basically the company he's been working for seem to be incapable of running their business effectively, and have lost a couple of jobs which he was meant to have been working on - and to cap it off, haven't made any effort to communicate with him about it. He's very depressed to be back at square one, signing on, when he thought that this was going to be good for years. I'm trying to encourage him to look at this time positively, to get things done in the allotment, but he is very down.

So, we're getting through the days as best we can. Brighter news is that the latest hen in our flock, Lottie, found wandering on our track last week, is settling in well with the others - she's the pretty Rhode Red (I think) with the red/orange head and neck above. She's living in the greenhouse until the other girls get a bit more used to her, and she's already given us a few eggs, which I turned into fairy cakes for Jess to take to school  -  must make more this weekend for us!!

I've realised that I'm going to be 40 this year, which was quite a shock, as I don't think of myself as being a proper adult, but 40 seems pretty seriously grown-up so I guess I have to accept it now. So anyway, as my birthday will be in deepest darkest winter I've decided that I'm going to go all Queenie and have TWO birthdays this year and celebrate in style with a Mad Hatter's Tea Party in June!!! Yay!! And invite all my far-flung friends to come and push me over the hill. I've already started collecting china for it....... any excuse for more pretty old china teacups!! You can hear Jude sighing in the background I'm sure. Can you believe he threw not one, but TWO disco balls into a skip during the last job he did, clearing out an old bar.... I still haven't forgiven him. Not just for not recycling them on Freecycle, but not bringing them home for me!!!!

Here are the other two, chillin' on the sofa together...

Back to the knitting.....

Have a lovely weekend!!

xx

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