I'm still here

just in case any of you were wondering. I've not gone missing. . Last week, was extremely busy with a 3 day visit to Norway at the beginning of the week and them getting ready and pakcing up for 'Bible Week'. Bible Week is a week long camp that our church run every year.

Simon and the girls are camping but I'm coming home every night. Don't get home until between 10pm and midnight and then go back for 10am. Except for today when I'm having a morning off.It's a fantastic week but very, very busy and it always leave me in a lot of pain. There are morning worship meetings with Wes McNabb preaching (pastor from London) and kids clubs (Simon is helping out in the pre-school club). Then evening worship with our own pastor, John Gillespie preaching. John is preaching on heaven all week and Wes is preaching on 'Heaven on Earth?'.

On SAturday when we pur the tent up it rained, same on Sunday with Sunday night seeing terrential rain (tent leaked a little) then it gradually dried up on Monday after heave rain in the morning. The main marquee where the services are had leaked too.Then since Tuesday the weather ahs been glorious but very windy.

In the afternoons we've been relaxing outside the tent with varous friends (new and old) popping around for a cuppa. Had a lady come over yesterday asking about my knitting as I was sitting there knitting, it turned out she had bought one of my knitted bags from the craft stall too.This afternon we may go to the beach. I've been doing a lot of knitting this week, mainly mobile phone socks and hair bands. They're selling realy well and I've sold some of my bags that didn't sell last year.

I've been awarded a 'Rocking Girl Blogger award' but not had time to look into it yet. Will let you know what it is next time I post, hopefully on Saturday.

Colour explosion

Someone give me a bed. I'm SO tired. I've done a craft fair today. It was pretty much a waste of time money wise. Only sold a few things and mainly to the other stall holders. But it was great fun from a social point of view. Some gorgeous crafts represented and what a load of talented people. I chatted to several people and everyone there were lovely. We all sold very little and some people sold nothing at all. Unfortunately the event hadn't been very well advertised.

Here are some photos of my table. I alteered it a bit though after I took the pics.

Pins Vanessa made. She made a Norwegian Flag one for me and she has two English Flags in this lot. She also makes Cornish Flags.

I've just been listing the last few days dyeing results on Etsy. There's lots of sock yarn and some aran in gorgeous pastel shades. the sock yarns are rather brighter. The worsted comes with a free felted bag pattern now. That applies to all the worsted skeisn, even those who haven't had the free pattern added yet. I'm just too tired to do any more now. Here's the free bag pattern. It's one of my old patterns 'Mini Maddie'. I've altered it slightly and knitted it up in the merino worsted. It's gorgeous and it felts so easily. If you order a skein of worsted, the pattern will be e-maield to you.

All orders received tonight, I'll try to get in the post tomorrow morning before leaving for Norway and I'll e-mail off any pattern orders tomorrow too. Any orders received from Monday to Wednesday will be sent out on Thursday as I'll be in Norway then for my Gran's funeral on Wednesday. Off to pack now and then an early night. Oh, and have to decide which knitting to take. Got a long train journey tomorrow. although I may just sleep all the way to London.

Here are some of my favourite yarns from tonights update:

Seaweed:

Toffee apple:

Lollipop:

Banoffee Pie:

Lavender:

Jewels:

And here is a brand new felted bag. finished yesterday. Got lots of compliments today. It's huge and it will become a pattern soon, need some more work first.

Stop the roller coaster........

......... I want to get off. That's what my life feels like right now. A roller coaster without a stop button. I normally love roller coasters but it's going too fast right now. I've got tons of things to do and seem to be getting nowhere fast. I just never seem to achieve everything I set out to.

Today I've done some more yarn dyeing. Dyed up the last of my Merino Worsted. Some gorgeous colours. Lots of pinks, blues and lilacs with a bit of yellow and green. Hoping to have some photos.

And where are the photos you promised the other day I here you all shout? Well, they've not been done yet. I've started re-skeining the yarn but not got much done yet. The latest yarns won't be listed on Etsy as they're for a Craft Fair I'm going to on Sunday at Finlake, Chudleigh, Devon. If you're in the area, pop in. I'm selling yarns, patterns and some hand-knitted things.

I took some of my hand dyed yarns to show off at the knitting club at Spin A Yarn on Tuesday and everyone seemed to like them although some of the sock yarns were very bright, too bright for some. They were the ones I dyed on Monday during my colour therapy session. With hindsight, some of them really are too bright so I hope bright yarns will be popular on Sunday. Whatever I don't sell on Sunday will go on Etsy next week (end of the week). If you want any of my current Etsy stock, get it quick as all my yarn stock is coming to the fair with me on Sunday.

Talking about Etsy, I've just listed some more patterns on there including the first 2 Sockamania patterns, May Day and River Valley. Serpentine (July pattern) won't be listed until September. If you'd like to join Sockamania, see the side bar of the blog for how to contact me. I'm taking on members for September now. But you need to let me know by 20th August, otherwise you'll have to wait till October. Also I'm not giving out previous Sockamania patterns to new members, but they will all be available for sale eventually.

My trip to NOrway for the funeral is all organised. Due to child care problems and Ness not having a valid passport, Em is coming iwth me but Ness is staying home with her Dad. We're going on Monday morning for the funeral on Tuesday and then back again on Wednesday. I'm hoping I may ahve time for a quick bit of shopping Tuesday afternoon as I'd liketo pop into a yarn shop for a bit of Garn Studio Fabel sock yarn. A very quick trip. Think I'll be exhausted by the time we get back. It's a long trip to NOrway from Cornwall. Takes a few hours to London by train and then on to Stansted. The flight to NOrway is only 2 hours. And being a low cost airline the flight times are horrible Arrive in NOway at 11pm and leave on Wednesday at 7am. Yuk!!!

Definitely some yarn pics tomorrow. In the meantime here are hte patterns I've listed on Etsy tonight.

Colour Therapy

I was in need of some colour therapy today and you can see the result of this tomorrow. I definitely used a lot of bright colours in my dyeing today. So remember your shades when you view the pics tomorrow.

The reason for needing Colour Therapy was that my Grandmother passed away this morning. Although it was very sad it was also expected. I knew when i said goodbye to her in June (when we went home for my Grandad's funeral) that it would be the last time Isaw her and I found it quite upsetting. The next thing is to plan a trip to NOrway for the funeral. Shall we all go? or just me? And for how long? and the nstart searching for cheap flights. Can't do anything until I know the date of the funer al though. Will probably be just me going for 2 -3 days. My grandmother has been very unwell lately and her body ahs been slowly shutting down for the past couple of weeks so it's a relief that she doesn;'t have to suffer any longer.

Em had her stitches out on Friday and it was really painful, but she gritted her teeth and squeezed my hadn and was incredibly brave and had all the 5 tiny stitches taken out of her top lip without any tears.

A new friend came over today. She's the mum of one of Em's Brownie friends. the girls go to different schools although we live about 5 mins walk away form each other. Her mum likes knittig and wanted to start a wrap but couldn't remember how to cast on. So we had a casting on lesson today. She also brought a gorgeous art book to show me. Can't remember the name ofit now but it was the most gorgeous hand dyed silk butterflies, bugs and leaves etc, delicately embroidered. It wa sjust spectacular. We hd a great time and it's great to finaly have a friend locally who likes knitting. Whether I can get hr as hooked as I am remains to be seen.....

The Yarn Harlot's new book, Cast Off, arrived today together with 'Best of Vogue KNitting'. both books look fab but I've onlyhad time to flick through them. Read bits and pieces of the Yarn Harlot book and it looks as funny as the previous ones. Lookingforward to reading it when I go to bed tonight, I may even ahve an early night and read late.

Off to check if my yarns are dry now. Want to get them reskeined to take them to show at the knitting club at Spin A Yarn tomorrow. The girls are even looking forward to going and Ness ahs started knitting a dishcloth to take and Em wants to do some fingerknitting while we're there.
I'll try to remember to take my camera and get some photos of them.

Moorland walk

On Thursday evening it was beautiful and sunny and warm and I hadn't had time to walk the dog for a few days. We've also not been able to take advantage of the gorgeous weather we've had this week due to Em's injury and her not feeling very well. So we drove up on Bodmin Moor (only 5 mins drive up to MInions from us) and walked over to an old, flooded quarry called 'Golddiggings'. Simon and Ness had a swim. Em wasn't allowed to get her wound wet so just paddled in a couple of tiny 'pools' at the edge, the rest of the quarry is very, very deep. If you thombstone off the highest point around the quarry you don't even reach the bottom. There is supposed to be cars, dead sheep and all sorts of things down there. It really is incredible deep. Simon used to go swimming there as a child as he grew up nearby. When I first lived here, I lived in a nearby village and we used to go up there swimming in the summer and it's gorgeous.

These days the water is too cold for me but the girls love it. Even Sam got in for a paddle. She normally hates water and will only swim if she's thrown in. yes, Simon does occasionally throw her in (only gently) and now she won't come near him if we're near any water. But she got in this time and just sat there or paddled with Em.

Here are some pics

Vanessa with Simon and Em in the distance walking towards Golddiggings. Golddiggins is the pile of rocks you can see just above Vanessa's head.

Sam loves runnig between us if we don't all walk together as a family. She's little but fast. Em and Simon up ahead with Gold diggings straigh ahead of them.
Ness and Simon swimming across the quarry.

When they swam right across the other side, Sam got quite worried. She got up on this rock watching them. For ages she stood there with her hindlegs on the rock she's on now andher front legs on the rock in front of her. It was so tempting to just give her a tiny push.

We also had a great view of the Cheesewring as we walked along. it was so clear, we could see for miles. I would have taken lots more moorland pics but my battery ran out.

My 'One skein swap' parcel arrived yesterday fromthe lovely Craftybernie. Some gorgeous Cascade. Just love this shade. A gorgeous lavender cusion which smells divine. And the Sophie pattern from 'Black Sheep Bags' There was also some stickers for the girls in there but Em ran off with it before the photos. Some gorgeous HipKnits Aran Silk arrived to from Terri. These two parcels really cheered me up after the week we've had.

Em had her stitches out yesterday. Just the ones on ehr top lip. They were tiny and very tight and the nurse did struggle to get them out and it hurt quite a lot. Em was so brave and althoug hshe nearly cried she held back the tears, gritted her teeth and gripped my gand as tightly as she could. She was a bit shaken up by it afterwards but she was brilliant.

And somehow I managed to find some time yesterday to wind some yarns up and post on Etsy and downstairs I have more yarns ready to reskein and list including some Alapaca light dk and there will be mroe of that ocming when I have time to dye some more along with some more sock yarn and worsted. I've listed the last of the Merino Lace for a few weeks though. I may not get any more until end of Augsut/early September so grab what;s left while you can.

Today, we'd planned to go to the beach but at the moent it's cloudy and plan 2 is Exeter for some shopping and a trip to the museum (which si great and free).

Have a lovely weekend everyone. And just to let you know I'll be adding some more of my patterns to Etsy over the weekend including some free with purchase patterns.

What a time..........

.... we've had lately. there's been more medical stuff happening in the YarnAddict household. If you want the long version read this, but here is the short version.

On Sunday the girls went off riding their bikes and scooters. Em fell off her scooter and we ended up in the local minor injuries unit then were sent to Casualty in a bigger hospital 40mins away. After several hours there it was decided Em would need a general anasthetic on Monday to stitch up a cut on her top lip and a quite long and nasty tear inside her mouth (where your lower lips attach to your gums, it was torn the full width of her mouth). So she had the general anathetics on Monday and was all sewn up. In addition to the stitches she has bad swelling and bruising to the mouth and chin area. Luckily, no head injuries or broken bones. But she is still quite miserable and in a lot of discomfort.

We spent all day in hospital on Monday and Em was brilliant. No bad reaction to the anasthetic and she recovered fairly quickly.

That together with my general anasthetic and hysteroscopy the week before, Ness' orthodontist appointment the week before and her root canal work next week and then orthodontish the week after to have braces fitted , has left me feeling we've had our fill of medical anddental stuff for a while. I was due to go to have a minor op on my mouth on Friday this week but I rang up today andpostponed it until September when the girls are back at school. I just couldn't face any more now.

Now, some knitting. Yes, I have had time to knit lately. I've been working on a new Lace shawl design in my Merino Lace. This yarn is just gorgeous and so easy to knit with. If you're frightened of lace yarns then I think you'll get on with this yarn. Check out my Etsy shop if you're interested. This shawl involves a lot of beading which I've gotten hooked on thanks to MS3.

Here's a quick peak, I'm about half way now and then there is the knitted on border. I'm hoping ot have it all done and pattern ready by September.

Sh, don't mention MS3, I did so well to start with and I nearly finished clue 3 but not touched it since. I may pick it up again tomorrow.

Last two days have been mad sock knitting for Sockamania. I've nearly finished the August socks now. I've just got to finish the foot on the 2nd sock, then pics tomorrow morning and then I can send the pattern out tomorrow. Only a day late but I think that's pretty good going with recent events. Ofcourse I should be organised and get it ready a week early. I may aim to do that for September.

I've also knitted a new felted bag in my Merino Worsted. As soon as the pattern gets typed up and the bag finished off and properly photographed it'll be available in my Etsy shop as a free pattern the Merino Worsted. The bag takes only a skein. Here's a blocking pic: