Crochet shawl ta da and a late splash of January colour.

Hello!

I blame recovering from flu - once the children are in bed in the evening I've found it difficult to move myself from the sofa this last week. Fortunately I haven't been completely wasting my precious spare time and I've managed to finish crocheting a shawl.

I'd bought the wool (Regia sock yarn) from Kemps Wool last year as it just seemed too much of a bargain to miss, and had intended making some kind of lacy scarf with it. After a couple of attempts using different patterns none of which I liked I eventually checked Ravelry to see what others had made with the yarn (aside from socks!). That's how I came across this pattern.

It was very easy, and nice and quick. I actually wasn't too sure about it at first but decided it was worth keeping going and I love the end result! Although it's quite large (I can hold the top corners with arms fully extended, and the bottom corner reaches the base of my spine) it is light enough to drape beautifully and fit comfortably under my jacket.

The colours look a little flat on the pebbles.

A little bit of January sunshine on the bench helps.

I love how the colours mingle when it's all rumpled up for wearing, and it goes well with my jacket.

I wore it today for the first time. After a quick supermarket shop I decided to take N to the loch. It was just such a nice bright sunshiny day.

We parked close to the swans. N associates visiting here with getting and ice cream at the visitor centre. It seemed like a good idea.

After our ice creams we wandered along the foot path by the loch to the play park.

This play park is full of lots of climbing frames (our local one seems to specialise in roundabouts), N had fun. I enjoyed taking some colourful photos. I've been meaning to take part in Silver Pebble's Splash Of Colour event but have not been organised enough to blog my photos before the deadline, which I have missed again for January however I'll still add my Dec/Jan photos to the Flickr Group. Here they are...

Playground detail.

Red door, green grass.

Red polka dot love heart grafitti (awww!)

My gloves and scarf from an earlier sunny winter day.

Lastly, necklaces. They hang on the knob of the bedroom window shutters (which unfortunately don't work)...

...seen here on the right of the window. This photo is from when I managed to get the bedroom all tidied for Christmas. As you can see we have very slopey ceilings!

And finally...
...a t-shirt decorated by A when she had friends round for some crafting just before Christmas. I was rather taken with it. I've still to iron it to set the ink, it's being kept carefully away from the laundry pile.

Thank you to all who kindly commented on my last, rather moany post. I feel so much better, especially today (I think the sunshine helps!). Needless to say, I've still not got round to putting anything on ebay, and I've started my diet by eating anything with chocolate on it that I can find in the house, given that it's just after Christmas there has been rather a lot. I've pretty much succeeded in that task and weather-permitting, I should be back on the bike next weekend so things should start to improve. I've also been remiss in commenting on the blogs I usually follow though I have been visiting, again things should be getting back to normal now.

I must try and keep the house chocolate-free...