A stitch in time ...

Back in June 2014 I was looking for something suitable to give or make for my husband's 50th birthday. A moment of inspiration came in the form of a visit to Lauriston Farm in Goldhanger where they have North Ronaldsay sheep. The farm have the fleeces processed and sell the yarn, so I decided to knit him a jumper from their organic undyed wool for his birthday. I had 6 months to do it, easy!! .... On top of this was the house sale and move. I had also forgotten that whilst I can knit a baby jumper in a few days, with all the distractions I would be lucky to get it finished. 

The welt with the twist every fourth rib

Most of my knitting stuff was packed away during the declutter phase of the house sale. I kept this jumper and a blanket back as something to do. The real cost of this has been my layette knitting shop on ebay because it hasn't seen anything new for the duration, but I am pleased to announce that by his birthday on the 15th December not only had we sold the house and moved, but I had finished knitting his jumper as well .... but I hadn't sewn it up ... I hate sewing these things up and now it was super sized. 

Only a day or so late, he was presented with his jumper which fits but has been placed in his wardrobe case he gets it dirty. Grrrr!! My only comment to him was that if he snags it on a tree or something, let me know so I can repair it before it unravels. It fits him well which was a relief as the measurements were 6 months old. The arms look long but that is because he has long arms. Its made to measure!!

I found the pattern on ravelry.com as a freebee. It was quite a challenge as there were very little written instructions and instead you were following a chart with lots of vague symbols. I adapted and adjusted the dimensions to make it fit the recipient and added little touches like the twist in the rib which is also present on the cuffs and the neckline. 

The sleeves were inset which were easy enough and the pattern was adaptable for the increased stitches on the sleeve shaping. The wool was brilliant to work with and has a beautiful mixed colour look to it, although it looks grey here, it had flecks of brown.

I even have enough wool left over to make myself a hat, probably, if I find the time. And this adult sized jumper was definitely a very limited edition, one off - no commissions accepted.

Find out more about Lauriston Biodynamic Farm and what they do at http://www.lauristonfarm.co.uk/

Just in time for christmas!!

We are in!!

So we were left waiting to move in my last blog. Well I am pleased to say we are in but we did have a lot of luck or was it fine planning?

We had previously purchased a livestock trailer. Why? We don’t have any livestock yet but hubby had been watching them on eBay and managed to nab one a few months earlier. It really did come into its own during our move as we shipped the contents of the shed, the green house and the garage over to the new homestead. We began the weekend before as time had been taken off from work for the move even though we didn't have a final date. Load after load was transported over as the old house was gradually bailed out over the Saturday and Sunday. On Monday we heard from the solicitors that we were about to exchange contracts and could we complete the follow Monday 15^th December. Yes we could. We hired a van for the Thursday and Friday and set about emptying the house of non-essentials. We also tried to get most of our parcel Christmas shopping done before we moved as it was envisaged that we might be in too much of a muddle when we move to get things sorted closer to Christmas.

The van was hired from a local garage and came with a temperamental tail lift. It only worked with the engine running (a tired old diesel) and preferred up to down, but it did hold a phenomenal amount of stuff and it was only that first morning of the van hire when we experienced any rain. There is nothing more empowering than cruising around in a BIG truck although squeezing past over large vehicles did tend to promote more grey hairs with each encounter. We also had four cats, one dog and seven chickens to move and we did that on the last truck day as we planned to be sleeping in our new house by the end of it having moved the beds. Once the truck had been returned we looked to move the animals in the cars. The dog was easy. She loves the car. The cats each had their own carrier and only one showed any real resistance to the idea of being bundled up to a cat carrier. The chickens were moved when they were sleepy but it was still light enough for us to see what we were doing. Having purchased a 10-bird crate, our seven virtually filled it up. We have got two chicken houses and had already moved one so they were transported and duly deposited in their temporary home. Sorted!!

It was now Saturday with just two days left before the new owners would like to move in. The new house looked like a warehouse full of boxes and bags. The old house still had stuff left in it and needed its final clean. We opted to divide our labours and one of us stayed to move boxes to their correct location whilst the other went back and fetched more stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff. If I was to give anyone advice about a house move, have a dammed good clear out before you move. I thought we did but the understairs cupboard proved to be like a core sample of my life for the last 20 years with junk going back through time to the roller skates which our daughter had when she was a toddler. The livestock trailer was still in full operation and this time being used for rubbish ... lots and lots of rubbish. Locally the recycling centre is only open from Friday to Monday so we were moving car loads of stuff and a trailer full of rubbish each time. By Sunday we were back to two cars and a livestock trailer. By dark on the Sunday the old house was empty and having its final scrub. Keys had been dropped to the estate agent and we only needed to slam the door behind us when we left. Done.

I was sad to leave our house. It had been a good friend for 15 years. The kids had gone in as toddlers and come out as adults. We had spent a lot of money, time and effort in improving it but now it was time to move on. We had also learnt a lot over the years and made some good friends in the village. We had been part of the community and played our part. Our new house holds the promise of more space to grow food and animals. It was the ending of the first chapter of our grand dream.

To follow me in our new adventure see my other blog ... http://anewsmallholding.blogspot.co.uk/