Author: Kate Hudson

A Busy Year

2017 has been a busy year for me. It has brought a lot of changes, some proud moments and some big challenges, but it’s been a great year.

The year started with my first exams since leaving school in 1999. It was really nerve wracking, but I did well and was really pleased with my results. I also had interviews at universities in January, and was delighted to be offered a place at my first choice, the University of Huddersfield, to study architecture.

In February, we celebrated my 34th birthday and QWeb’s 4th birthday. Our company is still doing well and we’ve been busier than ever this year. Read more

Back to School

It’s been a busy few months for me. I went back to school in September. I’m currently studying an access course in engineering and applying to study architecture at university. Exciting!

It’s been difficult adjusting to studying again after so many years away from formal education, but I’m enjoying it a lot. It’s good to be doing something interesting and challenging, and it turns out I actually like having a proper routine.

I’ve got my first round of exams next week which is a bit nerve wracking, but I think I know my stuff, so hopefully it’ll all go well. I’ve also got a couple of interviews with universities lined up which is even more nerve wracking. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Wish me luck! Read more

More Runes

The runes I made a while ago were getting a bit crumbly and weird looking. I made them from a stick I found on a walk, and the wood wasn’t really very good. It’s a shame, because I really liked the runes, but they needed replacing.

I decided to make myself a new set, but rather than pick another odd stick that might not last, I picked up some Wooden discs from Hobbycraft. They’re very round and smooth and seem unlikely to crumble. There are twenty-two in a pack so I had to get two packs. I also bought a small Wooden box from The Works, which turned out to be the perfect size to stack in 24 of the disks. Read more

Becoming a Driver

I posted about my first driving lesson back in May, and since then I have passed my driving test and I’ve been driving on my own for a while now. I was super proud to have passed first time 🙂

Feeling like a driver took me a lot longer than passing my test. Throughout my last few lessons I still felt like a learner, like I needed my instructor’s guidance, even though he wasn’t really helping me very much by that point. I was driving independently, he was just in the car with me and occasionally giving me tips and advice about driving in general rather than talking me through how to handle situations as they happened. Read more

Armoured Gloves

I started a new knitting project a few days ago, and I’ve been knitting to destress after my driving lessons, so I’ve whizzed through the project and finished it already. It was a really fun thing to knit, using basic garter stitch and looping metal scales into every second row to create a scale maille effect.

I was looking for a pattern on ravelry a few weeks ago and thought it would be good to try a new technique, and this jumped right out at me.

I ordered four packs of small anodised aluminium scales from The Ring Lord in black, bronze, gold and champagne. The gold and champagne scales look quite similar to each other in some light conditions and quite different in others. I’d have preferred a more distinct colour difference between them, but other than that, I like how the colours go together. Read more

My first driving lesson

I had my first driving lesson the other day. I’d never driven before in my life. In fact, the closest I’d come was when my dad handed me the car keys, when I was about nine years old, and asked me to turn the car radio on. We must have been having a barbecue or something. I followed his instructions, but turned the key too far and started the engine, which was pretty scary considering I was only a little girl.

This time, as well as managing not to panic and burst into tears, I actually drove the car. I was super nervous to begin with, but my instructor was great, and before I had chance to worry about how scary it was going to be, I was driving along. It wasn’t as scary as I had expected it to be, and although I made a few mistakes, I think I did pretty well overall. Read more

Cowl Neck Sweater

In December 2009 we moved from Toronto back to the UK. My brother and sister stayed over there, and it sucks that we live so far apart now. My sister visited the following summer, and when she left I bought some yarn to cheer myself up.

I bought 10 balls of Artesano Inca Cloud, a sport weight alpaca yarn that is lovely and soft. It came with a free pattern, and I selected the Nico sweater by Jean Moss. I had only knit one sweater before, a chunky acrylic man’s cardigan, so this would be the biggest project I’d started for myself, and the second sweater. Read more

Sock Knitting

I’m not sure where I heard the idea that real knitters knit socks, but I’d been knitting for probably over a decade and had never tried to make a pair of socks before. I was curious, were they really so difficult? It was time to find out.

My friend bought me some lovely alpaca sock yarn for my birthday back in 2012 and I started knitting. I chose a toe up pattern as that meant no seaming on the toes, and a short row heel as I thought they looked the nicest. I went with Elfine’s Socks, a free pattern with a pretty lace design, with both a chart and written pattern. I prefer to knit from a written pattern, but many lace patterns only provide charts which I find frustrating. Read more

Moving House

We’ve lived in our current house for over three years, and it’s really too small for our family. The girls are growing up fast and it’s past time they had more space. Until recently, our budget just wouldn’t stretch to a bigger house, especially while we got our company off the ground. Things have improved a lot lately and we’re ready to make the leap.

I’ve been looking at houses online for a few months while we made sure our finances were in shape and thought about what we wanted from our new home, so I could get an idea of what was available at what price. I saw a couple houses that would have been great for us, but there weren’t many. I decided we were ready to stop browsing and start seriously considering houses around the middle of January. Read more

Stone Circles

Over the last few months I have developed an obsession with stone circles. I have visited fifteen, if you include Stonehenge, which I saw as a child. We’ve made several trips to remote moors, hills and fields across the north of England to visit these megalithic monuments.

Most of the circles we’ve visited have been in Cumbria. This is because there is a greater concentration of stone circles there than in Yorkshire, where we live, although we have seen a few closer to home. We’ve also visited henges and standing stones, which are from around the same period in history as the stone circles. Read more