Yummy Sock Yarn

This arrived in the post this week.

How gorgeous are they?  From Laughing Yaffle and I can't wait to turn them into lovely socks and/or wraps/scarves. 

The baby blanket is coming along well, half way through the third border, I'm hoping to finish it this weekend.

Knitting in earnest

Knitting has begun in earnest, I'm 10 squares into a 30 square blanket.  Here are some pictures of my work so far...

I've become slightly obsessed with knitting (as is my way) and I've already got a list of stuff I want to try including circular knitting to make socks...







I also like the look of these wrist warmers...











and bag...






Watch out friends and family, guess what you're getting for Christmas!

In other news, I've signed up to do Race for Life in July.  I'm going to train for it properly unlike last time when I went for approx two runs and then died during the race getting the quite pathetic time of 39mins59secs (and that was with a sprint finish).  I've worked out a 16 week plan which should mean I can run all of it in about 30 minutes.  I'll let you know how that goes when I start it in March (when it's light enough in the evenings for me to run after work).

Happy Birthday to Me!

It was my birthday yesterday and I had a lovely day.  It started off with opening presents in bed and then off for a back massage with Lisa which was heavenly, I didn't know my neck and shoulders were so tense until she'd relaxed them.  After that I had an afternoon of knitting followed by a meal at Colleys.  I thoroughly enjoyed my deep fried goats cheese, cream of celeriac soup, sorbet, navarne of lamb and treacle sponge.  Their treacle sponge is to die for, the sponge is made with suet and just seems to absorb the syrup making it so sweet and gooey.  All in all, a wonderful birthday.

I've been very good keeping up my resolutions, I've been giving myself a weekly facial when I've been good (done quota of knitting and exercise) and that means using up all the bottles of stuff in the bathroom.  I've finally finished a really expensive bottle of shower gel I was given last birthday, I had a strange sense of achievement doing that!  I'm keeping up with my knitting, I've worked out that to finish the baby blanket by the time he/she will arrive (sometime in May/June) I need to do 1.7 squares a week, that leaves me 4 weeks to sew them all together and knit the edging.  I've rounded this up to 2 square a week, 8 squares a month and I've already finished January's quota and am starting on February's today.  Again, this gives me great satisfaction each time I finish a square and start a new one, I think I'm actually going to finish this project (another resolution done!).

I'm getting very enthusiastic about knitting, I'm starting to think about what else I can do when I've finished the blanket.  Socks seem very popular and I'd like to learn how to do circular knitting (so the socks don't have a seam).  I also like some of the wool you get which makes the socks stripey with no extra effort!  I think'll need extra help to learn how to do this, so I'm going to a knitting group (no it's not as old fogey-ish as it sounds) next Sunday, I'll let you know how it goes.