Happy New Year!

 I thought I'd post a couple of photos from our conservatory! It's still a work in progress, even after all these months, as we are still waiting for the plumber to fit in a radiator, and also waiting for the electrician to finish off the lights...but in the meantime we are enjoying it as a (slightly chilly) sitting room!

 We were away shopping yesterday so we bought a few bits and pieces for the conservatory to make it feel more homely -- I'd been given some vouchers for Christmas from one of my sisters so I bought these two gorgeous orchids and the pot of hyacinths with them...then we bought the large house plant when we were in Tesco...I love having plants inside the house and am hoping to use some of the windowsill space in this room next summer for growing tomatoes as they just won't grow well outdoors here.

We also bought a pair of new suitcases as we are going to New York on holiday (next month!!) and needed the cases. Isn't the print on the fabric so cute? We definitely won't lose them!!

I'm trying to stick to my mantra and annual 'new years resolution' of using up what I already have in my boxes and cupboards - and just before Christmas someone asked if I could make them some plain wrist warmers using just natural wool/alpaca etc rather than a blend with acrylic or anything man made, so recently I had a quick look through my cupboard and came up with some 'new' yarns to work with...

 These are all the way from Iceland! I bought them in the wool shop in Reykjavik last February and hadn't done anything with them :( Each ball weighed 25g, in lace weight wool - it's super fine, using a 3mm hook! 

 I had just enough for a pair of little wristlets in each shade.

Just last week, I used up some more of the wools that I'd bought in Iceland - to make this fluffy pair of wrist warmers: they're made in a Danish yarn but I'd fallen in love with it in the shop in Reykjavik so it fell into my shopping basket (along with everything else!)

This one is a 'cobweb' weight yarn, so even finer to work with, and the fluffiness makes seeing the individual stitches quite difficult...it was a labour of love and I must remind myself to THINK about how wools might be to work with before I am so eager to buy them! -it's a blend of alpaca and polyamide and is soooo snuggly soft! 

Now that I've finished this pair (and shipped them off to my Etsy customer in America!) I'm back to my all-natural fibres and am using up some Rowan alpaca - I can't even remember buying it but I have two skeins in my cupboard...more in my next blog post I'm sure!