Rainy Sunday

The rain is bouncing down this afternoon in Winwick and has put paid to my intention of being in the garden this afternoon.  Just as well, really, as I was behind in chatting to you so this is a good use of my time instead 🙂

Before I get started, thank you so much to everyone who has bought a copy of the Christmas and Holiday Gift Socks Knitting Guides.  I really hope they’re going to be very useful as you get going with your knitting for end of year events.  It feels like it’s all speeding towards us as it’s 9 weeks and 4 days till Christmas today, which is quite a scary thought if you’ve got lots of knitting, shopping or guest planning to do.  I’m not sure whether I find these countdowns helpful or not!

I have finished knitting my Christmas socks from last year (ha!) and they just need the ends sewn.  I am so glad to be so close to handing these over now!  I’ve knitted two pairs of these Film Reel Socks and I did enjoy them, but once I’d run out of time last Christmas they seemed to take forever as I had other things that became a priority this year.  These socks were definitely part of the inspiration for my Gift Socks Knitting Guides 🙂

As you can see, my helpful assistant was on hand to get stuck in but I thought that it was best to avoid letting her loose with the scissors and moved her over to her new favourite place …

Isn’t that the life, eh?  Warming your paws on the Aga whilst snoozing in a box that’s just the right size.  Bliss!

I’ll take a photo of both pairs to show you in next week’s post so you can see them together.  I used West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in Winter Icicle for the “film” colours in this pair, and I’ve used Summer Sunset for the other pair.  I’m looking forward to seeing them together – and definitely looking forward to handing them over to be worn!

Determined to get them finished, I took these socks to the inaugural meeting of Winwick Knitters, a new knit n natter group that has started up in Winwick at The Swan pub.  There’s more info on the Facebook page (linked), but for those who don’t use Facebook it’s on Tuesday mornings between 10am and 11.45am, drinks and food are available (I had a really good cup of tea and a bacon butty 🙂 ) and you can just drop in – it’s free to come along and there’s no commitment to turn up every week.

I finished another pair of socks this week – my latest Emergency Socks (a pair of Basic 4ply Socks that you can carry about with you) in a hand-dyed yarn called Christine’s Camassia by Red Squirrel and Dune.  The yarn was dyed to match a photo from the blog – I wrote about it in this post – and I am very happy with them.  I only had the smallest amount of contrast green left but there’s plenty of the main stripe yarn for me to use for another pair.

This is where I was up to yesterday morning with just the ends of the toes to finish.  I love that “nearly there” moment where you can see the finish line!

I’m really pleased with these socks for more than just the way the stripes have knitted up.  I’ve been working on my Continental knitting technique and I have managed to knit these socks pretty much entirely holding the yarn in my left hand.  As I mentioned in the post I linked about the yarn, I hurt my shoulder a few months ago in a dog-related incident (he was going somewhere, I didn’t move out the way fast enough) and knitting in my usual style does seem to make it worse.  I’m trying not to worry too much about it as my chiropractor has said that it will recover with time (although I’ve got designs I want to work on and I am impatient!), and in the meantime I’ve found that holding the yarn in my left hand rather than my right doesn’t make my shoulder ache – although my tension has changed and I’m knitting more tightly than I usually do.  The stitches are ending up smaller as I think I’m pulling the stitch off the needle rather than sliding it, which is tightening everything up.  I spent a lot of time on YouTube yesterday looking at videos of how other people were holding their needles and I think I might know where I’m going wrong – so there’s nothing for it but to knit more socks to try it out!

I’ll show you the finished pair next time, and also the new pair I’m working on.  They’re a WIP (work in progress) that I found in a drawer and I’ve knitted one sock so there’s only the second one to do.

 

I’ve been out in the garden this week too.  I’ve been clearing out in the greenhouse so that I can get ahead and plant some seeds ready for next year.  I always end up being later than I intend to when it comes to seed sowing in the spring so this year, I thought I’d set up a space in the greenhouse for seeds to sit over the winter and then with any luck, I’ll actually be able to plant them out in the spring instead of looking at the packets and realising I’ve mistimed everything!

It’s not very elegant – an old cupboard door on bricks to keep the seed trays off the ground and a frame to drape fleece over to keep a bit of heat in if it gets very cold.  It’ll do, though!

Look what I spotted in the garden last weekend!  I’ve never seen a passion flower still flowering in October before, it just shows how warm it’s been.  I’ve only just put our heating on as my husband hasn’t been so well this weekend and I don’t think it’s fair to insist that someone who’s feeling out of sorts puts on more jumpers instead of putting on the radiators for a bit.  We’ve done well this year, though – mid-October is way past our usual time for turning on the heating!

Going back to the “9 weeks and 4 days” thought, I’ve made a start on the socks for next year’s Winter Haven KAL (Knit-a-long).  I’m starting to think that maybe I should have started a bit sooner but I had other things to do (the Gift Socks guides, for a start), and as much as I like to think of myself as a multi-tasker, the truth is that I do need to focus on one creative thing at a time or they just don’t get finished.

If you’ve never heard of the Winter Haven KAL, it runs over four weeks in January each year (it started in 2020) and there’s a brand new free sock pattern plus four weekly posts on self-care, because that’s what I think we need to focus on in January.  They’re long, dark weeks for many people and even if you’re in the part of the world where it’s summer, those weeks after all the holidays have finished can still feel long and dark in other ways.  I write my posts to encourage us all (me included!) to think about self-care in lots of different ways (not just bubble baths or manicures) and I hope that you’ll consider joining me next year.

You can read previous years’ posts through this link:  Winter Haven KAL archives

 

There have been other house things on the agenda this week too.  After taking a few weeks to recover from decluttering the airing cupboard, I’m tackling the attic.  I may be some time … I may also never need to buy Christmas crackers again!

I’m considering this as a “first pass” rather than a full-on declutter, and by this I mean that I’m looking at the bags and boxes that have been put into the attic over the years with a few things in them rather than the boxes which have already been packed.  I know that there have been occasions when I’ve put things into the attic knowing that there’s a storage box up there that they should go into, but lacking the time (or inclination) to find them at the time.  Doing it this way means that I should be able to sort out all the smaller items into the places they should go (including bin bags and charity bags), and then I can go back later and do a more in-depth declutter of the bigger storage boxes.

I’ve found a few treasures already, including a pile of Brownie annuals that I brought home from my Dad’s house when we were clearing it out.

This is what I looked like when I was a Brownie, with my beret and fringed haircut, although I think I must have been given this annual at some point as it’s dated 1969 and I definitely was not old enough to be a Brownie then.

I don’t know if the Brownie annuals are still produced.  Today’s Brownies are much more high-tech and both my girls are well past that age so they’re not on my radar!  I think I had a Guides one as well – I used to get an annual for Christmas every year – as well as others from well-known magazines of the time such as “Jackie” and “Girl”.  I still get an annual for Christmas every year; my brother buys me The Broons or Oor Wullie (they’re published in alternate years) and they are always one of my favourite presents.

Look at what’s inside this annual!  There’s loads of stuff – annuals used to keep me occupied for hours and I’d often go back to them during the year, especially if there was something to make.  It seems hard to imagine that something like this would entertain modern children now; I don’t remember my girls being as interested as I was, but I also don’t remember the annuals they read having as much in them either.

Last picture 🙂  These were always one of my favourite parts of an annual – the story!  I love the comic-strip type with the pictures, and these will have been hand-drawn to fit in the space available.  No help from publishing software here!

Finding these annuals made me feel quite nostalgic.  I think tech is amazing and I wouldn’t be without it, but it was nice when the world was a place when comic strip stories in an annual were something to read on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

 

I’ve also been to see my friend Lucy in Skipton this week, and what a lovely day we had.  I haven’t seen her for ages because of one thing and another although we do chat by text regularly, but it’s not the same as spending time with someone in real life, is it?  We had breakfast in a local cafe and then headed out for a walk around Skipton.  I’ve missed walking at any kind of speed because our dog likes to take his time and sniff every.blade.of.grass. now instead of rocketing ahead with me charging behind trying not to lose him, so I was very happy to head out into the woods behind Skipton Castle.

It wasn’t cold even though it wasn’t a particularly sunny day, which was a shame as the trees are starting to get their autumn foliage and there’s a certain place on the M65 motorway on the way to Skipton where the leaves of the trees glow at this time of year if the sun is on them.  You can see from these photos that the colours are all a bit muted, and it was that kind of day.  It smelt like autumn in the woods, though.  The ground was littered with leaves and there’s probably a name for the smell but I don’t know what it is, and it didn’t matter as we crunched our way through them to the footpath that comes out high above the town and weaves through streets of houses before dropping down into the main streets again.

Time for a cup of tea and a slice of cake before heading home – we were so busy chatting it was gone 4.30pm before we even thought to check the time!  It’s so good for your soul to have days (and friends) like these.  I’m very lucky.

And now it’s time for me to leave you!  I’ve had plenty to say in this post and it’s been lovely to chat again – it’s felt like ages since I’ve written this kind of post and I’ve missed it.  I’ve realised that I haven’t got round to writing any of my catch-up posts but I am pretty much sorted with my new DK sock patterns which I’m going to release into the world in November (a good time for quick Christmas and holiday knits 😉 ) so I’ll be telling you more about those over the next couple of weeks – assuming that I make it down from the attic and don’t disappear forever in nostalgic time travelling, that is …

See you again soon! xx