Great days to be alive!

It was another beautiful clear day in Stirling today. The kind of day that lifts your heart and makes you smile. Clear blue skies, sunshine and piercing light. It was pretty cold though, and I wouldn't be suprised to see snow again anytime soon. The clouds certainly started rolling in towards the end of the afternoon.

I had intended to document my walk around this fair city with some striking photographs. Unfortunately I forgot to charge my camera battery so I just had a great walk instead and enjoyed the winter sun.

And then finished it off with a visit to my favourite coffee shop to warm up and read the Sunday paper. What a great way to spend a Sunday!

Uncompleted project no. 2

And here's the cable cardigan I'm finishing off. It's a lovely Sirdar pattern using Tweedie Chunky wool and is coming along really nicely. I'd forgotten how satisfying cable knitting is.

One down, one to go...

...before I can start using my wonderful new Kidsilk mohair yarn. Can't wait.

So tonight I finally finished my shell top (from the Happy Hooker) - all seams sewn up and all ends finished off. And even better, it fits. Yay!

Back to my cable cardi next. A back, 2 front pieces and half a sleeve knitted already - maybe next week for the mohair?

Another project to finish

With the world's most tedious sweater now finished (photo to follow) I treated myself to some fabulous new yarn this weekend (from the Aladdin's cave that is McArees!). But ...

I also decided I should be a bit more disciplined and finish off the projects I already have on the pins - or hook in this case - before I start anything else new.

This one is a lovely pattern from the Happy Hooker that I've had on the go since before last Christmas. That's 2008, by the way. Oops!

And the really stupid thing is, I've only got 2 teeny sleeves to do. Hopefully it should be finished this week.

Stay tuned for more half finished projects. And of course, the mystery new yarn!

If you want to get ahead

Get a hat!

And here's my latest creation. It's the one I started on my way back from Canada, designed by Woolly Wormhead. And it only took a week of part time knitting to finish.

So now my work wardrobe is further extended with co-ordinating knitwear accessories. Yay!

New hair

This was going to be a post about my new hair cut but I decided I didn't like the way it was styled so I popped my hat on instead for the pic. So here I am with my newly cut and coloured hair (copper and chestnut instead of copper and gold this time).

I knitted the hat as well by the way and was told today it looked very glam. Not bad for a beanie!

And if you want to see what the haircut looks like, hop across to my Flickr page.

Just hanging around

That's me at the moment. Just hanging around at London City airport waiting for the final connection on my journey home. So, to while away the time, I'm just about to start my next knitting project - a lovely slouch hat in pinks and oranges. Pattern by the delightfully named Woolly Wormhead! Maybe it will take my mind off the waiting, and British Airways lack of customer service.

Maybe it's time I came home!

The pressure of having a house guest seems to have finally got to my sister!

She did say she was going to get her hair done today, but I didn't think this was what she meant. Do you think I should have offered to help out more?

New year, same knitting project

This has to be the most boring knitting pattern ever that isn't a plain scarf. It's going to be a lovely baggy and hopefully warm V neck jumper, but it's not fun to knit.

Basically it consists of a number of rectangles with a tiny bit of shaping. Other than dividing for the neck, the sleeves are the most interesting (and shaped!) part of the whole thing.

Curse you Sirdar for a goodlooking but tedious pattern!

Hopefully the end result will be worth the effort - and will be finished before the end of the holiday so I can start on my next project.

Originals

Today, not only did it stop raining, but we also took a trip out to Fort Langley, birthplace of British Columbia. It's an old trading post and settler fort, so it's the birthplace of European British Columbia. But what was good to see as well was the celebration of First Nation culture too.

In the main house there was an exhibition of First Nation dance masks like this one from the local Sto:lo people. I'll be posting more photos on my Flickr page soon and they're definitely worth a look. Along with a video clip of the wee man playing the part of 'wedding guest' at a fur trader's wedding.

And that brings us to the end me the holidays, but fortunately not the end of my holiday. Back to school/work for the boys tomorrow leaving big sis and I free for some girlie adventures. Yay!

The unplanned days are often the best

I was going to blog about my latest project today, but that will need to wait for another time. Instead today's about the impromptu trip big sis and I took to Vancouver.

As you can see it was raining when we left - just for a change. And it rained pretty much all afternoon although nowhere near as much as on Friday. We made our trip entirely by public transport, starting with the little shuttle bus you can see in the picture and eventually connecting with the SkyTrain right into downtown. And all on one ticket since it was the weekend.

Once there we mooched the shops for a bit before heading to the art gallery for a late lunch. We spent so long talking and drinking coffee that we didn't actually make it inte the gallery itself before it was time to come home, via a few more shops of course.

Big sis bought a fantastic lipstick from MAC that made her look like she had full perfect make up on even though she was only wearing lipstick. Jealous, me? Never!

Magical Hogmanay

So now I know what a Canadian Hogmanay is like!

We spent the early part of the evening at Capilano Suspension Bridge at their Canyon Lights event. Basically thousands of fairy lights strung around the place shedding not really a huge amount of light by which to navigate yourself over a very wobbly and narrow suspension bridge and round a tree top walkway. Who needs Health and Safety?!

Actually it was fantastically beautiful and very magical. More photos here (and yes, that is rain!)

The latter part of the evening to midnight was spent 100 pin bowling and sword fighting on the Wii. Truly surreal!

New Years day itself has lived up to west coast Canada expectations - very wet, and still no snow. We stopped by the Penguin Plunge but I don't think the participants were very impressed when I pointed out that it wasn't really that cold.

No photos I'm afraid because a) we were too late to see the plunge itself, and b) it was too pissing wet. Not that it stopped big sis, much to our frustration.

The day was rounded off with a lovely roast lamb dinner by which big sis redeemed herself.