Lazy days

So how was your Christmas? Mr JK and I had a very nice time - really quiet, spending time together with a roaring fire, yummy food, knitting (me), fact books (Mr JK) and a new Christmas jigsaw! It seems to have become a bit of a tradition that once Christmas dinner is over and the dining table is cleared, out comes a jigsaw. Here's the one we are doing this year - rather too much red and white for my liking!! It might still be on the table come Easter!! Santa was very generous and brought me a couple of lovely knitting books. One, all about sock knitting, has a DVD with it, whilst the other is all about how older relatives have inspired some of today's well-known knitting designers.

On Boxing Day we went along the coast to Wells-next-the-Sea to blow away the Christmas cobwebs. It was a lovely day, just perfect for a walk along the beach. A lot of other people had the same idea! All those 'ants' you can see in the distance are people who have walked out to the small mound.

The beach huts at Wells always make me smile. They provide a lovely colourful backdrop to the beach back across the sand dunes and pinewoods.

I finished knitting Mr JK's hat and scarf a couple of days ago. He wanted something warm to wear for when he goes to watch Norwich City playing football. I bought some Malabrigo Worsted weight yarn which is an absolute delight to knit with. I'm actually amazed that I managed to finish them at all, since Florence took rather a liking to the yarn. If I left the knitting out anywhere, more often than not, she would find it and squish herself into it! Perhaps she is hinting that she'd like a Malabrigo blankie!!!! A cat of impeccable taste! Apologies for the slightly blurry photo, but Flo was trying to pretend that she hadn't been caught 'red-pawed' kneading away on the hat!

For the hat I used Jared Flood's Turn a Square pattern and it's a perfect fit! For the scarf I knit stocking stitch with a garter stitch edging. All the stripes meant that there was a mini-mountain of ends to be woven in.

All the woven in ends combined with the fact that despite the border, the scarf has a tendency to curl inwards has made me decide to back it with some fleece. I'm still waiting for the fleece to get here, so Mr JK isn't allowed to wear it for the moment! I'm hoping that it will be done by the time we go to the next match in January. I have enough yarn left over to make myself a scarf too - but this time I'm going to avoid the 'ends' issue and knit myself a Three Colour Linen Stitch scarf. Here's Mr JK's matching set.

I also finished another pair of plain vanilla socks for an old friend of mine. She asked me about a year ago if I'd knit her a pair. I'm rather ashamed that it's taken me so long! Better late than never!

I opened my Christmas swap parcel from my partner Valerie on Christmas Day. Valerie had spotted that I'm a fan of the colour purple, so there was a theme to my parcel. As well as some rather delicious chocolate and a packet of stroopwaffels (yummilicious!), there were two balls of yarn and lots of other goodies!

I've managed to do a little spinning too this holiday. I treated myself to some fibre from picperfic's Etsy shop. She does have some of the most glorious fibres and colours that I've come across. I've spun the first half of this braid of fibre - a mix of supersoft merino and nylon, so it has a bit of sparkle. I'd love to say that it's going to become a pair of socks for me, but I don't think that I've spun it anywhere near thin enough to have the yardage. It'll make something nice though, I'm sure!  

I'm off to Norwich tomorrow to meet up with a Ravelry friend Erin. She is visiting friends in London and is coming up to Norfolk for the day. I can't believe that it's a year since we last met up and went to Loop! Where does the time go?! See you soon, before the end of 2011 I hope! xxx