Winter wonderland

Doggins walks have been absolutely lovely for the past 2 days, the snow/ice/frost in the woods is so pretty. I have been slightly concerned that I might bump into the Snow Queen at some point!! There was a very scarey picture of her in my Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale book and I have never forgotten it, or the need to turn several pages at once so that you didn't catch a glimpse of her before bedtime!! We are talking several decades ago but I find the imagination has a powerful memory!

Well I have been busy knitting, a brown/lime striped scarf and a Norie Hat from Shetland Trader, there are some fantastic patterns in the book and the great thing is you get an e-copy immediately and then the solid version is sent in the post!! So you can start straight away but also have the joy of savouring each page later on. The photos are lovely with some beautiful scenery so there is plenty of enjoyment in store!! I'm using British Breeds yarn in purple, I got the wool from superknits, which is run by a local girl, Gemma, she had a stall at the Christmas Craft Market in town and I got this and 2 balls of sock yarn by babylonglegs, which I expect will be shawls one day!! I am now doing a pair of fingerless gloves to go with Norie Hat, they are from November issue of Creative Knitting, which I have subscribed to as a digital mag. This is a great idea as you have access to 2 years past issues as well as current ones, without having a pile of magazines hanging about and it costs about 1/2 the price of printed subs.

I am excited to get my parcels of sewing fabric I ordered last week but I must give a huge plug for Jaycotts they are definitely the best mail order company I have ever used. I ordered some patterns and haberdashery stuff last Friday morning and it was here on Saturday morning, that is pretty impressive by any standards. Their prices are also very reasonable, in fact it has been cheaper to order zips from them even with postage than buy the zip at a local shop!! This does cause me to have a few qualms because I do like to support local shops especially yarn and sewing shops. I have less worries about buying fabric on the net as there are a no great shops near here. Well there is the rag market in Birmingham and while lots of that is cheap price wise the quality is also cheap. Its great for curtain fabric though, so I shall be going along to get something for my new living room very soon!! But back to dress fabric and Croftmill have just emailed to say they have dispatched my fabric so sewing machine get yourself ready for a bit of work!!