Catching Up!

Every so often you’ll read that bloggers are “all blogged out” and can’t think of anything to post or just want a break from it. I don’t which is worse not being able to think of something to post or having so much to say that you fear a hideously large post. I’ve become so behind in blogging that… well I’m just going to start writing and see how far I get! 🙂

We’ll start off with the much promised pictures of Tiny, the toy Corgi.

I bought him in kit form as one of Andy’s Xmas presents. The assembly of Tiny was another present! 🙂 some of you may remember that his finished head languished on my ironing board for a while! 🙂 Now that he’s finished he sits on Andy’s chair in the dressing room of our house. we have an old Victorian house and the bathroom leads off a room called the dressing room, well at least that’s what the estate agent called it! 🙂 And so it’s stuck.

I’ve been busy with my Noro Silk Garden shade 87 top-down raglan from Stefanie’s excellent pattern.

As with many of the pictures here today, the colours in the raglan are slightly different than in real life. They’re slightly more muted in person although I’d love it if they were as dark as in the picture. The picture is a couple of days old and I now think I’m coming towards the end of the body. Begfore I do that I may start a sleeve so that I can see just how long a sleeve I can get out of one ball. Just want to be sure that I don’t use up all of my yarn on the body.

And what’s that twinkle in the picture?

Why, it’s a wonderful stitch marker from the delightful Emma! It was from quite an unexpected present of stitch markers that arrived just before we were to leave for London. I had sent Emma some odds and ends of sock yarn that I wasn’t sure if she’d like or not but thought might possibly be of use for her son Oliver. The stitch markers came in quite useful as I had been using a favorite earring as an impromptu marker on the raglan. Here’s a slightly better pic of them although their lovely silver cores don’t show up.

I’m also still working on the Koigu Broadstreet Mittens although they’ve been on hold for a few weeks. I’m not sure how I feel about picking up stitches from the glove to make the mitten part. I just have to have a go at it really but keep putting it off. The colours aren’t true in this picture, they’re not as bright.

We did have a great time in London last weekend although I didn’t manage to make it to the Rowanettes meeting. 🙁 I’d been up late packing and after walking around the city for a couple of hours felt a bit ill and faint. So we decided to go to my aunt’s place early.

I did manage to fit in a visit to John Lewis though where I bought some Noro Cash Iroha in a few different purple shades. I got 150g of two colours and 100g of another colour and am going to make another top-down raglan. I hope that 800g will be enough. I do have 100g of one of the Cash Iroha shades in a different dye lot in my stash already so could use that if need be.

Kathleen asked in the comments if I get to visit Charlie often. Not very often no, we’ve travelled down to Cornwall only about twice in eight years I’m afraid. We tend to see Charlie in Cardiff, she’s visiting a lot now that her husband Andy is studying medicine here. No idea what The Lizard is Kathleen.

Beads weren’t forgotten on this visit either and I went to both The London Bead Shop in Covent Garden and The London Bead Co in Kentish Town over the weekend. I also bought some Japanese bead books from the latter and some large jump rings to make stitch markers from the former. As well as plenty of beads of course!

I made earrings from a couple of beads from The London Bead Shop this week. They haven’t photographed amazingly well though

This weekend marked the sixth Cardiff Stitch & Bitch! We had two lovely new members this week, Jessica, who doesn’t knit but seems to be thinking of trying it, and Jeni who has just started a knitting blog. Go and check it out to see a sock that she made from yarn she spun and dyed herself! We also met Anthony, Jeni’s boyfriend who also knits socks! Jeni and I are planning a visit to Collinette in a couple of months time.

Hannah and Heather were also there and we had a really good time. Heather said that one side of the table was the stitching and one side was the bitching! I think it was one of the best meetings we’ve had.

On the 27th and 27th of March a bellydancing festival is happening in Cardiff! It’s been organised by Hannah, and looks like it will be a fantastic event with music, dancing and workshops. You can find out more and book tickets here.