A Tiny Jaunt

fricking 5 AM!

 This past weekend a dear friend of ours was married near London, which is a fair distance from the Lake District - those who do not know your UK geography.

We decided to have a mini holiday and we booked a cottage for the weekend with my in-laws.

Thursday rolls around and I'm supposed to be packing for our weekend away, instead I am stricken (yes stricken) with a migraine, for which the only cure is to retreat into the bed cave and wrap a pillow around my head and try to pretend the world doesn't exist. Fine, I think, it's fine, I can get up early to pack before we drive down to London with the inlaws on Friday morning. Only sometime around midnight my stomach turns into a washing machine and the ground starts swaying and when Friday morning rolls around the thought of spending 6 hours in a car makes me want to keel over in horror.  So the hubster, the children and the in-laws set off for London leaving me to my grey clammy pukey fate. (All I could think of was the time Boo had a bug and puked all over my feet and then announced 'Did you know the extra saliva produced by the body before you puke can help protect your teeth from stomach acid?')

Fortunately, it was a 24 hour affair and the next morning saw me leave for a train at 5.20am in order to get to London in time for the wedding, which I did and it was just all kinds of loveliness.

And I really enjoyed my little train adventure! Even if I was wodged in a carriage with like, 80 Blackpool fans painted orange with traffic cones on their heads at 6.30 in the morning.

I soooo regret not taking the Virgin Weekend Upgrade to 1st class though, it's only £15 and quite frankly I think I deserved it!  Still, I'm someone who really quite enjoys train travel. I definitely prefer it to the car as I can read unhindered on trains, even pendolino's, whereas reading in the car is all kinds of no.

The day after the wedding we decided to take the kids into London because my little monkey man was DYING to go to the Natural History Museum. Boo went alone when he was just about to turn 7 and came home telling G tales of roaring dinosaurs and the fastest train in the world (by which he meant the tube). Boo is not intimidated by cities though, he finds hustle and bustle endlessly fascinating, monkey boy is a wide-open-spaces kind of kid. Plonk him in a field and he's happy as a clam.  He was a little overwhelmed by all the people, but he definitely had his wow moment.

Anyhew, mid Natural-Historying my beloved was hit by a full on wave of the washing machine tum and had to beat a hasty exit back to our little weekend cottage, where he missed the knee wobbling cuteness of Miss Jumble thinking an animatronic gorilla in the Rainforest Cafe was real and waving at her (she BLUSHED!)

Unfortunately in my post migraine-pukefest-5am train-wedding fog, I left my photo mojo at the door, but in a life-lemons-lemonade way I took all those crappy pics and made my first video in imovie.


 Yep I need to practise!

Big Grey Something

Behold! I have made a garment that fits a grown up.  I want to stop and mop the sweat from my brow. So that's why I've been knitting kids clothes all this time.                                                                                    

Pattern is pull homme #3 from the phildar #046 bo basics magazine.  My mods are really obvious - the big gorgeous collar that makes the whole thing - gone.

I knitted it, sewed it on, commanded the Mr to try it on and lo it was immediately clear that the big squishy collar of gorgeousness just got in the way of all the hair and was driving him up the wall.

Instead I picked up 32 sts on each side of the button placket and knit 2x2 rib for 1.75". I am still waiting for  my buttons to arrive.
But you know what - I am so pleased! The Mr is really happy with his sweater, it fits his strange quasimodo-like proportions (chest = normal size medium. Shoulders = gargantuan. Well, large. Whut??). It's squishy and cosy and was my first time knitting with Cascade Eco, which I'll definitely use again.

It was a useful sweater to knit, given my current frame of mind - the phrase dormant volcano comes to mind. Most of the time I enjoyed it,  it was soothing, not much to think about. Other times it was so boring it was unreal, I had zero enthusiasm for knitting it whatsoever but am so tightly wodged in my little box of only having one project on the go at a time I wouldn't cast on something else instead. I once read someone describe meditation as being 'fucking stuck in misery', this definitely had its moments

Raveled here

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

Tenuous Links Within. And Robert Plant Nipples.

Today we're going to talk about tapping this. Oh wait, knit blog, we're not. *sad face*.

Today we're going to look at some people who did tap that. And at Patti Smith. And in a roundabout way connect it with knitting.

I'm almost certain that when I've ended my long vacation in Second-Sleeve Harbour, that well known resort located on Phildar Sweater Island the island that never ends,  I need to hunker down for 6 months on the White Pine Cruise.

In this ridiculously delicious shade of Cascade 220 that I'd originally earmarked for a Levenwick.

see it's loveliness. Imagine in this - >

Somehow, despite it's casual day-to-day charm, I want to channel 70s LA scene and wear it with floaty sundresses, with black opaques and platforms heels, with sassy little tees and flared jeans. It will be killer with all black ensembles and earthy with grey, and before you know it the whole world will have gone topsy turvy and I'll own a pair of dreamcatcher earrings.

...you can imagine a yellow cardi on every single one of these people, right?

Everyone who knows me will be laughing right now, because I live in ye olde worlde housewife uniform of a jeans and black long sleeved tee. If I knit this cardigan though, oh... stars will collide. I'm sure of it.

Because We Can

Picked up our things and took our reading to the beach this morning. It was windy and cold, but it was fresh and invigorating too. We went for no other reason than because we can, and this is something I need to reinforce to myself. I've let myself get bogged down in all the things I should be doing, and have lost sight of what it is I want to do. I recently decided to reset my criteria for a successful day, from 'Did I get a lot done?' to 'Did I have fun?'. It's been an eye opener.

I've lain awake at night second guessing my choices.  Home education, Stay at home motherhood, even knitting - do I knit because I like knitting, or do I knit because it's it's another way to get something done? Is it a bad thing to choose a hobby because it has a practical end? I'm thinking not, but the solid resistance to frivolity probably doesn't help me out.  Plato was onto something when he said "Life must be lived as Play'.

I guess that what comes next is figuring out what's missing. I feel frightened to death of disturbing the dirt, if you start digging you're going to find a lot of things you don't like.

I don't know where to start. I don't know how to apply the principles to my own life that are the core of my wishes for my children. I assume it's like knitting, one stitch at a time, one row at a time, you get there in the end.

Today, though, was a good start. To do our reading on the beach for no other reason than because we can.

Colour Fun with the Kiddos

Dylon cold water dyes in Bahama Blue and Goldfish Orange.

Kids tied their own shirts, Used one packet of each colour for 3 kids shirts (one each of an age 5,7 and 9) and got good colour saturation. Sunshine fun times!

Meanwhile I try to craft 'back to front', seasonally, that is. Strange how ones enthusiasm for chunky pure wool and polar fleece dissipates when the lawn, a book and a beer beckon...

but OH happy news for a friend,  I believe some squishy, smooshy baby goodness may be on the the needles soon. Just lovely ♥

Liberty Spring Jacket

 


I may have to pinch myself, did I really finish a thing?!  And just in time for spring, too

Pattern is McCall's M5743, and is meant to be an unlined fleece jacket. I imagine it would be a breeze for someone with a bit of sewing experience. This was pretty much my first garment, and I wanted a light spring jacket for the J, so used Liberty Mirabelle Twill and made a lining from a very light polka dot sweatshirting. I'm pretty sure I would never have tackled this by myself, har har, fortunately I have a very enthusiastic sewing teacher. And yes, I've been working on this sucker for about 3 months on and off.

Mostly I'm relieved it fits, I love the big chunky buttons, I love that J loves it. Happy Day.
I'm also REALLY GLAD that I decided to find a sewing class instead of doing my usual trick of just diving in. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm appreciating the guidance. It's also nice to have that two and a half hours every week that's set aside just for sewing, I can't put it off because I have to catch up on laundry or spreadsheets or one of the squillion other things that always seem to need doing.