Tonic

Today has been a real tonic.  I had taken the day off - dentist appointment first thing wasn't the best start to a day, but I had planned to take Finn up to Holkham for a good run and a proper swim.  However, the weather was too good not to work in the garden, so our trip to Holkham was forsaken for a more local walk on the marshes and a good couple of hours spent cutting and pruning and weeding and filling up the brown wheelie bin.  I'm thinking of sending a letter to the Council actually - a fortnightly collection is not enough for me, I could easily fill the bin on a weekly basis.  I suppose the alternative would be to take it all to the tip but I'm far too lazy for that.

And, after all the hard work, I spent a lovely afternoon drinking tea, having lunch and knitting in the garden.  I even had to get the parasol out as it was too bright.  I think the sun may have made me a bit giddy!

Amanda came over in the afternoon with food for our Knitters with Attitude meeting and to use my washing machine for a couple of felting projects - her washing machine is a new eco model which only washes to 30 degrees - not hot enough for felting - whereas my dinosaur machine washes at 90!  While the washing machine was whirring away, we stuffed the pouffe that I have been working on - for a first attempt it's not too bad, but it definitely needs some fine tuning.  Either a smaller cover, or a slightly more butch duvet!  It rather sinks when you sit on it, although it's very comfy.  The difficulty comes when trying to get up again - I think I need to work out a more dignified method to rising!

We were a select little group again for our Knitting Ninnies evening - just six of us this time, although hopeful that our group will grow soon.  The evening was spent eating, laughing hysterically and a wee bit of knitting to justify our existence!

So, in no particular order, Amanda was in charge of mains tonight - jacket potatoes and chili - yum.  And spent the evening crocheting flowers in all colours of the rainbow. 

Mo made puddings - toblerone meringue and a lemon and ginger biscuit tart, which were lush.  This led to some quite raucous conversations about ginger nuts and nut crushing.  Shannon and I were in the kitchen dishing it all up and we could hear an awful lot of screeching and hysteria from the other room.  Mo is still making her beautiful greeny coloured scarf, although there was a lot of sighing going on and trying to truncate the pattern down into a cowl, instead of a scarf.  I think we need to keep Mo away from looking at patterns until she's finished this project - the pattern books are too distracting.

Michele brought at least two projects with her - a bed runner and a beautiful top which she has started - the bed runner is in a wave pattern and in beautiful purpley shades.  Michele has started to buy various bits of wool to add to the stash - this is how it starts I'm afraid - and Mr Rae has already been muttering about her dangerous friends encouraging her.  We had quite a discussion about making a jumper on circular needles - Michele has a rather .... interesting ..... technique of tucking the needle under her arm to knit.  Amanda then demonstrated a way of knitting this way with circular needles - rather like wearing a hoola hoop - and it was at this point that I thought we might have to get a paramedic out again for Mo!   Goodness me, they're all bonkers!  

Shirley also brought two projects - a pair of beautiful socks made in a gorgeous Regia yarn in lovely candy stripes.  And the purple boucle top from last time - this is a magical garment, because the stitch count is never the same on any two rows!  Not an awful lot of progress was made with this project - primarily because I had undone about eight rows to undo a slight issue earlier on, which needed to be redone to get back to where we had started.  At one point during the evening, Amanda went and relieved Shirley of her knitting as she was adamant that there would be SOME progress made before Shirley went home!  

Shannon was busy sewing up more flowers as I had failed spectacularly to provide hexipuffs in the correct colours that she had demanded.  We did have a slight laugh at her expense about her efforts to stay fit and healthy earlier in the week - while doing an abs class at the gym, it was only after fifteen minutes that she realised she was in an entirely different class altogether and was doing Zumba!   Bless her!  (Shannon has had the day off today and has been very busy with the hexipuff seat pads - photos below.)

As for me, I did bugger all, except dish up dinner and sit and revel in our lovely group.  I think I might have cast on twenty stitches for a hexipuff and completed two rows, but that was about it, as far as knitting was concerned.  So, once again a fabulous evening - full of laughter and chat and food and creativity.  What else is there? x