I am back from my longest blogging break since the start of 2017!

My MIL moved into a nursing home on the 24th October and is now only 30 mins away instead of 2 hours which is great. I still have a lot of sorting to do and more decluttering but finally my crafting mojo has returned and I have picked up a neglected project and started a new one.

Acquisitions/Collection Curation

During the break I purchased the mystery gnome pattern for the Halloween gnomes but I haven’t made a start on them at all. I will maybe leave those to next year now, since I have a Christmas gnome WIP.

One of our younger Guild members passed away and her stash was being sold off to help pay for one of her young son’s music lessons, so I bought some weird fuzzy sparkly yarn that you can see below under Dorset buttons section.

I have also ordered some fibre for spinning! More on that next week!

Knitting

During the first 7 weeks of this break I was still on the first pattern ‘row’ section of my Little Gemstones cowl, now I am on the 7th! My knitting mojo is back with a bang in the last 10 days and I am sleeping better too.

I am wondering if I have enough yarn to add one (or two) more ‘rows’ of gemstones though.

Mistakenly I stopped counting every stitch when I was doing the 6th section and then discovered I was missing a stitch somewhere. If it was dropped I can’t find it, suspect I’ve accidentally K2Tog.

DK socks have also been cast on, for some easier mindless knitting.

Spinning

Being away meant missing some spinning groups, but those I did make it to I wove a Dorset button (see below) and cast on the DK socks.

Considering my stash size, it mostly all seems to either be small amounts for fairies or dyed coarser fibres for felting lampshades or gnomes.

Some lovely undyed fibre needs to be dyed, but our garage is rammed with stuff and now the weather is cold again.

So, as mentioned, I have ordered some fibres specifically for spinning. Oh and I ordered another World of Wool advent calendar…I couldn’t resist. It’s so easy to grab a packet or two before heading off to spin with friends.

Weaving

Dorset Button

As mentioned above, on a Guild day I played around with making some Dorset Buttons. Using the fuzzy yarn and some leftover yarn.

I also finished the mercerised cotton button. There is something quite relaxing in making these.

I made a start on using just the fuzzy yarn on a larger loop.

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Other News

During the last 8 weeks, we had a week’s holiday on the Isle of Man which I blogged about on my travel blog. I also flew to my sister’s for 4 nights to see family and celebrate my nephew’s 21st birthday. We spent a lot of time in the car travelling to visit my MIL, who was in a hospital 2 hours from us; but did manage to tie that in with lunches out and even bumped into Princess Anne one lunchtime!

We were just coming out of Gordon Castle Walled Garden Cafe in Fochabers when my husband said isn’t that Princess Anne. He is hopeless at recognising faces but yes indeed it was Princess Anne with 3 men, we assume her husband and two security. Balmoral Castle is only about 60 miles south of there and she was to be attending an event in Fochabers in a couple of days time. The girl in the shop said she didn’t know whether she was supposed to have curtsied 😂.

Alissa and her husband were over from the US travelling Scotland and we managed to meet up a couple of the days which was lovely. She has done a fabulous series of posts about their Scotland trip.

Apart from that I have made progress on MIL’s paperwork, her house is on the market and hopefully will sell to pay for the nursing home she is now in. I have done some clearing of the vegetable garden and greenhouse, although we still have some veggies left to pick. I still need to get back to decluttering, doing some deep cleaning and house maintenance, but I feel like I can afford to spend some free time crafting and blogging now.

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This is a Year of Projects post. Officially the Group is in its 15th year, but this is my 8th year participating. If you would like to find more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, as you’d be very welcome to join us.

Year 15 list.