Copenhagen Calling

That's the name of this beautiful cowl I knitted late last year. Obviously it's too hot to wear it at the moment so I don't have any photos of it on me.

The pattern is by Isabell Kraemer (the same designer of my toe sweater) and is just lovely, not difficult but enough to keep most knitters interested with the sections being just long enough before changing. I'm trying to learn new skills when it comes to my knitting so this was the first step towards colour work and I can't wait to try something a little more difficult soon.

The yarn however was a bit hit and miss. I bought the teal yarn along with cream, it's a merino yarn and is so lovely and squishy so I was looking forward to wearing it when the weather cools down. As I was knitting it up however, the teal was staining my hands pretty horribly and although I can live with that I was scared of what it might do to the cream yarn once it was washed. Unfortunately there is no grey in the same yarn range so I had to settle on another yarn and although it looks great it is quite scratchy so I'm not sure how it will feel once it's wrapped around my neck.

Details ravelled here.

xx

Farm Auction

I went to my first farm auction last weekend, Mr H has been to a few in the past and nabbed some bargains, but this was the first I had attended. I picked up some lovely old galvanised tubs and buckets with the intention of turning them into pots like these.

Source

But we paid a premium price for them so now I'm not sure if I want to drill holes into the bottom of them. The largest tub may already be a little leaky so if it is I will happily take to it with the drill but the others I'm not sure of. Next time I may just consider buying new ones and finding a way to age them.

Have you been to a farm auction? Nabbed any bargains or not so bargain goods?

xx

Welcome 2017

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying the fresh start of the new year. I'm not one for resolutions but I do like to take stock of how I'm travelling along and this year is no different. I have been battling with some fairly major anxiety issues for a couple of years so I've recently started seeing a psychologist to help deal with it. I have turned into a bit of a hermit, rarely venturing anywhere other than work and when I do go somewhere other than my 'normal' places it makes me extremely nervous. The ENT, neurologist and the psychologist have all assured me this is fairly normal when dealing with Meniere's Disease but I am hopeful that over the next few months I will start seeing a difference in how I cope with it.

I have set myself some other goals, just some things I'd like to do or learn in 2017 including:

Making cheese - I received a cheese making kit for Christmas 3 years ago (obviously you can't rush these things) and I really want to finally put it to use.

Making soap - I'll admit the whole process, and dealing with lye, makes me more than a little nervous.

Inspecting and raiding our bee hives - yes, we have our own hives now as well as the others here.

Get around to putting my own stamp on this place. It's now been 3 years since we moved here (yikes!!!)  and although we have done the front boundary fence, the place hasn't changed that much.  So I have a few plans to change that.

Have you made any resolutions for 2017?

xx