lace, wool and stitch

 Today my lace has been getting some of my attention

200 gm of yarn has been plyed

and we have started row six on the blackwork sampler

Crafty update

 I finished the grey mitts and also knitted up some of the random oddments into another pair. I still have quite a few very small balls of yarn so may just make a pair of stripy mitts as well.

I've also turned my attention back to the blackwork band sampler that has been hanging around for a while.

You may have noticed that I'm often in town, this is mainly because all busses around Nottingham run to the city centre meaning that I will often end up catching four busses in one day. Yesterday I realised that I could get yet another different view of the market!!

Cold but sunny day yesterday (Monday)

 This is going to be  a quick post,maily because I'm late getting up and need to head out as soon as I've finished my coffee.

Firstly, I missed posting on Sunday but didn't really do anything !

Yesterday I was down the bottom end of town, Broad Marsh which as the name suggests used to be marsh land many years ago. More recently there was a shopping centre of that name which has been partially demolished. The land is slowly being returned to the wild.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new sculpture zoom in for more details or click here

This is what is should look like, based on the photo.

                                                        named Standing in the Place

I then walked on to the railway station and the canal.

Looking back into town , I could see evidence of the Christmas market above the buildings.

Crafting........some knitting, a bit of stitching and some spinning. Here is the spinning update, more on the others in the next post.

just one more bobbin to spin then I will start to ply.

empty out the bags.

 I usually only have one knitting project on the go, two at the most, I knew that I had a shawl in my knitting bag that has been ignored for some time and after getting it out I decided that if I wasn't going to enjoy knitting it, it could go.

It been frogged back, skeined and washed ready for the next project.

I though that was it, just my current project but no.... I found a pair of mitts in a bag just needing about 10 rows to finish them. I do remember these, I was knitting them on one of our van trips and I suspect that they just fell behind the fleece bag rather than being deliberately ignored. I finished them.

Back to just one project, rustic mitts in Jacob and Ryeland.

On the wheel I'm still working through the bfl/texel on the Ashford e-spinner.

Nothing on the Nano at present.

Storm Bert is raging outside ( 8am Sun 24 November) nearly 50 mph gusts coming down the valley so I don't think that I will venture far today.

nothing to report

 Hi, I've been posting daily as a challenge to myself and this is the first day ( Friday)  that I don't really have anything to write about.

I usually write the post last thing, then schedule it for 9 am the next day, but its now 9.30 on the next day (Saturday ) and I really don't have much to say about yesterday other than I pottered around, undid a couple of old projects that weren't going to get finished  and cast on a mitt.

So, have a good day all and I'll be back as usual in the morning.

A quiet day with friends

 I had a quiet day yesterday, met friends for coffee, wandered round the Christmas market

Once back home again a did a little spinning then washed and blocked the mitts, spotted a mistake but it can stay, they are lovely now. These are for me so I'm not too worried about any error although I would rewrite the pattern if I did them again.

nearly not a post

 I nearly missed posting today, just a couple of photos of giant Christmas tree decorations caught my eye.

Interesting reflections

back out on the street, the winter sun was low

So I decided on coffee, audiobook and knitting, now my new mitts are finished and just need a wash and block.

taking a snow day

 Well, I would if I was still working as there are no buses running down the valley. We had the first snow of winter last night, a surprising five inch worth of snow although its thawing out now. To put the excitement in context, we had two reasonable falls of snow last winter and we missed both of them due to being a different part of the country.

I ventured out early as far as the garden., this was my washing line at 6.30am

As I was putting the kettle on for my second cuppa of the day I spotted this visitor at the top of the tree.

Being up early meant a quick chat with assorted people on line before they went to bed whilst working on mitt no 1 which is now complete except for sewing in the ends. I have now remembered how much I hate knitting thumbs.

later in the day I cast on the second mitt

and spun some boring white yarn

finally finished

 I managed to knuckle down and finish the sampler ! That's one off the finishing pile.

I also cast on a mitten with the black and white yarn, not quite got the sizing right but I will add a few more row of random checks to lengthen the hand parts. My yarn has proved to be too thin but since these are to replace my house mittens I'm not too disappointed plus will design my own next time. This was a useful lesson on how to design the thumb with a pattern on it.

you can see my tension issues with the yarn. Pattern by Traci Scott

Its that time of year again

 Krampus Day !!!

At Papplewick Pumping Station yesterday

nearly finished

Its been a slow day, some spinning, the white just needed skeining, the brown needed a bobbin spinning then plying. They both need a wash

dark brown shetland,white bowmont

Just for comparison, the green bobbin is off my nano which you often see in my photos when I'm out and about. There is the the same amount of fibre on each bobbin but the green one holds 50gm and the larger one 200gm.

My editing programme is hiccupping, sorry about the placement of some of the text , I've tried all sorts but it won't behave properly.

The nearly finished object it the sampler. I'm just too tired to count correctly so I'll finish it in the morning.

For anyone who wants to see the box of doom contents, please remember that I buy from charity shops and started to stock up for my retirement stitching a while back. I may sell the tapestries just haven't decided yet as I do have a large bag of the wools as well and may be tempted in the future.

Who am I kidding? I'm never going to stitch all of these but I'll give it a good go. Mostly cross stitch but a few embroidery and blackwork ones in there as well.

Anyway, more tomorrow (Sunday)