And our winner was.........

Yes the sun was out and that can only mean one thing..............diggin'.

Here's a pic of our freshly dug earth ready for a few rows of potatoes. The allotment is one of those things that I nearly always think "Do I Have To?" (in a slightly whiney voice I learnt from the children!), but actually when I get there its quite nice. Its a lovely spot with beautiful views ( and I was bribed with an ice-cream!)

On our humble little plot we also have some garlic, and some nice purple sprouting which I picked for our dinner.

On the creative front I did start on the Chocolate Raspberry wool as I decided that with kids around for the weekend there really was no point doing any housework.

I started this on Saturday on the Kitchen table, unfortunately the fluff I'm using is incredibly fine so everything we've eaten since has had a fine layer of silk or bamboo!!

This is about half of it carded. I couldn't wait any longer and spun a bit of it to see what it was like and it is beautifully soft. The bamboo is really lovely stuff. I'll definately be buying more of that in the future.

So now I really must get on. The sun is shining and I need to get the washing out.

Cheerio x

n.b This is a lot easier and quicker with no children around!

I made Art...

My current 'Undertaking of Learning' is a 15 week intro into Art Therapy. Its one day a week (on a Friday) and a really nice way to round off the week. I leave the house with a jaunty step, plugged into the Ipod (so I can't here the wails and shouts of a helpless Man trying to get two girls ready for school!) for the beautiful walk through the woods for the train to Bath (gosh sounds a bit Enid Blyton doesn't it!!)

I beleive that Life itself is a journey of self discovery but I have, over the last 5 years or so, been a bit more focused on my journey with 4 years of training to become a Theraputic Counsellor.

As I may have mentioned the counselling course did wonders for my own sense of wellbeing and how I felt about my place in the world. It also unleashed a massive creative urge. I felt the Art Therapy course would knit the two together nicely. (did you see what I did there!)

So yesterday I came home very excited with what I' had created.

Firstly we had a go with clay. I really like it. It's like wool but damper and more solid. I really want to have a go on a potters wheel now. I'm wondering if it'll be like spinning.

This is The Tree of Knowledge in the Corridors of Learning. I shan't go into the long explanation of what we were asked to do as I'm trying to supervise a big painty mess in another room! But what I got out of it was learning about not working towards an end point. With art I have always tried to visualise the end result and then work towards that, thats relatively easy to do with spinning and knitting, so when it comes to other forms such as drawing/painting I find it almost impossible and therefore demoralising. I can't do art (or so I thought). With the last couple of peices I have really tried not to think about what it will look like and let it evolve and I found I had created something with depth, layers and meaning (if only to me at least) .

I'm feeling very pleased with what I'm learning. It's a fantastic course and I would recommend it to anyone.

Finally, I can't decide when to get stuck into the Chocolate Raspberry spinning project. I have a couple of precious child free hours on the horizon, its either carding or the allomtment, and that will largely depend on the weather, ( I'm hoping for rain!!)

The Yarn Hath Spoken

When I first got into spinning about a year ago I told myself I would keep it simple, we were in no position to go off spending loads of money on a new hobby (especially with my track record of short attention span!). So I dutifully started with an old CD and a pencil and a host of tutorials on Youtube (what a fantastic resource). I soon realised that I would need something a bit better than a CD and pencil so I bought myself a proper drop spindle, but that was it I told myself. I could beg, borrow and steel fleece.




So where do I find myself a year on? Well, I now have

2 spinning wheels

at least 6 drop spindles

half a dozen pairs of hand carders

a niddy noddy

skein holder

ball winder

and a drum carder.

Now how did that happen !!? and I haven't even thought about the cupboards, drawers, garages etc that have varying types of fluff stashed away .


Here's some of it in action......

Anyway the Jungle yarn has spoken and told me what it wants to be......

http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring08/PATTjuju.html ...... for my little nephew Noah.

I'll cast it on at some point today, so it looks like the Mitred Square blanket will take a back seat for a while.

I have all I need for the next spinning project....

corredale, silk, alpaca, bamboo and tencel ...

I'm really looking forward to this, the whole process from start to finish is very satisfying. I'm going to savour the anticipation for a little bit longer. It might be a weekend job.

So its time to get on with some baking. In an attempt to get more vegetables into the children I've been making them into cakes. It doesn't work though, they are so yummy me and The Man can't bear to share them!!!!

TTFN x

Nostalga

I returned home from town this morning to find a cd from my brother of (what seems like) my entire childhood in photographic form.

Two things struck me whilst I went through them,

1). Almost everything we wore was knitted by mum,

2). We all looked so happy !

I wonder if the two are related.......

I feel all a bit wistful and a little emotional now, but I'll try to pull myself together.

NEW TOY ALERT....

I've bought myself a Staple Gun (or as a dear friend calls it a Shudunger!).

Part of the appeal of being a Primary School Teacher (I believe) is to be able to staple gun stuff to the wall, so I've decided I need some practice. Unfortunately I didn't get the staples to go with it (assumed it would come with some!) so my Shudunging will have to wait.

I've also bought from my favourite supplier http://www.forestfibres.co.uk/ some bamboo fibres for a spinning project I'm planning. Corridale fibres in raspberry and chocolate, some tencel tops and the bamboo, maybe a bit of alpaca as well. I'm hoping to make enough for some kind of garment, we'll see. On a sad note though I had to see an osteopath the other day who noticed I had one leg stronger than the other!! I've got to try to spin with my left leg also or I'll end up all lopsided! Incidently most of the folklore and stories of spinning in the past alude to the fact that spinning makes you ugly and lopsided, check out

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/meft/meft39.htm

I might have to save up for Double treadle kit!

The Mitred Square blanket is coming along. I stayed up too late last night sewing a few patches together. I then kept myself awake considering what to stitch it with, I was thinking maybe silk hankies?

and I have washed my Jungle wool. I have about 200g's of some quite chunky yet soft yarn, all I have to do now is decide what it wants to be.

Mothering Sunday...

It can all get a bit stressful sometimes can't it really......all that having to care for the carer!

I was rudely awoken at 6.15 by a little person that found it very difficult to sleep with a box of chocolates hidden under her bed. I managed to feign sleep for about another hour or so until the children could wait no longer to show their love and devotion in the shape of a cup of tea and homemade gifts (always the best!).

After breakfast my dutiful daughters indulged me with a bit of crafting on the lawn ( I think they almost enjoyed it, bless them). They did a bit of pompom making and wet felting.

I'm in a bit of a no-mans land with regards to knitting projects. I don't have any definate projects in the pipeline so decided to start making some of these http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mitred-squares with my left over bits of handspun (I hate waste!).

This is just something to tide me over until I can decide what to knit next. I've almost finished the Jungle wool and I want to finish it properly (i.e. set the twist and wash it etc) before I knit something with it. I'm thinking of a little jacket for my nephew maybe.

I'm quite taken with these mitred squares though, they are so quick and easy to knit. I hope I manage to do a few before I get bored and move onto something else.

So its been a really nice weekend. I visited my lovely sister and her family

and did a bit of baby jiggling. Its so lovely to be reminded of those early stages, it makes me very thankful that my girls are becoming a bit more independant and I'm recovering bits of my life I'd forgotten about. (Not so independant that they don't need a cuddle at 6.15 in the morning though!!)

Ah, my favourite time of the day!

The routine is set. With the kids all at school and the man out working I have the house (and the computor!) to myself.

This is the time when I usually eat my breakfast and look at photo's of yarn and wool and knitted things etc etc, while I mentally plan out the day.

Actually I do need to crack on. I'm finishing off a school project today. I spent last week making wet felt with a my daughters class of 9-11 yr olds and then today we will turn the felt into beautiful Mothering Sunday gifts. Now I need to get some examples together. I was meant to do it last night but I got distracted by a friend who wanted to discuss spinning wheels and wanted to admire my Ashford Joy (so aptly named!). Obviously I couldn't say no.

Its not much of a problem as I am "a person who leaves things to the last minute". An issue I am (nearly) always trying to correct.

Other things on the list of "Jobs to Do" include making bread, tidy up a bit, washing, bunny wrestling (they like it when they're out but do put up a fight!), do some work on my Art therapy portfolio and finally graft the toe on the Brother-in-Law socks.

Its a beautiful sunny day again so there is the danger I could blow it all and just spend the day spinning in the garden........but...no....I....must....stay.....focused!

Let the Blogging Commence

After much umming and ahing I've decided to enter into the world of the Blogger.

Part of the reason for this because I am so impressed with the blogs I read through Ravelry and Knitty, and I also felt a bit voyeristic for reading all those blogs and not contributing with my own.

The other reason is that I am on a massive creative drive and wanted to keep some kind of record of my progress.

So then, a bit about where I'm at. I am currently filling my non knitting/spinning time with running around after 3 girls, volunteering lots at the local primary school doing craft based activities and I'm doing a 15 week Art Therapy Course. This is all to fill in a bit of time before I have another career change and re-train as a Primary School Teacher in september.

This is what I'm currently amusing myself with at the moment. I apologise for the quality of the photo's, my resident photographer is at school!!

A bit of spinning. This is some wool tops with coloured thread purchased from Forest Fibres. I bought this as i knew I was going to be busy so I needed some ready to go. I've plyed it with some gold and silver thread for a bit of sparkle. I've given this to my mum so she can knit something lovely for my new neice.

We had some wonderful sunshine on Sat and I was meant to be doing some gardening, but I got a little distracted by some recently dyed wool and a bag of recycled Sari Silk, so I spent the day carding this up instead!

So there goes my first, and hopefully, not my last attempt to blog. I just hope that blogging doesn't take up so much time that I don't have enough time to do the things I want to blog about!!!