ELEVEN WHOLE POUNDS.

WOW

CONGRATULATIONS Liz and Richard!
Here’s to you and your house full of boys, I can’t wait to meet him when I’m home at Christmas.
xxx

***Edited to add***

Birthed in the ‘conventional fashion’ too and without any drugs! She’s my hero!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as A new baby!

A knot in my yarn. I appreciate that not every ball of wool can be perfect, but I still find it annoying as it just means more ends to darn (not my favourite part of knitting). To date, the worst skein I’ve ever knitted with was a ball of Rowan Country that seemed to have a knot in it every 20 yards. It did make something nice though.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as And the crafting gets interrupted…

Up to now I’ve resited the urge to start any baby crafting projects, partly because I didn’t want to jinx anything, partly because it still doens’t feel entirely real yet, and partly because I don’t have any idea about what colour to knit. But in the past week I finally caved in and put wool to needle, choosing Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in a dusky duckegg blue. The pattern isn’t particularly challenging (what is it with moden baby patterns and the assumption that everything should be at beginner level??) but I chose it as like the colour, it’s suitable for either a boy or a girl. I’m also knitting it to fit a 6-9 month old, as it’s rather warm yarn and a cardigan like this might not come in very useful in the 90˚F heat of the Bay Area summer.

PS for anyone interested, the pattern is the cardigan with moss stitch edging from the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino Book 2.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as And the crafting begins…

All of this reminded me of the time that we went out a few weeks ago to have a try at taking some as-nice-as-we-could-get publicity photos for her little web shop. We had such a lovely time, driving all over the local English countryside finding nice backdrops. We ended up on a little village high up on the Berkshire Downs where we played around in a pretty farmyard complete with tractors, geese and even the odd donkey or two. We had such a nice time and the great thing about it being a photo day was that I have all the nice pictures to remember it by.

Here are some of the photos we managed to take (during the rain-free moments). If you’re interested to see more of her things, you can visit her shop (in GB £) or click on any of the pictures to be taken directly to her Etsy store (in US $). She also ships worldwide Shameless plug, I know, but what are sisters with blogs for?

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Fun with my sister a few weeks ago

Anyway in my perusal of Google and the world wide interweb I came across THIS:

Are my eyes deceiving me? The Rowan website might harm my computer?? Either the Rowan website has sadly been infected with a spreadable virus, or there’s something going on over there that makes the browsers and search engines think there is a problem. Firefox is saying there’s a problem too as the only reason I ended up googling was because the direct link I entered into the browser came up with something similar so I ran a search to check that I had the right address.

Curious. I hope they sort it out soon, I want to look at the Winter 2008 yarn!

_____

PS Apologies in advance to Vanderkitten for posting a Google screenshot, but Yahoo! doesn’t warn you in the actual search results if a website is suspected to be malicious….*runs under a rock and hides* 

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as The Rowan Knitting Website?

The release of the new Leica D-lux 4 camera has just been formally announced over on the Leica website (coinciding with the big Photokina 2008 photography expo).

I’ve been waiting for this for MONTHS! I’ve wanted a nice SLR-quality pocket-sized camera since well before Christmas last year and was all set to ask for the D-Lux 3 for my birthday this summer when I heard rumours of the next model being on the cards. And *FINALLY* it’s here.

It won’t actually be available in the shops until October 2008 and even then it might be hard to find for the couple of months after that as it’s in such high demand. I had a little shop-floor play with the D-lux 3 at the beginning of the summer and homygoodness was that a beautiful camera if ever there was one. I can’t even begin to think how exciting the D-lux 4 is going to be. Gosh I hope it lives up to its expectations in field tests and gosh I hope I get to play with one at some point. Owning a piece of Leica is one of my dreams.

For those that are interested, here’s a bit more info taken straight from the Leica website:

The Small System Camera
The compact nature of the D-Lux 4 means it can be with you all the time. But despite its compact size, it offers top Leica quality and gives the photographer plenty of artistic freedom. The D-Lux 4 is ideal, whether for subjects composed with lots of forethought or for spontaneous reportage.

The high-aperture professional lens
The LEICA DC VARIO-SUMMICRON lens 1:2.0-2.8/5.1-12.8 ASPH is a high-aperture lens for digital compact cameras that allows the real enthusiast to work with an open shutter. Its high speed makes the LEICA D-LUX 4 ideal for available light exposures. Whether in poor light or for selective use of field depth, the lens of the LEICA D-LUX 4 gives the photographer scope for highly individual picture composition. The aspherical zoom lens with a focusing range of 24-60 mm opens up new creative options in reportage photography.

The lens design consists of eight elements, of which four are aspherical. These are matched individually to the camera sensor, working in harmony with the electronics and software, to produce stunningly brilliant pictures in true-to-life colours.

Powerful sensor
At a standard resolution of 10.1 megapixels, the overlarge size of the 1/1.63″ CCD image sensor increases image quality distinctly. The smallest details of the subject are reproduced exactly. The D-Lux 4 can take photos in all three formats (4:3/3:2/16:9) to suit the particular recording or playback situation. On the 3″ LCD monitor with a resolution of 460,000 pixels, pictures can be viewed and assessed in excellent quality before and after they are taken. Leica Camera AG has developed its own unique colour matching, contrast and picture definition profile which produces digital characteristics complimentary to Leica M film photography.

More creative possibilities
The ergonomic layout of controls and intuitive operating system make it a pleasure to handle the D-Lux 4. Focus, shutter speed, stops and exposure override can all be set manually with the joystick giving the real enthusiast scope for highly individual picture composition. Of course you can also use the intelligent automatic mode: Depending on the subject and photographic situation, the camera automatically selects the best mode from Scene Select, either macro, landscape, portrait, night portrait, or night scene. The professional software Capture One 4 (RAW data converter) makes sure that the RAW data supplied by the CCD sensor is “processed” in optimum quality. Data recording can be in Fine, Standard, RAW or combinations. The D-Lux 4 is also prepared for photos in HDTV format with a HD port for TV connection.

Expandable, just like a small system camera
The D-Lux 4 is a real Leica, not just in its design, its looks, and its performance, but also its being the first digital compact camera that can be used with an extensive range of accessories – just like a system camera.

That means even more photographic possibilities with the camera that can claim to be
“son of M8″

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as EEEEPS! The Leica D-Lux 4: It’s official!

The other night this:

Became this…

*SIGH*

Several weeks ago I started what I thought was going to be a fairly straightforward crochet project using a therapeutic mind-numbingly repetitive pattern that would give me hours of creative pleasure. A crocheted dress, what could be better? Although it lived exactly up to expectations, it was also a little frustrating. I find that crochet is notoriously difficult to tension/gauge exactly and inevitably with me there is always a bit of prior experimentation involved with the hook size to get it just right, usually with a couple of false starts. This was about my fourth attempt where each time beforehand I had worked a good few rows of big shells in the border before measuring across and finding it was completely out of gauge and I had to rip the whole thing apart. Understandably I was getting a little sick of the lower border and eventually hit the wall where I would have gladly given away my internal organs just to get beyond this part and onto the main pattern.

On this occasion’s attempt I worked three rows of the border shells and found that my tension was perfect. BUT as my handywork grew in length, it somehow managed to LOSE WIDTH. It was only when I had got to the main body of the dress (OMG such joy) and happened to have it resting across my knees that I noticed that it seemed rather on the small side and when I measured across I found that it had lost A WHOLE TWO INCHES across.

Huh??!!

So all those hours and hours of work are now wound back up into a ball of yarn. I’m determined to persevere with it as I *will* make a crocheted dress So Help Me God, but for the moment it’s hibernating whilst I get over the feeling that I would rather gouge my eyes out with hot pokers rather than have to work the border pattern all over again for about the umpteenth time.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as And once again I am projectless…

My reasons for wanting it to be nice tomorrow are twofold: In the morning I’m going out hacking for the first time since spring. I cannot tell you how excited I am as galloping through the countryside on horseback is incomparible to any other feeling.

The other reason I want it to be nice is that my sister has recently applied for and has been accepted to feature on Not On The High Street which is an online marketplace for unique handmade items, kind of like a more professional version of Etsy. They are apparently very discerning about who they will accept, and claim to turn down 95% of applicants. So this is quite a big deal *ESPECIALLY* because they also act as agents and send out PR to all the big magazines like Marie Claire and Country Living and all that sort of thing.

Anyway, one of the things they’ve asked for in order to do the PR is a portfolio of nice ultra-high quality photographs (they actually said that that the pictures in her application were what made her stand out), so that’s what tomorrow afternoon is about. Even though my mum usually takes most of the pics for her, Malph asked if this time I’d mind taking them as the resolution on my camera is a lot bigger than hers and the NOTHS people are quite strict on the formatting. I’ve been searching through my hard drives to see if there is anything that we might have already, but she’s been so busy making new things these past few months that my pictures are all a bit out of date. The last time I took pictures for her was last November, which is ages ago. She didn’t have a shop then, just her blog on which she’d post pictures of all the things she’d made. I remember that day well, and it was also the time that I think I took one of my all time favourite pictures (above)- it was just before the coming of a big storm that we could see coming over the hills in the distance and we were increasingly fighting the ever-buffeting wind. And then it got too dark for any more camera fun, so we picked some blackberries and got in the car to go back home. I think we still have some of the berries left in the freezer, ooh I should bake a pie this weekend!

The NOTHS “photoshoot” (hehe) is “scheduled” (hehehe) for tomorrow afternoon so we have until then to decide where we’re going to do it. We’ve been trying to think all day where might be a good spot as we want it to pick up the same rustic theme of her sewing (barley field? in front of the old barn??), but looking at that November photo again, I think that’s actually quite a nice spot. We so desperately want everything to turn out ok, as if we can get some really nice photos there might be just a very small chance that they might get featured in a magazine, and how exciting would that be??!! I can’t bear thinking about it.

Oh, by the way, my sister’s “rustic chic” shop is also open too and can be found over at MalphiStyle.com. She’s worked really hard at setting it up, and I hope you like it. Please wander over and see what you think, we’d appreciate your feedback 

On that note I should get to bed so I’m actually awake for all that needs to be done tomorrow

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Please let the weather be nice tomorrow…

The other reason for the delay is that my free time has been slightly distracted by a new crochet project: it’s going to be a dress.

Today we went to London as my sister wanted to look at fabrics and trimmings for the new dresses and aprons that she’s going to make. Because of this it wasn’t a typical London trip day as we headed away from our usual hangouts in the West End and ventured up to Goldhawk Road and the area around Shepherds Bush Market where there are some a-ma-zing fabric shops. There’s practically nothing you can’t get. Here’s the market bit, it’s kind of set under railway arches (Goldhawk Road was just like a normal London road, but with lots of fabric shops).

In all my years living/working in London, I’d never ventured out this way before as I simply didn’t have to so it was an interesting trip for me. Shepherds Bush Market was much cleaner and organised than I had expected- for some reason I thought it would be a bit more messy, more like Camden or Petticoat Lane.

Of course I didn’t go all the way to London without taking a girl with me… this time it was Jaime who wanted to come (she’s Cecily’s ‘biological’ sister and the girl who I adopted when we went to Brighton).

Sadly the damp weather meant that she spend most of the time asleep in my bag, but she did enjoy a nice afternoon cup of tea. After that we did manage to make it to the West End for a couple of hours in the end which made me pleased- a trip to London isn’t a proper trip to London unless it involves Selfridges

Also I decided on the way home that I wasn’t happy with the progress I was making with my new crochet. Since that photo was taken it had acquired three more rows of shells, but when I measured it my tension was all off making my intended size small into an accidental size large. So as soon as I stepped through the front door, I took a deep breath and unravelled three evening’s worth of work and it was done before I had time to think about it. Clearly unravelling my crochet projects is becoming a bit of a routine, but I’m actually relieved so now as like before, it means I can start it again with a smaller hook. I will no doubt be posting updates of my progress.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Crafting, Craft Supplies and London

*Eight* whole skeins of chocolate brown Rowan Kidsilk Haze for just *four whole British pounds*! Yes, that works out at being  just £0.50 per skein instead of £6.75! How could I leave that behind? I also got five and a half balls of sage green Rowan Silken Tweed for the same price too. Bargains of the century or what??!

Today was that big monthly jumble sale that we always go to and for some reason the haberdashery section was overflowing with knitting materials- everyone must be having a spring clean. That combined with the bad weather which deterred a lot of people from attending meant that there were *plenty* of bargains to be had. And it wasn’t just the crafting section either…

   
(click the pics to enlarge)

I also got a white top by Joseph for £2, a white linen Thomas Pink tunic for £3, and a Paul Costelloe blouse for £3 all of which were probably only worn once (because it’s near quite a well-to-do area down in these parts one can often pick up some *real* clothing bargains; I’ve even seen a genuine Gucci bag for sale there for £10 in the past). But by far my favourite clothing purchase was a rather snug 100% wool argyle pullover for only £2. Overall it’s been a good week in terms of charity shop purchases as I also picked up a Ralph Lauren Blue Label shirt a couple of days ago for £5.99 which seems hugely expensive in comparison, but then Oxfam always tends to be on the pricey side.

There is seriously *nothing* that you can’t buy at this jumble sale, it’s completely amazing. I even managed to pick up a load of dolly clothes including a rather nice knitted jacket for Joyce, my Peteena.

I’m already excited for the next big sale in July, I wonder what I’ll find at that one?!

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Bargains GALORE!

I remember once in a school french lesson my teacher telling us about certain words and phrases that just did not have an adequate English translation. “Il fait mauvais” was one such example. It means that the weather is a combination of dull/bland/grey/boring/dreary, yet at the same time not depressing. That is what the weather has been like lately. Uneventful, uninspiring, not cheery yet not depressing, but MAUVAIS.

Overall not the sort of weather that makes you want to get out of the house, so apart from a trip to a charity sale on Saturday (this has been pretty much routine for the last fifteen years and we never miss it if we can get away with it), the rest of the time was spent getting on with craft projects.

I *finally* finished backing and machine quilting the main body of my patchwork. After much deliberation, I finally settled on a radiating diamond pattern using a ‘hand-done’ style stitch to give it a bit of added interest – I darkened the picture so that the pattern shows up more on the beige and cream gingham backing. I might still quilt in between the lines of stitching to double the density of the quilting, but I’m going to sleep on it for a few days and see how I feel by the weekend.

All that’s left to be done now is the border quilting and the binding which I’m planning to finish next weekend if all goes to plan (and I decide how to do it). And as long as the weather is mauvais which it could well be like all summer (it can happen like that in England), I anticipate that I’ll be getting a lot of crafting done

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Mauvais and patchwork

But the raininess wasn’t all that bad for it just presented another opportunity for me to pick up my needles, and spend a happy day in front of my sewing machine. The holiday weekend crafting proved highly fruitful and there was plenty to show for my efforts, but by this evening I was so tired that I fell asleep on the couch and so didn’t have time to take any good pictures before it got dark. But here’s a little something that’s almost finished, and just in time too- it’s Rachael’s birthday at the end of this week.

I hope the weather improves as we are in the middle of exciting plans to throw her a tea party

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Bank Holiday Crafting

It was a time for mud and welly boots…

Walks in the woods with my family…

Bluebells as far as the eye could see…

Having fun with Isadora…

Playing with my new girl, Fleur xx

Baking pretty little cakes (no buttercream frosting this time as Young Father is watching his cholesterol)…

And quality time for some crafty goodness: Olive the pot holder, and Gaynor the amigurumi bunny.

Had I not quit my job I would have been working yesterday, but haha I quit my job and so I wasn’t which made this Bank Holiday weekend extra nice and special.

I hope you all had lovely weekends too xx

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Bank Holiday Merriment

My latest blog crush has been on Tracy Cupcakes x of Cupcakes At Home x. As the snow came down on Sunday and I found myself with an empty morning owing to a cancelled walk, I settled on the couch with a cup of tea in my hand and my computer on my lap and became completely lost in her bloggy life. Not only does she have a LOVELY family of animals that expands at about the same rate as my growing plastic brood, but she’s a pretty magnificent crafter to boot. It was probably for this that I came over all creative myself on that cold Sunday afternoon.

Eagle-eyed (and crafty) visitors to PH may have noticed something exciting in one of the photos I posted a couple of weeks ago…. See in this photo? There’s a piece of luggage with bright red writing on it…

That word says *PFAFF*. Yes, dearest husband of mine flew all the way from California with my beautiful shiny sewing machine in tow Here she is…

Hello Darling!

So with freshly inspired creative blood flowing through my blogged out veins and time on my hands, it was the perfect opportunity to break her out of her luggage straps and put her to use. Remember the patchwork charm quilt that I mentioned a while ago and never mentioned again? That was my project (I’ve actually banned myself from starting new projects before others are finished as it makes me feel like I have completion issues which makes me feel guilty and then the guilt stops me feeling crafty, so nothing ever gets finished which takes me back to square one).

But anyway that quilt was progressing, but it was rather laborious and sluggish as I was working on my grandmother’s old antique hand crank. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful old machine, but it’s just rather slow and you’ve only got one hand to feed the fabric and so lining up seams and corner was about ten times more work. With my lovely Pfaff however, I made excellent progress. This is how it stood at the end of the afternoon (hard to imagine, but there was 4″ of snow just a couple of hours previously). This morning it had just been scrappy looking pieced strips.

And then in the evening, I worked on adding a border. I had excellent help of course. I wouldn’t have been able to have done this without such excellent advice and tuition. Clearly I was putting the tape measure in the wrong place each time, but he soon sorted that out for me, never seeming to mind at all. Thankyou Barn!

By the end of the night I’d put the border on too. I tried to get a picture of it this afternoon but it was so windy that it took about half an hour! Anyway, this is how it all looks now, all ready for backing and binding.

The border seemed to take almost as long as assembling all the strips. I tried to be a bit creative with the corners, partly because I wanted to make them a feature, and partly because I didn’t have the patience to sit down and mitre them properly which would have been a nightmare given the pattern of the fabric.

Proper methodological patchworkers who are old and dead would probably have completely turned in their graves at my technique as I practically bent every single rule when it came to the border- I didn’t measure, neither did I cut along a flat edge, I just looked, lined up then cut and sewed freehand, but it seems to have turned out ok. I’m pretty pleased with how the points in the corners all matched up (i.e. the points of the diagonal square are still points where they meet the seams), so I must have done something right. I’m sure they just ad-libbed and improvised in the old days.

So there it is. My almost finished patchwork. Now all I have to do is decide how I’m going to quilt it. I’m looking forward to doing that

Thankyou Tracy for inspiring me to get this finished x

But aside from an afternoon of homely domesticity there was something else that I got from reading Tracy’s blog too. Within the past year she and her boyfriend have moved their life from the near coastal parts of southeastern England to the rural wilds of northeast Scotland…..effectively an emigration, like me. Following the details of packing up their life in Kent, saying goodbye to everything in life they’d known and leaving all their friends and family, it suddenly hit me that I would be doing this myself in a few short months from now. And it’s a pretty big thing. When I’m in California, I won’t just be able to jump in a car and drive down the road to see my family, I’ll have to take time off work and fly there. This is the last time in my life that I am going to be living under the same roof as my family and I should be making the absolute most of it and spending every single second of my waking hours with them if I can help it. With this realisation, my tiring, badly-paid, unsociable-houred part time job suddenly became very unimportant to me, so before I went to bed last night I typed out my resignation letter, and this morning I gave it in. I will be leaving there on 1st May. To spend precious time with my Mummy, my Daddy, my sisters and my cat. I feel happy xxx

I will no doubt miss the little bit of income that I have been bringing in each week, but time with my loved ones is worth more than all the money I have ever earned in that job put together. And besides, the tax man should be giving me a nice little refund that I can sustain myself from for the next few months

So thankyou again Tracy Cupcakes, this weekend you gave me a nice new quilt, and some nice new priorities xxx

PS Mr Afterburn’s site is also a recent blog indulgence, and is the most touching, heartbreaking and heartwarming writing that I have ever read. But take a hanky if you go there. He also happens to be a good friend of Tracy Cupcakes.

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Blog love and sewing progress

Of course it needs to be a bit longer in the cuff and the thumb is a tad on the large side, but on the whole we’re pleased with our progress so far and the next one should hopefully be just about right. I have a feeling that there are going to be some more requests for these

And it wasn’t just a name she was picking out this week – I let Little Miss Holly play in the yarn stash and pick out some wool for her new scarf. She was delighted that there was so much to choose from and ended up picking a nice dusky green.

Yes, she decided to let her sisters help her choose. It’s Holly Winter to be exact, Eliza thought it sounded pretty, hehe! Ooh, and here’s another picture of her, she’s too photogenic for words. I’m going to have some fun with this girl

© Originally published by Nin for |••• PeachyHollow •••| as Mittens and scarves