No cake for Roo

Tony has just returned from his mom's house to tell me that he had cake for pudding. Then he told me she offered him some cake for me but he told her that he wasn't sure if I would like it. So he didn't bring me any!!!! Apparently it was like eve's pudding but with lemon. Just because he spent hours once slaving over bread and butter pudding to find out I don't like it seems he thinks I'm fussy! :0) Huh!
So I guess I will have to show you some different presents I received this week....

From my amazing One Skein Pal! A gorgeous purple boa scarf made from Collinette Fandango. The picture made it look really dark, it is much more of the lighter purple shades you can just about see. Not only that, she sent the most amazing patchwork tote bag that she had made. This really really makes me want to learn how to sew. I desperately need a house of my own so I can have a craft room! I don't think Tony would be too happy if a sewing machine appeared in the snooker room! You can't really tell from the picture, but it has wadding in it to make it feel quite sturdy and it has a inside pocket to stop me losing my mobile and keys (which always seems to happen in these kind of bags!). If you want one yourself, go and look here! I also got a gorgeous card with an old photo on, some lavender and a flowery notebook which will come in very handy. Thank you LIZZY. You have been a superb secret pal. Your blog has inspired me to try and make one of the crochet garden scarves using the lorna's laces you sent me.

Tonight I managed to finish off the Jaywalker scarf in Hipknits silk for my secret pal. I hope to get this posted over the weekend. I really hope she likes it as much as I like my presents. I have bought a few more cool things to go with it too. Fingers crossed.

I have also managed to make one sock this week from my kool-aid-dyed DK. Hopefully the other one won't take too long and I can send these off with the other goodies to my Secret Pal 8. Lastly I thought I would show you the (lack of) progress on the blanket. A little mistake happened last weekend, I thought I would try and do another square with the colours in reverse. Obviously I wasn't paying attention....The one on the left is the new one. Spot the deliberate mistake., two rows of purple at the beginning instead of one makes the square too big! Ooops. Never mind, I've still got 2 months before the baby is due. That's only one square every 2 days, no problem!
I'm spending this next week going back and forwards between Wolverhampton and London so I'm not sure much blogging will get done. But hopefully some knitting/crochet will... And I get to see all my friends, HORAY! Oh and just before I go, check out these cool things I've seen in the blogging world this week... Bryony's very cool Japanese crafting book and cool OSP scarf and Katie's Jumper which I also love.

This week I have mostly been.....

Knitting, crocheting and winning quizzes!
My one skein "jaywalker" scarf is progressing nicely. I hope to have it nearly finished by the end of the weekend, as I have 2 x 3 hour car journeys to my flat and back in which to finish it. I am really happy with it. I hope my OSP will be too.
The from the top right we have my first blanket square, using Jaeger Aqua Cotton. It is not nearly as soft as the Baby Cashmerino I used for Toby's blanket, but I reckon it will be much more hard wearing, and can probably be used as a playmat as well as a blanket. The mercerised cotton is lovely to crochet with and is quite soft in a cottony type way! There is a close up below.
Then we have two new socks, one for Toby, which I fear may be a little big at the moment, but he'll grow into it! The other one is my Lana Grossa sock. I forgot I was going to make it a "toe sock" until after I'd started the decreases. Couldn't be bothered to frog it, so just finished it a normal sock.
Other news from this week.... I've been out with my new work colleagues and we won the Birmingham office pub quiz, which was very exciting. We got a trophy which is now proudly displayed in the middle of our 4 desks. Was good fun, and nice to be out of the house! Going to London this weekend to try and get the flat ready to sell.... It means I can collect and the knitting things I've forgotten (like all my needles) and hopefully I can start on the socks for my secret pal (which of course should have been posted by now). Have a lovely bank holiday weekend everyone.

Sock Wars

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1. The first rule of Sock Wars is, you must talk about Sock Wars
2. The second rule of Sock Wars is, you MUST talk about Sock Wars. (no really, for this to be a success we need as many combatants as possible)
3. Two socks to a fight
4. One fight at a time
5. No shirts, no shoes, just socks
6. Fights will go on as long as they have to
7. If this is your first time in Sock Wars, you have to fight.

O.k. so I said no more socks, but with both Secret Pal 8 and One Skein Pal about to end I decided to sign up to Sock Wars (as well as Sockret pal). Thanks Yarn Monkey for organising!
Sock Wars sounds fab. I tried to explain it to Tony last night but he just didn't get it. I wonder if I'll make it past round 1?

Blanket Time

It is time to forget the socks and start thinking about the next big project.
I really want to make this Debbie Bliss Alphabet Blanket; but I think that will have to wait for the next baby as; after consulting with the mum-to-be; I think this baby needs bright colours. I am also worried that if I make it, I won't be able to part with it and that will scare Tony too much.
I have dismissed the Wild Stripes blanket again for being too boring to knit.
I am toying with the idea of making the Kaleidoscope throw from Zoe Mellor's Nursery Knits book I borrowed from the library the other day

Or, this morning I was playing with pencil crayons and my new squared note book and came up with this. All of the squares have the colours red, orange, yellow,green, blue, violet in that order either from outside to inside or vice-versa. Obviously this layout doesn't work, as there are the same colours together, but I reckon the squares would work. I might even only use the squares in the correct rainbow order, violet to red (bottom left) and red to violet (3rd one on bottom row) as these seem to be the most pleasing to the eye. I reckon I would need 25 squares to make it the same size as the blanket I made for Toby.... they would be crocheted again, as these would be easy to crochet but a pain to knit. What do you think? My design or stick to the Kaleidoscope throw above? And then it is the yarn decision. The Kaleidoscope throw calls for Jaeger Aqua Cotton, a mercerised cotton... I think I need to go and see if I can have a feel of some of this! Or, I could carry on in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino as I have some yellow and green left over from the other blanket but it is very expensive. Or I could go with Texere's anti tickle King Cole Merino as that seems to come in lots of good colours. Decisions Decisions.
In the mean time, I have been carrying on with the commuting sock....

Whilst the cat's away....

Tony left me on my own in his house for the first time this evening... has been very strange being here on my own, but I've got lots done. However I have just realised I may be scuppering my plans to get him to make me a swift by winding balls of yarn myself. Hmmm.
Here we have two balls of self-kool-aid-dyed-anti-tickle-merino which I am going to use to make some special " keep your toes warm in Newcastle" socks for my secret pal.
Here is the major achievement of the evening however, a whole massive skein of HipKnits aran silk in a special custom-dyed colourway! I have to prove that this is one skein (or rather one ball now because I forgot to take a picture before... but you can see it here and blogger won't let me upload the photo but you can see it here) because this is my present for my very special One Skein Pal. She loves HipKnits silk, and she is 30 at the end of August, which is when I have to have her special hand-knitted gift ready for her.

Yes, ok, I am totally obsessed with the Jaywalker pattern, but I thought it would make a fantastic scarf. I started knitting as soon as the ball was wound (I couldn't even be bothered to get the ball winder out to make it into a centre-pull; I am bound to regret that later!) I am really liking it so far. Here's the maths 5mm needles, cast on 30 stitches. Knit one row, purl one row then this two pattern repeat:
1. (kf&B, k5, ddc,k5, kf&B) twice
2. Purl
ddc = double decrease - slip the next two stitches knitwise, knit the next stitch, pull the two slipped stitches over the one you have just knit.
See, just like Jaywalkers!

On the secret pal front, I stumbled across this yesterday, a Sockret pal exchange. I've signed up, seeing as I can't get enough of socks at the moment. I thought it would be cool to have someone knit me a pair.

And on the friends front, Annette has told me that they have a Knit and Natter group at Beatties (my local department store in Wolverhampton) on a Saturday from 3-5pm. I knew they had a Tuesday one which I couldn't make because of work, so hopefully I'll be able to go this Saturday and make some new knitting friends! Thanks Annette.

Socks, socks and more socks.

Being in Wolverhampton with no friends to go out with (apart from lovely Tony) is doing wonders for the knitting productivity. As are the train/bus journeys.
Firstly, another pair of socks for you. Jaywalkers, in Lana Gross Cotton Spirit. These are Lauren's birthday present and they have reached their destination, so hopefully it is safe to show them now! I made these with2.5mm needles rather than 2.25mm which the pattern calls for. The last pair I made were a little large, so this time I decreased the number of stitches between each inc/dec to 5 from 7. They were a bit tight, so I hope they fit!I love the stripeyness of them and the cotton has been great to knit with.
Check out my new lambskin rug underneath the Jaywalkers; isn't it fab? I got a little excited when I saw them on Stacey's blog; as I've wanted a brown sheepskin rug for ages. Tony was glad it wasn't wool or shoes that arrived in the package! You too can own one from here
The sock knitting is continuing at a pace... I've still got some Curious Yarns fairground left that I have used to make these teeny tiny socks for one of Tony's friends new arrival. They should definately be finished tonight; how satisfting. I think I might have to knit some more with my leftovers for the other recent arrivals!
nu=3286>;44>689>WSNRCG=3233:5<3:637;nu0mrj"> And finally, yes another new sock. I'm not really sure how I have got so far on this one! It is on 3mm needles, so it is speeding along. I'm making it with Lana Grossa Inca, and I was intending to make the socks on the front of this book that I bought from Stash in Putney.On the Non-Knitting front, everything seems to be going fine. I've been to see a couple of houses, haven't done anything more about selling the flat. Work is good, really interesting with lots to learn and it's busy which makes the day go really quickly! I'm missing my friends, and sad I can't go out for birthday drinks with Lol tomorrow but this is the way things have to be. I wouldn't have a boy making me curry whilst I blog if I was in London!

I survived my first day

But now I look a mess apparently. It's amazing what passport photos do to a person!

Leaving Drinks

So it really is real. Leaving drinks tonight. My last day at work tomorrow. I have so many friends in London and I am going to miss them all terribly :0( Kerry my "with sympathy" card is going on my desk at the new job on Monday.
Half of me can't wait to leave and half of me doesn't want to go.
I'm scared and excited about what next week may bring. But mostly tonight I am a bit drunk and tearful.

And now for some kniting content

I managed to finish the Hoodie in time, just! Here is it drying after a quick bit of blocking with a steam iron:Pattern - Debbie Bliss Hoodie from Issue 1 of Simply Knitting
Pattern edits - added a star motif(which is a little wonky but I don't care!) and stripey arms (as I love my stripes)
Knitted in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. 3 balls of teal and 1 of stone.
Size 1-2 years.
I hope to get a piccie of the little man wearing it as soon as the weather cools down in the North East. Was a bit too cruel to make Sam model it for me in 30 degree heat!
Started July 06, Finished July 06
And more socks. I finished the family rib socks from Vogues Socks two book. The pattern is the same as the one I used for Tony's lornas laces socks, but this time in the womens size.
The yarn is Curious Yarns in Forest Walker. I am especially happy with how I have no holes on the gusset where I have picked up stitches. Horay! These are for a 30th birthday present next week and I finished them on holiday... with a whole 10 days to spare. Wonders will never cease.
However I have another birthday present to make for two weeks today, so I have started these Jaywalkers.
However as the last pair for Kerry came out a bit too big I decided to reduce the number of stitches in the pattern to 60 and continue using my trusty 2.5mm 30cm addi turbo. Seems to be going ok so far. It was a bit tight, but I can get it on, just. It fits Kerry too, so fingers crossed it will fit Lauren! These are in Lana Grossa Cotton Spirit I bought from Stash in Putney. It is so nice to knit with in this hot weather. I think it makes perfect Jaywalkers too.I promise tales of holiday stash enhancement in my next post....

A wonderful holiday

I stayed in a turret
Kim fed the ducks
Bodge made some buns
And Tony made a tank.
We saw a man shear a sheep with hand clippers
We visited the Alpaca farm
And we were greeted with views like this everywhere we went.