Knitting - January sort out

What to do on a wet and rainy Sunday?  I sat knitting for a while this morning, then decided I really needed to 'do' something.  One of our bedrooms is a guest/craft room and my table was overloaded with "stuff". I've had a good sort out, new buttons into jars, patterns into folders, ribbons sorted and tidy (for a while).

I then sorted out all of the knitted items I seemed to have by me, some that are to go to charity, others as gifts.  I tackled the yarn cupboard next!  I already had a bag of odds and ends but decided that I would go through and sort all the odd balls and designate them to a charity yarn pile.

I then tipped out the bag and sorted all the odds and ends, bits that may just knit a row were also included.  I now have a nice tidy box into which I will add ends as I finish projects.  It amazed me how many shades of red there are in this box and to see what I actually had by way of odd balls.

The plan is only take charity projects to my knitting groups, leaving my main projects at home to work on at my leisure.  A satisfying couple of hours and its still raining

Knitting - a rash of headbands

Headbands are the order of the day at the moment.  Here are some I have knitted so far, some I have shown you before, buts its good to see them altogether.  Most of them are for babies/toddlers, so great quick knits, and also great stash busters

This evening I am casting on some Christmasy ones, photos to follow

Weekend - Tidy time

Its that time of year, the garden is starting to go over and there is lots of clearing up to do.  We spent a busy few days starting the clear out of the borders.  We had a bit of help from the girls

I wouldn't mind their help if the could just put the mess in a bag rather than throwing it everywhere.  We still have a fair bit of colour, these Rudbeckia are going strong

Apples, these are windfalls, in need to juicing.  There is also a basket of walnuts, all that Peter could rescue from the squirrels.

Runner beans, these are still going strong too, this lot got turned into another batch of Delia's pickled beans. Any suggestions for other things to do with them when you are tired of eating them and you don't like them from frozen?

They ripen by the day........

The first hat from the pink/purple bag.  This is simple beanie done in a slip stitch pattern taken from an Erika Knight pattern in the Love Knitting for Baby magazine Feb/Mar 2014, pretty.

I cast on another in the lilac yarn and am doing it in a little shell pattern from one of the Harmony stitch guides. Photos to follow

Knitting - more stash busting

I have finally got to the end of the bag of blue yarn, just a few oddments left that will do for fairisle. I decided to look through my stash and sort out all those started balls and bag them up into colourways.  More hats are on the horizon.  I enjoy knitting them and its good to see what changes you can come up with to make them all look a bit different.

I managed 8 hats and the blanket bunny from the blues.  This is the final one

This is the yarn I will be knitting up, all double knit weight, mainly acrylic, perhaps the odd bit of cotton or wool in the mix here and there

A friend commented on Facebook - every great artist has their "blue" period - so here is mine

Knitting - take a bag of blue

Whilst looking through my yarn stash the other day I pulled out a bag of blue yarn, all DK and also acrylic. As I was needing a inbetween project I decided I would turn it into baby hats, all hopefully a bit different.

This is my progress thus far

These are 6-12 months in size, 15" around the head. I'm using a very basic pattern and then just adding the detail, different ribbing etc.

My book arrived today.  I've had a quick flick through and it looks very interesting, some great adverts, one in particular caught my eye for a bracelet wool holder, what a great idea, but one that I don't think caught on as I can't seem to find one. I also had a comment by the author Lucinda Gosling on last weeks blog post so that was a result. My new Simply Knitting magazine also arrived, so plenty of reading to be done

Some stash busting

I bet by the title of this post you thought I was talking about yarn.  But no, hubby got to do some stash busting yesterday when we built a permanent run for the 'girls'.

He has wood, screws/nails, and various odds and ends of ironmongery in his 'man cave'. He can usually put his hands on what he needs.  Its a case of "you never know when that will come in handy" with him.  I call it junk or a huge mess........ anyway back to the run.

The only item purchased for this run was a roll of chicken wire which cost £32.00, and we still have a fair bit left.  The project took the whole of the day to build and install.  It was good to work on something together. There were only a few cross words, which was a bonus.  I even got to dig a post hole, just to prove that I could.

We gave the girls the run of the garden whilst we got on, though they did need to be steered away from the veg patch a few times!

Today I spent the afternoon painting the gate and posts.  One thing I learnt is not to wear "crocs" with inquisitive chickens about.  My toes appeared to be very appealing, forcing a footwear change mid job!!

Anyway here is the finished run complete with some Harley Davidson bunting (found this in his man cave, it was liberated from a rally a few years ago, some beer had been drunk), hopefully the flapping will distract any would be predators

Not a bad days work if I say so myself and hopefully the girls will enjoy the extra space to run around