and lots of it. Where on earth have the last three weeks gone?
First of all though, I must say a huge
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Lucy for yesterday. 19 years old and every inch the perfect daughter [if you are prepared to overlook the *ahem* somewhat dishevelled *ahem* appearance of her bedroom, that is! ;)]. I can't believe it's 19 years since I held her in my arms and gazed into her big blue eyes for the first time. Tempus really does fugit.Well, the bank holiday weekend (remember that? It was about a million years ago) saw the girls and me stuck in traffic on the motorway as we journeyed northwards to my parents. There was the obligatory trip to Borders where Bethany
conned persuaded me to buy her some books as a reward for her exam results and I drooled over the knitting books [only bought one, and it was actually a crochet book so it doesn't count. The dark side is calling...]. We then spent Sunday
en famille with my brother, sister-in-law and nieces, and inadvertently formed our own Stitch 'n' Bitch group. There we were, sitting in the garden, in sunshine (on a bank holiday weekend? No, I didn't believe it, either), Mum, niece#2 and I knitting, SIL crocheting. I felt all warm and glowy inside ... until I dropped a stitch, that is.
The following week saw a return to work and of course the weather changed for the better, humph. Having spent most of my two weeks leave dodging the showers I was less than impressed to be driving around all day in high heat and humidity. Still, I did get to meet the
oldest man in Britain.
Last week, I was lucky enough to be given two tickets to a talk by
Kaffe Fassett. The talk was the official launch of his new book, although "new" is something of a misnomer. The patterns are all old designs that have simply been reworked in new yarns/colourways, with a few slight changes to some of the garments - the words "old rope", "for" and "money" spring to mind. The talk was illustrated by some beautiful, colourful slides which demonstrated very well where Fassett finds his inspiration. I persuaded Bethany to come with me, as she will be using textiles as part of her Art(mixed media) "A" level, but she was less than impressed - "so far up his own a**e" was the
exact phrase she used, if my memory serves me correctly.
This weekend, I am off northwards again as SIL, mum and I are going to the
Knitting & Stitching show in Birmingham. Mum and I went last year and although there were fewer stalls than at Alexandra Palace, the whole experience was more enjoyable as it wasn't so crowded [and nowhere near as hot as Ally Pally, a very important point at my age!!].
Ah yes... knitting... well, there has been some; I am halfway through the MSP*, and have completed some other socks too, the pattern for which will soon be available
here [scroll down a bit - those teal socks with the twisty pattern? They're mine! Yippee!]. Am I allowed to grin cheesily at this point?
There is also another project on the needles but I don't want to say too much about it in case I jinx it, but it is progressing as well as can be expected.
Reading back over this post, it doesn't seem as if I've been that busy really so I could probably have managed a post or two; truth is, the blogging mojo is not at all strong at the moment. I read other blogs that are much wittier, cleverer, more insightful and generally more interesting than this and begin to wonder why I bother, so for those of you that have stuck with me this far, I am very, very grateful. I don't want to stop because, if nothing else, it's a great way to record all my knitting and crochet projects, but on the other hand, I don't want it to become
another chore. We'll see. [I'm sure there's a post in the making following the trip to Birmingham].
*Mammoth Sock Project
PS Big big thanks to all those commenters who sent exam congrats to the girls - it was very much appreciated [see - I
do read the comments!]