Tangelled Angel

We meet up the last Saturday of every month for the StitchNBitchIE, and this months happened to fall on a bank holiday weekend. Decided to go ahead with it anyway as there were enough people interested.
We meet in the Library Bar of the Central Hotel and the last meeting, the place was packed out, we managed to steal enough chairs and position ourselves near the bar (for the soft drinks only of course) but Sharon had to keep moving her chair to let people through, and I reckon there were about 12-15 of us there.
This time, there were 6 of us, and I think we shared the bar with another 4 people, and that number wasn’t consistent. The place was so quiet it was unbelievable. Apart from the man who sounded like the rats from the movie Chicken Run, as Cheryl described!
This time, I brought my camera. I meant to do it on the last occasion and for some reason left it at home, but think it may have been a good move as there were a lot of faces I wasn’t familiar with the last meeting so I probably wouldn’t have gotten the courage to take it out and take photos of total strangers to me.
So here we are, I was going to post lots of pictures but due to the length of time its taking me to put them up, I have narrowed it down to the 2 that I did manage to upload!. Has anyone else been having these problems with uploading photos to blogger or is it just me???
I think if you click on the pictures you can see bigger versions

I will post the rest of them tomorrow as it may be the PC Im working on.

On the left here we have Isobel showing Holly her mitred squares and gave a very good discription of how they work.

On the right we have Sharon, Isobel and Holly who had to take up their knitting and pretend they were knitting away on my request.
If you have a close look at the photo above, on the table, there are a few skeins of Holly’s hand-dyed and handspun yarn. Mmmmmm gorgeous! She brought along skeins of merino, shetland and a wool blend. All very yummy.
I will post again about these with a close up picture and I will post with more pictures from the meeting also, have to go, this post has been almost 3 days in formation!!! (All due to problems with uploading photos)

I know, 2 posts in one day, and Im so busy.

You HAVE to take some time out to look at This.

Knitting has hit the cartoon world, YAYYYY

Yes, I know, its been a long time coming, but I have eventually finished my first pair of socks!
The second one has been in my handbag for I would say as long as 2 months, and transported between handbags also! After the last posting where I said I would be putting baby knits on hold for a while in order to finish off what I already had on the needles, I started immediately into the sock, and actually put the bootees on hold until I finished it! And yes, I know that the pattern isn’t even, I continued on with the same ball of yarn for the second pair. If you look at the photo above and shift the one on the bottom up slightly, you can see where they match.
For anyone wondering (like in StitchNBitchIE) I used mainly one ball of yarn for the 2 socks. Again if you look at the photo above, you can see where the second ball came into play. So I have enough left over to play with baby socks!! Not now though, I’m sick of the pattern.

Here we have the standard finished sock pose, loved by many, posed by few

So the next WIP to be finished is going to be the bootees, which I will get done tonight. And then I will turn to the other UFO’s I have hanging around (except maybe River).
One of the reasons that I so wanted to finish the socks, was actually to start another pair, can you believe! But this time in a non-self patterning yarn, and with a bit more variation than stocking stitch, it got a bit boring just going around and around and around with no thought for pattern.
I also wouldn’t choose this yarn again. It was Sirdar Town and Country.
In retrospect, I don’t really like the pattern that it creates, I’m more into plain colours or stripes, and I reckon that half the time I spent knitting the pair was actually taken up in detangling the yarn as it seemed to rub against each other and fuse to the next strand. Veyr frustrating indeed!
Again in retrospect, I would have pre-wound the yarn into a manageable cake, but then again I didnt have my magic yarn winder when I started!
Despite this, I’m keen to start another pair, using a plain colour, not for myself, and watch this space…
So, on that note, I will leave you with a picture of this morning, at approx 7am, when I was just about to leave the house for work….

I had to try them out!

Banana Bread ala Avoca Cafe Cookbook

This is a tried and tested recipe with me, I have made it on many occasions. It is moist and decadent and always produces a “mmmm” sound from anyone eating it for the first time.
I made this to bring it in for my work colleagues for their coffee break today.
It is even easier and quicker to make since I discovered the benefits of using my food processor to chop things!!

Bootees still need sewing up as you can see!

My friend who had her baby, last week asked me to make a hat and bootee set for a friend of hers who had also just had a baby boy. She wanted the same colours as the ones I had made her but I havent been able to get to the shop that I bought the yarn in, so I have done these up and hopefully they will be okay! If not, I’ll get to the yarn shop this weekend.
Now these bootees are actually a size 0-3 months and they are looking pretty small. I’d done the first one before I realised that I had done a larger size for M’s baby. I am in the process of doing the larger size and will have them for her by the weekend when I’ll get the chance to see her.
After these bootees are done, I’m going to put baby knits on hold for a while as I have many things I want to do and so little time!!
I think I should try and finish a few things first before starting others….

Please ignore the red chin and the double chin and the glazed look on my face.

This posting is about this angel of a baby boy and the magnificant way he modelled those bootees and hat!
Very good for a 6day old.

His Mum is delighted with them, and has requested a set for a friend of hers….guess what will be the agenda for this evening! sad I know…

He is a gorgeous baby and we had a lot of cuddles when we were there.

Now to the knitting….
Short post, I know, but I’m having trouble again uploading photos and not in the form to battle for another half an hour just to get one more photo up!

I have been lax in posting this last week.

Mainly due to a lack of an available PC, also due to lending my Mum my camera, and then suffering withdrawal symptoms without it!

But I am now back on track, and now have to sort through the photo’s I have taken in order not to have photo overload.

First of all we have my Mum’s birthday present- the fuzzy feet

I’m not too sure if she really liked them but time will tell.

They were drying on the radiator after she opened the packaging as when I got home from work I steamed the hell out of them to try and stretch them before bringing them up to Mum’s.

She also got 2 free apples (kept in the toes to keep the shape while drying!)

One of my friends had her baby on Thursday, a boy, 7lbs 6ozs, and I will be seeing her this evening in order to give her and him these

Can you see how small this is!
And can you see the little hearts on it?

I also made some little shoes to match, before I knew that it was a little boy, but I think they are a bit too girly even for an infant boy to pull off!

I have enough friends pregnant at the moment to get a girl out of one of them for these lol!!

Remember these?

These are for my friend also. Believe it or not, they are actually the same size, although they don’t look like it in this photo. They are funky baby, for a funky babe.

Okay, on to the science bit.

Pattern Hat: Made with love Layette

Sticks: Size 4 dpn’s to start off with and then swapped to size 4 40cm addi circs (found them actually easy to use on such a small project compared to previous attempts to use them)

Yarn: Wendy Peter Pan DK

Pattern Bootee’s and Shoes: Peter Pan Baby Accessories (bought in Australia in 1997). Icord for the tie for the bootees.

Sticks: Can’t quite recall but I think around size 2.5 straight needles.

Yarn: Wendy Peter Pan DK (pure coincidence that I happened to buy the same yarn as the pattern asked for)

Pattern: Fuzzy Feet

Sticks: 6.5mm dpn’s

Yarn: Lopi Lite

Felting: 1 run through the machine at 50 degrees

Remember my 2 needle socks from Debbie Bliss (posting Wednesday March 8th, can’t seem to link to it)

The white ones are in here:

For a work colleague who also had a baby boy last week.

Blogger has been painful in uploading photos. I actually drafted this post yesterday and couldn’t upload one photo. I have managed to get them up through sheer determination this morning.
I visited new Mum last night and have photos of baby modelling hat and bootees, but they can wait for another post! (or battle with blogger as I like to call it)

Finally, finally finally I have pictures of the gifts that my BF brought me back from Amsterdam, and yes, the chocolate is still in one piece…just about. I had a good sniff of it last night as I have read that smelling chocolate is supposed to do the same thing as actually eating it, but I don’t quite believe it meself!

Endorphins, that’s all.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web1/kcoveleskie.html

I did a bit of research into endorphins created by chocolate and got some very interesting results. Still, there is only 4 days to go until choccie can pass my lips….

Hmm

I got to test the teapot last night and I can confirm that it makes a good pot of tea. Always a plus for a teapot. Its amazing the amount of teapots out there that don’t make a good pot of tea. However, I think I will have to just use teabags in this pot as there is no filter in the spout, I can imagine the mess if I use tealeaves.

Isn’t the lid sweet?And look at the flower on the spout.I also finished the fuzzy foot partner last night after a lot of sweat and tea and threw them into the washing machine to run a cycle overnight. This was based on the very practical thinking of the last item I felted which required I think 4 go’s through the washing machine. I came down this morning to find them felted nicely, down to a size 2 I reckon. A wee bit small!

So a serious amount of stretching later, I think I have them about a size 5, and have an apple in each toe and one tennis ball in a heel as that’s all I had to play with (get it, play, tennis ball…. oh okay bad play on words har har).
I think this evening I will be doing a bit (or a lot) of steaming and stretching again.

Have a look at the FO’sAnd modelled by yours truly, as my former aspiring model had gone to bed at this stage.
It was late after all; the demonic aspect of having to finish an item took me over again.

The one and only picture I got in the sunny part of Saturday before the batteries in my camera died.

Its of the Sugarloaf mountain taken from the car on the way back from Bray, where we went to look at a car and had a quick stop into The Wool Shop for yet more sock yarn and then a lovely interlude in the coffee shop beside it. Again I thought of taking pictures like Isobel does but there was too much crap on the small table (like one paper, 1 bagel, 1 foccacia, 2 lattes and 2 raspberry muffins-yummy!) and it would have looked a mess, not like the nicely artistic shots that Isobel produces. I also bought some choccy in prep for next Sunday (see prev postings!) although not for myself

I also didn’t realise that the batteries were so low, but they are rechargeable so it’s not a big thing. Despite the sunniness of the day, (at that time) it was very cold.

I actually think that this picture reminds me of Australia, for some strange reason…. have any thoughts on this, Emmett or Siobhan in Canberra…hmm?

My PC went through the final death throes yesterday evening and abandoned me, so I now have to think about financing another one. I have been thinking about it for a while anyway as my PC had been so slow that using it was akin to torture. Not to mention trying to upload photos to blogger, just didn’t happen. However, my budget just doesn’t stretch to a PC outright so I will either have to try and get finance for it or wait until the trusty SSIA’s come out next year. Yes, I was one of those that jumped at the chance at saving money and made it by the skin of my teeth by the closing date. I suppose I do have the option of waiting as my boyfriend’s PC is pretty good, and I can always do some things from work, but there’s always that bit of work that you can’t just do from work, especially as a lot of websites are blocked.

Meanwhile we have knitting:

I realised last night that my Mums birthday is THIS Wednesday and here I was thinking I had another week to finish the second fuzzy foot and felt them both.

I was also hoping to get a pot holder for her done to match the tea cosy I made for her previously but I don’t think I’ll get it done in time, as I was going to felt that also.

I cast on for the 2^nd fuzzy foot last night just before I went to bed

Here we have a nicely and very professionally modelled shot of the finished fuzzy foot, by an unknown up and coming sock model that shall remain nameless.

And look how pretty this is when it’s wound up properly using the ball winder?

It’s Noro Blossom for my Hemp Blossom Bag. Just had to show y’all!

Yes, I admit it, I’m a yarn sniffer.
If I have a nice ball of yarn in my hand, I automatically go to have a sniff, although I don’t always follow through with it if there are other people near me, I’m a bit self-concious like that!
Button above is courtesy of Grumperina and I now need to find out how to put it on my sidebar. I’ll look into that at the weekend (along with numerous other things that I put off until the weekend and then put off until the next weekend, and carry forward until it actually gets done, or I forget about it)
Meanwhile, we have fuzzy foot number one:
Which is a work in progress alright, juggled with the others on the sidebar there.
I tried to take a picture of the Lopi Tote but it just looked like a jumble of knitting on the circular needle, so I had to abandon it. It’ll be another posting!
The River wrap from Rowan 38, I have it at 1% on the sidebar, this is because I have literally only cast on and done 2 rows! Its very fine yarn (kidsilk haze) and with such large needles, I struggled to get that far. It may be frogged at some stage as my enthusiasm for it has gone totally already But I’m making good progress on baby items, I have made some lovely baby shoes and currently making bootees to match, and am just waiting to sew on the buttons on the shoes before taking pictures and posting them.

Outside of knitting, I made some lasagne last night for dinner which went down very well with my bf and myself and there was enough left over to put in the freezer for another dinner.
I also bought my bf his Easter egg, and its now hidden so I he can’t get his hands on it until Easter Sunday.
I may be making another tripto the shop as my choccie urgings are increasing and not decreasing, as I thought they would, and I will be looking to have a choccie feast in exactly 9 days time!!!

As well as the tulips from Amsterdam, my bf bought me some Dutch choccie and a teapot (I like my teapots!) and they are currently in his place so no chance to take pics as yet, but again for another posting! The choccie is also (perhaps?) safe in his place…..although choccie has been known to disappear quite frequently there….hmm, maybe I should take it into safe keeping….just in case the choccie monster appears….although he has been doing very well…