It's official!

It's autumn! Well, it is chez josiekitten anyway. And how do I know? Two reasons. Number one - Mr JK wore handknitted socks yesterday for the first time in months. And number two - Flo has taken up residence in her furry igloo once more! It's too hot (even for her) in the summer, but the past couple of days she has slept in it all day long to keep nice and toasty! 

(Can you tell just how happy she was for me to disturb her sleep to take this photo?!)

It has felt distinctly autumnal since we got back from our holiday and I'm not sure that my resolve of not wearing socks until half term is going to hold out! I need to go through my sock drawer and be ruthless - several pairs need culling, but they are old favourites so I shall have to knit some replacements. For every day, chuck 'em in the washing machine socks, you cannot beat Regia and Opal yarns. So it's jolly fortunate that I managed to acquire a few souvenir balls from our trip to Europe! Not all of these are for me, I hasten to add. Mr JK chose yarn for his socks too! The pinky purple one and its neighbour are for me, the paler blue/grey yarn for Mr JK, as is the Lang Super Soxx yarn. This one feels gorgeous as it has cashmere in it too. The two balls of Regia Pairfect I found in Delft and they make perfectly matching stripy socks. I am itching to cast on a pair, there is something very addictive about knitting stripes, don't you think?! Just one more row...... until before you know it, you've knit another complete stripe and it's onto the next colour.

Apart from my Top Secret knitting project, I did knit a little on a pair of plain vanilla socks while we were away. Initially I was going to give them to Wolfgang but I have had a real problem with the yarn losing colour, just whilst I've been knitting with it. Imagine what your feet would look like after wearing them all day?! Now they are destined for Mr JK's sock drawer instead. You can see just how much dye has come out on the wooden needles by comparing two! I've never had this problem with Regia sock yarn before and I hope that a couple of washes and rinses will exhaust the dye. Fingers crossed or else Mr JK is going to get some very odd looks when he goes swimming at the gym!

Yesterday I did a sewing class in Norwich. It was to make a crazy nine-patch cushion cover. You start off with 9 squares of fabric, and by cutting, layering and stitching, you end up with 9 patchwork squares, each with a piece of the 9 different starting squares in them. Ingenious! Someone must have worked it out mathematically to make sure that each square ends up looking different. I used some very pretty Tilda fabrics to make my cushion and am thrilled with how it turned out. I'm going to try to make another one and might use the 'quilt as you go' technique to add some decorative stitching to the finished cushion.

Here's another photo of it on the sofa. I love all my cushions! It's hard to pick a favourite! Each one has given me a new skill to accomplish.

I promised to share some of the cakes I tasted during our holiday. The Germans love cakes and make absolutely delicious ones. When you go into a cake shop, you're spoilt for choice! Luckily, Mr JK is usually willing to share his too, so I can taste a couple! Look at this little lot, they are responsible for me gaining too much additional poundage around my middle! We're going to a wedding in a couple of weeks and I resorted to buying a pair of 'hold everything in' knickers from M&S yesterday. Let me tell you, it might hold 'everything' in in one part, but all that excess has to escape somewhere!! Not a pretty sight! I reckon that I'll have to do sit ups every day between now and the wedding to try to conquer my midriff! Sigh! Why is cake so bad for you?! See you soon. xxx