Success!

Just a quick post from me today. It's been a super busy week and I'm feeling in need of a break lol. I've been training since January to run my first 5km race and it was last Saturday. Mr Soaring Sheep ran it with me and whilst we didn't run the entire way round we didn't finish last either lol



I haven't run since but I do intend to get back in to it next week. I'd like to be able to run all the way round so that's my next goal.

As well as running some of you may remember that I've been having driving lessons. Well as I apparently felt that running 3 miles wasn't quite enough of a challenge I decided to book my test for 3 days afterwards. So this week and last week I was having lessons every day, fitting in running when I could, walking the dog, looking after the children and ignoring the growing mess around the house.

And guess what, I passed! :-D



I was so nervous on the day and then when he told me I'd passed I was so happy and excited. I passed around midday and I was bouncy and grinning for the next 3-4 hours. Then I just felt utterly exhausted lol.



So today is going to be a rest day. I've taken the dog for a walk and I'm going to park myself on the sofa with some knitting and watch some podcasts. And hopefully I'll be back again soon with some fo's, new yarn and WIP photos :-)

Linking up with Yarn Along and Keep Calm Craft On

Wednesday's WIPs

Eek things feel busy at the moment. My 5k run thing is this Saturday and lately I've just not been putting in the training. I'll get round it even if I have to take a couple of 1 minute walking breaks but it's starting to make me feel a bit nervous now. I've also got my driving test coming up soon so I'm having lots of extra lessons. I feel like I'm going to forget everything on the day and go to pieces so I'm hoping my nerves aren't too much of a problem.



As you can see I've got lots of socks on the go at the moment!



This Rye sock is the second one and I've got past the heel now so it's nice and straight forward. I've been working on these a lot in the evening when I want something to keep my hands busy



My Smarties socks also have heels now. I used the brown trim yarn to do the heels and will use it on the cuffs too. Probably could have used it on the toes as well but I didn't want to run out! These are fun to knit but a little too taxing for my brain right now with having two at a time to manage. I'm looking forward to working on these more when things calm down a bit



Lastly is Mr Soaring Sheep's Father's Day socks. I'm getting close to needing to do the heel on these but I need to either measure his feet or find an existing pair of his socks that he likes the fit of.


So that's what I'm up to. Mostly running around like a headless chicken in a panic when really I want to be taking a leaf out of Pippin's book and flopping around like this:




Hopefully soon lol.

Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along

FO - Blueberry Waffle Socks and March Yardages

I finished these socks before we went on our Easter holiday to Northumberland but ran out of time to sew in the ends and give them a wash and block. That's been done now so they're ready for their show off post :-)



I've said before it's a tricky yarn to photograph but I think these colours are as close to lifelike as I'm going to manage. The yarn is from Laughing Yaffle and is a colourway called Electric Sheep. I love how zingy it is.

I followed the pattern as written aside from switching the heel to my favourite fish lips kiss heel which is easy to knit and fits my foot well.




I'm trying to reduce my yarn stash a bit this year, or at least not increase it too much. To keep me on track I'm trying to keep an eye on how much yarn I knit up vs. how much I add. My yardage totals for March are:

Yarn in 464 yards
Yarn out 651 yards

So I have a net loss of 187 yards for last month. Unfortunately that's not helping very much with January's massive gain so my stash is still bigger for this year by 1795 yards. Must try harder lol.

Linking up with Nicole's Keep Calm Craft On

Easter Holidays

We went away for a holiday last week. It's my birthday in a couple of weeks so I asked Mr Soaring Sheep to choose somewhere for us to stay. Up until we started driving I had no idea where we were going. It turned out that he chose a beautiful cottage in Northumberland :-)

I'd like to share a few photos of the places we visited, I'll try to keep it brief though. There'll be some knitting related content in the next post!



We broke our journey up by visiting Fountains Abbey which was closed down in 1539 by the infamous Henry VIII. It's still a very haunting place to visit, even if it is a ruin now







On our first day we went in search of a waterfall. Mr Soaring Sheep tried to persuade Pippin to go for a paddle but he wasn't at all keen!



The children on the other hand had to be persuaded not to go deeper than their wellyboots!





The waterfall was suitably impressive when we got there. And naturally I had to play around a little bit with my camera ;-)



I didn't take any photos over the next couple of days because it rained pretty much constantly. It didn't stop us getting out and about though, we visited a ruined castle (Dunstanburgh) and Kielder water. When things brightened up we decided we'd take a longer walk to see another waterfall. Presumably we felt we needed more water in our lives!



Mr Soaring Sheep decided to park in a carpark about a mile from the start of the walk. He reckoned we could manage the extra distance as the waterfall walk was around 4 miles there and back so we'd only be walking 3 miles then stopping for lunch. Lies! We ended up walking over 7.5 miles and Mr Soaring Sheep was banned from choosing walks for the rest of the holiday!



It started off quite promising, nice and flat, beautiful views... But then the hills started. And the children were whinging. And it couldn't be much further, it was only a couple of miles right? Eventually we arrived and collapsed on the ground for a picnic next to the waterfall





It was rather impressive to be fair and I was super proud of the children for walking so far




They even had energy for a paddle when we were walking back






On our last day my youngest boy was allowed to choose what we did because it was his 7th birthday. He asked to go to the beach so we found a lovely dog friendly one with lots of sand and went for a walk













They all got soaking wet, Pippin was covered in sand and chewing pieces of seaweed but I think it was their most favourite day of the holiday :-)


It's a bit bitter sweet looking back through these photos for me. It seems like such a long time ago even if it was only last week. The children went back to school today so the house feels quiet and empty. We had a wonderful time though and made lots of happy memories :-) Thank you for indulging me with sharing these memories

Wednesday's WIP's

I've been focussing on some simple sock WIP's this week. It's the Easter holidays so we've been busy going out and about trying to tire out the children and the puppy! They seem to be fine though and it's me that's ending up tired, whoops!



I'm enjoying these rainbow socks, especially now I've managed to get all the colours knitted up. The eyelet rows make it a little more interesting to knit but is still very simple.

The other socks I've been knitting are the ones using the yarn Pippin helpfully de-skeined for me. It's such a tricky colourway to photograph, but as it's rather rainy and blustery outside this is the best I can do right now.



I'm using the Rye pattern again with the garter stitch panel over the middle 20 stitches. Such a simple pattern but I really like how it knits up with multicoloured yarns.

Right, I'd better get on with entertaining the small people, have a good week everyone :)

Linking up with Keep Calm Craft On and Yarn Along