Maybe this is a good sleeve length 😆 #knitting 🧶

Rather fond of my new notions #knitting 🧶

I am so sick of knitting this Ranunculus sleeve on magic loop. I do nothing but turn it all the time. Anyone got any tips? After this I’ve got to do it all again on the other sleeve. Sheesh! 🧶

Well - the Mary Whitehouse play at the Nottingham Playhouse, with Samuel Barnett and Maxine Peake, is superb. Go and see it if you get chance. It packs a punch - and what a beautiful theatre too!

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Wonderful Cerys today, with Jake Thackeray from about 8mins in. Radio 6 Music. The BBC at its best

The sun is out! Yesterday it rained all day long and the roads were flooded. Today, blue skies and sun! It’s sunny up north!

Ranunculus jumper growing bit by bit 🧶 - using RICO luxury alpaca and cotton in colour aloe - I’m bothered it is going to be on the small side. Wish I’d done a slightly bigger size.

Just finished this funny and very powerful novel about an abusive family relationship - with a twist

I made up the extra stitch on my Ranunculus and am knitting onwards! Thank you for the advice 🧶

Written by a doctor at St Thomas' Hospital, London after the Tommy Robinson march on 13/9.

I just watched Gosford Park before it goes off the iPlayer (3 months) - exquisite script

Hey, knitting Ranunuculus fans! I’ve been doing SO well on my 2nd ever jumper and got to row 27 but I have 179 stitches instead of 180. Not sure where the problem is. I’ve tinked a bit. I must’ve dropped one? Any advice very very welcome! Thanks! ❤️🧶

Hope the Lords aren’t going to prevent the Assisted Dying Bill passing. 🙏🏻

#showmeyourknits WIP is the famous Ranunculus sweater in aloe knitted in Rico Luxury Alpaca Cotton Fusion. Size 5 needles. Wish me luck!

Can any #sourdough fans help me, please? Never made it before - tried to make a starter - after 4 days and popping it in the fridge it looks like this - that’s not right, is it? Should I start again? What did I do wrong? @bakeddough.bsky.social h

The first jumper I’ve ever finished knitting 🧶

I’ve knitted a swatch of Alpaca Cotton Fusion in Aloe - now to block it - thinking of a new project - a sweater with long sleeves 🧶 I want a loose and drapey look

New knitting project. Rowan scarf in kid silk haze 🧶🧶

Short but Sweet bakery in Chorley made this beautiful and delicious vegan angel cake for my daughter’s birthday - it was gorgeous!

They may be tiny but they grew in my greenhouse and they taste lovely

Pretty sunset this evening

I’ve picked up the armhole stitches on my jumper and knitted one cap sleeve, and I’m much happier with how this has gone than the neckline. 🧶 Knitting can be frustrating!

The only positive to having flu and being on your sick bed is getting to spend time with a good book. Although I’m struggling at times to concentrate.

I made some confit tomatoes and they smell good!

It’s enough to put you off knitting jumpers for life. It was all going so well until the neckband. Do you think blocking will improve it? 😳🧶

Information not misinformation from @benchu.bsky.social: How many illegal #immigrants are living in the UK? Are they put up in ‘four star hotels’? Are phones and iPads provided? Following comments made by #Rylan Clarke, #BBCVerify Policy Corr Ben Chu goes through the data+information for #Newsnight

Haven’t posted about knitting for ages because I’m plodding slowly on with this Rowan cotton top. I’m half way up the back now, and who knows, by the time I finish this light summer too, it’ll probably be -2° and raining! 😂🧶

I did not expect this kind of day

Watching for hedgehogs - I’ve seen three already (it’s darker than it looks)

For #SpinsterSeptember a rare personal post. My novel Miss Boston & Miss Hargreaves about two women struggling to make a life on the land in 1940s & 50s, letting other people think they were spinsters. Based on my grandmother’s life. SL for Walter Scott prize. See pinned post.

Lady blackbird enjoying the last plums on the tree at dusk - she’s perched on the fence on the right there

Nothing like reading with the shadows of the trees on your page 🥰

Bank holiday Monday. Jobs done. Having a coffee and a read now. Philip Roth can work miracles with sentences. I keep re-reading sentences to try and see how he does it. #PhilipRoth #Mondayreads

Current reading. I’m 122 pages in and it’s quite compelling. I didn’t expect to get this far. I find it more readable than Paul Auster

Great new reading campaign for northern Indie publishers at the library - I’m loving exploring some new to me titles!

#showmeyourknits 🧶 My knitting of stripes consists of this tea cosy, and that’s about it!

@vickymackenzie.bsky.social these are some of the best essays I’ve read recently! As an essayist yourself, I wondered if you’re familiar with them?

Developers say swift bricks cost too much. Let’s talk CEO salaries! Make it law: every new building must include homes for wildlife.

Also got hold of this - Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. Heard great things about it! And what a cute jacket design!

New books from the library! Black Friend by Ziwe. Looking forward to this after listening to Dua Lipa interviewing her. Dua is the best bookish interviewer out there, I think.

My beautiful new ring. Made just for me by Jason Jones Jewellery. 💝 Thanks for a beautiful gift to my husband x

Another lovely day today but we do need rain

Lovely sunset today but the garden is parched

Putting a Guinness in a glass like this just isn’t right 🤨

@nicolaspurr.bsky.social Did you hear Vivian Gornick’s writing discussed on A Good Read on Radio 4 today? www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

@vickymackenzie.bsky.social Did you listen to A Good Read today on Radio 4? Vivian Gornick The Odd Woman And the City was Harriet’s choice 🥰

Knitting hearts for the scarecrow competition at the end of August. We are sowing love! 🧶

Another good short novel I read this week - Clear, by Carys Davies. Set in the 1840s on a small island between the Shetlands and Norway. A churchman arrives to clear the island.

A good afternoon read in a sunny garden. Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler.

The best Saturday emails are the “Your book is out for delivery” emails. 💙📚