Finally a FO for 2014

This last couple of weeks seem to completely disappeared, a blur of attempting to snatch a few rows of knitting, a few pages of a book (or sleep) in between the mundane household bits! 

Book wise I have finished the first three books of Bella Forrest's "A Shade of Vampire" Series.

I'm hoping to start book 4 - A Shade of Light - tonight and am looking forward to seeing where Sofia's and Derek's journey leads them, especially with the Hunters involvement!

As for knitting I have (finally) finished my Anemone Fields shawl.  After a LOT of weighing and calculations I took the risk of adding an extra repeat of the Anemone Fields section so I could use all the Laal Bear Shawl Ball - leaving me with a scant 6g left!  Still blocking at the moment but it's insanely pretty and I'm glad I went for beads instead of nupps - will probably be beading everything now!

I'm determined to finish the epic green cabled blanket next although the Heartfelt shawl is very much calling my name as a Valentine's knit!  I'm waiting to cast on though as I have a skein of red Wollmeise on the way before I decide between that and a few fabulous red skeins I've been squirrelling away in the stash!

Blue Monday

I think is more a Yawn Monday than blue here, everyone seems to be in hibernation mode!

Thanks to the very small amount of sleep Oliver deems I can cope on and a generally busy week last week I seem to have had very little time for knitting and reading. 

I'm still working on my Anemone Fields shawl and have just a few rows left of the first repeat of the flower fields section.  I'm hoping to use as much as the yarn as possible to take full advantage of the colour gradient of the shawl ball.  I'm really loving the feel of the knitted fabric with the cashmere content providing a gorgeous softness.

Reading wise, in the last week or so I've only managed to read a few books as tiredness has got the better of me - all my reading is done late at night and it's very much a read or sleep scenario, sleep doesn't win very often!

A fan of her previous Watchers, Witches Avenue and more recent Beyond Love series, I was not disappointed with the new Afterworld Series release of Recruitz by Karice Bolton and am really looking forward to more post apolcalypse zombie action with Rebekah and Preston! 

Elizabeth Hunter stole my heart (and a lot of sleep) with the Elemental Mysteries and Elemental World series.  I was recommended The Scribe and it was a page turner from start to finish!  I was totally immersed in the developing relationship between Ava and Malachi and the Irin/Gregori world, with the cliff hanger ending leaving me desperate for more! One of the most riveting books I have read of late.

Whilst I was on the Elizabeth Hunter website I noticed I had missed the new Cambio Springs series so downloaded Shifting Dreams (Totally missing the fact that the Long Ride Home novella was the first book - duh!)  I have to say I really appreciated the fact that the main characters were in their 30's, I guess I'm getting old!  I enjoy Shifter books in general anyway and this was no exception with the story weaving it's magic as the history and characters of the Springs develop.  Definitely another series to add to my favourite list.

For now, I'm off to drink more coffee and squeeze in a few rows of knitting if my fingers defrost enough!

2013 FO's

I didn't manage to finish as many projects as I'd have liked in 2013, nor did I get anywhere near enough time to learn to spin, yet I still managed a reasonable amounts of FO's!

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!