What I'm Loving #1.

Hi there Folks,

So I've decided that I wanted to have a couple of regular posts that I do on the same day every week, just to have a bit of consistency, ya know? So Wednesdays are going to be 'What I'm Loving' and will just share things that I'm really enjoying or using a lot of that week.

So first of all this week I'm really loving my new baby niece! She was born last Friday and I've been to visit her and my mum and sister yesterday and she's just so beautiful! And so teeny tiny too, I can't get over it, just look at her little hands!

I'm also really loving my Skullcandy headphones. I do a lot of walking to and from work and then also I've spent time travelling to my sisters by train and I'd definitely be lost without these babies! Especially as I forgot my book so I only had my music for entertainment. These are the Lowrider model and I bought them from TK Maxx for £16.99 I think, which was a really good deal. I really rate Skullcandy, they have really good sound quality and this particular model fold up so I can store them in a little pouch and don't have to worry about snapping them.

Finally I'm loving my Olympic scarf. I got it from Next and they were reduced to £1! I've been eyeing them up for a while but kept putting it off, but I couldn't resist for that price. My mum got one too and wore it with pride all yesterday. It's got the red and blue lion motif on it and all these little stick men doing different sports, I love it. I thoroughly enjoyed the Olympics, we did so unbelievably well and I was so sad when it finished, so I'll reminice when I wear my scarf.

That's all for this week...stay tuned for next weeks loves.

Ciao for now,

JB

Knit Knit Hooray!

Hi there Folks,

Today I'm feeling very pleased with myself, as this morning I finished off my first ever knitting project!! It may only be a super basic scarf, but I spent hours getting really annoyed trying to teach myself to knit not so long ago, so for me, this is an achievement.

Here's what the finished project looks like...

It's grey, it's super chunky and its long, just what I wanted for a nice, snuggly scarf to help me face the northern winter.

The pattern I used was really basic, literally two different rows repeated over and over (the original pattern can be found here). But I decided to jazz it up a bit once I'd finished by adding some fringing/tassles. I used 12mm plastic needles and James C. Brett 'Rustic' Mega Chunky wool in the colour CS2 (both needles and wool bought from here, although they don't have the actual wool I used on the website, sorry!)

I know there are plenty of tutorials for how to make tassles etc. on the web, but I thought I'd add onto here how I did them. It was a bit of a process as I'd initially not made them long enough and didn't like them so had to start all over. This means I have lots of lengths of wool that I really don't want to waste that I need to find a use for...I'm thinking pom poms?

Anyway, here's how I did it.

1. I wrapped the wool round a DVD box (in this case - Band of Brothers Bluray Boxset) until I had the right number of loops. I wanted 27 as I chose to do 9 tassles each using three lengths of wool.

2. I then cut the middle of the wrapped up wool and was left with all my ready made lengths.

3. Using an old, clean chopstick I folded the wool in half over the top of it and used this to push the strands through the gaps on the end of my scarf.

4. Finally I pulled through, evens the lengths out and then wrapped the top loop over the tail ends to create a slip knot. I pulled the lengths tight and voila! Was pretty speedy once I got my method down and I found that the box I used gave the perfect length for what I wanted.

And here is me looking all pleased and warm wearing my lovely new scarf :]

Ciao for now,

JB