A finish and trip to Dundee

It's been a while since I last posted don't know what happened to the time a mixture of the Easter holidays spending time with the family and college work I guess but I do have something to share and I see I have some followers, oh my goodness! well hello and welcome *waves* thank you for joining me, guess I had better get on and write something now!
I have managed to finish my Sampler House project by With Thy Needle and Thread.

Really pleased with how it's turned out.

The soft white for the windows really lifts this. I've just got to 'finish' it properly now which should be *mumble mumble* well let's just say soon...ish.

Iam still working away on my socks I am nearly done with the second sock.

 I just have just one eensy weensy, teeny weeny problem......

my knitting tension, obviously I must be knitting tighter than I did the first sock as the second is definitely smaller......sigh!

Ah well I am going to look on this as a learning curve albeit a steep one! For future sock projects I plan to knit both socks at the same time. Fortunately daughter two still wants the socks maybe when I wash them they won't be too noticeable in size difference? Or they may end up as binners.

So why did I mention Dundee in my post title? Well yesterday hubby needed to make a trip to Dundee so we all decided to go as well cos it's not like I don't have anything else that I should be 

doing such as writing up reports and studying for some fast approaching exams eeek!!!

Anyway this is where we ended up

This is Dundee's waterfront looking up the estuary towards Newburgh. As you can see the tide was out and the water was eerily still.

This photo is looking down the river and you can see the Tay Railway Bridge and if you look closely at the picture at the other side of the bridge you can just make out the stumps of the bases of the original Railway Bridge, the famous Tay Bridge Disaster, they stand there as poignant  reminder of that tragic night. The original Tay Bridge collapsed on the 28th December 1879 killing all passengers and crew. There is a memorial here at the waterfront for all the victims but I was unable to get a photo as there was a family looking at it. 

The reason I am showing you pictures of the waterfront is because this is where we had lunch, not in the lovely looking restaurant housed in replica Victorian railway station, no we need to go round the back of the station to this...

An authentic 1870's railway carriage (apparently it was operational around the time of the Tay Bridge Disaster) which has now been converted to a fabulous little take away.

If you look closely you may just be able to make out hubby and daughter placing our lunch order which for me was the most amazing bacon and egg roll oh my it was good, so good I forgot to take a picture before it was gone!

Goodness I haven't half waffled on well done to anyone who has made it this far down the post without falling asleep. I do have more to share about the point of my trip to Dundee and some new goodies I would love to share with you but I will have to leave that for another day as I have to get on with some college work boo.

Sloooow progress!

Well that's the holidays over for us so it's back to the grindstone this week boohoo! However we have all got Good Friday off so it will be a short week and a nice long weekend yeah! Over the holidays I have been busy with the kids doing all sorts of catch up stuff, the usual round of appointments, dentist and play dates etc which means I've done very little on my projects since my last post. I have however managed to finish the first sock off and I've started on the second, here's hoping it will be the same size! My daughter has already called dibs on them so I had better get a move on or the weather will too warm for wearing them.

I am still not liking the tie dye effect but I do like the stripes on the heel ....... If only the whole sock was stripy like that!

Ooh look stripes appearing on the toe of the new sock!

I haven't been completely idle over the holidays I have managed to add a few more stitches to the The Sampler House. I've managed to complete the house part just got to add the windows in then onto the second tree.

I was getting a little concerned at how dark it was all appearing so I pulled out the threads and think the white will help to lift it. Doesn't help living in Scotland with the poor light we have here at times.

Not much more stitching to do then I can add it to my ever growing round tuit finishing pile!

Grey days and socks

It was Mother's Day yesterday and I hope that for those that were celebrating that you all had a wonderful day. My children treated me to breakfast in bed and entertainment in the form of a song and dance routine that they performed while I was waiting and to top it all off they cleaned up afterwards can't get better than that!

These are the wonderful cards that they made for me the girls cards have removable vases of flowers that double as book marks rather clever I thought and very handy too.

The weather however has not been so nice very grey and cold here, the above pic is what we have 

been getting weather wise for the last few days it's just plain dreary! No rain but just this grey fug hanging around, where oh where has the sun gone?   It's so cold we still have the heating on high and dug out the scarves today brrrr as we had to head out for a visit to the dentist a trip I never look forward too but all was ok for all of us today phew!!! We stopped off at the supermarket on the way home for some essentials and they had some rather sad and pathetic looking daffs reduced to pennies. The kids wanted to rescue them so a couple of bunches came home with us we did have to toss a few but the rest after a couple of hours in water have started to perk up and they are a lovely splash of colour in this grey spell we are in.

Aren't they lovely.

Please excuse the state of my kitchen table it is worked hard in this house, not just for meals but also for crafting, homework and game playing. One day I will strip the top and re finish it.

Sadly I don't have an update to show of my sampler house as I have only managed a couple of rows so I will wait till I have a bit more stitched before sharing a progress picture. However I have not been idle, oh no indeedy not look at what I have been up to.

What is it? Well it's meant to be a sock .....or at least the start of one. I have no idea what possessed me, I have never knitted socks before in my life and have never had the urge to either! We were in Dundee on Saturday as hubby had to get something and while waiting on him I wondered into a wool shop that was next door.....and before I knew it I was standing outside with a brown paper bag with some sock wool and circular needles in it oops! I picked a nice simple pattern from Ravelry the pattern is called socks on a plane by LaLa knits. The pattern is straight forward to follow and Iam amazed I've got this far Ive made many mistakes and those circular needles are a pain in the neck they are sooo darn springy but Iam having fun...at the moment. I am not sure about the wool I liked the mix of colours when I was in the shop but not so keen on how it's knitting up it's all rather too splodgy and reminds of tie dye which I was never overly fond of.  Oh well I wonder if this sock will ever end up as a pair?...

The sampler house WIP

I've started a new project, The Sampler House from With Thy Needle and Thread. I really like Brenda Gervais designs, I've seen a good few of her designs stitched and finished on other peoples blogs. They have inspired me to purchase a couple which I've kitted up and there waiting to be stitched. I've picked The Sampler House to stitch first for no particular reason and I am sticking with the recommended threads and linen. So far I am really pleased with how it's turning out I love the muted colours against the darker linen.

The picture above shows the pattern cover photo against the recommended linen it's a lot darker but I really like the colour.

I've been enjoying a cup of tea with my stitching in my favourite spotty mug, with the sun shinning and the kids at school it's been a peaceful way to spend the afternoon.

This is my progress in the last couple of days!