Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

Gosh were did 2008 go ? and here we are halfway through January 2009 !!
I try not too look back but 2008 was a mixed year for us and the main worry is employment but then half the world seems to be in the same boat and I am determined not to worry too much about it. I do think though that the media does nothing to help re picking things up; its all doom and gloom on the TV so how can one feel free to spend money and thus start things circulating yet again ?

We had a wonderful Christmas and spent it with family and friends and I am so grateful that we are blessed with both . We did have an untimely end to the festive season though when we had to come home this way .....


Not a journey that I would like to repeat again . We had the most horrendous noise
coming from the van and the whole thing was shaking , very scary . Then we had to wait for over three hours at a service station near Lancaster until they eventually got the right loader for us . The weather was awful with freezing fog all the way . So we anticipated a rather large bill to start for us in 2009, but we were delighted to find out yesterday that it was a 'square wheel ' we had ; of course if it had blown on the motorway it could have been a different story .

Re achievements last year , with my spinning I was trying to go from spinning cobweb yarn to making DK or aran.It wasn't easy I found as I kept going back to spinning fine if I wasn't concentrating but I think I have it mastered now. Its funny but when you start spinning ,you long for your yarn to be as thin and fine as you can get but when you master it its so much harder to get the thicker weights. I don't want to be one of those spinners that only does lace weight especially as I have gone off knitting lace shawls at the moment. In fact I have gone off knitting fine things full stop and that includes socks; funny how I can spin fine without any bother but I can't knit it !!
I have knitted a couple of pairs of socks in DK now and I love them as they are so quick to make and great for this cold weather. I will try and do the finer weight yarns when the weather warms up and hopefully my joints will be better.

Kath and I also opened an Etsy shop in 2008 and we did very well although both of us are a bit off dyeing at the moment so its on the back burner but hopefully we will resume when the muse strikes. Saying that we did dye a couple of things the other day when she came over.
She dyed this roving for me as a gift which is to go towards a project I am doing and I love the colours .

We visited
Ursula and Phil whilst we were away and what a welcome they gave us . They had made a wonderful spread with the most delicious sausage rolls I have had in a long time . Ursula gave some pencil roving as a gift and I have dyed it up and again I love these colours too.

I have never spun pencil roving and I am not sure as yet if I will spin this up or knit it as it is and maybe felt it . So for now I will just admire it :)

I am enjoying my knitting at the moment too and after doing so many small projects for gifts its lovely to get my teeth into something bigger .
I have wanted to make something out of the book 'Maggie's Ireland' for a while now and this one caught my eye as a starter.Its called the 'Bog of Allen Jacket ' or as I have renamed it 'my boggy jacket '

I am using all handspun yarns and I am really enjoying it so far and hopefully its a quick mindless knit. I have done a couple of changes and have gone down a needle size and I am doing below the smallest size in the book but I do think its going to be a loose jacket . Do hope it will look as good as in the book !! This is how far I am at the moment , looks like a face doesn't it with two owly eyes LOL.

I needed a different yarn for a section so am spinning some up at the moment and rather than go back to knitting the boring shawl I have on the needles I started doing this for DH in some gorgeous Patons Jet which was going so cheap at Kemps Wool . I knew as soon as he saw this colourway that he would love it , again some alterations as he doesn't want a cinched rib and wants a big, baggy version .

After not buying hardly any wool in 2008 I have bought quite a lot from Kemps this last week or so and have two lots of Wendy Fusion, a yarn I have never used before but its lovely and soft , so I am on the lookout for patterns using it . Any suggestions ? I am hoping that the stripes don't make me look fatter :(
Plus I bought another two lots of the Patons Jet which I am going to make jackets with at some point. I felt a bit guilty about buying this lot as really I want to spin all of my yarns but it was so cheap and as I have gained weight since I bought a lot of my yarns I am going to have a destash of some this year that I won't use.

Talking of gaining weight I am going to diet this year too :( something I have never done in my life but I am a size 16 at the moment but its more than that , I feel uncomfortable and this extra weight is not helping my joints.My illness has meant that I have been up and down but I seem to be stable at the moment thank goodness so I am hoping that it will be safe to diet . Unfortunately I do seem to be getting some nasty side effects from this new drug and have been on yet more anti-biotics etc this last week and I am seeing my consultant next week to discuss things .

So folks that's it for now and may I wish you all the very best for 2009 and may it be a kind year for us all ; and if I were to make a resolution it would be to try and take more photos of FO ;)