Blogtober 2024 : Day 23

Wednesday … there are only 8 days to go in October now and one more Wednesday after this one.  It feels a bit weird to be saying that, doesn’t it?  Next Friday will be November and our year is heading towards – well, towards a new one!

Today’s post is about orange things.  Why?  Well, why not?  I would always tell you that purple is my favourite colour, but although I might think that pink, say, or a certain shade of blue is my next favourite, it struck me today how many things I have around me are orange.  It’s such a happy colour, a creative colour, apparently, and I do feel that it brightens everywhere up.  I don’t have any orange clothes, but as you’ll see, I do have other things that are orange.

 

🧡  My Herdy mug

My number one orange thing!  I bought this mug – well, not this particular one as this one is a replacement – from the first Yarndale festival that I went to, and for some reason the orange called to me far more than the other colours, even the purple.  I have no idea why, but I fell in love with the bright orange and that cheeky sheepy face and it’s been my mug of choice ever since.  Fortunately, Herdy still produce this mug so I always make sure that I have a spare so that my tea can always be in an orange mug!

 

🧡  Super Socks books

Super Socks has been in print for nine years now and I still get a thrill of excitement when I pick up an order of newly printed books from the printers.  I use a local company for the books that I sell in the blog shop or that go to yarn shops such as my local yarn shop, Black Sheep Wools, and also Wool Warehouse.  There are other yarn shops that hold copies as well and I am so grateful to all of them for supporting me.

Why an orange cover?  It called to me, much as the mug did!  I worked with big daughter’s best friend who was training to be a graphic designer at the time to come up with the cover and when I saw it as it is, I knew it was absolutely what I wanted, and I still think the same all these years later.

 

🧡  Knitting

There’s a surprising amount of orange in my Kate Davies mystery knit-along shawl.  It’s a lovely vibrant Jaffa orange and I do like it very much.  As you’ll see, this is still very much a work in progress and it’s not going to be finished before the official end of the knit-along on 31 October.  I’m not quite halfway through Clue 3 and there’s one more to go after this.  I will finish it because although I am not besotted by the pattern, I am quite enjoying the garter stitch as it is giving me chance to practice my Continental knitting.

This is the finished shawl …

It’s called The Goff Place Mystery and if you love it, you can now buy the pattern here (Ravelry link).  I’ll be honest – I don’t love it and probably wouldn’t have knitted it if I had seen the pattern beforehand, and it’s simply because it doesn’t match apart from in the shape.  But anyway, I have scratched the itch of whether I should take part in mystery knit-alongs (no) and I will one day have a unique shawl to wrap myself up in, even if I just wear it around the house or in the car!

 

🧡  My bread baking dish

I’m going to write another post about the easy-to-bake bread that I make, but as I’m talking about orange things today, I thought I would add in my orange cast iron casserole dish.  This is what I use as a Dutch oven for baking my bread.  It’s a 22cm casserole, bought for us as an engagement present many years ago, and used far more now for baking bread than it ever has been for casseroles!

I did start off using a bigger casserole dish – basically, you just need something with a lid to contain your bread – but I found that I got a better-sized loaf in a smaller dish which caused it to rise upwards rather than spread out.

 

🧡  A dinky pumpkin

It was veg box night tonight and tucked away in a corner was this tiny pumpkin!  Hallowe’en falls on a Thursday this year so neither of my girls will be here to carve pumpkins; I’ll have this dinky one all to myself!

 

🧡  A Japanese acer in the garden

For just a couple of days, this acer blazes orange and then the leaves are gone.  A fleeting treasure in the garden, so thank goodness we have cameras to capture the moments!

 

You know, considering that orange isn’t my very favourite colour, it wasn’t hard to find things to write about at all!  How about you?  Do you have a not-favourite favourite colour too? 🙂

 

 

PS  Kay said in the comments on yesterday’s post where I mentioned the Starlink satellites that they often watch the International Space Station go past and that always makes me think of one Christmas Eve when it was low enough in the sky to be seen going past, and we told not so small daughter that it was Father Christmas heading in our direction and she needed to go to bed 🤣