Wednesday 9 April 2014

Long time no blog

The last month seems to have flown past.

The weather's been (generally) nice and it really feels as though Spring is here.  Not that Winter was horrible - no snow and not that many nights when there was a frost, to be honest.  The weather at the end of last week was hazy and smoggy with winds bringing sand and dust from the Saharan region.  This was last Friday morning when I took DD1 to the train station:


The wind blew away the Saharan smogginess overnight on Friday and by Saturday morning the sky was bright and Spring-like:


Saturday lunchtime when I took Jess for a walk before I got ready for work, there was more signs of Spring when I spotted these rabbits.  I'd hung back, keeping Jess on a short lead so the rabbits weren't spooked and was able to get this photo:


Aren't they cute?  I think the bigger one on the left might have been Mum!

A crafting round-up:

There's been no spinning going on, so no point in taking a photo of my non-progress.  I'm not sure why I haven't done any spinning; I think it was a case of not finding to time.

Knitting-wise, things have been plodding along.

Puffin sweater:  very slow progress.  I've done a few inches, that's all, and I'm nowhere near the end of the decreases for the waist shaping:

Stripey scarf:  not much progress.  I've been picking this up and doing a few rounds at knitting group, so it's growing very slowly (not that I need a scarf in this weather):


I did buy some more yarn from Colinette for it last week:


I have to admit that when I opened up the package (it's another Jitterbug Creative Pack) I was a little disappointed as the colours are quite muted, but I think they'll make a change from the brighter colours I've been using, especially if I alternate them.

Socks:  I've finished the Rico Superba Tweed ones I was annoyed with following the knot I found in the yarn:


I cast these off this morning.  

I'm still knitting my plain hand-spun socks, but those are an 'upstairs' project and I add a few rounds every now and then while I'm waiting for the bath to fill up or if DD2 is awake during the night and I need something to do until she settles down to sleep again.

Next up will be another pair of socks as I found a hole in one pair the other day (my nice purple/green Fyberspates ones - I might try and darn them) and some of my other pairs are definitely past their best.  The next pair will be another pair of plain socks, using some blue yarn that my friend Lucy dyed and which I bought at least two years ago.  DD2 helped me wind the yarn from the skein into a yarn-cake yesterday, an activity that she seems to like (we wound the new Jitterbug small skeins for the scarf at the same time).


So, that's a round-up of my crafting endeavours for the last month.  I did start something else, but I think I'll talk about that next time.