Thumb twiddling

My blood tests have shown that all is not right so I'm trying to keep myself busy whilst waiting for a hospital appointment but also having to rest as much as I can. I've stopped Googling things as it's very easy to read your symptoms into the worst case scenario, and I'm telling myself that if it was serious, they'd have seen me straight away. I'm hoping for a cancellation so that I can get the ball rolling to try and find out what's going on before school starts again. It's the first year since I started spinning when I haven't taken part in the Tour de Fleece - the reason being that I just haven't had the energy to do so. I've also had to pull out of volunteering at Fibre-East which was another disappointment. I do have a stealth shopper there though so will be cheering myself up with a little yarny treat or two! I'll share with you in due course, I promise!

I did have a day with the Stylecraft Blogstars recently which was really lovely. I shared a lift with Heather (The Patchwork Heart) which made it a lot easier for me. It was fabulous to see everyone once again and we were given a sneak preview of all the new yarns which will be released later this year. There are some really gorgeous things to come, I can promise you. I have to pinch myself sometimes that I'm lucky enough to be included amongst such an illustrious group! Here are a few photos from the day...

We all knitted or hooked a log cabin block or two as you can see from the photos - I'll tell you more about why in another blog post. Stylecraft have something rather exciting to announce!  As you can see, our goody bags were just mahoosive! Stylecraft are incredibly generous and treat us so well. I can share a few of those new yarns with you now as they were released earlier in the month. 

One of my favourite of Stylecraft's yarns, Batik has three new colours in the Batik Elements range. The yarn is 80% acrylic and 20% wool and has a lovely bounce to it. I'm looking forward to trying these mixed shades with some of the solid colours in the range. 

There are five new colours in the Life DK range too including two with gorgeous tweedy nepps. I love how these colours look together with the purples and mustard alongside the black and silver. Life DK is 25% wool and 75% acrylic. I'm picturing a snuggly blanket...

Special Aran with wool has three new tweedy colours in the range - I think these would make some cosy accessories, possibly with cables and bobbles. This yarn is 80% acrylic and 20% wool so washes well.

Finally, a new addition to the Life range with Life Changes. Again 25% wool and 75% acrylic, this range features more subtle and gradual yarn changes. I've seen it knit up and it is both beautiful and soft. 

I'm currently working on a design for the Stylecraft Blog Tour which begins in September. It features another new yarn which is gorgeous to work with and I'm really happy with how my design is working out so far. You'll have to wait awhile to see it though, as each of the Blogstars will be showcasing the yarn with a design. It could well be the best Blog Tour yet!

Hope you've been enjoying the weather - it's been a bit too hot for me so the rain today was a welcome sight. Have a good week and I'll be back soon to share a couple of bits of 'josiekitten in print'! xxx

Bad blogger

I've been a very bad blogger, I'm sorry. I've been feeling a bit under the weather and having had an armful of blood taken, am waiting to find out more next week. Hopefully it's nothing too serious and just a touch of end-of -termitis. I haven't done much apart from some secret knitting so I don't even have anything terribly interesting to show you. I will share a few photos of my best furry nurse Flo to at least make your visit here today worthwhile. Hopefully I'll be back firing on all cylinders very soon. xxx

Special yarn

Remember this?

And this?

And this? 

Well now I have this! 

I cannot tell you how excited and honoured I am to have a ball of yarn in a colourway that I have created. I absolutely love it and can't wait to share more photos with you as soon as I'm allowed to! In the meantime, you'll just have to make do with this little tease! xxx

Happy socks means happy feet

I have a thing about rainbows. They are beautiful and have that promise of something a little magical. I have a thing about rainbow yarn too! I looked at my stash on Ravelry for confirmation of that and this is what I found...

I'm sure there's more! This, dear reader, is most likely just the tip of the rainbow iceberg! I just don't seem to be able to resist the lure of all those lovely colours in one skein of yarn. Whilst I wouldn't wear a rainbow jumper, having happy rainbow feet is quite a different matter. So it was a rainbow skein (well, a rainbow cake actually) that I picked out when I wanted something to knit on a recent bus trip. You may recall I blogged about it here. 

These socks were one of my chosen projects to accompany me to Greece and I had plenty of beach knitting time. 

I was quite impressed with my stripe-matching skills too! There's usually a bit of guesswork going on, or I'm often not too precious about having matchy matchy socks. But it all just seemed to work out fine.

These have been given away as a present and made their new owner very happy. Do you have a particular colourway of yarn that you're always drawn to? xxx

Good for the soul

I did it! I made it to Greece! Despite a stressful journey out, where the travel gods were clearly testing my resolve (I ended up being on standby for the flight and had to plead for a ticket, and then it wasn't certain that my case had travelled with me!), I spent a week on my own in our special place on  the Greek island of Kos. During the week, I was able to remember so many wonderful, happy times spent there with Mr JK, and I felt his closeness the whole time I was there. Of course there were a few wobbles, especially when people were being super-kind to me because of what had happened. I spent the days on the beach with my knitting and kindle and was incredibly lazy. I ate at  the same two tavernas each day - one at lunch time where I could sit at a table overlooking the beach and indulge in some delicious salads, and in the evening, at our favourite taverna where I was looked after so well by Nikos. He was very concerned for my welfare and gave me extra wine and dessert each day. The Greeks are so warm and friendly, that I felt at home eating there and being on my own wasn't nearly such a big deal for me as I'd imagined it would be. There were things I found hard - going for walks to feed the cats (although I still did feed the harbour cats), sitting on the balcony of the apartment and enjoying a drink before going out for  the evening and then going to a bar on my own after dinner for a drink (I didn't manage to do that one the whole week.) But I am very, very pleased that I made the decision to go back to Kos as it helped me to focus on both the past and the future and I do feel strangely at peace at the moment. Someone commented on one of my Instagram posts that grief is a lifelong companion and you have to make your peace with it. This week has definitely helped me on that journey. Enjoy some photos of my week and I'll be back soon to share some finished socks with you. xxx