February Favourites

 Thin on the ground... we've been short-staffed in work and I've had to do extra days, 

I spent a weekend mid-month with my sister. The weather was pretty dreary, but we went to a forest park beside a reservoir, also the national rowing centre of Ireland - it was a pleasant walk in spite of the misty drizzle, and there was a little van selling hot drinks which was a nice treat afterwards.

An abundance of red berries, which we presumed were not attractive to the birds as there were so many of them. 

I had a rather unnerving experience on Monday when my front brake stopped working shortly after leaving home. I had felt it was a bit loose and was thinking I must book a service sooner rather than later, when it went altogether. I was careful but not overly worried because I knew we had replaced the rear cable just before Christmas, so it was quite a shock when the rear brake too stopped working totally - luckily on the flat, and luckily near work so I didn't have too far to push the bike. And luckily a day C was working at home, and was able to come in at lunch and pick me up.

As I walked I passed this utility box, which has definitely been repainted as used to be something else altogether.

Two  new brake cables and everything is fine again, but especially when one was almost brand new it's a bit of a mystery to everybody how it could have happened.

A Walk in the Park

 I can't remember the last time we went for a walk in the park - a long time. After a couple of days of very heavy rain during the week it was pretty muddy, but Saturday morning was fresh and sunny and we went out to enjoy the weather. Not much to photograph, but we did see a shoveller in the pond. And I noticed newer identity labels on the trees - looks like they've got new identities too as the numbers don't appear to match. 

Off the needles

 My brother had been wanting a new Aran sweater for quite some time - we started talking about it around this time last year. Come his birthday I offered to buy the wool for his birthday present and knit it for his Christmas present. My options were somewhat limited because he specifically wanted both pure wool and for it to be machine-washable. Early last year I had saved something  from an Irish yarn store in my basket, but by August it was no longer available so I had to go back to plan B, which was an English company (Yarn Undyed) which sells an amazing variety of undyed wool - suitable for you to dye yourself. We were both tempted by the merino/linen mix, which is now on my own personal shopping list,  but he stuck with his original wish for pure wool, and I got this finished just in time to send down for Christmas.

As a bonus, my sister-in-law has been doing a textile course in the Crawford College of Art & Design, and has been doing a lot of dying, so I sent her two spare balls of wool to experiment with.

I've been focussing on finishing off old projects, so I finally finished a lace throw that has been on the needles for (gulp) over twenty years. I went off the colour somewhere along the way, but kept going back and plugging away at it whenever I had nothing better to do, and the colour has grown on me again. It was originally a pattern for a baby blanket, but this is more the size of a full length wrap for a woman.

And one last finally-finished project, also on the needles for a LONG time. This was a rainbow cake of wool, and I originally started the shawl pattern that came free with it. However, there was what I considered a very muddy colour transition from purple to green, and I had never liked it. I was at the point of planning to rip it and just give the wool away, but I came across a colour-block infinity scarf on Ravelry and thought it would be a good use for it. I discarded the parts of the yarn with the muddy colour transition, so I had to add in a yellow from my stash which was the closest match in terms of weight in order to get the required length, but I am very happy to have finally got this made up into something. Since it was just a tube knit until the required length was reached, when the ends were grafted together to make a seamless loop, it was the ideal project for this Christmas holiday, requiring no thought or concentration whatsoever. 

Currently working on socks and a scarf design which uses up leftover sock yarn.