Crafty Little Rat

  Hello! Hope you all had a lovely lovely Christmas. I did – at the in-laws on the day and from boxing day we’ve been up at my parents in cold and frosty Lincolnshire doing mostly, a lot of nothing. Trips to 3 yarn shops though minimal stuff bought – a clover amour hook in one, a skein of Araucaria Botany Lace in another. Third one to go to today, although I’m still not sure what I would like to buy. Round up time! In 2014 I knitted 11,464 meters in 33 projects (Slightly less meters but more projects than 2013 where I knitted 11,927 meters in 22 projects) Socks In 2014 I knitted 14 pairs of socks. 13 of these were in 4ply yarn, and 1 pair in Double Knit. This was part of the LSG Secret Sock club where each month you randomly select a bag of yarn and a pattern. This mostly worked for me, although I ended up making one pattern (Broadripple!) 3 times as I loved it so much, and it was an easy diversion. 5 of the years socks were given as gifts, including the final pair the Star T...

  Life feels a little at the moment like wading through treacle. I know that it’s grief for Corwin and that eventually I will come out the other side of the storm but it’s a long, slow burning loss that’s just taking it’s time and robbing a lot of joy from my life. Esk’s death hit me hard, but fast – non moving from my bed for a few days, having to stay off work but with Corwin’s passing I was able to go back the next day. I’ve not cried since the night we lost him and maybe that’s why it’s still hurting? I maybe need to put on a good cry movie tomorrow and let it all out. I’m also feeling decidedly un-christmasy as well. Boo! Hopefully it’ll pick up before the actual holidays again.   Gosh so depressing! Anyway lets have some Finished Objects   November’s Socks eventually got done. I went for BroadRipple – which seems to be my default quick pattern. Yarn is Superba Mexico which is bright and cheerful. Short socks, but I like em.   Next up and and modeled b...

  I was hoping I wouldn’t have to write this post for a while. I’d hoped at least not this side of Christmas; but he had other plans. Last Thursday Rhys came home from work to find him laid up in the cage, dehydrated and not interested in moving. Rhys tried tempting him with Peanut butter and he turned his nose up a it. Corwin… not accepting food meant it was a bad sign. A few weeks ago he’d started to loose movement in his hind quarters – as can happen in old rats. He was still moving around reasonably well; eating, drinking and snuggling and we agreed to take each day as it came. We took him to the vets that evening, and all agreed that the best thing to do for him was to let him go easily, peacefully and quietly in his sleep. Corwin came to us from SPA Vets in Gloucester. This was our vets before we moved to Newport and one I would heartily recommend to anyone in the area. He’d wandered in through someone’s cat flap and realising (thank goodness!) that he was...

  Just a selection of some of my photographs from the show which was a lovely day out in Bath Firstly introducing Isla – She’s a Syrian Hamster who we adopted from the RSPCA in Newport 3 weeks ago. She’s incredibly pretty, like a tortoiseshell cat colour. She loves racing around in her ball and driving into people’s feet! We’ve forgotten how much we missed having a hamster. It’s comforting as well to have such a live wire in the household as the rats are slowing down. So we started off in Bath by imediatly finding Wool – a great little knitting shop. I enabled Angie, and she enabled me too! In dare not tell Rhys how much I spent, especially when I said I had enough wool the week before! This is Araucania Botany Lace, the colours in it (which have not photographed too well… I need a light tent!) remind me of the seaside. Sand, foam, spray and sea and I can’t wait to work something up. I bought 2 skeins just in case as I love large shawls.   I also picked up 3 skeins of ...

Only a week and 3 days after finishing it am I finally getting around to blogging about it! Oops. Pattern – Malgven by Lucy Hauge (Part of the Celtic Shawls E-Book set) Yarn – Clicky Needles Lace (80% Merino 20% Cashmere) in Tangerine. 88g. Needles – 3.0mm DPNS to start and Nova Circs to complete (Increasing cable as shawl got bigger) Diameter – Just over 100cm across. Will probably expand more with a serious, wet block. I took advantage of finishing this just before we went to see the Kaffe exhibition in Bristol to get some good outdoors shots. Angie took all of the indoor ones – and I’m actually really happy with them.. even the ones on me! I hate having my photo taken. The shawl is intensely cabled. The pattern repeats 12 times around on most charts (on one it only repeats 6 times) and there can be up to 8 or 10 cable crosses on the cable rounds. The “Off” rounds still required concentration, to make sure the knits and purls were in the correct place. Am I 100% in love w...