The Wool Palace

Mwah

Thanks guys.  I was feeling pretty low about things yesterday and your comments really cheered me up.  I did follow the wine and chocolate route, although in hindsight I think I would have done better on a wine and cheese pick-me-up.  The idea of chocolate always seems good, but in reality I'm just left with a sugar rush and a slight sick feeling.  The wine was good though.

So I'm booked in again, but this time I've got a bit of a longer wait, which I think is a good thing.  I feel as if all I've thought about for the last month is driving, so I plan to carry on practising for the next few weeks and not think about the test.  And that is my last word on driving for a while.

I lost my knitting mojo for a while there as well but thankfully it's on its way back.  I put in a spurt and got a couple of things finished.

Clapotis-lite is done.

From 3 skeins of Lorna's Laces I had 25g left, so that's about 2½ skeins by my reckoning.  I used 3.25mm needles and followed the pattern as written, but obviously got a skinnier scarf.  It's about 9 inches wide and just over 6 foot long.  The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Ember colourway, bought from Get Knitted on their opening day.  I tried to take a picture of myself wearing it but the light wasn't very good; I'll try again when we get out sunshine back.

Continuing with Lorna's Laces, Sam's socks are done too.

I'm reasonably happy with these; however, as Jeanne said, when you could do with some pooling you don't get any.  The colours are Camouflage enough, but I'm pretty sure they don't issue striped camouflage trousers in the army.  Also, one sock has significantly more brown in it than the other.  I did the socks top down, 60 stitches in 3x2 rib.  They are a little tighter than usual on Sam, probably because LL is a little thinner than the Regia type yarns I tend to use for him.  But he's happy with them, which is the main thing.

I've signed up for Sockapalooza 4 and am looking forward to finding out who I'll be knitting for.  In the meantime, I started another sock.

I fancied a change from rib or stocking stitch so am having a go at Pomatomus, in some Trekking, from Get Knitted again.  It's also given me a chance to use my new Clover 2.75mm which I'm finding much more to my taste than Brittany's.  The pattern requires a fair amount of attention but I find I can still keep half an eye on the TV so it's my current evening project.

Before I go, just a reminder for non-antipodeans that today is Anzac Day.  We will remember them.

Failed again.  Bah.

What I did on my day off

Today was my turn to run the craft activity at the village youth club.  I wanted to take along some completed examples, so I spent the afternoon turning some of this

into these.

 

It was such a sunny day I was convinced everyone would be off outdoors playing frisbee or football but in the end I had 8 out of the 13 attending sitting down quietly for 45 minutes.  Now the village is overflowing with felted bead bracelets.  Of course, my children were amongst the 5 not interested in taking part.

Roving from Wingham Woolwork at last year's Woolfest.  Felted bead instructions from Knitty.

Have a good weekend.  I'm booked in for driving test mark two on Monday morning, so think good thoughts for me.

So, the holidays are over and it's back to school.  We've had a good break with fantastic weather but I have to admit I did feel quite happy waving Sam and Josie off on the school bus yesterday morning.  The last couple of days, with boredom levels rising, were a bit of a challenge.

However, before that we did lots of fun stuff.

We went for walks

and looked at the obligatory spring lambs.

Talking of lamb, we had quite a few barbeques as well, but I'll spare you pictures of us with our mouths full of food.

We took a trip to Symonds Yat and walked by the river.

We didn't make it to Cornwall but we did spend the day at Woolacombe.

And of course, there was an Easter egg hunt, with predictable results.

Thanks for all your support over the driving test.  I've rebooked, so let's hope it's second time lucky...

Not the best of days today.  I failed my driving test, over a silly mistake.

However, the sun is shining and we ate dinner in the garden.  Easter eggs have been bought and will be hidden on Sunday.  If the weather holds we may even sneak off to Cornwall for a couple of days.

I'm going to take a blog break until the school holidays are over.  See you all in a week.