Yes, yes, the crochet version of the Hiking Reindeer Cowl is well on its way. I've done lots more since taking this photo yesterday:- Meanwhile, there's a standoff going on between me and the Stoic Spouse, concerning the garden. With an enthusiasm-to-wisdom ratio of approximately 500:1, I've been planning the redevelopment of our small plot. It's very, very, slowly on its way to being full of bulbs, and fruit trees, and sneaky interspersed vegetables, and ferns, and - I dearly hope - a pond. Continue Reading
Can You Frog A Patio?
One of the things that I love about knitting and crochet is that if it doesn't work, you can rip it all out and begin again, albeit whilst muttering some choice curses. Nothing is lost... other than fifteen hours of patient lacework, the chunk of hair that you pulled out in frustration, a smidgeon of your sanity, and most of a bottle of gin. But other than those little things, absolutely nothing is lost. Personally, that's one of the reasons why I crochet/knit rather than sew. (Since this post Continue Reading
So That Was Mine. How Was Yours?
So that's over for another year. And look! I'm just a few stitches off completing both sleeves of Glitter Glam. Then there's just the collar and the assembly to do. Anyway, Christmas happened. A rotund and elderly chap dressed in red broke into our house via the chimney. But instead of stealing stuff, he left little chocolatey gifts around the place, hidden inside old socks. All normal rules of not-accepting-sweets-from-strangers were off as the twinnage tore the foil wrapping from Continue Reading
It’s Winter: Bring Yarn
There's still time to enter the awesome yarn/pattern giveaway, right here and here! (For your bonus Facebook entry, don't forget to 'like' the 'Yarn's overall Facebook page, not just the post about this contest.) Wa-hey, it's December! I remember my teacher at primary school telling our class that we Brits are all obsessed with talking about the weather. So it's my patriotic duty to say right now, Man, it's COLD! In fact, the mercury has shrunk so shiveringly low in the glass that it's Continue Reading
Weekending, With Added Yarn
Well it's been a hunkering-down-for-winter sort of weekend. Saturday was Bonfire Night, of course*:- (*For the benefit of non-UK readers, this is when we commemorate the attempt in 1605 by an enterprising but treasonous chap called Guy Fawkes and several of his bezzies to blow up the Houses Of Parliament using barrel-loads of gunpowder. The plot was foiled, and poor Guy Fawkes got a proper telling-off (and executed). We mark this occasion annually by lighting fireworks and by setting fire to Continue Reading
Autumning
Round here, nature is at last doing autumn properly, instead of lazily slinging a cloudful of water our way and calling it a season. Suddenly, it's cold. Whatever time of day or evening you venture out, you can smell the wood-smoke from people’s log fires, and see ambitiously-stacked spider sanctuaries log-piles leaning against the walls of thatched cottages. In the evening, I pour a glass of red wine and sit down beside our own fire. Then, – more often than not – I immediately shriek and Continue Reading
Thank You
This post is mostly a 'thank you' to all of you who sponsored, encouraged, or at the very least grudgingly tolerated me as I prepared to run the Oxford Half Marathon in aid of the Nasio Trust. The big race was yesterday. Nine thousand of us lined up in the centre of Oxford under a beautiful blue sky, to await the starting klaxon. Guess what: I didn't win. (But my friend Chris did come 15th out of the 9000, which just boggles the brain: he's fast.) Still, I ran all 13.1 miles (21km), for which I Continue Reading
And Now For Something Completely Different
Ahem. (By the way, do remember that there's still time to enter the Edward's Crochet Imaginarium giveaway.) I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to do something helpful via this blog, something for charity. The idea hadn't progressed very far when a plan came along of its own accord and plonked itself in my lap. It's a ludicrous idea, and the friend who suggested it wisely did so after I'd had a couple of glasses of wine, in which state I can be talked into pretty much any kind of Continue Reading
Foraging
What’s a girl to do on the hottest day of the year? Well, besides writing up the pattern for a nice warm, fluffy cowl, I celebrated the road-melting heat on Wednesday by putting on the oven to bake courgette cake and beer bread, before going for a 9-mile (that’s 14.5km) run in the blazing midday sunshine. Stupid? Possibly. But the really stupid thing was being so obsessed with drinking lots of water in the hours pre-run that I forgot to eat. “Oops,” I thought, forced to stop as I waited to Continue Reading
Village Knitting
I love our village. It’s the type of place where you can sit in the pub with knitting and crocheting friends talking about anything, whilst people play cards at the next table and a dog snoozes near the door. There's a fair-to-middling chance of bumping into someone you know when you haul your rear out of the sofa and get up to fetch more drinks. Occasionally there’s even a rival knitting group around. People here talk to you because they’ve seen you around. They usually want to know Continue Reading