Seven to go… (for xmas presents)

Hubby’s pair, the smallest of the bigfoots.

Scachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett 4257

Son no.2’s pair, the largest of the bigfoots.

Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Canadian Color 4747 Kilt.

An amusing contrast of the big foots, although as a concerned mother I have added just a little length to son no.2 socks, Just in Case… he keeps growing!!

A worrying moment this afternoon, will there or won’t there be enough yarn left…

A close up of what was left. I find it amusing how, when, there is very little yarn left and my tension in both my mind and knitting increases I knit so much faster.. That and I didn’t move from my perch and was thankfully supplied with tea by hubby, which I was very grateful for.

A quick count up reveals that I have three pairs for bigfoots left to knit, all of which are wide and long and four pairs of littlefoots only one of which is small in conventional female terms. I’m aiming for a minimum of a pair a week. Which for me is a fair amount of knitting.

I had a lovely day yesterday at the Knitting and Stitching Show (NEC), spent with Lucy who is son no.1’s lovely girlfriend. It was a real pleasure to spend the day in such delightful company, one I am desperately trying to convince her to repeat for Ally Pally, sadly she will be back at Uni and will be entrenched in her studies.

We arrived rather early and sat and drank coffee whilst waiting.

and just to add a sense of proportion as I was the one behind the camera, here is a (slightly gruesome!) picture of me.

The first item that greets you is the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef an exhibition designed to bring your attention to the plight of coral reefs. Its quite stunning and my photography really does not do this justice. If I could crochet I would be very tempted to contribute. It always astounds me just how knitters when united (and it doesn’t take much to unite knitters) can highlight issues in such a way that it is not easy to ignore.

Lucy was highly amused by Has anyone seen my knitting? I wondered how heavy the needles were and how many people it had taken to lift them and be able to knit. I wasn’t quite brave enough to try and lift one.

Web of Wool were enjoying the show, Lucy found some black and silver/white scholler & stahl La Ola Stripes which went beyond fulfilling her expectations. Her mission was to find a black and white sock wool and when we spied this, for a pattern called Crazy Fur that she had greatly admired in Anna’s book Fab Feet & Cosy Toes, Lucy was Giddy with excitement and I knew the mysterious yet potent yarn fumes had worked their magic and she had wandered over to the dark side. Welcome Lucy, you’ll never be the same again!

Later Lucy found some polka dot black and white yarn, (Lucy is the polka dot queen!) and she Had to have it, (I know this feeling well) and needed 20mm needles to knit up a lovely scarf with it. We headed back to Web of Wool, even though she is a newbie she exhibits the intense shopping stance of seasoned knitter.

During the afternoon we attended a workshop on how to make a couture fascinator by Janie Lashford. To Lucy’s great pleasure Janie Lashford was working on a fascinator with polka dots! A picture taken with permission.

There were many art exhibitions, too many to photograph, a tree.

A very interesting marine creature.

A bag that was gorgeous.

And then there were bras and basques..

A mirrored bra.

More tea Vicar?

There was shopping… some exquisite sock yarn from fybrespates and some roving/top generously given to me by them, as I was chatting to them about my wish to start spinning.

And a new project, its been many years since I’ve sewn for pleasure, this looked so beautiful and relatively simple, I had to have it.

Then homeward bound, happy and contented although I have to say ever so slightly knackered!

The last couple of weeks have been interesting, my cyst is Very much smaller and I can see the packets of antibiotics have nearly emptied, so the queasy tummy syndrome will let up soon. I’m feeling much better, so yesterday I took son no.2 to Coventry to kit him out for the start of his A levels. Did I say the start, well Friday to be precise, do you hear a huge sigh of relief from Mandycharlie that she didn’t actually commit infanticide during the last 3 months, you do. Although I have no idea how one would actually succeed in that act against an extremely sturdy, well over 6ft (I must measure that boy) who is so sturdy that his feet are now UK size 11 and are very, very wide. (where am I going to shop for shoes if he keeps growing!) I was thinking aloud (which is not unusual) at Tuesday night knitters and wondered whether adolescence was like child birth, you forget, Anna said she’d ask her mum 🙂 I must apologise to my younger without teenage children in the household readers, for the last few lines, but its been tough.

So, back to yesterday, son no.2 and I headed off to Coventry, we had a lovely time, he didn’t growl at me once, which is, a remarkable improvement. We had noodles at the noodle bar, emptied WH Smiths of writing paper, graph paper, squared paper, files, pens, pencils, a maths equipment set, etc etc. Then we trundled towards Waterstones, son no.2 found three books he wished to read and I found a new cook book. I also happened to wander (rather quickly should son no.2 realise where we were heading) into Debenhams and splurged on a proper grown up handbag, eeek! In my defence M’lud, I was not drawn in by the rather attractive Scotty dog attached to it, the truth, as I see it anyway, it was brown and it was long and I could loop it over me And, I’d been looking for a brown leather shoulder bag for the last 6 months since my last bag of a similar description had died on me.

We headed home, content.

Then and this really is the best bit… son no.1 took son no.2 to the flicks to see The Dark Knight, hubby was working late and I had Two Whole Hours in the Evening of just me, the dogs and the cat. It was Bliss. It was rather like at the end of a gym class and the instructor says… “and just Relax”

I knit and I flicked channels and I read my new cook book, What to Eat Now by Valentine Warner which is about Autumn/Winter dishes and inspired by this new cookbook I made a fish soup/stew with my own home grown potatoes, onions and tomatoes and some cod that was going to be pan fried and served with mash, hubby came home and was greatly pleased by this new dish presented before him and we ate, gently, in peace.