Half term and Halloween

Life has been pretty hectic around here recently, what with half term and lots of extra time spent working in the library. There has definitely not been an awful lot of time left over to indulge in much crafty stuff ~ although I have managed to snatch a little time to knit up a bit more of my lacy scarf and am now on to my third and final ball of yarn.

I am desperately trying to have a bloggy catch up before some of the moments get lost in the camera ~ never to see the light of the day!

We had our half term a couple of weeks ago here in Scotland and we headed off to the beautiful little village of Alton in Staffordshire to visit family. And of course, a trip to Alton would not be complete without spending a day up at Alton Towers. We scared ourselves completely silly on some of the bigger rides ~ in fact after going on some of them it was almost impossible to walk!  

We were really lucky with the weather the day we visited as it was a beautiful Autumn day ~ very cold but thankfully no rain! The leaves on the side of the Towers were a spectacular colour.

There were lots of Halloween decorations dotted about the place as it was the start of the annual Alton Towers Halloween festival ~ Scarefest.

We hid in giant pumpkins!

And came across some very strange residents!

Who were driving some very spooky vehicles!

The following day we had an enormous amount of fun at Splash Landings ~ which is a water park inside one of the hotels at Alton Towers. There were lazy rivers, crazy cannons and a VeRy fast and VeRy scary Master Blaster water coaster. This is an extreme water ride and definitely not for the faint hearted and most definitely NOT for me! Once was more than enough and I will never venture on it again! Needless to say the kids loved it!!

Tonight, following in our own Halloween traditions, the small people will be dressing up in some scary Halloween outfits and we will play hide and seek in the dark with torches. We will get absolutely soaked dooking/bobbing for apples and then we will get cosy and snuggle up on the sofa to watch some spooky Halloween movies with maybe a little bit of Scooby Doo thrown in for good measure.

I hope you all enjoy your Halloween happenings as much as we will!! :O)xx

Jubilee socks

Yesterday ~  I was sitting in the garden enjoying the lovely warm weather and adding a few more rows to my Jubilee socks. I am using a really simple sock pattern which involves absolutely no heel shaping and therefore, absolutely no thinking at all! Just simple knitting and purling (K6,P6 ribbing) in a tube like fashion ~ which is so easy to pick up and put down when my knitting mood dictates. The yarn is 4 ply Zig Zag by King Cole in Jubilee which gives lovely random stripes in red, white and blue. The other thing I loved about this pattern is that it needed 60 stitches to be cast on ~ which is very appropriate for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee too.

Today ~ I am back to sitting knitting inside as the weather has decided to turn a little cooler again and the sun has disappeared behind the clouds. I really do hope it decides to make a reappearance sometime very soon :O)xx

Happy Easter

Just popping by to wish you all a very Happy Easter ~ I hope that you all have a very lovely Easter weekend.

As I have continued to be very unproductive with my hook, knitting sticks and yarn I thought I would share a photo of a little knitted Easter chick that I made a couple of years ago ~ he is very good at hiding chocolate Easter eggs in his little woolly tummy. I am very good at that too ~ although my tummy is definitely not woolly!

Enjoy your chocolate Easter eggs and TRY your very hardest not to eat them all today :O)xx

This week..........

I have been enjoying the beautiful Mothers Day flowers that I got from my two small people ~ there were some rather delicious chocolates too, but they got eaten far too quickly to have time to photograph them! It has to be said (for the record) that I didn't eat them all by myself ~ I did have some helpers both big and small!


I have been having lots of fun cutting out some colourful felty shapes from my Egg Cosies Kit ~ I am hoping to have at least a couple of these cute cosies made by the time Easter arrives.


I have been trying desperately to knit a few more rows of my very slow socks and failing miserably to get very much further because ~


I have spent quite a lot of my time with my head in this book and have been loving every minute of it ~ this author always manages to make me laugh out loud.


I have been having a bit of a rummage around in boxes and bags that have been hiding in cupboards since we moved into this house almost a year ago ~ and I have unearthed my long lost Summer Garden Granny Squares ~ which have been a WIP for far too many summers to mention!

I am also looking forward to spending a lovely Girly day out tomorrow in the beautiful Scottish Borders with my very bestest Girly friend.

Hope you all have a very lovely weekend ~ I wonder what delights next week will bring :O)xx

Slow Sock Syndrome

I think I must have been hit by a very bad case of Slow Sock Syndrome! I started casting on these socks at the beginning of February and this is how they are looking so far ~

Not much progress at all!

I decided in my newly found sock knitting wisdom to knit these particular socks using the magic loop method ~ as I had wanted to try and teach myself a new knitting skill and I was feeling really rather pleased with myself when I actually managed to do it fairly easily. And to be honest with you I think that I may now actually prefer using the magic loop method over using Double pointed needles too. You may fooled into thinking that using this method is what has caused me to suffer from Slow Sock Syndrome ~ but you would be wrong. Very wrong indeed!

What has actually happened in the case of these socks ~ and bearing in mind that these are only my second pair of socks ~ is that I got WaY ahead of myself and thought that it may be quite a nice idea to add some sort of pattern onto the heel flap.

A pattern made by knitting Fair Isle or Intarsia no less!

Well that was a BIG mistake! Neither the Fair Isle pattern or the Intarsia pattern went according to plan and the heel flap has now been ripped back twice. I have now decided that these are just going to be Plain Old Pink (POP!) socks and will hopefully be on my merry way to making some progress with them sometime very soon.

Wishing you all a very happy and progressive weekend:O)x

Successful socks

Finally ~ after a few false starts and a couple of minor disagreements with the Double Pointed Knitting Sticks ~ I have finished my first ever pair of socks. And I can't even begin to tell you how ridiculously happy that makes me feel!

When I first embarked on my sock knitting journey I wasn't entirely sure if I would ever reach my desired destination. But arrive I did! And at the correct destination too! I am now the very proud owner of a hand knitted pair of socks ~ and not only do they actually look like a pair of socks, they also happen to fit me perfectly as well. Who would have thought it?

I don't mind admitting that I really did have the heebie jeebies quite badly when I first read the sock making pattern. But do you know what? Once I actually got started and decided to take it slowly step by step, all those sock making jargony words finally started to make a bit more sense. I now have a basic understanding about the construction of the sock ~ and all that sock talk of gussets and heel turning no longer turns me into a gibbering wreck! I still have a long way to go, but I really did enjoy my first ever sock journey.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I have already cast on my second pair. You might all be thinking that with all that Knitty excitement going on that I have forgotten about all my hooky trips. Definitely NOT! As you can see my Little Boy Blue blanket is still around and I promise that I will stop by and show you all the progress sometime soon.

I hope you all a have a very enjoyable weekend ~ whatever little woolly trips you may be taking :O)xx

Happy feet

I mentioned a little while ago that this was the year that I was going to try and make myself a pair of socks. Well..........the sock journey has well and truly started!


Quite ironically, the yarn that I am using is called Happy by Wendy, in a lovely Lavender colour. However, I was anything but happy when I cast on the stitches a few days ago. This knitting with more that two needles malarkey is just not as easy as it looks and I got myself into a right old state!

Now, this is not the first time that I have knitted with Double Pointed Needles ~ I made myself a pair of mittens a few years ago, but this time it certainly seemed like it was my very first try. For some reason I just could not get to grips with it at all. I still felt like I was an octopus trying to knit, the DPN's kept trying to disappear up my sleeves at every given opportunity and they kept slipping out of my hands, resulting in dropped stitches and much shouting at said knitting! I have now cast on and ripped up the beginning of the first sock six times. I kid you not! What you see now is my seventh attempt and so far so good!


Apparently that was the easy part, because now the pattern is mentioning heel turns, gussets and toes. I'm starting to have palpitations just thinking about it! Wish me luck as I embark on the next part of my sock journey and I'll hopefully have something that resembles a sock the next time I see you.

I hope that you all have a very lovely weekend too :O)xxx

A New Year ~ 2012

Well, here we are, already four days in to a brand New Year. I hope that you all had a very lovely time at Christmas ~ although, I must say that Christmas seems like it was absolutely ages ago! We took all our decorations down yesterday before my lovely husband went back to work and now the house looks very bare indeed.

It was our very first Christmas in our new house and we all had a really wonderful time, despite being loudly awakened at half past two in the morning by a very bouncy and excited small boy, shouting "He's been!". Once he had opened his stocking he was more than happy enough to go back to sleep until a more reasonable hour! Thank Goodness! As usual my two Small People were well and truly spoilt! The day itself was fairly quiet ~ we had some family over for Christmas lunch and I'm pleased to report that I all my panicking over cooking Christmas lunch was a bit silly as everyone said nice things about the food and it all got eaten ~ so it can't have been that bad!!


I've enjoyed lots of very lazy days during these holidays ~ days sitting around in my pyjamas with my feet up, drinking lots of tea and consuming vast amounts of chocolate. I have also been lucky enough to have been able to spend quite a bit of time indulging in some Hooky Stuff and there has also been the sound of clicking knitting needles too.


Due to numerous factors, (but mainly because we were in the middle of moving house and everything was packed away) last year was a very unproductive year for me crochet wise so I am planning to make amends for it this year. I'd love to be able to find the time to finish all my WIP's, and maybe even produce twelve finished woolly things by the end of the year! I'd also love to have a go at knitting myself a pair of socks ~ surely it can't be that hard, can it?


I'm off now to hook a couple more rows of my blue Granny Stripe ~ there may even be a cup of tea to be had too ~ but this time there's definitely no chocolate allowed! :O)xx

Blue and Speckled

I have just finished making this little Blue Speckled Chicken and I just love him. He was very quick and easy to knit and even the sewing up part wasn't too bad (and I usually hate that part!). I love the way the yarn makes him look all speckled and my favourite part is his dingily dangily legs with his little knotty knees.


I can't believe that I have just managed to put in two photograph's in the same post! It has only taken me about six months to work out how to do it, and I probably will forget how I did it when I try to do it again!

I hope that everyone had a lovely weekend and made the most of the fantastic weather that we have been having - even up here in Scotland! Let's hope that it continues and we have a lovely hot and sunny summer :O)

Little Baby Mittens

I don't seem to have had much time to do very many crafty things recently, but I have just finished knitting these cute little baby mittens as a present for a friend's new baby. The cute little Duck in the photo is the motif on the blue baby blanket that is also going in the parcel, I couldn't resist it when I saw it in the shop!

Time.....

Where does the time go to? The days and weeks are just flying by and there just never seems enough time in the day to get anything done - let alone anything of a crafty nature!!

This is a run down of one of our so called normal days......

Force myself out of bed!
Get washed and dressed!
Persuade kids to get up!
Supervise fighting whilst they decide who gets to watch what on the telly!
Get their breakfast - whilst making packed lunches!
Get them washed and dressed and looking semi - presentable for school!
Leave house and walk to school, trying to stop then wandering off on the way!
Walk back from school!

Finally have a well earned cup of tea and sit down to try and plan what else I am going to do during the day!

That only accounts for a couple of hours - by the time I've done all that I am too exhausted to do anything else and any housework that I have planned - tends not to get past the planning stages :O)

Anyway, that's enough rambling for just now! The only crafty thing that I have had time for this week was to make this little bunny from yet another pattern that I found on Ravelry. It was really easy to make and looks so cute!

At last......

I have actually managed to finish knitting my Fingerless Mittens - they seem to have been on the needles for ages!

After a bit of a bad start - and one practise mitt later - I finally managed to get the hang of knitting with DPNs. I found that the hardest part is actually getting the first few rows done, once I got past that I found it fairly easy to do.

I don't think that they are too bad for a first attempt! :O)

Half term

This week it is half term for us and we have been lucky enough to have a little bit more snow this morning for the children to play in.

I can't see me having much time to do much on my own this week as I will have to keep the kiddiwinkles occupied, but I have managed to finish this cute little Koala Bear which is another one of the free patterns that are available from The Knitted Toy Box.

These little cuties are so quick and easy to knit and if you give them embroidered eyes they are just the right size for small people to play with :O)

Ironing ....... Why?

I think that there may be an avalanche about to happen very soon inside my ironing cupboard.

The pile of clothes that is in there is getting more mountainous by the day, and looks ready to topple down on top of me every time I go into the cupboard to contemplate doing anything about it!

It is one of those jobs that I have been going to tackle everyday this week, but there are always more pressing things just waiting to be done - such as knitting, having a cup of tea or both -Ha ha :O).

Yesterday, instead of doing the houseworky thing , I got out my knitting needles and made this little owl dishcloth for my best friend who loves all things owly - I'm not sure what she will think of the dishcloth idea though!! The pattern was from one that I found on Ravelry. It is amazing how a few stitches and cables can produce a little owl.

Right - I'm off now to climb a very high clothes mountain :O)

Unwelcome visitors!

We have got some very unwelcome visitors in our house at the moment, in the form of some horrid nasty little tummy bugs, who have definitely more than outstayed their welcome!

I have had a very ill small boy at home for the last couple of days, but I think the worst of it is over and those nasty little bugs have finally packed up their bags and are on their way out - x Fingers crossed x!!

To try and cheer my little boy up I made him a Tiny Turtle from a pattern that I found on Ravelry - then once my little girl came home from school and saw it I had to make another one for her, this time in pink!

Cath Kidston Knitting Bag

I had a girly day out shopping in Edinburgh on Saturday with my best friend and we found a Cath Kidston shop in George Street that I hadn't even known existed! We had a lovely time browsing around and I saw a Cath Kidston Knitting Bag that I had wanted for ages but coudn't justify buying for myself. My lovely friend very kindly bought it for me for my birthday :O)....... but my birthday isn't until the end of February so I will have to wait until then to get my mitts on it. I'm sure it will be well worth the wait!!

Knitting on DPNs

It's not as easy as it looks!!

I have never knitted on DPNs before and thought that I would give it a try. Inspired by a lovely pair of wristwarmers that I saw on Esther's blog - Hetty's happy days! - I decided to try and make myself a pair. The pattern is called Cabled Fingerless Gloves and can be found on Ravelry.

What a tangle I got myself into!! Where did I put all these extra needles and how did it all work? At first I ended up abandoning the cable pattern, as dealing with 5 needles was just a bit too much for me to get to grips with and I just knitted a plain "practise" mitt.

Then it all finally sank in and I started to get the hang of it! I have now completed about half of my first mitt and I am quite pleased with how it looks so far :O)

A bit early.....

I know that it's a little early for Easter, but I was looking through some old knitting patterns that belonged to my Aunty and saw a pattern for these cute little Easter chicks. I felt like doing a bit of knitting yesterday and decided to try out the pattern. It was so quick to make - less than an hour!

The little Easter Chicken is designed so that you can hide a Cadbury's Cream Egg inside his tummy. I just HAD to go into the shops on my way home from school this morning and buy a Cream Egg (or 2) to see if it was the right fit.

Guess who's tummy the Cream Egg is hiding in now!! And very yummy it was too. :0)

Little Knitted Lamb

I have just finished making this little knitted lamb which is knitted from a free pattern available from a lovely site called FuzzyMitten, which is well worth a visit if you haven't seen it before.

When I say that I have just finished making it, the full story is that I have had the pieces knitted up since before October, but just couldn't bring myself to sew all the bits together! I hate the sewing up part of knitting - which is a bit strange because I have just discovered a love of sewing other things!

This is the first little toy that I have knitted, so I don't think that it looks too bad for a first attempt. I have now got to sew up a little knitted panda that I knitted at the same time, hopefully it won't take me another few months to do it!!