As one door closes, more open...

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the lack of blogging activity during October. This because my dad died on 18 October after a short illness.

He was a wonderful man, lived life to the full (at least until this year) and survived to the great age of 86.

This meant I spent several weeks away from home and away from computers and also did not feel up to blogging the trivial details of my life.

Thank goodness for knitting though! It kept me busy through a difficult time and I have more or less finished my Cotton Tape cardi (apart from the sewing up part, hmmmm).

Ironically, the day my dad went into hospital my friend Isobel announced that she is expecting her first baby, due in the Spring.

So in her honour I have decided to make a few baby items. Her only stipulation is "no lemon yellow cardies"; not sure if that's for her or the baby...

I think I will tackle the chunky satin edge blanket from Erica Knight's Baby Bloom book but in a soft cotton not that real wool stuff - much too scratchy for baby although the cute model on the cover seeems to like it.

She also wants me to teach her to knit as she wants a "pregnancy poncho".



My good friends Caroline and Pietro are also expecting their second any day now - the blanket I made for their first born Sofia took longer than I thought it would as I didn't follow a pattern but just made loads of squares and sewed them together. It also got absolutely enormous!

So this time I am going to make them the heirloom silk shawl from the same book. Being a good vegan I'm not going to use silk but Rowan Cotton Glace or similar instead.

I'm off to London tonight to catsit my sister's kitties for the weekend so will go to Loop in Islington if I can find it (or maybe just John Lewis on Oxford Street) and stock up.

Because of course I don't have any suitable yarn in my stash.