Needles and Pins...

Instead of "wood" photos today,  now that I know my latest knitting arrived safely at its destination I can upload a couple of photos of that...
I haven't bought speciality wool for a long time - I  buy most of my wool mail-order from Scotland - and there was quite an array when I went into This is Knit to look for something really nice.
This is what I found:

 I was disappointed that there wasn't more of the light green in it - a lot showed on the ball of wool, but with space-died yarns you get what you get.

I also had fun with this - the design was from a book of Crewel techniques. My normal scissors fob design is just 2 1/2" square, so I had to reduce the parrot by over half and change some of the stitches to suit the smaller project. The silk was left over from a dragonfly embroidery I did for my sister, and guided me into choosing the blue in the bird instead of the green I was originally going to use.

Happy Birthday, Lorraine :D.

p.s. - the mandarins were still there this morning.

Little Boy Blue mark 2

C is going to post this off for me tomorrow. Just as well I've made this one in a larger size - if I'd gone for a newborn or the next size up it probably wouldn't fit by the time it arrives. If it's not raining tomorrow I'm going to walk into town after work and pick up some fine wool for a christening-type baby shawl - it's raining babies just now, it seems!

Currently reading: I heard most, but not all, of the BBC Radio 4 serialisation of The Far Pavilions by M M Kaye, and picked the book up the last time I was in the library. It's a mammoth book, but I'm enjoying it and making good progress. I always like Kipling's Kim and have read it several times; this is set in a similar period. For lighter entertainment I'm reading  The Man Who Ate the World: In Search of the Perfect Dinner - well written and very enjoyable. It's a good balance to Eat Your Heart Out: Why the food business is bad for the planet and your health, which I am almost finished. We don't eat a lot of processed food anyway - reflected in the fact that when I was adding up how many times we had put our bin out for collection last year to claim a tax refund, it was only 8 times in the whole year. Even the bins that are free to collect usually only get put out for every third collection or so. But a couple of chapters in that book left me wondering how I could change a couple of other things in my purchasing patterns - and would it have any impact on the big agri-businesses if I did. I always remember that my mother boycotted South African goods during the apartheid years - we learned very early on not to choose South African oranges or other fruit.

Bear in a Bag

When I was ordering the wool for the last jumper I knit C, they had some Bear in a Bag kits on clearance. I only got one as another would have put me into the next rate for postage, but I had fun making him over the last week, and will look out for some more wool suitable to knit another. That is even though it is so hard to keep track of the stitches in amongst all that fur; when I accidentally dropped a stitch while decreasing, it took something like 8 rows of ripping back carefully one row at a time before I ended up with the right number of stitches on the needle. He was also meant to have embroidered eyes, and there was some shaping over his nose that you were meant to embroider them on - but I took the easy option of using buttons like the little old boot buttons. He's going to an adult, so I wasn't worried about the child-safety aspect.

 He was going to a new home today, so I made him a new bag from a large envelope.

Little Boy Blue

This goes to baby J tomorrow. He's only 7 weeks, I am sure he will get at least a couple of months out of it. It was a nice pattern to knit for a baby - the raglan sleeves mean that there is no bulk in the seams, and there are three buttons down the side of the neck and part of one sleeve seam to make it easy to fit on. I had to raid my craft buttons, nothing suitable in my sewing button box.
Thanks, Lorraine, for the Picture This stamps!
Couldn't manage to find anything specific last night about my photo-uploading problems except that other people seem to be experiencing them too. Time to post on Blogger help, I think...

Butterflies Can Fly Away

And so can we...
This butterfly was on the roof of one of the derelict greenhouses in Birr - I really liked the texture of the painted glass underneath.

A couple of butterfly/dragonfly cards from the MMTPT challenge this week.

By the time this posts we should be in Athens, with time for a bit of sightseeing before we get the bus to where we're staying. I've had two bad dreams about leaving the keys for the apartment here, so they are already safely packed in my handbag along with passports and boarding cards. I just have to remember that if I have another dream tonight.

Do you remember I knit my nephew a little hooded jacket for his birthday. My brother just recently sent me this photo, although from the ones my sister showed me when she was here, he's grown quite a lot since this one was taken.

Gone postal

My little nephew is one this weekend. I like giving books as gifts, and all his older siblings got books last Christmas, but he got a little cardigan. And he's getting another one for his birthday. I bought this wool to knit myself a sloppy Aran jumper, but I knew I'd have enough to knit George a little jacket. There was a slight hiccup on the way, when I didn't discover till after I'd knit the hood that I had assembled it the wrong way -  I'd put a front, a sleeve, a back, a front and a sleeve. But even after ripping back, I still managed to get it in the post this morning before work.

 
Because I was in a hurry to get to the PO before work, I didn't get to take any pictures of the lovely reflections in the river - it was a still morning, with some blue sky and cloud. I did get to watch a swan flying down the river - a lovely sight.
Here's George in his Christmas cardigan - he's a real cutie!

And this is the card I made yesterday, to stick in with it. I'm out of practice with cards for little ones now that even the next youngest is seven.

Double Trouble

These are heading off in the post tomorrow - I was knitting away madly during any breaks in our training last week, so as to get them finished. It surprises me every time how much knitting there is in a hat, and with this beng a brioche rib, while extra stretchy and extra warm, is also extra slow!

The cards were made back in November for a Limited Supplies Challenge on SCS to make two cards using the same image and colours but different layouts. I knew they would be perfect for Esther and Victoria, who are 7 this week. And goodness I am glad I wasn't rushing to try get two cards made today.

Town birds...

Yesterday was such a grey and dreary day. I was visiting my GP, and then had coffee with a good friend. She was trying to offer me a lift to the train station - less than ten minutes walk, and while it was miserable, the weather wasn't so bad that I couldn't walk it easily. Mind you, it wasn't good enough to walk along the seafront, even though I had tucked my big camera into my bag in hope.
Today, by contrast, was bright and blue and sunny, with a mist rising from the ground in the crisp morning air. The photo of the magpies and their nest is just near my bus stop in the mornings. One of the guys in work says they have magpies on their road who steal the windscreen wiper blades from cars and use them for their nest. Sometimes people who have parked their cars there to get the train are surprised to come back and find the wiper blades gone - and if they ask any of the locals did they take them, they get shown the nest in the tree.

Magpies at home...

The bird sticker was along the quays - it's most definitely from a Dublin Bus poster.

Someone seems to be going around sticking a lot of stuff like that around - the parking pay-station just across the road has a bird that makes me think of  a jackdaw stuck to it, and one of the light-posts near the Law Society has a Victorian lady silhouette.

 Took a quick snap of the reflections in the Liffey after work. Sometimes it's calm enough for the reflections to run right to the wall, but not today. Seeing them always reminds me of a walk down the Canal St Martin in Paris, and the reflections of the houses there. I'll have to see can I rummage up a few pictures of that over the weekend.

 

This penguin winged her way over to Charlene for her birthday ; we have one here dressed in the colours of the football team C supports. I have to admit it was quite nice making one that didn't have to be child-friendly. So much easier to glue the eyes on than making little wool ones that have to be stitched tight all the way through the stuffing and trying to end up with them both looking identical. The lovely red wool from her hat and scarf set was bought several years ago for a bolero-style cardigan - and was the hardest wool I have ever knit with in my life. Even knitting fine 28-gauge wire is easier!! I've thrown the last scraps out after having rediscovered how bad it was to knit with.

Ayesha's Coat of Many Colours

We must have loved the song from Joseph about his coat of many colours when we were little. We first heard it on BBC Radio's Listen with Mother, and mum must have written in to ask what it was, because she got the reply that it was from the musical, and we then got the LP - which I still have, although I've supplemented it with a CD for ease of playing and lack of scratches.
Don't you love making something from nothing. Creating is always satisfying, but creating from scraps is even more so. Over the years C has had three or more jumpers knit either totally or almost totally from scraps, and I have at least one. With the result that many of the scraps left are not what I would use in knitting for us. So - this is for the 2-year old daughter of one of the girls in work. She wanted to pay me for it, but the wool cost nothing, and I even managed to find 6 buttons the right size in my button box. And much of it was knit in work, where my time is paid for anyway. It's a Kaffe Fassett design, with different colours and slightly modified to suit my wool

Here's an old photo of C modelling a jumper I knit for a friend back in 2003. Again, the star design is one of Kaffe Fassett's. But because this was going to a friend in Georgia, I had to knit it in as fine a wool as possible  if he was to get much chance of wearing it, so I had to work out the jumper pattern myself.  I used 2-ply pure wool from the Shetlands, so even with three colours in many rows, the overall jumper is not too heavy . It furnished me with many leftovers, but I think now they are pretty much all used up.

It continues with below freezing temperatures here. C was all set to take the train this morning - but a train had broken down and no south-bound trains were running. So he came back and waited for a while - as if the ice was going to melt much!! - but then ventured in with great care on the motorbike. He reckons he'll give the train another chance tomorrow, though :D - especially with more snow forecast. And I am guessing that even with the schools still off, I will stick with my early bus and not risk the later one when I head in to work tomorrow.

Old Tree Decoration...

I was searching my hard drive today for a photo from a commercial package. Didn't find it, but I found this photo of one of the little snowmen I made our very first Christmas together. We didn't have a lot of money - C lost his job 5 months after we got married, and it was a pretty bleak time back then as far as the job market went - plus ca change!! This is the first year for a long time that Ireland has had net emigration figures again. Anyway, we did get a little tree, and I knit about a dozen snowmen to help fill some of the gaps. Some of them had knitted scarves, and some were scraps from the scrap-box. (This particular scrap was from a trouser-pocket lining, and there's one with a lovely silky red and black scarf. One knitted one was wool from a sweater that I knit 3 times for my brother. The first time I knit it in real Icelandic wool and Mum shrunk it in the washing machine. The second one, same colours only mohair, he got caught in a lathe in college and it mangled it. The third one I knit in the same colours again with really cheap wool from the pound shop - and he wore it for years!) The snowmen still come out every year, in spite of the fact that they are a reminder of a difficult time.

Quick Knit

This ladybird hat was quick to make - although I had to adapt the pattern slightly as it was probably for Aran weight wool (one of those brands/patterns that doesn't say, but going by needle size my guess is it was heavier than DK). I've knit this before for the little girl I used to mind. She lost the first one at the skating rink and I had to knit her another.

I mentioned that I had got some wool to knit a couple of things for a girl in work.
The photo challenge on SCS this week was curves. It was enormously windy on Wednesday, and pretty dull - but I was rewarded by this rainbow just as I got to work. Seen a lot of rainbows this week!!

Hot off the Needles

...not quite hot. I finished this last week, but only got the buttons when I went into town after work yesterday. I searched both my sewing and my craft button boxes, and couldn't find four matching buttons the right size. This is for my newest nephew, who is now 6 months old. It was fun to knit, because instead of having to knit the front button and buttonhole bands separately, they are cables knit along with the fronts. So, I did have to knit the cable borders for the bottom edge and the sleeves, but it was a lot more fun than knitting ribbed bands.

I picked up some wool to knit a hat and cardigan for someone in work, so there'll be more to show soon.
The weather we've been having is not conducive to outdoor photography, but here's a photo of the Spanish Chestnut tree in work, now almost totally bare. It was a pretty lousy morning, but by the time I finished work it was bright and sunny, so I walked into town instead of waiting for the bus.

Botanics - and finished sweater

Listening to the wind howling and the rain beating on the window, it's wonderful that this morning we had a lovely trip to the Botanic Gardens. I'd got up at 8, when it was grey and cloudy, so I thought it wasn't likely to happen. I made cookies and cleaned the kitchen windows, and by the time C surfaced at 9.30, it was getting to be bright and sunny, so after breakfast we headed out. For the first while it was beautiful and sunny - later on it clouded over, but it was always mild and dry.
C took the photo of me in my sweater, and didn't point out there was too much light on my face - but it's the sweater you're meant to be looking at. He was also distressed when his shadow filled the foreground of one photo he took - but he's getting a lot more adventurous with his photography these days, and always makes sure I have my little camera along with me for him, if I have my big one.
More pictures to follow tomorrow - right now it's time to go and start cooking the roast beef and Yorkshire puddings which I couldn't do earlier in the week because C was having trouble with a crown...and with an extraction to come on Tuesday, I'm getting my roast in now!

The grassy part of the gardens was amazing - I don't think I've ever seen it looking so good. It helped that the light was so lovely, and all the grasses had flowered and were looking their most beautiful. This photo might even make it into the calendar that C is doing.


We'd seen some crocuses in the Alpine House in pots, but how much lovelier to see these ones growing under one of the trees...


I always forget to bring nuts for the squirrels. Yep, there's a warning not to feed them in the car park, in case you get bitten - but how else are you meant to get close enough for good pictures? When someone else feeds them...

Work in Progress

My knitting is getting along nicely - it will soon be too bulky to bring in to work. I got a lot done over the last few days while I was working on my computer.
It collapsed again last night - couldn't boot from CD, rescue disk didn't find anything to rescue. So this morning I set it up all over again. My sister suggested I wipe the disk and then format it - that will be my MO next time it collapses - if it doesn't last out till my new one arrives - but while it's working I'll let sleeping dogs lie.
This jumper was started from the neck, and you can see where the sleeves will be knit down from the yoke. I like sleeves that are knit down - when the time comes to repair the cuffs, it's so much easier. In fact, I need to make a mental note to knit C's sleeves without cuffs, and then pick up and knit the cuffs down. His watch straps are very tough on wool! I have some wool left from the Guersnsey I knit a friend's son, so I'll look out a suitable pattern and start something for my newest nephew, who is nearly 6 months already. That will be more portable for bringing into work.

Before...

I don't know when after will be!
I was sure that when this didn't arrive on Friday, that I would have to go to the sorting office for it one day this week, but our wonderful postman managed to squeeze it through the porch window! It's Aran-weight pure wool from the Shetland Islands, and I'm going to knit a modern Icelandic design with it. It knits in one piece from the neck down, so it's going to get a bit too big to bring into work quite quickly, I fear. I have to knit a tension sample too, because the pattern only comes in one size - medium/large, with a 47 1/2" chest. So I have a feeling that I'll probably knit it on one size smaller needle. Hard to know, as the last sweater I knit from the Icelandic collection I had to re-knit the whole thing as medium turned out to be a bit too small for comfort.

Finished, at last...

I thought I had the day off today, but got a phone-call at 8 to see could I go in. As it was such a miserable wet morning, I was as well off in work as at home. What luck to have had yesterday off instead, and the glorious weather. Anyway, I was able to finish sewing up this little baby jacket in work. Perfect timing, as I ordered some wool from Jamieson and Smith this week to knit a new jumper for myself. I'd knit a Guernsey style tunic for a friend's son (she has a backlog of knitting at the moment) and when I gave it to him, he gave me €40 to spend on wool for myself. He'd wanted to choose some for me, but choices here are pretty narrow these days. He'd probably have chosen well - all of twenty-something years ago when he was possibly still in his late teens, he chose some wool as a thank-you. While it was not one I would have bought myself ever, I loved the colour and wore the resulting jumper till there were holes in the elbows. It was my first introduction to the Kilcarra wools, which I still love for their texture. It just seems crazy that it's easier to get an Irish-made wool mail-order from the UK than it is to find it here.
Anyway, this is what I made for Ade's baby. I wouldn't have chosen to use navy for an African baby, but I offered her the choice of buying wool she wanted, or using this which I had, and at the end of the day it was her choice. Anything that's a change from pink, is what she said.