February half term

It’s the school holidays again.  Seriously, it only feels like five minutes since the last school holidays and that was when?  Christmas?  How can we be in mid-February already?!

Well, the start of our week was heralded by Storm Dennis which came hot on the heels of Storm Ciara and there’s been terrible flooding all over the country – my heart goes out to everyone whose lives have been turned upside down by the flood waters.  I can’t begin to imagine the despair of seeing the water creep (and sometimes race) closer to your home and knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Today is calm and mild.  There’s even a hint of sunshine – a bit pale and watery, but sunshine nonetheless.  Small daughter, who has now joined the ranks of teenagers who could quite easily turn sleeping into an Olympic sport (although not at bedtime, strangely enough …), is snuggled in with one of our cats who’s a bit under the weather at the moment.  I don’t like it when our pets aren’t well – it’s as bad as having poorly babies as they can’t tell you what’s wrong.  The vet is looking after him, though, and we’ve got a round of blood tests to come later this week to see if we can get to the bottom of it.  In the meantime, he’s feeling safe and warm somewhere in small daughter’s duvet and once you’re curled up with a cat, the incentive to get out of bed is even less so I may not see her before lunch time!

She’s got a sleepover organised with friends this week so I’ve got a so-far undecided number of girls descending to camp out in our living room.  I suggested that we might all load up into the car and take the dog for a walk at the beach and was greeted with “nah, it’s boring”, “it’s pointless just walking on a beach”, “it’s too cold”, “it’s too sandy” so I’ve taken that as we’re not going.  Small daughter must have felt sorry for me as she has promised to come with me another day (I’m grateful, I think?!) but I’m just going to leave them to it.  They see each other every day at school but that’s not the same as having hours out of school to spend together and they don’t really get to do that very often.  I think as long as I remember to feed them every now and again it’ll all work out very well 🙂

So what else to tell you?  Well, I went to the CHSI Stitches trade show at the weekend with West Yorkshire Spinners – can you believe it’s a year since I last wrote about that?! – but I’ve got a whole post’s worth of photos to show you so I’ll save those for another day.

I’ve been ticking along with my socks.  Here’s the Stylecraft Head Over Heels pair (the shade is All Stars Red Pots) …

I’m almost at the toes on my first sock now – I probably would have finished it but I’ve been distracted by other things that I can’t tell you about just yet.  Does saying that make it worse than not saying anything at all?  I’m never quite sure whether I like the whole “I’ve got a secret project” thing, but I have been asked not to share it yet so I really shouldn’t – and yet I don’t want you to think I’ve been sitting about doing nothing! 🙂

And here are my Windowsill Socks …

I’ve not done quite as much on them as I thought I might have done just by passing the window, so perhaps I don’t do as much gazing out of the window at the moment as I think I do (and also there’s this secret distraction …)!   I’m nearly up to the heel, though, and once you reach that bit you feel like you’re really heading for the home straight so they might grow a bit quicker then.  I’m looking forward to wearing them!  This yarn is The Yarn Badger eco yarn in colourway Allotment Harvest.  I do love how these stripes are knitting up, they are definitely making me think of autumn vegetables!

Speaking of vegetables, I really need to get on and organise myself for the garden this year.  I’ve spent a lot of time looking out of the window with good intentions and then not being devastated that it’s too wet and windy to go outside.  I used to worry that that meant the gardening bug had left me but I realise now that it’s seasonal and my gardening ambitions slow down over the winter just like the plants.

Yes, that is me back at the window sill again – it’s the best place for the light at the moment (unless I want to sit in my Winter Haven which I haven’t dismantled) and also there’s a radiator underneath it so I can warm my knees whilst I’m reading my seed catalogues and drinking my tea.   High on my list are more sprout seeds as I used the last of my Dad’s last year, and there are some new varieties of tomato plant out this year too that I fancy trying out.  I didn’t grow any tomatoes in the greenhouse last year and I missed them, so I plan to put that right this year.

Just one more thing to tell you – Black Sheep Wools, my local yarn shop, asked me if I would design a pattern that was just for them in my Wildflower yarn.  Of course I was very happy to do that and set to work thinking of something that would look good in the stripy yarn and yet still be easy enough for people to feel that they could have a go at, even if they were quite new to socks.  Eventually the idea came to me of something quite bold – fierce, even! – whilst still being feminine with the Wildflower colours and the Adeline socks were created.  Adeline is a name that means “of noble rank”, and the pattern is a combination of hearts and shields, depending on how you choose to look at it, so I thought that fitted very well 🙂

Source: Black Sheep Wools

That all happened a short while ago, and now Black Sheep have put together a brand new Boutique Box which contains the yarn for the pattern (there are two colourways to choose from – Wildflower and Honeysuckle, and Seascape and Blueberry BonBon) and some lovely treats which go together very well.  It’s a very reasonable price too, for what’s in the box – sometimes these boxes can be quite expensive and you’re tied into a subscription too, but this is a one-time box – you can see the kits here.  I was also persuaded to go along to Black Sheep to talk about the design (I’m always very happy to talk about my socks but am still not very comfortable about being videoed doing it!), and there’s a video of Sara talking about what’s in the box here.  The boxes themselves are available here.

Source: Black Sheep Wools

The boxes are no longer available but the pattern is now available as a single download on the Black Sheep Wools website here.

Well, that’s me for now!  I hope you’re having a great week whatever you’re doing, and you’re staying dry and safe xx