Brrrr!

It's getting a bit chilly here. 

Just as well I've finished a sweater then right?!!

It's Mabelle by Diane Mulholland and it's awesome!  Before I started it, I had no experience of knitting sweaters in the round with a yoke.  I have tried knitting baby cardigans before and hated the sewing up because I thought they looked untidy.  So I just followed the pattern. She did say that if you wanted to, you could add in extra yoke decreases if you wanted the neckline higher but I just left it.  Next time I'm definitely going to do the extra decreases because the neckline is a little low (visible bra straps!!).  I can wear it with a t-shirt, but meh.  The visible bra straps don't bother me so much because I'll not be wearing it in a work setting.

Knitting sweaters in the round is an ace idea.  No sewing up!  I am happy with it anyway :)

I've moved!

So, I've moved to Burnley :)

Burnley is in Lancashire and I moved up from the Midlands - a good 3 hours drive.  The move itself was relatively painless, with only a few hiccups along the way, although I don't want to be doing it too soon in a hurry.

I had to leave my job.  The thing is, the commute was doing my head in - 45 minutes, but usually an hour, given the traffic.  The diesel was costing me a week's wages every month (well, 4 weekly as that's how often I was paid) and as I was the only one working in our household, money was tight.

My life was so complicated; hence the lack of blog posts.  I'd be out of the house for close to 12 hours a day for 4 days a week (including college) and then for 2 days I'd be pretty much doing half days, although I was good for nothing, especially on the Saturday as I'd have been up since 5:30 (but usually earlier, as if I was on my own, I liked to get in earlier).  Sundays was my only real day to myself, which was filled with cleaning, catching up on college work, laundry and occasionally some knitting.  I was rarely able to cook and although I cooked at work (I worked in a canteen), it's not the same as cooking lovely things for yourself.

The thing about the move is that I'm able to attend Uni up here as well.  I've finished my certificate course in counselling and I'll be able to go on and do my masters degree.  I didn't get in this year, which I have mixed feelings about.  Part of me is relieved as I'll have a year to catch my breath after living such a hectic life for a year or so and part of me is a bit upset.  It's for the best though.

The Mr. has a better opportunity for jobs up here.  In the week that we moved, he had 3 job interviews.  We've not heard anything yet, although I remain hopeful.  It will make things so much easier when we are both working. 

I've got some temporary nights work - for how long, I'm not sure - it's ongoing temporary.  I can't say I'm keen on working nights, but I'm glad that we've got some money coming in.  The money is a little bit better than what I was earning before, plus it's full time, plus it's closer, so less fuel costs, which will help.  We still have some council tax to pay back from when we were living in Nottingham, but we overpaid our gas and electric so we should have some money coming back off them soon (although some of that will get eaten by the Mr's overdraft!), which will help. 

What's cool is that we are paying the same in rent but getting a bigger property.  In Nottingham, we lived in a top floor 1 bedroom flat which was basically 2 rooms.  Now we have a 2 up, 2 down house, with a teeny yard out the back to call our very own!  For the first time, I have my own herb garden.  Well, I call it a herb garden, but they are pots of herbs bought at the supermarket.  It's a little late in the year to be planting them outside, but we will next year.  Along with some chillies and maybe some tomatoes. 

The best thing though is that my sister lives just round the corner from us, which is ace.  She's handy to have around, plus she makes ace cakes!  It's fantastic.

We haven't done any decoration yet, because a) we aren't really sure exactly what we are doing and b) it's probably a better idea to wait until the Mr. has work and I have more secure employment.  Not that we'll be spending a fortune of course!

I have located a few of the local knitting and spinning shops.  There's a shop in Clitheroe that is a distributor for Ashford wheels and also has fibre.  It was great to go in!  I also found out that there's a knitting and spinning event called Yarndale in Skipton, which I'm definitely going to go to!! 

The second best thing that happened as a result of my move?  I now have my cat Hobbes living with me!!! Epic!  When I moved in with the Mr. from Leicester to Nottingham (keep up at the back!!), I had been asked to leave the place I was staying and as neither of us could afford the estate agents fees to move, we ended up in the Mr's place - a teeny, damp, cold, depressing top floor flat.  Not good for us, and unkind on the cat.  Now that we have moved, we've been reunited.  Damn, I've missed that cat!  He's as twp as a sledge though (gotta love Welsh phrases, nobody says it quite like us), but great to have around.

I hope to be posting more regularly from now on too!!  Perhaps with more pictures as well, although I have no idea where my camera is.  Tucked in a box somewhere no doubt!

Scorchio!

It's hot!!  Wooooo!

The British are obsessed about the weather, because it can change so damn much even in the space of a day.  We've had a desperately cold, late and wet spring and yay, we've had nearly 2 weeks of hot sun so far.  Hot for us Brits is anything above 23c and it's been reaching 32c and averaging around 25 or 26. 

So yeah.  I've been drinking vast amounts of iced coffee.  I've been making my own, because, well, reasons. 

It's a bit fiddly, but so worth it (and so much cheaper than £3- £4 a pop at Costa / Starbucks).

So I get 2 bags of single estate coffee from Lidl.  Seriously, it's so good and it's £2 for a 200g bag.  Then I add 3 - 4 pints of cold water and then stick it in the fridge overnight.  Make sure the coffee is completely saturated by water though.  If you choose to grind your own (Lidl's has a kilo of Lavazza espresso beans for £9.99), then you could grind it fairly coarse.  Which helps.

Then I sieve it with one of those plastic mesh sieves used for jam making, pressing the coffee a little to make sure I get as much water out as possible.  This can take a while and can be a bit messy! 

Then you filter it again, using paper coffee filters, muslin, or perhaps even a cafetiere / french press. 

It's definitely worth doing the sieve thing, it speeds up the process.

That's your concentrate.  It's lasted us a week and me and the Mr. have been having one a day, sometimes two.  That was with 3 pints of water, but I reckon it'd be just as good with 4 pints.  Once it's all filtered, stick it back in the fridge.

To make a drink, I put an espresso shot worth (or alter to taste) over a tall glass of ice, add some milk and you're good to go.  If you like it sweet, add sugar, but it doesn't dissolve too well in cold drinks.  However, you can get flavoured syrups that they use in coffee shops to make speciality latte's.  I'm personally a big fan of gingerbread.  I've since discovered that it's much cheaper to make your own, but that's for another day.    If I want to make it a little indulgent, I add some single cream (not much, just a dash. 

A facebook friend makes hers with coconut milk and if you want to make a Vietnamese style iced coffee, try sweetened condensed milk.  I'd be interested to know what the non dairy alternatives are like - eg, sweetened soya milk etc.  I know that some soya milk brands curdle in hot coffee, so I don't know what happens in cold coffee.

Funny how time flies...

I can't believe that it's April.  April!!!

I've not had a huge amount of time for knitting and spinning recently, because I am spending about 12 hours a day out of the house 4 days a week, and 8 hours out of the house 2 days a week.  Add college work into the mix and a bit of housework and I'm stressing.

It's not been easy lately; the fella is out of work so the pressure is on me to bring enough in to pay the bills.  He was a student nurse, but had to give up the course because of money issues and he was struggling to do the actual course.  He's had 6 job interviews in 6 months, which is pretty good.  Especially when there were 1700 applications for 8 jobs in a new branch of Costa just up the road from me.

I really hate my flat.  It's small and messy.  We have been struggling to heat the flat because of money so when the boiler packed in at Easter, it was annoying.  Yesterday, the guy from the boiler repair place came out and condemned the boiler as the flue is leaking exhaust gases into the flat, which means there was carbon monoxide leaking into the flat.  Fuck!  Luckily, I don't think the boiler itself was hugely faulty when it was actually lit, we just couldn't get it lit.  As the flat is damp, our windows are open a teeny bit to allow the air to circulate (we think it's condensation more than anything), so thankfully, neither of us has any symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

I saw my family on the weekend as it was my nephew's 21st birthday party. It was great to see the family and I got to dress up in rockabilly style clothes as it was a rock and roll theme. I felt rough though so didn't feel up to much and was a bit anti social :s

On the way back, I persuaded the fella to take a diversion to The Threshing Barn and I got some really nice yarn and fibre. First up was some 70/20/5 merino/nylon/sparkle hand dyed yarn

Then 100g of Corriedale in purple, green and red. To match the Corriedale, I got 100g purple merino to ply with it.

That was gonna be it but then I saw a 500g bump of a blend of alpaca, llama and merino for £25! All natural colours. Yay!

I've not spun with alpaca or llama before. This should be entertaining!

I'm really looking forward to getting involved with that, but I've just started spinning for my celestarium so it'll have to wait. I have no idea what I want to do with any of it, other than the yarn, might do some socks with that. I can never have enough socks :)

I'm also working through a bit of old stash to make room for new. I'm also working on wips as well, seeing as though I have 2 blankets, 1 sweater, 1 shawl, 1 pair of socks and a hat on the go. I would like to get 1 old project finished for every new project that I start. Having said that, my blankets are a long term project so I'm not worried about rushing to get those finished. Perhaps I could spend a couple of weeks working on one of them for every new project I start :)

I have finished the sock pattern I've been wittering on about for ages, but it probably only makes sense to me. I am not brilliant at writing sock patterns it seems, mostly because I can knit a sock from memory, so when writing out a pattern I leave out the really important stuff that's obvious to me that wouldn't be for a newbie sock knitter and I feel a bit uncomfortable about releasing a pattern that's going to annoy some people. We shall see :)

Back to the knitting methinks :)

Oooops!

Bloody hell, I did not realise that I had not blogged since September last year.

In my defense, I have been so busy with college and all sorts of other stuff.  Just before Christmas, a friend from college passed away suddenly. I was gutted to lose her and am even sadder for her 7 year old son and her partner.  I will always remember the fun we had, laughing and chatting.

Being skint and having next to no money for gifts, I decided that I was going to try and make all of my Christmas gifts by hand.  Firstly, I was going to knit them, then I realised I had 16 gifts to knit. No.  That wasn't going to happen.  I think I managed 7.  The rest, I made using ideas from Pinterest.  I got cheap mugs from the pound shop and then knitted cozies for them.  I got some pretzels and then dipped them in melted dark chocolate and bagged them into clear cellophane bags.

For my vegan friend, I made homemade Reece's Peanut Butter Cups.  Nom!  I also got some cheap mason jars and made homemade sugar scrub.  Sorted!

I did enjoy it, but I found it all got a bit stressful in the end.  Next time, I think I may try making things like lotion bars and lip balms.  It was my vegan friends birthday on Thursday and he requested homemade bath bombs, so I now have the kit to make them too. 

I also had college work, as well as trying to hunt for a new job and I felt myself getting incredibly stressed.  I had to drop the job hunting.  My fella is now looking for work as he is now not at college.  It's been 4 months and he's had 4 interviews, which is a start, but no joy yet.  It's been a bit of a struggle to survive on my own wages.  Driving from Nottingham to Leicester for work doesn't help, but I'm struggling to find work that will allow me to go to college.  I plan to do my Masters after this (although, given the current financial situation, I may have to defer it a year until the fella gets work), so will need to reduce my hours.  We will definitely need the fella working for that. 

So yes.  Stuff happening.   LOTS of stuff happening and not nearly enough knitting for myself.  However, I am knitting the Mr a pair of cabled slipper socks with leather soles and then I'm going to spend a month or so finishing the projects I have started (2 pairs of socks, 1 sweater and 1 shawl). 

I do have a couple of blankets on the go, but I'm taking my time with them.  There's no rush at all for them.  I have another granny square blanket, a 10 stitch blanket in random bits of handspun and a Beekeepers Quilt.  The Beekeepers Quilt is being done in scraps of sock yarn in random colours, as is the 10 stitch blanket.  They are the kind of blankets that I can pick up whenever I like.  I have two of then stored in the wardrobe in the bedroom when I'm not working on them.  The Beekeepers Quilt is made of hexipuffs, which I cast on using Judy's Magic Cast on, then graft together once knitted and stuffed (I am saving my scraps of yarn to stuff them with).  I am knitting them on 2.5mm needles, which is probably not a good idea.  I'm toying with the idea of making a 20x20 square with them, then knitting a back and adding a cushion pad and some buttons, just to test the sewing together.  I'm afraid that using the technique described in the pattern, that it'll fall apart.  Plus as I am using the 2.5mm needles, they are smaller and are taking ages to do.  So, we will see how I get on :)

I will be back with pictures soon.  I hope :)  Right now, I'm knackered and need a shower before I go to bed :)

Back!

I haven't posted in ages.  Sorry!  I do have a good reason though - My trusty laptop died and now I have bought another.  The old one had a dodgy battery anyway and the power socket / power cable stopped.  It was crackling when it was plugged in and it wouldn't start at all.  Thankfully, my college stuff was backed up onto dropbox, so I could just borrow the fella's laptop and then continue with my essay writing.

I got very stressed over that laptop.  I struggled to get it written and it felt very bad.  However, I did pass and I'm onto the second year of the course.  I am finding that it's hard, but it doesn't quite seem like me at the time when I'm doing it.  I'm always amazed by what I've achieved!  What is cool is that I'm recognising things in others and myself.  I'm getting there and feeling a bit more confident in myself.

I've just had a few days off work and I've been knitting for most of it.  In between baking bread, visiting vintage fairs (I will have to photograph my spoils!) and making crumpets anyway.  I'm very glad that I have a slow cooker.  I was able to chop some veg, fry off some sausages and then set the slow cooker and then get on with some knitting. 

I've been watching some of my Mark Thomas collection.  I have some of his stuff on a hard drive here - the Sex, Filth and Religion gig and the Mark Thomas Comedy Product.  I also have a couple of the Dispatches things he did, which was good.  I have his Serious Organised Criminal on DVD.  Met him once when I saw him tour his Walking the Wall gig when I was with my ex.  Brilliant stuff!  I did turn into a bit of a fangirl when I met him though because he's just brilliant.  He signed one of my books :)

Life is good.  Marillion have a new album out and me and the fella went to see them live last Friday in Sheffield.  It was a fantastic gig, but the venue was a bit cramped.  I think normally, they aren't so full, but this one had too many there.  I heard that normally Marillion gigs are sold to 80% capacity to allow us a bit more room, but I believe the venue was sold to capacity.

The gig was my favourite, apart from the venue issues.  It was also my 7th.  It was my fella's first h era Marillion gig and he enjoyed it too.  The new album is very proggy and feels like a bit of a return to their roots.  I love it - wonderful stuff.  I've been listening to it a lot at work and it's been nice to listen to something different at work. 

I will have to do a photo entry soon, with photos of some of the work I've been doing.  I'm off work again in a month.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some Christmas knitting done.  Yes, I'm Christmas knitting, after a few years of sanity.  I'm just going to knit as many socks as I can, or perhaps some of my Flossies as gifts.  I was thinking that they'd be nice in a 4ply yarn, with a slight adjustment for stitch counts etc, and then maybe some beads instead of the bobbles. Hmmm.  I am already picturing the yarn and the beads.  I think this could be promising.  We'll see :)

Ground control...

Doing this earworm tracking thing is interesting.  It seems that my earworms are nowhere near as random as I think they are.  It seems that songs from adverts and / or documentaries are getting into my head and staying there.

It's all good though, at least I'm not getting any really annoying stuff in my head.  June's earworm playlist is here if you fancy a listen.

I successfully managed to avoid yarn buying today.  I am doing what the Knitmores call stash cultivation, which means that you build a beautiful stash.  My current stash is lovely, but I must remind myself not to buy yarn because it's on sale or because it's cheap.  I have plenty of yarn at the moment that I'd like to work through.  2 sweaters worth, 2 blankets worth, several pairs of socks worth, and several shawls worth.  I would like to spin for a sweater though, but would just like to improve on my spinning first though.  Having said that, it's getting so much better than what it used to look like.

By the way, here is my Vortex shawl project page (so you can see the link to the pattern), with pictures as promised.  I love the way the colour variations in the handspun yarn swirls with the pattern.  It sort of looks like what I imagine a vortex to look like.

I am really happy with it, naturally! I really think that the yarn suits the pattern and vice versa.

The 10 stitch blanket is still ongoing and I'm happy with the way it's going.  I'm aiming for random colours and something that's a bit shabby but lovely.  Not that I think my work is shabby, but I want random.