Five on Friday

I thought today I'd join in with the lovely Amy at Love Made My Home, 5 on Friday and share 5 pictures that are making me happy today :)

First up is the lovely tulips Mr Soaring Sheep bought me before he left for work. He's coming home tonight and they've opened up in the sunshine to greet him



My Frozen Sweater is at a nice straight forward stage where I'm just kntiting to the right length. Not quite tv knitting but not too taxing either



My stripy socks were just perfect for tv knitting last night while I watched the Great British Sewing Bee. I'm itching to have a play with the sewing machine my Mum gave me. 



My scrappy, interlocking ripple blanket has grown a little more. Still a bit of a way to go before it's finished but it's getting closer



And lastly my Squishy Girl who is at home this morning because she had to visit the nurse for a bandage change* and is a little ray of sunshine (when she wants to be!!). For new readers her fingers got trapped in a door a few weeks ago and she had to have emergency surgery. Her ring finger was fractured but is pretty much healed now. Her middle finger has an infection but is improving. She also lost both nails which is why she needs to keep them covered



Thanks for visiting :) I'm also linking up with Creative Friday and Fiber Arts Friday





*For new readers her fingers got trapped in a door a few weeks ago and she had to have emergency surgery. Her ring finger was fractured but is pretty much healed now. Her middle finger has an infection but is improving. She also lost both nails which is why she needs to keep them covered. She's been absolutely amazing :)

FO - Spun Sugar Cardigan

This is the last in a series of woollies I've made for my eldest girl. For those interested I've also made her Neverland Wendy, Bulle and Annabel. I decided as she's ok for woollies for this Winter I'd make the Spun Sugar cardigan a size bigger and with extra length on the sleeves so she can wear it for a couple of Winters :-)





You can see it's a little big for her but I don't think it fits too badly. 





The construction of this cardigan was slightly unusual. You kind of knit a shrug and then cast off the neck stitches so you just continue down the body of the cardigan. Took me a bit of thinking to get my head round it but having knitted lots of the designer's patterns before I knew that she'd give lots of details and as long as you followed the instructions it would all work out in the end.



I love this little cable detail :-)



Gotta love having pockets on a cosy cardigan :-)



The main feature of this cardigan though is these gorgeous interlocking rings. I wasn't entirely sure if I started them off correctly but I think they look ok





Pattern: Spun Sugar by Elena Nodel
Size: 8-9 years for my teeny 9 year old. Extra length added to sleeves and body.
Yarn: Hayfield Bonus Aran in Kingfisher colourway
Model: Knitter's own ;-)


Thanks for visiting :) I'm linking this post up with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along

Sunny-day Monday

The children went back to school today, the sun is shining and Mr Soaring Sheep is going to collect our new car later today :-D Although just been on the phone for an hour sorting out an extension to our overdraft as our monthly credit card bill came out a few days early and we're still waiting for the insurance pay out for our old car. What a pain in the bum.

However, the money is now sorted out and on it's way to the seller so by the end of today we should hopefully have our nice new (ish) car. Huzzah :)

I treated myself to some new yarn during the half term holidays. I was still quite fragile from the hospital visits with my littlest girl and then with Mr Soaring Sheep's car being written off and then him working away all week I thought I'd indulge.

I need some new circular needle cables and as the postage was about the same as the cost of the cables I added this gorgeous pink yarn to my basket



It's another ball of Hayfield Bonus Aran which I used for the Spun Sugar cardigan I've just finished making (photos of that to come later in the week hopefully). This colourway is appropriately named "Tulips" which is rather Spring-like. It will become some sort of garment for one of my girls at some point. No idea what yet though.



The other yarn I treated myself to was some reduced Debbie Bliss Rialto DK in the Mustard colourway. I've had a hankering to knit something in this colour for a while. I expect it will be a cardigan for my littlest girl but it depends. It's not really a colour that suits me or my children's colourings but I think my blonde girly could probably carry it off.


As I mentioned I've finished my Spun Sugar cardigan which meant it was time to cast on a new project. This time it's a sweater for my eldest boy using the Frozen pattern and some Wendy merino DK which is gorgeously soft



As usual I have multiple safety pins marking where I am. I've got two marking the starting row of the two cable charts I need to work and another one marking the start of the 36 rows I need to work in pattern. It looks messy and awkward but it works for my brain lol



The rounds are getting slower and slower at the moment because I'm doing the increases for the sleeves. Hopefully in the next couple of days I'll be able to separate the sleeves off and speed up a bit.

Have a good week everyone :-)

Signs of Spring

I love this time of year. The days are getting ever so slightly warmer and brighter. The plants are starting to grow again and you know that Spring is just around the corner :-)



Following a tip I'd seen on a gardening program I planted some pots up with several different types of bulbs. The theory is that you then get a succession of colour and as each flower dies back there is a new one to replace it. I've completely forgotten what else I planted in these pots so it's going to be a nice surprise watching them come up. So far there is just these sweet little crocuses



Please excuse the light, we have a north facing garden so this time of year it's quite shaded.



Some lovely big shoots coming up here, possibly some sort of daffodil?



We get lots of sunshine round the front so the flowers in my hanging basket positively glow :)



These plants were bought as teeny little seedlings with just a couple of leaves each. They've finally started growing big enough for some flowers to start forming. In the Summer I'll take them out of this pot and plant them around the garden for next Winter





Hehe there's some bulbs in these pots too. I love Spring bulbs :-)



So it's not an entirely plant related post, here's a picture of my stripey sock WIP. These colours are pretty Spring- like too aren't they.

I'll have a new FO to share with you soon. Just need to block it and get some nice photos. I'm planning on casting on a new project today but I'll share more details of that in a later post. Thanks for hopping by.

Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along

What a week!

Hi! How've you all been? Sorry I disappeared like that, we've had a rather busy week! The Sunday before last my poor little girl had her fingers shut in a door. After a quick look I realised that it was a rather traumatic injury so we ended up rushing her to A and E. After an examination and X ray it was discovered that not only had two of her nails been ripped off, she'd also got a fractured bone at the tip of her ring finger. My poor baby had to have emergency surgery the next day (a week ago on Monday) to be sutured up :(

She's been an utter star and so brave. We are so proud of her.

Then, as if dealing with sleep deprivation and a miserable pre-schooler wasn't enough, the Universe decided we needed another challenge. On his way home from work on Friday my DH's car was hit. He's fine and so were the people in the other car but our old people carrier may not recover from it. We're waiting to hear back from the insurance company to see whether they will fix the broken radiator or just write it off.

And THEN, on the same day, my baby girl bumped her fingers and they started bleeding so she and I had to take a taxi to the A and E an hour away where she'd been treated so they could take off her bandages and check nothing serious had happened. Thankfully she was ok and my Dad was able to give us a lift home. It was a very long day.

We spent Saturday trying to stay awake and then on Sunday Mr Soaring Sheep went shopping for replacement car seats which was far more of a challenge than you'd have thought. Yesterday we went back to the hospital for another bandage change and then this morning Mr Soaring Sheep left for work and won't be home until Friday night.

It's half term, I'm shattered and I've got 4 childen to look after on my own. I might be a little crazy by the end of the week lol.


At least my baby girl is happy and healing. That smile of hers could brighten anyone's day :-)



Thanks for sticking with me. I'll be back later with some photos of what I've been up to outside of hospital visits and sleeping!

FO - Annabel Cardigan

Hello everyone :) Today I'd like to share my latest FO with you which is the Annabel Cardigan by Georgie Hallam



I'd been eyeing up this pattern for a while and as my big girl had out grown all her other handknits I've been knitting a new selection for her. Like the Bulle sweater I made for her in January, this design also has some cosy pockets although they are constructed slightly differently





The buttons were from my stash, I think I possibly got them from John Lewis at some point. I thought the slightly floral design complimented the daisy stitch used in the details of this cardigan



The daisy stitch itself is fairly straight forward to knit with clear step by step photos in the instructions. The trickiest bit I found was wrapping the yarn in the middle of the stitches to make the centre of the flower. It involves maneuvering lots of loose stitches backwards and forwards between the needle with out dropping them!





I added a little extra length to the sleeves in the hope that she won't grow out of it too quickly. Plus it makes it nice and snuggly now :-)



The yarn I used was Cascade 220 Superwash in the Emerald City colourway which is such a gorgeous green. Really impressed with this yarn so providing it washes and wears well I'm sure I'll be using it again.

I'm going to go back to the cable rings on my Spun Sugar WIP now. I'm almost ready to close them up and then it's just the ribbing at the bottom and the sleeves. Hmm actually that sounds more than I was hoping, best get knitting lol.

Hop over to Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along for more crafty projects :-)

Monday Happys

Goodness, how is it February already? Feels like we've only just eaten up all the Christmas food! Actually I think we do have some nuts to still work our way through... Mr Soaring Sheep is doing his best lol






My tulips and hyacinths are just going past their best now. They've looked so lovely though and brought a smile to my face. Can't beat fresh flowers in the Winter time for making you feel happy :)





My cosy sofa makes me feel happy too. Lots of bright colours and blankets for the children to snuggle in. It might be a bit gloomy outside but it's certainly not in my lounge!



Mr Soaring Sheep was a sweetie and put up my new bird feeder at the weekend. We found the little tray attachment for sale in a different shop and it's great for feeding the birds mealworms. Although the greedy starlings have emptied it it so quickly, I think I'll need to buy a bigger bag next time!



I'm ready to start doing the circle cables on my daughter's cardigan now. I ended up making a silly mistake and knitting an extra 2 inches because I was too lazy to check how much length I'd done with a tape measure. Frogging it back was a bit of a pain but I'm caught up now. As you can see the pockets have been separated for doing later, exciting :)

Have a good week everyone. I've got some FO photos to share with you later of my Annabel cardigan so pop back for a look. My daughter was her usual shy retiring self when we had our little photoshoot lol