Welcome to the jungle family!

So, what with not having posted properly for ages again, I haven’t mentioned that there are two new additions to the family!  One actual brand new person, and one fuzzy feline dictator.

First of all (not chronologically, but never mind that), my Favourite Niece, who is also my first and only niece or nephew, arrived in the big wide world last summer.  Here she is aged 2 months:

photo of Ms RA and her Daddy
Favourite Niece aka Ms RA, with her Daddy
It's srs bznz, this growing up thing
It’s srs bznz, this growing up thing

And this is a more recent photo, aged nearly 6 months:

photo of Ms RA wth Mummy
Ms RA invites you to try some of her parsnips

Isn’t she adorable? *proud auntie face*

And secondly we have Mr Merlin McPurrlin, my new feline overlord.  He is about 2 years old, loves his play tunnel and yellow-mouse, prefers to drink from the bath tap… and yeah, has me very well trained!  He came to live with me back in the late spring, after having been left in a box outside the vet’s because he’d been spraying in his previous owner’s home.  The vet gave him the snip, and surprise – no more spraying since then.  He’s a lovely boy, and I’m very glad that I happened to pop into the vet at just the right time!

photo of Mr Merlin McPurrlin
Merlin McPurrlin, Lord of The Remote Control All The Things

Marking a century

My granddad would’ve been 100 years old today.  Happy Birthday Poppa!

That’s the two of us together when I was small.  He died a few years ago now, and for another few years before that wasn’t really ‘himself’ due to Alzheimer’s, but other than that he was busy and active his whole life.  He was a fireman in London during the Blitz.

He then stayed on in the fire service for the rest of his working life.  He’s on the far right in the above cartoon – I think the date on it is 1949, but it could be ’48 or even ’40.  I won’t go into some of the stories he had to tell now, but there were some dramatic ones!  He travelled a lot, too, I think mostly after he’d retired.

So that’s it, really – happy birthday to you, Poppa, and Happy Centenary!

Busy busy busy

I’ve been running around doing all-sorts this week.  I’ve been at C House a few times, at the library (hi Henry!), at the gym (!!!), to KnitJam, and I’ve had a visitor this weekend – my friend Charlotte.  Whew!  And now I’m starting all over again.

I’m going to the gym with the bro and also sometimes with my upstairs neighbour.  It’s definitely a good plan to have gym buddies.  We’re planning to go to pilates, too.  Should be fun!

In knitting news, I’ve finished my first project for 2011: the Snapdragon Tam for my sister-in-law:

Snapdragon TamSnapdragon Tam

Pattern: Snapdragon Tam by Ysolda Teague [Ravlink]
Yarn: Elle Family Favourites DK in Gold.
Needles: 4mm metal circulars.

I am pleased with it, and it was fun to knit, too :-)

FOs in 2010, Part 1

As I didn’t post all that much last month in the end, I thought I’d do a round up of last year’s finished projects now, before it gets too out of date.  Some of these I’ve mentioned before, but I wanted to get some better pictures of one or two anyway.  So, in order of finishing:

Continue reading “FOs in 2010, Part 1”

Belated Christmassy round-up

I never did talk about how Christmas was in the end, did I?  So I shall inflict in upon the world now.  I actually did get everything finished and ready that I needed to.  All my online shopping arrived (whew!) even though the post was all over the place, I finished the present I was making for Mum, and I even made chocolate chip cookies with moderate success!

Branching OutThe scarf for Mum was the Branching Out pattern [Ravlink], and I knitted it in a lovely Merino / Tencel blend that I spun on the wheel – the first time I’ve knit with my own handspun.  I just left it as a single, and it worked really well (imo, anyway!) and I like the way the colour repeats came out.  Mum says she really likes it too, which is the main thing!

I also joined two Christmas swaps, one through the Limegreenjelly group, and one through Plurk.  The post was / is still being less kind where those are concerned.  It seems to have eaten the parcel from the latter altogether, but I have now had my LGJ parcel from Cal, and a fabulous one it is too:

Two braids of LGJ fibre (one Merino/Silk, one Merino, yum!), a beautiful skein of Posh Yarn Elinor, an Orange Blossom perfume stick which I think is from Lush, mini Green & Black’s choccy bars (om nom nom!), a set of Knit Pro interchangeable needle tips and a cable for them (which spookily I’ve been wanting for ages), and an adorable Lego keyring. :-D  I just hope she likes her gifts from me as much as I do mine.

A decade of blogging

I very nearly forgot altogether, but yesterday was my “blogoversary”.  The tenth anniversary of starting this blog, in fact.


It doesn’t feel like ten years, but then there have been some years where I’ve barely blogged at all, or at least times when I’ve been mostly using Livejournal or similar platforms instead.  As I think I’ve said in previous anniversary posts, this blog has gone through a few changes in terms of its back-end platform – Blogger, Movable Type, and now WordPress – over the last decade.  I feel pretty settled now, though.  And at least I’m managing to post more, if not regularly.

Perhaps with this new blogging year, I should make that a mini-resolution: to pick a day and blog regularly once a week.  After all, if I can blog every day for a month, I can do once a week at the least.  In fact, since it’s Friday today, why not have Friday as my must-post day.  If I can’t think of anything else to say, at least I could do a weekly round up.  Preferably it’ll kick start me (again) into posting more frequently than that.  Right then, I’m going to go off and stop talking about posting, and actually make a start on posting something with Real Content.  Good night.

Oh baby, it’s cold outside!

I took a day off of blogging yesterday, but I’m going to see if I can now do the rest of December as well.  If not, no big worry.  I actually ventured out yesterday, and I’m glad I did, even though the pavements down the hill were icy:

Today, it’s a tad snowier than it was yesterday, and it’s snowing again now.  No buses are running, and there’s very little traffic in general.  My brother’s friend was mostly OK in his Jeep, but I wouldn’t want to drive in this weather.  It’s a bit deep on my road, and we’re not likely to get gritted:

Brrr!

No(t much) Snow

We’ve had a little bit of snow today, but it hasn’t really settled.  Which is good, because it meant that the rails and roads were OK for getting back from the Skunk Anansie gig at Brixton Academy last night.  That was fantastic, by the way, and if I can find the words I’ll try to write up some kind of review.

Today, I’ve finally been working on the photo album for this site again.  So, as an experiment, let’s try displaying a gallery from it on this post…

Continue reading “No(t much) Snow”

Travelling Woman shawl

Finally, belatedly, here are the pictures and info for my “Gap Year TravelsTravelling Woman shawl.

Travelling Woman shawl

Pattern: Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante [Ravlink]
Yarn: The Yarn Yard Bonny in Byron Bay & Art Deco solid, and Wendy Sunbeam St. Ives 4ply Sock Wool in Dark Grey.
Needles: 4mm metal circulars.

Travelling Woman close-up Travelling Woman close-up

Pretties from NZ

My brother and sister-in-law brought pressies back from New Zealand!  So I thought I’d show one of mine off:

Creative Fibres Hand Dyed Mohair in Pukeko
Creative Fibres Hand Dyed Mohair in "Pukeko"

The name of the colour comes from a New Zealand bird which has plumage in the colour of the yarn.  Oh, and it’s a lovely 100g hank of bulky-weight mohair… I’ve been thinking about what to make with it, but I think I’ve settled on a shawl of some kind.

Typing + tiredness = not working

Since I’m extremely tired today (I have new medication which is making me drowsy, hopefully just for the adjustment period, and every time I sit down somewhere relaxing I drop off!), I’m not going to say much again.  I haven’t managed to finish the shawl yet, but just have the cast off edge to go.  I’ve been setting the twist of some of my handspun:

Setting the twist
Setting the twist

(excuse the rubbish photo), and also marvelling over how the Xandermog can go from FULL ON PESTER mode to fast asleep, you-can’t-wake-me in under five minutes flat.  Still when the result is this little face:

Xandermog on the sofa today
N'awwww!

how can you complain?

Late night blogging

Whoops… I’m really tired today, and I nearly forgot to post.  Wouldn’t that have been a good start to NaBloPoMo.  As it is I have no time to think up anything clever or interesting (as if there’s ever anything along those lines here!), so instead I shall post a photo of one of my recently completed knitting projects:

Handsocks for MumA pair of “handsocks”, aka fingerless mitts, for Mum. Her hands don’t get as painful if she keeps them warm, so these are really useful for that. They’ve completely stashbusted some of my left over sock yarn, so that’s good too.

Clap!

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve finished my Clapotis [Ravlink] at long long last – it’s only taken me nearly three years!  Although to be fair, for most of that it was languishing in a bag with only the first section knitted.

So here are some photos of the finished object, anyway.  I haven’t blocked it, as I like how it’s turned out as it is.  It’s too warm to wear it at the moment, but as soon as the weather cools down, it’ll be in active service!  Should make a change from wearing purple.

And talking of purple(-ish), I’ve been spinning away for the Tour de Fleece.  More pictures from that tomorrow, I expect.

TdeF Prep

As well as carrying on with the Big Clear Out / spring-clean / whatever, I’ve been preparing for the start of the Tour de Fleece tomorrow.  I’ve got the wheel all set up, and the fibre that I’ll be starting with all ready.  I’m basically aiming to spin every day for at least half an hour, more if I can manage it, and overall just get as much done as I can.

Limegreenjelly Merino-Tencel in Fever Limegreenjelly Merino-Tencel in Nightfever The first thing I’m spinning are two similar, but complementary, colourways from Limegreenjelly.  Actually, everything I’ll spin will be LGJ, since that’s all I have!  I’m spinning each of these into singles, then plying the two together. I think it’ll look nice.