When you wake up to this ......
there's not much that you can do except light the fire, get cooking and make sure that there is a plentiful supply of yarn! It's been bitterly cold for the last few days, and the snow actually arrived as predicted for once! Often, being on the coast, it seems to miss us out. Florence had the right idea anyway, and could either be found toasting herself in front of the woodburner or snuggled up in her basket. Her squeaky Santa is never far from her side!
Mr JK busied himself in the kitchen and made a huge pot of lamb and Guinness soup, and we ate a bowl for lunch, accompanied by some delicious soda bread. Mmmmmmmm.
I have been working on the second Roger sock this week, and am almost at the heel. Alongside that, the first sleeve from my Rene sweater is finished, and I've been knitting a scarf for me to wear when I go and watch Norwich City playing football. I knit Mr JK a scarf and hat for Christmas. I'm not sure that I ever got round to blogging them. The scarf curled in rather annoyingly, despite a garter stitch border, so I ended up backing it with black fleece. That has done the trick and Mr JK wore it to the match yesterday, and reported back that it kept him toasty warm. I had to sew in the fleece by hand as it was too thick to fit under my sewing machine.
My scarf is quite a labour-intensive affair, being knit in linen stitch. It's knit lengthways, so I have cast on 400 stitches and hope that it'll be long enough! I probably should have knit a swatch, but hey ho! I do like the effect the three colours have together - it almost looks like it's woven. I think I'm just over one third of the way across now, and will probably add a fringe once it's all done.
I plied the yarn that I'd spun too - I Navajo-plied it to retain the long colour changes and have about 230 metres of yarn. I do have another braid of the exact same fibre, so will probably spin that one up to have a greater yardage for a project. The colours are just gorgeous!
In the meantime, I have started spinning some BFL fibre that I received in a swap from Julia in Germany. The fibre is really multicoloured, so I have decided to spin it as two singles and then ply it together to get a tweedyish mix.
I'm going to say goodbye for today and get myself camped down on the sofa for the evening. We are going to have toasted fruit buns for tea, and I can't wait. Why not? Well just feast your eyes on this lovely fruity lot! We made 8 jars of blackcurrant jam this afternoon, using blackcurrants from the freezer. Yummy! Have a good week! xxx
12 comments:
We haven't had a flake of snow on the Wirral, but it's been f-f-freezing!
Last week!!!! Hope the weather's better for half-term!
xxx
Love the snow pictures. It has missed us this time. All that food looks delish so off to make tea now. Have a lovely week.
We've had snow as well, it's freezing! I let MrNM do some pictures but I wasn't venturing out! That soup looks absolutely delicious and your dinner plans sound very tasty too. I'm often left hungry after visiting your blog!
Lovely SNOW!!!!!!! Pretty spinning. Love the deep pink colour of that yarn. It's gorgeous. Mr J has been very busy! I am impressed. Have a good week. Ros xx
Hardly any snow for us in Scotland, how strange. Pleased to hear you are cozied up with soup and buns and yarn (I cast on 400 stitches made me laugh). I've just finished my rather late in the day marmalade, nice feeling isn't it getting a few jars of preserve squirrelled away. Have a good and not too snowy week.
lovely snowy pictures, Lucy is like Florence and knows all the best places to keep warm.
xxx
I love the snow photos, especially the wee birds' footprints! We haven't had any snow at all in Belfast.
Florence definately has nothing to learn, you can always trust a cat to find the best place to sleep.
Both scarves are great. The one with the fleecy lining looks really cosy, and I am intrigued by the stitch pattern on the other one. I shall look forward to more photos of it.
And I didn't know you could get soda bread in England! I thought it was just an Irish thing!! I love toasted wheaten soda with butter and lemon and lime marmalade. Mmm...
I went to my LYS yesterday and they were all talking about spinning, half of the shop is for spinning and weaving lessons. One of these days I may actually try it!
Wonder if my Mam got snow up north? I'm so jealous, we had very warm weather here last week but thankfully it's turned a little cold again and I made soup today too. Hubby just flew to Denver and they just got 2 ft of snow on Friday!!!
your pictures are great. I learned to spin in junior school (it was a village school) I can in theory, turn a fleece into a jumper as we were taken through the whole process, spinning dying etc. one day....
beautiful fiber and yarn, thanks for sharing...
Wow, Helen. Snow! We haven't seen any here and I don't want to. Your knitting and spinning is so pretty. Love your fireplace and that Florence is a hoot. Cats know what to do.
That linen stitch scarf looks great, the colours work really well with the stitch pattern. And your handspun is gorgeous, I love the colours!
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