People to People People

Now, I'm not going to make excuses I'm going to write down what I've been up to!

First of all, there were an awful lot more scarves to make and they have finally been sent off to China! (As of yesterday actually). Bad news is that due to swine flu the volunteer group can't actually visit Mongolia... So instead they will be in nearby (ish) Beijing and the scarves etc will be sent on to them. This makes getting pictures of the kids somewhat difficult and possibly impossible.... There is the potential for a future trip though, so hopefully I'll get to see the smiling faces of children with warm hands necks and heads at some point!

Once the final shipment of scarves was out of the way I had a day or two to pack for my P2P delegation. (An american organisation that takes student ambassadors on educational trips around the world). They get to go to some awesome places, my trip lasted 18 days and we started in Ireland, moved through Wales, England, France, Belgium and Holland. I have absolutely no pictures as I was always busy phoning ahead to restaurants or trying to figure out where I was on the various maps I had which showed no knowledge of there being many hundreds of side roads that quite clearly existed in reality! So I finally arrived home (my liverpool home that is) on monday 6th absolutely knackered and since then I have been in a state of suspension i think. Not much is happening in my brain right now and I've achieved very little other than managing to drag myself back to Edinburgh last Sunday.

Since getting back here, I have managed to plant 2 blackcurrant bushes and one Gooseberry bush as well as retrieve a rose from my little, slightly abused, garden. As well as embark on a personal knitting project which is a pair of fingerless flap mittens. I'll get a picture up as soon as I've unpacked the camera from my suitcase which is still lying on the floor perfectly full of clothes and travel paraphernalia. They are really rather nice mittens!

Mad Hatter...

The knitting machine is currently steaming with over use so i thought I'd give it a break for a minute and put some pictures of my creations up here.

These were my very first attempts at figuring out how to knit a hat on the knitting machine. I thought it would be easier to make the square hats at first, but actually the beanie thing is surprisingly quick! I need to make it a bit wider though for it to fit a broader age range. (The random clothes peg is for scale.)

This is how i've been making the scarves (which you can see below!) I knit straight stockinette stitch strips, then block them, and sew them onto what used to be a rather delicious black fleece blanket, but has since been transformed into many, many scarves....

I can't take credit for this final set, they were knit by a volunteer for the Mongolia Knitting Project '09 and I think they are very cute! I especially

 like the little scarf!

Sorry about the pathetically dismal setting for the photos (ie the broken office chair which i found in my room one day when i came home) Anyone who lives in Edinburgh knows that today the weather is delightfully damp with a beautiful muggy sky so the lighting is a bit bizarre too! 

But you get the idea anyway. 

I'm also quite proud of this which I hand knit yesterday (for myself!). 

It probably took around 5 hours, at a casual pace, using circular needles and dpns, and an oh so fantastic merino silk blend yarn I bought yesterday morning. In reality the blue is darker, and richer in colour. I started by using the purl beret pattern from the purl bee but altered it quite a lot because, well, because i haven't ever followed a knitting pattern yet, why would I start now?