It's been a while

Over two weeks since my last blog entry.

After Blogging Week (which I did enjoy),  I felt a bit blogged out, to be honest.  There also hasn't been much to blog about.  My crafting WIPs haven't really been worth talking about.  The Charade socks I'm knitting have been languishing in my crafting basket and I've still got the leg of the second one to finish.  My spinning wheel has been gathering dust in the corner of the lounge while I've been reading up (a lot) on spinning from rolags rather than braids of fibre.   I've mostly been concentrating on the rainbow blanket I'm making for DD2, but there's not much point in showing you a photo of that as it's just more rows of colourful stripes, with lots of ends.  The end is in sight though as I've got two-thirds of the ends sewn in and three more rows of striping to go before the border.

I did start something new a few days ago.  Nympheas scarf by Mimi of Eskimimi Makes.  However..... after two pattern repeats, it's obvious that the yarn's going to pool in a not very nice way, so I'm going to frog it and start again with something else - not sure yet.  I think I've got some pale green Natural Dye Studio yarn, so if I can track that down in the stash-box I might use that.  I think I'll do a separate post about that.

Truth be told, it's been a flat couple of weeks.  The weather's been horribly wet and a bit chilly, so I've had soggy chickens and a soggy chicken run that even though I've been putting in newspaper, wood shavings and paper shreddings, is very muddy so I've got Diva Chickens with dirty feet.  The dog's been off her food, hubby got bitten by what we assume was a mosquito, so moaned about how itchy he felt for a couple of days and DD2 has been rather up and down emotionally, which can be quite draining and tiring.

On top of that, there's been the unfolding saga of All Craft Media, which went into Administration the week before last, leaving customers, designers and other creditors out of pocket, never mind the staff, who have lost their jobs and won't be paid for the last few weeks of their employment.  I was going to blog about it, but there are many others who have blogged about the debacle already, so I'll give you a link instead to PomPom's blog and if you scroll down her posts, you'll find links to other blogs.  All I can add is that in future I'll be looking on the back of any magazine I pick up and if I find it's produced by any company in which Kerrie Allman has an interest, then I won't be buying it.  There are certain times when phoenixing a company is acceptable, but to do it over and over because you're not very good at running a business doesn't come into that category - not in my book anyway. 

Today, however, the weather's a bit brighter (it's not raining, for a start), there weren't any upsets before school, DD2 came home from school on Friday with a Star of the Week certificate (for good listening and working hard all week) and we received a letter in the post from DD1's school saying that along with seven other girls from her year-group (there are 112 students in her year) she's been picked out as a conscientious student, who always shows commitment to her work, so things seem to be looking up.

I'll be back soon, hopefully with a post that's a bit more 'show and tell'.