你 好! (Nǐhǎo!)

Hello, how are you? – in Mandarin Chinese. Yes, there is a reason for me learning the language, although it seems a little pointless now as the little boy who I was learning it for seems to be picking up English far quicker than I am picking up Mandarin!

But I shall persevere, it’s a wonderful language to learn, so sing-songy and fun and it’ll always be useful as it’s one of the most spoken languages of the world.

I love learning languages, I sometimes wonder if that’s what I should have gone into instead of the sciences (especially as the maths went way above my head). When I worked for an Indian company whilst I was living in Leicester I picked up quite a lot of Panjabi Indian, though not living in a multi cultural city anymore the chances of me using it are pretty slim and a lot of it I have forgotten now.

I do miss living in Leicester particularly for it multi-cutural-ness. Particularly today. I have been looking up crafts that coincide with the Jewish festival Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Things like Challah bread and Dreidels would have been easier to find there. Still, I have an excuse to teach the children how to make their own!

And later on I shall be partaking in another tradition, the Tashlich, walking through flowing water. It’s absolutely chucking it down with rain! The only reason I’m bringing it up is that I’d actually forgotten what it sounds like. For the passed two weeks we have had glorious sunshine, if not a bit nippy in the mornings, and we have been out walking every evening. On Sunday though, we had fore warning that the rains were back.

I feel like I’m ready to hibernate now though. I gave the kids a bit of pocket money and took them to the charity shops to spend it. In one of them I found this lot…

The lady on the counter thought I was a bit mad and asked why I was smelling the yarn. I told her I was just checking what it was, I’m not certain, but I think it’s wool. I’ll find out when I try to felt it won’t I?

Also this lot which is for school cardigans that Jas and Mavis have asked for.

All that for £1.50! Which reminded me that I hadn’t visited my good friend Gwyneth at my LYS for ages, so as we were at that end of town, we went in. The kids love it there, they get biscuits and I get to chat! And she did what she does best and sold me some new yarn she has in.

It’s Wendy “Happy” . I must add the colours on the page are rubbish, I have “Pisces” which is turquiose and white and “Gemini” which is much, much brighter – you’d think a yarn shop would try and get an accurate colour photo – these look so drab!)

They’re a bamboo self striping sock yarn and albeit a bit splitty (as bamboo tends to be) it’s gorgeous. I love the jewel-y colours and knits lovely. At £5.49 for 100g,  it’s pretty affordable too. Well done Gwyneth!

So, being on a “yarn roll” I checked out the bargain bucket she has and got these too…

200g of Robin Byzantine,

250g of Wendy “Sharma” which is fantasic for felting projects.

From left to right: Wendy “Gold Award”

Wendy “Ascot” both have a big wool contenet and 50g of Wendy “Velvet touch”. And also a ball of Wendy “Chameleon” in pinky colours.

And that’s not all…I also got 2 cones of Mohair…

Not bad eh? I think that’s enough to  see me through the winter, don’t you? All in all, I spent £20.

And why all this feltable yarn? I hear you ask. Well I made a new friend in town who has agreed to have a look at the things I make, bags, jewelry and the like so…I’m knitting like a bugger and getting some stuff made!

And on the sidelines…the Braided Pullover is still on the shelf while I deal with 2 new baby girls in the family… which I’m finding really odd, everything is just too small!

So, as you can see, I’m having a busy time of it.

and that’s just the way i like it!