Heading Towards Christmas with Mistletoe, Books and Charity Knitting...

I love mistletoe. This year I'm going to leave this sprig on our apple tree and hope it grows! Meanwhile, I've positioned it prominently in our kitchen...

Isn't this cup the best present? My girlfriend brought it back from Germany for me. I've drunk out of it pretty obsessively since! Nothing like an early Christmas present!

These are the charity mug-huggers in situ, at The Coffee House on Moreton Hall. They're selling for £3, with £1 of that going straight to our local hospice - an indisputable good cause!

Last charity knit of the year: these mugs with their own crochet warmers are on sale at Workwise on Hatter Street with a portion of the money going to Workwise itself. Having finished these, I had no project on the go - but friends gave had a baby girl surprisingly early, so I've got an excuse to get knitting again!

Final picture of this week: I'm reading a superb novel called The Professor of Poetry by Geraldine McCleen. It is lyrically written with an unusual - 50s, single, academic female - protagonist. I've read about a third of it and am loving every sentence. More when it's finished!

Hope everyone's had a good week and is getting ready for a lovely Christmas!

 

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She cooks, she knits...

I seem to have been knitting this baby jumper for some time - and the baby has already been born, so last week I thought I'd really better get a move on. It's a lovely pattern which I've blogged about before, from Joelle Hoverson's book, More Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It's knitted in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran on a circular needle, so (if you just crack on with it) it knits up quickly and there are very few seams to join up! The only reservation I have with the pattern is that there are no buttonholes, so I've added one. Now I can finally go and see the new arrival!

This has been a rather productive weekend, all things considered! It's not often I have even one thing to blog about on #HandmadeMonday! I've been meaning to make these mug-hunger samples for a lovely local cafe for ages, as something I might sell with them. So now I have these to show them later today:

And, finally - I made these gorgeous cookies from a recipe in the Guardian magazine a couple of weeks ago. You can find the recipe here: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/01/nut-recipes-almonds-pecans-hazelnuts. The cookies are luscious, really chocolately, and the pecan praline tastes lovely in them. Having said that, the praline took just *ages* to make - probably because I was very nervous about burning the sugar, so I didn't turn it up high enough to melt it. Because you have to make the praline first, these biscuits take slightly longer than other cookies, but we are just loving them.

 

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In Which I Venture to Les Tricoteuses & find yarnbombing in Sheringham...

A lovely sunny day in Holt last week - and a browse in a lovely wool shop:

I was really keen to check out this shop properly - I love the name (with its connotations of gallows knitting) and Chapel Yard, its location, has great little shops and galleries. The huge window shows the lovely yarns inside.

This is a pretty good generic picture, actually, of all the Places To Buy Yarn that I like - the gorgeous coloured patty-shaped balls of pure wool. This shop has an excellent range of luxurious wools - everywhere I looked there was more! It was great to meet Mary Pembleton, the owner; she turned down her German rock music to talk about the shop, our dislike of acrylic, "squeaky" wool,  and showed me her newest arrival - *British*, no less - Debbie Bliss Blue Faced Leicester Aran yarn, in gorgeous autumnal shades -

I want to go back and buy the mustardy colour to make some gloves I've found a pattern for in Bronwyn Lowenthal's Love to Knit  - Mary has knitted the swatch here in red and it feels dense and lovely and woolly! She has the Debbie Bliss accompanying pattern book, too. Bravo, Les Tricoteuses! www.lestricoteuses.co.uk

The knitting theme dominated our trip to Sheringham, too; luckily, my Lady Friend is a patient partner. First I had to snap this part of the sea front mural:

But then - huge excitement - we saw more Sheringham *yarnbombing*: fantastic knitted fish and starfish on the seafront -

Aren't these great? I wonder if it's those @NorfolkNinjaKnitters again ;)

On a rainy day, we went to Norwich. While the Lady Friend had  a tour of the Cathedral, I paid a visit to Jarrolds, a great independent with lots of lovely Sirdar wool and good haberdashery bits too. Had a crochet conversation with the sales assistant who was wearing a black crochet collar that she'd made herself. Then, a trip to the Cathedral refectory:

And a scrumptious cheese scone:

I love Emma Bridgewater's crockery - though the use of this Biblical quotation is rather surprising, as the second part of the verse from the Song of Songs reads, "For I am sick of love." I suppose that's why only the first part is on the plate!  I know there's no mention of a Wednesday #WIP - but that[s because my Sarah Hatton jacket is still .... still .... still on the go! 

Been Caught Knitting - Out and About

Recently I've got a bit over-excited when I've seen hand-knitted or crocheted things in public - must be something to do with Knitting In Public week earlier this month! Saw these lovely crochet blankets in a sunny corner of the gorgeous gardens of some almshouses when exploring some Hidden Gardens last weekend. Seeing these really made me want to make a crochet blanket, something I haven't done since the birth of my first nephew, seven years ago. I wouldn't have gone for the bright colours here, but they look great against the geraniums. The view from this bench would be hundreds of roses in yellow, red and peach - fabulous. I saw a friend looking at the same garden, and she was wondering how soon we could put our names down for these houses! We're not 40 yet, even, but hey - never to early to start planning which almshouse to retire to!

Once again on the theme of Been Caught Knitting, here is a shot of one of my mug huggers, held by my patient girlfriend, on the Sheringham seafront! It was a bit blustery for June so we really needed a coffee. Out of shot here is a lovely new bag of yarn from Sheringham's wool shop, Creative Crafts, to make the aforementioned girlfriend a jumper. A good day out!

Now for the most glamorous location that one of my mug-huggers has made it to:

New York! Sadly I didn't go on this trip, but, hey, at least my knitting did!

Last pic for this post: here is the intrepid New York mug-hugger in Christopher Park, New York - an important location in the history of the gay rights movement. It was here that the notorious Stonewall Inn was located, and this was the destination of the first American gay rights march in 1969. Does this count at yarnbombing?!

My plan for my next post: to photograph some more knitting and crochet while out and about. I will ask people's permission - but I love spotting hand made things and hearing about how they're made. Fingers crossed that I find some willing specimens!

3KCBWDAY4 - Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, Day 4 - The Seasons

Now: the question posed by @eskimimi for today's blog entry is an easy peasy one - Do the seasons affect your knitting?

This picture says it all. In fact, I had a rather embarrassingly large cache of, er, pictures of hot water bottle covers which I could have chosen from. They're great to knit: good gifts, quite quick and really nice to use. I use the fantastic Aran pattern by Rachael Herron on Yarn-a-go-go, among others. The one above is pretty much my own pattern - I wanted to learn how to do the Fair Isle kind of patterns so I drew it out.

Anyway: in winter, yes, I want to knit wrist warmers and mug huggers while drinking red wine in front of the fire. I like browsing through the Aran and chunky patterns for big cosy jumpers and those over-sized Rowan jackets. However, I've never really liked knitting with cotton so, in Summer, I'm still knitting those big jumpers, just very slowly!

Now - off to sample some real ale!

FO Friday! One Debbie Bliss knitted mug cosy complete!

Just a quick post  -  but it's not often I have a Finished Object on a Friday, or at all, really - so I just had to post today! You can see this on my Ravelry page, too: it's from Debbie Bliss, The Knitter's Year, though I had to adapt it a bit to fit my sister's travel mug. It's called a Mug Cosy - but I prefer my sister's term, mug-hugger! She sits and drinks from this while my nephews play at the park or on the beach - aaaah.

This weekend, my WIP is bootee number two! Was rather relieved to see Victoria's WIP bootee at Cafe Knit this week, as mine was looking rather odd. Now I see it's all going to work out fine ;)

Also planning some blog posts for next week's Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012. It's the first time I've done this, so I need to think it over.

So, plenty to occupy me this weekend!