Full of milky goodness

Hello again! Hope you've had a good week. I've had a busy time, taking my pupils up to high school for the first of their transition days, plus several rehearsals for their leavers performance on the last day of term. I also passed my minibus driver's test, so I can now drive a minibus full of kids! It's been a scorcher of a week here, especially at night. I've found it really hard to sleep right through, waking around 4am and then dozing until the alarm goes off. We are due a day of rain tomorrow, so I'm hoping it will cool things down a bit. We need the rain in the garden too! The mallow has suddenly sprung into life big time, and is threatening to take over the decking. I do love the flowers.

The veggies are doing well, and we've been eating almost exclusively from the garden this week - salad leaves, rocket, cucumbers, tomatoes and mangetout. Mr JK accidentally disturbed one of the potato plants, and unearthed a couple of salad potatoes. Mmmmmmmm! It won't be that long before they are dug up. I love new potatoes, simply boiled with a knob of butter. The clematis has come into flower this week. It's called Polish Spirit, and we bought it because of Mr JK's family links with Poland. It has beautiful purple flowers ........

To try and cool down a bit, we went for a stroll down Cromer pier this morning. There was a lovely sea breeze, and we certainly felt more refreshed.

I went into Norwich yesterday to buy this ......

................. and I came back with this little lot too!

Oops! It was the end of the John Lewis sale, and there were many extremely tempting bargains to be had! Do you want a closer look? Oh, go on then! I bought some lengths of ribbon on a card, no idea what I'm going to use them for at the moment, but they looked so pretty, I couldn't resist!

I also bought some more fabric to make bags (more of this later!) The Amy Butler fabric wasn't in the sale, but as I only needed 30cm, it wasn't very expensive. I bought some co-ordinating ribbon to use as a drawstring too.

I then spotted the bins with yarn in them, and snaffled 21 balls of Rowan Milk Cotton DK, at the incredible price of £1.20 a ball (it usually retails at £4.95!) I can picture a crocheted blanket, maybe a ripple, or possibly some kind of Granny square a la Attic24. This is the colour range I chose ........

and here are all the balls together! The yarn has 30% milk protein in it, and feels very soft.

I called in to see my good friend Snoopydog, to give her a birthday present, and met Oscar for the first time. He's very cute, and well behaved, even though he did keep trying to lick my feet!! (Brave dog!) Snoops had a gift for me too - a bargain she had spotted earlier in the year - a Cath Kidston knitting needle case, complete with needles. A girl can never have too many knitting needles in my view!

My yarn purchasing didn't stop there! Oh, no! I called in at Norfolk Yarn on the way back up to North Norfolk for some baby yarn. My boss has asked me to knit her two lots of baby clothes over the summer holidays. As she doesn't know if the babies are boys or girls, I'm going to make a stripy cardigan, with matching hat and socks for each, using these yarns .......

Once the babies are born, I'll add the button band and some suitable buttons.

I've finally got going on my sewing machine. After a few practises on scraps, I followed this really easy tutorial to make a little lined drawstring bag. It's by no means perfect, and I think the cord is a bit too thick for the size of the bag, but I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself! It's the perfect size to keep my earrings in when I'm travelling. Now that I've made one, I'm going to experiment with the sizing to make a sock project bag. Guess what everyone's going to be getting for Christmas presents now?!

My knitting projects are progressing steadily. I'm almost halfway through making something for the Summer 2010 swap, and my Teatime Treats swap is all ready for posting, so I should be able to show you what I've been busy making for Ethmay next time. And I'm not going to let myself play with any more drawstring bags until I've lined the two crochet bags, honest! Before I go, I must just show you some yarn that I won this week. Kate had bought a skein of Wollmeise yarn, but when it arrived, she knew that it was just too ORANGE for her. So rather than leave it gathering dust at the bottom of her stash, she very kindly offered it as a giveaway to the person who gave (in her view) the best suggestion of what to make with it. She liked my idea, so the yarn arrived this week, and I shall soon be found wearing my sunglasses, knitting a pair of globe trotting socks for Snoopydog's younger daughter. It does feel extremely squishy and soft, so I hope that I manage to get some at KnitNation. KnitNation is only three weeks away, and I need to learn how to do magic loop between now and then, so best I go and get on with it! Have a lovely week, whatever you're up to. See you soon. xx