yarn along

Joining in with Ginny.

I have almost finished the Cheeky Kea for Thomas (the purpley bit I'm knitting is the pocket). OK so it was meant to be for his birthday which was last Friday, but I was close ! This is a fun knit. I did find the directions a little tricky to figure out a couple of times, but I think this was partly because this is the first garment that I have knit in the round (with my new found skill of continental knitting!). I started off (at the top) doing the same repeating stripe pattern, but then got to the bit where you use both sizes of needles at once to do the body and the sleeve edges, and trying to do the sleeve edges in green and the body in stripes and having four pointy ends to deal made my head hurt, so that bit was all green, and after that the stripes are more random.

I have just finished reading Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne. My kids go to a Steiner (Waldorf) kindergarten so the ideas in here are not new to me, but I really like the way he expands upon them. Also his writing style is quite poetic, so even though it's a parenting book it's lovely to read. I don't feel like I've quite won the battle of the stuff in our house though. We have rearranged rooms so the kids could each have their own, and there are still piles of things that need new homes all over the place. We are dreadful for gathering books. One of the ideas in the Simplicity Parenting book is that kids only need a few well loved books out at one time - we're still working on that one.

yarn along

Joining in with Ginny

I have started knitting a That Cheeky Kea vest top for Thomas' birthday. I'm knitting it out of my stash yarn. I did go to Hobbycraft and buy some yarn for both Thomas' and Hannah's birthday knits but then discovered I'd bought 4 ply rather than double knitting for Thomas. Then we were all ill and I never made it back to exchange it (and anyway it's rather nice 4 ply so I'm sure I can make something with it). So Thomas' top will be a mixture of heathery green and grey. Not sure yet what colour to do the contrasting pockets. I've got a nice heathery purple somewhere that might work.

I'm reading Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson. I read this many years ago when I was a teenager, and started reading it again (the same copy as before - it's showing its age!) over Christmas when we were staying at my parents. It's a good book for intermittent reading as each chapter is a self contained description of an aspect of country life in the 1880s.

the start of the garden

I planted some tomato plants a couple of weeks ago and they are just poking through. These are a bush variety which need less attention (i.e. no staking or picking out side shoots) so fingers crossed they will be more successful than in previous years........

The kids and I have also planted lots of flower seeds this year. I thought we'd start some off inside and then plant some more outside when it's a bit warmer. We've got Stock, Cosmos, Lavatera, Nigella and Snapdragon. The garden should look very pretty if we manage to plant all those.

yarn along

On the needles is another neck warmer. This is the 3rd one I have knit recently. I have been teaching myself how to knit continental style in the process. I think I've cracked it now. It took a while to get going, especially with purling, but it is so much easier to knit this way with circular needles. And since I am so, so bad at getting round to stitching up knitting projects, I think circular needles are the way to go.

I am reading Not on the label by Felicity Lawrence. It's about how the power of the big supermarkets, and the push for cheap food, affects the workforce, the environment and the food we eat. It's made me want to reduce my dependence on supermarkets even more. We already get an organic fruit and veg box delivered (just waiting to buy the house with the big garden so I can grow my own!) but I'm also going to start getting some dry goods (rice, pasta etc) in bulk from an organic wholesaler. These companies are committed to social and environmental responsibility, so it's a start.

reduce

I'm trying to reduce the amount of packaging that I use (both recyclable and not). Most packaging is from food e.g.

• tinned tomatoes and baked beans
• yoghurt pots
• plastic fruit punnets

I am aiming to tackle these bit by bit, starting with the tomatoes. The plan is to order extra tomatoes with the veg box on Friday and then transform these into chopped tomatoes which we can use throughout the week. Should be doable !

yarn along

Joining in (for the first time in ages) with Ginny's yarn along.

I have been knitting small items recently. There has been a spate of headbands. One for a Christmas present and two requests. The latest, the pink one in the picture, was for Hannah. I am a sucker for those single balls of interesting wool that live in charity shops. I knit this green/rust/blue one into a neck warmer for me.

My mindless-can-be-done-with-kids-around knitting is currently another neckwarmer for Hannah. Well at least that's what I hope it's going to turn out as. Hannah thinks it's going to be a skirt for one of her dolls.

I have decided I want to knit the kids birthday jumpers this year. Thomas' birthday is in April. Better make a start soon.......

I seem to be reading lots of books at the moment, but I forgot to put any of them into the photo! I am finding 'Living with the Active Alert Child' (I have one) by Linda Budd very interesting, and I think it will have some useful ideas in it. I like the way she analyses different styles of families, and talks about how each family style has useful components and how each one can adapt itself to better suit this type of child. This seems a more useful approach to me than one which suggests a specific way to parent.

at the weekend

We've had some lovely snowy weather over the last few days so at the weekend we did a lot of sledging and building igloos for dolls (kids) and snow shovelling (me).

Towards the end of one sledging session the sun was lighting up the hills in the distance and it looked almost like a painting (apart from the footprints and sledge tracks).