Sunday Sevens 2019 #3

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens14 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens : A post were I share seven (or so) photos of my week away from the blog. Sunday Sevens was invented by Nathalie at Thread and Bobbins.

Spring really seems to have arrived this week, with primroses and snowdrops bursting into bloom.

The weather turned so warm and sunny on Wednesday I put my washing out for the first time this year…

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Away from the garden, I attempted to get on with my quilt, but found I had just a little too much help…

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Most of this week I was distracted by a visit from Lovely Littlest, who met her new little brother for the first time…

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Sorry about the quality, neither of them would stay still.

With such lovely weather and Lovely Littlest here, we just had to go for a visit to the beach…

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And you can’t visit the beach without having fish and chips…

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Yes, I know, that’s twice in two weeks! I would also draw your attention to the green mass of mushy peas on my plate – I absolutely hate mushy peas! Why oh why does anyone like mushy peas? – I assume someone does.

Other notable events this week were a trip to the hairdressers to have my highlights refreshed…

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And receiving a lovely bunch of flowers from a friend…

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And just in case you haven’t had enough pictures of Harry, here’s one of his rather odd choices of where to sleep…

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Hope you’ve had a great week. Until next time,

Bekki x

 

 

Frog or Finish Nine for 2019

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn christmas knitting, Goal Setting, Project bags, Quilts, Sewing, Socks, UFOs22 Comments

Over at Beads and Barnacles Pippa’s been getting organised with Make Nine and Use Nine grids. She’s inspired me to make a grid of nine projects I want to frog or finish this year. I know I’m a bit late in the year for posting my UFOs, and I know I usually just list them, but a grid makes a nice visual reminder and is a manageable number. So here’s my Frog or Finish Nine for 2019…

  1. We’ve already discussed this this year – it’s the patchwork quilt.
  2. Two project bags that just need handles.
  3. A Santa sack that just needs sewing up.
  4. An almost finished cardigan that I just need a friend’s opinion how the opening should sit to finish.
  5. A crochet top that has to be frogged – my thumb’s too sore to crochet these days 😦
  6. A pair of socks.
  7. A too boring shawl that needs frogging.
  8. A shawl that needs blocking – it’s always so damp in Dartmoor, I never want to deliberately make something wet just to dry it off.
  9. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll recognise this UFO – I’m still wrestling with myself; I don’t seem to like it enough to finish it, but can’t quite bring myself to frog it!

In truth I could finish 7/9 of these in and evening if I frogged number 9. Let’s see how long it actually takes me.

Until next time,

Bekki

Sunday Sevens 2019 #2

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens22 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens : A post were I share seven (or so) photos of my week away from the blog. Sunday Sevens was invented by Nathalie at Thread and Bobbins.

Our cold spell continued from last week into Sunday with and overnight temperature of -9.4 degrees…

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… and a lovely snowy walk in the morning…

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Monday the temperature rose so quickly it was warm enough for a spot of gardening…

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Lovely Husband had gone away to visit his parents and on Tuesday he send me a guest entry Sunday Sevens photo from a garden he spotted on his travels…

Topiary Hedge

Meanwhile at home I washed the play mobile that had a got a bit sticky from little people playing with it. Found this rather disconcerting person – suspect one of my lovely daughters equipped her when they were here and found it waiting for a wash in the utility…

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With hubby back home on Wednesday, Harry took us both for a lovely sunny walk…

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Wednesday afternoon Harry had his first trip to our vet (for his annual vaccination). As some of you know Mr Hicks was a frequent visitor to the vets, so it was quite an emotional afternoon, but lovely to be welcomed back like royalty by all the wonderful staff that work there.

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Thursday we took Harry for a (very wet) walk at Meldon reservoir – another walk we haven’t done for ages…

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No pub quiz this week, but we did go to the golf club for their annual quiz on Friday evening…

Okehampton Gold club

On Saturday we had our first visit to the beach with Harry…

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Followed by a trip to the beach-side restaurant for fish and chips…

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Hope you had a good week.

Bekki x

 

 

Patchwork Progress

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Quilts, UFOs16 Comments

One of the many reasons I returned to blogging was because posting about what I’m doing helps me notice my abandoned projects and makes me ask if I really want to complete them. One project that has been abandoned and I definitely want to finish is the quilt I started in April 2017.

The last time I posted about my progress on it was in May 2017. I’d just finished the middle section, attached a round of squares and had sewn two 12 patch blocks for the next round…

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Sunday before last I took the patchwork out and discovered that somewhere after May 2017 I’d completed 8 more 12 patch blocks. I then pieced together another ten smaller 12 patch squares before I ran out of time.

Patchwork

Determined to get it finished soon, I picked it up again last weekend and added corners to the smaller squares to make finished the blocks.

 

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Apologies for the photo quality

I then lay it all out on the bed to work out which blocks to sew to where…

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I managed to sew the rows of  blocks for the sides together, before I again ran out of weekend.

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I’m setting myself the goal of finishing the whole quilt by the end of March and telling you lot about it, so I can’t sneak it back into a cupboard and forget about it for another year or two.

Until next time

Bekki x

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Sevens 2019 #1

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Sunday Sevens19 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Sevens : A post were I share seven or so photos of my week away from the blog. Sunday Sevens was invented by Nathalie at Thread and Bobbins.

Since we’ve had Harry, we’ve started to re-explore the old dog walks we used to do when Mr Hicks was young and spritely.  Last Sunday we walked along the river at Fatherford – haven’t been here for several years…

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Lots of lovely trees to play hide and seek behind.

After our walk I managed to fit in a little patchwork…

Patchwork

Unfortunately our afternoon walk on Monday was disaster. While walking with a friend who has a young and incredibly excitable dog, her dog took her feet from under her and she broke her ankle. No pic to show you – well it would have been mean to start taking pictures.

Tuesday evening a friend’s daughter came round for me to turn up her ball gown.

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It was so lovely – I really should have taken a pic of her in it! Doh!

On Wednesday we had the first snow of the winter. Not a lot, but enough to stop the school buses running and for my friend’s boys to bring their sledges on a dog walk.

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With the weather turning colder, I made some soup to warm our cockles…

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Roasted butternut squash and garlic ready to be liquidised.

Thursday we had more snow – most of which was unpredicted and fell just as it was getting dark and people were travelling home from work. (I would have said ‘rush hour’ but if you’ve ever been to West Devon you’d just laugh.) Lots of people in the South West were stuck in their cars overnight. Fortunately we were tucked up safely at home and on Friday we  had a lovely snowy dog walk on the moor…

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In the evening we walked to the pub, only to remember half an hour later that I’d forgotten to move the casserole to the bottom of the aga. Fortunately my lovely next door neighbour had come in her car, so gave me an emergency lift back home. I caught it just as it was about to completely dry out and start to burn. Here’s my share rejuvenated just before we ate it…

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On Saturday we rounded the week off with more snowy dog walks…

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So that was my week; sewing, cooking, looking after an animal and not going to the ball. Just call me Cinderella.

Hope you’ve had a great great week.

Bekki x

The New Man in my Life

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Dogs27 Comments

Don’t panic, I haven’t traded Lovely Husband in for a new one.

My new man is 15 month old Harry, who moved in with us as his new forever home two weeks ago.

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Although we found Harry through the Golden Retriever rescue, he’s come from a good home where they were very sad to have to say goodbye to him.  He’s a lovely boy and we’re very lucky to have him.

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I’m sure I’ll posting more pics as he helps me with my knitting and, of course, on Sunday Sevens.

Bekki x

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

On By Dartmoor YarnsIn Knitting33 Comments

To paraphrase one of my dear blogging friends…

I’m wondering should I mention my absence and apologise for it?  Or do I just crack on and bombard you with photos of some of my knitting since I blogged last? Yea, I think I’ll just do that.

There’s not a lot, since knitting has been on the back burner too. I only picked my needles back up at the beginning of December to continue my tradition of giving my daughters a homemade Christmas ornament. For some reason I thought they’d like Christmas elves…

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I made two of these

… then I went and bought a card for lovely littlest that mentioned Christmas elves and Christmas fairies, so I made a fairy too…

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I’d bought two egg cups to put in Lovely Littlest and her boyfriend’s Christmas stockings, so I knitted them two egg cosies…

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Lovely Eldest didn’t like the innovative pompom I put on the hat I knitted her last year, so I swiped that one and knitted her a new one with a traditional pompom…

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I also knitted two baby berry hats for two babies that arrived in January…

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I’ve also knitted half of this, which I’d started just before Easter last year…

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For now that’s it. I’ve missed my blogging buddies, but I can’t possibly catch up with all your posts I’ve missed. But if anyone has had any big happenings in their life or you want to share a particular post with me, please put a link in the comments below.

Bekki x