three

now some of may not have been aware but it was 'national wear a tea cosy on your head' day last week! i'll admit i was only aware as white stuff were doing a competition for it {& selling rather lovely tea cosys too!} so anyways, little O & i got into the spirit of the day {& being the owner of the the only head our tea cosy would actually fit} she did the done the thing & happily posed for a few pictures too!

as i mentioned this was for a competition we entered, which has now gone to public voting, so if you fancy popping over here & giving us your vote that would be just dandy, thank you! {we're on page four - you just need to scroll down a bit!}

i also need to appeal to you all for some more help, due to the lack of sloes round these parts this year i'm going to give blackberry vodka a go this year, i don't have a recipe to follow but was wondering if any of you had any tips? do i use a similar amount of blackberries as i would have done for the sloe gin? more or less sugar? any tips much appreciated! 

two

i've been obsessing over wooly goodness of late - can't get enough of it, i've a couple of things on the go, a couple of things i want to get started on & i'm trying to stop myself from buying more yarn

jen over at little birdie has started doing a '52 weeks of happy project', i thought seeing as i'm planning to be blogging a lot this month that setting myself another goal was a small drop in the ocean, it's also something we do as a family from time to time, over our sunday lunch, join in if you fancy it!

also the first three commenter's from the last post squiggling about, south of peru & a load of old tat, please email your details & hopefully i'll be sharing a little happy with you guys too!

one - getting back in the habit

i've really got out the habit of blogging lately, which has kind of been bothering me, i think about stuff i could / would blog quite a lot but then just never seem to get round to it, i'm busy with life, which is all good {& i certainly try to grab some time to myself when i can}  it just seems i've been off doing other things in these times, so in short i've decided to try & do a blog post a day for october, to kick of the month i thought it's as good a time as any to offer up a 'pay it forward' to you all, a {very} long time ago i took part in a pif & was sent some lovely goodies from Rachel over at 'contented', part of the deal was that i too would then offer to pay this kindness forward, so i'm opening it up to my first three commenter's on this post,  i will send you some goodies in the post, i won't make any promises on time scales but will set myself the goal of it being before christmas, the only thing i ask in return is that you pay it forward & share a little happiness around

these are the lovely goodies Rachel sent me!

just to add i'm happy to send anywhere but may just have to send something smaller if you're overseas,  sorry but just to keep my costs down

family camp

a perfect weekend for the last camp of the year - it was our village beaver/cub/scout family camp weekend, the sun shone, the children had so many fun activities to try out & we were in beautiful field less than five minutes from home, little O & i actually cheated a little & came home for the sleeping bit, mainly as i hadn't wanted to get the large tent up for only 24hours {but also as i'm feeling rather exhausted from the whole back to work / school routine} it was some lovely 'time out' i even had a great time making a wooden pendant, some knotted key rings, brushing up on my juggling skills and den building - all good clean fun

settling in

well we are all settling into our new routine, the littlest has surprised us all & is doing so very well, the oldest is struggling most, having moved into year three he's found that it's all about hard work from here on in - poor chap, barney & i have found comfort in each others company & he's especially loving his longer week day walks {when i'm not at work that is} i've been able to finish off little O's new cardi, which was such a pleasure to knit, despite having to rip it back to start over in a bigger size! it's knit up in some debbie bliss 'fez' {which i'd got off ebay at a great price} such lovely yarn to work with, it's a shame i think it's been discontinued & i love the colour so much, luckily she's rather fond of it too & was most obliging when i asked to take some photos of it on her, i used rather a muddle of clear vintage buttons as i didn't have enough of one type! thankfully i think they work rather well on the cardigan, the pattern details are over here

the next phase

goodbye summer, hello september & a move into a new phase for me, we had a lovely farwell to the summer holidays, a trip up to the paralympics, a picnic in the park, a spot of baking, then all change as my littlest started school this week, i felt a little lost at first but have found my feet, as she is slowly but surely finding hers! & the weathers being kind so i've even found some time to sit in the garden with a little knitting to occupy my mind, it's my first day back to school/work today - how many weeks till half term? too many:

the peaks

i feel i've just about recovered for our recent camping trip, the drive up to the peaks was not the best start, what should have been a four hour drive took us eight hours!!! not much fun, then unfortunately we had to pitch our tent in rain, which meant quite a bit of water got in, thank goodness our friends were already pitched up & were able to offer the kids a dry place to shelter & some sausage sarnies to tuck into, the weather did improve, although it was rather a mixed bag, with good company & some breathtaking countryside we still all had a great time,  the hubs was very pleased to have his cosy new cardi to keep out the chills, this was another project that took far longer than it should have done, but was worth all that hard work, as it fits & he's really happy with it

the pattern details can be found over on my ravelry page