Wednesday 29 April 2015

Wednesday's WIP's

I'm flitting between my WIP's at the moment, a few rows on each rather than concentrating on getting one finished. I did finish some stripy socks which I shared yesterday if you fancy a look :)

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The blue socks are for Mr Soaring Sheep, I've done the heel now. The yellow cardigan is using the Tully pattern by Georgie Hallam and I'm onto the increases to make the pretty sleeve shape. The rainbow socks are my first time knitting two at a time. I posted about them on Monday.

I've been starting to think about what I want to knit next. I rather fancy making a sweater for Mr Soaring Sheep but I'll have to semi-design it myself as he's a bit fussy. I probably need to do some swatching. I've spotted a couple of sock patterns I fancy having a go at too but I'd like to finish one of my current sock WIP's first.

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I found this sweet little vase on sale for around £1. I love how simple it is and it's just perfect for showing off flowers from the garden. This one is a ranunculus, I only really discovered them this year and then found a pot with three plants in at a reduced area in the garden centre. They were a little wilted but after some water they perked right up. I split them up and planted them around the garden :)

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So beautiful :)

Linking up with Ginny

Tuesday 28 April 2015

FO - Fish Lips Kiss Heel socks

I've been wanting to try the Fish Lips Kiss heel for a while and I've finally got round to it with this pair of socks

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As you can see it's a short row heel and very straight forward to work. No wraps to deal with, it's easy to see which stitch you're turning on and I've pretty much got it memorised now

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It gives a lovely neat finish and fits wonderfully too. I really recommend giving it a try :)

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The yarn I used was from Laughing Yaffle in a colourway called Splendour. I ended up with the stripes almost matching too :-)

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I tried using the Twisted German Cast On for these socks but didn't really find it any stretchier than my usual two tail cast on. One of the reasons I prefer toe up socks. Does anyone have any others they'd recommend? I tried doing a slip knot cast on one but couldn't get the hang of it.




Over the weekend we decorated the last downstairs room in our house. It was originally a dark pinky purple colour which was nice but we wanted to make it a little more us...

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Subtle and tasteful ;-)

Took us three coats to cover up the previous colour and I'll be honest, up until the third coat I wasn't sure if I liked it. I knew I liked the paint colour but the pink was coming through so it looked darker and dirty. Now I love it though. Just need to find some blinds to go with it.

Next painting jobs are the three bedrooms. We've bought the paint for the boys' room and the master bedroom but still deciding on the right shade for the girls' room. Probably going to need to get a couple of tester pots mixed up. Having lots of fun in the process though! Yay for being able to make the house our own :)


Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On



Monday 27 April 2015

Find a Happy

Last week I was feeling a bit sad as Mr Soaring Sheep had to work away for an extra day. We've slipped into the routine of him working away Monday-Thursday and then we have Friday's together.

I remembered a shop I'd found on etsy called Mothy and the Squid and impulse bought some sock yarn

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And of course you've got to cast on a gradient rainbow straight away.

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Obviously it's not a patch on having Mr Soaring Sheep around, but it made me smile :)

Does anyone else have some happy yarn they've bought recently? I'd love to see.

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Yarn Along

If you follow me on instagram you may have seen that yesterday was my birthday. Mr Soaring Sheep was very good and got me some lovely yarny gifts :-)

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The 3 sock yarns are all from Laughing Yaffle, I love her use of colour and who can resist the idea of sparkly rainbow socks? Certainly not me lol.

From a crafting point of view I've not really got much done so far this week. Mr Soaring Sheep has been off work so we've been enjoying the sunshine, going for walks and getting on with some DIY. I showed some photos of my newly decorated lounge on Monday and now we've bought paint to do our bedroom too. Oh and we've found the right shade of paint for the kitchen so we'll get on with one or both rooms over the weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to show you photos next week :-)

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I'm going to get on with some knitting now. I've got this sweet little cuff to finish on my tully cardigan and then I've got to pick up stitches and do some short rows to shape the top of the other sleeve. I'd better be quick while my littlest girl has a short nap after a busy morning at pre-school.

Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along

Monday 20 April 2015

Busy Weekend

Morning everyone, hope you had a good weekend :) We finished decorating the lounge and have also picked out what colours we want to use in the kitchen and our bedroom. It's rather addictive this decorating thing lol. I'm thrilled with how the lounge colour has turned out, it's worked wonderfully :)

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I know it's not a colour everyone will like but it's very us. Plus it's only painted so if when we sell the house the new people don't like it they can quickly and easily paint it something they prefer. It feels really good to have a colour that is so different to the beige coloured rental properties we've been living in for years.


I have also been able to get a bit of knitting done. I've been neglecting my Tully cardigan a bit because of being in a sock mood but I have got a bit of knitting done. I chose to do the puffy sleeve option rather than straight sleeves so at the moment I'm doing lots of increases

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I've also turned the heel on my second sock. The fish lips kiss heel is so easy to work, I'm going to use it for Mr Soaring Sheep's socks too :)

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Today I'm going to enjoy having Mr Soaring Sheep at home and hopefully go for a walk, potter around the garden and make the most of the sunshine. Have a good week everyone :)

Thursday 16 April 2015

Springing

I was going to show you some photos I took the other day of my colourful tulips in the pots at the front of my house but I've just been hanging out some washing and spotted lots of interesting things in the back garden I wanted to show you. I hope you forgive my plant related posts, I'm just so happy to have my own garden and to watch things coming to life :-)

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I was ever so excited to spot that my Bleeding Heart has started to grow flowers. Hopefully it's quite happy where I've planted it and it will keep coming back year after year. If not, well at least I can make the most of it this year :-)

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My bergenia is also starting to flower. A bit later than some of the other gardens round here but it will give some colour as the daffodils go over and the tulips are still developing

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The flowering quince is still covered in buds and flowers, what a wonderful plant. The bees love it too, I stood there for a while watching them and listening to their humming and a distant wood pigeon

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Three houses ago we lived up in Yorkshire and Mr Soaring Sheep bought me a flowering cherry tree (prunus amanogawa) for my birthday one year. The plan was we'd keep it in a pot and then plant it in our first house's garden. Well it's been a long time but we were so glad to finally be able to put it in the ground. I think it's happy there too as it's rewarding us with lots of blossom and bright green leaves

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Mr Soaring Sheep comes home this evening after being away for 4 days. I don't really like this new routine of him being away so long but it is nice to have him around all day on Fridays. He's got Monday and Tuesday off as holiday next week so we're going to hopefully have a couple of days out as well as getting the lounge decorated. We've chosen quite a strong, dark colour. I think the room can take it but it's a little scary making such a statement. I'll show you when it's finished. Unless it's hideous and I need to get some white paint on the walls quickly lol.

I've got some knitting done on Mr Soaring Sheep's socks, I'll have to put them away soon as they're a surprise. The colours are slightly more vibrant than this picture shows

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I much prefer toe up knitting, it suits my brain better I think ;-)

Wednesday 15 April 2015

Wednesday WIP

Thank you for the birthday wishes to my little boy. He did quite well in the end and had 3 birthday-days due to my husband being away and fitting in everything. We did his birthday cake on Sunday and very nice it was too

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Ok so it's not going to win any awards for presentation but it was just what he asked for, and you can't really go wrong with chocolate ganache can you lol.

We've had some glorious sunshine lately so we've been enjoying going to the park or sitting out in the garden. I've finished my sock and I'm now on to the second one

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The fish lips kiss heel is amazing and I'm finding myself wanting to knit more and more socks so I decided to select a few skeins to wind up

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Should keep me going for a little while yes? This blue is for Mr Soaring Sheep, I'm going to give them to him on Father's day

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3 happy yarn cakes on a shelf waiting to be used. And the blue I'm going to cast on as I've bought myself a second pair of sock needles. Means I can work on them in secret when Mr Soaring Sheep is away but I can still have some socks to knit on at the weekends. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;-)

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Happy crafting everyone, hop over to Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along for more crafting posts. I'm going to cast on the blue socks and watch the next Truly Myrtle podcast

Sunday 12 April 2015

Weekending

We've had such a lovely weekend. We did a spot of shopping on Saturday, acquiring paint for decorating the lounge next weekend and new shoes for the children to wear this Summer. We had our first evening meal outside enjoying the garden :-)

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 Today we had a roast for lunch and then headed off to our allotment to plant some onion sets. Some of the garlic cloves we planted recently have already started to grow. I'm looking forward to when the brown earth is covered in lush green plants

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When we got home it was time to make a birthday cake for my smallest boy who turned 6 on Wednesday. I made a chocolate ganache to ice it and then we decorated it with dolly mixture sweeties. I think I got a picture of it on my proper camera so I'll load it up later to show you if it's turned out ok.

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 This evening Mr Soaring Sheep and I are looking forward to snuggling on the sofa with a cold drink and watching Poldark. I might have a bit of a crush on the main actor Aidan Turner ;-)

I've edged my Tully cardigan and done the short row cap for the top of the sleeve. I actually had to do it twice because I picked up 2 too few stitches which meant my count was off and I didn't realise until I was a good way in. It's nice and simple to knit again now so good for watching tv at the same time.

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Or I might get this sock finished instead.

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Toodles :)

Friday 10 April 2015

5 on Friday

I'm joining in with Amy's 5 on Friday post today. I wanted to show you the 5 new plants I bought to go in my garden. I posted about my garden last week if you want to see what it's looking like now :-)

First up is a delphinium. I love the colour of these and as my garden isn't really big enough for lots shrubs to give it height I thought this would look good.

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I've also got foxgloves, lupins and lillies scattered around as well so I'm hoping for lots of colour this Summer. My eldest daughter chose this particular coloured delphinium.

Next up is this teeny little Bleeding Heart. I have tried growing these once before when we lived up in Yorkshire. I can't remember if it flowered or not but it certainly didn't survive it's first Winter. I'm hoping I'll have more success this time

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Numbers 3 and 4 are both Ranunculus's. My youngest son and I had a disagreement about which colour looked best. I thought this orange one was beautiful

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My son preferred the white one

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Given my Mum has said in the past that it's good to have white flowers in the garden to help make the other colours pop out more and Mr Soaring Sheep was feeling generous we decided to get both. They've got lots of buds growing up from the base so hopefully we'll get lots of flowers from these over the next few weeks

Last but not least is a Bergenia. My garden spends a lot of the day in shade, especially near the patio where I've planted this. Hopefully it will spread and add colour and texture to that part of the garden

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So that's my 5 on Friday, hop over to Amy's post to see what other people are writing about :-) Have a good weekend everyone :-)

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Wednesday's WIP's

I'm still on the same two WIP's as last week. They have grown a bit but with the Tully cardigan especially it's hard to see a difference

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As you can see I've turned the heel on my sock. I used the Fish Lips Kiss heel for the first time and WOW I love it! Very simple to work and so neat looking. Plus it fits well too which is always useful lol

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I think I'm a convert! If any of you are thinking of trying it then I'd highly recommend it. It's a kind of short row heel but slightly different technique to what I've done before.

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along. I've had a busy day catching the bus into town with the children for a certain young man's birthday. Mr Soaring Sheep is working away so we're going to celebrate his birthday properly on Friday. Today we went on the bus, had fast food for lunch, visited the book shop and the sweet shop and had a walk by the river. Lovely :-)

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I'm going to enjoy having a cold drink and a chance to put my feet up for a bit :)

Tuesday 7 April 2015

Keep Calm Craft On

Hi, hope everyone had a good Easter, whether you celebrate it or just enjoy some time off :-)

We've been rather busy over the long weekend. We've finally started decorating our house. Naturally we decided to start with a small, straight forward project. Like the hallway and landing... Hehehe well it needed doing and it's turned out nicely :-)

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My Mum made the mirror. She has an instagram account if you want to see what else she gets up to :-)

We were rather bitten by the decorating bug and also decided to paint the downstairs loo

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It took us so many tries to find the right shade for this room. Really happy with how this came out.

Mr Soaring Sheep has now gone away for the next 3 days so I'm going to try to have some chill out time. Maybe a little knitting and relaxing?

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Perhaps not ;-)

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It's the second week of the Easter holidays and the weather forecast is good so hopefully we'll have some nice days visiting the park, playing in the garden and going for walks.

Have a good week everyone! Hop over to Keep Calm Craft On for posts with a bit more crafty content!


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