Sahara Progress

Haven't done much knitting at all for the past few weeks, since we had food poisoning (that was NOT nice!).

Anyway, managed to pick up Saraha and have made a bit of progress. I've just joined the fronts to the back, and here is a picture of it just before that:


I found the instructions a bit confusing for increasing on the front armholes, but found the answer after a bit of googling: when the pattern says "cast on 4 sts at start of each of next 2 rows", it means working across both left and right fronts as one row (even though they are still being worked separately).

So you're casting on at the left armhole, knitting all the way across the left and right sides, turning then casting on in purl at the right armhole. Weird. Anyway, got it done now.

All better now

Bumpity bumpity bump. That was Sunday night.

Bumpity (giggle). That was last night.

Yesterday I think Jazz had way too much sleep, she fell asleep on the sofa about 4ish and at 6 we decided to put her in bed (no bath, no dinner, not interested), but she woke up at 8.30 and wanted to play. Until 10 o'clock. That's when we decided she was going back to bed. Mummy and Daddy were dying to go to sleep, but Jazz wasn't havin' none of it.

... That's tonight (so far).

Right, so now I'm going to wind some yarn. And when I get tired of that I'm going to bed.

Poorly girl

My poor little girl is ill. When we got her up this morning she'd been sick in her cot, but she hadn't cried out. I could tell she was feeling really bad, because she was really listless and just wanted to cuddle us - usually we're lucky to get a cuddle, she's too busy!

I called NHS Direct and they recommended we take her to A&E, so I asked my neighbour to come over and take a look (she's an A&E nurse) and she was a bit worried that DD had inhaled some vomit. Yuk.

We decided to go to the childrens hospital in Brighton instead, as my neighbour said if she had 'aspirated' they would send us there anyway. So, I managed to drive there quite calmly (for me).

So we get there about 11.30am and we saw the Doctor at 2.15pm. Why are hospitals so blimmin' hot! It was quite busy, there were about four kids before us. Jazz (reluctantly) drank some diarolyte and had a sleep, but mostly just more cuddles. At least she had stopped being sick though.

Anyway, no goo in her lungs (phew) and we have to make sure she gets enough fluid. It looks like she's got the nasty sore throat that I've had for over a week (and had three days off work with), so lots of paracetamol in order too I expect.

She's gone to bed now but I expect we'll probably have a bumpy night. I have a video monitor so at least I can keep a close eye on her without having to go into her room every time she stirs. I love that video monitor, last thing before I go to sleep every night I turn it on and watch her sleeping. Aaahh!

One good thing this weekend though, I managed to crochet myself a granny square. Hooray! I've been trying to figure them out since I went on the learn to crochet course last October. So yesterday I trawled the web and found some nice easy instructions for a granny square in English (not American - can't figure out the doubles and trebles!).

Anyway, must go finish that second square before I get myself a nice early night. I reckon I'm gonna need it!

Somebody take these Maltesers away from me.

Calorimetry

I recently knitted Calorimetry from Knitty.

I made it from some of the Orchid Malabrigo I had left after making the clapotis. So I guess they're a matching set! Although to be honest, not sure if I'll wear this, certainly DH will make some derisive comment.

But who will have the warmest ears?

A piece of home

The garden is all planted up now. Most of it was done in January, but the trees and climbers only arrived on Monday.

The plants are looking wintry still, so we'll have to wait a few more weeks until spring kicks in and things start to fill out. But we're pretty happy with it overall. The gravel bit looks harsh, but I hope the plants will cover it up come spring. It's so wet underneath that you can't stand on it! Well, you can't fight nature, that's why we decided to make it a bog garden...

Hope the dragonflies appreciate it!

It was a beautiful sunny morning today so I took some pictures. This is my favourite.

Very glad that Blogger is now letting me post my pictures, hooray!

Malabrigo Clapotis

Well, it's finally finished, the lovely clapotis! Here I am in all my headless glory:

It's made in Malabrigo Worsted, colour Orchid. I used 5mm needles and 315g of yarn.

The ladies at my knitting group had a fondle and can attest to its amazing softness!

I will definately knit more in Malabrigo, it's a shame it's so difficult to get hold of in the UK... Thank God for Ebay!

Cuddly Xmas Garlic...?

I've been knitting furiously this week (not angrily, but busily!).

The in-laws phoned last weekend and said today would be the last time we saw them before they emigrated to Spain. OH NO! No Christmas shopping had been done! So out came the needles and I whipped up this knitted snowman to remind them of Christmas in the UK.

Because of the urgent time frame, I was forced to take out my knitting at work during my lunch hour. I can always rely on my colleagues for some interesting comments, my favourte: "Is that a cuddly Christmas garlic?"!

I think he looks more like a festive shmoo!



I found the pattern on freepatterns.com. It called for aran weight, but I only had DK so used that instead. I added a bit of sparkle to his scarf by including some twilleys goldfingering, but in hindsight I should have made it a little narrower to compensate for the additional yarn...

December!

Well, it's the first of December today, so it's time to start getting into the Christmas spirit. Only I don't really feel like Christmas until after my birthday which is smack bang in the middle of December.

Anyway, to mark the beginning of the festive period, here's a Christmas pud I made: