MonkeyFeet

Well, last week was insanely busy, but wasn’t the sunshine glorious? I felt so much better and more energised! I joined the gym on Friday, and I have my induction tomorrow, and as it’s about 2 mins walk from here, I have no excuse now! I have three stones to lose, with two stones being my primary aim to begin with. I really want to be fit enough to not get out of breath so easily too. The problem of course, is keeping motivated!

Last week I did some amigurumi – OH wants some of the monsters from creepy cute crochet, so I’ve made a red devil (but he has no eyes or beard yet), and Cthulu who you can see here. I did him in the Rowan Soft Lux, so he’s sparkly His eyes are a bit lopsided though!

I also cast on this scarf.. I had two skeins each of Noro Blossom and Noro Silk Garden and I was goign to do something unusual with them, but I ended up doing a Noro Striped Scarf - it’s simple and easy but the colour combinations look beautiful. I also love the wrong side where the colours are all mashed up. It’s almost finished now – I took this photo a few days ago.

With the glorious sun, me and OH had been going for walks on the park in evenings, and I took this photo of a very hazy sunset over the city. It’s a bit different to my usual country-bumpkin photos, but I rather like it. We have a very industrial area nearby, with all collieries and towers, it’s all so ugly but I love it, and we call it ‘Gotham City’. For me, it’s a symbol of British manufacturing and skills.

Weeks and weeks ago, before I lost my internet, one of my customers asked me to do some World of Warcraft themed yarn. One skein in the colours of the Burning Crusade log in page, and one in the colours of her Blood Elf Paladin’s armour (that’s the bottom one).

Anyway both her and I are very pleased with how they’ve come out!

The other day, I finished my Twisted Flower socks – aren’t they cool?

I used Wild Fire Fibres Manyana (merino/tencel), not realising that of course 333 yards isn’t enough to knit a whole pair of cabled socks – doh.

So I did the cornflower sock, then dyed the silverdale sock. Different colour, same tone = success Well I think so anyway.

It prevented second sock syndrome too.

The cables were fiddly, and even my smallest metal cable needle kept slipping out, so I actually made myself soem tiny wooden cable needles with notches in – they were really effective.

I also did a quick crochet project – I was going to do the Little Acorn Bag, but I wanted a different shape. Then when I tried felting the Patons Inca that I used, well, it didn’t felt at all. So I just sewed the buttons on, stuffed it with yarn and left it at that! I did learn that Patons Inca washes beautifully though!

Now when we moved we inherited this fish tank – empty. So OH decided we’d get marine fish, seeing as there’s one of the best shops in Manchester about half a mile away. It’s really interesting – we have live sand and rock!

So yesterday we bought our first inhabitants. Here we have Hector who’s a hermit crab. He’s a great fellow, suprisingly agile considering he has a large shell on his back.

These are Eric and Ernie. And yes, we can tell them apart! They are really inquisitive and confident – as soon as we released them they went exploring and poking and nipping everything to see what it was. They’re really great, and come over if you go to the tank to see them.

Remind you of Nemo? for fish, they are full of personality. We’re already really attached to them and Hector so I hope they survive and everything, as we’re still learning. Me and OH have always had lots of dogs, so I think this is filling in that gap, plus we’re learning a lot of science (chemistry), and meeting some good people through it.

I’m growing veg – it’ll go in a window box at some point. These are two spinach plants, and the little ones have chilli plants growing – I know you can’t see from this distance but they are there!

Also these are carrots, and the six that haven’t sprouted yet are sweet peppers.

So that’s it for now. The sun’s coming out, and I need to go get on. I got a load of stock ready for Woolfest this mornign so I need to go through it all and see what’s there. I have some designs that I’m working on – which you will see published in a book in the summer (more info nearer the time), and I have tonnes of uni work!  Oh I also want to cast on my Jesien Doily this evening

Ciao for now!