I'm back!

After the most frustrating month without access to my computer and my files, the team (husband and oldest son) have finally got me back online. I did stay out of this as the old adage 'too many cooks spoil the broth' was perfectly apt; two IT professionals and a knowledgeable 18 year old meant that within 5 minutes of working on the problem we were arguing. A hasty (door slamming) retreat was made by me.

The computer problem was payback for the first weekend away that my husband and I have had to ourselves since before children. We've had nights away, and, individually, have been away for weekends, but not together. Doesn't sound much, but anyone with children will know that one night is just that! Drop the children off to babysitters, in our case, if using in-laws was travelling too far, or, cleaning up the spare bed so that babysitter could stay. If lucky we could have an afternoon, then our night out, then get back quickly to relieve said babysitter.

Our weekend was all out for Saturday night dinner, we headed off and spent all Sunday and most of Monday all by ourselves. The big boy cooked dinner for the two of them, so they were well fed and could watch whatever they wanted without my usual ' not THAT again'. (They do like to watch their favourite shows over and over and over again......I know an awful lot of shows, but have rarely ever watched full episodes, just osmosis over time)

Phone call just before returning was 'we've got a virus on the computer'........

Anyway, I have been working but will sort of work backwards through various interesting things that I've done. Not as much as I wanted, but some fun.

What am I working on now?

I have two scarves that relate to each other. The first was a 'just finish off spinning so I can get on with the next project' sort of thing that I fell in love with and kept going. I had purchased some alpace 'bump' they called it. You could pull from the centre and spin and it was in changing shades. I didn't think that I could recreate the original look, but to my amazement I did. I spun half from the centre and then from the outside and plied the two singles together. (This was going to be a whole entry about guessing half - I am always unsuccessful, but that was another story)

The resulting yarn was beautiful. As I spent most of the time at the beach spinning this I wanted a pattern that reminded me of the beach, waves, sand, seashore.....

As I thought the colour was right, I came up with two patterns in one. Half is a scallop pattern with an odd purl row thrown in, the other is double knit stocking stitch with the odd purl row. I'm hoping that because one side will be shorter than the other that I'll get a soft frill. I'm really happy with this so far.

So much so that I started another scarf with the double knit alternating sides and just garter stitch with extra rows for the frill. Out of my stash came a lovely blue and lurex yarn and dark blue mohair, which I 'm running out of! Might be a different blue mohair at the end.

What a ramble. See I missed you all!