By the time you've wandered around London Bridge, bought essential South African supplies from the Savannah Shop, had lunch at Borough Market and gazed up at the enormous glass shard towering up into the cloudy skies ...


By the time you've knitted your way through two movies (one back panel, and two fronts: done!)...

Even in the most tired of times, where everything seems to be just "work, work, work" and you're feeling low, it just takes a little bit of energy to remember that there are really beautiful things to be found all around you. 
Matchy gold teapots and tea cups in a cafe in Hackney. My friend, taking tea with me, had peppermint tea in a peppermint-coloured pot. As you do.


A glass filled with pretty blossoms. It's winter, but it feels like spring.

All quite suddenly - and entirely without notice, overnight - my craft room / office has transformed into a veritable Aladdin's Cave of treasures. Everything is jewelled: the beautiful and unexpected gifts that arrived through the post, the knitting that is gathering on my craft tables, the shelves which are piling up with glittered objects.

The colours are all rather spontaneously and wonderfully coordinated. There are deep maroons and strawberry pinks, glittering midnight blue and amethyst purple. Silvered blues and Rothko greens. Colour, it seems, has taken over. It's a protest.

Only the "office" half the of the room remains untouched and somewhat organised.

Except, of course, for the tufts of mulberry fibre that seems to have taken over the pile of invoices.

Except the maroon and pearl EEWI brooch on display beneath my large monitor, reminding me to return it at tonight's meeting.

Except the jar of pastel-coloured buttons which seems to have replaced my sensible office pens.

Except the bright and glittering stitch markers which have been stored next to my keyboard for safe-keeping.

Except the string of mirrored elephants from Istanbul which dance next to my pile of notebooks.

Except those, of course.

... I washed and thwacked (!) my handspun yarn skeins. They are currently drying over the edge of the bath, much to my husband's amusement. Your yarn, he says, smells stronger than the bath cleaner!

It's the grey/white Jacob on the far right. It stinks like (wet) sheep.

I finished spinning the Ice Cream Sundae last night. It's fabulous. Even in black and white. Almost 200 grams of pink-peppermint-mulberry loveliness. I have no idea what it will become, and I still have to wash it... Sooooooon, my lovely. And your little dog too. (I feel like I should be cast in The Wizard of Oz).


Incidentally, my craft table is filling up with beautiful yarn. I'm so ready to knit this stash of silk twist! A gift, it seems destined for something special. I'm thinking, perhaps the Hey, Teach! cardigan. Incidentally, doesn't it go awfully well with the ice cream sundae?

The socks are done, and have been waiting patiently to be blocked. You don't have to block your socks, but, as with all knitting, they're oh-so-much-nicer when they are.

I scoured shops and online resources for hours looking for the right sock blockers. I knew I didn't want acrylic, and I definitely didn't want single sock blockers. Why do so many people sell sock blockers in singles? Why doesn't my local yarn shop stock these as standard? I originally decided on these sock blockers from The Loopy Ewe (also sold in singles) but the postage ended up costing more than the sock blockers. Not good.

Hey, Look! I'm blogger of the month at Black Sheep Wools. 

They asked me loads of knitty questions, so pop over to their lovely blog to read more. They also sent me a gift card which I promptly spent on sock yarn ... more on that when it arrives by postie.

I don't think it was technically a Christmas present. More like a happy-new-year-and-by-the-way-I-love-you present. You see, on the way to Cornwall, we went on a roundabout route from London via Bristol. And there, we stopped off at a little shop called The Spinning Weal.

Just, because it was on the way. Mostly.

And The Most Amazing Husband bought me a beautiful new spinning wheel. For real.

It is an Ashford Kiwi 2 wheel, which is a compact, front-facing, double-treadle wheel. We packed it up and drove on to Cornwall. And then, I spent the week spinning in front of a fireplace. Having never used a wheel before, it took some time to get used to. I used up quite a bit of my "mystery fibre" and soon got into the spin of things. I know.

I'm going to call this colourway Ice Cream Sundae. It seems appropriate. It's going to be self-striping yarn with large colour repeats. I'm spinning two ultra-thin singles which I'll then ply together to create a candy-cane effect in the yarn. There'll be some places where the colour blocks will overlap to get solid colours, but the rest will just look like ice cream sprinkles.

Because really, everyone needs sprinkles.

I collect knitting needles. Every time I visit a new town or village, I pop into their charity shops to see if they have any. I like the ones that look like they've got a story. They're pink or blue or grey, well-used, and you can't see the markings anymore because they've worn off from years of knitting.

Charity shops keep their knitting needles behind the counter. For safety, they say. They're stored away for nosey-knitting-needle-collectors who come in asking for obscure sizes. I usually pick out a few pairs to take home, but sometimes people pop in and buy the whole collection. You can never have enough knitting needles, we crazies say. The shopkeepers hum and ha, smile politely, and get out their collections.

Sometimes they keep them in large paint buckets. Sometimes they keep them in old bags. Sometimes they're wrapped up in plastic packets.

I keep mine in a vase.


This knitty thing has been noticed by my lovely friends and family members.

I've started receiving bundles of preloved knitting needles as gifts.

Each one is a treasure but...

I'm going to need a bigger vase.

I decided to start this year right. It will begin with a positive thought a day, recorded in a brand new gratitude journal. I loosely followed this tutorial to make a soft leather-bound journal, with seven signatures made up from an assortment of lovely papers.

I figured, if I put a lot of love into making something like this, I'd be more likely to make an effort to write in it every day. So far so good, but we're only a week in...

I bought leather scraps and a leather awl off ebay which took ages to arrive, and the rest of it was mostly what I found in my craft stash. It didn't take very long to make, just a lot of patience to get everything lined up and measured correctly.


Making holes in paper? Easy Peasy.
Making holes in thick leather? I got a blister. Note to self; make holes bigger next time, so they don't disappear into the self-healing leather!

Happy New Year!


We've been away, adventuring along the Cornish Coast and enjoying lazy afternoons in front of a fire.


It was time to get away, to recharge, to re-evaluate and to reconsider the New Year. To live differently, for a short time.

Did you make New Year's Resolutions? This year, after much consideration, my resolution is to finish things. Not just projects and WIPS (although there are very many of those waiting in a queue!) but also to stop putting things off. Clean it up now. Make a change now. Do things differently now.

It all sounds like a lot of effort.

But it also feels very important to do this now.

There were a lot of storms, a lot of flooding. Thunder and lightning. Torrential rain and hail.

We played games. Uno, scrabble. Something called The Magic Tooth Fairy Game. There were books, discussions, debates, and most importantly - laughter.