Ginx Woolly Linx Party February

Welcome to the February Party. For some this is a difficult time of year. The weather is a bit cold, and Spring still seems far away. But for those of us who like to work with wool, this can be a good time. Not too many distractions, and nice to snuggle up by the fire in the evening, and work away on a project. Thank you to everyone who linked up last month. It is always lovely to see what you have been working on.

If you need some inspiration from the January party.

Selbst-die-Frau has made this lovely crochet cardigan. It is so elegant, know if I had this it would be something I would wear all the time.

Ulrike's Smaarting has made some Fred and George (Weasley) socks. I have not seen this pattern before, but love the reversal of the colours on each sock.

And I may have a bit of a theme as Flickensalat has also made some cheerful socks inspired by Harry Potter.

And finally Handmade by Amalia has embroidered this lovely little house in the woods. Please remember you don't just have to link knitting and crochet, and I would love to see other crafts, or anything you have made from yarn or wool.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Remember if you were picked as a feature you can put the "I was featured" button on your blog. 

"Sloths are Trending"

I mentioned that I was working on a new pattern for a slightly more unusual Christmas decoration. As is usual I didn't get it made in time. There were prototypes which weren't quite right (I will show these below), and reknitting to check the instructions made sense. 

Now the pattern is complete, but the question was do I publish now, or wait until next Christmas. But "sloths are trending" said my daughter. And she is right, I see them everywhere - sloths on cards, chocolate sloths, a sloth on a hot water bottle cover .... Have you noticed how there are definite trends in animals? Llamas and alpacas are also everywhere, the unicorn trend has been going for a while. Do you remember when flamingoes were all over the place? Actually it is not just animals - cacti were big last year, and before that there was a time when there seemed to be a lot of moustaches about.

I wonder how this happens. Is it marketing companies, or perhaps since we are all online so much it is powered by the people? I would like to think that "sloths are trending" because I heard David Attenborough say in an interview that the animal he would most like to be is a sloth. I wonder what the next fashionable animals or motif might be?

So because "sloths are trending" I am releasing the pattern now, and may do something to promote it again before next Christmas. He doesn't have to be a seasonal decoration, and I can imagine them pinned on a pencil cases or rucksacks, or keyrings.

As with most of my patterns you could make it from oddments, and it will not take you long. There are a few fiddly bits, with casting on and off, shortrows, a chart for the face, and I grafted the top of the head, but it is fine if you want to just cast off and sew a seam. But on the positive side there are just 3 pieces to knit (the body and arms, the head, and the stomach). So if you are not used to some of the techniques I have mentioned, don't let that put you off. A small project like this is quite a good way to learn something you have not done before. The pattern is available in ravelry, LoveKnitting and Etsy.

My sample sloths are going to my Etsy shop, and if you would like one in a different colour just message me. With the first two I was going for realistic, but then could not resist making one in pink. 

I would love to hear you predictions of the next animal or object to be trending ... Perhaps I can try to get ahead of the game next time.

And finally just to show you the evolution of the sloth. Husband calls the first two attempts "evolutionary deadends".

Just a reminder that there is still a little bit of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for January. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

2CV Cushion

My last new pattern was for a 2CV cushion. I got the idea for this project from Jo, who saw my Henrietta 2CV pattern, and sent me a message on Etsy to see if I had a pattern for a cushion. I didn't, but I thought it was such a good idea, I set to work make one. And when it was done I sent her a copy. She has sent me some photos of the cushion that she made, and I have been holding them back so as not to spoil the Christmas surprise for someone.

She had done a fantastic job, and very quickly. I really like her method for the back of the cushion. Much more practical than mine, which may have to be unpicked at some point, when it needs washing.

I have really had very little interest in the pattern, but actually suspect it may be one of those slowburners. But my own 2CV cushion has sold, and is now in  France! Very happy about that, and am thinking of making another one.  

Also I have just thought that I would mention that I have rethought my pricing of knitting items on Etsy. I have removed all the postage fees, and adjusted the pricing. It was almost impossible to keep the postage accurate, as it seems to go up so often, and the rules about weight and size of packages seem quite hard to follow. I also find it a bit annoying to put something in your basket and then find that the postage puts it beyond what you are happy to pay. So I will see what happens ....

Just a reminder that there is still a little bit of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for January. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

Birds in the Garden ... and tales of other creatures

Nuthatch with a sunflower seed in his beak

There seem such a variety of birds here in Cornwall: and with the aid of my bird book I think I now can recognise quite a lot of them. But then every so often a new visitor arrives ...

I think of the blue tits as little masked heroes.

There is a woodpecker that I have not yet managed to photograph, and this morning I could see a pheasant in the far field. My husband spotted a roe deer last week. In the barn there are tawny owls and bats, which I have not even seen, but it is nice to hear the owls at night.  In the evening my husband feeds the owls with some chicks, which he has to defrost. The previous owners were very keen on the birds and left us a supply of food for them. My husband also bought some night vision glasses from Lidl (very reasonable price). I sat for a very long time the other night, waiting for the owls to swoop for their meal, but then left for a few minutes and missed them. 

Apart from the birds there are also, rabbits and badgers, and this morning a very cheeky rat was feasting under the bird feeders. So expect more nature photos as the year progresses. Last week my son saw from the kitchen window a stoat dragging a dead rabbit down the bank. Nature in the raw.

Coal tit

I am really looking forward to seeing what other birds arrive in the Spring. Water also flows down the hill to a pond, so there may be some life on or in the water. And there is lots of buddleia growning, so I am hoping for butterflies.

So I will finish off with my favourites, the long-tailed tits. They always seem to arrive together, and the most I have seen on the feeder at once is eight. I have been looking at some videos on how to take more natural looking photos, which involved hiding the bird food in carefully angled hollow branches. I may have a go at this, but for now I think you need to see at least some of the bird food we are getting through filling up the feeders.

Just a reminder that there is still a little bit of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for January. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

Christmas Cardigan

I have a bit of catching up to do, and can finally show the project that I have been working on for some time. I had some light grey wool left over from my son's cardigan, which I made last year, so decided to knit a very similar cardigan for my husband. So I bought some more darker grey Aran-weight Drops Alaska, and here he is modelling his present. He is standing outside our rather ramshackle, but very beautiful barn.

The pattern I used was call "The Boyfriend Cardigan" by Erica Knight, bought from John Lewis. It is actually a woman's cardigan pattern, but I reversed the bands. I kniited one size bigger than the cardigan made for my son. 

But I now have a bit of the dark grey left over. Should I use that for stripes on another cardigan. This could just go on and on ..... 

Just a reminder that there is still a little bit of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for January. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.

Ginx Woolly Linx Party January

Happy New Year! Thank you to everyone who has joined in the parties over the last year. I hope you all had a good Christmas. My choices for December are all very seasonal in different ways.

I loved these Christmassy socks from Carolyn of Flicken Salat made for her girlfriend. 

Alexandra of Eye Love Knots has made this very super cushion from Buds-a-Blooming crochet square.

Sandra of Hakelfieber has crochet a collection of stars to make this rainbow Christmas tree.

And I am still being seasonal with Cat of Crochet Cloudberry's crochet mince pie. Yum, yum.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 
Remember if you were picked as a feature you can put the "I was featured" button on your blog. 

Changes

I've been hinting throughout the year about changes. As the year is coming to an end, and things have finally worked out, I will explain. Back in the summer we sold our house in town on the outskirts of London, and for the next year or so I will have a life split between the town and country. I had thought about renaming my blog, or even starting a new one. Seems a bit too complicated, but you may notice a few changes.

My husband retired in the summer, and now is living the country life in Cornwall (very near the border with Devon). While my daughter and I are living in a flat, close to where we lived before on the outskirts of London, until at least she finishes her A-levels.

Obviously there will still be a lot of knitting on this blog, and I am going to go on running the monthly Ginx Linx Party. But I hope there will be some new things.

What appealed to us so much about the house is that we also have several fields. The previous owners were very much into conservation, so the land has not had any chemicals put on it for many years. When we viewed the big field in the summer it was just a meadow full of beautiful flowers. So the initial plan is to continue to let nature take its course.  I am reading a Wilding by Isabella Tree, and hope perhaps we can follow the same ethos. 

We both have ideas for slightly different projects. He really wants to extend the existing woodland, and has been nurturing lots of tree saplings with this is mind. I still have my alpaca dream, although that will have to wait until we are both here full-time. I did think that perhaps we could have some beehives at the top of the field. We will just have to see.

But to start with I want to get cracking on the vegetable plot, which you can see below is a bit overgrown. I won't be starting from scratch, but really have very little experience of gardening, so may be asking for some advice. Expect I will make some mistakes, but I am going to try to write here about my vegetable gardening each month, also as a way of keeping a record of our first year here. 

I have spent a lot of Christmas looking out the kitchen window at the birds. So here is a little taster below, and expect more photographs of wildlife.

Just a reminder that there is still a little bit of time left to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for December. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month.