Busy Being Retired

Ten weeks into my husband's retirement and we have settled into a lovely routine.  We potter around the house and garden, go for long country walks and watch a lot of sport on television.

We've been enjoying plenty of walks along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.  The canal is 127 miles long and this year there have been celebrations to mark 200 years since its completion.

Burscough

Lydiate

It really is a beautiful and peaceful place for a stroll.

And besides all this loveliness, I'm finding lots of time for knitting.

The past six weeks have flown by in terms of my knitting projects.  I've been joining in with a stranded knitting KAL with one of the groups I belong to on Ravelry.  I've put links to the relevant Ravelry project pages for each project.  Since chatting to you last time, and sharing my Fair Isle cardigan, I've completed my first ever pair of Fair Isle socks.

I can't believe I have put off knitting colourwork socks for so long, because I enjoyed knitting these so much.  I'm now busy browsing all the colour work sock patterns on Ravelry and I can't wait to start another pair.

I've also completed this cute Bumblebee Hat.

I was inspired by one of the other knitters from the Ravelry group to make this pattern.  She had had issues with the size of the hat, so I reconfigured it to match my favourite hat recipe, keeping the charts from the original pattern.

It was such a joy to knit and I couldn't put it down once I started.

So a very productive six weeks in terms of stash-busting.  For the four projects I finished for the KAL, I used 532g and 35 different colours in total, all in 4 ply weight.  Very satisfying.

And if that isn't enough, I knitted up a shawl with the Cuddlebums yarn I bought at Yarndale in September this year.

I love the little pops of colour in the pink background.  I used a favourite knitting pattern (it's free on Ravelry) called Age of Brass and Steam.  It's simple but very effective.

Lastly, I've been at the sewing machine again.  This time I made a simple skirt.

I used the skirt sections of my favourite Simplicity 2444 dress pattern and added a waistband.  I'm very happy with the fit and will be making more skirts like this in the future.  I would have liked to have shown you a picture of me wearing the skirt but to be honest, I don't trust my husband's photography skills!

I've recently bought two lots of new dress fabric and one lot of skirt fabric, however, I'm in the middle of decorating one of the bedrooms so crafty projects may have to take a backseat until the decorating is out of the way.  So until next time, I'm off to my pasting table to get suitable sticky.  Enjoy your week.

Living the Dream

A lazy relaxed morning...
An afternoon walk through woodland..
or through picturesque valleys...
Followed by an evening of knitting and reading..
or maybe spent with a pint or two of good beer in an atmospheric old pub -

This is my idea of a perfect day.  Lucky me, I've been able to spend seven such days on holiday with my husband in one of my favourite counties, Shropshire.

We had our annual holiday to Church Stretton.  Usually we go Spring / early Summer time but this year we were able to enjoy the delightful Autumn colours.

This dog does not belong to us!

It was lovely to have a mix of slow paced relaxation with some vigorous mountain climbing.  It's just a pity it was all over so quickly.  Never mind, there's the return next year to look forward to.

I took a variety of knitting projects on holiday with me, but ended up just concentrating on my Fair Isle cardigan.

It's looking lovely and colourful and it's such good fun to knit. Hopefully it will be finished sometime this week.

Before we went away, I managed to complete a pinafore  dress.

It's sewn using my favourite dress pattern, Simplicity 2444 and the fabric is a fine needlework.  I just love the raspberry colour.

Because I'm working monogamously on my Fair Isle cardigan, I haven't managed to finish any other projects.  I did complete a shawl a few weeks ago but as it was a gift for my Mum, I haven't been able to show it to you until now.

My Mum's favourite colour is yellow, and as it is also my favourite colour, it was a delight to knit this.  You can see details of this project over on Ravelry, here.

So now I'm back home, and we may not have scenic mountains and dramatic valleys, but I'm lucky that my days are relaxed and filled with pleasant moments... and plenty of knitting!

Exciting Times

September has proved to be a very eventful month so far.  At the beginning of the month my husband retired.  It was something we've been planning for quite some time, but even so, it's a big change in our lives which we are going to have to get used to.  The plan is for lots of holidays and days out, but I'm sure we'll settle into a slower routine over time.

As a celebration of his retirement, we had a holiday away with our daughters for a week. It's been a while since we've all been away together.  As a reminder of holidays gone by, we booked a holiday cottage in North Wales, in Pwllheli to be exact.

It was a wonderful week, I enjoyed every minute of it.  We had some lovely walks around the coastal paths on the Llyn Peninsula.  The landscape is amazingly beautiful and rugged.

Hell's Mouth

Mynydd Cilan

We had a paddle in the sea at Abersoch.

So cold!

And I was quite emotional at finding the gravestone of one of my ancestors in the church yard in the village of Llanengan.

Llanengan Church

Lovely old pub in the village of Llanengan

It was all over far too quickly, but now that work is a thing of the past, I'm looking forward to lots of time away.

Our holiday cottage

The cottage we stayed in was lovely, but the internet reception was poor so I'm trying, this week, to catch up.

Before I went away, I finished my Fair Isle cardigan.

I love the colours, but I'm a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't check my gauge properly.  The cardigan is a lovely slim fit, but maybe a bit too snug on the sleeves.  Never mind, it's still wearable but would be just that little bit better if there was a little bit of ease around the arms. Details of this project can be found on Ravelry, here.

I also completed the button-through skirt I had been wanting to sew.

I used leftover fabric from a dress I had made last year and buttons recycled from an old dress.

I was so pleased with how easy the button holes were to make.  I'll definitely have to make more of these skirts.

It's less than two weeks to go until Yarndale and I'm so looking forward to it.  My knitting mojo has deserted me lately and I suspect that the stash busting has had an impact on this.  It will be lovely to have an injection of new yarn.  I'm sure that will get the creative juices flowing again.  In the meantime, I'm knitting up a cardigan in some frogged yarn - not very inspiring but I've only got one more sleeve to do.  I'm now busy dreaming of the new yarn that'll be coming home with me shortly.

Have a good week everyone.

Lazy Summer Days

The weather is warm and the days are long and I'm feeling oh so lazy and relaxed.  There's definitely been a lull in activity in blogland, myself included.  I appreciate the efforts of those who have soldiered on and continued with their regular posts.  You have my admiration.  Every day I think to myself, I'll do a post today, but it never seems to get from my head to the blog.  So I'm making an effort today, to catch up with what I've been up to over the past two weeks or so.

Since I last posted, I've a few finished objects, plenty of works-in progress and I've had another weigh-in of the stash.

So let's get started, and here are my finished projects.  Firstly this shawl.

I just adore the colours.  I wear pink and grey more than any other colours, so this shawl is perfect for me.  I love the gradient colour changes.

The shawl is lovely and I used all of the 200g I had bought of this yarn, so it's a very generous size.  It's Ullcentrum 2 ply sport weight yarn and the colourway is Sky Pink.  It was the first yarn I bought at Yarndale last year and I'm surprised it's taken me this long to knit it up.  You can see details of this project on my Ravelry page, here.

Next up is the Block a Month Blanket I started back in January.  I decided to just crochet 16 squares for this one.

Each square is 10 inches square, so it makes a lovely lap blanket.  I added a fairly simple edging and I'm very happy with the result.  Details on Ravelry, here.

Another crochet project, a much quicker one, was these cute little flowers.

They are made from a free pattern by Ali Crafts Designs.  The pattern can be downloaded from Ravelry, here, and it really is a simple but very effective design.

My dressmaking is going well.  Yesterday I completed my pink dress.

I'm not sure that the mannequin is showing the dress off very well, so here's a badly taken picture of me wearing it.

The dress is very simple, it has princess seams, a side zip and a gently flared skirt.  It's New Look 6020 and I've made the pattern several times now - a very wearable dress.

I've treated myself to a new dress pattern, the Vintage Shirt Dress by Sew Over It.

It's the first independently designed pattern I've tried, the instructions look very detailed and helpful, so I'm looking forward to giving it a go.  Before then, I want to make a button through skirt (a bit of practice at buttonholes!).  So I need to make some time to get on with these.

And having finished my pink dress, I thought it deserved a pretty coat hanger, so I crocheted up this one, using my Floral Embellishment pattern.

It only took a couple of hours to complete and I think it looks great.

On the needles at present are my Fair Isle cardigan.

Some, but not a great deal of progress there.

A pair of socks.  No photos yet but they should be off the needles in the next day or two.

I also have my crochet Mandala Madness which hasn't made any progress and is in desperate need of some love and affection.

So plenty to keep me busy.

Finally, it's been six months since I decided to be brave and weigh my stash (inspired by Linda from Linda's Crafty Corner).  In February the stash weighed in at a bouncing 18.2 kg - wow!

After being on a crash diet for six months I'm pleased to say the stash now weighs a more healthy 11.6 kg, that's even allowing for the 850g of yarn that sneaked its way in when my back was turned!.

There's still a long way to go and with Yarndale coming up at the end of next month, I need to clear some more works-in-progress, but I feel satisfied that things are reaching a more manageable level.

Well that was a packed post!  I'll be back shortly (no more laziness) and hopefully with some more finished objects.  Enjoy your week.