Fibre 4 Fibres Giveaway preview 42

It's Friday again! And the last one in January too. I find it so hard to keep track of what day it is these days, without my daily teaching routine. Last week's prize proved to be a big hit, so I've gone with something similar for this week, with tones of grey and pink. I hope you like it. 

This week's prize includes a pretty project bag with a lampwork bead stitched by my friend Michele over at ThreeBagsFull. I have amassed quite a collection of these over the years, a lot of them unused, so it makes sense to use them as prizes so someone else can enjoy using them. To go with this is a skein of sw merino/nylon yarn which has been donated by Ellie from Craft House Magic. There is a skein of sw merino, silk, nylon and silver stellina yarn from Kraemer, a yarn company in Pennsylvania USA, a ball of Head over Heels All Stars yarn which has been donated by Judith Gilbert and two balls of Regia sock yarn. To go with these, there is a set of Knit Pro Nova dpns, donated by Julie at Suffolk Socks, a star globe stitch marker donated by Scarlet Stitchcraft and a pin badge. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated a prize.

I'm sure that you know the score by now, but I'll tell you how to enter anyway! You have a chance to win all these gorgeous prizes for a minimum donation of £2! Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 31st January, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. With luck, we should pass £13,000 this week! Thank you and stay safe! xxx

 

Temperature blanket update

 You might recall that I decided to crochet a temperature blanket last year. I used the Sunburst Granny square pattern (Ravelry link) and picked a rainbow colour palette starting off with cool purples and blues and ending with fiery pinks and reds from the wonderful selection of Stylecraft Special DK yarn. I chose to record the daily high and low temperatures in separate squares, crocheting a round for each day of the week, so that my blanket would end up with 104 squares. I needed to add 4 plain squares, one in each corner, so that it would fit together - 9 x 12 squares. I found that I was able to keep up with it pretty well as there wasn't a huge amount to crochet each day. I joined the squares together in rows using the Silver colourway, with the highs at the top, the lows at the bottom and meeting in the middle. Then came the decisions about the border. Eventually, I decided that I would continue the Granny square border and crochet one round in each of the colours I used, starting with the lowest and ending with the highest temperature, so that it would almost be like a thermometer bordering the blanket. I'm not quite sure how many rounds I have to crochet altogether as I had to increase the number of colours at the high end thanks to a rather hot summer. Because the blanket is rather large, it's impossible to work on it when Flo is around. She'd end up getting smothered! So I've taken the blanket upstairs so I can crochet it while I'm resting on the bed. I've just started round 8 and I'm not sure that I'm even halfway done yet! I will share more photos when it's finished. Keep safe and see you soon! xxx

*** The first few weeks of January 2020 - lows ***

*** The first few weeks of January 2020 - highs ***

*** Hotting up one week in the summer ***

*** Sneaking in some hooky time away from Flo working on the border! ***

(And yes, I still have ALL the joining Silver ends to sew in - all 216 of them!)

*** Just beginning round 9 of the border! ***

Fibre 4 Fibres Giveaway preview 41

Hello friends! Thank you for coming to see what delights I have for you in this week's Fibre 4 Fibres raffle. I decided that we needed an injection of colour this week, to counteract the gloomy January days, so the prize is absolutely bursting with colour!

The prize includes a lovely rainbow raffia basket bag from Basket Basket made from sustainable raffia in Madagascar, a skein of merino and nylon sock yarn in pretty pastel rainbow colours from The Fibre Fox, a skein of merino nylon sock yarn in gorgeous tones of blue and green, which has been donated by Angeloakcreations on Instagram, two sets of wonderfully squishy DK minis donated by Sew Happy Creative, a ball of West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply yarn in the Rum Paradise colourway, a rainbow progress keeper donated by Hannah Daisy Crochet and a yarny note pad and card from Lana Bou. Thank you so much to everyone who donated a prize!

I'm sure that you know the score by now, but I'll tell you how to enter anyway! You have a chance to win all these gorgeous prizes for a minimum donation of £2! Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 24th January, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. The next milestone is £13,000! Thank you and stay safe! xxx

A Spooktacular Finished Item!

 I have finished a pair of socks! These were cast on for Halloween last year, but I didn't get very far with them. At least I'll be well prepared for this year! The yarn is from Stripey Cat Yarns and the colourway is called 'Spooky Speckle'. It came as a sock set with 100g of the self striping yarn and 20g each of the contrasts, so I will have plenty to knit another pair. I knit a sock tube and then added the afterthought heel. I like this way of knitting with self striping yarn because the stripe width stays the same on the whole sock. If you use the heel flap method, then the stripes will be thinner because of the extra stitches created with the heel flap, and will gradually get wider again as you work all the gusset decreases.

I've started to make sourdough bread. I'm not really supposed to be eating bread at all because of my swallowing problems, but bread is my go-to comfort food and I miss it. I'm very late hopping onto the sourdough bread wagon, I know, but I bought myself a dried starter kit from Kat Goldin and woke it up this week. Apparently her name is Mildred! Here she is asleep...

and now she's woken up! You can just see in the background a glimpse of some cheese scones that I made with the first discard. They are delicious with soup!

I made my first loaf, taking it all very seriously. I even found myself googling different scoring patterns and watching YouTube videos! I was really pleased with how my first loaf looked on the outside, but inside it was a different story! It was very dense and underproved, perfect as a door stop or a missile! So I'm having another go and hopefully this one will be more edible. I'll let you know.

I had some happy mail today. I belong to a book group on Instagram and the girl who runs it works in the NHS. She has done lots of fundraising to support the wellbeing of her colleagues, and recently was running some raffles. I was lucky enough to win one of the raffles and I am delighted with my prize: two new books to read, some chocolate and sweets and a hair mask. My hair desperately needs a bit of love as I've not had it cut for almost a year now! 

In other happy news, I'm going for my first Covid jab tomorrow at my local surgery. It feels like there is a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel at last. Stay safe and well. xxx

Fibre 4 Fibres Giveaway preview 40

I can't believe it's Friday already and we are halfway through January! I am so enjoying putting together the prizes each week. I try to theme them in some way and this week, I think the prize has a definite wintry feel to it.

The prize includes a fabulous Thimble and Thread 'Stay Home' basket which has been donated by @ruthlovestoknit on Instagram. This is a great storage basket with plenty of handy pockets on the outside. To go with this, there are 5 skeins of West Yorkshire Spinners The Croft Wild Shetland Aran roving yarn which has been produced in association with Jamieson & Smith, along with a pattern leaflet for a scarf and hat. Tribe Yarns has donated a skein of Rosy Green merino DK yarn in a beautiful teal colourway. There is a skein of Madeline Tosh merino light yarn in a gorgeous mix of blues, greens and purples and two balls of Regia tweed 4ply sock yarn. Finally, a pretty stitch marker charm bracelet has been donated by my friend Ann who is @busypottering over on Instagram. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated a prize.

I'm sure that you know the score by now, but I'll tell you how to enter anyway! You have a chance to win all these gorgeous prizes for a minimum donation of £2! Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 17th January, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. Last week, the total passed £12,000 which is incredible! Thank you and stay safe! xxx

 

Mistletoe Kisses socks

I have a finished object to share with you. These socks were my Christmas Eve cast on using a sock set and pattern from Ellie over at Craft House Magic. They were a fun knit with the need to concentrate for the stitch  pattern  just under the cuff and then lots of  plain knitting allowing for TV viewing. I love the little bobbles which represent  mistletoe berries. And can you  spot the little kiss at the top of the heel? I knit these on and off from Christmas Eve onwards and finished them in early January.

Since finishing these socks, I've not done a great deal of knitting. But I have had a big tidy up and reclaimed my living room as it was in danger of being mistaken for a yarn shop! All the yarn and most of the project bags have been moved upstairs into the craft room and it feels so much better. I haven't started a new project yet, but am working on mu Halloween socks as they were never completed last year. When in doubt, knit a sock! Easy knitting so I don't have to think, with fun colour changes too. The bonus of plain sock knitting means that I can listen to audiobooks, so I've started with The Beekeeper of Aleppo which I'm enjoying very much. Thank you for all your kind comments and suggestions on my previous post; you've given me some great suggestions. Stay safe and well. xxx

Lost mojo ...

 ... If found, please return to josiekitten ASAP! I am not sure why, but I am feeling very unsettled at the moment. I can’t seem to concentrate on doing anything and just flit from one thing to another without achieving a great deal in the process. It’s not for the want of projects as I have lots of WIPs to occupy me, not to mention my ‘Make 9’ for 2021. I definitely have more than enough gorgeous yarn too. I feel like a difficult child who rejects everything that is suggested with a mutter of ‘boring’ and a heavy sigh combined with a roll of the eyes. Even Flo has started to give me disapproving looks. What has brought this creative slump upon me I have no idea. It’s not as though anything has changed for me, despite the latest UK lockdown, as I’ve been shielding since March anyway. Even the prospect of being in one of the first groups to be vaccinated as I’m in the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable group hasn’t helped; I think that even once I’ve had the vaccine, I will still have to continue to take precautions because it isn’t known what kind of immune response people who are immunosuppressed will have anyway. I’m also concerned that my treatment will be delayed because of Covid. I know that my local rheumatology consultant is working on the Covid wards so has a lot less time available for her usual patients. I guess that there are lots of contributing factors to help explain my current mood. If you have any suggestions of instant gratification projects or activities, books or TV programmes to rekindle my spark, please let me know. Thank you. Stay safe and well. xxx

Fibre 4 Fibres Giveaway preview 39

 Thank you so much for stopping by today. I was really thrilled with the response to last week's raffle, especially after taking a short break over Christmas. While everything in the world is in chaos, at least we have yarn to enjoy. It definitely improves my mental health both crafting and holding these weekly fundraising raffles, so I plan to continue throughout this third lockdown in the UK. I can post things quite safely as we are fortunate to have a mobile post office van which comes to the village once a week, and I don't even get into the van - the lady comes to collect my post while I'm all masked up.

This week's prize is a real beauty! The prize includes a pretty floral print project bag with coordinating lining and a lampwork glass bead on the zipper pull, made by my friend Michele across the Pond. Her Etsy shop is ThreeBagsFull and definitely worth a visit. There is a skein of the luxurious superwash merino, cashmere and nylon yarn in the colourway Sweet Dreams which has been donated by Ellie from Craft House Magic. Ellie has also donated a pair of Hiya Hiya sharps 2.5mm circular needles. Stevie from the Curated Yarn Co. has donated a skein of her merino nylon yarn in the colourway Mulberry Jam - it looks almost good enough to eat! There is also a ball of Opal sock yarn in shades of pink and purple. Fiona from Scarlet Stitchcraft has donated a set of pretty stitch markers and there is also some tea to enjoy, courtesy of both Stevie and Yorkshire Tea. Thank you so much to everyone for your kind donations.

I'm sure that you know the score by now, but I'll tell you how to enter anyway! You have a chance to win all these gorgeous prizes for a minimum donation of £2! Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 10th January, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. Let's see if we can get to £12,000 this week! Thank you and stay safe! xxx

A new year begins

Hello and thank you so much for stopping by today. I hope that you had a good time over the holidays, even if your celebrations weren't quite what you'd hoped for. Usually at the start of a new year, I look back on everything that I've achieved over the past 12 months and see if I've managed to achieve all my goals. My only hope last year was that 2020 would be the year that I managed to get my myositis under control. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, despite 12 weeks of chemotherapy treatment and also starting to take a new immunosuppressant. I have appointments with both of my consultants (locally and in London) at the beginning of February, and I'll hopefully find out what their plans are. Fingers crossed that my appointments don't get cancelled because of Covid. I'm looking forward to getting the vaccination and for a gradual return to a more normal way of life. I've spent three quarters of last year at home, shielding and am looking forward to being able to go to the beach and eat a bag of chips with plenty of salt and vinegar on them!

Knitting and crochet has definitely helped me to keep sane over the last twelve months, and I've tried to set myself goals for each month to keep me focussed and also to give my days some structure. I had a sock pattern in Simply Knitting magazine at the start of 2020, and managed to release four more sock designs over the year. In case you can't remember them, here they are, along with links to the patterns in my Ravelry store ...

Squeezebox Socks

Rainbow Ripples

Mermaids' Playtime

Give and Take socks

It's Seagull o'clock

My fundraising for Myositis UK has been really important over the last year, and the yarn raffles and proceeds from my designing have managed to raise over £11,000 so far. Fundraising gives me something positive to concentrate on each week and I feel proud of what I've done so far. I'm carrying on with the weekly raffles throughout 2021 and have set a new target of £20,000. Let's see what happens! Thank you to everyone who has supported my fundraising by donating a prize or buying virtual raffle tickets! 

This year, I'm hoping to knit some more jumpers for myself so decided to create a 'Make 9' grid. There are three jumpers - Susurrus by Joji Locatelli, Bubbly Sweater by Isabell Kraemer and Pavement by Veera Valimaki. I already have the yarn for each of these projects, so shall feel very virtuous knitting from stash. There's one shawl - Nightshift by Andrea Mowry - and again, I have the yarn for this, gifted to me by my lovely friend Kim. I'm planning to take part in the Rainbow Chronicles year long project, which is a collaboration between Kelly Lay and Sew Sweet Violet. At the end of 2021, I should have twelve pairs of socks, the colours of the rainbow! The Habitation throw by Curious Handmade has also made it onto my list. I have no need for any more blankets, but I do love this design. Then there are three projects that I'm hoping to design. I have ideas bubbling away in the background and am looking forward to having a play with some yarn. As well as knitting, I will also be doing some crochet and some embroidery, and I hope to sew a few garments for myself too. So some exciting plans for the year which will definitely keep me out of mischief! What plans have you made for 2021? Is there a new knitting skill you'd like to accomplish? Please do leave me a comment telling me. Stay safe and well and I'll catch up with you again soon. xxx