Wednesday 27 April 2011

WIP Wednesday - Show and Tell

Well there is progress to show you with the Shawl of My Own Invention.  Not as much as there could have been as I frogged back all I had done before and started over.  My first effort wasn't quite working for me so I had a bit of a re-think and started over.  I'm much happier with how it is going now.



My second piece of show and tell for this week is a swatch. I don't normally swatch but as I'm hoping that this yarn will turn into a top I will want to wear I thought I had better make the effort this time.  I am really loving the fabric this yarn is producing so I'm hoping that this top turns out well.



To check up on other peoples progress this week go visit Tami's Amis and follow the links.

Woodland Walks

Well we've been making the most of the weather again this week.  It seems to be on the turn so we wanted to make sure we got out and about while it was still sunny,  Plus the Bluebells are out in full bloom at the moment and there are a couple of local places where they can be found.

We met up with some friends and went to Burbage Common on Monday the scent of the flowers was amazing and we had a lovely time wandering around the woods.  Ond advantage to it being so dry for so long is that we could wander off the main paths through the woods without our friends little one struggling in the mud.





On Tuesday we went over to Market Bosworth Park another of our favourite walks to feed the ducks and wander round the woods there.  You can see how much the weather has cooled by how many extra layers everyone has on in these pics.




Sunday 24 April 2011

Egg Hunting

Well I thought I would share a few pics from our annual Easter Egg Hunt. 

This year has been especially fun as the weather has been good enough for us to have the hunt outside.

Mr Miffy and I with help from the Easter Bunny hid various eggs

and other presents

around the garden

and then we let the kids loose.

They've had great fun hunting their chocolate (I think Middle is almost as excited by Easter as he is by Christmas)

and of course eating it.

Before I go here is a special mention for Eldest's Easter Duck named Lady Duck who she made at her last Guides meeting before the holidays.  Sadly for Lady Duck she didn't make it to Easter Sunday.

Hope you have all had a good day anyone else get lots of chocolate?

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Bright and Sunny Work In Progress Wednesday



Well now Middle's bedtime socks are finished I've been able to go back to my Age of Brass and Steam shawl relatively guilt free.  I say relatively cos I owe Eldest a knitted elephant (from back when I first started knitting) which I really should find a pattern for and make a start on.  See now I have mentioned it here it should motivate me to get a move on with it.  I did think I had found a pattern but the crochet ears are putting me off.  I am clueless about crochet and therefore uber impressed by anyone who has mastered it.

Anyway I digress, I am here to share new pics of the rather bright Age of Brass.  I am loving the Crazy Zauberabll, the shawl is almost finished and I am still to find the end of the colour repeat.  I thought I had got there on Monday night but now a flash of the blue has appeared and I have realised that the colour repeat has still not occurred.

There is only about 38g left on the ball now so I have taken to weighing it every couple of rows so I can be sure that I don't run out before I have finished the final section.  Because of using sock yarn not DK I've been able to add a full extra repeat and then a smaller repeat which is the bit I am working on now.



I have also started work on A Shawl of my Own Invention.  This is a pattern of my own which I've been mulling over for a few weeks and finally decided to make a start on.  I'm using a ball of Jarwoll which was gifted to me and which I wanted to do something for me with.








It's going to be very simple and I am quite sure that when I've finished it I will find that someone else already wrote the pattern ages ago and if I'd only searched better I would have saved myself the trouble of thinking it up myself.


To check out other peoples Works In Progress go visit Tami's Amis and follow the links you find there.  There is some really brilliant stuff to see.

Tuesday 19 April 2011

More Pondering.

Well Friday afternoon brought us to the end of the spring term.  Hurrah, two weeks off!

We decided to get stuck in with our "garden pond" project as the weather has been gorgeous so Saturday saw us off to the garden centre to get some cobbles to go over the bricks.

Before putting the cobbles in however we got all the bricks back out so that we could create some bigger spaces at the bottom of the pond for our wildlife (I'm sure something will move in) to live in. 











We've made a nice space at the bottom and then made sure that there are several access points for the creatures.











Next we arranged the cobbles and pebbles on top and then we decided that we needed some more.  I'm sure you would agree with us there.



So Sunday morning we were back to the garden centre for more cobbles and for some pond plants.  We've filled the pond with the contents of the rain barrell so we weren't too worried about letting the water stand for a while before planting.  Fingers crossed the plants won't be worried either.








They look pretty happy so far.  They are all plants for shallow ponds and I'm hoping they'll spread a bit and if they get as tall as their labels suggest they can they make quite an impression.










I also got some gone over bulbs at a bargain price so they have gone in the heap too and while they won't last long this year hopefully they will come up next year and we'll have lots of bright yellows to welcome in the Spring.

Do you like the beginings of our of wicker thing?  We were gifted the willow last summer and it's sat about waiting for us to work out what to do with it.  Mr Miffy had a moment of insperation and got creative.  Most of our willow is too dry to weave in now but we shall be able to get more in a couple of months so we'll weave some more in then and the pond corner will get a bit more shade then.




Now we just need to sit back and let the pond do it's thing. 

Still there's plenty more to do in the garden over the next few weeks, the baskets need to be done and what veggies we do will need buying and planting up too.

Friday 15 April 2011

Is It Bedtime Yet?


Well for a moment last night I thought I wasn't going to get these done.
Middle Sock 04
 Mr Miffy brought home some cutting out that needed to be done so I spent a merry hour cutting out the sides of pyramid.  I should explain that Mr Miffy is a primary school teacher and as some of you will know a teachers work is never done, even when his home help joins in with the resources prep.
Middle Sock 03
However with a concerted effort (read "I turned off the computer so I could not be distracted by Ravelry") I managed to get the toe decreases done.  This morning I grafted the toe and right now Middle is wearing his new bed socks.
Middle Sock 02
If you want to read more about the socks then check out my WIP Wednesday post.  If you want to read about some more Finished Objects then head over to Tami's Amis and see what other folk have posted.

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Time For Bed


Middle Sock 01
Originally uploaded by Miffy's Knitting

When I first started knitting I made a pair of bed socks for Middle. He wanted something knit for him although at the time I really didn't think he would wear anything I knit him in public (I was wrong there he loves his knitted hats and stole the last shawl that I made) so I went for bed socks.

I have never seen a pair of socks loved so much. He wore them and wore them all through the winter and often in the summer too.

Sadly though last Autumn one of them developed a hole which Middle didn't tell me about. This was fast followed by another hole in the other sock and then some unravelling, acctually quite alot of unravelling at which point they were handed to me with a request to mend them.

I mean't to take a picture of what he handed over, I'm fairly sure that once the unravelling started he helped it along somewhat, but of course I didn't get around to it.

However I have not gotten around to knitting him a new pair. Fortunately I had enough of the gorgous Mama Ocllo Baby Alpaca sock yarn left to make them.

I'm hopefull that if I can get a couple of evenings knitting in today and tomorrow I might have them finished for a Friday Finished Object post. You never know.

Now I've been and found Tami's site I'm going to link to her here, from Tami's site you'll be able to see what she and lots of other crafty folk are up to at the moment.  Do go see there's some loverly stuff out there. :)

Monday 11 April 2011

Pondering the Weekend Away.

We've been having some glorious weather of late and for once it didn't end for the weekend so Mr Miffy and I decided to make a start on our summer project for our garden.  We've been planning a pond of some sort for a number of years but small children and water do not make a great combination so it's been a future plan until now.

We had to replace the kids plastic sandpit last summer due to the top being cracked however in one of our better hoarding moments we hung on to the bottom half.  Turns out such things make perfect ponds, at least for us they do.
Garden 04 April
We found the perfect place down behind the garage where the veg plot used to be and where we've let nature somewhat take it's course.  There is a big mound there where we left the contents of the compost bins when we stopped using them. 
Garden 05 April
The earth from where the pond has gone in has been used to bulk this mound up a bit more.  We also took the opportunity to increase the size of the kids flower bed
Garden 06 April                Garden 03 April
so the grass from there has been used to cover some of the fresh earth on the mound.
Garden 01 April
As you can see we've filled the pond itself with bricks and stones which will firstly make the pond safer to the kids to be around.  Although we believe they are old enough to be trusted not to paddle in the pond and not to play too near it we felt we didn't want to have an open pond and filling it would be a better option than netting it.  I think a need to jiggle the bricks and stones around a bit to create some gaps under water whilst keeping the top layer. 
Garden 02 April
We are planning to leave the pond to fill up with rainwater and then we'll put in some pond plants and hopefully next year some frog spawn so we can have our "own" frogs as well as the visitors we get in the summer.

Anyone else got any big, or small garden projects this year?

Friday 8 April 2011

Spring In The Meadow

Well it seems that spring is back with us this week and it is most welcome.  The sun has been out and the world is drying out a little and I've been itching to get out and about again.

Also when I was hunting last week for pictures of me knitting I realised that I scarcely took any family photos last year so as well as blogging more I have decided to make a concerted effort to take alot more pictures of just everyday life as well as special occasions and knitting.

This morning I had planned to meet with a couple of friends and their kids so in honour of the sunshine we headed off to Fosse Meadows which is a local wildlife reserve albeit one I have never been to before despite having lived here for almost 9 years now.

In line with my new photographic intentions I took my camera along for the trip too so I thought I would share a pic of Bean.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

WIP Wednesday

Well here is my continuing effort to Blog more often in the form of my first Work In Progress Wednesday post.

This is my Age of Brass and Steam Shawl which I am knitting is a very bright Zauberball.  As this is sock yarn rather than a DK I'm hoping to fit in an extra repeat.

I've been on a bit of a shawl kick since Christmas and I have to admit I am loving them.  I'm sticking to fairly simple patterns at the moment but of course I do have plans for more lace in the future.  I just need to get myself some semi-solid yarns first.

Sunday 3 April 2011

My Knitting Time - 2KCBWDAY7

image title
When I was thinking about this post I had a look through our photo collection thinking I might find one or two pics of me knitting in my knitting corner.  There are none.  In fact there are only two photo's of me knitting anywhere, both taken on holiday a couple of years ago and neither have me looking fit for publication.  I suppose there are two reasons for this.  Firstly I take most of the photos taken in our family.  Secondly I knit alot and so me knitting isn't really very special and so it's not worth taking a pic.  I did consider taking a photo of my knitting corner and my end of the sofa but to be honest it's not that exciting and it's not by any means the only place I craft.

You are just as likely to find me on the other sofa, on a chair in the conservatory now the spring is here, upstairs on my bed, in the car while Mr Miffy is driving or out at a knitting group.  I really don't mind where I knit.  As long as I am feeling reasonably relaxed I can knit.  In fact the only time I couldn't settle to knit was when my daughter was in the hospital last year.  I knit when it was my night home with the boys (Mr Miffy and I took turns to stay with her) but when I was with DD I just read.

I like to be comfortable when I am knitting and to have some background noise.  If everyone is home then I'll sometimes just put music on but on school afternoons when it's just me at home the TV is a must.  My mind thinks too much if no one else is talking and I don't like that to happen.  If I'm doing something that needs concentration then I'll put on something I've seen before, often so many times that I virtually know the script. That way I don't have to worry about missing any plot developments if I get caught up in my knitting and I know that there won't be any shocks in the film or programme to make me loose my place in my knitting.  I also like to have the computer on too so I can stop and nose around online every so often. 

I always have a simple project on the needles for TV I've not seen before and to take to knitting group.  There is nothing I hate more than knitting an chatting for an hour or three at the pub and then finding that all the knitting needs undoing cos I was concentrating more of the talking than the pattern.

I've put in some work in progress pics of old projects cos I really don't like to have a photo-less post and as there are none (viewable) of me knitting they were the closest I could get.

I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to Eskimimi for organising the blogging week  it's really motivated me and got me blogging again.  I'm also quite impressed with myself for managing to blog everyday, I've found it to be great fun.  I've also had lot of fun reading other peoples blogs.  I'm kinda hoping that not only will I keep blogging myself but that I will keep finding time to see what other people are up to.  And big thanks too to everyone who has stopped by to read my efforts.  I hope I've not bored you too much.