October

These photo scavenge hunts are proving too much fun to miss. I didn’t think I’d have time this month to join in what with E’s departure for uni and then her short notice visits home. In fact the latest one prompted a massive two day sort out that I’d intended to do over three months! She’s been in charge of sorting her own room out for as long as I can remember but it was a bit chaotic after the uni packing. I decided that she needed a really nice, calm, uncluttered area to come home to now and then. I’m quite good at this sort of thing once I’m in the right frame of mind and armed with a hoover for unexpected spiders, loud music and a large coffee.

1. Making. Hats. It’s an annual thing now, a randomly occurring, most pressing need to make a batch of hats (not necessarily at the right time of the year either). This one seems remarkably similar to one I made last year for E but it uses an entirely different pattern. It’s called the Herringbone Slouch Hat by Jennifer Dougherty. It’s easy as pie if you can do post trebles. I’ve yet to make myself one but the wool is standing by!

2. Empty. Beach. This was taken at Huttoft earlier this year. I’m hopeless at remembering dates but it was fairly windy and cool, most definitely woolly hat weather anyway. In my mind it was the best time to visit a beach because we had the place entirely to ourselves. The dogs loved it.

3. Starts with F. Fingerless gloves. I finished making these recently using the foolproof side to side method and then slip stitching down the side leaving a thumb hole. It’s ideal for using up a random ball of yarn that you’ve lost the ball band for and can’t remember whether it’s dk or Aran, or chunky for that matter. It makes perfect tailor made gloves every time. All I need to do now is be less plain and add embellishments!

4. Paper. Despite various crochet planning apps and even an app for a crochet journal I don’t think I’m likely to ever replace good old paper and pen with anything digital. I have a box of these small pads with various crochet notes inside and one day I’m planning on transferring them to a handwritten journal for future reference. Just my hat notes alone would be a handy section to write up instead of working it all out from scratch every time I start one.

5. Neat. I wouldn’t say I was a neat freak but there are some things that need a little order so I find myself trying to keep my little bureau neat and tidy at least. It contains a hundred million random items and I know exactly where each of them are.

6. Street. I most probably take a photo of this very same street every time I go to York. It’s so Dickens and Harry Potter and just makes you feel like you should be wearing something quite different from jeans.

7. Kettle. Once upon a time I’d use a kettle six times a day at the very least. Now it’s far less because we use a coffee machine. My favourite kettle though, is our Kelly Kettle which runs on little twigs or pine cones set alight in the fire cavity. In order to use this I have to drag M out in the car, find some remote lay-by, take the dogs for as long a walk as he can manage and then suggest a freshly brewed mug of tea before setting off for home. It always tastes better in the open air!

8. Unexpected. Walking back to E’s little car to find a very bad driver trying to reverse out of the next parking bay. It probably would have helped if she’d had a booster seat and been able to see over the steering wheel. She was a very small woman in a very big car. Beware! In future I will be keeping the battery ticking over by driving round the village.

9. Vase. If you’ve been following for a while you’ll know that vase comes under the category ‘girly things that I don’t like’. Well they used to in the days before I discovered that they also come without flowers printed or painted onto them! This green one was a recent acquisition. I’d love to know who or where this potter with the mark Hy is. I’ve got quite a few pieces collected mainly from charity shops over the years. I like this piece for its simplicity and the fact that it only takes one stem of something for it to look artistic!

10. Own choice. Harvey, the dog we’ve had from a pup. The dog I taught to sit, wait, find it, fetch, bring it here, lie down, who now does all of this roughly in that order and never gives up hope that you’ll throw something for him. When winter sets in and I’m sweeping mud up from the floor daily, soaking mud balls out of his pads in the sink, trekking through boggy fields, wrecking my car boot with mud, dog slobber and stagnant pond smell, hoovering prairie dog hair dust balls from the hall way… I always think to myself, he’s worth every bit of that hard work. I can’t imagine life without a Spaniel, or two!

Thank you Hawthorn for hosting the photo hunt. http://livelovecraftme.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/october-scavenger-hunt-link-up-party.html

Gardening

I must confess that M and I have been spurred into action lately with the promise of a special visitor to our little corner of the country. It’s been a long time since my Grandfather was able to travel North, but at his age that’s totally understandable. Just a few more days, I can’t wait until he is safely here.

We’ve lived with so many jobs that really should have been tackled before now and eventually it all becomes quite overwhelming. Neither of us enjoy gardening these days but I used to and I think it’s just the size and challenge of our wild ‘plot’ that puts me off, besides I do quite like it wild. Mature trees are lovely but expensive if you need professional help to keep them under control.  Currently we have a dying one that is absolutely huge and quotes to tackle it are equally huge. Big trees also create shade which has killed off most of the tough grass we laid ten years ago and moss and cow parsley have flourished. There is still enough grass to warrant mowing it but it’s not the carpet-like quality my Dad has achieved with his lawn!

Today M and I tackled the front garden weeds including the riverbank which was knee high in nettles. I do all the bits I can reach from the path and M gets his fishing waders on and uses the strimmer whilst standing in the river. Along with chopping down all the randomly self seeded sycamore saplings (some of them over ten feet high) with a hand saw it always feels like doing battle with the garden rather than anything more dainty.

So we’ve got nettle stings all up our arms and legs but it felt good to tame just a few parts of the garden. The dogs absolutely love helping. Harvey totally gets the concept of contributing to the bonfire. It’s the only time he will actually drop a stick or branch and not expect me to throw it. I suppose this comes from teaching him to help with bonfire building when he was a puppy. Unfortunately Riley tends to steal branches from the bonfire, take them somewhere shady and then chew them up. Not so helpful. We are lucky to live near so much water, the dogs have cooled down in our stream today but they also enjoyed their dip in the lake yesterday. Riley seems to swim up and down purely for the pleasure of it whereas Harvey is all about fetching.

Of course there have also been coffee breaks. We’ve found yet another new coffee place which might just become our new favourite. M is happy with this one because no one seems to like the Times crossword there. He gets a bit ratty if someone beats him to it and yet refuses to buy his own just for the crossword. I’m also happy with this new one because it is a few doors down from a very good charity shop that specialises in just vintage stock. We popped out for coffee and we came home with a lovely £5 cane chair (which E has currently adopted for her bedroom). I also picked up the little wooden box which seems to be a hand carved Victorian pin box with a name plaque which someone has filled in more recently! E is a big Harry Potter fan so it’s currently by her bed and being used for rings.

After the marathon gardening session, a cold shower and some wool winding I was ready to start a new crochet project. The pattern is called Tranquil, it’s by Sarah Hazell and it’s available in Erika Knight’s Ravelry store. It’s intended for EK’s studio linen which I was able to have a squish of last week but the item would have cost over £80 to make which is a bit extravagant for me. I ordered the Drops alpaca to make a cosier version, the sort you’d wear for late summer evenings. With the sale prices it has cost a quarter of the price of the suggested yarn and I’m loving the way this alpaca feels to work with.

I’m not too happy to find that there are going to be a billion ends to weave in, ok maybe not a billion but definitely over one hundred ends. I might even have given it a miss if I’d known that before purchasing the pattern but I will do a few ends every evening and hopefully it won’t seem as bad. Despite being hairy in a mohair kind of way this alpaca does not catch on itself so I’m a little worried the ends will escape. Mind you, I worry about ends escaping on everything I make so that’s probably just me.

Tomorrow our plans involve taking some stray garden equipment to the tip; we are still finding random flymos and leaf shredders left by the last owner. More nettle jungles to be conquered underneath the plum tree. We will be investigating whether or not you can buy new parasol covers since our frame is fine but the fabric is what we’ve called the ‘Oliver Twist’ look, i.e. it’s in rags! I will also be liberally re-applying the garden furniture paint to the bench that J jetwashed off a few weeks ago!

(E was very happy with her Yellow/grey version of the slouch bag. I could have steam pressed it nice and flat but I like the way it’s naturally textured. I’ve asked E to put it through its paces and decide whether or not it’ll need lining. Fingers crossed it won’t!)

Swatching

I’m swatching! Woohoo! I usually just jump straight in and hope for the best. This yarn and this project deserve a few trial runs. So, top strip is htr’s with a 4mm hook. Nope, I don’t like it. The row ridges are too prominent. It makes a nice fabric though, nice and squishy for a scarf (that’s technical jargon btw).

Middle sample is dc’s with a 4mm hook. Love the look but it’s a little stiff, it would probably be fine for a scarf but I’m aiming for maximum snuggle factor here so third sample is dc with a 5mm hook. A few more rows to do before I decide but my gut feeling is that it will end up being dc’s in a 4.5mm hook. Yep, I’m that fussy.

The samples in dc really curl up but I’m hoping that with long tassels on each end of the scarf it won’t be too much of a problem. The htr sample lies perfectly flat, very puzzling.

I’ve started to browse for Christmas presents. The danger of course is spotting nice things for myself or the home. I don’t do that very often so I didn’t feel too guilty when I treated myself to this gorgeous new hand painted cake/biscuit tin. Neither did I feel too guilty when I mentioned to M that it now needed a homemade cake to go in it. He loves to bake!

The scarf project has not gone unnoticed by a certain member of the family. She casually walked past the yarn, raised an eyebrow, walked back again and said, ‘I’m really looking forward to my Hufflepuff scarf!’ Ahem, whose?

Hufflepuff

Eagerly awaiting yarn for a new scarf! Where has that owl got to?

Talking of fantastic beasts… there’s a huge hawk on our back lawn as I write, ripping the guts out of one of our neighbour’s white doves! I got the binoculars for a closer look, it was truly gross, but mesmerising. If truth be told we are not fans of the doves, they s**t on everything. One down. Plenty more lunches where that one came from.

Just need to decide whether to challenge my wrists to yards of stocking stitch or do my own take on Newt’s scarf and create a pain free crochet one. It’s a no brainer. Crochet it is. Sorry Newt.