HAPPY NEW YEAR !

I raise my glass to you all and wish you the best of everything for 2012.
I hope it's a year filled with happiness and love, despite our government's best efforts to push us into misery!

Happy New Year!

LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN...

A general malaise settled upon me. Partly the deja vu despair after the election, partly my not fantastic health. Such is life.
I'll do a quick synopsis after the weekend. In the meantime, it's time to deck the halls and light the darkest days of the year with pretty glass baubles adorning a small piece of forest.

We love the midwinter festivals in this house. The fabulous food, the choosing and giving of things to delight our loved ones. Our family and friends.
Some of us, even though we are a tall and robust twelve, still get a little bit overexcited about it all!

So, join us in shutting out the dark, grey, miserable mid winter. Be happy it isn't snowing! Sit around the fire and raise both a glass to each other, and our spirits.

Season's greetings everyone.

SPRING, AT LAST.

How time flies when you're having a miserable winter ! Still, moving on...

Everything is budding and burgeoning. It was incredibly warm yesterday. I had to wear a sunhat at 5.00 p.m. Lovely. Of course, temps are due to drop again as the week goes on.

Anyway, time to catch up on the small amount of knitting I've been doing.
A hat for my friend Tracey. Buttonette by WoollyWormhead, knitted in Plump Exquisite from Skein Queen. The fabulous button comes from Tree Gems, and really makes the hat special. I think it looks fabulous on her.


For Norma, here's a photo of our Cherry Blossom. I'm hoping we get a good crop. This year I am taking measures to keep the Blackbirds from eating our fruit !

I made some mitts for a swap with a friend. These are Fruit Lattice Fingerless Gloves. A nice enough pattern. I put in a shaort row at the top of the back of the hand, to compensate for the lower row gauge compared to stocking stitch. It's a nice pattern for mixing up variegated yarns as well, although I like the effect in this semi-solid. It's Skein Queen's Desire in Blueberry.


More spring flowers for you !

These next mitts were made for another friend. They're the short, fingerless version of Sivia Harding's Fluency gloves. Again, knitted in Skein Queen's Desire in Blue Damson. Hard to capture the true beauty of the colours of the yarn, and how well the beads go. A fun bit of beading too. As with all ribbed designs, these look better worn.

I forgot to put a photo up of some other mitts I made ! Whilst stirring a deep, dark corner of the stash, I came upon two balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I really can't remember what I bouight them for, but, put together, they were just enough for some short, pretty Susie's Reading Mitts.

That's about it really. It really has been a hard winter for me, for lots of reasons. But there's no point dwelling on it. Time to turn my face to the sun.

P.S. Do you prefer the bigger photos. Or the previous, smaller, size ?