Keeping Warm.

My experts in the field of keeping warm were not willing to comment, so I left them cuddling up to their quilts. Needless to say neither Coco (top), or Felix have been very impressed by the weather outside this week. Visits to the outside world have been very brief and they have demanded cuddles to get warm again once back inside!

This is the view from my bedroom window.

As I write this, Felix is snoring on the chair I use for working on my sewing machine. Coco is snuggly asleep on my bed.

The next photos show things I am, or shall be working on in the next few weeks. The first is a part-made quilt top which I started some time ago. It started out as an autumn quilt, but didn't continue beyond this size (20 inches square). I rather fancy making this up as a large lap quilt with a fleece backing.

The next fabrics are those I shall be using for a quilt for my mum. She asked for a quilt to cover her leather chair. This will have a fleece backing and will be around 72 inches square when finished.

The floral fabric at the bottom of the photograph is the upholstery fabric covering the main chairs in mum's livingroom. This is my next big quilt project.

The next item which really just needs to be assembled is the lining for this cotton fabric shopping bag. The bag does not have a lining and is rather floppy. I shall be using some heavy-duty interfacing between the lining and the bag to make the bag stand up. This will make it more useful to me when I take it shopping.

I have been busily working on finishing this little project over the past couple of days. This is a little needle case kit which I was given by some friends when I left my teaching post in the summer. I shall use it to house my collection of needles. These are in a tin which does not close properly at the moment. I was prompted into starting this when my needle tin fell onto the workroom floor............ You can imagine the resulting mess. The tin is quite a large one. It used to hold my sketching pencils.

This is the second of two hats I have made this week. This one is double sided, so I can wear it in a number of different ways. The design is "Very Warm Hat" by Elizabeth Zimmermann from her book "Knitting Around." It certainly is cosy and warm to wear.

The green yarn was already in my stash, left over from a lovely thick aran jacket I knitted some years ago and still often wear. I bought the cream aran weight yarn as a contrast.

My latest knitted project is the delightful sock design Widdershins by Brooke Chenoweth Creel.
I have been using the bamboo yarn, Happy by Wendy in the colourway Pisces.

This is the gentle cabled design on the top of the foot.

The bottom of the foot looks like this. I just love this self-striping yarn. It is so pretty.

The design knits up really quickly too. I started the first of these socks yesterday evening and its already just over four inches in length. Perhaps I shall be able to finish them both before the weather improves.

My posts now total 100.

Now how did I manage that? It really surprised me today, when I went to start writing this post to find that I had reached 100. I had not noticed.

A lovely day again today - so lucky to have some fine weather. The leaves are all falling now, so the trees will soon be completely bare. I do love their autumnal colours.

The cowl has really been coming on this week. There is now 8 inches of it, so I am now a third of the way to completing it. It will be such a welcome addition to my cold-weather wardrobe.

I do hope that no-one minds my putting a followers section on my Blog. Please feel free to add yourself as a follower, but do not feel that you have to. I have added a list of those Blogs I follow. These are some of the really talented artists out there and it is such a privilege to be able to read their Blogs.

Keeping on keeping on.

Its been an interesting week. I managed to complete my Nutkin socks and quilt the sashing of my Black, Red and White quilt. Its ages since I last worked on this.

This is the top, below, you can see the reverse side of the same quilt.

My next task is to attach the binding.

I also started a cowl to go with a fleece jacket I made some years ago. I already have a matching scarf, but the playground at school gets rather too windy for a scarf to stay around my neck. Hence the idea of making this cowl. This is Mary Burr's Aibhlinn design from Knitty.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Cold, but sunny. Perfect for some pruning and general tidying up around the gardens. Our little close here gets together to share the work once in a while. Four men complete with ladders, secateurs, cutters, saws and various other implements set to work. My husband was one of these. My job, and that of another wife, was to ply everyone with tea. There was such a lot of laughing going on it was amazing that such a lot got done! Our neighbours make it such fun to live here.

The last photo is of T.C. after his inspection of my garden shed. He was supervising the work going on in the various gardens. His owner was one of the team actually doing the work.

Workspace.

At long last I have somewhere to work. Well, somewhere to spread my sewing and various projects out so that I can see what I am doing. I am not a tidy worker.

This is the start of a new project. Its just going to be a throw to cover the spare bed which shares my workspace. I wanted something bright and cheerful. This will end up as a sampler of different techniques - foundation pieceing, applique, etc. The backing will be the acrylic blanket it currently sits on. It will feel cosy as well as being colourful. The cats will love it.............

I haven't got so far with the Elizabeth's Year project this week - the sleeves have now been added to the body, I now need to take a deep breath and get the sleeves and opening sorted out.......

I have been doing a lot more work with this project. The Notre Dame de Grace Pullover by Veronik Avery, from the Summer 2007 "Interweave Knits" magazine. The front and back are both finished. So is the first sleeve. I got into a bit of a panic yesterday when I realised that I just did not have enough wool to complete the project. I rang and ordered some more, since I could not spare the time to travel to the shop (Stash in Chester). The wool arrived with the postman this morning! The dyelot is the same............ Knitters will understand my joy and contentment. To say nothing of the relief...........

The next photos were taken around the village where I live. I went for a walk on Sunday morning taking the camera with me since the colours around me were so gorgeous. It had been a cold night and the mist had not fully lifted. Autumn has really arrived.

This is the farm lane I was walking down. Its also a public footpath. When I turned round this was what I saw.

The field to my left still had some of the frost lying on the grass.

I am so lucky to live here..............