Knitting Pretty

I’ve had lots of lovely knitting time lately, June has been a quiet month compared to the May madness, so without further ado here is what has been occupying my needles of late 🙂

First up, the Helix socks are FINISHED!! I stayed up late last night to be able to cast them off and block them this weekend. So here they are pre-blocked. I am so happy with how these turned out, it felt like they had been on the needles forever.

They weren’t the easiest thing to make as it got quite fiddly with the cable needles and I had to frog them back a few times where I messed up the lace pattern. But for my first attempt at two at a time toe up socks I am over the moon with them 🙂 The yarn is gradient cakes from Rosie’s Moments, specially dyed so that the colour changes are identical for each sock.

One project I haven’t made so much progress with is the double knit Kitty Cushion. I have now finished the back section.

But realise now that I shouldn’t have jumped straight into the front without knowing what the flip I was doing when it comes to double knitting! I have made it this far…

I’ve got the hang of getting one colour on each side but it’s the colour changes that are foxing me. So I have parked that one for now and downloaded the free Basic Double Knitting Tutorial by Cassie Castillo so I can practice.

So what am I working on now? Well this gorgeous book by Kate Davies Designs and Jen Arnall-Culliford, featuring patterns from a host of different designers arrived last week…

There are so many beautiful patterns in this book – I want to make them all! But I am starting with Happenstance by Romi Hill. And it just so hap-pens (if you’ll excuse the pun!) that I have the perfect yarn in stash. A while back I won this lovely Moorfields Alpaca yarn on the Bakery Bears podcast.

I only cast on this week so haven’t got very far…but just look at that lovely squishy garter stitch, this is going to be one cosy shawl 🙂

And do you remember my post about the shawl pattern I was trying to write up? Well I am pleased to say that it’s now back from my tech editor and apart from a few amendments I need to make it’s good to go! Here is a sneaky peak at the pattern…I’ll be looking for test knitters in August when I am back from my hols so if you are interested please let me know your Ravelry name.

I’ve also had another shawl, a cowl and a hat go for tech editing so I am excited that I will be able to release some new patterns in Autumn.

Oh and I have also been doing some work on my knitting course, C&G module 5 that I have been stuck on for far too long now. I WILL get that done 🙂

So that’s what has been occupying my time and my needles. What about you?

Happy knitting! x

May…The Month That

…And this is why I can’t do weekly posts, I can’t even keep up with the monthly’s haha! Let me cast my mind back and round up the month that was May 🙂

Ely Cathedral

My Mum and her friend are keen photographers so when they mentioned getting together for a photography day I jumped at the chance. We decided to visit the pretty Cathedral City of Ely in Cambridgeshire. It was a beautiful day so we sat outside and had lunch by the canal.

Before making our way up to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral has origins dating back to the 11th Century and the City (it’s called a City due to the Cathedral, but really it’s the size of a Town) was developed around it. It is a truly beautiful place, and we were so lucky that on the day we visited the choir was practicing for an upcoming concert. To hear the voices sing as we walked around was quite something else!

There were so many interesting things to see and photograph……and I came away feeling so inspired that I am using some of the images to re-do my C&G Course Module 5… after 2 attempts at my accessory design I am DETERMINED to get this module ticked off once and for all!!

A Weekend in Portsmouth

On the last May bank holiday weekend Mr. A and I took a trip to the seaside town of Portsmouth – famous for it’s Historic Royal Dockyard which houses HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, the remains of The Mary Rose, and other national treasures.

The reason for our visit was thanks to my Mum gifting us a wine tasting voucher for Christmas. We chose to visit the Three Choirs Vineyard, just a short drive from Portsmouth and make a weekend of it 🙂

During the afternoon we got to sample 3 white wines which were each paired with a complimentary cheese.

These were the wines we tasted, my favourite was the middle one – May Hill, it was a bit sweeter than what I usually go for but paired with the cheese it was absolutely delicious!

It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon, and needless to say we came away with a few souvenir bottles 😉

From here we headed to our B&B which was in Southsea, next door to Portsmouth. It was such a beautiful day that after checking in we hot footed it straight to the seafront.

Just look at that sky!! We had a lovely time sat on the promenade, eating ice cream and watching the world go by…and in the evening we went for dinner and a few cocktails 🙂

The next morning after a hearty hotel breakfast we made our way to the Historic Royal Dockyard. Our first port (if you’ll excuse the pun 😉 ) of call was HMS Victory.

Launched in 1765 HMS Victory is the world’s oldest naval ship still in commission, she even still has her own crew! She is most famous for being the flagship of Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar on 1805, and the place where he met his demise (the spot where he was shot is marked with a brass plaque on the deck). She was moved to Portsmouth in 1922 where she has been preserved as a museum ship.

With a crew of 821 and 104 guns on board during the Battle of Trafalgar it’s hard to imagine what life and conditions would have been like during battle. Especially when it took 20 men to man each cannon in very little space!

There are still 8 original guns onboard the ship – and these are the kind of things that would have been hurtled through the air…

And imagine trying to get to sleep here…

No thank you. A Sailors life would not have been for me!

We also visited the HMS Warrior 1860 warship and HMS M.33 – a warship from World War 1. The Dockyard also houses the 16th Century ship The Mary Rose, which sank in 1545 and was reclaimed from the sea in 1982. However the exhibition is not yet open to the public until later this year…still, it’s a good excuse to go back one day!

So that was May…oh and we also had an amazing weekend in Porto, Portugal which you can read about here if you like 🙂

I’ll hopefully be back at the weekend with a long overdue knitting post!