A little beauty and brightness

Life at the moment is getting harder for most of us and I could moan about the state of the ecconomy and the possibility of redundancy blah blah blah, but I won't.

I like to try and see little joyful moments in day to day life, I feel like a much richer and happier person for it.

• A few from current ones:
  The weather here has been simpley vile - cold rain, yet right now it is really sunny and I have the windows open for some fresh air.
  


• Weekend before last my little godson got his mother and I up early on a Saturday, I'm not a morning person and weekend mornings are for sleeping in. Getting up early did mean that we got to our favourite resturant when it opened for breakfast, we didn't have to queue for a table and our breakfasts were served quickly and cooked perfectly. We also had a trip to Loop while we were in Islington.



love the sky blue plate, the eg really does look like the sun against it

• Yesterday I worked late and on the way home I stopped by Buffy's beads in Kingly court. It was quiet and I very unusually had the shop to myself I ended up buying the most beautiful shell leaves and glass hearts that I will make into stitch markers for knitting friends and myself.

• Monday morning I missed my breakfast (it's a struggle to get out of bed at the moment) and went to a really long meeting so I didn't get any lunch. At 3 o'clock I felt very hungry, so I went round to the closest coffee shop to my office and had a very naughty brownie and a delicious mint tea - yum!
  
  

• I'm also spotting a trend for beauty in blogs so here are my top ten beautiful blogs (please point me in the direction of your top ten as well) I tried not to be too obvious about it as most people know about Brooklyntweed and the Yarnharlot and I often talk about others.

Elliphantom Knits

Inside A Black Apple

Ysolda

Chocolate and Zucchini

Jatta Soheltaa

HELLOmynameisHeather

Mustaa villa (black wool)

Dances with wool

Sixoneseven

Fig and Plum

And although it makes eleven I can't leave out Jane Brocket's new-ish blog - her images always make me smile.

Just one word

I can be very verbose so when I saw this meme on the lovely Dee's blog I took up the challenge.
Admitedly I did cheat a little in places

Where is your mobile phone? sugically-attached
Where is your significant other? absent
Your hair color? blonde
Your mother? brilliant
Your father? grumpy
Your favorite thing? bed
Your dream last night? bizzare
Your dream goal? happiness
The room you’re in? big
Your hobby? knitting/snowbaording
Your fear? being found out!
Where do you want to be in 6 years? sailing
Where were you last night? sofa
What you’re not? relaxed
One of your wish-list items? drum carder
Where you grew up? geekdom
The last thing you did? commuted
What are you wearing? snuggly jumper
Your TV? old
Your pets? missed
Your computer? graaagghhhh
Your mood? graagghhhh! (see above)
Missing someone? boy
Your car? Johanne (z4)
Something you’re not wearing? glamour (I really want to say knickers but that would be a lie)
Favourite shop? knitting hut
Your summer? C**P!
Love someone? deffinatley
Your favourite color? stripes
When is the last time you laughed? to long
When is the last time you cried? last weekend

Leo's Hat

I intended to give this hat to Leo as part of her birthday pressie, however my trip to Finland with work was cancelled at the last minute. I am therefor officially a bad friend and a very bad Godmother. Leo and her son's birthdays are very close together and I had intended to be with them for a few days just after the birthday dates. The first time she sees this hat will be on here - sorry Leo.

They will of course be receiving the gifts when I get to Finland (hopefully before Christmas!) - I could have posted them but one of the items is a very heavy wooden toy!

Back to the hat, the design is the soon to be classic Jarred Flood Habitat hat, knitted in RYC soft tweed, needles in size 4.5 mm for the rib and 5 mm for the main part of the hat (dpn's in 5mm for the crown)

I am committing tweed heresy now by saying - I love how tweed looks, nubbly, flecked, old world and fewer steps removed from the initial sheep than ordinary millspun. However I hate the itch factor, I can't wear it at all - even as a top layer it's prickly itch seems to permeate my inner layers and make me scratch, so forget knitting with it.

I was in one of the few big department stores that sells yarn, feeling all of the skeins when I found this - tweed without the scratch! Soft and lofty, nubbles of brighter blues and whites, but soft enough that I moved from stroking it with my hand to stroking it on my cheek. I immediately bought two balls in this pale grey blue and then went back and bought two more in the antique pink colour.

I know Leo's mum made her a hat this colour a while ago and I had admired it, sadly it met a felty end and now fits a teddy, so I decided to knit this.

I love Jared's designs, the subtle details really make the design sing, look at how the cables come together at the crown.

and how simple cables used together make a sum much more than the separate parts

The simple pattern can be knit on the train with no errors. I may even knit this again - for me.

Winter Warmer

I'm feeling pretty unwell at the moment and the weather is not helping! Knitting warm woolly items and spinning snuggley yarn is just what I need.

I finished my hopscotch socks from Soctopus sock club, the yarn is lovely - a delicious one called Soft Spun Plus from Brooklyn Handspun , the colour way is toadstool and dyed for the club. The design is by Anna Bell, who has a lovely blog.

I made a few tiny alterations to the heel to try and make the pattern flow better out of the heel corner - I would say it was moderately successful.

You can't see the pattern until the socks are stretched on your feet, but this does make for a lovely smooshy sock. I actually liked this pattern so much I am making another pair with some yarn bought from Impulse of Delight. I highly recommend this site - really interesting seeing where the colour ideas come from for her yarn.

NaBloPoMo

Even though I've already failed at the NaBloPoMo as today in the 3rd of the month, I am resolved to trying to Blog a bit more for many reasons:

• The shorter days keep me indoors more

• I want to record my knitting in this format


• I want to record my spinning - oh yes, I have a new wheel and I am the proud owner of the lumpy bumpy yarn that will soon become a Greenham Common Women hat (although I will not become a Birkenstock wearing, brown rice and tofu eating person - what am I talking about I like tofu and brown rice!) No disrespect to the women of the peace camp!
  
• I really enjoy the writing - I hated writing at school but I actually think it was more to do with the very dyslexic spelling and ending up with an essay covered in red pen. Essays contained as few words as possible when you know each wrong spelling will have to be written 100 times!


• I may be able to curtail my online shopping habits if I spend more time blogging.
  
• My very close friend Leo reads my blog and I miss her very very much since she moved to Helsinki - I should really write more for my one and only reader.

No pictures of my knitting today, just some from the Knitting and Stitching show. It was a a really great day, Mum and I went with a group of ladies from the Knitting Hut. I bumped into quite a few people I knew and very strangely a girl I went to sixth form with, who I have not seen since we left. We were quite good friends at school but had lost touch, Chloe has recently started crochet and I hope to get her knitting soon.

We learnt to extreme knit - Mum bought some needles and has been using them at home (mainly to prod Dad when he falls asleep and snores!) actually she finished her faux fur stole in 2 evenings - 10 balls of ironically delightful acrylic eyelash yarn made into something that is actually rather glamorous!

I also loved the crochet hyperbolic reef, a team were busy sewing pieces on all day. I was impressed by the use of maths in the crochet, the idea comes from the Institute for Figuring, the UK Reef is part of a wider international project to make a global Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef.

The original reef was inspired by the principles of hyperbolic crochet originally developed by Dr Daina Taimina. In 1997 she worked out how to make models of the geometry known as hyperbolic space using crochet. Until then most mathematicians had believed it was impossible to construct physical models of hyperbolic forms, although nature had been doing it for some time! Dr Taimina has written a book on the subject that will be available in January -I am looking forward to reading it.