1st Bloggyversary !!!!!!!!

Hello Bloggy Friends!

I can’t quite believe that it has been one whole year since I started to blog!!!! Where does time go? I’m not entirely sure.

I’ve been reflecting on the new ‘friends’ I’ve ‘met’ in blogland. If they’ve not posted for a while I wonder how they are, are they ill, are things not so good or are they just on holiday? I do try to let you in on my week’s happenings on a Sunday but, of course, things come up and it’s not always possible, I wonder if you are thinking the same about me?

The blogosphere is pretty amazing. To be connected to people all around the world in a click is fabby. I’ve had a look at my blog’s stats, I’ve had visits from all around the world and I’m going to list all the countries! Brazil, Columbia, Thailand, Lithuania, Sweden, Greece, UK, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Brunei, USA, Russia, Germany, Belize, Finland and Denmark.

I’m bowled over by this and can’t quite get my head around it. One lucky soul is using an i-pad to surf, I am DEAD jealous whoever you are!

I hope you find my musings entertaining, when I started I sent my friend an e-mail saying ‘If you are interested in my boring, mundane life here’s a link’. What blogging has done is made me think about day-to-day things in a different way and without doubt, look at the local area and world with fresh eyes. My camera is always by my side and I find myself composing posts as I drive or put the washing in the machine. My photography skills have definitely got better, I understand the need for good light and look a lot more closely on how to frame and compose pictures.

I would encourage anybody to start a blog about anything, everybody has interesting things to say and there is always someone around to listen!

I’ve probably rambled on for long enough now, I’d like to say a HUGE

T ~ H ~ A ~ N ~ K Y ~ O ~ U !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

to everyone who pops in whether you leave comments or not.

A mosaic of the some of my favourite pictures from the past year.

Byeeeeeeeeeee..................Clicky Needles x

A Very Good Friday

What a day!

The sun was blazing down again and Mr Clicky Needles joined me in the Favourite Place ~ actually we spent most of the day there, listening to the radio having a snooze and chatting away.

On Thursday I stopped by at our local builders merchant and bought some wood for some new trellising. We set DS on the job and he sawed and drilled and screwed together and made not one, not two but three trellis. He made a really good job of them. I hope to show you them attached to a wall soon!

I finished sewing up my blue bolero. I don't mind sewing things up, I love the feeling of satisfaction when a project is nearly over, as I sew I think of what will be next.

I wore it to knitting group today and they were very nice about it, although I'm not entirely sure about the back ~ I think it needs to be a bit more fitted.

You remember the seeds I was planting?

Well, here are some climbing french beans on their way up.

Other gardeny things.

For Teresa, the 'pond' ~ not a real pond as I explained before but just a tin bath sunk into the ground it's about 60cm or 2 foot deep, enough for the wildlife. The local birds have been using it all day for drinking from.

I've just transferred the hostas to here, splitting some of the others from the hosta/ferny bed. In the background are bluebells and the gunnera is starting to unfurl those wonderful big leaves.

The cherry tree gives a nice bit of shade, all the blossom has gone and it's now in full leaf.

In another corner are these white bluebells (whitebells?) ~ I'm not sure where they came from ~ I don't remember putting them in.

The classic combination of forget-me-nots and cowslips ~ the cowslips are determined to take over the lawn as well, so I cut around them.

Well, we've got more unseasonably hot weather forecast so relaxing is definitely the best idea!

Have a great Easter Weekend.

Bye for now ........................Clicky Needles.

Oh what a lovely day.

Hello everyone.

I'm really pretty chilled and content at the moment, brought on by the wonderful sunshine and Easter Holidays. It struck me today whilst I was lying in my Favourite Place in my bikini (it's ok the neighbours can't see me) slathered in sunscreen (yes it was that hot!) that I've never shown you the whole garden. Close-ups of flowers yes, but not the whole thing.

Well I think I know you all well enough by now, so here are two pictures taken from upstairs. You can see my Favourite Place with my Ripple it All Up Blanket which has grown of late. To the left is the bubble pool and the red thing is a real buoy which was a present from our neighbours' when they holidayed in Cornwall.

The sound of running water can really transport you anywhere, such a lovely noise to have a doze to!

Our garden is North facing which is not always great, but it means that the hosta/ferny area in the bottom right of this picture does flourish. In the top corner is the 'pond' which at the moment has loads of tadpoles, frogs and a pair of newts.

From this height of course, flowers aren't showing up that well, only the apple trees which are breaking into blossom.

When we moved into our then new house 11 years ago the garden was nothing but earth. We removed 4 skip loads of stones and builders rubbish.

There you go, a quick tour of the garden!

Mr Clicky Needles and DS were away last weekend in Devon on a rugby weekend with other teams from the south, as far apart as Hove and South Wales! DS' team came back with a bowl which they were very proud of and DS also came back with these rather impressive stud marks on his arm!

Me and DD on the other hand went to Cribbs Causeway at Bristol looking for a prom dress for her. Sadly we didn't find a dress but there is a John Lewis at Cribbs so obviously the yarn department needed a visit. On having a quick rummage through the bargain shelf I found these two balls of Rowan Wool Cotton which are going to be turning into April's squares for the Phoenix Friendship Blanket. One will definitely have cables on ~ at the moment I'm not sure about the other.

I was trying to add the the Ripple Blanket today but the weather defeated me and it was just to hot. A thought sprang to mind and I remembered this crochet cotton bag that I'd started but not finished. It just ran out of steam I think. I guess we all have projects like that, they just get put somewhere and forgotten. My place for this is under a table next to the sofa, out of sight, out of mind. Anyhoo I started this TWO summers ago, on a 5 hour plane flight and hadn't got going on it again. It's going great guns now .................so watch this space.

I've finished my blue cotton bolero which is blocking right now. Yaay!

I've also got a bit more dyeing done, these are the blanks I got at Wonderwool the other week. ALL of them are beautifully soft.

Alpaca Sock Yarn.

Blue Faced Leicester Aran, not everyones choice of colour I know but DS wanted it done in Camouflage!

Two skeins of laceweight, 100 per cent organic merino.

Hopefully I'll be getting some of these in my shop soon.

I can't quite believe I've got up to 41 followers! It is great to have so many people popping by and I love comments that you leave so thank you very much!

Well, with hot weather predicted tomorrow I bet you know where I will be found, trying not to fall asleep.

Look after yourselves and as always, have fun.............

Clicky Needles.

Sock Ta-Dah!

Hello all!

As I'd hoped my socks are finished.

I'm really pleased at how they turned out, and even more chuffed because I used my own yarn! They wouldn't match but somehow I don't mind. They're bright and cheerful and nice.

Those new Knit Pros helped and of course, I've been using a new Lego stitch marker. I love these and they make me smile.

As I predicted DS wanted them all for himself and has started to make himself something so he can use one too. We cast on for this which will be a creature of some sort. It'll be knitted in the round and filled with beans and stuffing. DS has no problem with knitting in the round he is actually very good at it. I cast on and got it going and he pulls it out every now and then and does a few rounds.

The yarn is left over from his socks that we made together last year.

I've been pottering in and out doors this week ~ which is most enjoyable. I got all these seeds on a recent visit to the local garden centre, so yesterday I started to plant some of them. As usual I got more than I need, but never mind, I'm hopeful for a fruitful harvest.

DS wanted to make some bread this week, so we got some yeast and followed the instructions on the packet. From this......

to this...........

......to this. It was declared 'nice' by the family and we will be making some more I think.

Righto ~ I'm off to mow the lawn, all this warm weather and a bit of rain is making the grass grow so quickly.

As always, have a great week..................................byeeeeeeeeeeee..Clicky Needles.

Wonderwool Wales

Where shall I start?

I had the BEST day yesterday at Wonderwool.

I was so giddy with excitement I forgot to take photos of the stalls!

There were some rare breed sheep.

A Manx Loaghtan with their strange double horns.

A Leicester Longwool - I've not come across these before.

There was a huge array of fibre, fleece, dyeing equipment, spindles, notions and loads and loads of hand dyed yarn.

Would you like to see what I got? of course you would.

Here we go.

Some Lego stitch markers from The Bothered Owl.

I don't really need any more stitch markers but I knew that DS would love these, and he did!

Three skeins of 100 per cent wool to make a felted bag. I really like the shades of grey.

Two skeins of Colinette Point 5, the colours were so lovely I couldn't resist. I think this will be a chunky scarf in a plain stitch just to show off the colours.

Two skeins of ready to dye sock yarn.

This is an Alpaca, Merino, Nylon mix. I've been promising myself some Alpaca socks for quite some time, soft and warm, my tootsies are wiggling already at the thought of it.

Some merino laceweight to dye as well.

Also in my bag, two new dye colours, a set of 2.5mm dpns Knit Pros and a little cotton bag. As Romain and me tootled around, you could hear from us "Look at that" "What a good idea" "Have a squish of this" and "Ooooo" ~ we had a fabby time.

Romain got a new drop spindle and some fibre and we got a nice man to give us a demo and some pointers about where we were going wrong. Romain says she won't be beaten by a spindle, but I'm leaning more towards felting the fibre that I've got. We shall see!

I met Vikki of Wild Fire Fibres who is a Phoenix Forum member (so I feel like I know her!) and also Little Red Dragon ~ who I really do know ~ for a lunch time chat.

Romain and me agreed we enjoyed it more the Ally Pally in October ~ it was much less commercial and more about British Wool, not too big, not too small and both came back with lots of ideas. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Well, school finished on Thursday for everyone, as the village had no electricity on Friday. When I got in, I set up my steamer chair, in my favourite place with a cup of tea. Bliss.

You'll notice a sock OTN. I decided to dye a skein just for me.

I've finished one sock and the other is about half way through.

It is being helped greatly by those new Knit Pros I got so I think we'll be having a ta-dah soon.

Well I must go and get in the garden ~ to enjoy the glorious sunshine (sorry Teresa! she just had the first sunny day since Jan 25th) and do some tidying as well.

Have a good time whatever you do..............Clicky Needles.

We have a winner!!!!!!

Hello.

The draw has taken place!!!

I put everyone's name into the 'hat' this afternoon ~ well more of a plastic pot really....

...and then I got Master CK to pick a name ~ he had his eyes shut!

Drum roll..........he pulled out JennyA.

Well done Jenny, if you send me your address I'll put your skein of Raspberry Ripple in the post.

Thanks to everyone who left comments or became followers ~ I've found some new blogs to look at which is always great.

You may have seen some references to a 'pink bag' in last week's comments.

Here it is.

Found by a fellow knitter from the Butterfly Group (and I'm blaming her for buying it) in Tesco. It was being sold in the Mother's Day section, actually a gardening bag, loads of pockets for putting in bits and pieces, but ~ obviously ~ gardening is not what she and I intend for it. A cracking good project bag.

Also included these lovely gloves.

On the gardening front the rhubarb is going a bit mad, so we had a crumble today.

Flowers looking pretty at the moment, Snakes Head Fritillary.....

a cowslip/primula cross....

a pretty primula

and a pulmonaria

My squares for March arrived for the friendship blanket.

Mine are just blocking and will be sent this week.

We're on the 'home run' at school and then a big sigh of relief and holidays. I'm going to Wonderwool on Saturday ~ what a lovely start that will be.

Have fun, whatever you get up to this week.

Byeeeeeeeee............................. Clicky Needles.