Yarn Along - A new hat

Do you ever pull out last winters hat, try it on, and think to yourself  "This looks terrible on me, did I really walk around last winter in this?"  I did, just a few days ago, and although it wasn't on my 'to-do' list, I set about making myself a new one.  I made myself an new one last year, that I really rather liked at the time, but now...
...well I'm sure this one is going to suit me much better!!   for the next few months anyway...

I wasn't too sure about the 'old rose' pink at the beginning, it looked a bit lost there in the blue, but once I got to the stripes it started looking a lot better.

I came back from our local Book Club the other night with a big bag of books.  It's not one of those book clubs where everyone reads the same book and then discusses it, it's more of an english language book exchange, it keeps all us anglophones here in Chamonix supplied with books for free, and is one great night out!
I reluctantly took the three Hunger Games books, I don't like the sound of them at all but as almost all of the other book club ladies have read them I sort of felt a bit obliged to do the same.   I also took home The Year of Living Biblically (A.J.Jacobs).  The author set out to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year!  So he started by reading it cover to cover in 5 weeks, noting all the 'rules' (there are way more than just the 10 commandments).  Not shaving or wearing mixed fibers are two very easy rules to obey, however there are others which would no longer be acceptable and would put anyone who followed them, quite simply, in prison!  While Jacobs claims that most Christians believe that the crucifixion of Jesus rendered void many of the old testament rules, his still choses to follow those that are legally allowed as he wants to immerse himself to the maximum possible in living biblically.   I'm only up to month two and it seems to be quite a problematic undertaking , but very funny indeed.
Linking-up with Ginny for Yarn Along today.  For the past 3 weeks the only posts that I have done are Yarn Along, prompting Richard to remark- "woman, all you ever do is knit!"  - "no dear, I read as well!!

Yarn Along - Cosy

Linking-up with Ginny for Yarn Along in the morning, and looking forward, in between swimming and ice-hockey practice, to seeing what everyone has been knitting and reading this week.
I discovered both my books, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name (Heather Lende) and The Winter Sea (Susanna Kearsley) via Yarn Along and was far from disappointed by either.  I don't have time to read durning the day but oh how The Winter Sea tempted me!! I found myself sneaking over to the stairs rationing my time to  "one page OK no more"  but as you all know, one page is never enough..

.
Fortunately Richard was home this week laying the new wood floor upstairs so I manage to curb my reading impulses, for what kind of wife would I be, if while he was measuring, cutting and sawing with patience and precision , I was immersed the passions and betrayals of planning the Jacobite invasion of Scotland?

Yesterday I received the latest copy of the Mother Bear newsletter, and realized that I had, of late, been neglecting my contributions to the project.  Thus I got myself back on track!  This months newsletter included and article about Mary and her two daughters (she had 11 children in all) who knit together for the project.  I would really like to knit bears with others but have had little success in getting women to join me, I mean in the physically-in-the-same-room-sort-of-a-way.  I recently had a nice chat at a party (yes I talk about knitting at parties!) with a friends husband, about knitting next to the fire of an evening, and he said he thought it sounded like a fine way to spend la soirée.  So maybe I've been barking up the wrong tree(s), and should be asking the men folk I know if they would be interested in making a few bears!
Anyways, I'm still more than happy to be 'knitting' along with all you lovely people in blog land, even if we are not in the same room or for the most part not even in the same country.

Also finished the boys bottle cosies.  These knitted up quite quickly, very easily and seem to be a great success with the little chaps!

They are knitted in almost one piece, the one side longer than the other, that is folded up to close the cosy.  The neck is knit afterwards, on a circular needle and left open for filling the bottle.  These would make great christmas presents, but I don't like the idea of knitting the same thing three times in a row, so I've put them on my to-do list for next year.  The pattern came from the December edition of  Simply Knitting.

Yarn Along - Wales

We've just returned from a lovely trip 'home' to Wales and naturally where I go my knitting goes! (well except on the plane as security didn't like the look of my 'knitpro' circular needles)
I didn't get as much knitting done as I had planned but I did manage to finish my Taproot mitts,

make quite a bit of progress on my Secret Santa, and spend "HOW MUCH!" (Richard and my father) money in a wool shop!  I treated myself to some delicious Noro yarn to make another Shalom, but this time one that actually fits.  I am at present exercising great self-restraint by not casting-on until all other projects are finished, let me tell you, it's not easy!

I also picked up some colourful yarn for hot water bottle cosies for the boys.

And of all people, my father spotted a fantastic used needlecraft book at an indoor market, so I quickly snapped it up for a small donation to the charity that was running the book stall.
The rest of our time was spend visiting local attractions, my favorite was Castell Henllys village where the boys learnt, amongst other things, to grind wheat and make bread, the stone age way!

I especially enjoyed spending time with family and my best friend (of 30 years!-makes us sound so old) and her brood...

me & Amy

...and having lunch in the Tafan Sinc

I don't think this pub has changed one bit from the days of my grandfathers youth! (well apart from the orange plastic juice bottle)

sawdust on the floor to soak up spit and spills. Lovely!

We also visited the Tregwynt Woolen mill where I had every intention of buying welsh wool to make my shalom, but at £16 per 50g I decided otherwise.  The mill had a small shop next door selling woolen bags, blankets etc but for the most part it's woolen items are all exported to the US.

Linking up with Ginny for this weeks Yarn Along.

Multiple choice question?

Me: So Rémi, what shall we do this afternoon?
a - your homework
b - clean the bathroom
c - go hiking
Rémi: you serious?

Just look at what we'd of missed if he'd gone for a or b...

Charousse, 1200m

the sun left just after we arrived

Though this might be a nice opportunity to get some nice portraits of the boys...

"if you could just stop eating and both look a me please"

"that's better but can we lose the florescent orange jkt"

I guess not! go and play...

oh there they are, the orange jkt is quite usefully after all

I'm so glad to have a child who knows what is really important! and his little brother who'll go along with anything big bro decides.

Yarn Along - warm hands, warm heart.

I had a neighbour when I was growing up who always had cold hands, she'd cup them around my face and say "cold hands warm heart!", and she did/does have a warm heart, and probably still has cold hands.
Personally I like warm hands - a warm head, warm feet etc etc, and I like to think I have a warm heart but I guess I have to let others be the judge of that.
So as my boys and I walk run to school every morning, come rain or shine, snow or ice, I decided that some new mitts were the order of the day.

Tino chose sharks

arrh!

arrh   arrh!

Rémi, continuing his obsession with Pirates, wanted scull and cross bones ones!  I'm using a basic mitten pattern and have done a spot of 'knitting cosmetic surgery' to the grid I had previously used for these wrist warmers, so as to reduce the number of stitches to fit across Rémi's hand.

I'm also having to make the mitts a little longer than the pattern, I hadn't noticed before that Rémi has such long slim hands!  Next up is me.  I'm going to try the mitten pattern in Taproot issue n°3 Retreat, in what I would describe as a 'burn amber' colour, even if the ticket wants to call it 'Sanguine'!
Just yesterday I was give three books - An Infamous Army (Margaret Drable), Father Brown Stories (G.K.Chesterton) and last but not least Dylan Thomas The Poems.  I'm sort of a fan of his, I've read many of his works, understood very few off them but I like the words he uses, and the way he uses them!  I've also read a few biography's, my, what a notorious womanizer and drunk he was!
I'm going to be linking up with Ginny tomorrow for Yarn Along but will have to wait until the end of the day to see all your projects.  Wednesday is such a busy day for us, but last week it was a very special Wednesday - my little Tino turned 4...

party fun with friends and cousins

as requested - a train cake with trailer filled with smarties!

...and today, is a very special Tuesday, as we celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary!

Creative Friday - Play Kitchen

A little while back I saw this play kitchen by Karen over at Bare feet and a free spirit, liked it a lot and then the very next day stumbled upon this old desk thing at my sister in law's
pretty ugly hey?

Well my little brain got to thinking that if I (meaning the kids would do most of the work) could just sand off all that horrible varnish, and then just give it a few licks of clear vanish then maybe we would have ourself the beginnings of a play kitchen!

Despite the boys best efforts we couldn't get all of  the awful varnish off and underneath what we did manage to remove, was a sort of unattractive  plywood.
Plan B - we paint it!

And using Karen's chef d'oeuvre as our model, Richard (he still won't let me near the electric tools) cut out a space for our sunken sink, stuck on some cork hot plates and a couple of wood knobs and handles.  Added some pans and baskets and some play food and volia...

Natalie, s.i.l, also brought over a basket of polystyrene fruit, which I'm sure the dog will chew to bits in the near future, but it will do just nicely until I have knitted up some more fruit and veggies.
Linking up with Linda this week for Creative Friday, and if my memory serves my correctly, Linda posted a knitting pattern for an apple only very recently, which I'm sure will go very nicely in our wee kitchen.  The aubergine comes from Craft Bits and the muffins from Womans Weekly Knitting and Crochet special April/May 2011.
Have a lovely weekend everybody.
Just a word to Richard's Uncle Guy, should he be reading this - I'm sorry to say such mean things about your old student desk! hope you don't mind it's new lease of life.

Yarn Along - Playing hookie!

There's been more crochet going on here than knitting of late, some how it felt more summery.
Despite living along way from the sea I made this beach bag

in it's present state it's not very practical as anything remotely heavier than a beach ball makes it sag!   My sister in law is going to line it for me with some fabric to try and make it a bit more sturdy.

Using  spagetti yarn made from old t-shirts I made a 'oval' rag rug but I think I got my calculations wrong somewhere as, if you look carefully on the left hand side, you can see it's a bit lumpy!  This 'yarn' works up really quickly but you need a lot of t-shirts for even the smallest project.

I'm not yet hooked on crochet,  knitting is definitely my first love.  So as autumn has brought increasingly chilly mornings, I made this little hat for Tino.  I saw the model on http://wabisabiwonderings.blogspot.com (sorry but for some reason I can't get the link to work?) and liked the changes she had made so I modified mine likewise.

 Also made a bit of play food for the new play kitchen, will post more about than on Friday.

It's been a while but I'm happy to be linking up with Ginny this week for Yarn Along, we have a very busy wednesday with swimming and ice-hockey practice so I will have to wait patiently until the end of the day to see what delights everyone else has been making.
Almost forgot the reading part!! I'm down to the last of the little house books - The First Four Years- but it's only a short book so I'm trying not to start it's yet as otherwise it's going to be finished to quickly!.