I genuinely thought that when I started up my own SUPERCOOL crafting business I would have loads of time to knit and sew and craft. Why didn’t anyone warn me about admin and accounting and all of that kind of stuff?! As a result, since we started working on the business I’ve really not been making stuff. Until this month, when I realised that if I didn’t give into my creative urges soon I was going to start resenting work since that is ALL I SEEM TO DO these days.

‘Fetching’ – Ravelry link here, pattern available from knitty webzine here.

This is probably my favourite knitting pattern for quick gratification and I’ve made five pairs now. Such a speedy little knit, a gorgeous end result and practical too! These were knit in a lovely Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran so they’re supersoft and destined for my Christmas presents box.

‘Most Basic Kids sock’ – Ravelry link here, pattern available as a free Ravelry download here.

My first ever socks! I’ve knitted these in Artesano 4-ply 100% alpaca (which you can buy here from my shop) for Erica and she loves the single sock she’s got finished. My big mistake with these was my cast-on which was so tight that Erica couldn’t get her foot through it. I had to unpick it (alpaca! aaarrggh!) then use a stretchy cast-off which worked thank goodness. Admittedly, since Erica seems to have little square paws rather than feet she won’t get a lot of wear out of them as this yarn doesn’t really stretch much in these dimensions and the pattern is a tad on the neat side, but as a practice run I’m really thrilled with them. Not bad for a first effort, and I’m just turning the heel on the second sock now.

‘Honeypie’ – Ravelry link here, pattern available for $4 as a Ravelry download here.

This is going to be for Greer, and once I’ve finished it she is going to wear it every single day until it no longer fits. This is probably the most involved pattern I’ve worked with because – as yet – I can’t place the pattern and can’t memorise it. I’ve cheekily scaled it up a size so that it’ll fit Greer and I am panicking a little that I have Done It Wrong but time will tell I guess. The Rowan Wool cotton has been in my stash since I was pregnant with Nairn, but I never quite got round to knitting with it until now. Bad me.

I’m also working on Emil Babygrow from the MillaMia Bright Young Things pattern book (which you can buy here) for my lovely sister Stephanie who is enormously pregnant and due in 9 days time so I really must get my knitting skates on!

I’m really chuffed to have finally mastered the long-tail cast on which my Nana gave up trying to teach me about 10 years ago because I just didn’t get it. Luckily my awesomely patient friend has been encouraging me (because she hates my preferred cast-on) and finally, when she explained that I am essentially to knit with my thumb IT ALL MADE SENSE. So yes, perseverance is clearly the way ahead. I have also become a ‘picker’ rather than a ‘thrower’ in an attempt to increase my currently abysmal knitting speed. This is the first step to me learning continental-style, as then I’ll be able to throw a sock out in a couple of hours like one of the girls who comes to my knitting group. It’s terrifying and awe-inspiring to watch her.

So I’m desperate to know – what are you guys all working on just now? I’m aware of Amanda’s forays in dresses and skirts for adults, and Manda’s experiments with wool and tweed (in lilac no less) but I’m nosy as to what you guys are making for Christmas. Fill me in!

Admin note: The winners of the Johnson’s Baby Hamper contest are as follows.

#5 – Amy
#10 – Louiz
#17 – Susannah Leggatt
#26 – Fiona White
#29 – Fiona Bentley

I stare at this face (when he’s oblivious) at any given opportunity. It’s like watching a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis, all of a sudden I can see my adult son where a baby was oh so very recently. How did this happen? How is it possible that my tiny small son is so big that he can’t quite fit around my body – in that way that only toddlers can – for a hug anymore?

I tend to think of my kids in stages that I can remember. I think of Nairn as the 4 year old me, having a birthday party at home in our new house. I think of Erica as the 3 year old me on holiday in Newcastle, on a fairground ride with my Mum where her red shoes fell from her feet to the ground as we squealed in excitement and fear. I think of Findlay and remember my excitement at reaching my first decade. I remember going to boarding school when I was only months older than he is now. I think of my own social awkwardness which I feel has never really gone away and I worry about the same in him.

I shouldn’t worry though, should I? Findlay is a very sociable and friendly boy with a multitude of testosterone-fuelled excitable and adventurous pals who tumble to my front door like puppies. And when this door-chapping stopped, that was when I had to make the hardest decision I’ve been presented with in terms of my child’s long term happiness.

In August when we got the shop, I couldn’t see how Findlay could stay at his school. I couldn’t visualise us opening the shop – 20 miles away – at 9am when I anticipated both Bob and I to be at the shop. With this in mind and knowing that Findlay’s school was suffering from a lack of funding as well as potential closure, I moved Findlay to a new school.

New School is in a very affluent area of the city and I foresaw a thriving, bustling, multicultural environment where the arts & sport were celebrated and where my child would grow long hair and new friendships. It didn’t quite work like that and at Findlay’s parents evening I was dismayed to be told that my exceedingly smart bookworm child wasn’t up here *waves hands at head height* and wasn’t down here *waves hands at waist height*, but that he was settling fine here *waves hands at chest height*. My stomach lurched. Findlay has always performed near the top of his class and that’s not a boast – I don’t expect him to be the cleverest child in the world and GOD KNOWS when I was his age I loathed school and barely made an effort. But to have such a drastic leap down the way really worried me and that, coupled with reading a comparison between Glasgow schools and Lanarkshire schools league tables made me think.

I have made a huge mistake.

It was quite a relief, then when he decided two weeks ago that he wanted to return to his old school. He presented a reasoned, well-considered argument which I could find no fault with and I presented the same argument to his Dad. Then, we approached his old school who agreed to have him back.

So this week, the puppies have been back at the door and Findlay is a much happier camper. He has a lot of work to catch up on since his new school had been working on the topic he covered last year and thus the topic he’s doing now is one he is completely unfamiliar with, but he is happy. I’m happy he’s happy.

Thanks ever so much for all the messages of support about my Nana. She has made a full-circle recovery and while she is still very ill, the imminent danger has passed.
The Johnson’s giveaway is now closed and I will blog about the winners tomorrow.
The Vosene giveaway is still open.

If you’re a regular reader of these here ramblings, you’ll know from this post that we have a sodastream which I LOVE TO DEATH. Seriously. My kids love fizzy drinks and I’m wary of most of it because their teeth are so beautiful and I’d like to preserve that, but knowing that the Sodastream concentrate is significantly lower in sugar is enough to let them have their own way a little. Plus, it works out so much cheaper to make up fizzy drinks like this that I can’t begrudge it really and that’s before we touch on the green aspect of reduced waste!

So – Sodastream sent me a wee email the other day that I thought would interest you guys on two fronts. FIRST OFF, they have some supercool ideas for Hallowe’en – The expert fizzologists at Sodastream have created four Hallowe’en Mocktails for your delectation, all of which would work brilliantly at a spooky Hallowe’en party!

Vampire Broth
3 parts SodaStream diet cola, 1 part vanilla ice cream. Mix SodaStream cola with the vanilla ice cream and watch it go all frothy.

Pumpkin Juice
2 parts SodaStream sugar free orange, 1 part SodaStream sugar free lemonade and small pumpkin slices. Mix SodaStream orange with SodaStream lemonade and add the pumpkin pieces.

Witches Brew
2 parts SodaStream sugar free orange, 1 part SodaStream ginger ale, 1 part orange juice and 1 part pineapple juice. Mix all the ingredients together in a jug to make your witches brew!

Magic Potion
2 parts SodaStream clear cranberry & raspberry, 2 parts SodaStream apple and 1 part fresh raspberries. Crush up the raspberries and mix into the SodaStream apple then add cranberry and raspberry.

I know my goblins will be partial to a Vampire Broth or two and I definately fancy turning the Witches Brew into a real cocktail with a sneaky shot of vodka. Wahey!

SECONDLY the kind folks from Sodastream have also generously offered a Sodastream machine with two bottles of juice concentrate for one lucky winner. Isn’t that nice? To enter, I’d like you to leave a comment before Sunday 24th October 2010 telling me what you like best about Hallowe’en. A winner will be selected using the random integer generator and your prize will be sent out in time for your Hallowe’en shenanigans.

Thanks for reading!

I am a renowned rubbish practical joker. I try and play jokes on people all the time and they usually fall flat, this year’s April Fool’s Day was no exception when I told the kids that I was pregnant again and that as a result we would have to move into a one bedroom flat since we couldn’t afford to stay in our house anymore. They fell for it so well that I decided to expand it and phoned my sister, whereupon the following conversation ensued:
Me: Steph? Steph! Oh my GOD I’m pregnant. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I’m pregnant and I have no idea how it happened and how can I possibly have another baby I’ll have five kids under 10!
Steph – Deadpan: Oh my actual God. Are you kidding?
Me – almost crying: NO I’M NOT KIDDING I can’t believe this how on earth did this happen?!
Steph: Are you kidding?
Me: NO!
Steph: No way. I am too.
Me – shrieking: OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! I WAS ONLY KIDDING BECAUSE IT’S APRIL FOOL’S DAY! Are you ACTUALLY pregnant?!
Steph: I hate you.

What this little vignette doesn’t tell the reader is that I am also renowned for being the worst secret keeper in all the land. Seriously. And Stephanie is the only person I know who actually managed to keep her first pregnancy secret until she’d got past 12 weeks. GNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG! So the last eight weeks has been torturous for me knowing but not able to tell anyone until today. Steph & Gary had their scan yesterday and there’s a little baby in there! It’s the clearest scan picture I’ve ever seen – you can see it here which is a photo of the scan and therefore not great, but clear enough to see a bambino in there. Hooray! Baby is due to land before Christmas which is just perfect. I am seriously excited

So that’s my first piece of news. My SECOND piece of news is that Bob & I’s business The Life Craft (which we’ve been sporadically blogging about here) has been entered into a really amazing competition run by Barclay’s Bank. Competitors are divided up by location and then by sector; in 12 days the judges will shortlist their favourite three entries per location and whoever gets the most votes wins up to £50,000 to develop their business. We really need people to back us just now – a task that will take literally seconds to do in the hope that we can be shortlisted. If you could take a moment to do this I really would be most grateful.

So that’s the news for just now! Onto the reviews.

I posted yesterday about our big walk around Calderglen Park with Penny the other night. When we got home, I was so knackered that I decided to have a bath. Lush had sent me a Big Blue bath ballistic and a bar of Sandstone soap last week as a freebie to encourage me to take 90 minutes as a World Cup Widow and I wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth (although I didn’t have the heart to ‘fess up about Scotland’s lack of qualifying!) I’ve used the Big Blue loads of times before and love it but the Sandstone soap was a new one to my crappy sensitive skin and I’m really impressed with it! I got off all of the dry flaky bits without irritating my skin any further and it smells really nice too. Lush are also promoting their BB Seaweed facemask to World Cup Widows but I haven’t tried that one yet.

Although I have to say I’m very jealous of our friends in the South after discovering that Lush have Spas, but they’re only in London, Leeds, Poole and Kingston! Have any of you tried them out before?

The other review I wanted to share with you is for a website that I discovered after Christmas called Dot Com Giftshop. I got these supercute Russian Doll tins for the girls to keep their hairbobbles, colouring pencils and various tiny toys in so that I’d stop standing on them and I was really impressed with the speed and service offered by the site. A few weeks ago, they contacted me to say they’d listed Adventures of a Lady in Training in their top 50 craft blogs (at #42! The cheek of it, I reckon I should have been top 20 at least!) and would I be interested in reviewing some of their products. So they sent me out some of their Heart gifts range and I have to say that yet again, I was impressed with the speed, service and quality offered by them.

This gorgeous & classy tealight holder has been claimed by Erica for above her bed:

and they also sent this selection:

which just made me smile as soon as I opened the box which contained Feltcraft butterfly hearts, Iron-on patches, thick wrapping tape with hearts, thinner gift tape, alphabet heart stickers and decorative heart stickers which I have to admit made me want to sit down and write a letter to someone – anyone – which I could decorate with hearts. Yes I know, I’m unashamedly girly. Anyway, it’s a big thumbs up from me for the Dot Com Giftshop not just for having such a wide variety of cute and inexpensive gift items but also for the brilliant customer service experience.

And finally the bit you’ve all been waiting for – the giveaway! This giveaway has now closed

OK – up for grabs we have everything in this photograph:

and to enter the giveaway I would like you to:

1) Comment here (that gets you one entry)
2) Be a fan on facebook (that gets you another entry
3) Tweet about the giveaway (that gets you yet another entry)

Please remember to tell me in your comment if you’ve done steps 2 & 3 otherwise you won’t be credited for that entry! Also ensure you leave an email address for me to contact you on. You have until 8pm on Wednesday 2nd June 2010 to enter and I will post anywhere in the world.

Please note: I am not paid for reviews other than getting to keep the product I’m reviewing. You can therefore be assured that the review I write is unbiased.

I used the random number integer:

and #23 was drawn:

And entry #23 was Eileen with this answer:

Congratulations Eileen! I’ll get your prize to you ASAP.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the PR company who represent Ecover asking if I’d like to review Ecover’s new range on my blog. In order to review the products honestly, they have supplied me with not only their own range but comparable products from other petrochemical-based well-known brands. I will be posting my findings tomorrow.

Before agreeing to this, I asked Ecover’s PR company to supply me with a pack to giveaway to my readers which they kindly did. The pack contains four 500ml bottles – multi surface cleaner, all purpose cleaner, power cleaner (degreaser) and window & glass cleaner.

To be in with a chance of winning this pack, leave a comment below telling me what you do to make your house a happier home. Closing date for entries is Sunday 11th October at midnight. Now closed! Thanks for entering! Due to the weight of the bottles I’m afraid this giveaway is restricted to the UK & Eire.