All Fingers and Thumbs

Not the normal plum tree view from my bedroom today. My trusty suitcase and I are cooking in Italy. As in my 'English not programmed for actual summer weather-ness' is being cooked. I am not in charge of the cooking, just the air con. So it comes to pass that in my little window of free time I am sheltering from the sun rather than the rain, trying to understand Italian chat on the tv. It's about the football, the Euro final tonight against Spain, that's all I've got. Still I've found the Blogger app which actually allows me to get photos from iPad to blog and with such success as wind to my sails I'm plucking up the courage to tackle a mitten I began months ago. It is a combination of two patterns and I just stopped at the stage I had to do the workings out to switch in the second pattern. Work before a work trip always gets more manic so I only got within striking distance of the shawl and dress before it was time to go. Somewhat frustrating to only have...

A dress , a shawl and a gift . Three things to complete for my friend's wedding in just less than three weeks. Ah deadlines! I try and keep you at bay in my crafty flittings by starting things in plenty of time but you've snuck up on me. Two of these coming weeks I'm going to be travelling and none of these projects are ideal for on the road work. So I'm taking myself in hand today and getting a schedule in place for this next week to get as much done as I can. Hopefully it will be as easy as ABC.

A very pleased Creator. I finished my embroidery from the camping trip and am delighted with it. It's a letter C from Alicia P's Embroidery Companion book . As lovely Alicia encourages I made the project my own and took liberties with the suggested placement, colours and then because I was a chicken - the stitches! No stem stitch or French knots in the interests of dialling down the amount of new stuff to learn to keep this fun and relaxing. It was definitely both of those things and pleasingly quick too. I bought these three beautiful variegated threads from a local company, 21st Century Yarns at the Summer School Fair a couple of years ago simply because I couldn't resist them and quite by chance had the most perfect colours for this pretty piece. This is practice for two white on white embroidered cases I want to gift for a wedding later this summer. I've had this gift idea in mind since I f irst pored over this wonderful book  when it first came out. One wedd...

What are you to do when the skies don't want to play? The forecast was bad, Saturday dawned grey and damp and then the campsite we were booked at called to say that they were flooded! Pah, camping was the plan and camping we would go. We found a nearby site that had space from some less crazy than us who had cancelled and we actually had some lovely weather on Saturday  afternoon  to test our legs a little with a large hill . Sunday was distinctly rainy and there was a certain amount of cabin fever to contend with but what is rain for if not to make sure there is plenty of time for some embroidery? So all in all another fabulous little camping trip for our merry band.    

Since I started this blog back in 2006 I've managed at least a post every single month and yet we're fast closing in on the end of May and I've said nothing. So quiet here and so quiet on the crafting front. I hope it is a good quiet. I'm getting a sense of resting. I've started the perfect knitting project for this quiet. A garter stitch scarf. Vertically striped which I find particularly aesthetically pleasing. At the moment it is just quietly pleasing to knit. And knit. And knit on those long rows. Simple stitches soothing my brain, ironing out the kinks rather than challenging it. This is a strangely long fallow period for me but I'm just going with it on  the whole though I had to fight it just to get here at least once this month and say Hi! I thought you'd like a pretty flower to brighten up your day if you stop by instead of a rainy window. So sunny now though I thought those April rains would swallow the whole of May. I know I'm an absent comm...

The one stitch approach has definitely helped. A half row here and a few stitches there and I managed more than one stitch every day this week. Past history suggests the best thing I could do is cast on a new super simple project but I can't even muster the enthusiasm for that. Casting around for inspiration this new online magazine Clotheshorse caught my eye. A fun concept though I haven't found the magic bullet here. Maybe I just need to heed the weather, realise it's time to put my paws up, continue the Prison Break-athon  inspired by a Netflix free trial and maybe I'll add a little hand sewing on the slowest dress to the slow knitting. My crafting speed definitely suggests I should get on board with my commitment to the slow movement .

I didn't think I could knit any less than as reported last week but the days since then have seen no stitches at all. Worse than that it's not been replaced by any crafty goodness. No sewing, no crochet, no baking. Sigh. I'm blaming the fact that work is so busy that it has drained all movement from my hands for the ever reducing bit of evening time I'm at home and the ole brain is equally drained. I thought I'd catch up yesterday but spent free time gardening and painting my fingernails. Not even sorting out my lovely new box. Some kind of emptiness in  the creative zone. There are no deadlines and if I don't want to knit then it's not a problem but I do . I love it so, benefit so much from the feelings it brings and I want to be wearing the prettiest of the knits on my needles - this lovely Cloud Illusions that I made some good progress on over the Easter long weekend. I've even found a great piece of technology to keep track of my charts. The JKn...