Ta da!

Remember this?

Well, eventually after a lot of huffing and puffing and putting aside to do my Mom's birthday shawl, I eventually finished it!

 

Do you know how difficult it is to take a photo of your head??  Sheeesh!

And because you will ask - The yarn is gifted Icelandic lopi in a deep turquoise and moss,  and the pattern is from Kristen Knits book, I found that although I did the adult sized hat, it was not deep enough so having finished it, (it was a brim up rather than a top down knit) I then used a Tunisian crochet hook, picked up the cast on row and turned it upside down and added a further deeper rib and contrasting garter stitch row. 

So - whatcha think? I am chuffed - it has mistakes and it is still early days but this is my first fair-isle-ish knit and I am happy happy happy!

Isn't she beautiful?






















Who needs false eyelashes with gorgeous ones like these?

She, and the rest of her herd, are white galloways - once on the brink of extinction, now through a few dedicated breeders, are now gaining popularity.

Bovine teddy bears!

Especially love this one, with the half chewed grass hanging from her mouth.

All wrapped up

Yesterday, I mentioned about the Spring-fling arts festival we'd happened upon. Another delightful installation had my heart singing out with love. Not only was it based on my favourite little cottage (in-the-world!!) but it was gift wrapped and we discovered it on my birthday.

This wonderful wonderful wonderful cottage was called 'COUCH' and had been covered in stretchy sofa material - apparently it had taken 3 months to make. It fitted like a dream with the corners being joined by zips and the chimney being completely covered - each brickwork lump and bump fitted and dressed in the fabric. I could have cried for the love of it.

I walked around and around. Took so many photos and stroked the house. We chatted to the installation artist - Alice Francis who was dressed in the same fabric too!

One day - I will live here, till then I will just have to look at these photos and dream!

And you?

Today.

I took boys to school.

Drank peppermint tea and had fruit salad for breakfast.

I gardened...

....With the cats as they played and ran around the plants.

Felt the sun on my back - a rare and delicious feeling this year.

Felt a tiny bit melancholy - not sure why or what for.

I got mud on my face and dirt in my hair and it actually felt good to be grubbing around in the earth again, not been able to do that properly for a little while.

Listened to the blackbird complaining in the tree.

Watched my rose buds, willing them to open.

Need to spend more time with my boys.
Listen to them, listen to their stories, listen about what they got up to today.
They are growing up fast and I don't want to lose any time with them.

Feel the need to crochet or knit or anything - bursting to create but lack inspiration and time.

And now?

Sitting at my desk, freshly clean after a welcome shower. With a purring and tired kitten sitting on my lap.

Still to tidy the house before trudging off to work. A mixed blessing.

What are you doing at this moment?
What is keeping you busy?
Who is sitting on your lap?
What are you crafting?

Go on, share, spill the beans:)

Have a terrific Tuesday xxxxxxxxx

Inspiration

A couple of weeks ago we happened upon , whilst on holiday, an event call the Spring-fling, which occurs during the first week of June and celebrates arts and crafts in Galloway. We wandered around artist's workshops and homes and came away enthralled, delighted and inspired.

Youngest was so inspired by one exhibit that he actually created a smaller version to suit a homework topic.

We had wandered into a willow workshop and fell in love with all the creativity and joy the willow sculptures exuded. Outside was a quirky sprite-like figure happily 'juggling' pink wellington boots and a mystical woodland lady with huge swirling skirts.

The door way to the workshop was as equally quirky and inviting

And inside, the space was dominated by a huge willow tree

The boys were fascinated, both decreeing they wanted one in our house too, I agreed and Himself, although raising his eyebrows as the silliness of the thought, probably would love it too.

What Himself did like was the huge mermaid in a shell (although at the time we thought it was a coracle - it was only afterwards when we looked at the photos we could see it was a shell)

Suitably sated and inspired that when we came home from our holiday,  Youngest started his homework with enthusiasm.

The topic was to create a sculpture or some form of artwork to reflect the positivity of life and the environment and he immediately set about planning a tree like the one we saw at the willow workshop.

We all marched off to the local beck and fought our way through a swathe of nettles and brambles to help collect some willow for him, which he painstakingly wove and wound until he had a tree shape.

He then wrote a list of positive words down, then cut out coloured leaves - writing down the words he'd found on each leaf. These were then tied on the tree. He wound barbed wire at the base to represent evil and gave the tree a tree post - naming it 'strength'. We were amazed at his creativity and I am kicking myself at not getting a final picture of his tree - which is now at school. He carefully/triumphantly carried his tree in this morning with such a grin on his face - bless him!

Thank you!

Thank you everyone for you comments -  I really really appreciated them all. You have all been so kind about my Boneyard Shawl for my mom's birthday

Nicole and the Bee - hi, I know exactly what you me about that state of frustration but having persisted and got there in the end - it was worth it!
Miriam Weaver - you nailed my feelings when you mentioned going hot and cold over pattern reading - I definitely did that and when I popped over to your blog I fell in love with all those wonderful photos of Northumberland - thank you!
Amanda -(Crafty in the Med) I love your granddaughter's costume - gorgeous, no wonder she felt special :)
Lovely Lady - yes it was rather funny to see my mom looking for her belated-birthday shawl, thinking one of us had taken it, when all the time it was behind her :)
Jane - hook and yarn - thank you! I have definitely fallen for your Summer Cover Up....it might even have me reaching for the knitting pins again! (but not just yet)
Fleur Cotton - thank you very much, I am touched - especially as you are a fantastic knitter!

and Jak/mom you are very very welcome

I should be saying thank you

 to you x

The bare bones of it all.....

Once upon a time I had this really really good mad idea that I would knit something special for my mom's 70th birthday - it would be magnificent, it would be wonderful and it would be made by me!!

I did loads of research on the tinter, planning and calculating - checking out places like Ravelry and actually doing a grown up thing called -a swatch...yes, a swatch, I did one of those things and finally I decided on a very pretty (but VASTLY too complicated for me) shawl - oh I did fall for this one, I could just see me knitting up this gorgeous little number and  seeing I had three and a half weeks up to her birthday - I was sorted!

Did my head swell at the thought of the cleverness of it all!! *oh yes*

Any hoo, I started. I unwound the hank carefully and re-wound it (with a few inevitable knots and the equally inevitable cuss words) I cast on the required 4 stitches, did three rows of garter, then turned it one quarter and knit on the other side, then reading the pattern turned it one quarter again and did the same.... and ended up with a sort of square lump - hmm..... so I frogged it, started again and did three rows of garter, then turned it one quarter and knit on the other side and found I was soon heading for that same mashup I had had at my previous attempt. Hum. So I frogged it and put it away coz I still had three weeks to go and I was still buoyed by the audacity of it all.

That weekend, I started again, I cast on, I carefully read the instructions several times, wondering whether to contacted my beloved knit-perfect sister-in-law for help when suddenly it dawned on me and I understood the gobbledygook written on the paper. I started again, and despite a wonky start, I was getting some way and I actually felt that yes, I would get this done in the remaining two and half weeks.

The first half of the shawl grew off my circular needles as I got closer to the impending lacy pattern. I managed to only frog the odd bit as I launched myself into........ the lace.

I could actual feel my heart beating as I tried to translate the pattern. You could have heard a pin drop - I sat with my mouth open and my brain empty...huh? I have to do what?  I read it again. And again and still you could hear the tumbleweed rolling through my head as I tried to comprehend the pattern instructions. I put it aside - I needed to think about this part....never mind I still had two weeks to go.

A few days later I sat myself down and had a serious heart to knitting needle discussion with my shawl and managed to finally (after a practise run and frogging session) understand the pattern - but wow was it mind blowingly hard to concentrate - I marked, in pencil, each stitch I did as I went along. I would get so far and would reach for the pencil eraser and frog my knitting and frog my pencil marks....for several days. I put it aside - Himself could see I was struggling and made typical husbandy type soothing sounds of - 'just go and buy her something' and 'just unpick the ****** thing and give the wool and the pattern'. I hid it from him (and me) and went away for the weekend....never mind I still had about 10 days and I was over half way.

Back from our weekend I felt refreshed and ready to tackle the lace pattern again, I knew I could do it, it was just I was incredibly painstakingly slow. Then. Then I noticed the pattern was not working... I frogged it back, re-knitted and it was the same. I looked at the pattern and looked at my knitting and the lacy pattern was not lining up. I tried again.

And re-frogged.

I had a sinking feeling as I knew I would have to frog back about 10 rows of lace to start again when I spotted where the error was.... I carefully threaded another needle through and frogged back down to it. I also decided that now was the time to change from a circular needle to needles as I was struggling to see what I was doing.
Despair.

Right. Fed up to the back teeth I put it aside and composed myself by having a small controlled temper tantrum in the kitchen which entailed gorging myself on everything and anything fattening I could lay my hands on and washing it down with copious amounts of tea. Grrrrr.

Then feeling fortified (read that as feeling really sick) I tried again, and by the evening I had managed to get myself almost back up to where I was before when........ sitting on the settee next to Himself, there was an almighty thud upstairs which made me jump out of my skin...... and pulled out the knitting needle - scattering nearly all my stitches at high speed.  Himself sat there and looked at me. I shut my eyes momentarily, then frogged back the entire shawl. I put it in a bag. I put it away.

I went back on to the tinter to a pattern I had looked at initially but had been enticed away by the gloriousness of my now poor choice. My inexperience was an excellent lesson of over achievement. I cast on for the Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West. I had found it on his blog and followed it over to Ravelry to get the pattern. I had only about 5 days left.


Humbled I knit a simple stockinette stitch and purl 'bones' with a garter stitch border and it slowly grew. At every opportunity I knitted. As it got larger I only managed a row or two after work as I was just too tired to do any more without making mistakes.

My mom's birthday came and went.

 The rest of May came and went -I knitted.  June came, my birthday - I knitted. Every time I was a passenger in the car - I knitted. We went on holiday. I knitted. I sat on the beach and I knitted, I was eaten alive my midges and still I knitted. Then on our return home, I knit the whole way home. And we got back - all I had left to do was the border.

Two weeks of double shifts at work certainly didn't help but finally finally last night I gave my mom her birthday shawl - a mere five weeks late for her birthday but I got there in the end :)

I was given a lot of support by my dear knit and natter friends as well as bloggy friends  -  Jane (hook and yarn) - who also made a boneyard shawl - thank you too for your encouragement.


PS - because someone will ask - Pattern - Stephen West's  Boneyard Shawl. The yarn is The Natural Dye Studio - Nymph 4ply in Wisteria, I used two x 100gm skeins (800 metres)  and had a small amount left over.

Breathing

*Warning - this posting contains excessive amounts of photos!*

While we were away, Himself asked me if there was something specific I wanted to do on my birthday. Oh yes there was. For two years I have dwelt upon a walk we'd done before and yearned to do it again. It encapsulated all that I love about a coastal holiday. Ragged cliffs and screeching gulls. Sunny rolling hills and secret dark green valleys. Beach combing on sandy stretches and rock pooling in tiny tiny sparkling oceans filled with mini-beasts, pebbles and seaweed. I really really wanted to do this soul-satisfying walk again.

The first part of 'my' walk took us through dark cool rhododendrons dripping in sweetly scented purple and pink blooms. Every now and then a break in the densely packed foliage gave us flashes of sunshine and glimpses of the sea.

I love the way Heston island sits in the bay - Himself told me that during low tide you can walk to the island and we could just make out that it was covered in grazing sheep.

Suddenly we escaped the dark cavern-like path and burst out onto high craggy cliffs. I love this next part, lichen covered rock with sea-thrift hanging on precariously to non-existent ledges. Their papery pink heads bobbing in a delicious lightly salted breeze. We found ourselves a large enough ledge for lunch and sat and just absorbed the view.

It was a wonderful euphoric feeling high up with the wheeling gulls. 

 We were the only ones out on the narrow pathway that led us through sea-thrift and foxgloves.

Suddenly this airy path drops down to the sea to a pebbly beach - a beach combers delight. Sun bleached, sea washed wood litters the way. The occasional bright Wellington boot or fisherman's glove added a bright splash of man-made colour.

There is something about coastal light the lifts my soul.

The boys delighted in hunting for treasure and to see them enjoying themselves so much gave my heart such a happy squeeze.

At the end of this beach, a small hamlet of wooden houses nestles in the lee of a  protective forest.  Some are holiday escapes and others, well we think are occupied as homes and on a day like today, a hot and sunny afternoon - what a wonderful retreat, but in winter wet, I am sure it would be wild and cut off.

We followed the path around the forest and then turned into its dark and cool interior. I was surprised to see that there were still carpets of bluebells. Only just beginning to fade but the air still filled with their delicate scent. We emerged from the cool forest into early evening air to find a lochen surrounded by wild flowers, wild looking ponies and swallows.

Try as I might I could not capture the swift darting movement of the birds as they swooped low over the water to catch insects.

We lingered a while, watching and enjoying then set off to return to the car. I was feeling really satisfied by 'my birthday' walk but was not prepared to 'give it up' just yet, so asked Himself if we could drive a little way down the coast and park up and have a tea and watch the tide turn.

While we were sitting on the rocks, drinking tea and finishing off the remains of our picnic lunch, something caught my eye......  

The sheep that had been grazing on Heston island were being herded back towards the mainland. We sat and watched, amazed as four modern day horse-powered shepherds brought back their flock across the wet sands just ahead of the returning tides.

It took them a long time to cross the sands and as they drew closer you could just make out the sounds that sandy wet hoof steps make. There was the occasional shout to the dogs but on the whole it was a quiet event unfolding in front of our eyes. One of the outriders, once they had almost reached the shores, cantered ahead and open the gates to the coastal field. Then in a well oiled operation, the sheep returned to mainland and began to graze as if nothing had happened.

What a wonderful way to end a wonderful walk - it made it a perfect gift and it made me so very hap-hap-happy.

*happy sigh*

PS told you there were lots of pictures!