In the making...

On Saturday my knitting group is having a "Gartmore at home" event which basically means we meet for the whole day to knit and make whatever we like. As a group we can do almost everything starting from knitting through crochet, quilting, cross stitch, sugar flower making to.... I don't know if there actually is the end to this list. From time to time if someone can do what others haven' t tried yet she can give a class to teach others. This Saturday we will have a tote bag making class, japanese quilting class, scrapbooking class and crochet doily  making class. And I am giving the last one. So I am busy making some samples, drawing patterns and trying to find some order in many symbols and names used to describe crochet stitches.

Creative stitches

Creative stitches is the name of the show I went to yesterday held at Glasgow Exhibition Centre this weekend. Wow, wow and once more wow. The amount of fabric, wool, needles, felt, beads, buttons, scissors and thread I have seen yesterday still makes my head spin. I went with two clear goals set firmly: first to buy fabric for some of the quilts I intend to make in the near future (and to find what I have in mind at lower prices) and second: have fun. I achieved my goals.

That is the fabric I got. It is just amazing!!! I was looking for grey and pink roses (to make quilt for my Mum) for quite some time and now I got it. The fat quarters I got were all Ł2 so now I have all the rainbow colours for Zuzanna's quilt. And some gorgeous reds with black and white for Bartosz's quilt. Oh, joy...
I can't possibly describe how great it was to wander around that hall and admiring beautiful pieces, seeing all these breathtaking ideas, soaking in the creative atmosphere... I will just mention that I've spent a long time at the Quilters Guild and lace exhibition made me cry.
Go and see for yourself...
Near the end I decided I really need to start making something or I will go crazy. I could use a blindfold and an escort outside to stop me from buying more fabric. So I went to Elena Costella's stand two knit. I was asked to knit two flowers: one for myself and one for the charity Creative Care. The pattern for the twisted flower was amazing, how Elena came up with and idea to twist the work (in one of the rows you're asked to twist your left needle anticlockwise after every six stitches) I have no idea but it works great. So I made a red one for me:

and a purple one for charity. And when I finished they started to close the show so I had no problems with getting out ;) I think I will add some beads in the centre of the flower but I love it already.
I can't wait for the next show...

For my daughter

I had this yarn for over a year, nearly two years actually. I bought it in Poland in April 2010 (!). It's called Oliwia, 20% wool, 80% acrylic, DK. Lovely colours, perfect match for jeans, and because of constant colour changing it is fun and quick to knit. I wanted something simple but not boring so I made cabled panel on the front.

I always try to minimize sewing up so I knitted the front, the back and the sleeves up to the armpits and then put it on circular needles and knitted in the round. Then I only had four straight seems: on the sides and on the sleeves, with very little weaving in.

You can see my passion for detail in matching the rib to the cables - it took some counting, the rib is not always 2 by 2 but I am very happy with it. As I am with the look of decreases with a little matching cable :)

And the best thing is that Zuzanna is wearing it all the time since I finished.

Making compost

Finally, instead of waiting till God only knows when for the money to spend on proper compost bin I have bought plastic compost bag for £3 in my supermarket. And finally my conscience was happy when making soup I didn't throw anything - I just put all the peelings aside to make compost :) Nothing's wasted.

For quite some time now I am trying to reduce our waste "production". We are doing our best at recycling but all the time it was bugging me how much raw stuff I throw away that could be used in composting. As I mainly cook from scratch there is always a lot of peelings. And there is usually some tired cucumbers or peppers of bananas that I can't force myself to eat but I don't want to throw away. And more often then I like there is a forgotten apple or tangerine on the bottom of the fruit bowl. So I could finally get rid of all this stuff and at the same moment produce something useful.
And then I remembered - you can also put eggshells in. So I made a banana loaf and voila: more things used, not wasted.

Now fingers crossed it will all turn into lovely, earthy compost and not just smelly bag of rotten waste.

In my kitchen today

While me and Zuzanna were making these:

for lunch (and these are called racuchy - mixture of egg, oats,bran,milk and grated apple,  fried and sprinkled with icing sugar) 

my little boys were busy with this:

I just couldn't believe how much fun they had with some rice and lentils... And the ratio of time spent on preparing and tidying up (maybe 2 minutes) to their playing time (25 minutes) just couldn't be better :))

In the making...

Took me a while from my first post but here I am. Perfect moments like this when Jan gave up to his afternoon nap, camera is at hand, I have a good light and offcourse my knitting on my lap - they don't happen very often. My plan is to capture some of them to share.

Sooo... on my needles today is jumper -to-be for my oldest son. It tok me quite some time to find a right yarn that is 

1) red, but not just plain red

2) at least aran weight

3) without any pink orpurple in it

4) in general suitable for nearly 10-year old.

Not an easy task. But I'vefound it. It is Sirdar Click Chunky in Wild, very soft and very quick to knit. the colours are just lovely, lots of red but balanced with blues and a touch of a pale green. The jumper will be knitted in knit-5-purl-2 rib, with raglan and three buttons at the neck. 

I actually started it in stokinette stitch with k2p2 rib but it didn't feel right, it wasn't hip enough. So I did a very brave thing: I ripped all the back and half of the front and started again. And for me that is an achievement, uusually I would either finish it against my will and hate it or just put it away for a few weeks, months, years... All the time feeling guilty for spending money on useless yarn and not finishing jumper for Bartosz. But I am back on track  and I feel epic :D. I just hope it will block nicely and won't be too close fitting :/.

Beggining

So many times I was here. At the beginning of a new blog. Always with plans, promises, dreams... Will see this time :)