We have had some beautiful weather recently, bright, sunny, but still rather cold. March went out like a lamb and here we are in April, Easter,holidays and Spring!

Hubby took a couple of days off before the easter weekend and we have taken the opportunity to get out in fresh air and do some Geocaching. For those who have never met Geocaching it is a sort of global wide treasure hunt fueled by GPS coordinates. At every set of coordinates you will find a cache which can be as small as a thimble or as big as a large lunchbox. in it you will find a log book you sign and in the larger ones there can be “treasures” usually foreign stamps, beads, plastic toys and occasionally a travel bug which is an item that you take out of the cache and move to another one somewhere else so that it can continue it’s travels around the world. You can go on the Website, plug in the code on the travelbug and see where it has been

The best thing about today was getting up onto the south cliffs on the island and walking up and down all the beautiful cliff paths with all spring flowers starting to appear.

Bluebells in the hedge

a beautiful green lane with a secret ( yes there is a cache in this lane)

Primroses, Celandines and Violets

and to top it off a babbling stream ( that also hides a secret)

In between geocaching expeditions there has been knitting, but it is a magazine commission so I can’t talk about it.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate it and to those who don’t enjoy the holiday!

Morning all!

Where to start

First off nothing terrible happened, Life just got in the way and as with many bloggers I just lost the habit of posting. I’m still reading everyone else though

The design front has been really busy and a steady stream of designs have been published including several shawls, a cardi and I am currently working on a men’s waistcoat for a British magazine.

On the home front I have been trying to do something about my weight. At 13 stone ( and only 5 feet tall) my knees are definitely telling me I need to lose at least a stone but t be honest the minute I think I am “dieting” I am constantly hungry.

I am taking steps though I have been to see a friend who is a hypnotherapist and she has been working with me to change my attitude. I was very surprised when as part of the process my subconscious was told to find my “word” that my unconscious mind replied with the word NO!

Not no I won’t give you a word, but your word is no. No you are not hungry between meals, no you don’t need that snack, no you can’t skip your exercise session and even more interesting, it has spilled over into my working life and I find that I am saying no to colleagues who are asking for near impossible things where before I would break my neck trying to save their necks.

I’m also getting more exercise in general as we have taken up a new hobby. Geocaching. Basically it is a treasure hunt using GPS coordinates and we try to walk to all of the caches – within reason – there are approx 160 caches on the island so it will take us a while to find them all.

On the Family front, both kids are hard at work at their respective Uni courses, Daughter is slogging through her dissertation for her Masters and I am delighted to announce that she has accepted a place to study at the Portsmouth Institute of cosmology and Gravitation for a PHD later this year. Son is slogging through his end of year project and has a conditional offer to do the extra year to convert his foundation degree to a full degree. I am so proud of them both.

On the knitting front there hasn’t been a lot of personal knitting – too busy knitting samples for photo shoots

Though I have manages a couple of cardis Adrift in Madeline Tosh lace weight in fig ( brown) and Dahlia in Madeline Tosh light merino  ( fingering) in Scarlett

No photos at the moment, I will try to get some soon.

Mean while I am sitting here listening to the fog horns as the Spring sunshine tries to burn off the fog that has settled around the coast. Yesterday we had 20 degrees but unless the sun wins today I think it is going to be a bit cooler. Either way we will probably spend the afternoon yomping round looking for geocaches ( either that or I shall curl up in my chair with the waistcoat and try and get the back done

I leave you with a photo or two - lets face it a post without one is a bit boring

Crocus in the lawn

Daffodils in the border – I think Spring has finally arrived!

I have only just realised how log it has been since I posted here!

I will haave to get my act together and post more often

Winter has past and early Spring is with us Much has happened oveer the past few months – most of it good

Let me get my thoughts together and I will get you all up to date

Back soon xx

So much for my good intentions – they all go out the window when you press the on button on your laptop and it just sits there loading, loading,loading…. then the blue screen of death – then nothing

Thankfully in my other life I am an IT tech so fixing it wasn’t a problem, just time consuming and in the end a little expensive.

As an IT tech I spend my life exhorting people to make sure everything is backed up – and to my credit I try to lead by example. So, when my machine spectacularly crashed and burned I wasn’t too worried about the data – I would lose a few emails but that was it. Between my external hard drive, Dropbox, my Skydrive & various DVD’s I had plenty of backups – what I couldn’t find was my Windows 7 upgrade disc!

Once I ascertained that Windows restore and various other tools were not going to be able to retrieve my Operating System I reluctantly decided I was going to have to wipe everything and start again.

I search the house, turned things upside down – to no avail and in the end had to bite the bullet and buy a windows 7 upgrade in order to proceed

Thankfully being in an educational enviroment and with 2 Uni students in the household I was able to buy an educational copy so I didn’t have to pay full price.

It is so convenient these days. You can buy and download an OS at the drop of a hat

I downloaded it on my Slate tablet and burnt the ISO to a DVD using an external DVD drive.

AH! Snag no 2. the external drive was not accurate enough and corrupted the files.

So in the end I had to restore my laptop to it’s original Vista OS, re download and burn windows 7 using the DVD in my latop and then reinstall Windows 7 over Vista followed by all my programs

It took the entire weekend

Thankfully all the waiting around for things to load left plenty of knitting time. Everything was backed up on the Slate so I even had the charts from the latest design I was working on.

Moral of the story, you can never have too many backups AND put your software away in a safe place – you never know when you are going to need it!

I leave you with a link to an FO

This was my travel to see Alice Cooper knitting for the trains and the planes

Lazy Katy Asymmetrical shawl in Kauni Effgarten fingering weight in purples, greys & black – very Goth

A nice easy stockinette start to be followed by a lace chaser

Ravelry Guernseygal’s Purple People Eater

Sorry can’t get my camera to upload the photo direct – grrr – technology strikes again!

and for once I can actually show you why

My Principal at school surprised us all earlier in the year by announcing that she was expecting – at 43 that is pretty earth shattering, but then she also found out that she was carrying identical twin boys!

Well I am pleased to say that on Monday last week she was safely delivered of two very healthy young men ( 6lb 13oz and 7 lb 1oz) Lawrence and Teddy

Of course there was no way that I was going to miss such a knitting opportunity and so back in September I ordered a heap of Cascade 220 superwash in non traditional baby colours ( we had talked about this – though she has no idea what I’m up to) and started knitting

First up was these

Brooklyn Tweed’s famous Tweed Baby Blanket

5.5mm and 6.5mm needles & Charcoal, scarlet, royal blue and Lime green Cascade Superwash 220 – which I find knits up more like a DK than worsted which is fine because once these were done I used up the oddments on

These

Based on the Springtime baby cardi   with contrasting sleeves and buttons to make it like a college jacket. They also have their initials Swiss darned onto the breast.

knitted on 4.5mm needles

There was still yarn left so next came

These

Based on the Ballerina Cardigan pattern in the Sirdar Hearts and Stripes book I just reversed the closure on the fronts and used buttons instead of ribbons

Knitted on 3.75mm & 4mm needles

This pattern looks lovely , but like most English patterns is knitted in pieces so that meant 2 backs, 4 fronts, 4 sleeves, 4 edging bands….. yawn. Just as well they were so diddy

If I ever made it again I think I will alter the pattern so at least the body is made in one piece.

Finally with the little yarn I had remaining I made these

T-bag hats from the same book knitted on 3.75mm & 4mm needles

I can see me using this book again for anyone else having babies – it is full of basic, but good patterns for cardigans, vest tops, kimonos, and lots of hats

the book is written to showcase their stripy yarn range, but as you can see they look equally good in plain colours

Right I must away now to get on with test knits and designs that have taken a back seat while I have been knitting on these.

I can’t wait to see her face when she sees what I have for her

I told you I was going to try and post a little more often

I actually have some personal knitting on the go – apart from all the seekrit stuff

Well this stuff is sort of secret – but only from one person. The Principal of our school.

She was delighted ( if a little surprised) to discover that she was expecting a happy event  she already has two lovely boys. She was delighted ( if a little daunted and gobsmacked) to discover that there were two of them – BOYS.

She did ask me if I would be prepared to knit a few things for her, she even insisted on paying me. We discussed her ideas on colours and then we left it at that. Unbeknown to her I have absolutely no intention of charging her ( I always knit a little something for any member of staff that has a baby)

On the needles not 1 but 2 Tweed baby blankets by Brooklyn Tweed – I have knitted this once before so I know how delightful the pattern is.

I decided as they are Fratenal twins I would make the blankets the same colours, but in slightly different orders

So the centres are both mid grey, then the borders will be grey red and bright blue, with the icord bind off in bright green

not traditional baby colours – but very contemporary IMHO.

The remaining yarn will be used to make cardis, hats etc that mix and match so that she can dress then alike or different depending on her choice

The centres on the blankets are diagonally knitted garter st – so perfect for the beach ( no thinking) No 1 is done and I have changed needle and picked up the sts around the edge , centre no 2 will be finished by tonight.

Am I mad? Probably Ben doesn’t seem to care either way…

When last we spoke I was running around at the end of the summer term, trying to get everything straight before the Summer hols.

Well dear readers the summer hols have been and gone and I am already back at work at the beginning of September – sigh!

It was an….. interesting summer…. The first 4 weeks were spent glued to my armchair knitting furiously on deadlines

I managed to get through the entire  boxed DVD sets of Criminal Minds series 1-5 – so be warned if you cross me I know a lot about serial killers and yet again I don’t have a single thing that I can show you – they are all designs for forthcoming books and magazines and sworn to secrecy – I have loads of things in my Ravelry queue, but not a spare second to knit any of it!

I have managed to get a decent tan ( despite the met office announcing that it was our worst summer in 18 years) and I have been back and forth to the Doc, the physio and the hospital getting a diagnosis of my knee pain.

Apparently I have Crepitus (my hubby just says I am decrepit) and have basically worn away part of the bottom of my tibia – it’s not life threatening – not even very painful and if I follow their instructions it shouldn’t get any worse for many years to come.

Oh and I dyed my hair purple! – bright purple ( Blueberry Hill by Paintbox for those that want to know) I wasn’t sure how school would take it, but both the Principal and the Vice Principal complimented me on it – so I guess they have no objection

I am going to try and blog more often – I miss it, it may not be so much about knitting as I have nothing I am able to show despite my efforts, but I’m sure we can find things ot talk about

Ta ta for now xx oh and I leave you with a picture of my other favourite knitting place ( apart from the armchair)

Where did the month go!

Still I have been missing for all the best reasons – LOTS of knitting

I currently have/had  6 shawls on the needles, two are approaching UFO status because I can’t find the time to work on them ( Knitting Goddess anniversary Pi and my Daybreak Aeolian) two are secret projects so I can’t show them to you and to be accurate two of the 6 are actually OFF the needles and blocked along with ANOTHER stealth project – they were cast off on the same day and blocked within a day of each other, but I can only show you the one – and what a one it is! You will probably have to click on it to get the full effect

In Dreams. by Susan Pandorf of Sunshine Designs, from her LOTR pattern series, based on Galadriel’s crown.

Knitted in Unique Sheep laceweight marici ( 100% silk) Gradience colourway  #Cafe au Lait with gold lined cinnamon beads ( all 2500 of them!)

Knitted on 3.25mm circular needle, back and forth, this mystery KAL was such fun. I didn’t manage to keep up at the end because of design deadlines, but I made myself do a little bit each day – towards the end that was only a couple of rows a night because they were so long! Hubby got into the habit of informing me when he was going to bed half an hour in advance because the rows took so long to complete

This is the second mystery KAL I have done with Susan and it won’t be the last

the only thing I might have changed with hindsight was not to be swayed by where Susan did her transitions. Everyone knits differently and I transitioned too early and would have run out of yarn if  I had not reversed my yarns and transitioned back the other way with the spare yarn.

The effect is lovely, but I had in my mind a shawl going from light to dark, not light to dark and then back again to light – not the end of the world, and no one else knows it so I’m not about to rip because of it

Were does the time go – another month has flown by without a much as a word from me – and to make it even worse I missed my blogaversarry!

This blog has now been going in one form or other for SIX years!

Last year I made the switch from Typepad to WordPress – a year already! and now I have two blogs to keep up This one and the Designer one. This is no excuse, I should be able to write a few words every now and then

On the knitting front I have been busy but have nothing to show you.

I cast on and finished the Aster vest ( Ravelry Link) but have no finished shots of it yet, The Adrift cardi is just that, adrift in the sea of UFO’s at present due to pressure of work knitting.

Little mermaid is done! Pop over to the designer blog for photos and I’m just about to start the current clue for In dreams by Susan Pandorf. Trying to keep up with this so it will be finished before I start the next round of test knitting for the next KAL

I can’t leave you without some kind of photo ( posts always look boring without a photo) so here is one of my ornamental plum last week ( before a gale blew off all the flowers) Have a good week

Unlike the American Mothers day, we Brits celebrate Mothering Sunday It is always celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent and was originally a celebration of the Virgin Mary and the Mother church (according to Wikipedia).

Both my children are on the mainland studying, but that doesn’t mean that I lost out on the celebrations. I have had flowers and cards and a pressy from hubby to

Flowers from Son

Flowers from daughter

I also had a very practical present – of my choosing

A Leatherman Skeletool

Just the thing to save my nails when trying to open parcels at school or prise open computer cases etc etc

It has pliers, wire cutters, flat head and philips head screw drivers, nice big pen knife, bottle opener and the whole thing only weighs in at 5 oz in stainless steel.

On the knitting front. I am continuing with the test knit of the Claudia Handpaint Competition entry, the laceweight cardi is on hold, Little MErmaid is up to date at the end of clue 4 – yes I know I have the other clues and could knit ahead, but there are so many other things that I want to knit on

In Dreams is doing well – currently halfway through the new clue that came out on Friday, so I am on track.

Next up to knit is going to be this I have some lovely bamboo that I bought last year that will do nicely – this will be perfect as an extra layer for spring/summer.

I’m now off to spend the rest of my Mothering Sunday watching some tele and knitting. I’ve had a lazy weekend ( partly due to having injured my back moving a 17″ monitor at school ( my own fault I should know better) Hope you are having a lovely weekend wherever you are xx