Knitting, Book Binge and Cupcakes!

Quite a long absence again but I'm back! MIL had to be readmitted to hospital and we looked after FIL again for a while. However, in the end, we had to concede, sadly, that he needed to be in a care home. Then MIL was discharged from hospital but was unable to return home which meant we had to find a nursing home for her. After many viewings (we must have covered every suitable care home and nursing home in the area), we hit lucky and found the perfect care home for FIL which is providing him with much needed stimulation and a nursing home for MIL of which she approves and which is only 0.8 miles from FIL's care home. Lots of time is taken up with visiting and looking after their affairs generally but I've still managed to fit in some knitting!

MIL fell in love with this vintage capelet.


It's knitted in one wide piece (448 sts!) and then the yoke is worked in five separate pieces. I'm working on the third piece (back yoke) at the moment so almost there!


The Patagonian Night Sky Scarf is also nearly finished. Just ten more rows to go plus the beaded cast off!


I had a birthday cheque that I hadn't done anything with so decided to have a book binge!


As I've got a thing for lace at the moment, I decided on Victorian Lace Today (some beautiful designs in here!), Lace Style, and A Gathering of Lace. I also bought Fitted Knits and Knitting Over the Edge as I just love libraries of different stitches and edgings and can never have enough of them!

As well as these, I bought two Japanese Knitting books.


I find a lot of the Japanese patterns to be really beautiful so I decided to have a go at deciphering some of my favourites when I get time. I bought 250 Knitting Patterns which is a collection of swatches of the most gorgeous stitch patterns and Elegance Knits #11.

I seem to be into cupcakes at the moment. I think the thing I like most about them is just how creative you can be. There are no limitations to variations on the theme with these and some people have even created blogs dedicated just to cupcakes. Type 'cupcakes blog' into Google and you'll see what I mean! So I bought a couple of books on cupcakes in the hope that I'll find time soon to experiment.


Cupcakes have also found their way onto the shelves of my Knitz & Glitz shop in the form of cupcakes stitchmarkers.


There are matching cupcakes topped knitting needles, too!

Talking of knitting needles, Sue kindly did some Knitpicks shopping for a few of us on her recent travels so I'm now the proud owner of a set of Knitpicks Options which I've been coveting for some time! Thanks, Sue!


Lastly, I'd like to introduce you to Jack, the black alpaca bear by Steiff.


He's a late birthday pressie from DH. I've been collecting bears for quite a while but this is my first Steiff!