Barn progress

The barn is so very nearly finished...

It has plastered (and painted, though not in the final colours) walls, running water, and a source of heat. The major missing thing is the floor downstairs, but the end is finally in sight.

I'm off to spinning guild tomorrow and am leaving Mum and Dad to crack on with painting the walls in the right colours. Since I took these photos we've had the wood burning stove installed, and have started the tiles by the bath.

The kitchen isn't that blue colour, that's just the protective coating we're leaving on until we finish doing anything that might scratch the unit. The other major thing we're waiting for is the gas to be connected to the stove, and the shower to be plumbed in. I've been brave a picked a bright lime paint to go on 2 of the walls in the kitchen, everywhere else, apart from the bathroom is going to be a very neutral off white. 

I'm hoping to be able to start working in the upstairs space sometime very soon (maybe even next week), I'm already looking forward to having space to work immensely!

Freezing Fog

The snow missed Wales. I've had a few people place orders from the shop saying not to worry about rushing out to post, but alas, we got the rain, cooled down the air nicely in time for it to snow over the Midlands.

The exact same thing is meant to happen today, so yet again we'll get rain falling on frozen ground which should make for a pleasant driving experience. It was cold last night, colder than we realised, because yet again our water pipes have frozen. Our water comes from a spring 2 fields behind our house, comes down via a skinny pipe that is sot of buried, somewhere...
Turns out that somewhere isn't quite deep enough when it drops below -5C, if we forget to leave a tap running overnight we have no water in the morning.

In exchange for no snow, we have had some rather cold weather and some freezing fog, it's made everywhere look very pretty, if a little eerie.

Socks

This post is my 600th since I started blogging, in that time I've been a student, had a professional job, and am now self employed. The blog has seen boyfriends come, and then go, and seen the start of new hobbies. Those hobbies have become, to a certain extent, life consuming. One of them now forms the basis of how I earn a living. However, the things that led me down this path was the desire to knit socks. These were my first ever socks- Just a basic top down pattern in Regia 4ply. 600 posts on, and I'm still knitting socks.

I've got a bit quicker, one of these socks was knitted in 24 hours, it only took a week to finish the second one because I took time out to finish a cardigan (photos of that when I take time out to find the right buttons). The yarn is still Regia, I've come to the conclusion recently that nothing beats a 75% wool, 25% nylon mix for socks that last, and wash. The original socks (knitted in 2008) have been washed and worn, and washed and worn, and still look nearly as good as new, while other socks have long since given up the ghost. The only exception is that this is a 6ply yarn, Kemps currently have it on offer for £4 for a 150g ball. I'm going to be able to make 3 socks out of that one ball, and as you can see I've made them nice and long. Please save me from myself and buy it, before I go back and buy more! One thing also hasn't changed, I still don't knit stripy socks to match!