Crafty Little Rat

  After all the yarn I bought on Holiday, my Yarn Diet starts here. I have a great stash ; with yarns in there going back to 2012 that I know of. Some probably even before. There’s never been any shame in having a large stash for me, but I feel that there’s a lot of things I had saved for certain projects and I’ve not yet had time to do them and never will if I keep buying yarn like sheep are going extinct. In the mean time I have some FINISHED things to show off! Finally a better picture of my World Cup Socks. I was supporting The Netherlands with a bright hand dyed William of Orange colourway. The pattern was Anastasia and I really really enjoyed making these. They’re very comfy too; knit toe up with a short row heel. Next up was July’s year of Socks. I knitted BroadRipple but because I grabbed the yarn and the pattern before leaving home I knitted them on size 2.5 mm needles instead of 3.0’s. I could really have done with the 3’s. I’m actually planning to knit August’s so...

  I’m hopefully going to be writing a little more to clear a backlog of posts I’ve wanted to write but been unable to while my computer was messed up; but first some sad sad news. We had to have our Esk put to sleep yesterday. She was nearly 2, which is an average age for a rat but seeing her sisters still so full of live made it so much harder. She had something wrong with her brain. With rats that’s about as much as you get to know diagnostically. We could have put her through an MRI to see if it was a tumour or if she’d had a stroke but the end results would have been the same – palliative care so there was no real need to put her through that. She was the friendliest of the group of 4 girls. She was always running up to the cage bars to see you and she used to nibble the hard skin on the side of my fingers. Our little rattie manicurist.   In Tiffany’s last days she played the role of body guard and protector. No one even dared touch Tiffany without Esk attacking t...

It's nearly time for our family (that is me, Rhys and the 2 poorly rats we brought) to go back "home" to Newport. I'll have lived there for 2 years this September and it's still "home". Anyway I thought I should catch up on a few weeks of photos. Most of these are from my phone and have been run through Instagram Filters. I'm CraftyLittleRat on there - sorry if you see these twice.  These last two weeks I've raced through books. This pile here were all about Stories, Myths and Legends. I'm using GoodReads (Again Crafty Little Rat) to keep tabs of what I've read and want to read. This Holiday I've read, An Abundance of Katherines Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone 45 Pounds Icelandic Folk Tales and Fairytales Beasts of Myth and Mysters Scandinavian Troll: It's life and History Celtic Myths and Ledgends Icelandic Trolls Lincolnshire Folk Tales We Were Liars. I'm starting now on The Book Theif - Which I...

Oh it's been a whole while again hasn't it? This time around it's computer problems, my primary hard drive died. HP were fantastic in delivering the new hard drive, but we are STILL waiting for the recovery media. Luckily someone had a Windows 8 disk, and I'd found out and written down my product key. Otherwise someone would have been very annoyed that he couldn't play his games when we we're away. Yes we're away! I've stolen a few moments from Rhys to go on my laptop and read the blogs and write up a post. This moment happens to be at 7.32am (woken at 5 by the sunlight!) but I'll take it. We've come up to my parents again in Lincolnshire, leaving our house to Rhys' sister for the 2 weeks. We're having a great time already, we came up Friday and have been having such a lovely lazy time of things. I've read 3 books, knitted half a pair of socks, and played a bit of Wii U. So last time I wrote I'd finished the March socks fo...

  It has yet again been a long time since I posted! I’ve been enjoying some time with family, some time playing on my video games (Wii U Lego City Undercover mainly) and time with with pets. I’ve still been knitting though, and managed to finish a few things!   Kicking things off we have a dreamcatcher kit that came free in Simply Crochet. Totally not my colours, and not something I really enjoyed making, but it took 1 evening to complete so I can’t really complain. We move belatedly on to Aprils Year of Socks entry. These are Kiellinie knitted in Aldi Sock Yarn. The pattern required a bit of complex thinking and working out at times – it’s more of a basic recipe then detailed patterns I’m used to. I might feel that way because I worked without measurements the first time round and had to rip out the whole foot of the first sock. This meant I could then work the two at the same time (to the right pattern measurement!) so it all worked out in the end. I gave these to m...

  I’m going to write up my Wonderwool post now, because I actually have 2 F.O’s to show for Friday! I am incredibly tired and a bit woozy so I apologise in advance if this makes no sense. We travelled up this year on the Friday; we being my friends Angie and Michelle. I’ve known Angie since 2009-ish when we both attended the Guildhall knitting group in Gloucester, I’ve known Michelle a little less time, she was one of my very first crochet students when I started teaching in the shop, which I think was 2011. In a weird way it turned out that the two knew each other and had been friends for a long time before! So it was with great company we set out. We stayed at the Old Station Caravan Park in New Radnor, about 15 miles away from the Royal Welsh Showground where Wonderwool is held every year. We were so impressed with the Caravan, it really felt like a little home away from home. Full facilities including a cooker and hob, fridge (with complimentary fresh milk!) freezer and all...