I'm sorry that I just disappeared for the last few days of advent. I just never got the time to update the blog, so I'm going to include those few days at the start of this post. After that, I'll do more of a normal style of update, with the addition of a section about my plans/resolutions for next year.
Advent
December 21st
- Lindt mini Lindor.
- Bayliss & Harding Jojoba, silk, and almond fragranced bath fizzer.
- Yankee Candle "Snowflake Cookie"
- Kiss makeup black eyeliner pencil.
- Ilchester cheeses Red Leicester.
- T2 Gorgeous Go Go Goa tea. As this is a black tea, I've saved it until I get back to Sheffield, and back into a more normal routine.
- Homespun Wonders sparkle sock yarn in another perfectly matched colourway to the tea wrapper! I love this variegated purple and white!
December 22nd
- Lindt mini Lindor.
- Bayliss & Harding scented candle, in that subtle fragrance that I can't identify.
- Yankee Candle "Spiced White Cocoa"
- Kiss makeup gold highlighter. This is a shade dark for me to use as a highlighter really, but it makes a nice deep gold eyeshadow, or could be used with a light hand as a rose gold blush topper.
- Ilchester cheeses Wensleydale with cranberries.
- T2 Gorgeous Japanese Sencha green tea. This is a lovely drink, like a lighter version of green tea with jasmine.
- Homespun Wonders merino sock yarn in this stunning turquoise colour.
December 23rd
- Lindt mini Lindor.
- Bayliss & Harding Jojoba, silk, and almond fragranced soap.
- Yankee Candle "Snowflake cookie"
- Kiss makeup silver nail stickers.
- Ilchester cheeses Cheddar cheese.
- T2 Gorgeous Twinkle Berry tea. I haven't got around to trying this one either.
- Homespun Wonders merino sock yarn in a rich, chocolate brown colour.
December 24th
- Lindt chocolate Santa Claus. This was quite a lot of chocolate!
- Bayliss & Harding Sweet Mandarin and grapefruit fragranced shower creme.
- Yankee Candle "The Perfect Tree" in a cute little glass tealight holder.
- Kiss makeup Rose gold nail stickers.
- Ilchester cheeses limited edition Gingerbread cheese.
- T2 Gorgeous Christmas Breakfast tea, which I did in fact have with the Christmas breakfast. It tasted like liquid Parkin! For those not familiar with Yorkshire provender, Parkin is a type of dark, sticky, spiced loaf cake, similar to gingerbread, but with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg in there too.
- Homespun Wonders merino sock yarn in one of my favourite colourways from the entire advent calendar, which is a colour that could be called pink, with red speckles, but to me it's more like a pale red, with dark red speckles, if that even makes sense?
Homespun Wonders Advent Calendar
This is all of the yarns from my Homespun Wonders 2018 advent calendar. A mix of BFL, merino, and sparkly sock yarns, in every colour of the rainbow. Then a full skein in a beautiful mix of icy shades for Christmas day, complete with a stitch marker in the shape of winter mittens.
The yarns in this advent calendar make it worth the price on their own, but on top of these, it also came with a selection of Christmas themed treats and trinkets. I honestly can't understand how they do it, but Katie and Heather just make the best yarn boxes in the world!
The Regulars
WIPs
I have no finished objects from the last month. I had hoped to finish the socks that I've been knitting, but instead I became so addicted to knitting my mitred squares cushion covers, that the other projects I brought up north with me have hardly been touched.
I have managed to get a little bit of work done on my socks. Mostly because they're the most portable project that I brought with me, so they've been taken to the coffee shop a few times, and out for Christmas dinner. From those few outings, I've managed to finish the first sock, and make a start on the second. I'll have it finished in the next week or so, mostly because I've got a couple of train journeys during the next week!
These socks are actually for me. They're still knit according to my standard sock pattern, but adapted for my weird feet, rather than someone elses. The yarn is Regia Design Line by Anne & Carlos, in the colourway 03653. I'm a little concerned at how little seems to be left, as this is only a 50g ball, so I might be playing a bit of yarn chicken by the end, but I don't really mind if I have one odd toe.
Not knitting, I know, but it's still a work in progress! I got dad some new carving tools, and some Bass Wood for his Christmas present. Bass Wood is what all of the american whittlers seem to use for their carving. I think they call it Lime wood over here, but just to be sure, I got some of the american stuff. Dad wanted us to both have a try at following one of the carving videos by one of his favourite YouTubers - Doug Outside. So on Boxing day we spread out a giant drop cloth across the living room, and settled down with wood, and whittling knives, and YouTube on the tv. I got this far before I managed to cut myself with my very sharp knife. I took that as a sign that it was time to take a break. I'll pick him back up again when I back next week, and I'll try to give him a face.
On the left of this photo is an entire side of a mitred squares cushion cover, and on the right is the first few rows of the other side. I'm going to give both sides a plain black border before I sew them together and stuff a cushion in them.
As you can see, I took the advice of the people who responded on facebook to my last advent post, and I gave up trying to add all of my advent yarns in order, and ensured a more even distribution of colours.
The yarns for this are a mix of sock yarn mini-skeins by several different indie hand dyers - Yorkshire Dales Yarns, Ring-a-rosie, Mothy and the Squid, Alls Wool that Ends Wool, and Hey Jay. The pattern is based on the Mitred Squares Blanket by LuAnn Krug.
I have also added a few squares to my blanket, but I think I'll save photos of that until I've added enough for it to be worth showing.
Stash Acquisition
In the run up to Christmas, Mothy and The Squid had a handful of these extra special skeins of "Christmas Hawk Moth" available. The colourway is a special one, based on the "Winter Hawk Moth" colourway, but darker, and the yarn base is special too, as it's a high lurex content yarn, meaning that it's especially sparkly! I could have resisted any normal skein being about to disappear, but not this one! And having gone to the site to buy this, I decided to also add this really bright mini-skein in "That's enough crazy", and the new mini tote bag too.
As I was knitting up my mitred squares cushion cover, and blanket, I started to realise that I had a definite over-representation of the colour green. So I decided to have a Christmas Eve visit to Ring-a-rosie's to pick up a few more mini-skeins, and I tried really hard to not pick up too much more green! A couple managed to slip in there, but one of those is part of a bundle, so it doesn't count. Mostly I managed to get reds, blues, and purples though.
This doesn't really count as stash acquisition, but I've put it here to demonstrate what I mean about the colours of my mini-skeins. I sorted them all into a rough chromatic order, based on the most prevalent colour in each skein, as some are a mix of colours. As you can see, I have only 1 row of reds, and 1 row of purples, even though these are my 2 favourite colours, but I have 4 rows of greens, and 2 of blues!
Plans for 2019
I'm sort of calling some of these plans "resolutions", but I don't really like that word. It insinuates too much in the way of pressure, and simply existing in the modern world is pressure enough, without adding more for yourself! So let's call them plans, aims, or goals instead. If I don't achieve them all, that's ok, as long as I try my best.
* Sort out my budget, and determine how much I actually have "spare" that can be spent on yarn, instead of buying on impulse because I want to cheer myself up, and then having my actual bills fail, costing me interest and admin fees from my bank.
* Do my physio every day that I'm supposed to, instead of one time in 3, then maybe my wrists won't be in agony after knitting half a dozen rows.
* Get back to working on reducing my number of WIPs and UFOs, with the aim of being in single figures by next new year. After making excellent progress in 2017 towards this goal, I have not managed so well this year. At least I haven't significantly increased my number of WIPs either!
* Do more spinning! Including trying to make it to more of the Travelling Spinners meet ups.
* Knit more garments. Actually use some of those sweater quantities that have been waiting to become sweaters for years!
There are a couple of others too, but they have little or no influence on my knitting, so I'm not going to list them here.
Penguins!
Is this cheating? This is my Christmas card, hand made by my sister, because she's both lovely, and clever like that :) If you look closely, you can even see that the background of the card is a knitted cables pattern1
This might be cheating too. This was our little pile of Christmas presents, all wrapped up in penguiny goodness :)
This is definitely not cheating! These were my Christmas presents this year from Stephen, and my sister. Also, my Christmas day skein from my advent calendar is in there.
From left to right we have: Clever wooden jewellery box from Stephen. Penguin mug, penguin stress toy, penguin bath fizzer, Very Large gin glass, and penguin ice mould, chocolate and caramel penguins, and penguin socks in a tree decoration, all from my sister!!! She claimed that these were "Just silly little things, so that you've got something to open on Christmas day." but I think that she spent more than she should have on me! None-the-less, I'm very, very grateful, and I love them!
Our sister-from-another-mister, Gemma, is a scout leader, and when she was ordering badges for her troupe, she spotted this, and decided to order one for me. I was never a Scout, I think I was too old to be one by the time feminism reached the stage that girls were allowed to join, so I was a Girl Guide instead. I have no idea what happened to my old camp blanket, but I'm sure I can find somewhere to sew this :)
I did a bit of research to determine what this badge signified, and found that it was part of last years Christmas Appeal. Each year the Scouts organise a Christmas Appeal to help fund extra special activities that some of their members might not be able to afford without help, and any Scout who adds a donation is eligible for that years appeal badge. This year the Appeal Badge features Doris the Donkey, and the focus of the appeal is providing space and supervision, so that more children can benefit from the activities that being a Scout provides.
That is all for 2018 my dears! I am now off to put fuel in the car, then drive back to Sheffield. If we're lucky, we might even make it there in time, and with enough energy, to attend one of the parties that our various friends are hosting!
I wish you all a very happy New Year, and I hope that wonderful things happen for you in 2019!
