knitting and knotting

This week I have been knitting by the fireside and loving it. It's the first time I have knitted on circular needles (the best knitting experience I have ever had - perfect for someone who hates to purl) and today I finally conquered my fear and learned to knit on four needles, as you can see above. Turns out all the people who had been telling me how easy it was were actually telling the truth. I'm nearly finished this little project (but it's a present so I can't show you what it is) and may actually knit a matching item since I am enjoying the knitting so much. Having a working fire certainly helps. My life is all about the cosy right now.

Last night my friend Bernadette came round for a pyjama party, lured in by the promise of blankets, hot water bottles and the fire. At approximately 7pm last night, I actually found myself in the middle of the supermarket saying in all seriousness (before collapsing in a crumpled heap of shame), "But what if we finish our Tia Maria before the X Factor is finished?!" Yes, we spent the evening watching the X Factor and drinking Tia Maria in our jammies, but, as you can see from the picture above, we also did some macrame and made each other a friendship bracelet right into the wee small hours of this morning. We thought we had picked totally different colours from one another, but they were almost identical. As well as macrame-ing, we scared each other with talk of ghost stories and Bernie used her new-found psychic powers (and magic stone) to answer all our questions. Even the magic stone could only narrow the predicted X Factor winner down to a (long)list of seven acts, though f you watched it, you'll know that was no mean feat! All in all, it was a pretty classic pyjama party really.

Here's more evidence of the crafting and cosiness bug. At the moment I am only doing crafts that can be carried out while sitting in front of the fire, usually with at least one cat (Poppy in this case) for company. This was the snipping and trimming of the bazillion pinwheel brooch kits I've made. The colourful scraps look lovely, I think, and so do the finished items. Yay! My need to be near the fire is kind of limiting my creativity, but as we all know, sometimes limits open up new avenues - the rediscovery of knitting and macrame to name but two!

As well as hovering round the fire and tying numerous knots, I've also been busy making some changes to the furniture and layout of our living room with Graham, putting together new shelves from IKEA etc. The cats have been loving all the cardboard boxes this results in. Here's Lola making one into her new favourite bed. Isn't she beautiful? Sigh... It's the first time I've really set up home, if you know what I mean, and it's making me really happy. We're not quite finished yet, but it's all going well and the living room is such a nice place to be already.

Talking of cats, look at this lovely knitted lavender cat that arrived in a surprise package yesterday. My friend Lorna (who lives in London now, so I never get to see her) sent it to me for no particular reason, always the best reason to send mail. I absolutely love this cat! She has mismatched button eyes, blue eyelashes and has speckled pink knitted fabric on her back. Mrkgnao! She's feeling quite at home on our new shelves already and smells good too, which is where she has the edge over the real cats...

And to finish this totally random post, here's some nice graffiti I saw on the way home from the cinema this week.