Aaahhhh, wonderful yarns!

I was such a good girl before Christmas. Despite finding the most fabulous wool shop fairly locally, I resisted, I didn't buy any of the yummy yarns for myself, just got some for a scarf ( must remember to post pics of the scarf I made for mother-in-law ). But I certainly did a lot of drooling. And fondling. And a fair amount of stroking. And I did promise myself to pay another visit in January, when hopefully there would be a sale.

So we braved the snow yesterday and took a little drive over to the wool shop. It was open. It had a big SALE sign outside. And I had a big grin on my face! Not an acrylic yarn in sight, instead there was Debbie Bliss, Noro, Manos del Uruguay, Araucania and other equally lovely yarns.

Before Christmas, I had fallen in love with the Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend yarns, and promised myself to get some in the sale to make into a lovely scarf for me. This yarn is just soooo gorgeous! It is a blend of 70% extra fine merino wool and 30% silk, and feels incredibly soft and snuggly against the skin. And the colours, well, they are just WOW WOW WOW. The kettle dyed multi yarns have the most fabulous soft and subtle colour changes, they blend incredibly well. You can tell by now that I am truly smitten with this yarn, can't you, lol?

Now normally I am into muted colours, beiges, browns, greens and all their different shades and hues, but this time I went for colour, glorious colour! I bought one solid and two multi Manos Silk Blends with a purple theme, hows about that then -


I get all excited just looking at the pics right now, how ridiculous is that?

And then I went really OTT with colours, but somehow this yarn really appealed to me. It reminded me ever so much of the beautiful sunsets we get in France, so it was a must have. It is an Araucania wool mix -


Perfect for a cool summer evening throw I think.

And for another summery project I chose this absolutely gorgeous yarn, made from 100% sugar cane !! Aren't those just the prettiest soft blue and green watery colours? This yarn has a really beautiful sheen -


Look, colour!Not beige, not cream, not muted green, but COLOUR -

And here they all are together, looking so so pretty -

Now I am going back to stroking and fondling. The yarns, that is.
xx

And out came the knitting needles

The last year or two I have been renewing my relationship with yarns, crochet and VERY occasionally knitting. It seems I get more and more into snuggling up with yarns and a crochet hook or needles these days. Crocheting is getting better, gee, I get adventurous and make up my own granny squares, lolol, but my knitting is still absolutely basic, shame on me.

I am also a huge cricket fan. And of course its test match season, England is in South Africa at the mo. However, I just cannot sit in front of the telly for any length of time without having something to do with my hands. So the hunt for a teeny weeny project, which wouldn't require much in the way of concentration and attention, was on. On was also a trip to the nearest wool shop. I really had no definite project in mind, whatever yarn took my fancy would sort of dictate what I would make.

And I found this -

Just look at the colours, they are so delicious! The yarn is a very thick boucle sort of yarn, pure merino wool, from New Zealand. The name? Mount Pisa. When I saw those mouthwatering colours, I thought this would make a lovely little scarf for our darling granddaughter Grace.

It was really too thick and knobbly to crochet comfortably, so out came the knitting needles! This yarn is brilliant for basic knitters like me, it is so forgiving! Because of the knobbly boucle texture, it doesn't matter if your stitches are uneven and because of the swiftly changing colours, it looks fab even with the most basic of knitting stitches, don't you think?

I took me all of day three of the test match to knit it and crochet the flowers, and it was the perfect easy project. I finished it about 30 seconds before my DS and my almost-daugher-in-law came to visit with Grace. She looks so cute wrapped up in the scarf!


Thats it for today, but there might just be another woolly post tomorrow. Not with any finished project, but with some exciting buys....

xx

Nothing exciting

Well, after all the rain last week, and the bootfair Sunday morning having been cancelled because " the field was too wet ", ppffft, and Poppy not being well, I felt somewhat under the weather and decided I needed to start a new project. Even though I have one or six on the go already. And even though I should be making soaps and gift packs etc.

Do you remember the pile of pastel knitted squares I found in a charity shop a few months ago? Probably not, lol, so here is a quick reminder -

At least this photo shows the proper colours. I have been trying to take pics this morning, but despite the decent weather, the light indoors is crap and the colours just don't look right, so imagine all the following pics with the colours shown above.

I dug them out yesterday morning, feeling thoroughly in need of cosy comfy woolliness, and decided to crochet them together. I thought it would give the little lanky a bit of texture, to have those little ridges connecting all the squares. Hmm.

Then I thought it could really do with some more texture, so the obvious thing to do was..................... crochet flowers to sew onto the squares!!

I spent a few hours with my work-in-progress yesterday afternoon, and one or two more in the evening after dinner and felt much better for it. It didn't get too boring either, making up a strip, then a flower or two, then back to making strips again, another flower....... you know what I mean. It is coming along nicely and of course I'll keep you up to date with my progress. Here are a few pics of what I have done so far ( errrmmm, try and imagine it all without all those pesky loose ends, lol, )-

Oh, and as we are talking about knitted stuff, I might as well show you these two knitting bags I found at a jumble sale a little while ago. I love these bags, so useful for all the projects one seems to have on the go all the time, and they look pretty, too.Hey look, one of the bags even has a " Buy British " on the wooden handle-

Another thing, when the weather turns horrid grey and wet, thoughts often turn to food, strange that, eh? Well, Juanitatortilla was talking about tortilla de patatas in one of her posts last week, here, I think, which REALLY got me in the mood for making tortillas again. Hadn't done that in a while, because it is fairly labour intensive. But we all love them a lot, so I sacrificed some crochet/doggiecuddle/charityshop time and made a couple-
Looks pretty good, doesn' it? I was taught how to make proper spanish tortilla de patatas by a Spanish student, who stayed with us for a while many years ago. He had to admit in the end, that my tortillas were much better than his, teeheheheee. ( If anybody is interested in how to make tortillas properly, let me know and I'll put up a quick tutorial ).

A few months ago, Lucy over at Attic24 posted a recipe for the most delicious Tiffin. I just had to try it out with my granddaughter, and we all thought it was extreme yumminess. Friday our little darling was with us again for the day and we decided to make some more. I changed the recipe a little again, using macadamia nuts and walnuts instead of pecans, using slightly less butter and golden sirup and adding some cream instead, and it was gooooooooorgeous. So gorgeous in fact, that my sons, my grown up sons, mind, forced me to make some more on Sunday! Goes without saying that it all disappeared very quickly again, lol.

Must go and look after my Poppy girl again now. She has been poorly since Friday and we were a bit worried about her, because usually she is such a boistrous and mischievous little madam, and the last few days, she has not been herself at all. Wouldn't play with Hector, wouldn't come up on the settees, didn't jump up to greet us......... She was eating ok though, so we ruled out anything bad in her tummy. I took her to the vet first thing this morning, and after a very thorough examination, he found that she had damaged a muscle in her back, the silly cow, probably playing too roughly with Hector, and that obviously made her very uncomfortable. As upsetting as that is, it is very good news, at least its nothing serious, and with painkillers, careful walks on the lead, no jumping and lots of massages (!!!) she should be right as rain again within a week or so. Of course we just have to spoil her a little while she is feeling sorry for herself ( she is very good at looking very depressed in her bed ), perhaps a little roast chicken will cheer her up..........