Happy New Year 2006

A belated Happy New year to you all! I've had a really busy week, and this has been my first chance to get an update done.

To Gloucestershire for New Year, and lots of fun catching up with John's brothers and their families. We stayed Friday night at the Snooty Fox in Tetbury (a jolly hotel with a whole family of rubber ducks in our bathroom), and New Years Eve / New Years Day with John's brother Jeremy and his family.

John even allowed us to go shopping in Cheltenham on Saturday, but only for an hour (he really hasn't got the idea of shopping) ... suffice it to say, I was still in a wool shop when the mobile went, demanding to know why I hadn't arrived back at the car, decided not to mention my actual location, and muttered something about being stuck in a queue ... "Budget Wools" in Clarence Parade, if you need to know, this is an excellent Tardis of a shop - which appears tiny from the outside, and is enormously long and thin inside - a very well-stocked shop, all the fashion stuff from Sirdar and Stylecraft (amongst others), and some good plain ordinary stuff as well. Finally found some of the new Sirdar Zanzibar (which I haven't even seen in London, yet), and some balls of King Cole Merino Blend 4-ply in a much softer shade of pink, which I hope will be the right one this time (I will get that jacket from Knitscene done if it kills me!).

On to The Woolpack in Slad to meet up with John's brother Nick, and his girlfriend Clare, and back to their house for Pizza, then on to Jeremy's for the New Year party. The remainder of New Year's Eve spent playing silly games - this is fast becoming a family tradition, where anywhere between 15 & 20 of us play Guess Who, Bingo, Pass the Parcel, and there is an enormous firework cake at midnight - new highlights for this year included singing along to the Sound of Music (John's sister-in-law was given the DVD for Christmas), and drinking far too many Harvey Wallbangers ... and after that, it's appalling just how many of the lyrics I can remember! Some people entered into the spirit more than others for this, and here are Jeremy's brother- and sister-in-law Mark & Karen, and their children being "not the von Trapp family"

Equally traditionally on New Year's Day, as many of the family as possible go and take over a local Little Chef restaurant for a very late breakfast - it's a great hangover cure - then back to John's brother Alex's house for vast quantities of tea, and then off to visit John's mum. I think she liked her scarf (which you can see here modelled by Holly) - this is really a longer length version of the fur v-collar from the Lion brand website, which I've adapted. I've used two balls of Wendy Chic for this - on 8mm needles, cast on 130 stitches, placing markers at 50 stitches in from each end. It's all worked in garter stitch - work straight for half an inch, then increase 11 stitches evenly spread across the middle section (that's the bit between the markers). *Work another inch or so, and then increase a further 11 stitches evenly spread across the middle section*. Keep repeating from * to *, till you have about 5 metres of yarn left (you will end up with approx 180 stitches). Cast off loosely, and darn in yarn ends. That's it - the nice thing about this scarf is the curve in the middle which sits very neatly around your neck / shoulders. If you used more balls of Chic, I think it would make a nice stole / shawl. Of course this could be done in any other furry / eyelash yarn, and could also be a useful stash-buster.



Bank Holiday Monday morning spent at a local park in Chalford Vale, which has a commando slide, and a rope swing rigged up over a small stream - lots of opportunities for us all to get wet and muddy feet! A few photos here, and the rest in my Flickr gallery. I (kindly!) didn't take the picture where Holly landed in the stream up to her knees, but at least she had a change of clothes and shoes with her ...!

And finally ... lunch at the Daneway pub in Sapperton, followed by a quick walk up to the canal tunnel portal (the longest canal tunnel in England, but sadly in need of repair, before it can be made navigable again), and then the long drive back to Kent.

Back to school for the chidren, and to work for John and me on Tuesday, so we've all had to get used to getting up in the dark again. Emily has spent all week practicing for the 11+ exams which are Monday and Tuesday of next week - I think she's pretty much got the idea of most the things she's likely to be asked to do now, so am feeling at least hopeful ...

Completed another curly-whirly scarf, this time in two balls of Louisa Harding Impressions, but will have to wait till tomorrow to photograph it in daylight. Love the colour, but I find the yarn slightly itchy against my neck ... As I've run out of Adriafil Globe for my yoke-necked cardi, until I can get another ball, I've spent this week working on a new stash-busting experiment - take 1 thick yarn, 1 fuzzy yarn, 1 shiny one, and 1 plain one - I used Adriafil Graphic, 2 strands of mohair (one is KSH, and the other is Adriafil kid mohair), Sirdar Silky Look, and some of the dark pink Phildar yarn that did not go with the other yarns for the Knitscene jacket - all the yarns are various shades of pink. You're aiming for something about the thickness of a pencil, and I think that you will need about 150m of each yarn. On 10mm needles, cast on 15 stitches. Work in stocking stitch till you've used it all, then cast off the centre 5 stitches. Now fray back all the other stitches, and cut the loops, so you get a very long fringe (about 6 inches) up each long side. Think "Mad Boa", and wear accordingly - yes, you may laugh, but I recently saw something that approximated to this design in a well-known department store, selling for £89 - I am, of course, feeling very thriftily virtuous at 'saving' so much money ...!

Work has been thoroughly dreary, and I think that I am not the only one to be suffering post-holiday blues, but at least it has been relatively quiet, and I have managed to shift huge amounts of paper off my desk - no! not into the bin - I have only two resolutions this year, one is to keep my desk at work tidy, and the other is to use up all my stash ... hmmmmmm! Suspect the first one may be easier, especially when I have £30 in John Lewis vouchers burning a hole in my handbag - a christmas gift from my sister, who sweetly enquired if this made her my pusher!