progress report

I really love the whole world of blogging.  I think you could say that I am becoming addicted to reading blogs and browsing various different Flickr pages.  The trouble with this is that it takes me away from writing my own blog and while I have so many things I want to blog about, I never seem to find the time to get anything down on paper (so to speak).  I also have trouble finding time to take any halfway decent photos.  This is much harder to do with small children as I can't just abandon them while I try and pose a particular shot and with the weather being so gloomy, I struggle to find the right light.

So anyway, this is basically a quick post to show how well my blanket is now coming along.  All the squares have been knitted and mum and I are now in the process of sewing them all together.  Note to self : next time round try and join them as I go along- I think it might be less time consuming than trying to join them at the end!

a wet and windy monday

I've got so many things whirling around in my mind at the moment that I don't really know what to write about. Maybe the weather? Blimey, has it been horrible this last week or so and today is no different. I often feel that my mood, and my what I wear, are extremely influenced by the weather outside, so I guess it's no surprise that I'm feeling the strain of today- and it's only 2.40pm. This wasn't helped by me, the boys and Daisy being woken up an hour earlier than usual by my husband heading off to work early- aaaghhh! I could have done with that extra hours sleep! Touch wood, at least the boys felt the same way and have kindly gone down easily for their nap giving me (hopefully) a couple of hours 'me' time, a chance to unwind and relax, mentally.

Moving onto other things, I have been meaning to post a couple of pictures of some of my knitting accomplishments just to show that I can knit and have actually made things. I'd like to dig out all of my old knitted toys and share them on Flickr, but for now they are buried in the ether of my parent's loft and will probably not see the light of day for a very long time. Anyway, to start with here are a couple of scarves I knitted, some time ago now, which I recently dug up from the depths of my wardrobe ready for some possible winter wearing.

I was really inspired to knit the pale blue and green one after buying these mittens from The Gap.

I loved the scarf that accompanied them, but felt a bit put off by the price and decided I could make one for less (in hindsight I think that the Gap one was probably cheaper after taking into account the cost of the wool and the man hours put into knitting my scarf, but I did enjoy the process and it is very warm and snuggly).  I did so love the commercials for this particular winter season.  I've been trying to find an image, but as I cannot remember exactly what year I made these scarves, a picture of my mittens will have to do instead.

To be honest the pink scarf did not turn out as snuggly as the blue one. I definitely had the knitting bug by then, but if I recall, I chose the wool based on the pink colours and also possibly to match some pale pink gloves I already had, so I think it was knitted in regular DK knit and not in the softer, chunkier yarn of my blue scarf.

thank you

I can't tell you how chuffed to bits I am that someone found this and made it a 'favourite'. I am as new to flickr as I am to blogging, so to have someone in the abyss of the world wide web come across a photo of mine has pleased me no end- and after only a few weeks of posting photos. I don't even know the name of this flower growing in my mum's garden (a daisy, perhaps?), I simply liked the colour of it. Thank you, for making my day! xx

almost there....

I am knitting my last square.  The end is getting nearer.

more of this and more of that

Well, it's been a busy week around here with alot of things happening on many fronts.  Did I say that the conservatory is now finished?  Apart from painting the walls and furnishing how we would like, the basic structure is complete and the boys can now use it as an extra room to play in and I LOVE it!
Last Saturday was Halloween (which I love) and for the first time since the boys were born we decided to participate in all the festivities again:  we hung up some decorations, made some cute biscuits, carved a pumpkin etc.  We found cute little spider outfits for the boys and Daisy donned her ladybird costume and off we strolled down the street.

We didn't trick or treat, that will be next year, but we had a ton of callers to our house including the cutest Darth Vader I have ever seen.  Mum and dad came round for a bite to eat and to see some fireworks, but this was not such a success as it is becoming apparent that one of our boys is having issues with the dark/fireworks and won't stand outside, or even in the conservatory, to watch them.
Sunday was James' birthday so we went off to his dad's for presents and a curry and came back with a gorgeous chocolate cake- yummy!
James had Monday and Tuesday off work, so after securing the boys a preschool place (more on that to come) we set off to the park to enjoy some beautiful, Autumnal weather.

Tuesday was foul weather so we had a day of retail therapy, well I did, at Bluewater and then it was back to normal for the rest of the week with all our usual activities (swimming, Jo Jingles, storyrhymes).
And finally, last night was the night that most places chose to have firework displays in honour of Guy Fawkes night (5th November).  We are lucky in that there is always one round the corner from my parents house so we decided to take our eldest twin and leave the youngest and Daisy with my dad.  A week after our attempt at fireworks and it is now extremely obvious that he is absolutely terrified of them- such a contrast to his brother who was enthralled by them "look at the big fy-a-works, mummy".