Sunshine on Saturday

Hurrah! After a wet, windy, wild week at work the sun shine reappeared on a Saturday! Dog & I went for our usual weekend wander. Mr J ran off into the distance...... Clearly any fears of drought are on hold this week! It about 3 1/2 miles around Fewston, plenty of time to listen to a few chapers of 'Northern Lights' by Philip Pullman, on my MP3 player. Another quick pic.... Moss on a north facing wall, rather than Moss the dog!

Despite a really busy couple of weeks back at school, some knitting has been done. I have finished the Twinkle Toes DK socks by Cookie A. This is a neat & quick pattern as I have already mentioned. The 'Frog pond' shawl grows when there is some TV to watch. Peddler Shawl is also growing, infact, as I have the yarn I think it will have a few more patterned lace repeats than the original pattern suggests. I have also cast on a small (size) 'learning curve' (big) project. It is 'Helgi's Mitts' from Nancy Bush 'Folk Knitting in Estonia'. The sum total of coloured knitting I have done was one repeat (about 2cm) around the bottom of a 'tank top' for Mr J (the name 'tank top' gives you some idea of the vintage!) & knitting son & heirs name around the bottom of a jumper when he was 3! (but I did chart it out for myself & I still have the little sweater along with his christening outfit, so proud of it was devoted mama!) This is the progress so far

The yarn is vintage Falcon pure new wool 4 ply that I have had since the tank top era. The dark colour is infact brown not black, as it appears on my monitor anyway. I am trying to have one colour strand in each hand (as I believe the Shetland knitters do). This is proving a little hard to learn but I watched a You Tube video on Continental Knitting which has helped. It certainly avoids a b*****s muddle of yarn developing. The toothpicks I am knitting on are infact 2mm DKP's! They should certainly keep the wind out. Apart from the odd blunder which is due to nothing other than a lack of concentration on my part, they are not too difficult. I have even taken them to bed to do 'a couple more rows' before lights out. I probably should be marking exam papers now. 4 sets of year 11 trial exams to be precise. However the two Geography sets haven't even been attempted yet -they are right at the end of the exam period & the two sets of Citizenship papers are sat on my desk at school. All with section A marked. I worked like a demon on Friday afternoon to do this so I could justify leaving the darn things at school. The nice man from Tesco's is bringing the shopping in an hour or so, meat was bought in Pateley Bridge (Mr Weatherhead's at the bottom of the High Street, if you are passing this way, is excellent) and hopefully the washing is drying on the line so I think its time to knit a few more rows!