Giveaways!!

I bought myself a new jacket yesterday which came with matching grey cowl. I love the military styled jacket but the cowl is a little bit overwhelming. It won't go to waste though , not with a teenager in the house who has nothing to wear!

So that's giveaway no 1.

After I blogged yesterday I realised that I'd missed my blogiversary on Feb 28th. I've been blogging for three years now and that deserves a celebration. So, I'm giving away two balls of Regia sock yarn.

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning this prize is to leave a comment on this post before 7th March midnight GMT. I'll then do a random drawing and send off this wonderful sock yarn to the lucky winner.

You can't have the cowl though- that's already been snaffled by my crazy teen!


ETA- prize will be shipped anywhere in the world! 

shop till you drop

well , it feels like that when you take a 12 year old girl to buy some shoes.

J2 loves shoes, she really does, and until now buying shoes for her has been fairly easy. But now her feet are ladies 7-8 UK size (US 10-10.5, continental 41-42) and there are very few shoes available for children in those sizes, and I don't think she's ready for 3" heels yet (not for school anyway!).

So after she'd tried on 5 pairs of shoes, with no success, we went for black trainers/sports shoes (which the school accepts, thankfully). NINE pairs of trainers later we'd found some that didn't rub her heels and, more importantly to J2, didn't look like boys' trainers.

It was much more fun when I used to buy her dinky little shoes like these... sigh

Borderlands

I had to take J2 and her pal shopping today.

The deal is that as long as they behave they can shop unsupervised at Fort Kinnaird if
a) they stick together and
b) don't stuff themselves with sweets
while I browse the bookshelves in Borders bookshop and get on with a bit of knitting. Usually we've done this on a Saturday afternoon, but this week it had to be on Sunday.

Borders bookshop is a very different place on a Sunday to a Saturday:

Saturdays seem to have a steady flow of people moving through the shop, not many people sit down, there aren't many men around, but there are a lot of teens.

Sundays seem more relaxed: while I was sat knitting, there were two 10 yo boys behind me playing Warhammer, a couple of Dads supervising toddlers on the rampage, and lots of families having lunch and browsing through the books... and Borders seem to deliberately create that environment, which is wonderful... and I managed to cast on twist and get 10 rows done! Result!


and apparently my word is

Your Word is "Fearless"

You see life as your one chance to experience everything, and you just go for it! You believe the biggest risk is being afraid and missing out on something amazing. Sometimes your fearlessness means you're daring. You enjoy risky activities. And sometimes your fearlessness means you're courageous. You're brave enough to do the right thing, even when it's scary.

What's" Your Word?

that's about right I think! I'll have a shot at anything

shopaholics

or not, as the case may be.

D and I rarely shop together as it becomes a miserable experience for both of us; houses and cars we choose together, the rest is usually done separately. Today however as he's still off work he decided to join me in a mini-jaunt.

Our shopping lists were very different: I had to get J1 a woolly hat & some new black sweaters for school (the ones that he said he didn't need last week, well, it's cold now so now he does) and D had to get a replacement washer for the shower. Yup. One washer.

It was a lot more difficult to get plain black sweaters from the men's dept than to get a small circle of black rubber! It seems that all the new spring ranges are in the shops (spring???? it's snowing outside!) and black is not a featured colour, and it's no use looking in the school wear section for a 15yr old boy who's 6'0". However we did manage to find one sweater in Mark & Spencer ( thankfully the right size) and one in Burton's. At least he'll be warmer tomorrow.

We also got him a beanie, which D had to try on by proxy as we needed something that was a bit loose on him so that it would encompass J1's copious hair. I'll have to bite the bullet and knit him a BSJ.

Not a Baby Surprise Jacket, but a Bloody Stupid Johnson hat by Sarah Lilly ( from Knitty winter 2007). Johnson is a Discworld inventor, but unlike Lancelot "Capability" Brown, Bergholt Stuttley Johnson invents things that work a little too well, or not at all, or they confound the laws of physics ( or all three, all at once)

So I've ordered some damson coloured Debbie Bliss Rialto from Pack Lane Wool & Crafts and that will be on the needles as soon as it arrives.

My faster than the speed of light cardi is continuing apace: the left front was completed yesterday and I'll rattle away at the right front tonight.

My attempts to save the UK economy continued by ordering some Jaeger yarn (£1.20 per 50g!!) and some Debbie Bliss Stella (£1.94/50g) from Stash, and a copy of Interweave crochet from Paviyarns.

Well, D spent £1.48 on 3 washers (and was mildly irritated that he couldn't buy just one), so between the two of us, we've done our bit for the economy today. Hurrah!