So I used to post quite a bit, and then I posted a bit, and then I didn’t post for ages.

But what really happened was this:

I decided to start a business.

And I just couldn’t talk about it until I knew it was going to happen. And now I know it’s going to happen, I can talk about it.

Basically in the next few weeks I’m going to start selling my own natural dyed yarn. Currently everything is dyed in our tiny galley kitchen here in Oxford (hence Oxford Kitchen Yarns), by me. And I’m loving it!

I get to play with colour, and yarn, and boil stuff up… what’s not to love? 🙂

So basically that’s why I’ve been so quiet. But now I’ve told you, I’m not going to be quiet any more. There are a ton of finished projects that have never seen the light of day monitor, and a few adventures I haven’t yet shared, but now I’m back and I can post about them.

The old typepad account is dead, but all my earlier posts are archived here, and I’ve been undating over the last week since I moved so that there are new things to read about, new projects to see.

It’s good to be (properly) back!

I’m stash busting like a crazy fool at the moment. I have PROMISED myself that I can’t spend the £30 John Lewis’ voucher I got from W’s dad and stepmum for christmas (CHRISTMAS! How restrained have *I* been?), or the £25 voucher from Stash that the lovely J gave me for my birthday, until I have used up a load of great wool from my stash. I have some lovely stuff – yarn i just *had* to buy, and to leave it in a drawer, waiting to be used just seems like a waste.

So more knitting. Less shopping.

The problem is, I’m down to thicker sock yarn, and all the patterns I really want to knit are 2.5mm needles, which just isn’t going to work. So I’ve got a few weeks of making my own patterns up and then I think I’ll treat myself to some Trekking XXL or something.

(I did fold a bit when J and I went to ‘I knit London‘ and at the very last minute i bought some Regia, stating – very firmly – that ‘sock yarn doesn’t count!’ – but really I’m just kidding myself at this point. – I was a salve, I tell you! just to get me over the hump!)

Anyways first up is something lovely handpainted yarn that W’s mum Bev (of the waistcoat fame) brought back from the US a year or so ago.

Cute huh? Kinda fish-scaly?

The pattern is very easy:

(multiples of 6 stitches)

Row 1: (Slip 1 stitch, k2, slip the slipped stitch over the two knitted stitches, k3), repeat to end

Row 2: (k1, yo, k4), repeat to end

Row 3: (k3, slip 1 stitch, k2, slip the slipped stitch over the two knitted stitches), repeat to end

Row 4: (k4, yo, k1), repeat to end

Add in your own favourite toe, heal and cuff and you’re away. Currently I’m half way up the leg and I’ve just shifted from 3mm to 3.75mm so that they will be a bit roomier at the cuff. I knit toe up, because that’s just how I roll (or something.)

So, good sturdy house socks – which is useful since all my other ones are in the wash, and there has been so much rain recently, that I just haven’t found a decent day to get the wool washing done. So I am handknitted-sockless until the weather breaks (for the better).

omg I achieved MINUS 6″ of knitting today.

Crap.