A New Start

Yesterday (20th August) was the 1st Anniversary of my DH's death. I thought it would be a bad day but not so as it turned out. With the date looming a while back I decided to get my act into gear and get on with moving house. I have got a lot done to the house before moving in but all the work I had planned to get done before moving in was finished mid July and I relaised I was dithering. I so did not want to be in the old house come 20th August. So I made a decision and got myself moved in the space of 2 weeks. It was very busy as there was a lot to do to make it happen but I concentrated on getting my furniture moved and the essentials. Most of my kitchen stuff and clothes were already moved as I had been bringing things over in dribs and drabs over the intervening months.

I had good friends who helped me out the day before and day of the move, along with the removal men of course, who were great. I moved in on 12th August and am feeling reasonably settled. Most of the boxes I brought with me are emptied but there is still a lot of stuff at the old house to sort and more will come here, but only what I want. I don't intend to end up as cluttered as I was before. Of course all my yarn moved several weeks before I moved so that was a sign it was going to happen.

My 14 year old cat Pepper has been great and is fairly well settled now. She has explored all her new territory, including the garden. I was worried she would not take the move well but she has familiar scents around her and of course the food lady is still here - what more could a cat ask for.

My SIL and her husband are over for a week, staying with her mother, and the 2 of them and my BF came to dinner on Thursday night. They have brought their car over from England to take some things of Shane's back with them. We have arranged to go to the old house on Monday and they will load their car up. Apart from that I will have a full house tomorrow, my BF, her husband, Shane's BF and his wife along with SIL, her husband and my MIL are all coming for a mid afternoon meal. I have just made a huge pot of Bolognese sauce so it will only need heated, spaghetti cooked, some garlic bread warmed and a salad tossed - easy peasy - for 8 people. I haven't entertained like this in a very long time.

And the knitting? Yes there has been some. Although I have plenty WIPs I decided I would like to start something new in my new house, something simple, easy knitting. So I cast on Les Abeilles in some Posh Eva from stash. No photos taken yet. When SIL has gone back next week I'm going to get the camera out and get some photos of WIPs etc. and I fully intend to be back here more regularly now.

Off to get my evening meal sorted, then sit down with Les Abeilles for a bit of R&R. Hope all of you are keeping well out there in blogland. Back soon

A Toast

To my love (he's on the left)

It has been a long time. I looked at my last entry and realised how long ago I put anything here. I thought I was ready to put myself out there again, but it seems I wasn't. I don't think I'm ready yet but I couldn't let today go without something, a memory.

Today was my DHs birthday and it is hard not to miss him a lot today. Indeed for the last week or so this day has been much on my mind. What would I feel like and how to get through it. I'm remembering other birthdays and how we celebrated them, although he kept trying to forget them as the years went on we always did something.

Tonight I will have a good stiff scotch going to bed to help me sleep and to send him a birthday toast. So if any of you out there are reading this raise your glasses to your loved ones past and present.

As The Road Goes Ever On too

I'm participating in the Evenstar Mystery Shawl KAL. This is the first in a series of LOTR patterns being designed by A Few Stitches Short. I bought some beautiful silk laceweight in December from Hedgehog Fibres in a colour called Copper Penny, I must be psychic. I had no plans for this when I bought it and less than a month later the perfect project came along.

I know the Evenstar is silver but I'm more a gold/copper person so this seemed just perfect to me. The photo doesn't do it justice, I was all set to photograph it in a nice sunny interlude when the phone rang and I eneded up have a long chat with a friend. By the time I got back to it the afternoon had turned dull and dark. This was taken sitting on my dining room windowsill. There are hints of silver and that lovely pinky copper along with gold all shot through it. I only hope my kniiting of the shawl will do both the pattern and the yarn justice.

I heading off to Kitchner the toe of my second Tesserae sock for a friend. I'll take photos in daylight tomorrow and post them sometime soon. I'll get back to working on some WIPs, not starting anything new with the imminent release of the Evenstar pattern.

I frogged a silk laceweight shrug, the yarn was just not meant for the pattern, beautiful yarn, beautiful pattern just not meant to be together. I also have it in mind to frog at least one hibernating WIP, but more on that another time.

All things being well I'll be moving house in the spring. I had my offer accepted, now just have to go through all the hoops to get the process completed.

Life goes ever on

And so it does, even in the face of tragedy, both personal and public. My own personal tragedy is still with me but the recent tragedy in Haiti cannot be visualised by those of us who haven't ever seen events on smaller scales.

That doesn't stop us feeling helpless, but we aren't. We can at least donate, this will help all those who can actively help these people. I've put up a button over there on the right, see it, linking to the Yarn Harlots page which will tell you how to donate. MSF is worthwhile so please give.

Also have a look at A Few Stitches Short recent post, if you don't want to just donate then make buying a pattern count

Back Again

On the left above my DH June 1952 to August 2009. Sorely missed, there is a hole in my heart that will never heal. The suddenness of his death was such a huge shock to all, we are still trying to make some sense of it.

I tried moving this photo but blogger is not cooperating today so I'll let it stay where it is.

I've been gone a long time, I just haven't been able to write anything without getting emotional. However I decided it was time to get back in the saddle as they say. I have been getting on with my life and I have good days and bad days. I have been sorting and clearing, bags of stuff to charity and boxes of books to charity book shops too. Most of the stuff so far has been my own, I haven't as yet boxed up DH's clothes, in some ways it is comforting to still have them around.

I now have a brand new car, picked it up from the dealers last Friday, and both of the other cars are now gone. It was a difficult process, letting his car go, like finally saying he was gone.

I'm looking at houses and have seen one that I am tempted to put an offer on, but it feels like a very big step.

Knitting has been continuing all the time and I will have a lot to update you all about on that front in the not too distant future but for now I have no photos to share. I have finished 2 sweaters recently - well all but the sewing up. Have finished a pair of socks, unfortunately I am going to have to frog the first of them totally as it is a disaster. I also have a single sock done using one of the zuberballs (probably spelt that all wrong). Have also started another sweater that has been on my project list - this one is in Noro Silk Garden. No photos of any of these so I will try to take a day, probably after Christmas, and do a lot of snapping then try to feed them in here over a period of time.

I have been teaching my cleaner to knit socks and she loves it. Taken to it like the proverbial duck to water. She is now accumulating her own stash of sock yarn, she is addicted. We try to share a bit of knitting and a coffee at the end of her work. I'm also teaching her lots of other techniques, she has no one else to teach her, so last week I taught her how to cable and yesterday she used my swift and ball winder to wind 3 skeins I gave her for a shawl.

My entries here will probably be intermittent yet for a while as I am busy trying to get things sorted still. SIL and her husband are coming over for 5 days from 28th so I am trying really hard to achieve a number of things before they arrive. Of course the days being so short seems to make the amount of work achieved each day very little.

Signing off for now. Keep safe, take joy in your loved ones, never forget how fragile life can be.

Nothing Can Express

My sense of loss...............

On 20th August my life changed forever. My Dear Husband of 30 years suffered a massive and totally unexpected heart attack and was just gone. I've been keeping going, getting through things, and there are are lot of things to get through... settling all the finances and then will come sorting the house.

I may not be blogging for a while but I am following all of you out there, reading your blogs and keeping up to date. I'm still knitting as I need that to keep me going. I have good friends and family 'keeping an eye' on me as it were but nothing can replace the constant companionship and love we had. I will always miss him.

Malabrigo - soft, softer, softest

I love Malabrigo yarn. It must be one of the softest yarns I have ever snuggled up to. I have this sweater in my basket of 'resting' WIPs, it's been resting for about 2 years and I had an urge to go back to it as a rest from the shawl. The back was finished and the front was well underway. So I've been working on it again this past week or so and have finished the front. It is of course in Malabrigo, colour Loro Barenquero. You can see the change in the colour striation when the back narrows in at the armholes.



The front has a large central cable, not too easy to see due to the colour. The cable then splits up the neck edges. So where the central cable was 16 stitches, each of the neckline cables is 8 stitches.


The finished neckline is actually a wrapover which is knit as a separate rectangle and then sewn in. It is a Lana Grossa pattern which I have had to size up, their patterns are typically only sized for anorexic runway models.

I own a bought sweater with this same neckline, which I love, so when I came across this pattern I had to knit it for myself. Of course it hadto be done in something so cozy and soft, what better than Malabrigo.

Now for a quick update on other things. First my car passed it's MOT, clear for another year. Just over a week ago we had a thunderstorm in the area and we had a lightening strike which blew out our phone master socket and all the equipment connected into it, which included 2 brand new DECT phones and the modem in our SKY+ box. (Actually it affected more than us and the engineers have been out replacing lines which were melted) We're still watching TV OK but without the modem the box can't dial back so they won't see the box plugged in. Eventually we will get a letter from sky complaining that our 2 boxes are not connected to the same phone line (we have sky multi-room with a really old box in our family room). Maybe it is time to go to SKY HD, probably cheaper to buy a new HD box than cough up for an engineer to fix the existing box. More expense, new phones and new Sky box.

SIL and her husband are visiting for 10 days. Luckily they are staying with MIL as DH has come down with something, came home on Friday evening feeling unwell and has been running a temp all weekend. So no outings with the visitors until he gets better.

So to finish on a brighter note here is a flash of some stash acquired last month.

This is Posh Yarn Diana 2ply (lace) in colour Grotto, it is part of a shawl kit. I also got another skein of Diana in a different colour but I'll save that for another day.

Considering all the expenditure recently, with more to come I'm going to have to go on a strict yarn diet for the foreseeable future. Just lucky I have a large yarn stash to shop from then isn't it.