My new picture

Believe it or not, I found this little treasure at the tip!! It show two Irish girls with shawls, both beautiful pieces of craftmanship. Tehre is some writing on the back of the mount which I can investigate further to try and date the photo and find out more about it. It's quite big, full colour and in good condition. I left its frame behind as it didn;t do it any favours, so will have a look around for a really nice one for it.

I fell in love with the clothes, and teh boots too. Wrong century, me...............

What more could a man want?

Than two of his very own personal dishcloths for washing up? LOL Tehse are to be wrapped up for MrL's Vaentine Day present this year, so he can have his own cloths for washing up on a Saturday night :). The red one is an all over hearts pattern; the green one says "kiss me" above a pair of pouting lips. Brilliant - he'll hate me for it

I knew I would.................

LOL I did it - I cast on the maja shawl last night, but as I said, I knew I would. The pattern is Maja from Knitty winter 2008, with a lovely generous cross over design. Knits up quickly, and an easy pattern to catch on to. Nice and portable on a circular too, so can carry about with me when I go out.Wool is slightly rougher to the touch than I expected, but should soften up with a wash and use. It's going to be a warm one.......................:)

My lovely wool winder

Meet my rather lovely wool winder......................... :) I bought it at the Guild for only 50p. I was given an old wooden one many eyars ago, but it was, sadly, beyond repair. I then took a notion to make myself one, and found lots of projects on the net, but never got around to it. In the meantime, this turned up, so this is now being used, and I love it. The box seems original, and judging from the photo on the enclsoed leaflet, it dates from the 30s. It all folds down to a very small size, easy to store, and Bean and MrL grateful for not having to do the arm thing any more LOL - although I have used the back of chairs before, and my own feet.........................

It really makes winding a doddle! The wool on it at the moment is a very beauiful shade of chestnut, bought a couple of eyars ago in a charity shop in Broadstone, pure Shetland wool, for 3.95 for a large number of skeins, destined for a shawl whose pattern I found on the internet somewhere. I want to get it on the needles today, but I've so much else to do.........................

............. so I probably will :)

Felted slippers

I've been wanting to make a pair of these for a long time, but never found a pattern that made me dash off to the stash and forego the housework for (another) day!! LOL. I did, however, find a pattern on Ravelry, so am having a go with it. I have a bag of various rovings I needed to use up; I'll keep the white ones for rugging on teh peg loom I think, but the dark grey/blue etc I've used for this. Unspun,it's very quick to knit and I've popped in flashes of colour too. I'll hand full them when they're done, rather than the machine, so I can keep an eye on the process. It's nice to have a bit of quirkiness amongst the serious knitting! I seem to have joined a tea-themed dishcloth KAL for February too, on Ravelry. It really sucks you in, that site :)

Poppies waistcoat

Finally - I'm pleased with progressusing the Twilley's Freedom Spirit I bought last year; it started out as a jumper for MrL, but after 3 attempts at a patently *wrong* pattern for a saddle shoulder jumper, I gave up; two more attempts with another pattern and then my own were unsuccessful too, so it got frogged and put away. Many yers ago I made one of Kaffe Fassett's poppy waistcoats, using his technique of tying lots of yarns together, but colour co-ordinated. I added in the three balls of red I got teh other day and am now half way up teh back, and it's looking good. Talk about a phoenix LOL

Cloth of the week

I joined this group near to the end of January, so had 4 to catch up on, and now I've done it! I've no idea what I'm going to do with all these cloths; I do another KAL one, which produces another two a month.....................:)