vintage dress

I am making this dress, the spotty one, in this fabric,





though the weather has become decidedly autumnal and I am hoping that I will still have a chance to wear it.
I did make a little boo-boo when cutting it and had to cut one more skirt piece as the stripes didn't match how I wanted them, luckily I had bought enough fabric ...phew!

I am plodding along on a few knitting projects and nothing is grabbing my attention. No spinning as I am waiting for some fibre to arrive, the post is awful right now.

Boys are home tomorrow and my baby is a teenager, 3 teenage boys in the house should be fun.........right?

Sore leg

So, is it possible to learn to spin with either leg? to treadle? means you have to sit a little awkwardly but boy do I have one sore leg, it does happen to be the one with the already dodgy knee, which doesn't help matters. Not that it is going to stop me at this point, whats a little pain!

So the two bobbins became this




which looks like this, all washed and pretty




and which knits up to look like this, and is all soft and fluffy, 5.5st and 7 rows per inch on 3.75mm.



So all I need now is a niddy noddy and more fibre...

I was going to sew today, my dress is all cut and ready but have been invited to lunch instead, choices, choices, I am off to lunch....

New Toy

So I gave in, after much debate, some whining and moaning, yes that was me. You see there was the little problem of the lack of birthday present last year, which really hadn't been resolved, and its not like it was new, and it is kinda cute, and I had to have it cause I so wanted to be able to produce this.




Well, except I want it to be better, a lot more like this.




So between ravelry, which is making me realise how many projects I do have on the go, and spinning, there really isn't a lot else going on around here.

Two boys are back on Friday, so really have to finish up their rooms, pronto.
I can't wait to see them, it seems like such a long time and I have missed them a lot. It is very quiet with only one boy home, one who happens to be pretty self contained and happy to do his own thing, reading, football, chatting with his friend online. As long as there is food in the fridge he is happy.

Which leaves more time to spin, though I do want to sew a new dress and I did find homes for all those things that were hiding the table top, so no excuses......

Stripes all round

This little cute little stripy skein of yarn was the yarn I spun at India's house, I actually had no idea everything was so blue and stripy until I downloaded some photos, take a look.


Knitting, there has been a little, I have finished the crossover cardi, it took me longer to sew it up, than it did to knit I am sure and it still needs a piece of ribbon and a button, for that I need to be brave and go into the depths of the sewing room, maybe later.
So next is this little stripy jumper in cotton cashmere.







I also knitted another stripy shawl from more Natural Dye Studio sock yarn,here it is on a piece of wallpaper, I like it but it may be a present, I do have more sock yarn for a couple more and it is fun to knit.


Well, I managed to paper the toilet walls all by myself,more stripes, which is a bit of a task in itself as there is no room for the steps in there, as it measures a princely 1m by 1.5m and standing on the toilet seat on tip-toe did not quite make me tall enough to reach the corners.
So needless to say there was much cursing.
Jake and the dog hung out in the bedroom safely out of my way, Jim in his wisdom went off to work early, I am sure he later discovered that this was not a good move, he has been paying for it ever since!

The weather is a little strange in that we have had alternately pouring rain and then fab sunshine, very weird, so we have stripy mountains.





Next up is some sewing, I have washed some fabric to make a dress, it is stripy, just not blue. I just need to find the table underneath some things that as yet have no home, this is the problem when you have an apartment with no storage space and too much stuff/crap.
Happy Sunday.....

Fashion

I want this, but where would I wear it?

It is cold and rainy and all thoughts turn to autumn/winter clothes, well for me they do, especially as most of my clothes are STILL in a box... shock, horror, I need a new wardrobe before I open any more boxes.
They are well packed so therefore if you open them to look for something, they NEVER shut again and stay in the bedroom spewing a muli-coloured collection of strange looking items that just can't be thrown out.

Anyway I was searching for a coat pattern, which I have not found, no idea what I want, just know that when I see it I will know.
Chances are it will be Vogue or McCalls, something that is not available here and the time delay from ordering to arriving, will mean that by the time it gets here, I will have moved on to something else!!

No knitting photos as the camera battery is dead and its too wet and dark anyway, photos tomorrow......
This is a very late saturday morning sky, but the sun was shining, so worth looking at.

Guess what?

When driving around at the weekend, looking for wallpaper for the toilet, which I have to say is very exciting...not! I really wish I had shopped in the UK, so far everything I have found is old and boring...anyway, I drove passed this....





..can you guess what it is going to be, yep, an Ikea, I have to say looking a little bit out of place, all blue and yellow in amongst the green, but hey, it will save a trip to lyon, almost an hours drive and almost 20euros in tolls, pity its not open yet as I really need two new beds, never mind, roll on October.


After my spinning lesson with India, I came back home and unearthed a cheap spindle I had bought a while back and decided to have another go. It was great, I am really hooked, only problem is I now really need to have a wheel. I am having a little problem with an ebay seller and I HATE this kind of conflict, I hope it gets sorted soon as its making me feel very sick.




Anyway this is my new yarn, cool huh? The stuff on the right is my second attempt. Don't know what kind of fibre it is, as I had bought the roving from Fyberspates to do some needlefelting with as I loved the colours, its a little scratchy, but I like it, probably won't knit anything with it but I can look at it.

More unpacking on the agenda, still need some storage stuff in the kitchen, wine rack etc. Need to make curtains for the boys rooms and hang my bedroom and the living area curtains. The living room/dining room has 10 window panels that measure about 5m total or just under, so for winter I need HUGE curtains, for now I just have cotton panels for each one, simple and light, but I don't love them so they won't last....

Green

The first thing I notice when we drive back to the UK is the colour, granted the places that we stop off to visit friends are notoriously wet and rainy.
I kinda like the rain, as long as its not too cold and I have to admit that staying in on a rainy day to watch a movie, is my idea of heaven.
In saying that I absolutely hate driving in the rain and we did have reasonably dry, if not sunny weather when we were home. I was really slack in the photo taking department when I was away, I do think I have to invest in a little camera as my Nikon D50 is a little on the large side for handbag carrying.

We arrived at Dover and had the shittiest drive up through England ever, we managed about 40 miles in 3.5 hours on the M25. Being in a hurry we didn't stop to visit anyone on the way up, I did see some fab sky pictures but the camera was packed in the boot of the car, good planning there!
Also the grumpy/crabbit person was driving so there was no chance of stopping to retrieve it, there was hardly time to stop and pee!

My first stop as always was a walk on the beach with this lovely girl,





guaranteed to blow the cobwebs away and make you smile.

Then of course there was much more green at Lochgoilhead, like this

and this


The knitting really is in short supply around here, I did finish these for Jims Dad.




And have 1 monkey finished and the other not cast on yet.


There are a couple of baby things in the wings, hanging around, so when I clear a space I might get down to knitting, though I do have curtains to make as the neighbours can see in, not good!

Phew

Am home, July passed in the blink of an eye and things here have stood still. The boxes are still here to be unpacked and rooms still have to be sorted. Its going to be a long few weeks, Jake came back with us and the other two boys stayed in Scotland for a few more weeks, so its peaceful if nothing else.

When I was away I took the long overdue step of having my hair cut, so it now looks like this.


We didn't manage to get much visiting done and certainly didn't do much yarn shopping. I did manage to meet up with Heather and she took me to visit K1 Yarns, which is a very cute shop and I did buy a little yarn. I made it to Coldspring by the skin of my teeth ten minutes before closing, they unfortunately didn't have the Cashmerino Aran I was looking for but I did find some Silk Garden and some Soho for xmas scarves.

I am alternating the box emptying with playing around on Ravelry, now I need to take yarn photos but its a little cloudy and dark today. One project which is a must for this winter is this Debbie Bliss cardi, cute huh? Now all I have to do is play catch up with all of you, that may take quite some time!