one good apple

God, it feels like forever since I’ve been here…  The most exciting event of the last week was the arrival of my Gocco on Friday.  And the fact that I’ve barely stopped since has meant that I didn’t actually get to play with until late yesterday afternoon.  I hate weekends like that.  Where you have things to do.  Things that you can’t put off.

Like I got out of work at three on Friday (early finish on a Friday - yipee!) to find four missed calls from John, three from his sister and a mountain of text messages about a rabbit that a friend of John’s rescued from a house where it was being mistreated.  Could I go and pick it up and find somewhere for it to live?  Well, why not eh?  So the rest of Friday was a barrage of yet more frantic calls and texts to everyone I know and some I don’t to try and find a home for the poor thing.  And she is gorgeous.  A brown lionhead who is incredibly sweet tempered considering her experiences with us humans.  Long story short, she’s now with the RSPCA.  We couldn’t keep her because of Donald and Enid but I was stupidly upset to see her go.  So if you’re interested in adopting and adorable indoors rabbit who will keep your plants under control, let me know…

I digress though, here are the results of my first Gocco session yesterday afternoon,

If you don’t know this already, let me tell you, Gocco is amazing.  I am in love.  I’m going to package some of these up to sell in the shop at the start of next week, I’ll let you know when they’re up if you’re interested in some cute bunnies to let people know, well, whatever…

There’s loads more to tell you about like my trip home where I went to York with my sister forgetting that it was the Viking festival that weekend,

There was a huge queue behind this particular Viking, but to be fair, a cash machine is new technology to them.  We also went to the yarn shop in the Shambles and marvelled at the many things on sale.  Miraculously I only cam e away with some four-ply to make these. 

But for now I have to go, I’ve got Mother’s Day presents to make as well as sorting out swap parcels that I need to send off next weekend.  Happy Sunday x

When I was about ten my mum was making a summer dress on her sewing machine when her finger slipped and flew under the needle.  The needle went clean through her fingertip taking the thread with it.  So off we went to the local hospital for mum to have a tetanus injection.  And while we were waiting I remember wondering what it would feel like to have a needle go through your finger, I mean, all the way through to the other side.  I’d once sewn an entire butterfly to my skirt by accident during an embroidery class at school.  I’d only noticed when I stood up to get some more thread and the butterfly stayed firmly attached to my lap.  But I’d never sewn my finger.  Never.

And in the same way that I’d image people wonder what it would feel like to step of the side of that ledge and other things that you know you’d never really ever do, every time I get my sewing machine out I wonder a little what it would feel like if my finger…

Well, you can guess where this is going can’t you?  Yesterday I found out exactly how it feel when a sewing machine needle goes through your finger.  And the worst bit was that when I called my mum to tell her, her first question was, ‘Did the thread go through too?’ and I had to admit no, it hadn’t.  It had snapped the needle though.  And I can tell you exactly how it feels.  It feels much as you’d expect it to feel when a sewing machine needle goes through your finger.  Agony.

However, I think it was worth it,

and for my mum,

I might sell some of these in my Etsy shop, I’ll see how it goes this week.  Today I am finishing off some bits and bobs then taking John’s niece and nephew to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester.  And telling everyone I see about how much my finger hurts… x

I bought this at the weekend,

After all that talk of saving money and stuff I just decided I wanted it.  And despite the fact my sister could have bought it for less from Japan for me, that would have taken to long and I wanted it, like now.  So I bought a Gocco.  I have big plans for this little beauty and have been totally inspired by the Gocco group over at flickr who have some amazing examples of prints.

I’ve also finished my embroidered hankies, they’re in the wash cleaning the pen ink out of them but I’ll post pictures of them as soon as they’re done.  I love the way they’ve turned out.  In fact, I think I’m going to start a bigger embroidery project over the next week or so.  A friend of mine is getting married in August and I thought I might make something as a wedding present for her and her new husband.  I’ll have to have a play around and see what I come up with.

I’m also in the middle of making Urchin and should have that finished by the end of the day.  Again, pictures will follow, for now, I’m off to enjoy the first day if half term.

I know this isn’t knitting related, but I thought I’d ask you to share your favourite Valentine’s Day memory, or your current plans for this year. Just to share some love.

If the truth be told, I’ve never really been that into Valentines Day,mainly because I’m not a flowers and teddy bears kind of girl and that seems to be the standard thing to give and receive.  I’m one of those horrible people that would rather get nothing at all than something that little or no though has gone into.  Very high maintenance.  John and I tend to get each other films or books or something like that.  Last year I got him a book about German U-boats because he’s really into military history and his grandfather served on the Russian convoy during WW2 and I though he’d be really into it.  And he was, he loved it and was very happy.  But for some reason  he opened it at his mother’s house who was rather horrified to see that his long-term girlfriend had bought him a book called ‘Metal Coffins’ for Valentines Day.  There were lots of worried glances and searches for reassurance for a good few weeks after that, I can tell you.  This year I have got him Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious Worlds on DVD.  She can’t interpret that badly surely..

I remember ages ago writing about a Rainbow Brite jumper my mum knitted me when I was a kid.  Out of the many amazing things she did knit for me this was by far my favourite.  So the other day I was lolloping around on eBay and found this,

heaven to betsy I’m a happy bunny.  Off back to Yorkshire in two weeks to see my mum during half term and shall be availing myself of the joys that are Boyes acrylic yarns in all the colours of the rainbow and knitting this bad boy.  There were some other really sweet patterns in there too - Danger Mouse, Victoria Plum and Postman Pat - that amounted to an eighties childhood flashback.  Love it.

Part of the UK Swap that I’m involved in is to answer an optional question each week about knitting.  This week’s is,

What is your process when planning a project? Do you shop for yarn and then find a suitable pattern? Do you find your pattern and then go out to buy the yarn? Or are you stash-busting? If your stash is out of control, how did it get that way?

Well, I look for patterns first of all.  It’s all about the pattern mainly because I’m not all that fussy in terms of the yarns I use.  I have nothing against acrylic because when I started knitting acrylic was all I could afford and it doesn’t matter if you throw it in the wash with everything else because you can say a lot about the stuff but fussy it ain’t.  I’ve never bought a sweater’s worth of yarn without having a definite pattern in mind.  At the moment I’m meant to be stash-busting because I have a ton of 4-ply that I was given but 4-ply is a long term commitment and if I’m honest, I’m too flighty for the stuff - I want pretty obvious results fast.

So, that’s that for this week…  I finished another embroidered pillow case,

I’m loving the embroidery at the moment and spending more time on it than the knitting.  I bought some material today to make some handkerchief/serviette things with so will be spending the rest of the evening fiddling around with that.

Oh, one last thing.  Last night I went to see this,

and loved it.  The first time Johnny Depp sang the whole cinema began giggling but his cockney accent was mercifully better than in From Hell and Helena Bonham Carter was just ace.  I know some people think Tim Burton is just a one trick pony but if the trick is that good then who cares?  John didn’t want to see it so I went with my best friend from uni who was up visiting.  She’d had a rough night the night before and fell asleep halfway through.  Which wasn’t too bad until she started snoring and I had to wake her up.  Nothing to do with the quality of the film, she assured me…

For now, toodle-pip x