Odds and Sods - March 2015

March has absolutely flown by - we've had some lovely sunny days but we have also had some torrential rains and howling gales.   I thought I was getting ahead with some of the garden stuff, but have had to put a lot of it on hold for now until I can be sure that plants put outside will stay where they're put and not end up rolling down the road.  (I spotted one of my empty plant pots doing that very thing earlier this week!)  So I've spent quite a bit of March indoors, decluttering and being generally homely!  I've also spent a lot of time with friends and family and realise how bad I am sometimes at staying in touch with people - I've really enjoyed the time doing this and resolve to be better.

I've had a couple of jaunts too - the Knitting and Stitching Show at London's Olympia and I had a weekend down at Heathrow with Andy and Finn. I had a lovely day shopping and doing lunch with Rachel in Bury St Edmunds - our shopping centre of choice for a jaunt!   On top of all of this, the car failed and then (sort of) passed its MOT but has since been back for more restorative work and needs to go back in again after Easter.  I really need to get totally on top of mechanical issues before the spring and summer jaunts start up again.

So it's been a month of catching up, but also of quietness and catching my breath before the summer arrives and we're thrown headlong into gardening and socialising and general busyness.  

This post is all about the stuff that happened that didn't really merit individual posts, but all of which have been really important and I simply don't want to forget.  (Thank goodness for Odds and Sods posts!)

The smell of these hyacinths is gorgeous as I arrive home after a day at work.  Really fragrant.  And the climbing hydrangeas have gone a bit berserk this year - I need to work out how to control them a bit more.

I spotted these nests in one of the trees on my road, on one of the greyer days this month.   Now the clocks have gone forward, it's so fantastic to walk Finn over the park in the evenings now in daylight.

Talking of grey ..... I took this photo during the solar eclipse on 20 March.   While a lot of the country lost the sun for a few minutes, we didn't have any sun to start with!  (I actually had an interview later this day and that was a bit of a damp squib too - needless to say, I didn't get the job!) 

Lots of bonding going on at the caravan!  Bless them! 

And it was Mother's Day while Finn and I were with Andy in Heathrow - this is my card.  Finn is such a clever boy!

Talking of Finn, here he is looking gorgeous as ever!

And here he is the weekend that Sid stayed over with us.  I still have no idea what they were waiting for at the top of the stairs.  Funny pair!

I've been to see Molly (and Elle of course!) twice this month - Molly is adorable, such a little doll.

And although the sum total of my sewing projects this month was two bandanas - shameful! - I have been building up a pile of patterns I want to try when I get time, including this cute dog bone cushion and a jersey skirt.  I'm a bit scared of jersey - I think I need lots of practice first.

So that's March in a nutshell.   I am looking forward to better weather as I have so many projects I want to get on with - not just in the garden, but in the house too which require windows and doors to be flung open wide and for washed curtains to be hung on the clothes line.   Roll on warmer weather!

Knitting and Stitching Show - London Olympia - March 2015

At the beginning of March, we had a girlie trip to London - courtesy of Dad.  He had spotted in the local paper a coach trip to the Knitting and Stitching Show and asked if we'd like to go?  Would we?!!   So Mum, Amanda, Shannon and I had a lovely (long!) day getting our wool and fabric fix.   The coach left Norwich at seven thirty in the morning and we got home - exhausted and skint - about ten o'clock at night.   (I'm sure the organisers were expecting a lot of worn out ladies as they even had therapists on hand to give massage.)

There were very many exhibitors - with wares ranging from wool, fabric, threads, buttons, sewing patterns, books, right the way through to handy gadgets to make our hobbies easier.  There were also a number of workshops going on, including dressmaking classes.  And there was also a crochet jungle where people could learn a bit of hooky!

Shannon quite early on acquired a book and some wool so spent quite a bit of time sitting, doing some crochet and looking after our bags while Mum, Amanda and I could wander around unencumbered by purchases.  The stall where Shannon got her book was run by Toft and we were in hysterics at the selection of animal patterns and the way they were displayed.

(Shannon has since made a number of animals, using random wool and they are really effective.  Apparently the bodies are the same for all the animals, and it's only the limbs, heads, distinguishing features, etc, which are different.  Shannon has confided to me that she hopes to have a ready-made bag full of body parts to use, which really made me chuckle!)

I honestly thought I would probably be more interested in the fabric stalls, but did buy an awful lot of wool, which surprised me.  Enough to make four cardigans!  I was really inspired though at some of the dressmaking and patchwork that I'd seen.

So, those are the photos of the show itself and some of the stands.   Now for the photos of my purchases ...

I bought wool, fabric, buttons, a sewing pattern, a cutting mat and a pizza cutter.   (It's actually called a rotary cutter!)  I have been so inspired by Matt on the Great British Sewing Bee who uses a mat and cutter. In my dressmaking classes last year, the tables were at such a height that I didn't need to bend down to pin or cut fabric.   However, my dining table is quite a lot lower than those tables, so I find that pinning pattern to fabric and then cutting fabric is very uncomfortable and hard on my back.   Matt of the Bee laid his fabric on the table, laid his pattern on the top weighed down by pebbles and stones, and then used his pizza cutter to cut round.  So the whole process was done in one stage only, rather than the backbreaking two stages I currently employ.   I haven't tried it yet, but fingers crossed it is less painful than the current performance!

I bought some pretty fine wool with a bit of bling in it to make the cardigan just seen underneath the pile of wool.

I bought this lovely fox fabric to make another blouse and I wasn't really sure what I was going to make with this butterfly fabric - but that decision has been taken out of my hands now as I've given it to Amanda for bag linings!

Shannon saw this blue fabric and requested a dress for her birthday.  And then the bounder running the stall showed it to me in green and pink, which ensured I'd have to buy some for me too!  

Probably not the same dress though!

Gadgets and buttons.

So, a fab day was had by all and we've already all expressed an interest in going next year too!

Tada! "Bonnie Blooming Heather" Wave Blanket

Every time I start a new wave blanket, I like it better than the last and it becomes my favourite.

A lot of the colours in this one are the same as those in the Seaside Wave and the Sunday Teatime Wave.

This was also knitted so that the stripes are horizontal.   Instead of the normal 456 stitches and stripes of four rows, I cast on 294 stitches for this one and knitted eight rows to each stripe.   It's not quite as big as a double bed widthwise, so I'm wondering whether I should cast on extra stitches?

I really need to address this width issue.  Personally, I think it's ok, although a couple of pattern repeats wouldn't hurt, I suppose?   When you've got that many stitches on the needles, a few more wouldn't make much difference!

And the name?  Well, the colours reminded me of walking across the Yorkshire moors, or striding through the Scottish Highlands.   The colours of heather, moss, lichens, bright blue skies, bracken.  Beautiful!

Folksy Sale #9

I love this scarf - these are the same colours I used for baby Molly's blanket, but instead of stripes with four rows, I knitted twelve rows in one colour before moving to the next.  And, instead of working to a plan, which I usually do, I literally made it up as I went along, using my wool bag as a lucky dip.  Which means it's probably more lary than the baby blanket, but I love it nonetheless.

The deeper stripes are very effective.  And this beauty is currently being paraded around Salford around the neck of cousin Stephanie!