Well that didn't last did it? Let's try again.

So much for starting a blog.  I really didn't get in to the habit, and suddenly it's nearly a year since my last post. 

I think my problem is two fold. One is that I am a private person, and when things are tough, I clam up. I don't like talking about it, and believe me this past year has been pretty rough. The other issue I have, is that my live is boring. I'm disabled, I don't work, I rarely leave the house. I don't know how to write about that in a way that anyone would want to read. 

That might be changing though, and that's what prompted me to come back to my blog. I'm currently working my way through an online knitting diploma. Now I've been knitting for years, but this course doesn't just teach the basics of knitting. It also teaches designing, and how to market your designs. 

I was sceptical at first, I didn't think I could come up with new designs. But, with a bit of prompting from the course materials, I found that I did have design ideas, lots of them, and just maybe, this is something I could do. 

I love reading designer's blogs, I love following the story from inspiration to finished design. I like seeing a peek behind the curtain into their lives. If I'm going to be a designer, I should take inspiration from the designers I like, right? So here I am, password recovered (it had been so long I had forgotten it) and blogger reopened. I'd love to say that this is it, and I'm going to blog faithfully and frequently from here on out. I'd love to, but I can't. My health, and life are just too unpredictable. I am going to try though. 

Since one of the things I love reading blogs for is the pictures, here's a round up of some of the things that have happened recently.

The biggest change has been getting a cat. This is Harley, he's roughly 6 months old and is an absolute joy. I'd forgotten just how much it can lift your mood to have something small, warm, and soft trust you enough to curl up and go to sleep on you. He loves to play too, and the amount of laughter in the house has increased tenfold since he arrived. 

We spent the Easter weekend down in Wales visiting my mum. The weather was glorious and we spent a lot of time at the beach. Harley came with us, and while he wasn't thrilled about the car journey, he was very well behaved and seemed to settle in fine at Mum's house. He loves playing in the bath, and mum's is huge!

(We were cleaning the bathroom, he was supervising)

I made a knit and crocheted wreath for Ostara. I made up some bits, used free patterns for the flowers and bunny, and did bead work for the blossoms. I only used stash, so the colours are quite as vibrant as I would have liked, but I'm still happy with it.

Apart from the wreath, my crafting has been a bit hit and miss. I finished a hat for me, and one for my daughter to give to her friend. I've worked a bit on my cross stitch of Zojoji temple. I did some sashiko (the rabbit and the dragon). I did learn how to do embroidery, and embroidered my husband's black belt, I also embroidered a couple of drawings I did, that was fun. I want to do more embroidery, but my focus has shifted back to knitting with this course.

Finally here's a sneak peek at the first design I'm working on. A different use for self striping sock yarn.

Thanks for reading.

Finish one thing, start something totally new!

Well that was quick!
I have been working pretty exclusively on the Conduit shawl for the past week. On Sunday I finished knitting it, on Monday it was washed and blocked, and yesterday I took advantage of the beautiful sunny morning to take some photos.

I'm so happy with how it turned out. I had plenty of yarn left over when I got to the end of the pattern, so I added an extra 4 garter stripes. That meant that the rainbow starts and ends with orange. I think it looks much better then ending with the greeny-yellow.

I've got some exciting new things coming up soon. I've started working with some wood and leather to make various pieces of jewelry and shawl pins.

The most exciting thing to happen this past week was the arrival of this amazing prize I won from ravelry.

 It's a complete Learn To Spin kit, with two spindles, a book, dvd and a selection pack of fibre.

 It too a little while to get going, but I soon got the idea of park and draft spinning.

Here's my very first attempt at yarn. It's very uneven, but it's a start :D

W.I.P Wednesday

Welcome to my first W.I.P (Work In Progress) Wednesday. This past week I've really only worked on my rainbow conduit shawl, but since this is the first one, I'll do a full round up. I've pulled out all the projects I'm currently working on and taken some photos.

First is the shawl. It's Kauni Wool 8/2 Effektgarn in EQ (that's the rainbow) and Drops Baby Alpaca Silk. The Kauni is very rough to knit with, but the Drops is beautifully soft, so they balance out.

Next is the worsted weight sweater. The pattern is Split Ends, and I'm knitting it in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes. It's not the softest yarn ever, but it's nice enough, and pretty affordable. Sweater quantities of yarn can get expensive fast!

This is the start of an Everyday Shawl. It's knit in Rowan Fine Art in Kingfisher. This is the third or fourth project I've started with this yarn. I loved the look of it in the skein, but I've never been happy with how it knits up. I think I might be on to a winner with this one, but I need to do a bit more to be sure.

This is a Nautilus shawl I'm doing with a  Schoppel-Wolle Laceball 100. It's going to take forever, but should look amazing.

This is my magnus opus. It's a fair isle sweater knit with 4 kilometers of Drops Flora on 2.5mm needles. The pattern is Peace Jubileumsgenser. I printed the charts out on A3 paper so I can actually see them, but I can't work on it for too long at any one time before my brain turns to mush. I've nearly finished the first page of  the charts, and I started it in July 2017. It does go weeks without me touching it at all though. So much to knit, so little time. 

 And finally I thought I would show you the cross stitch I'm working on too. I've finished the bottom right quarter here, I've still got an awful lot to go. This is my oldest WIP, I got it for Christmas 2014! The finished piece should measure 40x27cm (16x10 1/2”). It’s a snow covered Zojoji Temple.

Hi.

Hi, and welcome to my blog. I used to blog on Tumblr years ago, but I drifted away from tumblr, and so stopped blogging. I've decided to get back into it, so here I am.

This is a place for me to blog about the things I make, and also my day to day life living with spinal deformities and chronic pain.

I knit, crochet, paint, and draw. I do cross-stitch, pyrography, wire-work and beading...Basically if it's a craft I can do sat in my heated recliner, or at my desk, there's a good chance I do it, or want to learn it. You can see most of my knitting and crochet projects on my Ravelry Page here, but the plan is to put my current and future projects here too.

Photo shows the start of a striped knitted shawl project. Black yarn and rainbow yarn are striped in garter stitch with short row sections in black making 3 wedge shaped sections on the left .

The above photo is one of the things I'm working on right now. It's by a designer caller Lisa Mutch. A group of us in the LSG monthly thread on Ravelry decided that we were all going to choose any design of hers we liked, and all of us would knit them at the same time in a Mutch-along. I'll show you more of my projects as I work on them. I have a  worsted weight cabled sweater, a 4 ply fair isle sweater, a crocheted dragon, a knitted skirt, a lace weight t-shirt and a couple more shawls in progress right now. I really should get some things finished!

One of the things I've just started making are hair accessories. I have long hair, and the problems with my spine mean that it's difficult for me to do much with it. My husband washes and brushes it for me, he'll even french plait it for me, but I wanted to do something different. I got some bamboo chopsticks, and using wire, beads, alcohol markers and my dremel, made a selection of hair sticks to match my clothes.

Photo shows 6 chopsticks in different colours. Each one has coordinating charms and beads at the top, held on with wraps of thin wire.

So now you know a little about me, and the kind of things I like to make and do, I hope you'll stick around and join me on my blogging journey.