Mastering the Sock

I have knitted about 8 pairs of socks on circular needles now and every single pattern I have tried has needed tweaking or fudging or frogging, and required some cussing and ripping back and staring cross-eyed at the pattern.  Not anymore.  Enter Cat Bordhi's "Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles" - I have just finished the "Simple Sock" for James, out of the most beautiful "Jedd" colourway from Moseley Park.  This is quite possibly the most perfect bit of knitting I have ever done - no fudging, no cussing.  A joy to knit.  That makes me ridiculously happy.

There has also been a lot of spinning for the Tour De Fleece.

And yesterday I managed to finish quilting the world's ugliest UFO and I will stitch down the binding on it Wednesday night at sewing!

Tomorrow is the very last day of holidays - one more day of sleeping in, cooked brekkies and slow paced days.

Favourite Layouts from the Weekend!

We had my "team and friends" CTMH retreat on the weekend.  I managed over 60 pages and these are just a few of the favs:

We have a brand new ideas catalogue out this month so I cannot wait to get my hands on some exciting new goodies!
Happy scrapping!

School Holiday Status Update

Thinking: of casting on a new cardi for my new nephew baby Mike
Feeling: all snuffly and fluey and tired
Eating: cooked breakfasts and lazy day food
Decluttering: the craft room
Dreaming of: a flat stomach and losing a few kilos (DH is off getting a new exercise bike)
Knowing: the laziness of the next few days is fleeting before we go helter skelter into the new school term again
Frogging: the stupid cow onsie
Proud of: the 60 odd pages that I got done on our weekend retreat
Lamenting: the messy state of this house
Cooking: nothing that requires effort
Reading: The Phantom of the Opera (for rav reading group) and anything by Alexander Mcall Smith (who I have recently discovered)
Watching: nothing decent since A Place to Call Home finished and there is no Downton for a long time (might need to restart the Downton discs back at series 1)
Sewing: what's sewing? Really want to finish that quilt ufo this week
Spinning: lots and lots for the Tour De Fleece (and I got my old wheel working down at the beach house so now I have a holiday wheel as well! How cool is that!)
Knitting: Willow test knit shawl, Jedd socks for James
Listening to: Rain on the roof, kids playing computer, telly in the background
Grateful for: a lovely few days away at Robe making memories with the kids

Kick the Bucket and Julie and Julia

There has been lots of frenzied crafting here after the boy announced that we would holiday at the beach all of this week.  I have finished the Nokomis test knit (and this pattern has been released on Rav)  It is a super quick and super easy sweet little knit (and best of all Mads loves it and wants to wear it!)

I also finished the Gruffalo Hat in time to wear to the forest with kindy.  I am claiming that as a Julie and Julia project as I modified the polar bear hat from the book "Animal Hats" which is making its way into my library as we speak!

And then there was some hurried finishing on this little guy.  My friend started this Melly and Me "Dilbert" pattern a long time ago.  She did all the hard work and then gifted it to me to finish.  As she has a new little grandson I finished it to give to him. Tick that one off the Kick the Bucket list.

Just lately I have been VERY naughty in adding to fibre and fabric stashes so I am cold sheeping/stash busting for a while to make up for it.  

 Of course part of that means spinning up all of the "little" and random bits that I have accumulated - like this blue/black that I aquired in a swap.

It is "Tour De Fleece" at the moment so I am trying to spin as often as I can while that is on.

And, of course, next weekend is my consultant and friends scrapping retreat so there is a bit of crazy packing going on too!

Life is never dull when you are busy LOL

Have a great week folks!

Some Inspired Scrapping!

I have been doing Stacey Julian's "Inspired Scrapping" course at Big Picture Classes.  This month was all about scrapping the "everyday" photos, so these first two pages are for that (and also gave me a chance to use the July Stamp of the Month which is this gorgeous Circus Alphabet.

We are about to get a nice new catalogue so I had to make my favourite pages out of the old one (these products are all WSL now and only available until the end of the month)  Please note that these layouts are just like they are in the catalogue - they are not my own original ideas!

Happy scrapping!