Daily Drivel

Owl!

I meant to blog about this yesterday - we saw a lovely owl on our way to work - I think it was a barn owl. It flew across the road in front of us and circled round a field.

I've made a start on the 2nd bobbin of yarnyard 'fibre club' fibre. I'm hoping to get it finished this week. Don't know yet whether it will be sock-worthy.

The weather seems to have calmed down a bit although there is still quite a lot of snow about which hasn't melted yet. Hope it goes soon - I don't like slush.

I finished my shetland triangle - the beaded picot cast-off I decided to do took ages. I spent almost all day on Sunday doing it (in between watching the rugby!). I haven't blocked it yet - hoping it will grow a little bit as it is quite small. I'll take photos when I've blocked it :-)

I'm getting the urge to cast-on something new. I shouldn't really - I've got a sock OTN and my Kiri shawl. I might cast-on another sock. I want to have another go at doing a 2-colour one for A. The first attempt was too small. A wants me to make him another hat - the first one I made is a bit 'short'. Don't think I've got any yarn which would work. I might try spinning something around a DK weight. Have to see what I've got in my stash.

We're having faggots for dinner tonight. I've never had them before. A tells me they are nice - I'm not convinced. We bought them at the last farmer's market and the lady told me they don't use any nasty bits in them. Wish me luck!

Well, we tried...

...and failed to get to work today. Ridiculous really - but there was a lorry blocking one way onto the main road about 2 miles from us - so we turned around and tried going the other way to find that there were several vehicles stuck on a large-ish hill. The main road from our village (an A road) hasn't been gritted (again!) - although we did see a gritter and he had a full load of grit and a plough on front but obviously wasn't tasked with gritting our main route out. Had fun getting back onto our drive - A stopped to let a car out of our turning (we were turning in from the main road) and then got stuck for a short time. He managed to reverse back and get some traction - but we still nearly ended up on the pavement opposite us (although the 2 chaps standing there didn't seem too bothered as they didn't move out of the way!). Anyway - we've got the coal fire roaring now. The birds were pleased to get more food today. We've had long-tailed tits, a beautiful thrush (don't see them very often), blackbirds, robin, blue tits and the female black cap. I got a few photos of the robin - not brilliantly sharp so don't look too closely (really, I am so lusting after a decent 300mm lens!)

Here's a photo I took of Mini yesterday, with her snowy blanket! It was worse this morning and I was going to take a photo but there was so much snow getting in the car as I grabbed the scraper that I decided not to bother!

Keeping warm...

We had some snow again last night and the main road to the village hadn't been gritted so it was a bit of an adventure getting to work this morning. The forecast for tomorrow and friday is for heavy snow - which probably won't end up being much at all! It's so embarrassing that we can't cope with such a small amount of snow in this Country!

Anyway - we're toasty warm here this evening - although I think A might have overdone the stoking up of the fire just a little bit. It's getting pretty hot here - I might have to leave the room if it gets too hot! I just took this quick snap of the fire:

Going to do a bit of knitting now. I might do another cast-on/cast-off sample for my course. Haven't done much on it for a little while.

Shawl update...

I've been alternating between working on the shawl and a sock. The sock has been my 'in car' knitting - it's getting lighter in the mornings / evening now so I manage to do a few rows on the journey to and from work. Anyway - one sock is done and I've done the toe and a few rows more on the 2nd sock :-) Here's the first one - looks weird. It's just the ribbing pulling the fabric in.

Here's the shawl. I've got about 40g of yarn left. I'm going to weigh it a few times and try and work out how many more rows I can get out of it! I'd quite like to do something a bit more interesting for the bottom edge but I have no idea what, or how. I don't think it's going to be particularly big - more a neck warmer than a shawl I think! I've added another row of yo's. I might do some moss stitch if I can stand it!

I started spinning up my yarnyard fibre club last night. It's possibly the softest fibre I've ever felt! It's merino/nylon. I've got 200g and I'm planning to do a 2ply fingering weight - or thereabouts! I split the first 100g lengthways 8 times and just started spinning. It really doesn't need any pre-drafting at all.