New Year, New Blog

2014 marks four years of (very intermittent) blogging for me.  My first blog, "Then there was me", was started just prior to my 30th birthday as an attempt to record my knitting and weight loss journeys.  The former has come on in leaps and bounds, the latter not so well!

Life got busy and just after finishing work for maternity leave in 2012 I decided to start a new blog, "Then there were six".  I envisioned one of those amazingly inspirational blogs with a balance of crafty and parenting/home ed posts.  Sadly I think I may have overestimated how interesting my life is!!  Coupled with the fact that the last 18 months or so here have been complete and utter hell a tad trying, my blogging took very much a back seat (in an old broken down car, in the back of a very dusty garage!)

Here we are with another new year and another new blog.  Given that coffee (or tea - I'm not fussy as long as it's caffeinated!) and yarn are two of my favourite things, the title seemed much more appropriate.  And hey, I managed to include cakes without it being the death by chocolate variety - chocolate being yet another of my favourite things which very likely contributes to the lack of weight loss progress!

I shall dispense with any hope of blogging about home ed since here it would require boring myself and any readers with endless minecraft waffle and stick with what I'm good at and ramble on about yarn, knitting, spinning and reading.  I've also decided to combine all my previous blogs into one - if nothing else I can see how well my crafting has improved (and my children grown!)  Any luck in two years time I won't feel the need to start a new one hehe

So it's a Hi from me and my new blog and I'm off to grab a brew and my WIP!

 

Busy, busy!

The days seem to fly by at the moment.  

On Thursday, we were treated to a trip to Twycross Zoo by the husbeasts mum.  With temperatures in the thirties and me rocking a kidney infection, we were super excited regardless.  Twycross is only half an hour up the road yet we haven't been for years.  With a car laden with lots of drinks, a picnic and the 7 of us, including MIL, we set off.  As most schools hadn't broken up for holidays it was still fairly quiet but boy, it was hot, especially as I was babywearing! 

A great time was had by all and in a hugely generous gesture, MIL has got us all an annual membership so be prepared for many more zoo pics!!

I also had the opportunity to have another play with my wheel.  I decided to spin some more Whitefaced Woodland I had dyed and actually achieved a small plied skein which I am super happy with!

In a spin

About 8 years ago, I started using wool nappy wraps and longies over Harrison's cloth nappies. I very quickly fell in love with hand dyed yarn and WAHM knitted items. It took me several more years to finally decide to take the plunge and learn to knit again after much lusting over gorgeous yarn, handspun and pretty KnitPro needles. My yarn and needle stash has come a looooong way since then but it took me until earlier this year to buy myself a spinning wheel, knowing full well I was unlikely to find time to learn to spin for a while.

Today I finally grabbed a few minutes to myself and dusted off my Kiwi. I dyed some Whitefaced Woodland back in February which, after a very naff few first attempts actually became more than green fluff!

Much more practice required at, well, all of it but squeeeee at the prospect that I might be able to produce handspun yarn one day!

July! How did that happen?!?

I am still desperately in search of an extra 48 hours in a day.  Or maybe just an hour to do "me" stuff that doesn't requite me to sneak out of bed at 3am!  

Life has been hectically busy, as usual.  I've been frantically trying to get a host of DIY bits done around the house and after finally having new kitchen and bathroom floors laid I have spent a few sweaty, horrible days scrubbing years of previous tenants grime from every surface of the kitchen.  Vast amounts of chemicals and elbow grease, some new cupboard handles, blinds and lights and I'm finally loving the kitchen (and can almost override my desire to rip out the hideous tiled worktops!) 

Whilst we were ripping up disgusting carpet from the kitchen, the hallway got the same treatment to reveal the lovely original tiles which just need a good clean up.

I'm also midway through overhauling the front room which currently serves as a dining room, study and playroom.  My old rickety desk has been ditched in favour of a more compact desk for the kids PC and I have new wooden venetian blinds for the bay window still to go up to replace to the awful plastic curtain rail and kitten-clawed curtains!  A new coat of white paint should finish it all off nicely although I'm still tempted to go with a feature colour on the chimney wall.

The garden is still very much a work in progress with the bramble jungle growing hugely in the recent wet weather!!  At least it's now usable and a lovely place to enjoy a cuppa in between being shot with water pistols and run over by scooters...

Kid wise, we've had our home ed group sports day last week and Sunday was Vaughan's 5th birthday with his Mario plush collection increasing substantially!

Not surprisingly my crafting has been very much on the back burner and my three WIP's (Koi Garden Shawlette, Plum Island Big Baby Blanket and Helix Socks) are sadly very neglected.  Off to find those extra 48 hours a day...