Blogoversary Contest Winner!!

Quick post to reveal the winner of my blogoversary contest from the 7th of May.

Thank you so much for leaving comments everyone! I wish you all could have won, but unfortunately it could only be one person. Thank goodness for the random number generator at www.random.org which meant that I didn't have to pick one person by myself though! :D

(pic of the generated number, having taken out non-entrants and doubles)



And the winner of this yummy Manos Silk Blend yarn:



is Siga!!!! Yay!!

(I'll pm you on ravelry Siga to let you know, and you can send your details whatever way you choose, through Ravelry or email or whatever)

Well done Siga!!

I really enjoyed seeing all your comments, thank you all so much! And I've found some more wonderful blogs to follow through this too :) Thank you again!

Open Studios Weekend

Last weekend was the Open Studios event in my local area. This is an event where artists throughout the area open up their studios (hence the name lol!) for people to come and see what they do and then buy or commission their work. It's a really awesome, inspiringly creative weekend, when it becomes apparent just how many creative people there are locally. This year 77 artists took part officially (some people open up their studios at this time but aren't in the brochure. They usually seem to join officially the next year though)

I went round quite a few of these artist's studios - not having a car there was no way I'd be able to go round all of them by bus. But I "did" 3 towns/villages over the Saturday and Sunday.

I bought some items from some of the artists that I saw.



I bought this raku clay brooch from Moyra Stewart. It's surprisingly lightweight. Because it looks like stone, and because it was marked as a clay item, I assumed it would be heavy, but it's so light! It hardly weighs anything at all. I think it'll be perfect for pinning a shawl or something because it won't pull the fabric at all, being so lightweight.





Hearts and brooches seemed to a theme in some of my favourite works. I got this card from Aileen Clarke, as well as the leaf brooch. I saw the brooch and just couldn't get it out of my head, so I bought it :) I really like Aileen's work. I first came across her on Flickr, and I try to get to her studio whenever it's open.



And I got this bag from LucyMoose. What can I say? I'm a sucker for skulls :)

I think my personal favourite thing about Open Studios is the inspiration I get from seeing all these creative people's work. There is so much variety and talent out there that you kind of forget about when meeting people in day to day life. I came away from this year's Open studios with so many ideas and a strong desire to make stuff and be creative too! I want to draw and paint and make textile art - you name it, I just want to do it! I wish I had more time lol! :D

Blogoversary Giveaway!!

It's my blogoversary!!



Four years since I started blogging - I can't believe it! It just seems like yesterday that I created my google account and jumped in :) I haven't been blogging so regularly recently, but I still do love it - writing about all my projects etc and sharing them will you all. Writing has always been something I'm drawn to do - I love how my thoughts flow out onto the paper or screen and suddenly my random thoughts have some substance to them.

What I love most of all is the feedback I get from you guys. I don't get many comments here, but I really do appreciate each and every one. I feel like blogging has made me some really nice connections with awesome people, and I'm very grateful for that. It's a totally unexpected benefit. I thought I'd just be writing stuff up here and no-one would bother to look - to have people look and comment is amazing to me!

So to thank everyone for making this such a nice place on the internet for me, I've decided to give away this lovely skein of kettle-dyed Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend yarn (30% silk, 70% Merino extra-fine wool), colourway 9999 (lots of lovely purples). It is 100grams, approx 300yds/270m and a DK weight yarn (22-24sts to 4" on 3.5-4.25mm needles).





It's much lovelier than my very amateur photography makes it out to be! :D

Simply post a comment below - anything would be great. And if there's anyone out there lurking who would like a chance to get this gorgeous skein of yarn, please say hi! I'd love to "meet" more of you out there! I'll ship internationally, so anyone in other countries than the UK please feel free to comment too!

I'll keep this giveaway open for 2 weeks, then use a random number generator to pick a winner on the 21st of May. Good luck everyone!

Things Need Updating...

I think my spring-clean fever has extended to the blog. I was looking through it, looking for a post, and I discovered how out of date it is. Apart from the fact that I hardly seem to post any more, my sidebar links are sooooo out of date. I listen to about a million more podcasts now, read another million more blogs, some of the ones listed don't even exist any more, I think. Also, I look at other blogs, and they have like, pretty pictures in the background, and fancy lettering, and all sorts of neat gizmos. I'm so 5 years ago with my basic blogger page, lol!!

My first update is the blogoversary gadget doo-dad thingy.



You can get your own here.

Actually, getting that gizmo reminded me that my blogoversary is in only 11 days!! My blog will be 4 years old! I'll have to think of something cool to do for it :)

I don't think my updating/spring cleaning will be happening today - I've got a ton of stuff that needs doing, and no matter how long I spend on it, it never seems to get done. Maybe tomorrow, but probably not. Again, those neverending tasks.

Hmm, just a thought, I've got a bunch of free time on Saturday. I think maybe it'll be getting done then. Till then I can indulge in my other favourite pastime and write lists of what needs to be done, so that I can feel really good about myself when I check them off. Yay, sounds like a plan!

Mitten Knittin' (and a rant about thumbs)

I haven't been knitting much recently. I've got a serious case of spring-clean-fever and have been going nuts washing windows, cleaning skirtings - if you knew me in real life, you'd be so shocked! So, it's good that the house is getting somewhere near clean, but it means less time for crafting :(

What I've been knitting are mostly mittens. I'm about to start some Galileo mittens with my handspun - black and orange, should turn out pretty funky! :D What I have been knitting is the #03 Green Autumn (Druid Mittens)by Jared Flood, from Vogue Knitting, Fall 2008. I'm using yarn that I bought from the Yarn Yard at knit camp last year - I don't know what particular yarn it is other than it's fingering/sock weight merino/nylon and is brown :)

First off, I have a rant about mittens and gloves with thumbs on the palm. My thumb is not coming out of my palm. My thumb sticks out at the side, just like most other humans'. Why designers feel the need to put thumbs on the palm I have no idea. It just pulls the mitten all out of shape when you put them on. Sure, they look just beautiful in the photoshoot where they're lying on a table, but as soon as you put the them on, your mitten is twisted halfway round your hand and just looks kinda fugly in my experience. I don't want to give myself some RSI by holding my thumb round in front of my palm all day just to make my mittens look pretty.

So, I decided to change the thumb placement. Also, I like gussets. It's just shaped more like an actual thumb. So, I thought, I've done thumb gussets before. I know the general theory, I'll just stick one on the side of these mittens and be good to go.

Ha!

This pattern is one of those that inserts a thumb gusset onto the palm. You cast on half as many palm stitches as you actually need, and knit the thumb in the remaining stitches. So the thumb is on the palm, AND it'll be too tight because it doesn't have enough stitches. *facepalm*

I didn't realise this about the stitches until I'd knit the cuff, and frankly I couldn't be bothered ripping it all out and casting on the right amount of stitches, besides the cuff would be too big then. So I increased the palm stitches till I had the correct amount needed for the entire palm. Then I put in some stitches for the gusset and increased from there. These are the notes I wrote on my ravelry page for them about my mods. I think they're vague enough to satisfy any copywrong worries, but if you have the pattern, you'll be able to follow along, I hope.

On the increase round, I increased till after the 2nd sl1,p3,sl1, then increased the remaining stitches to the full amount needed for the palm. After that, I added two more stitches for the thumb. I worked the palm as on the chart (minus all those thumb stitches - again, palm thumbs grrr!), and increased a stitch on each side of the thumb on rounds 1,4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25 (as numbered on the chart) so I ended up with 20sts between the palm and back of hand. I knit these for one more round, then put them on hold to pick up later.

For the other hand. I placed the thumb stitches just after the second sl1,p3,sl1 on the inc round, then increased the palm stitches.

I just knit the thumb stitches, no patterning. Will see how it turns out when I pick them up as to whether I keep them plain or not.

So that's my mods and my rant. It's just that it was my first time substituting a thumb shaping, and I got more than a little miffed at it. Here's a pic of how the mittens are looking so far:



Despite all my whinging, they're actually looking rather nice :)

The colour is actually a little darker and browner that this. I love the cabling, and it was fun and interesting to knit once I'd worked out all my issues with the thumbs. I just need to pick up those thumb stitches and knit them now, but the call of the Galileo mittens is becoming too much... :D

Some more pretty spring shapes :)

Because I like to share my pictures all over the internets apparantly :)

I really liked the texture on the trunk of the cherry blossom tree in my garden.



This is another tree that's growing in my back garden. I'm not sure off the top of my head what it is, I guess we'll see later when the leaves fold out! I liked the weird shapes the growing leaves were making.









That last one is my favourite - all spiral-y and pretty colours. Nature is beautiful at this time of year!

Spring Is Here :)

We've finally had the last cold snap here, and it is now officially Spring - well, I say it is and that's what makes it official ;p

I've been wandering around my garden looking to see what has come back. We had a really cold winter, and the ground was covered in inches of snow for weeks. So I didn't hold out a lot of hope for many of my plants. But most, if not all of them, came back! Yay for hardy perennials! :D




These are the ones I was most surprised at - Asiatic Lilies. There was no way I thought these were strong enough to survive the winter, but I went out my back door the other day, and there they were! I can't wait till they grow and flower, I love lilies!



Another surprise - Dicentra or "bleeding hearts" If you'd seen the mess this was in a few weeks ago, you'd be surprised too. There was nothing, not even a green sprout, just a mess of brown sogginess. Then, all of a sudden, this appeared! :D

A couple more growing pictures:




And some water droplet macros:




And what do you do when it's warming up, and nature is blooming all around you? Why, you knit colourwork mitts of course! ;)





These are the Starstuff mitts by Amy van de Laar - a free ravelry download. I knit them out of Stylecraft Special 4 Ply, using 2.75mm DPNs for the cuffs, and 3.25mm needles for the hand. I like them :D They knit up quite fast, and the pattern was easy to follow once I got the hang of the "extra" stitch at the end of the chart. Basically, you just follow the chart and knit till the last 8st repeat is finished, then you knit stitch no 9 from the pattern, substituting in the "extra" stitch colour. That makes more sense if you're actually reading or knitting the pattern, I wouldn't bother trying to understand me if you're not :)

I'm having a real mitten craze just now, browsing ravelry like mad for colourwork patterns, and I've got 2 other pairs on the needles just now. Just the thing to knit in springtime :)