Meet my lovely, crazy friend...

Ikue! and the first person to leave a comment on the blog, so those gloves will be on the way to Japan very soon! I hope she'll forgive me posting these pictures! Shirlei (her mother in law) was very concerned that Ikue should have some colour on her lips before we left for the city!

Ikue is pregnant at the moment and is expecting Boo's arrival towards the end of March..very exciting! I'm pretty glad that she will have had Boo before the weather turns really hot over there. I received a lovely email from her today with lots of news and it made me feel very close to her, she always has wise advice to give. Thankyou Iku...

Mum is on a 'knitting bags' workshop today at Purl & Co in town, I'll look forward to seeing her efforts later. It's been a fairly domestic morning for me, making poppyseed bread and leek and potato soup...and trying to stop myself from nibbling on the carrot cake made the other day from the Rose bakery book 'Breakfast, Lunch, Tea'. This book comes much recommended, not only for the fantastic photography which makes you want to nip over to Paris straight away but also for the pretty simple and straightforward recipes. We've had some success so far with date scones, shortbread biscuits, orange and choc ricotta tart and now the carrot cake. It is really moist and the icing not too sweet..yum.

A special day with friends..

Hello again..it's lovely and bright outside although pretty nippy when the hound and myself took our daily constitutional! I was taking more notice of Nas and his sniffing habits this morning due to being in the middle of reading Paul Auster's Timbuktu. The story concerns a dog, Mr Bones and his owner Willy G. Christmas who is preparing for his death and trying to find an old friend to leave Mr Bones with. Mum bought the book primarily because the dog on the cover is the spit of Nas, but it's also turned out to be a really good read. The section I'm reading right now is about Willy being fascinated by the dog's sense of smell and how important it is to a dog. Nas is a great sniffer too....

Well, the shawl was finally finished last night...phew. I'll post a picture soon. Currently knitting more mittens again with Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora in a mixture of pinks, purples and grey, very nice.. Also attempting to make a long, fabric wall hanging with pockets..a commission from Liv! She had seen it in a catalogue and wondered if I could do something similar. The next task is to find some coloured calico type fabric for the pockets..definately not a chore in my book!

These pictures are from a day in the summer of 2006 in Fukuoka city in Japan. It was an incredibly hot day..after a while in Japan, you tend to get used slightly to the humidity, but you never get over feeling like a drowned sweaty rat amongst lightly perspiring Japanese people! I have learnt the hard way that the only thing to wear is cotton shirts, even t shirts are too heat inducing!

My company on this day were Marli and Shirlei from Porto Alegre in Brazil. We were all in Japan to attend the wedding of my good friend Ikue and her fiancee Nei, who's mum is Shirlei. Marli is Shirlei's good friend. For nearly 2 weeks we lived together in the apartment that Nei and Ikue would live in after their marriage, while they stayed with her family. This was a fantastic time, these two ladies were so friendly and loving and we quickly became friends and helped each other to get by. For them, the country was quite a culture shock and I loved seeing Japan again through fresh eyes. I also found that my grasp of the language improved greatly through attempting to ask things for them. So today, I just want to say hello to those two special ladies and let them know that I miss them and am remembering them...

Glove giveaway!

I'd like to give these gloves away to the first person who leaves a comment on the blog. They are made from Rowan Kidsilk Aura (Mohair and silk) and feel really soft! The pattern is the old faithful Louisa Harding's gardening mitts.

So please feel free to write anything and I'll pop these in the post to you.

Nearly finished the Parisienne shawl! Quite exciting, just have one more round to go and then the edging. Have borrowed 2 Debbie Bliss books from the library, 'Home' has the 'jellybean' cushions pattern beloved by Jane Brocket of the Yarnstorm blog and the other has some baby and tiddler knits. This book has taken on much more significance since I had some fantastic news sprung on me the other night!

Liv casually passed me a picture when I was visiting on Tuesday, 'Here, have a look at this'. It looked suspiciously like a scan picture from the picture of the stork on the front! and yes, she's 4 months pregnant and actually has quite a bump although I hadn't noticed..doh! I'm so happy for her and Trev as they have been trying for a while. She said it's been so difficult keeping it a secret, especially at Christmas when she was feeling very sick. So, a July baby, plenty of time for knitting something then!

A gift of gloves...

Oh, tomorrow I'll post a picture of the finished fingerless gloves and thought I'd give then away to the first person who would like to leave a comment on the blog...

Sunny Southwold..

Hello!

We met mum's sister in Southwold on Monday for breakfast at the cafe near the pier, a special 2-4-1 offer. They both had the full works which looked 'proper' nice and I went for eggs on toast.

The sun was out and shining like a gud'un at 10 am and after a stroll along the pier we walked along the front (wish I owned some sunglasses at times like that!) and saw these great beach huts in candy colours. A lot were having renovations and many were still in the car park after the inclement weather we had in Suffolk not so long ago. Wouldn't it be lovely to own a 'hut'? Wonder what the going rate is these days?! Then we headed into town walking past some beautiful looking houses and holiday apartments.

It's got a nice feel about it has Southwold, expect that's why it's so popular (and expensive) as a place to live. Never mind...you can dream...or stay in a B&B!

Siobhan, one of the hens died on Tuesday morning, she'd not been herself for a few days and we brought her inside but alas.... Maeve doesn't appear to be pining, but is always looking about perhaps for her old friend. It's quite sad...RIP Siobhan...

Buttons galore!

Hello again, I seem to have been lagging behind with this blogging lark the last week..still feeling a bit out of sorts but that's life..

Well, I've had to curb my ebay time after going a bit overboard on bids for mother of pearl buttons, but came away with 2 lovely packets of buttons and some found in Diss Oxfam last week, so a nice little stash to be going on with. My main use for them has been for the middle of these felt brooches. I came across some fantastic cards of vintage MOP buttons that Sue (propieter of Purl & Co) had been collecting to sell in our yarn shop in town, but think they've all gone now...so needed to find some more!

It's been beautiful weather here the last few days and have enjoyed some nice meandering walks with the dog. This time last year it was snowing up in Sheffield, as we made our way through it to get our dissertations bound before the shop closed. Did a bit of sorting out yesterday of 'leaving uni' boxes and bags that have still been hanging around in case of moves back up north. Sadly, in some respects, it looks like I'll be settling here for a while and so tried to put things away and make a bit more space. Brought back a few memories. It's silly that even looking at clothes can remind you of things and looking at my occupational therapy uniforms of white tunics and bottle green trousers inevitably made me remember my final work placement which would have started soon this time last year for 3 months. Things just feel very unsettled in my head just now, when you have to make lots of decisions and you're never sure if theyr'e the right ones...usually in my case they never are..

Doing the clear up yesterday also made me remember that it's a year on Wednesday that Nellie and me first got in touch, all because of a 'Po', a tiny little creature made out of polymer clay that Tomoko makes. These are incredibly tiny, you can't quite believe that it's possible to create something so detailed and small with your fingers, but then she is very talented.

Dad has actually had a spring in his step this week which has been lacking for a while. His new job 'doing his hobby', fixing motorbikes at his friend's garage is obviously much better suited to him than the school run driving job which he was not enjoying to say the least.

Mum attended an Intarsia workshop at Purl & Co yesterday, her Christmas present from Dad. Was very impressed by the results, a heart design. She said it wasn't as complicated as she had anticipated.

Am still quite perplexed about the complexities of blogging, I'd like to be able to add links in the text, for example to Tomoko's site and also to write between adding pictures but am baffled as to how to go about this. If anyone has any tips please let me know!

Out of sorts....

Yes, these bags have been on my mind since yesterday afternoon. Something momentous occurred! Davey at the craft group patiently showed me how to use a sewing machine. It feels like a whole new world of possibilities has opened up. Of course, it is going to take much practice to conjure up something like the above but maybe someday! Thanks Davey...

It's been a funny few days... hopefully the gloom will lift soon.

Tea cosy!...cosy tea...

As promised, the finished, felted tea cosy made at Gill's workshop! I hadn't realised that the inside would be visible also so it was nice to put some spots inside too.

We've found some Japanese leather bag handles on Kitty-Craft for mum's bag which should go well with the orange and brown colours of her bag.

Mum joined gwen for her dentist's appointment today to have her troublesome tooth removed, she's now back here recovering, bless her.

yay...

It's my future brother in law's birthday tomorrow (hopefully!) and this is the picture I used to make him a card. It's a seriously beautiful bike seen in Osaka, Japan.

guess what?..I've been offered the support worker job. It was after 5pm when I received the call so was expecting the worst after being used to late in the day 'sorry but..' calls. So, very pleased and relieved and have a good feeling about this one. Unfortunately, will be waiting several weeks for crb to come through before starting.

Nellie said it was upsetting but also moving and he was surprised at the amount of people who came.

Saw on the news about the cuts to arts council funding for arts projects today, seems really unfair that some are losing total funding while others double, why can't it just continue as before? Similarly, the news showed how brass bands will potentially lose out while the opera gets considerably more in comparison. I'm all for variety but where's the support shown for grassroots, small, community projects? Who goes to the opera? sorry, have had a few too many glasses of wine and on a downer.

On a better note, saw a brilliant dvd last night, 'Tell no one' , but please tell everyone about this film as you won't be disappointed! It's french, a murder mystery, a doctor whose wife was murdered suddenly receives an e-mail from her 8 years later. Fantastique!

Have a great weekend folks.