Reunited and it feels so good!

Gavin has been found safe and well! I won the reward of bumbum and biscuit flavoured kisses - oh such joy is unbounded.

He was hiding in the grooming box in the hall cupboard of all places. I remembered this after I'd got M to get all the Xmas decorations back out of the attic *whoops* as I was worried Gavin had got scooped up with all the tinsel, but no, twas all my fault. I put him in the box when I groomed Lottie yesterday so she'd stop chewing on him and sit still *double whoops*. Still she's happy now and Gavin is soggy and well chewed for his pains.

OK no more posts today.....promise :-D

Lupin

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Originally uploaded by loobles2002

Yes! Finally finished my gloves. Why did they take me 2 months? Cos I hate knitting fingers on pesky, pokey little glove needles.

Opal Lupin yarn from the Harry Potter series. Knitted on 2.5mm dpns. Pattern free from Sue Morgan - Adult Gloves.

Would I make a 2nd pair? Nope.

The Art of Relaxation.

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Originally uploaded by loobles2002

Lesson 1.

Just let it flop and hang.

Lost, missing - 1 rubber burping pig!

If found please return to Lottie! She even checked out my finished 'Tonks' socks to make sure that the pig was not hiding under them. She is distraught. Her pig was her bestest ever present and he is now MIA. We've checked everywhere and he is not to be found. She is offering a reward of bumbum and biscuit flavoured kisses to anyone who can help this missing porker find his way home..........he answers to the name of 'Gavin'.
Still finding my way round my new wheel. It feels so different to the Traveller, more positive and responsive in the treadling. The above is test spinning trying different tensions and just generally getting a feel for it.
Still spinning on the Traveller too. This is Jo's lovely fibre I got at the knitting Safari - spinning up a dream, such wonderful colours. It feels odd moving from one wheel to the other.

I didn't get anywhere as much knitting done over the holidays as I planned - I seemed to spend a lot of time sleeping. I think it is related to the release of almost 18 months of tension whilst dealing with M's Mum's estate - which was finally settled just before Xmas. We actually got written confirmation of this yesterday - I almost cried, the relief was immense - what must it feel like for M and his siblings if it made me feel that way. I am so happy to be starting 2009 without that hanging over our heads, we can finally have some closure on this loss.

M's birthday tomorrow - he's got the day off work - it's nice to have an extra day together.

No resolutions - never keep em. Am looking forward to our little weekend away in a couple of weeks, just M and I. J is going to have a spoiling from Grandma - she always cooks all his favourite foods and lets him stay up late, so he'll have a whale of a time.

Happy New Year to anyone who reads this drivel and celebrates the New Year!

Am I ?

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are an Ingrid!

You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
• * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
• * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
• * Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
• * Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being an Ingrid

• * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
• * my ability to establish warm connections with people
• * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
• * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
• * being unique and being seen as unique by others
• * having aesthetic sensibilities
• * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being an Ingrid

• * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
• * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
• * feeling guilty when I disappoint people
• * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
• * expecting too much from myself and life
• * fearing being abandoned
• * obsessing over resentments
• * longing for what I don't have

Ingrids as Children Often

• * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
• * are very sensitive
• * feel that they don't fit in
• * believe they are missing something that other people have
• * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
• * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
• * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Ingrids as Parents

• * help their children become who they really are
• * support their children's creativity and originality
• * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
• * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
• * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at No comments:

One big sigh....

tis all over bar the shouting!

Seriously we had a good festive time. J got what he'd been hankering after - Lego, money, Scalextric and many other good things. M and I don't normally bother with presents but this year M filled my day with gifts and surprises - I think he was trying to banish the Ebenezer that had manifested throughout December. I got M and joint Xmas and b/day gift - music based - so he's a happy bunny.

Now if I can just persuade them that the tree needs to come down asap, I can get back to being a non-Ebenezer grouch!

Got lots of things to prepare for M's birthday on New Years Eve - so am looking forward to that now.

Hope everyone (who partakes) had a lovely holiday time and Santa came up trumps for you all!

Solitude

There is the loneliness of peopled places:
Streets roaring with their human flood; the crowd
That fills bright rooms with billowing sounds and faces,
Like foreign music, overshrill and loud.
There is the loneliness of one who stands
Fronting the waste under the cold sea light,
A wisp of flesh against the endless sands,
Like a lost gull in solitary flight.
Single is all up-rising and down lying;
Struggle or fear or silence none may share;
Each is alone in bearing and in dying;
Conquest is uncompanioned as despair.
Yet I have known no loneliness like this,
Locked in your arms and bent beneath your kiss.

Babette Deutsch (b. 1895)

Tuesdays view from the bedroom window

The cloud has separated and is laying on sea - sea mist.

It was like looking across a lake to a distant landscape - kind of eerily beautiful. It is breaking up now and patchily rolling closer.

Wheely great

I've wanted a smaller more compact wheel for a while and chatting to Jo of http://freestylefibre.blogspot.com/ the other week she got me thinking of the Majacraft Little Gem. She was telling me how much she loved hers etc. So, when I got in I started to research smaller, folding wheels and the Little Gem in particular.

It wasn't a hard decision to make. M was cool about me having a new wheel, the rest, as they say, "is history".

I love it. Such a wonderful smooth treadling action. Don't get me wrong, I love my Ashford Traveller and it will still be used but this little beauty, well it knocks spots of it. It is easier to thread (no orifice hook), it is easier to find breaks, the bobbin fills more evenly when you start to spin and it is so easy on the legs, you could spin for hours with no aches, the adjustable height is a bonus and it weighs so little and folds down easily and is so compact.

Wonderful little wheel!

Fern Glade

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Originally uploaded by loobles2002

Finally I finished something. My knitting mojo has been sadly lacking of late.

This pattern comes Winter 08 Knitty (www.knitty.com) and is by Megan Marshall. I used stash RYC in wool/silk DK (left over from my 'Hey Teach'. It took 2 balls - so 100g. It's a nice knit - I found the amount of k3tog killed my hands and using a short circ made my wrists ache, so it was a slower knit than I first thought.

I made the larger/sloppy size,missing 1 pattern repeat as it looked huge.

It is now blocking away on a large plate. I am very interested to see if I like it on.....watch this space.

A little 'Border' Christmas.

Still in Ebenezer mode but a tree does help, a bit.

Sparkly baubles help too.

A Christmas Border - helps a lot!

Lovely, lovely yarn.

I have been thoroughly spoilt this week. Flowers, love letters, books, smellies and yarn!

This is 'Brooklyn Handspun' - Soft Spun Plus in 'Cocoa Rose' it is superwash Merino sock yarn approx 375 yards.

And this is 'Fleece Artist' Somoko Hand Dyed merino, kid, nylon and silk - 350m in 'Berry'

Both came from the wonderful Sockotpus http://www.socktopus.co.uk/ her parcels always are beautifully wrapped and arrive with a wonderful speediness.

I have also been spoiled with other goodies of which I will blog later. Am off now to help M start painting our hall and staircase in a rich deep red!

Sweetheart Roses

from my Sweetheart.

Tis that time again...

Yet another change of hair. More shaped into the neck.
Heavier, blunt cut fringe. Sides are sharper, more defined traditional 'bob' shape.
Overall one colour in a rich chestnut/chocolate brown.

Am loving it!!

Your rainbow is strongly shaded blue.

What is says about you: You are a tranquil person. You appreciate friends who get along with one another. You share hobbies with friends and like trying to fit into their routines.

http://spacefem.com/quizzes/rainbow">Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

A little bit of happy

Lottie asleep - just proves she does have her (rare) quiet moments.

But this is what has made me happy. Anyone who knows me, knows I love Anthony Trollope. My most favourite book of his is 'Ayala's Angel', the copy I read, years ago, was lent to me by SIL the elder, ever since I have been trying to get my own copy, mainly because I want to read it again. At D,C & A the other Friday we were talking books and I mentioned in passing my search for an affordable copy of this book, Kate of the wonderful Pie & Sunshine (http://pieandsunshine.wordpress.com/) found me a site with multiple, affordable copies for sale. I ordered this on Saturday and it arrived today, cost me a tenner!!!! The last copy I found was around £40!!!! It is about hand height in size and apart from a name written in it and a tiny mark on the page edges of the 1st chapter, it is in pristine condition, plus it has the lovely old book smell. I love it, it has made my day.

Am also planning on going to Aardvark Knitting Jam in St Leonard's tonight - apparently the cake is 'good'.

Bedroom floor is now laid - looks amazing. M just has to finish the edging. He also built my new desk yesterday so now I just to declutter the old and clutter the new. I'll post pictures when it's all done and good.

The Doldrums

*sigh* It has been one of those weekends that I'd rather forget. Nothing major bad, but just a million little niggles that amounted to me being permanently stressed and angry. In fact I am still seriously grumpy today. It doesn't help that the shingles that I thought had cleared up have flared up again. They make me feel ill and tearful as well as itching like f**k. My rhinitis is bad, I have earache and due to all of this my eczema is worse than it has been in ages. So in total I am all a bit blah.

M has laid half of the new floor in the bedroom, but again the builders who originally built this extension have conspired to make progress slow - they nailed the floor down, so it has basically had to be totally relaid and screwed into place before we could even start to lay the wood flooring. What has been done looks amazing though and M swears he will work into the night to finish it - he is fed up too. We have a little glossing left to finish and then it is just tidying and decluttering, putting together my desk, varnishing my chair and putting up a couple of shelves. We are on the bedroom home straight.

Very little knitting I'm afraid. I finished one Mona sock (tis pretty in Skinny Sock, Neapolitan) and one Plain Ole Vanilla in Opal, Tonks - which I adore. I hope to find some knitting time today but it is unlikely.

Hopefully my next post will have pictures and be more jolly - can't be a happy bunny all the time.