And breathe, and relax

It's my second day off on my holidays and the chilling is well and truly under way. It's been a sensationally good day today. The weather is fantastic and I've been busy!

I finished this at the weekend:



Pattern: Garter Yoke Baby Cardi by Jennifer Hoel (Ravlink)
Yarn: Random pink acrylic
Needles: 4mm Knit Picks Options

A great easy and relatively quick knit for a co-worker whose partner had a little girl. Shame I didn't get it finished before I went on my holidays, but it'll do once I go back.

Just over a week ago I scored a grab bag on the Wollmeise site and it arrived today! Woop!



I got two gorgeous shades of blue. I don't know what the original colours are, I can't peel off the sticker that's placed over them saying We're Different. I guess they must be mis-matched dye lots? I dunno. All I know is I gots me some more Wollmeise! They haven't quite decided what they want to grow up to be yet, but I'm thinking the darker one on the left could be quite nice as a Kieran Foley shawl. Maybe High Seas or Seascape? It kind of reminds me of dark angry seas.

I got another delivery yesterday too:



A new piano for Alice! It's a Thomann digital piano, but it's just like a real one in every way (except the price). I love it. It's perfect. My Dad the piano expert came round today and gave it his seal of approval so it's all good.

I've been working on the second Nutkin sock, I'm about to start the heel. Hopefully I can get it out of the way and leave myself enough time to maybe try some lace knitting while I'm off. I find it hard to do lace when I'm working, I can't really concentrate in the evenings.

I did some baking today. I made Millionaire's Shortbread. OMG. Home made caramel is DA BOMB! I reckon I ate more than I spread on the shortbread. I hardly needed to wash the pot out afterwards. :)

Good knitting!

Fickleness

Fickleness. If that's a real word, it's what I've got. I cast on for and finished a Nutkin sock, only to find the damn thing doesn't fit me. I have no idea why, I cast on 64 and made it to fit my foot like I always do, but it won't go over my heel. It does, however, fit Alice perfectly:



The best excuse I can come up with is that I've been so stressed out recently that I knit much more tightly than usual. I was understandably annoyed, and so I put the second sock on hold and cast on for some baby goodness:



I've made one of these before, and really like the pattern. It's the Baby Yoke Cardigan (seamless, of course). Everyone I know seems to be pregnant at the moment. There must be something hinky in the water round here. A colleague in work's partner had a little girl on Monday, so I figured I should make something. I had hoped to have it finished by yesterday, but it was not to be. I'm off on holidays now till May 3, so it'll have to wait until I go back to work to give it to him.

Today was Alices last day in school and they had an Easter Bonnet parade around St. Stephens Green, a beautiful city centre park beside her school. She was finished at 11.30, so there was no point in me driving her in, going home and then coming back. I ended up wandering round town for ages, as none of the stores opened till 9.30! I was like a hobo :)

I found myself in Hickeys (a fabric store) and walked out with this:



I love this pattern. I spied it on the Simplicity website a while ago, and didn't think I could get it here. Not only did I get it, but it was half price! €6 and change. A bargain. I also got some fabric too. I couldn't get exactly what I wanted, but I think this could be nice:



It's nice soft cotton. All I need to do now is learn how to sew! Oops. Maybe I've jumped ahead of myself a bit... Anyone know how to sew?? :D

Good knitting!

Oh Happy Day!

I'm so happy, I'd knock a happy clown over with my happy dance.

Mam got a home help!!!!!!!!!! The health board lady came today and she was really nice. It's initially going to start with once a week for two hours and she's going to clean the kitchen, bathroom and hoover. Fair play to her if she can get all that done in 2 hours! It's a start, and I'm overcome with happiness. At last! Hopefully this will take some of the strain off Dad.

Knitting has been a little slow chez moi this week, but I do have an FO:

Pattern: Garter Yoke Baby Cardi (Ravlink) by Jennifer Hoel

Needles: 3.5mm Addi Clicks

Yarn: Miscellaneous pink acrylic

I loved this knit, so simple and structural and fail safe. Just what I needed to distract me from the afghan that smirks at me from the living room corner. It knows I will be back, and it thinks that's really funny. I'll show it who's boss, oh yes.

Back to the baby pattern, I'd recommend this to anyone for a really quick, easy and cute knit. This could be customised really easily, different colour for the garter yoke, cuffs and waistband, stripes on the body, etc etc. I definitely will make this one again.

I actually gave in to the afghan and started it again last night. The star chart is handy enough, so hopefully it won't do my head in again so soon.

Oh! I almost forgot! In my excitement about the home help and the yummy baby cardi I almost left out stash enhancement! How could I????

I popped down to This Is Knit, met the lovely She Knit Up That Ball who helped me pick out some yum stuff, and got me some goodness.

First up, some Wendy Happy in Sagittarius:
This is for a girly BSJ. I think it's going to be faboo, and it will be the babys star sign! Fate!

Next, we have a skein of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Perrys Primrose:

I love Cotton Fleece. This baby is going to make some more yummy girly baby bibs.

And finally, because sale yarn baskets can talk and plead with you to buy stuff, I got this skein of Araucania Nature Cotton in a lovely orange shade. No idea what to make with it, but it was almost 75% off so a total bargain. Maybe a baby hat?

I'm going to cast on for the BSJ tonight I think, as we're off on a car journey tomorrow to maybe see about buying a little holiday home. Maybe, only maybe so far. And y'know I can't be knitting that afghan in the car!

Happy weekend everyone!

Baby knitting begins!

I've put the afghan in timeout. Not because it has done anything on me, just because I've kind of had enough of it for a while. I'll probably get back to it later on in the week as I know my conscience will get to me, but for now I had to unleash the baby girl knitting mojo:
This is the Garter Yoke Baby Cardi (Ravlink). I love this pattern, it's a really simple top down cardi that you could do virtually anything with. It's flying along for me, so I think I'll probably end up making a couple of them and I might get adventurous with them, maybe a few stripes or a nice lace pattern instead of the stockinette body? I dunno...
Oh, and it's yummy pink! Yay!

My weekend was fairly hectic. Saturday was Mam & Dad, then home for 4 hours of cooking to have meals in advance for the week. I decided enough was enough, I was tired of coming home from work and there being nothing for dinner, as I'd either forgotten to take any meat out of the freezer, or I just couldn't decide what to eat.
I made Shepherds Pie, Lasagne, Pork Curry and a new experiment of a Cornish Chicken Pasty. It's basically like an individual pie in a half moon shape. We'll see how they turn out!

Sunday was hubbys band family fun day. He's a member of the Dublin Airport Police, Fire Service & Associates brass band. Phew, what a mouthful. He's one of the associates by the way, as he's neither a policeman nor a fireman. Bummer, I'm a sucker for men in uniform ;)

So, the party was for staff and families of the band, police and fire service. It was on in the airport fire station and was great fun! There was a BBQ, goodies for the kids, face painting and best of all the band! I videoed the whole performance, so if I can manage to get permission from very shy hubby, I'll put up a clip. They really were very good.
After the band, the coastguard flew over in a Chenook (sp?) helicopter (HUGE) and were hanging out of it waving to everyone. Then the fire service basically set everything on fire. A car, a building, an airplane. Amazing stuff. They let all the kids into the fire trucks and gave them mini helmets to keep.
The police joined in too, pretending to apprehend "criminals" and dressing up as nuns and squiting everyone with water pistols. A really great family day I must say.

Although, as a result, there's no ironing, cleaning or washing done. But, at least we won't go hungry!