7 parks walk

A few of us from my local Childrens Centre decided that we would take part in the 7 parks walk around Preston yesterday. It takes in the biggest 7 parks and covers 13 miles. We collected some sponsermoney for the Baby Beat appeal for our maternity hospital http://www.babybeat.co.uk/

Here we are at the start

looking all refreshed and raring to go

this one is about 10 miles in and is on the docklands

Miller Park about half a mile away from the end, it really is a lovely park and it is where we had out wedding pictures taken

and of course at the end well worn out and ready for a good radox bath


with a very big thanks to the Crafty yarns and threads ladies and Mershys work friends we raised about £60, I will let you know the full total when we have all combined our totals.

pictures of the plot and socks

I have to thank my grandparents for a lot of the hard work, they have been fantastic this last year or two whilst the kids were too young for me to spend too long down there. we had another great planting spree over the weekend with asparagus going in, as well as peas, purple sprouting brocolli. The spuds will go in as soon as I am sure the last frost has passed.

These are finished just in time for my 7 parks walk on Sunday


they are artesano alpaca humming bird, 6ply, they are really soft and lovely, a real treat for my feet

allotment dreams

it is that time of year again when I get all vegged out, I spend my days wondering what I can grow this year at the allotment, how can I win the war against the demon rabbits and slugs. The boys are very interested this year and insist on throwing seeds all over the place and whilst my back was turned they dug up my freshly moved strawberry plants.

I have just bought 2 new blackcurrant bushes and another goosegog bush. I will take my camera down next time and show all how pretty it is looking especially as now my shed is the right way around again ( it suffered considerably in the bad winds a few weeks ago and landed on its roof )

Knitting is painfully slow, I must finish my dk alpaca socks for Sunday, the shawl has increased 1 full row.
I have however just spent a long time winding 2kgs of wool into balls for a good friend.

my mind is also turning to woolfest more and more, the plan is to dye 25 kilos I am about 6 down now, I just don't know where time goes.

all wound up ready to go

I am really pleased with this lot, keep an eye out for it.

after a trip to lidl yesterday I bought a load of yarn to have a go at IVY from knitty.com

I am a bit nervous really as I have not yet completed a wearable item for me other than socks and hats, but as the yarn was an absolute bargain I have to try.

I love a sunny day. I have 25kgs of blue faced leicester yarn delivered yesterday and here is a good few kilos of the laceweight yarn shining beautifully in the glorious lancashire sun before it takes a journey down south, well anywhere south of Wigan is south to me.



I have closed the lace club now and will open another later in the year.

But the sock yarn club will be raring to go as of Saturday night 6pm 9th of March, I can only do 12 places as I have a ton of work to do and don't want to stretch myself, I want to put a lot of love and care into my sock club and will be including a little special something with every hank of yarn, so grab your places, the cost will be 30 pound ( I can't find the pound sign on my keyboard I have no idea where it is ) and that will include 3 hanks of sock yarn 1 hank sent out the second week of the months of april may and june.

how much wool

poor hubby's face was great when 25 more kilos of wool found its way into his space yesterday, lol. I will add pictures as soon as I get a chicken poxed baby to sleep later

lunar eclipse

usually the weather up here is terrible so sights like this are a true rarity, and to top it all off I actually managed to stay awake to see it.





sights like this never fail to impress me

bad knitter

I have been a very lazy knitter lately I am knitting a pair of walking socks out of artisan alpaca hummingbird, as I am walking the 7 parks walk, 13 miles around Preston on the 25th of March, In aid of our maternity hospitals baby beat appeal, but apart from that my needles are quite quiet.

I do have big news on the dyeing front but that must remain a secret untill I can scream about it.

25 rows down 200 to go

now i have got some new addi needles for this I can put the plastic denises away and hopefully start flying with it.
I do feel better that it is a top down construction as I know that every row there is 2 less stitches so I must get quicker and quicker, the yarn is absolutely lovely, I am really pleased with how soft it is yet how great it knits up.

Also fresh out of the dye pot is this new colourway which will hopefully be up on the website later on today

back in the land of the living AGAIN

no sooner had I recovered from the wisdom tooth episode I have been wiped out by a horrible viral bug thing really knocked me off my feet. I have recovered from that and now I have the cold that almost everybody in the country has got.

on top of that my dear son Sam has chicken pox and looks like this



good old chicken pox, as you can see he is quite pleased with hisself and is showing everybody he can that he has loads of spots.

one of the lovely ladies on the forum has started making the most beautiful stitch markers and these arrived today

they are the most beautiful stitch markers I have ever seen, hopefully she is setting up an etsy shop and i will post as soon as she does but be ware she is being hounded for business.

back in the land of the living

I had a wisdome tooth out recently and it has knocked me for six, I have had to sleep almost constantly and usually generals only take it out of me for a day or 2 this seems to have lasted the full week.

my shawl has been put on the back burner due to lack of concentration and I have been bitted by the toy bug.

may I introduce Millie Doll

she is for a very good friend who has just had a lovely and beautiful baby girl called of course Millie.

On the dyeing front this months lace club yarn is drying and is I think quite beautiful, I just hope the recipients like it as much as I do.

dish cloth swap

I wish I could put up a picture, but my dish cloth for the swap on the crafty yarns and threads forum has been sent off today. I will post a pic as soon as my swapee guesses who sent it. I was never really inspired at the thought of knitting dish cloths, but after knitting this one I can see me making quite a few more.

on the dyeing front I had 2 custom lace orders, the first I really love and am considering making it one of my colourways, the second one just screams at me to knit the fibretrends shoalwater shawl with it.

almost solid

I am so in love with this lace yarn, the almost solids really show off the stitch patterns perfectly but also have that hand dyed quality that gives the yarns a different look to commercial ones

lace club open

I have entered into the world of yarn clubs, the first one is a lace club running for three months. each month the member will recieve 100g ( 1200 metres ) of hand dyed lace weight blue faced leicester yarn, in solid and varigated colours. here is some I snuffled for myself




I have cast on already ( I mean how on earth could I resist ) for the creatures of the reef shawl by fiddlesticks, it is a top down pattern which appeals to me, the casting on of 437 however a little daunting went quite well, I am a full 4 rows in, only 218 to go.

also fresh out of the dye pot is 3 skeins of goth pink opal yarn for a certain Murdo

intro to the world of blogging

well after a while debating I am finally here, I read so many blogs and get engrossed in them so I thought really I should have one.

The blog will be a knitting and dyeing blog. the knitting is my hobby and the dyeing is for my shop www.brightdyes.wahmall.co.uk.

more about me first. I am a work at home mum to 2 beautiful boys Sam and Jack, Married for 9 years now to the ever patient Mersh ( although I believe he was christened Stephen ).