Have Notebook, Will Travel

On the day I wore this sweater and ate this fish and chip supper and was caught taking pictures of my dinner with a view to posting them on instagram (though in the end I didn't because it turns out a piece of cod in a mini metal frying basket is quite hard to capture in its full glory), I made a note in my diary

Supplies from the May kits at Gossamer Blue

I had booked myself a place on a phone photo course. And this weekend, it has finally come time! I've been looking forward to it and to the road trip we have planned around the journey. A two hour class a couple of hours from home has turned into two nights away, with plans for a yarn splurge and a museum or three. 

So I suppose what I'm really trying to say is that I may be Monday-ing on Tuesday next week. Don't wait for me! I'll be back!

With ideas for more pictures, I hope, and a story or two, and pages I can show you, instead of the bare bones

of an entry, which will turn into a record of a Formal, with a black dress and red lipstick and a boyfriend in a very tight jacket (why does he have his shirt tail untucked? asked Granny. That's rock n roll, we said..)

If you are celebrating Mother's Day this weekend, I hope it's a lovely one. See you..maybe, Tuesday?

The Sock Notebook Rides Again

So I have my Traveller's Notebook. I also have this:

If you've been dropping by here for a while you might recognise it as my sock notebook. No? You're right: it hasn't seen a lot of action lately. I made my first entries almost two years ago - I ordered wool for my first ever pair of socks on St. Patrick's Day 2015 (or so the notebook says) - and started recording my progress not long after.

Then, for a bit, I was knitting faster than I could write: the notebook couldn't keep up and I began tucking ball bands and snips of yarn inside, in the hope I'd get back to it. Last week I knocked my notebook off the shelf and, yes, of course, all my carefully curated but completely unattached ephemera fluttered to the floor, all wild and free. So I decided to catch up.

This page

records a big moment in the life of a hand knitted sock: its first hole. When a shop bought sock wears through, we bin it (unless we're a student who works on the who is going to see my feet principle. Maybe your mother? When you come home for the holidays? Let's park that thought and move on..) But it's not so easy to turn your back on hand made. Clearly I had to learn how to darn.

And this page

makes a not of my contribution to Winwick Mum's Sock Line last summer. I think she'll be running it again this year, so I need to remember to leave myself time in the old knitting schedule. Schedule? Sounds like I have a plan. Maybe there's a small one, incorporating a phone photography class in a knitting shop. I'll say that again because it's a magical combination. A phone photography class in a knitting shop. I'm looking forward to it very much. There will be wool, new wool, so I'd better get going on pinning down the details of what I've already used. Just one more sock related note before I go. Pablo Neruda, I recently discovered, wrote a beautiful poem about a pair of hand knitted socks. You can find Ode to my Socks here

"and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.."

Memos, Mail, Me: Planning, Not Dreaming

...though there's nothing wrong with the latter

even as I've been spending more time on the former. And it's because of the planning that I have to apologise today for my photos, versions of which some of you will have already seen on instagram over the weekend. I can't show pictures yet, see, of any of my mail. Over Easter, when the post slows down, nothing special arrived, so this week I'm looking forward...

...to parcels I'm hoping will arrive very soon. There's been some birthday buying: surprises for our girl, so please don't tell, all I'll say is that I hope she'll like what I chose to go with that Uniqlo dress

Notebooking supplies on these pages from Felicity Jane

I finally hemmed, using over three metres of horsehair braid to make it swirl. She's hoping, I think, for a record player too, so as soon as that's settled I'll be ordering. Vinyl really is back. They're all looking for proper records now, talking about album covers again, carrying them round like the badges of honour they deserve to be. So there's that to look forward to.

And there's the fitflops I ordered after seeing them reviewed here, on the blog which speaks to those of us with feet we'd quite like to swap. I'm pinning my hopes of a summer of comfortable walking on these babies, so they'd better deliver when they're delivered.

Finally, after going backwards and forwards over it (cue one more weekend picture of confused sheep at crossroads)

I've decided to buy a new photo printer. I had, and happily used for years, a canon selphy; but it stopped working last summer and since then I've tried various printing services instead. But ordering pictures is my least favourite part of scrapbooking. It's the only bit I would call "work". Printing at home, on the spot and (this time round) wirelessly from my phone? As The Tall One would say: that's happening. Soon, I hope. 

There's only one thing I've left out of my post plans. And that's what to tell you about next week now that I seem to be working ahead of myself. But you never know what's round the next corner (cue debate over whether to move the sheep picture to here) Right? I had no interesting mail this week. But I did have a couple of lovely texts, both of which will, I think, result in meet ups, one with an old friend, one with a new knitting pal. Maybe there'll be a story for next time there?

How about you? Anything new over the weekend? Any interesting news? Mail you'd like to share? It's Monday! How about making a memo?

 Helena, Barb, Deb, Mary-Lou, Mitra, Maggie, Alexa, Alison, Honore, Karen, Melissa, Alexandra and Ladkyis were good enough to share last time round. Go on, give 'em a wave! And have a good week!

April Projects at Gossamer Blue

And there I was, just about to yell hurray! Spring has sprung! when I looked out of the window and realised that the rain was on and all my washing was getting wet. That's April. And I'm happy to see it. Pretty happy, too, I was, to crack open a box of Gossamer Blue kits and start thinking about some new season projects.

First up, some green for my Traveller's Notebook. You know, if it hadn't been for the December Memories kit last Christmas, with the Traveller's Notebook inclded, I might never have discovered the simple pleasure of pasting pictures into a little brown book. I have my sock notebook, of course, but it's all about the details, the nitty gritty: an everyday notebook , instead, can be about anything at all. There doesn't have to be a story, although that's always good; a sudden thought, a pithy saying, a verse, a picture without any other home...they're all welcome here. A quick page in a  notebook is an excellent warm up for an afternoon of scrapbooking...

and so I followed it with a page about a trip we took last summer, when we were touring Scotland. We made it all the way to the Isle of Skye for the day and it was just as beautiful as we'd hoped. What we hadn't expected to find was a sunny, laid back surfer feel to the coffee stops and little shops scattered along the main tourist routes. Time to break out the Crate Paper Oasis collection from this month's Main Kit.

My second page was crafted around that "Bloom" acrylic piece. I had to squeeze it on somewhere, so I paired those "o"'s with a photo punched into a circle, and then added some more, from the Planner Kit.

I was going to make this a smaller sized layout, until at the last minute I found myself drawn to that

black and white print (from the Main Kit) as a background.

And those are my projects for today. But no fooling, I haven't packed April at Gossamer Blue away. More to come.

March Projects at Gossamer Blue

There's a stiff breeze blowing round here today: just the kind I love to see at the beginning of March. It's brisk, it's an energy boost, it's just what I need, because I still have lots of paper I'd like to play with. The March kits from Gossamer Blue 

- all fresh greens and pops of yellow and shots of blue - are perfect for pages about getting outside, so I looked for out and about pictures and first of all I found this one, which I took last summer when we were stuck in a traffic jam. I have a thing for Highland cattle, so I couldn't resist.

For my other projects this month I tried something something new. I have a Traveller's Notebook! And it now has two pages. This one:

Out and about, see?

And this one:

in which I paired a photo of Molly Malone with a note of our favourite St. Patrick's Day feast. It'll soon be time to fry up a batch (and what this page really should note is that it has to be eaten fresh for best deliciousness). I don't often do themed embellishments, but how could I possibly resist? 

We're off on a road trip this weekend and I'm hoping to collect some more lucky green stories. See you soon?

Everything today made with Main, Life Pages and Planner kits from March at Gossamer Blue.