dolly dimple knits

Merry Christmas !

The holidays start here - or to be more exact they started last weekend when we had a lovely day out in Edinburgh including face painting in Princes St Gardens - and stepped up a gear 2 days ago when I finished work for a fortnight ! Hurrah !

It's kind of a weird Christmas this year without my Dad. After my Mum died, Dad decided that he wouldn't be having Christmas in his house any more but would spend each year being pampered by one of his children. As my brother and sister moved away from Scotland, for about the last 10 years I've been the one doing the pampering :0) So this year I've decided to pamper myself instead.

I've made some big knitting plans involving some of this

Simply the most gorgeous sock yarn ever from Piece of Beauty. I am seriously in love with it - so much so that I'm wondering whether Kirsty could dye enough of it to make a sweater ..... 'cos of course I'm short of yarn to knit into sweaters ! Ha !

Toying with the notion of joining in with Wendy's Knit from Your Stash Project - but that doesn't really fit my pampering myself mood at the moment. We'll see, maybe by January it will. And there's a whole lot of time for stash enhancement before then !

I've been doing a bit of pre-christmas gifting of knitting too as the imminent arrival expected by my lovely friend - arrived. A little earlier than expected but she's more welcome than it's possible to say :0)

Baby knitting included our friend, Mr Bunny, the Baby Kimono from the fabulous Mason Dixon Knitting, the Speechless sweater from Jaeger Children, the 2 hour baby bootees from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and a matching hat from, well, my head I suppose :0)

And also from my head, a blanket. Knitted in Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran. I just knitted up squares in different textures and patterns that took my fancy and then crocheted round each square and made a picot crochet edging for the whole blanket. The arrival was so unexpected tho' that I'm afraid you only get a pre-blocked shot - the wiggly edges sorted themselves out honest !

Different too this Christmas is that, for the first time in about 10 years, we're not hosting dinner. Al's sister has invited us for dinner so I'm getting a year off ! I know that after making all the wedding dresses I swore I'd never sew again but I couldn't resist making up some cushions as a gift for her using the left-over fabric.

The purple crushed velvet is from her skirt, the pleated gold organza was used for the overlay panel down the centre of her skirt and the celtic border was all around the train. Makes good cushions too tho' ;0)

A night of wrapping lies ahead of me. So have a wonderful Christmas everyone however you choose to celebrate.

Heather xxx

Not dead - just busy

Good grief - I knew it had been a while but I didn't realise how long since I last posted. I've been deeply immersed in loads of crap at work I'm afraid. Those of you who work in the public sector will appreciate that on an annual basis we are presented with the "challenge" of continuing to run services - in fact to improve and expand services - whilst magically managing to cut huge wodges off the budget at the same time.

So called efficiency savings. They're a great idea. Frankly if we are all so inefficient that we can actually make all the savings - at the same time of course having no detrimental impact on the services offered to the public - I really don't know why they bother with us at all !

Anyway, rant over. Suffice it to say I've been really late home from the office recently. A lot.

When I have been at home, in between bouts of Christmas shopping meltdown, I've actually done quite a lot of knitting :0) Trouble is I can't show you most of it - but it does exist, honest. Trust me.

I can show you these

I love these socks. They're from the Debbie Bliss "Home" pattern book and take 2 balls of Baby Cashmerino. Two balls that is except for about 3 metres so if you have biggish feet buy more yarn !

They're for a lovely lovely friend - who happily can never remember the url for this site so doesn't read here - but hopefully, like me, will love the simple little cable running up the side of these. Makes me want to curl up in front of the fire and slouch. Big time. :0)

I've also been working away on this

This was destined to be a mini-Lizard Ridge baby blanket for the same lovely lovely friend who is expecting a new arrival imminently. But then 2 things happened.

Firstly, I decided that Noro Kureyon was just a wee bit scratchy for a baby and second, I fell in love with it. I just can't part with it so I'm keeping it. Mine.. ALL mine.

Don't panic about the baby. Another baby blanket has been knitted in the fabulously soft Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran (did I mention that I really like my lovely lovely friend ????) and if you're good, next time I'll let you see the entire bag of knitted baby goodies awaiting their new owner.

If you're very good, I'll let you see what the Mini-Lizard Ridge has evolved into ...... and no, it's not a bigger lizard but something else altogether :0) I just love a bit of mystery ......