A Very Penguin-y Christmas To You!

Happy Christmas my dears!  I do hope that you all had a lovely celebration of your choice, or at the very least enjoyed a few restful days off work.

I confess, Christmas isn't really my thing.  In all honesty, I find it a time of obligations, responsibilities, and expectations, most of which I don't have the money or energy to live up to.  However, a lot of people who I love very much do celebrate Christmas, so I do my best to do the same.

This Christmas I did very little, Kelly and his mum did the vast majority of the planning, cooking, and cleaning associated with "Making Christmas Perfect".  So everybody please give three cheers to Kelly and Lynne!

The rest of my successful Christmas was down to Kellys family filling the house with cheer, and the sound of sugared up kids having a great time, amazing friends who understood and tolerated my curmudgeonly spirit, and even managed to convince me to actually go out a couple of times to see people, and the sight of my niece dancing with a plushy polar bear that was nearly the same size as she is :)

Thank you everyone!

The Knitting Bit

You may recall that I started my Christmas knitting woefully late.  Due to that bout of flu lasting over 3 weeks, being followed up by a chest infection, sinusitis, and shortly after that an ear infection too, I got very little in the way of knitting done.  In fact, I think if Stephen hadn't dislocated his knee, resulting in my spending a reasonable amount of the one week I wasn't ill sat in the Minor Injuries department of our local hospital waiting for him to be checked out, and offering prime knitting time, then I might not have done as well as I have at getting things finished.

So firstly, there was that offensively pink and sparkly yarn, clearly that was for my favourite little princess, my niece.  I even made an effort at crochet to decorate the cute little hat and scarf set that I made for her:

Then there was the dark purple aran, and my grey handspun.  I was actually pretty nervous about how this would turn out, given I had to make the pattern up off the top off my head (I could only find one similar pattern, and it wasn't suitable for the sheer amount of technology that Kelly wields), and given that I had no idea what the handspun would knit up like.  But I'm actually pretty pleased with how it worked out in the end.  The only thing that disappoints me is that the weight of all the remote controls stretches the fabric more than I anticipated, so the xbox controller ends up sat on the floor.  At least it's held in place there, and can't get kicked under the sofa and lost now I suppose!

I named it a "Technology Tidy", but he decided that it should be called a "Sofa Command Centre".

I still haven't finished Stephens socks, and I haven't yet cast on the other 2 gift projects that I want to work on, but I am going to be visiting the folks up north 3 times in January, so I'm sure I can get those finished at some point in the next month.

I did receive a couple of knitting related presents.  No Monty and Mabel knitting set, but that's ok, I think what I got was even better!

One gift was cunningly disguised as being far less valuable.  I'll be honest, I would have been happy to receive the joke present on its own, but I was ecstatic when I realised that wrapped around the ball bands of two of these balls of sparkly were Countess Ablaze gift vouchers!  

/happy dance

I can't spend them just yet because I opened this gift at my friends Christmas party on the 28th, and the Countess had a sale on Boxing Day, so her shelves are all but bare now.  However, I did manage to secure a skein of laceweight from the final installment of the Twelve Caesars Collection before the yarn-crazed-hoards strip-mined the entire shop, and I'm very much looking forward to the new collection theme for next year...

Then, to link knitting and penguins, I received these:

Penguin stitch markers!  Aren't they adorable?  And some free Christmas themed stitch markers too.

No such thing as too many penguins

I may have received a few penguin related gifts too:

There was another box of penguin chocolates, but I'm afraid they didn't survive much past boxing day.  There's also a big snuggly penguin hoodie, but I've already worn it so much that it needs a wash.  I've got a photo I took of everything I opened on Christmas day somewhere, I think you can see both the hoodie and the other chocolates on that...

Finally, I promised to show you my new Christmas Penguins that I'd bought for myself before my last update, so here they are too:

Penguin fairy lights!!!  These now decorate the penguin shrine, and I think they deserve to be there all year.  A penguin is for life, not just for Christmas!

Sweet dreams my dears, see you all in the new year!

Keeping it secret

So it turns out that it's really really difficult to write a blog post about your knitting in the run up to Christmas.

The problem is, I like the idea of people reading my blog, so obviously I don't want to be hiding it away and telling people not to read it.  That would just be foolish!  On the other hand, I don't want the people I'm knitting for to see what I'm making for them, or in fact to even have the clue that I am knitting for them at all.

So, what can I post here?

I've decided that I can probably get away with posting this:

This is the yarn that I'm using for the first couple of things I'm knitting this Christmas.  There is more, but the rest of the gifts aren't likely to be delivered until after Christmas day, so I figure I've got a little bit longer before I need to cast those on.

I suspect that anyone who sees the pink yarn is going to work out pretty quickly who that is for, but I've got some hope that the secret of the purpose of the rest might be kept.

It's a little bit exciting actually, because the grey yarn is my very own handspun, and it's the first of my handspun that is being used for an actual proper purpose.

However, it's also scary, because that photo was only taken today.  Yes, today.  I have 3 weeks to get my knitting done, and I've only just got around to balling up the yarn.

Still not finished

The Christmas knitting isn't it either.  Remember the socks that I was knitting to be a birthday present on the 29th November?

You'll notice that it's a sock.  Singular.  The second sock is still on the needles.

Basically, I've had flu for the last 2 weeks, so I've not had the energy or co-ordination to do very much at all.  It's supremely frustrating.

Maybe I'll get these finished in time for Christmas too...

I do have some new penguins too.  No photos for you though.  Partly that's because one of the new penguin things is being saved for my actual Christmas update.  Partly it's because I've left my camera at work, and there's a limit to how much I can steal my boyfriends phone to take photos.  So you'll have to wait to see my new penguins next time.

TTFN my dears.

The "C" word

I can't really ignore it any longer.  Christmas is coming.  I have less than 5 weeks to get all of my Christmas knitting done, and I've not so much as cast on a single stitch.

I know what I'm going to be making, mostly, and I have the yarn I need, but somehow other things keep getting in the way.

Like these:

Last weekend I went up to Newcastle to visit the family, and delivered the boot-toppers to Gemma.  As you can see, they were immediately put to good use, and I've been asked to make another pair for Vikki.  Vikki has fancy wellies though, hers are pink and purple, so this is the yarn I've chosen to make hers in:

I don't think these can count as Christmas knitting, but I would like to get them done as soon as possible.

I'm not going to talk about the actual Christmas knitting, because people might read about what they're getting, and that's not allowed!

I also need to finish these before I can cast on anything new:

That there is the first of Stephens socks.  I'm at the cuff now, it's nearly finished, but then I have a whole second sock to make!

Yes, I could be knitting it now, but for reasons, I'm likely to have knitting time tonight, but not access to my laptop, so blog post time now instead.

On the plus side though, the approach of Christmas also brings with it many penguin related items available in the shops.  These are my latest acquisition, and they're super cute:

I'm afraid that's it for now, short and sweet!

Until next time my darlings.

A Holiday of sorts.

Hello again my darlings.

I have returned to Internet Land from the isolation of the North Yorkshire town of Whitby, where phone signal is intermittent, and internet is new-fangled arcanery.

However, it's also a place of atmospheric beauty, so we'll let it off:

It is also home to a lovely yarn shop inside a beautiful old building, called Bobbins.  After Yarndale, Bakewell, and 2 Countess Ablaze Caesar updates in one month, I can't say that I had a lot to spend, but I had a nice time chatting to the girls who run the shop, and I came out with some lovely Drops extra fine merino to make a sweater for Gemmas 3 year old son, and some pretty sock yarn.  I actually went back a few days later and bought more of the Drops Delight, thinking that I was choosing a different colourway, but actually I'd just chosen 2 more skeins of the same colourway, but with more of the purple shades on the outside of the ball.  I figure that this just gives me more options about what I can do with it:

Holiday Knitting

You may recall me saying that I had no intention of working on any WIPs, or high-pressure knitting of any sort while on holiday.  It turns out that I sort of lied.

As I hadn't actually cast on any of my holiday knitting before we set off on the drive north, I decided to just continue working on Kellys socks.  With the result of me finishing them just after we arrived:

The advantage to this being that Kelly then had an additional pair of warm socks to wear for the holiday.

It also meant that by the end of the October WIP-down challenge, I had finished 5 of 11 projects, and made significant progress on a further 2.  Not too bad I feel.

So obviously that meant I could cast on 3 new projects over the next few days...

Starting with some sparkly boot-toppers for Gemma.  She and her family spend a fair amount of time working on their allotment, which necessitates the use of wellies.  They're not the coziest, or most comfortable of footwear, so a variety of leg-warmer, or sock-like patterns have been written to solve this.  The one I chose was supposed to be a hand-sewn felt inner bootie, with the knitted section being purely for decoration.  But I decided to use the knitted section as a base for a leg-warmer style boot-topper:

Yes, I've only finished one so far.  I decided that the ribbing bit was a bit boring for holiday knitting, so I cast on a hat for Gemmas elder son instead of the second boot-topper.

Gemma loves the colour grey.  You might have noticed this from the amount of it in this post!

Finally, I also cast on Stephens socks in that gorgeous semi-solid green by Countess Ablaze:

This is far too nice to rush, so I've not actually managed as much of it as I'd hoped, but I have another few weeks to get them finished.

The really real world

It was a strange sort of holiday, and most of the reasons for that don't need recording in a blog about knitting.  But it did end with the journey north for Myras funeral, and today is the 2nd anniversary of us losing mam.  So I've been left feeling really rather odd, and somewhat fragile.  I'm sorry if that comes across too much in my writing style.

But... Penguins!

"One cannot be angry when one looks at a penguin." - John Ruskin

They make it harder to be really sad too.

During this holiday, Kelly bought me 2 new penguins for my collection:

This one is from Whitby glass, home of the Lucky Duck.

This one is from a tiny little shop called One-o-five.  I was inside the shop perusing the silver and jet rings when Kelly came in and said "I may regret telling you this; but there's a jet penguin in the window..."  I don't think he really regrets telling me, he knew what the result of him saying such a thing would be!

Mostly, it made me smile :)

On top of that, this week John Lewis have released their new Christmas advert, as well as a Christmas gift knitting kit, designed by one of the girls who frequents Knit Nottingham.  

The kit is available here (hint, hint :p)

And I shall sign off with the advert, in all it's soppy, sentimental, penguin-y glory:

This was going to be a WIP-down update, but...

Remember this project?

This is the only new project that I've cast on this month.  I did so because Myra, a friend so close we called her family, told me this summer that she'd like some red cushions.  A few weeks later we found out that the cancer she'd already fought for 2 years had spread to her brain.  We knew our time with her was limited, and I was determined to give her the red cushions that she wanted.

I delivered those cushion covers on the 11th October.  We spent a lovely afternoon chatting, and I was pleased to see that Myra was looking and feeling well.

One week later something went wrong.  Maybe the tumour in her brain caused a bleed, we don't know for sure, but on Sunday 19th October Myra was admitted to hospital, then on the morning of Thursday 23rd October, she decided not to fight any longer.

So although this update is also going to discuss my progress on various WIPs, it is also dedicated to the memory of one of the most loving, yet practical, and down to earth woman I have ever had the privilege to know.

Myra has 2 daughters, I've mentioned them before.  Gemma and Vikki are sisters in all but blood to us.  Last year we completed the Race for Life in memory of my mam, and in hope for Myra:

We walked, and we ran, and we did it all while taking turns to push my sleeping 2 year old niece around with us.  Myra was going through treatment for her cancer, and yet here she was:

This is in no way the best photo of Myra ever taken, but it demonstrates the kind of woman that she was.  Supportive and strong, but not terribly sympathetic when we reached the end exhausted!

So Myra; thank you.  Thank you for being there for us as children, for being there for my mam, for being there for Davie, and for having been a part of our lives.  

And the rest of you, check your breasts!  Myra could have been saved if she had attended her routine mammogram appointments.  The tumour in her breast was tiny, but the damage it caused when it spread to her bones and her brain was devastating.

About those WIPs

I'm sure you can imagine, this week hasn't quite gone according to plan.  For a start, most of it has been spent up in Newcastle instead of Sheffield.  We honestly did not expect everything to happen so suddenly   When my sister drove us up north on Wednesday, we expected to be returning home on Thursday, then going up again to visit this weekend, and possibly a few times more.  So I only took 2 projects with me, plus a small spinning project.

On the plus side, this has forced me to concentrate on these 2 projects, with the result that I have finished something!

This is my Dazzle scarf.  The pattern is by Louisa Harding, and is from her book "Knits from an English Rose".  Mine is knit in King Cole Galaxy, in the colourway Ruby.  I think it looks like a sort of elegant interpretation of something Dennis the Menace might wear.  

I cast on this scarf on Christmas day 2013.  Mostly because Kelly had just given me a Box of Joy as my Christmas present, and I wanted to knit with my new Karbonz immediately!  Then I stupidly slipped on the ice while out running (training for a 10k race for life this year) and spent the next 6 weeks in cast with a broken wrist.  Technically I could knit, but nothing more complicated than stocking stitch, and it was a slow process!

Dazzle was put away, and it remained in hibernation all summer.  But now I shall be able to wear it on my holiday next week!

The other project that I took with me was Kellys socks.  Over the last few days I've managed to finish the first sock, and begin working the gusset of the second sock:

I hope to get these finished in the next couple of days, because I want to concentrate on a bit of luxury knitting while I'm on holiday.

I'm off to Whitby for the Goth Weekend.  I haven't been since the year my mam was diagnosed.  I have no plans to pander to the gothic community, and I won't be dressing up in corsets and crinolines.  But I will be spending my days enjoying the seaside, visiting the abbey, and sitting in quaint tea rooms with my knitting.

This is what I'm taking with me:

This is Lady Persephone Sock Yarn by Countess Ablaze, and the colourway is To His Intense Annoyance from the 12 Caesars collection.  It is going to become socks for Stephen.  Isn't it gorgeous?

This is all I have to say for now.  I'll be back after my holiday by the seaside.

Look after yourselves my darlings.

Bakewell Wool Gathering

'Tis the season...

For Yarn and Fibre festivals!

So last weekend I went to my second festival in less than a month.

Bakewell is a beautiful little town in the middle of the Derbyshire Dales, only an hours drive from where I live.  You can even get a bus there from Sheffield city centre, but as a few of us are not so steady on our feet any more, we thought we'd take the car.  Bakewell is well worth the visit, even if there wasn't a yarn and fibre festival going on.  There is a beautiful river to walk along, many lovely tea rooms to stop for lunch, and of course, it is the home of the famous Bakewell Tart.

I did buy a Bakewell tart, but we ate it far too quickly for me to get photos of it!

Instead, here is a photo I took from the bridge in Bakewell:

Just across this bridge is the Bakewell Agricultural Centre, and for one weekend it had been converted into a haven for fibre fanatics.

Now as you know, it's really not very long since I went to Yarndale.  Then last week Countess Ablaze did a mid-month update of regular colourways.  Now I knew I'd be looking at this update anyway, as I needed yarn for a particular test knit I've agreed to do, but as though she'd done it just for me, there was my favourite colourway, on my favourite yarn base!  Nerds Prefer Their Rainbows Darker, on Viscount of Spark:

So between this and the test knit yarn, plus the money I'd spent at yarndale, I was really short on funds for Bakewell.  In fact, I think I had less than £45 in my purse, and that included money for lunch.

So I wasn't expecting to actually buy much.  I thought maybe I'd get a souvenir yarn and a bit of fibre, and be content with spending the day just looking at all the pretty things.

I was wrong!  Look at all of this that I managed to buy:

That's 1 skein of shetland lace, 1 skein of sparkle sock yarn, 500g of various sheep fibre tops, a book on natural dying, a strip of felt with penguins on it, and a bag of Miyuki cube beads!  

Plus, a big bowl of homemade roasted pumpkin and parsnip soup, with a fresh granary roll, for lunch from one of the lovely tea rooms in town.

Amazing, isn't it?

Both of the yarns are from Rosie's Moments.  My mams memorial shawl was made from a Rosie's Moments yarn that I bought at Bakewell last year.  The Shetland lace was actually in the bargain bin for just £6!  Can you believe that?  900m of lovely autumnal beauty for such a small price.

There's a gorgeous pattern that I've been looking at for years that I think will look amazing in this yarn - Maple Leaf Shawl.  It's designed for 4-ply, but I think it will work just as well knit in laceweight.  It'll be a more sheer fabric, or possibly a smaller shawl, depending on which needle size I choose, but I'll swatch and see what I like best.

All the fibre came from Adelaide Walker, for just £2 per 100g.  That's 500g of mostly British combed tops for just £10!  Outstanding value in my opinion.

I also got to meet up with the very lovely James of the Dancing Geek Podcast and fondle his latest sock WIP.  

I discovered the reason why Sleeping Beauty was able to prick her finger on a spindle, something that had always mystified me, as modern spinning wheels have no sharp spindle.  The reason is this:

There's a cute little blue needle protector on the end of this one, because Health and Safety people!  But this is the spindle on a Great Wheel, also known as a Walking Wheel:

This is what the very first spinning wheels were like, in the 16th Century.  With no flyer, you manipulated the fibre around the tip of a spinning needle, much like the mechanism of a Spinning Jenny.  If you were working very fast, it was easy to slip and find your hand pulled towards the needle by your new yarn.

In the background of that photo by the way, you can see some of the ShefKnit girls exclaiming over the new spinning wheel that Tracey bought while we were there :)

I managed to make myself a new contact, who may be able to supply me with a Turkish spindle.  This is something I've been after for a while, but they're so difficult to find in the UK.  You can buy them from the US, but the shipping cost is usually more than the value of the spindle!

Finally, I spoke to the lovely people at Sparkleduck about a particular colourway that I'd like for an especially epic pattern I want to knit.  As they only dye a handful of skeins in each colourway at a time, there was no way I was going to find 3 full skeins in the colourway I wanted at any of the festivals.  However, I've been told that I can request any of the regular colourways on any of the regular yarn bases, and they will dye it for me.  So that is on my list of things to do after Christmas.  

Yes, I know, I said the 'C' word.  It's ok, it's not here yet...

Time to get back to that October WIP-down now...

In Memoriam

In the early hours of this morning I finished a project.  Normally, I don't think I'd dedicate an entire blog post to just one project, but this one is special to me.

Let me set the scene:

My mam was an amazing woman.  I can't even begin to explain the things that she lived though, the responsibilities that she took in her stride, or the impact that she had on so many lives.  But trust me when I say she was remarkable.  This photo was taken on a family outing in June 2011:

Mam was also the woman who taught me to knit when I was maybe 6 years old.  I can only assume that she did a lot of knitting at the time because it was less expensive than buying clothes for us, because I learned later in life that she really wasn't a big knitting fan.  In fact, when I started high school in 1990 she cast on a royal blue sweater so that I could have a sweater in my school colour for the winter.  In 1993 I finished my GCSEs, and no longer needed a school uniform, but mam had not finished knitting that sweater.  So she decided to try to finish it for my sister.  In 1995 my sister graduated high school, and still no sweater.  We have some very close friends who lived across the street when we were children.  Gemma and Vikki are like 2 more sisters to us.  So mam decided she would try to finish the sweater for Vikki finishing high school.  Needless to say, she never did.  

You  will have noticed that I always refer to my mam in the past tense.  This is because shortly after the photo above was taken, she was diagnosed with stage 4 Ovarian cancer. 

They call ovarian cancer the 'Silent Killer', because the symptoms are hard to spot, and easily dismissed as being something far more minor.  My mam had 3 cesarean sections during her life, when she complained of abdominal pain her doctors blamed adhesions on the scar tissue and never bothered to investigate further.  In the end, her cancer was spotted because she developed a lung infection that wouldn't shift, and when they tested the fluid that had built up on her lungs they found cancer cells that had spread from her ovaries.  By then it was just too late.  I can't emphasise enough how important it is that you know the symptoms of ovarian cancer as well as we now know how to check for breast cancer.  Go here and find out more, it might save your life.

My mam fought this horrible disease for 17 months after her diagnosis, she saw her first grandchild born, and reach her 1st birthday, but on the 8th November 2012, with us there holding her hands, she finally stopped fighting.

We miss her more than words can say.

Life goes on

To begin with, it was simply too painful to think about what I might want to do as a memorial for my mam.  She never wanted a fancy tombstone or anything, she wanted us to remember her in our hearts, as she was, not as a block of granite with writing on.

Then earlier this year I found a pattern on Ravelry called "Rocky Mountaineer".  It's part of a collection by Susan Ashcroft, also known as Stitchnerd, based on various trains.

My mam had always wanted to travel on the Rocky Mountaineer, and when she retired, she finally fulfilled that dream.  Her diagnosis came just a year after she retired, so that Rocky Mountaineer trip was her last big holiday.

In a few weeks it will be 2 years since we lost my mam.  Although it still hurts, it is finally possible for me to think about working on an heirloom type shawl made in her memory.  Obviously, the Rocky Mountaineer was the perfect choice.

So at the end of August, I chose my yarn, and it had to be blue, of course, in homage to that long ago sweater that my mam never finished, and I cast on:

As I worked the seemingly interminable garter stitch that forms the first third of the shawl, I decided that as this was to be in memory of my mam, I really wanted it to be special.  So I decided to bead the lace section.

I wish I'd made that decision before casting on.  Adding beads to lace with a crochet hook is time consuming to say the least.  I timed myself, and it was taking me a full hour to knit just one row if it was a beaded row.

Any other project, I might have changed my mind and decided not to add the beads after all, but this one I wanted to be perfect.  I made an error in one of the lace rows one night, and rather than call it a 'design feature', I carefully ripped back the 3 rows I'd knit since making the error, and picked up all 216 stitches.

It was worth it though.

Last night I added the last bead, and cast off the last stitch:

I even stayed up a little longer to soak it and pin it out to block.

Here is the final result:

I am so pleased that I put the extra effort into adding the beads, and making sure that this is absolutely as perfect as I could make it.  I will wear it, and I will think of the best mam anyone could ever wish for.  And when my niece is older, I will pass it on to her, as a reminder of the grandma she only knew for 14 precious months.

In memory of Margaret Lynn, mother, wife, sister, friend, and beacon of strength for all who needed her, right to the end.  I will love you forever.

October challenge progress, and some other stuff...

I've just got back from a lovely weekend visiting my family up in Newcastle, and I'm currently catching up on Strictly Come Dancing.  I have been doing some knitting tonight, but as I've been working on a beaded shawl with hundreds of stitches, I've only managed 2 rows all night, and I think it might be a bit late to start another row.

So lucky you, you get an update on my progress so far in our October WIP-down!

Finished Objects (FOs)

I'm pleased to report that the first 2 items on the list are now complete, and both have been delivered to their new owners.

I did show you a photo of the completed baby cardigan, but sadly, I was too busy catching up on gossip to take photos of the cushion covers after they had been put on their intended cushions, but I did get this quick snap of one rather over-stuffed with my own sofa cushions:

WIPs

Next on my list is the shawl I'm knitting in memory of my wonderful mam.  This is the shawl with hundreds of stitches and added beads.  When I first cast this on I hadn't decided to add the beads.  If I had, then I think I would have pre-threaded them onto the yarn.  It would have allowed for better placement in the lace-work, and it would have been much quicker than adding each bead individually with a tiny crochet hook.  However, I do still like the way the beads are working:

As proof that I can't possibly just work on one thing at a time, I've also made a little progress on the tweed sweater that I'm making for myself.  Just a couple of stripes, but I'm a woman of not inconsiderable size, so knitting a row of ribbing that will encompass my bust takes a little while!

The final project that I've made some progress on is Kelly's socks.  These are a brilliant small, portable project, so I've been taking them on the tram into work.  I only get a few rows done each working day, but that's enough to mean I'm now working the gusset on the first sock.

This yarn is brilliant, you don't need to knit any fancy patterns, this sock is just a simple rib, but the changing colours in the yarn make those fabulous patterns.  The yarn itself is a good, sturdy, superwash wool with nylon, which is good, because it'll need to be fairly sturdy the way Kelly treats his socks!

So that's what I've been up to for the last 2 weeks.  I think 2 finished projects, and noticeable progress on 3 more is not too bad for the first half of a month long challenge.

Impromptu Shopping

As I said at the start of this post, I've just been up north to visit my family.  I'm not the only member of my family with a crafty streak.  My sister bakes, and makes cards, my step-mum also knits, and my dad does wood carving.  Mostly he carves decorative walking sticks and knife handles, and he's recently started volunteering at Ashington woods, teaching basic wood carving skills, such as how to carve a spoon, or make a clothes-peg.

My dad loves hearing about our crafting, and he will often suddenly present us with some little tool that he's carved for us to help with our hobbies.  This weekend he had 2 things that he'd made for me - one is a cute french knitting bobbin that is so comfortable to hold, and it has a little face on it, because apparently a knot in the wood looked like a smiley face, so he picked out those details in the finished object.  There's also a matching device for lifting the yarn over the pins.  The other is a pendant for a necklace in the shape of a flower, carved out of stiff leather and set with a little crystal, but the best bit is that in the notches between the petals are tiny little blades, tucked away so they can't cut you by accident, but you can use them to cut your yarn.

On top of these gifts, he also took me shopping, because my step-mum told me about her new favourite wool shop, where you can buy 400g balls of yarn!  400g!!!  So this is what I brought home with me today:

It's cut into my Bakewell budget a little bit, but all of that lovely aran will be perfect for my charity knitting this winter, and how could I resist the sock yarn and super-cute mini-skeins?

If you're wondering why I have a budget for a small town in Derbyshire, it's because next weekend that small town is hosting Bakewell Wool Gathering, but I'll tell you all about that next week!

Aaand... Penguins!

The yarn isn't the only shopping I've done this week.  Winter suddenly arrived in force exactly 1 week ago, then apparently decided not to bother after all by Friday, but on Tuesday I didn't know that we weren't in fact about to face another biblical style flood, and my walk into work on Monday had informed me that last years winter boots would absolutely not be up to the task of keeping my feet dry.  So I went shopping for boots and some new winter clothes.

I found the things I was looking for, and you're wondering what exactly this has to do with penguins, right? Well womens clothing stores are weird places, and as you approach the checkout you find mysterious little displays of useless little trinkets that you absolutely MUST HAVE.  Usually they're things like nail polish, or lip-gloss.  So as I went to pay for my new clothes, I found these little fellows:

Believe it or not, they are actually pots of lip-gloss.  Clearly this is not why I bought them.  I have no desire at all to wear pink lip-gloss, strawberry scented or not.  But glittery penguins, now they are a thing that I need to own!

I'm not done though, there's more...  

The glittery penguins being found near the checkout of a womens clothing store sort of makes sense when you realise that they contain lip-gloss, but I have no idea what-so-ever what this was doing there:

You wind it up and it waddles about.  It is outstandingly cute.  But how did this end up being bought along with a pair of skinny jeans and a lacey top?

And on that slightly baffling note I shall leave you.

Sweet dreams my dears.