Is it Christmas yet?

I've been thinking about Christmas stuff since...oooh at least August. And have been gleefully mentioning Christmassy items since the beginning of October. It seems however that lots of people would rather not be reminded about it until at least Halloween is over- Well it is now!!!
I'm really looking forward to Christmas, we will hopefully be in the new house by then and i have Plans, plans, PLANS!

So this is what i'm aiming for - although i shall also be making a lot of it myself ( can't get much more local than me ;)  ) I'd love to do another advent tree - and make the decs to go on it with the kids again ( Although that really was the end of our Rosemary tree /bush the year i decided to bring it indoors and hang stuff from it for the rest of the month.) 

Remember this?

We've made Christmas cards for the past few years now ( although latterly they have been somewhat of a rushed affair) so this year i'd like to do some more lino prints and see how those turn out. Wrapping paper takes some planning as well- Its all well and good doing the odd sheet but with 4 children we require slightly more. Although i know of few of my friends who use playsilks hmmmm, we only have 2 of those. 

In other exciting news someone has had a birthday!

Millie is now 4!!!!

She had such a lovely day and was so happy and smiley to be 4. Her cousins came up to see her and we had a lovely afternoon in the park, feeding ducks

I can't believe how quickly time is going. Millie is 4 Maya is 14 my little lovelies are turning into massive lovelies. 

As usual a few catch up pics are probably in order ( and who doesn't love a good nose through pics right?! ) 

We all went out for a meal for my Mum's birthday to a restaurant. It was really nice, the kids all enjoyed it too- especially ordering their own food.

I finished my little scalloped shrug - it is so soft and fluid, its really comfy to wear. 

This ridiculous pair decided on a few selfies to while away the time whilst waiting for food in Ikea. Love Sonny's face here it cracks me up!

Here i am!! Or rather here are Millie's toes featured in the gift guide of this months Inside Crochet. Exciting stuff.

Halloween and what was probably our last ever party at this house - Its a bit sad, we've been here for 11 years now, but we're not moving far and i'm rather looking forward to the next chapter .

Moving house and other such waffle...

Who knew house moves were so stressful?
 Probably most people actually, you'd think i'd never moved house before wouldn't you. As I remember it though the stressful bits were further on down the line, packing, and document finding, dealing with any probs with the survey, as I remember last time we moved finding  house was the easy bit. How wrong I was. Finding a house for 4 growing lovelies and 2 big lovelies with lots of growing 'stuff' was quite a challenge, but we have done it. Wahoo! Now on to the next stressful bit of moving - the packing.

 So thats what i've been up to in the past two (ahem three) weeks. Millie has also had chicken pox. It came as quite a surprise, she wasn't even ill or anything. But my God they took a long time to scab over. Quarantine when you're trying to view as many houses as possible is quite a challenge. She's fine now and we have made up for it by going out LOTS since.

Here was the last couple of weeks...

the lovely garden we'll soon be leaving....

A stroll in the park the day before the spots came!

Freedom!! And a conker ( sorry horse chestnut) tree

And some of the last fortnights creations...

And some gorgeous mystery yarn boxes going out to some lovely people. You can't see those yet ( cos they've not all got them yet!) but here was last times ...

Normal service will resume shortly!

We've had a super busy couple of months here and i have been a bit of a blogging slacker, this will all change as of now, and Tuesdays shall be known as blog day!
We have sold our house and are in the process of trying to find another, i think i definitely underestimated how stressful this was going to be! I knew the packing would be bad, and finding all those long forgotten pieces of paper you require for the mortgage, but surely choosing the house is the easy bit?! Wrong- it isn't. Especially not if you apparently are really bloody fussy!And if you have been spoilt by having the biggest garden known to man.
The search continues.....

In more sad news Blackberry the last remaining cheeky hen has been taken by a fox. Waaaah! Much bad Mummy guilt. She had somehow got locked out of her coop and we hadn't noticed. Poor Blackberry. The children are all a bit sad ( apart from Maya who  really thought Blackberry had it in for her) although Millie was quite excited at the thought of now getting a new pet ( Can i have a pony?!! )

The first time in 5 years that we've not owned any chickens! As soon as we are moved i'd love to get some more.

I've been hooking and knitting away ( interspersed with a spot of dyeing ) although a lot of it has seemed to be 'items for me' *blush* surely there is only so many woolie items a person can own.
As soon as i have finished my current WIP's ( plural) i shall get back to stocking up the shop! Although i have started to have another go at spinning ( with a drop spindle ) and its proving rather addictive ( even if i'm not entirely sure i am doing it right??)

 I think its a bit thick really, but hey ho, onwards and upwards. Here are a few more of my current projects .

In my defense at least one of the 'Lost Souls' is destined for the shop.

 Not this one though, this ones all MINE!!!!

And finally a little selection of what we've been up to since June :) 

 Holidays and weddings

 a good helping of yarn 

This is Martin's little brother he is starring in The Curious Incident of the dog in the nighttime in the west end. We took the eldest two to see him ( bit proud - hence embarrassing photo! )

 And as always a bit of running around with sticks outdoors and taking pics of cool fungi! 

Rainbow blankets, yarn, project bags and one lonely chicken....

I bet you thought I'd disappeared again didnt you?! Still here I'm afraid ;)
The last couple of weeks have been a whirl of crafty activity ( no change there then) but I have had lots of projects that have all come together at once, shall we have a bit of a look...

This was my first big Ta-Da! A Rainbowish heirloom blanket! I love making these blankets, sorting through yarns to see what colours I have that would go next, adding a touch of sparkle to it here and there, and the lovely, heavy, reassuring weight of it when its all finished and the fabric is on. The response I have from the children is really nice too....'Ooooooh is it finished? Ooooh oh wow I love it! Can we keep it? Awwwww, I'll help model it, no I will!!'
So good to be appreciated.

There's been plenty of yarn dyeing too. This one is called Unicorn Splash ( as named by a facebook liker)

And heres some others .....

I'm starting to wonder if this clearly isn't the path for me as so far I want to keep everything I've made.

                              

I'm not too bad about keeping all of the teacups as I *may* have one or two teacups that i've already illustrated knocking the house , ahem. 

Determined to outsmart myself, i decided to make myself a project bag before I embarked on making more. The material for this is really special to me. It was in its previous reincarnation a little apron, that belonged to my very special and lovely Nana when she was little. Not being one for flowery aprons, it side stepped my Dad and made its way to meeeee. It was a fantastic accompaniment to *any* outfit, but met with some troubles along the way and lost its straps. So I decide to make it into a 'very useful and lovely project bag'.

Now my little slice of nostalgia can accompany me wherever I go.

And it also made me very marginally less wanty about these three little bags 

I do still obv have a few projects on the go- need something to put in my new bag, right?! One of them  being this something out of this amazing sparkliness

Which was the result of a yarn swap with a very special lady called Vanessa. She is over on Instagram @lynaiyarns ( incidentally I am @thecaptainandlovely - come and say hi, I LOVE instagram) 

Can you see what it is called? Its called Captain Lovely!! She named some yarn after me. Now I have to think of something truly brilliant to make with it ( probably a scarf/shawl knowing me)

And finally we had to say a goodbye to this cheeky hen 

Brooke, the brown one on the left, sadly died on Friday, she wasn't ill ( that we were aware of ) but had seemed tired for a while. So now we have one lonely little hen left, hopefully we will be getting her some friends soon as they like to have some chums around them. She is a very friendly and eager chicken, but with quite bossy tendencies, hopefully whatever other chicken we get will be able to hold their own.