Float'n'purl

Happy Hogmanay!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We had a lovely day of good food and good company. We had a walk in the sunshine on Frodsham hill in the afternoon and then our friend played his guitar in the evening so we had a telly free day - wonderful!

I'm just frantically packing for our trip to Scotland for Hogmanay so I'll just leave you with two pictures from our Christmas day. The first is of Larry the Lobster who was bought live on Saturday and cooked at home (apologies to vegetarians). This was not only my first time cooking a lobster but also first time eating one and it was worth the effort (if a little messy). I'm a firm believer if you can't face catching and killing what you eat (and I only eat fish, not meat) then you shouldn't eat it!

The second picture is of DH modeling his first hand knitted garment from yours truely! I'm sure its going to come in handy as we head out into a potential snow storm later on..................

Happy Hogmanay and see you in the New Year!!!

Christmas Cheer!

I have been meaning to write this post for days now but my time has been filled to the brim with Christmas tasks! Some were a chore such as binding our calendars Download microsoft_powerpoint_calendar_2006.pdf. Other "chores" were far more pleasant like visiting friends and relatives.

But in between rushing around I had a spinning and dying day with the Turner sisters! As you can see the results were certainly colourful! We used the Gaywool dyes we bought recently to colour silk, Bluefaced Leicester, Wensleydale, soya bean fiber, Merino and Falkland rovings. The silk and soya bean needed more dye that the wool rovings but in general we were really pleased with the results.

And just to prove that you can get four spinners on a boat! From left to right: me, Shirley, Ali (hiding) and Janet with her eyes closed We had to take out the coffee table to fit us all in but it worked really well (except for the smell of the cooking wool which was a bit much at times!!)

And here are the end results of a days spinning: 2 skeins of merino from Shirley. The pink was pre-dyed but the other skein was from one of our spinning lessons. And my offerings which are some more Humbug BFL for Lynne to finish her hat and some Merino, also dyed at our lesson. I can't wait to see what our multi-coloured offerings turn out like. The only problem is trying to dye enough to actually make something rather than different coloured 50g skeins.

All in all a good day which we hope to repeat soon!

So, hope you all have a lovely Christmas Day wherever you are and that Santa is good to you!!!

p.s - my Sister just rang fron Oz to say that they're having a lovely Christmas Day by the pool!

Finished!!!!!!!!!!!

At last I finished my thesis and took it to the book binder's on Friday! These last few weeks have been a long hard slog and needless to say I'm feeling pretty knackered and unfit at the moment but its done and I'll pick up the bound copies on Thursday. But, no sooner had I finished the thesis did I realise that Christmas is nearly here and I'm really disorganised.

Every year DH and I make calendars for customers, friends and family. It all started quite small about three years ago but last year we managed to hand out 65 copies so its turned into quite an operation. Today I set about laying things out etc and now I've only got two months of pictures to find. We restrict ourselves to pictures of what has happened in the boatyard over the year and I just thought I would share some of the boat we live in "Humber" being towed to dry dock last January by our little narrow boat "Sissy Jupe". Humber is a Leeds and Liverpool Short Boat, 60ft x 14ft beam, built in Northwich in 1935 with an iron hull. There aren't many short boats left in one piece but she survived by being converted from a carrying boat to a trip boat in the 1950's and then into a working boat for British Waterways until the late 1980s. We are still engineless at the moment as DH has been converting the steering back from a wheel to tiller steering (like on a narrow boat) and sorting out the engine room for our newly restored engine but hopefully (fingers crossed) it will be installed this year and we'll be mobile again!

On the knitting front I haven't been doing much between studying but I did manage to finish my Louisa Harding hat which still needs some adornment (flowers). I've also knitted my first (and possibly last depending on the level of appreciation) item for DH. Its a ribbed hat using Noro Silk Garden as a little "extra" Christmas present. I plan on knitting one more as a present before Christmas but haven't even bought the wool yet so that might be a non-starter. And talking of hats........... here is my friend Lynne who came to visit last weekend modeling the Rowan Tammy Beret I knitted her from the "Classic Weekend" book. As you can see Lynne is herself a knitter and I also gave her som handspun BFL 2 ply spun by yours truly. I was so impressed when she cast it on immediately to knit her DB a ribbed hat but unfortunately I hadn't spun enough so hopefully I can get some more to Lynne before Christmas!

And here is another friend with great talent - Janet wearing her knitted hat from her own handspun merino in white and pink 2 ply (sorry the picture is a bit out of focus). I think the little flower has been crocheted?

And finally, a picture of our first ever Christmas tree on the boat. Normally we go away for Christmas but as all of my relatives are away we're staying at home for the first time. As you can see - its not the largest of trees but it is beautifully decorated with crocheted snowdrops from Janet's sister Shirley who is also very talented (oh, and note lovely card from DH in the background - also another first for Christmas!!). The chains on the snowdrops are so small you almost need a magnifying glass to see them............

Interlude

I've finished (final draft that is of said thesis). 20,000+ words and 101 pages later but at least the typing is done. Just have to do the editing now but that will have to wait until Monday as I'm having a computer free weekend (yipee) - might even manage a bit of knitting (you never know)?

Have a lovely weekend everyone!