Do not adjust your set

Yup, you are seeing correctly, it is wool and a knitting needle!

In my house.

On my cutting board!

"What's it doing there?" I hear you ask.

"I thought Lucy liked sewing not knitting"


Well yes I do, normally..........

But these, my friends, are not normal times in this household. I am sitting here in a room with no shiney sewing machine. Jenny has left the building! Jenny (my 6 month old Janome) is the other side of the Tyne Tunnel in the sewing machine shop all alone without me! :( I feel totally lost without her!

She has been messing about when I have been sewing by pretending that the foot control is no longer there half way through a seam.

Now the obvious answer would be "get a new foot control".

But Jenny is a complex girl and simple problems don't suit her.

Not only is she stopping erratically she is also choosing to start sewing, by herself, without the foot control attached and when I am nowhere near.

Now Jenny is clearly a sewing machine with her own ambitions and creative intentions.

Unfortunately, for reasons of safety (mine, and more importantly, the childrens') this kind of random sewing cannot be allowed!

The engineer is hoping to bring her back today - but she may not be fixed.................

Ho Hum!

So, while I was in Whitley Bay taking Jenny to the doctors I popped in to see Barbara at Ring-a-Rosie to buy some wool to cheer myself up.
Charlie thought this was a great idea and jumped straight into the bag after oggling all the eye-candy displays in the shop (I was going to take a photo of him doing this but chickened out when some real people came in!!!!)

Now I don't love wool in the same way that I love fabric but it is still pretty gorgeous and I succumbed to four balls - two of which I have no idea what I want them for! Just Because.

One of these "intention-less" balls was a Noro silk, mohair, lambs wool combo that I really couldn't afford to buy but had to have anyway! The colours are amazing!

The other two are going to be (hopefully) turned into a pair of handwarmers (fingerless mitts without the finger bits - so really, really fingerless!) and the wool is really soft.
Barbara also gave me these scrumdiddliumptiously gorgeous little buttons to go on my handwarmers! Aren't the lovely? Like little sweeties!

So far I have managed to rib about 6 cms and create a very strange and inaccurate thumb hole!

The pattern had some clever kind of twisted rib thingy going on but I got confused very quickly and resorted to knit2 purl2 rib.

I nearly sent Barbara a frantic email at 10.30 last night to ask for help on the thumb hole but managed to restrain myself.

My knitting-blog friends out there need to breathe a sigh of relief too because you all crossed my mind in my time of need - and Lesley and Patti, you should be most worried because I have your phone numbers.............(Hahahahhahahhahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!)

So lets hope my sewing machine is fixed very soon shall we?

While at Barbara's I also bought these fabulous fabrics - I think the bottom one looks quite Amy Butler-ish, what do you reckon? The Look and Learn piece will be incorporated into some wallets and art bags at some point.

Please, please let Jenny come back soon! Lucy x