Actually enjoying socks!

I don`t know where the time goes, it only seems 5 minutes ago that we were breaking up for the summer holidays and suddenly I have been back at work for a week! I really enjoyed the break and DD and I had a lot of fun, so now we are counting down to half term.



One of the things we did was to play with Kool aid, and in the dish on the right (no it`s not spaghetti, I know I had a photo of a pasta dress recently, but I`m not that creative) is DD`s sock yarn dyed with blue raspberryade, lemon and lime, lemonade and berry blue Kool aid. She decided to call this Hawaiian (sp?) Beach because it has the blues of the sea and sky, the green of the palm trees and yellow sand! So, having got her interested in the dyeing, I had to do something with the yarn. Some of you may know of my reluctance to knit socks, and having until now only grudgingly completed one and a half pairs, I am not sure what made me try again, but I treated myself to two addi circs and to avoid SSS, knit Two at Once, Toe-up socks

with short legs at DD`s request, and guess what, I actually enjoyed making them! So much so, that I know have another skein of sock yarn to dye for me, and I have bought myself Sensational Knitted Socks (not that I really needed to put a link to that, I don`t suppose there is anyone out there who hasn`t heard of that book).

I had a lovely letter from Val at the Baby pack project last week. I had enclosed an envelope and reply coupon just so I knew the pack had arrived safely, I only expected a brief note or compliment slip, but received a long hand written letter - the work she and her co volunteers do is just wonderful, and to take the time to write like that left me feeling humble. I have the next pack nearly ready to go, and here is the toy for it.

This is one of Jean Greenhowes Rainbow Babies from her free charity patterns, though I changed it slightly to have bare feet as I thought the little ones in Africa might identify more with that - mind you if it is hot enough for bare feet they probably wouldn`t wear a woolly hat and scarf, but there you go, I obviously didn`t think that through properly.

And finally, a quilted bag. DH brought me home a copy of the Popular Patchwork magazine, and I just fell in love with the bag in it, I knew I had exactly the right piece of material in my fabric stash so over the bank holiday weekend I got stitching.

I would be already for the beach if there was any summer left. Oh well, there is always next year.