Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt: Topics for July

I'm hosting Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt this month. Here are the topics:

It was tough to narrow it down!

The Rules:
On the 1st of each month the host will post 5 categories.

Two categories will be the same every month: ‘Something you made’ and ‘inspiration’. The other three will change each time. You have the rest of the month to take a photo for each category.

By the last day of the month you should post your photos in a blog post and let the host know by either e-mailing them or posting a comment on their blog – make sure you give them the url of your blog so that they know where to link to.  The host will link to every participant’s photos and will also choose a favourite for each category and post them on their blog a few days into the new month.

The host for CPSH is going to change each month from now on, so let me know if you'd like to host next month.

Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt: June

Emma picked this month's topics. Be sure to go and look at what everyone else has posted!

1. Something I made
I won't bore you with even more pictures of the sailor top, but instead show you something I knocked up quickly last weekend -

I needed a clipboard for work as I've been doing observations this week. Paperchase did not have the selection I had hoped for: in fact they had precisely one clipboard available, and it was a very dull clear plastic affair. So I covered it in this cherry print paper I found on the third floor of aforementioned Paperchase.

I fear Emma will be most disgusted that I have not done this at all properly or followed her advice, and have just taped it on and stuck some library film over the top. Sorry Emma! But I was in a hurry to get it done. It meant that, on the first day of observations, I could co-ordinate my clipboard with my outfit, as I also wore the big cherries brooch I got from Oliver Bonas ages ago. 

2. Inspiration

I won all this yarn from Jimmy Beans. It is the Lorna's Laces LE colour for June - Stitch Red - and I have a skein in every weight. I was overwhelmed when it arrived and it has me buzzing with new ideas for things! I love it all, but I think the Helen's Laces is my favourite because I would never have splurged on a skein of this until I had a chance to feel what it was like, so that makes it an extra special treat.

3. Summer
Summer, for me, should always involve the sea.

This picture was taken from the little hill that sits next to Southsea Castle in Portsmouth. It was my absolute favourite place during my teenage years and it still sits in my top five now, even though it might have slipped from the top spot. Haven't been back in a while but with a long free summer stretching out ahead of me, I might have to pop down for a visit.

4. Holidays
Here's a picture from my last holiday -

Seems incongruous in June!

5. Motifs: Childhood

 Willo the Wisp was my favourite.

Mother Hand would argue that my favourite was actually the Flumps; possibly Mr Benn. She, of course, can remember my formative years a lot better than me. However, I do remember when I was in my early teens and Willo the Wisp reappeared on TV for 5 minutes before 6pm on C4. I appreciated the retro a lot, and so this is probably why I remember it so fondly. I liked all the characters but Edna held a special place in my heart. I'd quite like an Edna t-shirt. Must go and have a look at what Cafe Press can do for me.

Thanks for the topics this month, Emma! I'm hosting Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt for July, so look out fot eh topics which will be posted very shortly. 

Fave Friday

This week...

 

Red and white spotty cake stand. This one came from Sainsbury's but it's not available anymore.

My friend Ali bought me this for Christmas, knowing it would pander to my twin obsessions of polka dots and cake. I always feel a bit sorry for cake stands, though, because they can only really come out for tea parties - there's no point in leaving cakes on it because they'll go stale, surely?

So I'm displaying fruit on mine, instead of putting it in a bowl. Works like a charm.

Fave Friday

This week...

Rachel's Organic Ginger Yogurt

You might be able to tell by the surroundings of this product that I am a fan of yogurt. I don't like milk, so I try to have some every day. I particularly love Rachel's Coconut Yogurt, to the point where I can't really keep any in the house because it's impossible to stop until the spoon hits the bottom of the tub. This is almost as good: it has a nice kick to it.

I have been eating it spooned over a rhubarb cupcake, and we also tried the recipe from the website - mixing it with lime juice and using it as a marinade for chicken. I really liked this.

Now...it just needs to be sold in shops near where I live and I will be happy!

Tuesday Ten

Ten Things on my To-Do List

1. Pick up THREE parcels from the PO tomorrow. I have been speculating about what these might be. One is a regular parcel, one is a signed-for, and one requires payment of £22 in customs charges. I have narrowed it down to the free yarn from Sublime due to the dodgy dye lot for the sailor top; (2) the book contract I've been waiting for and (3) no idea. I haven't ordered anything from the US. I am desperately hoping that I was the winner of the Jimmy Beans Lorna's Laces giveaway this month and have a limited edition Knit Red skein of every yarn, but that is a huge hope.

2. Go to London and attend three social events. I am meeting up with good friend Siany on Wednesday, who went to Australia but has come back; having dinner with my examiner team on Thursday; and meeting the proprietor of the Gift Shed on Friday before I head back to Brizzle.

Phew! Does that count as six things already?

3. Shark around the online standardisation on Saturday. Now I have been promoted to the dizzy heights of Assistant Principal, I don't actually have to run a meeting - just pop in and out of other people's. I think.

4. Standardise my team of team leaders. Crossing my fingers this goes smoothly because...

5. From Monday, plan every lesson for the next fortnight on the new official proforma and prepare myself for an unannounced drop in. It seems obscene to be having lesson observations this close to the end of term, but there we have it.

6. Properly plan my workshop for the history conference the first weekend in July. I have mapped out a rough plan, after having a minor wobble about it over the weekend and trying to work out if it would be professional suicide to pull out; but it needs more work yet.

7. Ensure the residential AGT conference I'm running for seven schools goes smoothly. This is my fourth time running it, but the butterflies persist!

8. Finish knitting the baby jumper I started at the weekend. (I could quite easily put three more work things on here but it would be too depressing).

9. Make my lunch for tomorrow, and dry my hair, so I can go to bed.

10. ....last but most pressing - finish the familiarisation marking I have been distracting myself from for the past half an hour!

Fave Friday

I'm resurrecting Fave Friday, but instead of making it a list of favourite things, I'm just going to have one thing I am loving at present. OK? Well, it's going to have to be :p

This week...

Emma Bridgewater Cake Tins

I picked these up in John Lewis over half term. At first I thought there were only two in the packet (they nest, you see) so I was very pleased to find three, especially since they were Not Cheap. But then, it's Emma Bridgewater. I saw a beautiful cake stand they're selling within the current patriotic range and it was £75. I know it's hand painted, but still! It wasn't particularly intricate, in construction or motif.

Anyway, I allowed myself a little splurge with these because my cake tins are all either old chocolate ones, recycled from Mother Hand's house, or plastic. I love them because of the colours and the attention to detail - a row of red stars on the rim under the lid, for example - and they are nice and deep. I fitted in three layers of cupcakes in the medium one for their first outing.

Weekend FOs

Two this weekend! You can tell I've just had a week off. 


Hello, Sailor!

Pattern: Amelia Hoodie by Fiddle Knits (via Interweave)
Yarn: Sublime Egyptian Cotton DK, 8 balls
Needles: 5mm, 4.5mm, 4mm
Mods: A few. Go and look at my Ravelry page where I appear to have written a tome. Mainly - I changed the way the colours worked together, I knitted the bottom third in a needle size up for a better fit, and I lengthened the sleeves using short rows.

This is a great pattern: I can thoroughly recommend it. Somewhere I saw the shaping called "dramatic" and it really is when you look at it flat - a real hourglass shape on the back - but it works really, really well. It was quick to knit: once I'd stitched the patches together (a job I put off) it was about two weeks from start to finish, and that's not knitting it every night.

If I did it again (and I might), I would knit an inch less of hood and I'd probably leave the patch stitches live instead of picking up. There was a LOT of picking up that needed to be done.

I love the yarn, too - great colour, feel and drape. I am gutted, though, that one ball is quite clearly a different colour to the others. This isn't too obvious when the garment is being worn but I think it's a bit sloppy of Sublime, because they were all the same dye lot (I checked at least three times, and the SA at Get Knitted checked too). I have emailed Sublime to let them know but it's not like they can do anything now.


Drop Stitch Mobius

Pattern: Echo Reversible Drop Stitch Mobius (Ravelry link: it's impossible to find this on the Interweave website as an individual pattern..it was in the Spring 2011 copy of the magazine but it's not listed in the contents on the website. Umm....)
Yarn: Colinette One Zero, two skeins
Needle: 9mm
Mods: None. I thought I might make it longer but, as it turned out, I had exactly two feet of yarn left at the end of the BO according to the pattern instructions, so it was just right!

This isn't a mobius, because it has a full twist; according to the comments on Ravelry it's not a drop stitch, either, because you unravel two stitches from the bind off row. But it is lovely, and my stashbust for May. I also used these amazing dichroic glass buttons I bought at Fibrefest in 2009.

They were made by the people at Crafts from the Dungeon, who unfortunately don't have them on their website. I remember a man at a dichroic glass stall in Wells scoffing at me when I asked if he made buttons (I already had these, but wanted more), on account of how it would be impossible to put holes in them. Think outside the box, scoffy man! And also I'm not buying any of your stuff now.

This yarn was a gift through a secret swap....in 2010. I vividly remember the day it arrived because I had been supervising students on a climbing day in Bristol and had a touch of sunstroke. It came in a red and white spotty box with some chocolates and some pretty stationery and I wanted to knit with it immediately. I am only sorry it took two years to get round to it!



See, I told you it was hot that day. I'm not naked though, promise: note the vest strap.
The lovely lady who sent me this has just finished her PGCE and will be a fully-fledged primary school teacher in September! Congratulations, Tina Spoons, and thanks for the yarn!