Hair, soup and knitting - not necessarily in the same bowl though.

My hair is occupying a lot of my time and thoughts at the moment. Ever since I went shorter with the cut, I've been really unsure as to what to do about my amazingly grey roots.

I've pretty much dyed the heck out of my hair since I was 13/14, and I have no idea what colour it would be naturally, other than a sneaking suspicion it would be grey.

Dad was grey very early on, and evil pus-drenched mother was also grey early on.

So I procrastinated.

I popped on some dark temporary colour when we went out for the iWeb Christmas do.

Then Aaron and I had a bit of a session chatting and brainstorming, and then I bleached the crap out of my hair!

So I went from pretty dark to eek blonde. There were some amazing red/orange/pink bits in my fringe where the years of dye had baulked at becoming blonde.

But after following this advice off this amazingly useful forum, I am almost at the 'pale yellow of the inside of a banana'. When that is achieved, I will be adding some white toner, and become a white haired woman!

Yay for persistance! And Directions hair dye!

Additionally, I am losing weight. Seriously, I am as amazed as you are!

I started Weight Watchers, as mentioned in earlier blog entries, and today, I have gone down to the next stone. This means I have lost over 2 stones since September/October. However, it also means that psychologically I have moved through 3 stones. The one I started at was shocking, and then I went down to the next and now I have breached that fatty floor and am at the top end of the next one.

Confused? Good.

Stop trying to guess my weight then!!

Funnily enough, I am losing weight by cooking more. I am making lots of food from scratch, especially soup, so we are all eating more healthily, the food is actually surprisingly good considering I made it, and we are saving money, not having takeaway 4 times a week!

Today is soup-making day, and I am making a large batch of curried parsnip soup up. I treated myself to a cast iron casserole pot/dish thing, and I am using it for everything!

I may have to buy more. Lots more!

Knittage

Apart from lots of baby-type knitting over Christmas, I decided to pick up and finish some of the UFO's I have sitting around.

The main one of these is my 'Hester' cardigan from my Rowan book.

I had the book off Amelia for my birthday in 2010 and started it almost immediately. Then other things happened, and I had to shelve it. For 18 months!

So I dug it out, and I had done 135 rows of the back. And I had forgotten what needles I had done the bottom rib in. And I had forgotten the pattern. And the decreases. Argh!

So I knitted up the left front on new needles. I guessed at the needle size for the rib - 4.5mm - and it was correct, then I changed to my 5.5mm. The pattern is far easier than I remember, and I quickly got to the length you see in the photo - armhole cast-off done and straight bit started.

Then I had to resume the back, as the instructions for the front mean you have to know how many rows in total there are for the back before you cast off for the shoulder shaping.

So there you go. I had to knit most of the left front so I could complete the back. And I had to complete the back so I can finish the left front.

Spooky!

Happy Knit Year!

I know I've not been attentive to my blogging duties these last few weeks, but I've been busy knitting, cooking, baking, wrapping, shouting, crying, falling over, bleaching, sneezing, and all that jazz.

So Happy New Year to everyone I didn't say (type) it to, and continuous felicitations to everyone else.

It was a slow start this year, but my knitting picked up immensely! My completed projects are:

• Humunga gloves - knitted for me, but using Connor's measurements by mistake, so oops.
• Amelia's prairie hat - knitted for my friend from the book she bought me for my birthday.
• Hoodlum's dad - a jumper for Aaron, with hilarious photos!
• Sackchap - Rob's SackBoy
• Maude (Head band with button) - using up the Lima left over from Amelia's hat.
• Cthulhu* - my amigurumi monster from the centre of the world.
• Dearly Beloved* - the poor skeleton bride amigurumi.
• Jackboy - Jack's SackBoy
• Ciara's cardy - from a lovely online pattern and in Sublime. Gorgeous.
• DylBoy - Dylan's SackBoy, immediately christened Mr Johnson (No idea why)
• Bamby Booties - For Finlay, and just really excellent booties, if I say so myself.
• Claude - also for Finlay, and a bugger to get the shaping correct.
• Lionel the Sackboy - for Amy to put in Finlay's room (Bit of a trend there, I think)
• Ayla Shrugged - Christmas present for my niece in Dubai/Kuwait, in a lovely cotton.
• Mia Shrugged too - Christmas present for my other niece in Dubai/Kuwait, in a lovely cotton.
• Flowery Headbands* - Christmas presents for my nieces in Dubai/Kuwait.
• Ciara's Poncho- Christmas present for my niece in Cork, in Big Softy wool, as it gets cold there!
• Quick Ribz - wrist warmers I made for myself in a day, out of scraps of yarn, which are lovely, and I can use them when I am driving!

* - crochet -yes, I know, I was amazed I managed any at all!

I have some WIP's:

• Sexxy - lovely socks in lovely Artisano yarn. Christmas sort of got in the way.
• Penelope's Ugg booties - just gorgeous in Sublime DK, from Let's Knit.
• Penelope's Fisherman's Rib Hat -  in Sublime DK, and just gorgeous. Made to use the tail end of the yarn from the Ugg Booties.

Then there were the UFO's:

• Hester - my cardigan from the book Amelia bought me - started this Sept 2010!
• Fluffy scarf - ongoing mohair scarf I can only knit in 20 minute stretches because it makes my nose and eyes explode.
• Freefall - ongoing lace scarf, which is my go-to when I am on a train or just waiting around.

And lastly, the disasters, which were thankfully few:

• Tija Mittens - colour-work, which I never really like, and finally frogged after being put in a cupboard for over a year.
• Baby ribs - a Fisherman's rib baby blanket in lilac cotton. It was an experiment, and I just never for the top correct. So that went to Oxfam.

All in all, I have knitted well and wisely this year. And that makes me happy. I have some WIP's to get finished as soon as possible. I have about 4 projects in my head that I need to match yarn from my stash to. And Dylan wants woolly jumpers, apparently. I may well get out the Singer again, and make him a couple of Fisherman's rib raglan sleeve ones, just to be going on with.

So if you want to see the photos for the items above, look back through my blog archive, or have a look at my flickr stream.

Thank you for reading my blog and hopefully I will have better attendance this year!

Christmas prep

The fish pie was epic! Full of salmon, coley and king prawns, in homemade parsley sauce and then topped with mashed potato flavoured with nutmeg! Apparently there is a school of thought which suggests adding a few hard boiled eggs into the mix, but, please, I am no pervert! Our fish pie remains egg-free, and unsullied!

Our Christmas tree is now up, and, for once, we haven't had to move all the furniture round by 15 degrees to manage it. Go, go gadget bigger front room!

We have a pre-lit black tree and this year we have red and gold baubles and our individual items.

Every year we each get to buy a nice decoration, and we've gotten knitted penguins, felted crowns, glass drops, all that sort of thing. So we always end up with probably more 'special' decorations than ordinary ones!

I personally love my glass deer!

Then today we've been baking.

Dylan has made rocky road snowballs for his class and teachers. Aaron made christmas samosas - filo pastry mince pies essentially. And I've made beetroot brownies and Christmas biscotti.

The worst to make were Dylan's and the most satisfying were, for me, the biscotti.

Everything is really tasty. Nothing went quite like it should. But it's done and dusted, and we can get on with our lives now!

And I have finished my Christmas knitting! Yay!

Ciara's poncho has been washed, blocked and wrapped and is now in a box waiting to be posted to Ireland. This means I can now start all the projects I have had on my list since I started the shrugs and poncho.

Amazing how I didn't really have anything I wanted to knit particularly until the moment I committed myself to knitting Christmas presents. Now I have a list of gloves, mittens, ear warmers, cardigan, jumpers for Dylan and some little toys. Sheesh!

Knittage

So the poncho is complete.

I had just enough yarn in the end, and all of the colours work really well together.

The moss stitch border at the bottom holds the whole cape part down nicely, and there is plenty of growing room in it for her.

The hood was knitted flat, and then the cape was picked up on circular needles, with the opening being knit 6 cm deep.

Then there were 4 increases every other round to give a lovely neat increase up the middle back and front.

The hood is all moss stitch, and the stripes are 6 rows each.

Then the white is repeated all the way to give a nice basis for the whole colour scheme.

When it was all completed, I sewed up the top of the hood, which was the only real sewing in the whole thing.

Then there were a lot of ends to weave in, and I crocheted a simple cord to thread through the garter stitch transition between the moss and stocking stitches.


All-in-all this was a really fun thing to knit, and I already had the yarn, which is just so very soft and lovely. I just hope she likes it now!

Today I have cast on some hand warmers for me, in Weekend Retreat Bronze - 55% merino, 33% microfibre, and 12% wool. So they should be nice and warm. 

Very simply knitted in the round using a 2x2 rib, and 8mm circulars. I don't plan for there to be any shaping, and just a buttonhole type thumb slit.

Happy 2nd December!

Hush. That's the sound of boys being good because Santa is watching them!

Can you hear how well-behaved and kind they're being? Can you sense how excited they are to know that their lack of punching, biting, tattle-taling and whining is reaping them huge present rewards?

No. No you can't because they know they can behave like heathens, and still get oodles of presents, tonnes of sweets, and buckets of goodies, regardless.

And not just because I'm unsure as to where to buy a lump of coal. (Though to be honest, I wouldn't have a clue - god bless us, every one, especially the e.on and their utility supply!)

They know that we suffer from Weak Parent Syndrome. 

Sit them on the stairs for an amount of minutes equal to their age? Sure. My boys never seemed to age past 30 seconds!

Catch them putting the cat into the washing machine? Stern looks, lip biting and the 'disappointed' speech.

Throwing stones at cars? 'Don't you know you could hurt yourself if it ricochets back?' Seriously? Hurt yourself? Am I on drugs? Should I be on drugs? Is there a parenting book I missed?

So, they are behaving mildly better than awful, to ensure that A's and my middle class, floppy liberal morals will not be totally ignored.

In the mean time, I made fish pie for dinner!

What did you do with your day, love?

Busy, busy, busy!

We've had such a lovely weekend, with moving things around and getting excited about menues for Christmas and presents and the like.

In the past there's usually been a lot of us here for Christmas day, but last year, obviously dad was missing, and Connor chose not to come along. This year, again obviously dad won't be here, and, I suspect, neither will Connor.

Christmas is a major thing in our house. We all do the stockings, presents, big lunch and so on, so preparation is key for us! And we've had some varied foods over the years: duck, fillet steak, fish. This year, in deference to the Irish contingent, we'll be having turkey and ham (gammon!)

Even Dylan is getting involved. He's planning pudding, which I think he'll be buying from M&S (Chocolate Bombe). Aaron and Rob are in charge of the starter, I'll be sorting out the meat, everyone will dive in with the veg, and J and I are making a humungous trifle!

Damn. Now I'm hungry again.

Today has been pretty good on the achievement side. I've vacuumed, done the laundry, made the beds, mopped the floors, dusted, knitted, and had some work done to the house!

We finally got our Smart Meters fitted today by e.on. Following the disaster of the last fitting, Western Distribution came out and removed the unsafe cut-off and replaced it with a lovely new one.

They dug up the new path to do it, but even that got put right today!

They actually made a lovely neat job, and I am just hoping Aaron remembers not to cycle through it!

The cut-off and the new meter look pretty good.

The meter communicates directly to e.on (skynet anyone?) and we should, in theory, end up with more accurate bills and usage information.

We saved a lot when e.on gave us an amp clamp a couple of years ago, and now we should get down even lower.

Especially as this gizmo also keeps tabs on the gas consumption too!

Oh and we got a certificate! I'm going to frame it and keep it in the downstairs loo, so everyone can see how smart we all are!

Knittage

I'm mainly working on Ciara's poncho, as time is, inevitably, running out!

I've completed the garter stitch hood, with 6-row stripes.

I am using another pattern from DROPS design which is a lovely knitted DROPS poncho with hood.

I had a lot of odd balls of Sirdar's Big Softie yarn, which 51% wool and 49% acrylic, so it should wash well, and I have enough, I think to make the entire thing!

The colours are cream, dark green, pink, blue, purple and light green. The hood was a 45 st cast-on, with no shaping and using moss stitch. The first and last 3 stitches on every row are knitted in garter stitch which will cause a type of rib effect all the way around the hood.

Now I have reached the end of the hood, and I am all set to get on with the body. I've added 4 markers which will show me when to increase over the next 40 rows or so.

However, I'll be continuing the garter stitch for another 6 cm before moving from straight needles to circulars, which will mean there'll be no sewing up to do really at the end.

I am loving this project!

Once I'd reached 25cm (55 rows), I changed to stocking stitch and added 4 markers, which help to locate the increases.

Cry Wolf!

I'm poorly. Honestly poorly. Not that fake attishoo poorly I normally am.

The doctor thinks I may have gallstones. I have to go for a scan at some point in the hopefully sooner-than-the-end-of-time future. And if I have them, I will probably need an operation. In a HOSPITAL!

Apparently I am showing definite symptoms, and I am in the most likely group of people to get them.

Most likely group: white woman over 40, who is overweight and who has lost a large amount of said weight.

Which means Weight Watchers gave me gallstones! (Not really)

Knittage

I so need to get my knitting shoes on.

I've finished, wrapped and posted the presents for our nieces in Dubai/Kuwait. And I am really happy with them.

I am working on Ciara's poncho. She's in Ireland, so it isn't quite such a rush, but I do still need to get on.

I have maybe two thirds of the hood finished. And then I progress to circular needles. Joy! Love knitting in the round, and love doing it on my Knit Picks (Pros (whatever)).

Pictures to follow, when my poorly isn't feeling so poorly.

And after the party ...

The party went really well. I think there may be a couple of photos floating around somewhere, but, in the end, I forgot to take any and we all had a marvellous time.

Lots and lots and lots of Dylan's friends came along, all dressed up and ready to party. Sadly only a couple of the parents stayed, and of those, only the Brandricks made a complete and full effort. Ed was cool as a zombie, and Katie was the bee's knees with her witch costume. Jack's mates came along well costumed.

My/Aaron's friends all did their bit, and we had a devil, 3 zombies, and a baby (I think in a pumpkin suit). And Robert's friends were all pretty well dressed up.

My witch costume worked. The lashes stayed on. I seemed to spend an awful lot of time in the kitchen making hot dogs. Aaron was a trouper and spent a vast amount of time as a kids' entertainer, and did a really, really excellent job!

I think everyone had fun. It took 6 hours to clean up the house and garden the next day, so they better bloody well have had fun!

Since then, I have been concentrating on Christmas.

Stop moaning! I know it's way too early, but there are reasons for starting now.

Alison, my sister-in-law, and her family live in either Dubai or Kuwait (I honestly can never remember which), and posting anything to them is almost impossible. So, as my MIL is heading over there for Christmas, I am sending their presents to her, in Dublin.

Ok, so that is already a complete nightmare, but I also decided to knit the presents for the nieces. So I've been knitting shrugs and starting to sweat about getting them finished in time to send them to Ireland before Mary leaves for Dubai (or Kuwait) in early December.

Now they are finished (see Knittage below for gory details) and I just have to navigate the UK to Ireland postal system. Always entertaining, rarely simple.

So that the boys and Aaron would also have contributed to the whole Christmas present thing, we made some crocheted flowers and added them to a couple of little bands for the girls to wear.

I think they came out really well!

I still have to label them so that there are washing instructions and details like that, but, apart from wrapping them, we are done!

Well done us!

Just Ciara's poncho and elephant to do now.

Knittage

So here we go for some in-depth details on the knitted things what I made this time. Get some popcorn, this is going to be mighty!

The shrugs were both knitted from the same pattern: DROPS short jacket with short sleeves in moss st. 

I used Wendy's Sorrento yarn in Wet Slate for Ayla's, which is a beautiful soft yarn of 45% cotton and 55% acrylic. It is amazing in texture, especially as it is knitted in moss stitch.

Moss stitch is simply k1, p1 on the right side, and then k1, p1 on the wrong side, so that there is always a purl above a knit stitch.

Mia's was knitted in Sirdar's Luxury Soft Cotton DK, which is a gorgeous soft cotton, that knits well, though it can strand a little.

Each of these knitted up pretty quickly. Ayla's was 68 rows from cast-on to cast-off, casting on an initial 42 stitches.

Mia's was 80 rows from start to end, with an initial 66 stitches.

I used a more fully fashioned shaping for these, as I wanted a smooth edge for the little sleeves, so I decreased and increased 2 stitches in from the edges.

Sewing them together was a doddle, and then I used the same yarn, rather than contrasting yarn, to crochet very simply around the edges and the sleeves. I used 4.5mm knitting needles for each shrug and a 4mm hook for the crochet.

I am pretty pleased with them both, and hope the girls will get some use out of them. They are both in cottons rather than merino so that they can wear them despite being in a hot country.

As I had knitted these, the boys felt it was only fair that we add something they could do.

We made crocheted flowers and added them onto a couple of pretty headbands.

We used Sirdar Pure Cotton, one in pink and one in cream.

And we used some pretty buttons out of my button box as centres.

The flower pattern was filched from DROPS design again: DROPS Shawl and Basque Hat.

We just used the part which deals with crocheted flowers:

Crochet flowers: Work 4 ch with 2 threads on crochet hook size 4 mm and form a ring with 1 sl st in the first ch. Round 1: 6 dc i ring, finish with 1 sl st in first dc. Round 2: * 3 ch, 1 dc in next dc *, repeat from *-* = 6 ch-loops. Round 3: 1 ch, crochet as follows in each ch-loop: 1 dc, 5 tr and 1 dc, finish with 1 sl st in first ch. 

This is English crochet notation, by the way.

They turned out to be really easy to make, and I made one for myself, as I was practicing the whole thing first.

This one was made using some random red chunky yarn I had left over from a SackBoy, and I used one of my many second-hand buttons as a centre for it.

We sewed them onto the bands using the cast-on tails and then overstitched them so they would be very firmly in place.

I haven't shown the second band (pink) as I forgot to take a separate photo of it, and now I am too cold to do one!