THE RANT FANTASTIC

The end result

2010-02-26T07:45:00.004Z

So you know all that knitting that I had to get through- well I can now update you on some of it.
Those afghan squares? Well I got all the bits made up and then washed and blocked my squares out to the right size. Only they aren't the right size. After taking out all the blocking pins and measuring them again they are now half an inch too small. So I have to them again.
The socks that I planned to start? Didn't even manage to get them cast on yet. Won't be entering those for the Ravelympics then.

The good news however is that I did manage to get three baby items finished off which were very well received last Sunday at the baby shower.
The first thing I made was some little baby bootees. The pattern is Baby Slippers by Zoë Mellor from her book 'Adorable Knits for Tots'. I love this pattern- it's my go to for emergency baby gifts. So far I have made 3 pairs, each of them from a different yarn and in different combinations. It's so easy to adapt the pattern to fit each individual gift giving occasion. Plus you can easily do a bootee in an evening so its only a couple of days work to get it done.

For this pair I rummaged out some cotton from my stash- it's a 4-ply by Patons I think. I like it because it has a shiny thread running through it which is a bit different. The dark orange is the remains of some Rowan Cotton Glace that I used for my Sourcery afghan square. I ordered the buttons specially from e-bay (search for 'Waddles the duck').

I also made a Totoro baby bonnet from Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. I made the smallest size and it took less than half a ball of yarn making an excellent gift in all sorts of ways. The fact that it is super cute probably wins over everything though.

My final knit was a little hooded kaftan made from Debbie Bliss Eco baby. More on this in another post as I made a couple of alterations to the pattern that I thought people might be interested in.
All modelling by Olas the bear- didn't have a handy baby to dress up in my newly finished knits.

Both of the last two projects I entered for the Winter Ravelympics (instead of my socks) in the Junior event so I'm sporting the following with pride :D

Knitting diversions

2010-02-10T08:54:00.002Z

As ever, I have a huge pile of knitting to get through. Most of this heap is of my own creation. I have been in a frenzy over the last couple of months and have started way more projects than I can possibly deal with at any one time. As always happens at this point external factors start kicking in that throw any kind of scheduling that I might have had overboard.
Right now, as of 9am today I have to have figure out how to fit this lot into the next two weeks:

x2 afghan squares to be sent off at the beginning of next week along with notebook entries for both pieces (that are to be compelled along with other peoples into a proper book for the recipient). Afghan squares should be fairly easy you say- they take no time to knit you say, but these squares are the equivalent of my Pratghan squares as they are for a member of the same group. This means that I am procrastinating in the extreme.

x1 pair of socks. Easy enough except that they are to be my entry for the Winter Ravelympics. Problem is that they start in 2 days and I still have socks on the needles that I want to use....
plus the socks that I want to make are for my husband which means that they have to be huge to fit on his big bearish feet.

Baby things! Whatever I want or need to make but my deadline is for a week this coming Sunday as I have been invited to a baby shower! First time I have ever been to one and I'm really super excited about going but now it means that I have to find baby gifts. So my thoughts, of course, turn immediately to knitting tiny cute things for babies and I'd like to give at least one knitted gift- I'm just not sure how its all going to fit in. At the very least I am going to have to make a Totoro baby hat though. They are the perfect people to make it for and I can't miss the opportunity. Now all I need to do is dam my enthusiasm about starting other big project pieces such as baby blankets and the like.

So they are all my immediate problems to deal with. I'm going to be knitting full time in the evenings to get all this done on time. What I haven't touched on is how much other stuff is just sat there waiting for me to finish it off. I'm sure I can't be the only person who gets themselves into this kind of WIP pickle! To add just a little extra spice to the whole situation I have an enormous amount of things to do at work so I'm putting in extra time there and then there is Valentines day to contend with- not that we are doing anything special but I will need to devote some time and attention to the husband which is time therefore taken away from knitting. If I was to actually work out the math of the situation I'm sure I could come up with some kind of count down timer on this so that I could watch it all drain away before my eyes.
Urgh, what a horrible thought.

R.I.P. Videosyncratic

2010-02-01T21:03:00.003Z

You shall be sorely missed ~sniff~

For those of you that don't have the pleasure of being personally acquainted with the store Videosyncratic then let me bring a little enlightenment to your life. Videosyncratic was quite possibly the coolest independent video/DVD hire shop I have ever come across. Not only did they have an awesome selection of movies but the store was just fun to be in. How could you not love a store that has a shelf of Burt Reynolds movies? And another just for movies with impressive mustaches. It also had a fantastic selection of world cinema, manga and series box sets. Their prices were more than fair and they pretty much whipped Blockbuster in every way that counts.
Only problem was that DVDs are now so cheap through places such as Tesco's and Amazon that people just don't need to hire them anymore. When you can buy the movie for the same price that you can rent it then I'm sure you can work out what choice most people were making. Throw in on top of that extortionate rent prices and a population that halves outside of term time because you're in Oxford then its a real tribute to how hard the owners worked in order to make that business.

The videosyncratic closing down sale started today. The husband and I went in to try and grab ourselves a little piece of history. For us the Cowley Road store was a big part of our early relationship. We used to have a little flat not all that far away and on the days that we were in need or just feeling a little flush with cash we would pop round to the Pink Giraffe to pick up some chinese takeaway and then trundle over to Videosyncratic to pick up a stack of DVDs. Many was the time that we snuggled on our sofa watching movies rented from that shop. All the films we watched on my hen weekend came from there. I will surely miss that store.
When I tell you it was busy in there though I want you to think of the analogy of a tin of sardines- it was packed! I don't handle crowds so well so after a little browsing the husband jumped into the long, long, long queue whilst I browsed and popped in and out of the store as I felt the need. We picked up a few films including Batman Begins- not my choice. The husband spotted whilst he was in the queue and thought it was the good one so added it to the heap. Can you imagine our surprise though when we got it home to find the following inscriptions on the inside cover:

The weird bit isn't that there are messages on the inside cover- the store actively encouraged their borrowers to leave a review of the movie (the top case is the proper one. The bottom case with the writing is the one the movies is hired out in. For speed they were just giving out both earlier). The strange bit was that of all the movies that my husband could have picked up he grabbed the one were I was the first person to have left a message. He was reading it out loud in a kinda 'look honey, people left messages' type way when I put my head over his shoulder because it was sounding familiar (the use of the name Dawsons Crack rather than Creek should have been a give away). He hadn't recognised my handwriting and so got a shock when I pointed it out to him. I think he was even with me when I wrote the original message. Hee hee. Aren't coincidences great sometimes?

They also stocked a range of graphic novels and comics. I picked up the following two- the Neil Gaiman one for me and the Old Boy one for my brother as part of his birthday present. I just wanted to show you them together for a little juxtaposition...

Pratghan revisited

2010-01-29T12:38:00.004Z

I know I haven't exactly been posting much recently- and what I have posted hasn't been of a knitting nature. In an effort to get back to the point I give you two of my latest Pratghan squares. I made a concerted effort over the Christmas period to get this project back on its feet and going again- I've been suffering from an incomplete project problem over the last few months that has left me with a pile of WIPs the size of Mount Etna. This would probably account for the lack of knitting posts as I hate posting about things when I'm only halfway through. This seems like a bit of silly thing now that I come to think about it and I shall try to rectify this in future as well.
But I digress. Here are the latest efforts on my Pratghan project. As it stands I am about 5 months behind schedule and I have done a few squares out of order which annoys me immensely but at least I am back on the horse so to speak. The two that I present here are my recent favourites and are representative of 'Reaper Man' and 'Small Gods'. The Small Gods square is currently the reigning favourite and is acting as a great catalyst as far as motivating me to get others done is concerned.

Taken when the snow hit England just after Christmas. It was such fun crunching round taking pictures of things and it made a great background for knitted items. The square above did not want to behave however. It really is square I promise. I'm quite proud of how the stitched skeleton (Death) came out- not so keen on his hat though which I might take off and redo. The square blob on the hill is the New Death and in the bottom left hand corner you can see the Death of Rats. I realise that he looks quite big but you have to imagine that there is some perspective in the piece and its actually because he is a lot closer to you...
The Small Gods square shows Om standing protectively over a lettuce leaf whilst small gods swirl around in the heat haze over the desert in the background. Om is made from several pieces of free-form knitting which are then stitched into place on the final square. The lettuce leaf was a particular delight to make. It came out a little larger than hoped but I kinda like that- it will be a nice feature on the finished afghan.

Oink

2010-01-20T09:25:00.002Z

Micro-pigs! Picture as stolen from this BBC News article (which links to the full story for anyone who wants to read it).

P.S. I wants one. Please send to the following address.......

And so a new year begins

2010-01-12T08:29:00.002Z

A new year, a new start. At least, that's what my parents always used to say. But I have to admit that the new year is no biggy for me. As far as I am concerned the date for the new year, as laid down by countless school authorities throughout my life (and now my job) is September 1st. So I wasn't one of those people climbing clock towers or running around in fancy dress a couple of weeks ago. Instead, I was tucked up under a blanket at home doing a spot of knitting and only vaguely paying attention to all the noise coming from the television. The only thing that distinguishes it from any other night for me is the sound of bagpipes wailing and the big gun going off on Edinburgh Castle- watching the Scottish New Year celebrations has become something of a tradition in our house and that it is something that is important to me.
Or at least, something of which I am a little proud maybe.
Whilst listening to a sound akin to a cat being strangled I realised that my husband and I have now 'evolved' our own traditions for certain things- it only recently struck me because the ones at Christmas time are obvious ones, plus I had plenty of time for musing on things like this as I whiled away my two week break.
For example, we always watch the televised New Year celebrations in Scotland if we are near a TV. At Christmas, we buy one new decoration for the tree a year (tinsel not being included in that bracket as it seems to have a shelf life of about one week before it dies) and have hot mince pies and hot chocolate with marshmallows in it almost every evening (I know, piggish of us).
Which got me thinking about other little household traditions. There's not much else that we do as far as organised celebrations are concerned as neither of us hold any beliefs in that respect but there are other things that have arisen that are specific to our family. For instance, we always buy the cats Christmas and birthday treats. Now I know that that is a fairly common one and that there are plenty of other people that do it but it is something that rose independently in our house. We just decided that it was something we wanted to do because the cats are so much a part of making our house a home. We also always watch opening night of the baseball season for the Red Sox- we even go so far as to ensure we are wearing team kit, caps and red socks and we always make hot dogs during the 7th inning stretch.
And it is this that makes me happy- not the actual traditions that we follow as such but the fact that we have got a little rhythm to our year, that we have settled into our lives and our home and that these traditions have come to be. It's nice to feel that difference that comes when a house becomes a home, when you've managed to stamp your personality on it to such a degree that it almost feels as though you are wearing it.
I hope with time that more things like this spring up- and that I manage to notice that they are going on around me.
Which leads me to a question for any of you that happen to chance across this post. What little traditions have evolved in your house? and do they make you smile as much as mine do?

My brain has been eaten by zombies - oh, and I have some pretty things to show you

2009-12-10T10:25:00.005Z

Argh, I haz been attacked by zombies whilst on the bus. I couldn't escape- they cornered me behind a side aisle seat and ate my brainsssssssssssssssss.....
Luckily zombiehood is both infectious and practically unnoticeable in these modern times of heroin chic. It's nothing a little a Maybelline flawless foundation won't cover up anyway and as long as I remember to wear a hat no one will ever know.
Unfortunately however, along with mah brains the zombies also stole everything in my pockets which included no less than 56pence, a quarter of a packet of fruit gums and my list of really important things to talk about on my blog. And as they also ate my brains I am not unable to recollect what was on that list with any accuracy.

So after my long absence I am now going to be hastily back filling in a random and haphazard way. I went through my photographs on my computer to see what I had been up to over the last couple of months. After getting over the shock of how much time has past and how little of that time I can recollect I decided that the first thing that I should share is news of a recent(ish) swap that I have been in. I should have done this ages ago really- my buddy deserves the public accolade as I got a butt-ton (my current favourite saying by the way) of awesome goodies. I was utterly spoilt. I seem to have done really well with all of my swap buddies. I'm not sure what I have done to deserve it I have to admit.
Anyway, picture of box contents:

Can you see how much stuff is in there? This all came from America as well which is pretty amazing- the box was absolutely stuffed to the limit. There's two lots of lace weight yarn in there (black and raspberry in colour), two skeins of Cascade 220 (one grey, one variegated grey/blue), a skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (I have been dying to try this), a skein of DK weight silk blend yarn (dark raspberry), some smaller skeins are round the edges including the one that I made the tiny whale from, two books , circular needles, crochet hooks, chocolates, fabric pieces, stitch markers (wow this parcel had everything!) and finally, the result of the ultimate bit of internet stalkage- all the quarters that I needed to finish off my collection!!! (you may remember this from an earlier post- I going to come back to this on a separate occasion).

All this was for the Detritus swap that the AMKG (Ankh-Morpork Knitters Guild) group ran on Ravelry so theoretically this stuff was all detritus that the owner no longer wanted! My mental image of what their stash must look like has me dribbling.
I have already gotten stuck in and used some of this wondrous stash. I have been having a great time playing with the Cascade 220 which is swiftly becoming my next favourite thing. I was sent 2 skeins of this magical yarn and so far I have made a pair of 'Fetching' for a work colleague, a 'Who?' hat for me and a 'Turn a Square' hat for my husband AND I STILL HAVE YARN LEFT OVER!
More pictures:

Slightly out of focus fetchings. I was inspired to make some of these after a friend tried out the pattern and said lots of good things. They were a super quick knit in this yarn and make an excellent last minute gift for anyone. I particularly like the picot bind-off.

My Who? is my favourite knitted thing in the whole world right now. I love it to pieces and wear it everyday regardless of whether the weather calls for it or not. Whenever I am wearing it whilst walking down the street I am convinced that all the people I pass are staring at my hat and thinking 'where can I get me one of those awesome hats?'

Finally, I don't yet have a picture of my husbands finished hat but I do have a group shot of all the things I have made with the cascade and you can see the nearly finished article in there. It was my first experience with doing jogless stripes and whilst I didn't quite get the first one right all the rest worked beautifully. I also really like the way the decreases work for the crown on this hat. The husband was of course completely unconvinced by the whole thing right up until the minute he put it on his head. Now he wears it all the time ~eyeroll~

Should have put a sign up

2009-12-02T09:18:00.002Z

I've come down with a case of computer-itis. Hence my blog has been languishing in no mans land. It's not like I haven't had anything to write about, in fact, I have plenty of things that I could share. But the computer just ain't doing it for me right now. I have spent too much time on it at work me thinks.
~sigh~
The busy period is now over though and I can feel myself picking up again. So I hope to have a decent entry for you sometime in the very near future.
I hope.

I found something fun to play with

2009-10-14T14:29:00.002+01:00

I came across a new website today- well, at least new to me anyway. I use the Merriam-Webster dictionary quite a lot whilst at work but today I discovered that they have a visual dictionary as well. It has all sorts of stuff in it (not just natural world stuff) including a section that explains the definition for each of the names used in the diagrams. The best bit however has to be the pronunciation guide. If there's a word on there you and you don't know how to say it then does it for you. Only problem is that the pronumciation of many of these words varies between country and even between person.
Much hilarity ensues.

Don't mind me- just had to share.

AKC (Actual Knitting Content)

2009-10-05T14:22:00.005+01:00

Hey, lookit me, I learnt a new acronym :)
I felt it was about time that I put a post up that actually had some knitting content to it. I had a look at my recent posts and realised that I have avoided this subject for about a month now. I'm not entirely sure why though it might have something to do with the fact that I have mostly been working on getting some old WIPS finished off rather than starting anything new. Though that is not entirely true as I recently started and completed these in just over a week:

The pattern is Sarah's Slip-Stitch Socks (Ravelry link) which is essentially just a basic stitch recipe rather than a sock pattern BUT having said that I do think that it is wonderful. I used some Knitpicks Multi in colourway Jester that a friend gave me for the main part of the sock and some leftover plain green for the heels and toes (so that I can replace them when they wear out). The little bits of slip-stitch repeat break up the variegated yarn in such a way that I don't get all twitchy about the fact that the socks don't match perfectly.

After finishing those socks I started on my next pair:

These are going to be a gift for my mother at Christmas. I got the yarn (Colinette Jitterbug) through a trade on Ravelry and yes, it really is that bright. The pink is almost neon but is balanced out nicely by the pale lilac and blue sections. I wasn't at all sure that I liked it when I started knitting with it but it has grown on me and now I think I'm sold on it. The pattern is 'Pyewacket Socks' by Kristi Schueler (Ravelry link). I picked it out because my mum is a big fan of dogs (she has four) as well as cats so paw prints seemed appropriate. I'm not entirely happy with how it is all coming out so far. The paw prints look untidy to me. The large hole is created by a sssk which you then knit-purl-knit on the next row around. It's the purl stitch that bothers me as it forms a tiny bobble at the bottom of the hole. I guess I'm just being picky really and it might be that once they are finished, washed and put on real people feet that I will like them a lot better. Until then however I am reserving the right to be a bit 'meh' about them. Unfortunately this means that I'm not spending enough time on them- they keep on getting buried at the bottom of the knitting basket.

My final thing that I want to share is a little sneak peak at a shawl that I am working on:

The pattern is Queen Anne's Lace by MMario (who writes wonderful shawl patterns- I'm sure that I will be making more by this designer). I'm not going to say much more as it is intended to be a gift for a friend. I have loved every minute that I have spent working on it. It has gotten to the point now where each row is over 700 stitches and takes 20-30 minutes to knit and I still can't put it down. I think I will make another one (for me) at some point in the future but I'd better not get too far ahead of myself. I know what I'm like- something shiny will distract me before too long.

Pretty yarn

2009-09-23T08:20:00.003+01:00

I have no other reason for posting these pictures other than the fact that I think that the yarn is pretty. I love looking at yarn whether it be in real life or pictures I'm that much of a yarn junky, and I assume that everyone else is too :d
This is my haul from the iknit weekend. A modest one I feel. The Peaches and Creme was the only thing bought on impulse. I just love how nice it is to knit with and this colour was pretty enough to catch my eye. I'm not sure what I want to make with it- probably some kind of washcloth or shopping bag. It matches the colours in my bathroom pretty well so instead of making things for other people (which would be what would normally happen with something like this) I might try and pick something out for me.

The two browns are Cascade 220. I want to make this pattern (Ravelry link). I want it to go with my new green dress that makes me look a bit like an elf. It seemed appropriate somehow. It will be the first time using this yarn- it's one I have heard a lot about what with it being quite popular in America so it will be nice to finally get to some first hand experience of it. The two photos don't really do the colours justice. They are much richer and a little more chestnutty.

My final purchase was of some Malabrigo. I got my first skein of this in a swap earlier in the year and it's just so nice that I had to have some more. This was the one thing that I had plans to purchase before I left. I got a sock weight yarn- mostly because I am addicted to socks. The colour was one that I have had my eye for a while. Totally enabled by my friends in America, horrible enablers that they are.

Guild Swap parcel & iKnit weekender

2009-09-18T08:48:00.007+01:00

Last weekend was the iKnit weekender event that was being held in London. I hadn't been down to this event before. It is the fourth knitting event that I have been to this year- I think that if I want the full set then I shall have to go to Alexandra Palace in October as well. I'm still in two minds about that event as I do by now have quite a large stash of yummy yarn to play with and just recently I have been aware of my resolution for this year to not buy so much yarn. A resolution which I have quite obviously not only broken but dropped on the floor and stamped on as well.
On this occasion though, I was going mostly out of curiosity rather than for the yarn buying opportunities as I had heard a lot about both the shop iknit and the weekend show. I also knew from a previous swap that it is one of the few places that has a good stock of Malabrigo yarn in this country so I wanted to see that too. And maybe buy a little bit :D
Before I show you the yarn that I got though I want to rave about something else entirely. Whilst I was in London I managed to meet up with my buddy from the Ravelry group 'Ankh-Morpork Knitters Guild' (who is just wonderful) who gave me part 2 of my 'Guild Swap' parcel.

OH MY GOSH! I cycled between speechless and stunned to squeeing madly. Wow! I was totally spoilt in this swap. Here let me show you:

Picture of all the things that were in the bag (above) and a close-up (below):

Contents from top left:

Yarn holder in the shape of a dung ball (heehee),
x2 skeins of sock wool from The Knitting Goddess (enough for one pair of socks)
Peeking out in yellow the amazing dung beetle bag (another photo of this in a moment)
Great A’Tuin tape measure which matches my bug bag and is so much fun to play with
Tiny elastic bands for holding needles (already in use in my sock knitting bag)
Some SOAK for keeping fibres fresh
Felted sheep keyring (on keyring at work)
Some black beads to go with other ball of yarn
Buttons! see next pic
A skein of Schaefer Yarn Anne in red, purple and brown (beads go with this)
Finally, and not pictured anywhere, two patterns- one for the Entomology Shawl (Schaefer Yarn + beads for this one) and for ‘Cut your Teeth’ socks (red & black sock yarn for that).
Also, I just remembered- there is a lovely ladybird pin brooch as well that didn’t make it into the photo as I was wearing it at the time :D

I’m going to have to take another picture of the bag as well as these ones just don’t do it justice! My buddy did an amazing job of it. The clasp looks like bug eyes, there are little legs attached, handmade cord for the strap and all of the above underneath its elytra- pocket for dpns, pocket for yarn cutter, pin cushion and in the pocket under that there are some embroidery needles. And on top of that it has all been embellished and intitalised. ! ! ! and did I mention !

Here are all the wonderful buttons that I got. I was so pleased to see the little wooden ant ones. Some of you may remember that I bought some of these when I went to the UK Ravelry day in Coventry- well, I finally found a use for them but I didn't have enough :( Now I do however! :D
I'm making a long sleeved shrug (well, made by now, I'm a little behind on the posting here). Here's the link for Ravelry if anyone wants to see though I haven't managed to take photos yet as I need someone else to take them for me- or model the shrug for me though I'm not sure anyone is going to want to do that. All my friends are a bit camera shy.

Anyway- WONDERFUL swap package as I am sure you can all appreciate. There will be more things to tell y'all about just as soon as my ball winder arrives. I ordered it a couple of weeks ago and I'm expecting it to be here soon. As soon as that happens I can cast on for my Entomology shawl (woohoo). Though this will distract me from the Swallowtail shawl that I am supposed to be doing for my mum for Christmas. I can see that my 'dung ball' is going to be well employed over the next few months.

A proud moment

2009-09-05T15:39:00.007+01:00

I recently participated in another swap through the Ankh-Morpork Knitters Guild on Ravelry. The theme for this one was A-M Guilds- we each had to pick a Guild that we felt best represented us and then build our packages around our buddies theme. I picked out the Guild of Cunning Artificers for myself though I really wanted to be in the Assassins Guild I knew that I just wouldn't have the stomach for it. My buddy on the other hand, picked out the Guild of Sandras which is for real seamstresses. The Guild of Seamstresses in A-M is a rather euphemistically named guild which has little to do with the guild members real occupations.
However, I digress.
My buddies choice of guild gave me a few problems at first, especially as it transpired that they don't actually do all that much sewing but then it occurred to me that this might just be the perfect moment to make a little something that had been rattling around in my head for a while.
I wasn't sure if it was the quite the right thing to make but it was too good an opportunity to miss- that and it made me giggle at a mile a minute.
So after much prepping and planning, testing and retesting this is what I came up with:

Yes people, it's a cross-stitched "buggrit millennium hand and shrimp". If that doesn't make any sense to you then you need to read this Wiki entry about Foul Ole Ron, one of the beggars of Ankh-Morpork as it's his catchphrase.
The little shrimp design came from somewhere on the internet- I wish I could remember where. When I was designing this I scoured the web and made a ton of notes and then just picked the best bits when it came to the actual sewing. I didn't keep decent notes though hence the fail.
I have to admit though that when it came to putting it into the swap box it was a bit of a struggle to let go. I was super chuffed with how it all came out. I think this will keep me going for a while and it definitely counts as a proud moment for me. Out of all of the things I have crafted this has got to be one of my favourites.

Quarters

2009-08-27T18:59:00.005+01:00

I've been having a bit of a tidy up and clear out over the last few weeks. I have picked through (almost) all of my clothes and packed up the ones that I don't want so they can be given to charity. I have sorted through all of my yarn and posted most of the unwanted items off to various parts of the world where I have friends lingering that said they wanted certain items. I even found homes for all 24 balls of fun fur if you can believe such a thing. I have tackled 'the back bedroom' which is basically a dumping ground for anything that doesn't fit into any of the other rooms. I went through all my craft stuff- condensed, disposed, re-homed where ever I could. I managed to shrink my holdings significantly just by finally admitting to myself that there are some things that I am never going to be working on again no matter how long I keep them for.
Of course this all turned into a reminiscent journey through stuff from the ages of my life. Most of it was nice and 'ah' worthy. I only had a few shudder moments. Finding old diary entries is always a bit horror worthy, especially if I think back to the boy that they were (inevitably) about. I skipped past most of it quite quickly. One of the things that I did dig up though was my quarter collection. The DH and I started this when we went on honeymoon to the states. As with most places they have sort of special edition coins in the states- these ones have little pictures on representing the state that they are from along with that states motto or slogan. We got 16 different states in all as well as some other assorted change:

Not that you can actually see a lot in that photo. But you'll be pleased to hear that I got very geeky and coloured in a map for y'all:

Of course, if you are completely 'state blind' like I am this won't mean an awful lot to you so here's the list too: Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia.
And because the picture really doesn't show you how cute these are (yes, I know- I'm a complete and total geek and america-ophile (or whatever the word is). I'm not even going to bother trying to defend myself on this) here are my two favourites:

Fibrefest Weekend

2009-08-24T11:20:00.003+01:00

I was ill again for all of last week. Well, I don't know about again- I guess it was more just a continuation. I finally went to see the doctor about it all though and they have decided that the pain comes from an over production of acid in my stomach. Read 'stomach trying to dissolve itself', hence the hideous amounts of ouch that come with that. So they've given me some tablets to try which seem to be helping a bit and they told me to try and have a restful weekend. Unfortunately for me this was the weekend that I was scheduled to be going to Fibrefest at Coldharbour Mill in Devon. What I should have done was tucked myself up in bed, had a good snooze and tried to recuperate a bit. What I did do however is go to Fibrefest :)
Yes, I am a yarn addict.
The DH and I decided to do it all in one day though. We had the choice of stopping over somewhere for the night on Saturday but it was within driving distance (between the two of us) and it would just have been an extra cost. Plus we would have had to find someone to cat sit us as well which is a bit difficult. So we decided to go hardcore and get up at 5:30 on Saturday just so we could fit everything in.
First stop was at The Amazing Maize Maze which is in Bickleigh. This years theme was to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing and so incorporated a rocket ship and an astronaut. You can see the design in the top left of this link. I love mazes and I hadn't been to this one before so it was a real treat. The people who set it up had really gone to town- adding in placards with interesting facts, little teasers questions that helped you out a bit if you were getting stuck and making each of the nine points that you had to find within the maze, one section of a word search that you put together by making individual brass rubbings. The DH and I met up with a few other people including my wonderful best friend and one of my old school friends who I hadn't seen in years. Great fun was had by all.
After that we made our way over to Coldharbour Mill for Fibrefest. It was about the same size as UK Ravelry day but with a different kind of crowd. Many of the stalls had finished items rather than piles of yarn for purchase. One of my favourite producers was there though- KraftyKoala. I bought some beautiful green lace weight yarn from them which I have forgotten to photograph for you all. Rest assured I will do this soon however!
I spent a long time staring at the alpacas again. I had to be dragged away from their pen by the best friend. They were making such cute noises though- I hadn't heard alpacas 'talking' before and was delighted to find out that they make a sound like a kazoo :D
By 4pm we were all tuckered out however so started to make our way home. The DH and I arrived back at the house to find two hungry kitties sat on our doorstep. Not that we were all that late back but regardless of this we were made to pay for our absence in extra cat biscuits and scritches.

Summer Sundae

2009-08-18T17:52:00.004+01:00

So despite the fact that I got sick again last week I still managed to make it to Summer Sundae this past weekend in Leicester. It was close though- I had really bad pains again last Thursday morning and had to go home from work and spend the entire day asleep in bed. I felt better the next morning so decided to go up to Leicester but that was mostly because the tickets had cost us something like £100 each and we couldn't really afford not to go. All my friends where really nice and looked after me though. They made sure I ate appropriate food and came and sat in the shade on a blanket with me despite my protests that they should all go do more fun things.
We saw some great sets by people. My favourites where Ash Grunwald, Maybeshewill, Woodpigeon and Monotonix. We also saw Idlewild who are a long term favourite in our house. They were meant to be on at about 6pm on the Friday but due to a cancellation by the Streets (rumour had it that their bassist had caught swine flu) they ended up headlining which is a much more appropriate spot for them. Another good act was The Airborne Toxic Event though I have to admit that I found their violinist a little annoying when on stage which detracted from it all for me. I may just have been being grumpy about it as really it shouldn't matter if the music is good but her antics irked me.
Speaking of on-stage antics- the Monotonix are officially INSANE. They put on one of the craziest acts I have ever seen. Correction, THE craziest act I have ever seen. The whole set was played with the band on the arena floor rather than the stage. They wore nothing but skin tight pants and one of them jumped off the upper circle balcony. The drummer played part of the gig with a bin on his head.
Insane I tell you.
And summed up rather well by this photo I took (of which I am very proud!):

London Film and Comic Convention

2009-08-12T12:38:00.003+01:00

Gosh it seems like an age since I went to this event. I have rather been neglecting my computer of late- or at least, the on-line things that I do on my computer.
I've been meaning to put these pictures up for ages. I had great fun at the London Comic con. The DH bought me the cutest little toy Totoro and we did lots of celebrity spotting. Mostly from a distance I have to admit as it was quite expensive to get signatures and the place was rammed. There were lots of people dressed up in some great costumes- some who I think must have been paid to be there, others who had just obviously done it for the love of the thing. My favourite was the guy dressed as Hellboy and his accompanying friends dressed as Liz and Abe. Second favourite was the girl dressed as Kiki, complete with stuffed Jiji. The DH took a few photos (I was feeling all shy) though he's not so good with a camera so the people generally aren't looking in the right direction.
Anyway, cool pictures here:Next year I'm going to take my brother along. He will probably choke himself through over excitement and hyper-ventilating. I almost had a complete breakdown when I spotted Darth Vadar in the queue for the sandwich bar. I was sooooooo intent on joining the queue behind him that it didn't matter one bit that I didn't actually want to buy any food. Too funny to miss.

Friendship Chain of Yarn

2009-08-05T13:04:00.004+01:00

It's been a long time since I last posted, naughty me, and now that I am back all I want to do is promote something rather than give you any interesting pictures or talk about knitting. Well, it is knitting and it is interesting, it's just not about me as such. Maybe that's a good thing...

So the project I'd like to tell you all about is the Friendship Chain of Yarn. This is mostly going out the ladies in my knitting group who I have asked to participate so that they can have some more information rather than having to just rely on my uninformative mutterings BUT for anyone else who reads this and has access to Ravelry then there is a Rav group which will also give you a ton of info.

The basic premise of the project is thus:" In this Project we’ll be adding links in a round robin by mail to a single Chain, hoping to create the longest fiber chain in the world. Moderators and members will be using the Project to raise money, support, and awareness for suicide prevention, while making friends on the board."
So the idea is that each person knits or crochets another link in the chain. There are several mini chains out traveling the world at the moment which will all be returned to the group administrator who will in turn connect each of these pieces together to form one long chain.

It's hoped that this project will have a two fold impact- that not only that the knitters and crocheters that work on the project will come together as a group and form new friendships thus forming a human chain as well as a fiber based one, but that it will also be a useful tool in educating people about suicide. By that I mean all people, not just those at risk or who have been affected by it in some way already. Also there are many aspects to consider when thinking about suicides; from prevention, to helping those at immediate risk and dealing with the aftermath for those who are left behind.
There is a project blog that can be found HERE if you would like more detail. The following information is taken directly from the blog and is based from statistics from North America:

"More than 32,000 people in the United States die by suicide every year. It is this country's 11th leading cause of death, and is often characterized as a response to a single event or set of circumstances. However, unlike these popular conceptions, suicide is a much more involved phenomenon. The factors that contribute to any particular suicide are diverse and complex, so our efforts to understand it must incorporate many approaches."

"The above quote is taken from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention website. Over 32,000 successful suicides take place each year in the United States alone. For myself, in the population group that I belong to (white females between the ages of 25-34), suicide was the third leading cause of death in the year in which the most recent statistics are available. It followed only accidents and malignant neoplasms. If I were older, the statistics would be almost as bad, as white females between the ages of 35-44 had suicide as the fourth leading cause of death.

In 2005, more than 17,000 people committed suicide by using a firearm, 31% of these were women. Each year, approximately 750,000 suicide attempts are made. An estimated 5 million living Americans have attempted suicide, and more females attempt suicide than males."
This is only part of a very long and informative post.

So that's the why of the project. From a personal perspective I am engaging in this project as it touches on a few experiences that I have had in my lifetime. I am fortunate not to have been confronted with anything firsthand as such, though if I think back over my life there are two instances that I would like to share with everyone here.
The first happened when I was very young- I must have been about 6. It is the first time I can remember being taken to London. We were standing on the platform of one of the old underground tube stations. I was holding my fathers hand and we were trying to spot a 'tube' mouse when an announcement came over the tannoy to say that the train would be delayed as there had been some kind of incident. I didn't understand what had happened until I overheard grown ups around us discussing it- it transpired that someone had committed suicide by throwing themselves in front of one of the trains further up the line.
For me this was my first experience, albeit a distant one, of suicide and to this day it remains a great reminder to me of the social impact that suicide has. Many of the people around me that day went into a kind of shock. I remember the quietness around us, the sudden cessation of movement and the way that my fathers hand gripped mine just a little bit tighter.
The second incident comes from my teenage years. I was 13 or 14 at the time when my grandmother died. At the time I didn't really understand so well what had happened. I was aware that she had committed suicide though in her case it was suicide by degrees. It was slow and for her, quite painful, but it was suicide nonetheless. For the family it was quite quick- she lost weight over a year and half which everyone thought was a good thing as she was a big lady and we were worried about her having heart problems. Then she got really thin over 3 months and suddenly it was obvious that something was wrong. The doctor diagnosed terminal lymphatic cancer. She passed away approximately six weeks later.
From the outside this may seem like a coincidence or maybe just an unfortunate occurrence but both myself and my parents believe that she knew she was dying and that she deliberately chose to keep her condition from all of us. Looking on her life I can now see why she made the decision and I believe that she thought she was doing it for a lot of good reasons. She loved her children and her grandchildren very much and I think one reason was that she was just trying to save us from the pain of watching her go through treatments and being in and out of hospital.

And so it is, that without much thought, I can think of two instances that have touched my life and remained with me. There are others which I won't share with you now but I do think it highlights just what wide ranging effects there can be, not only for the person directly involved but for those around them, distantly surrounding them and for society as a whole. I was shocked to read the facts and see the figures that are behind this project- not at the figures themselves but mostly at my own ignorance of them.

I will leave you with the following information which is taken from the MIND website:

"Although the overall rate of death by suicide is falling, more than 4,300 people still die by suicide in England and Wales each year. Many more suicide attempts are made. At least one person in every 100 who ends up in hospital after a suicide attempt will succeed within a year, and up to 5 per cent do so over the following decade. A study looking at figures for attempted suicides from several European countries, including the UK, suggests that the figures might be higher - possibly as many as 2 per cent of people who have attempted suicide will kill themselves within a year of the previous attempt. The study also found that about 7 per cent of people in the study died by suicide within the next decade. A British study found that women who have a history of deliberate self-harm (including overdose) are 15 times more likely to die by suicide compared with other women. The risk is particularly high during the 6 months following deliberate self-harm."

Things have happened

2009-07-13T12:53:00.006+01:00

Like me forgetting to post pictures of Cumbria to go with my Woolfest photos. Ooops. Next post then but there are other things that I wanted to share in this post that will be much quicker (I am at work at trying to get this done in the last ten minutes of my lunch break...). My things are share are also 'reasons to be proud'. I'm not very good at singing my own praises or maintaining that good of an opinion of myself so in an effort to stop this habit here are some things that have made me happy recently. Yes they are simple things but sometimes just getting the simple things right is what can lead to the greatest happiness and contentment, especially when they are focused around the home.

1) I made gooseberry jam. This is the first time I have ever made jam and it came out really well. I had to have a bit of a scrounge round for jars and I didn't do anything sensible like check I had enough sugar before starting (just- we were left with enough for four cups of tea). The gooseberries were a gift from a work colleague who grows them in his back garden so it is all round wholesome jam- plus its really yummy. I got 5 jars in the end, two of which I am going to gift. The rest I shall hoard and keep all for me :D

2) My orchids have been doing really well recently. I get a great deal of pleasure from growing them and seeing them flower. More than I would have thought possible. I recently got given some Interflora vouchers with which I purchased the orchid below. It's huge and completes my purple set (I now have 3 of varying sizes and colour patterns) which occupy my bedroom window. They look fantastic together. I still have some vouchers left so I will be getting another orchid at some point once I decided what colour I want. I think I have about 10 orchids at the moment but I'm not sure what colour they all are (some were gifted to me and they have yet to flower) so I'm going to wait for a bit. I told the DH that I was worried about being too geeky over them and he told me that I had passed that point ages ago...

3) I got my first harvest of potatoes last week. I found some time to get out and do some work in the garden when it wasn't roastingly hot and it was really fun. Harvesting my first home grown potatoes was immensely satisfying- as was eating them later that day with a home made steak pie.
And here's the difference six weeks has made to my vegetable patch:

This is my garden in May after we had planted every thing out
<-------------

And here it is about six weeks later
-------------->

Notice that not only have all the plants grown but the fence has too! The man next door finally got around to putting it up. It's not finished but it's enough to give us some privacy.

Shiny things

2009-07-09T11:40:00.004+01:00

My mum has been suffering from the 'creative bug' recently and has made a ton of pretty things for me. She sent about 8 pairs of earrings and two necklaces to me in the post (yay, I love getting post)- all of which are wonderful. I know she doesn't read my blog. In fact I would be very surprised if she even knew I have a blog but I just wanted to thank her publicly anyway as it was very sweet of her to make all these things for me. Each set is just lovely and you can tell that mum knows her market as they are 'nature' or 'natural world' themed. I only have shots of the first few unfortunately and I'm not sure that I can remember all the others that she sent but as well as the earrings below I know that there was also some dragonflies, lizards and butterflies.

The other necklace has a big silver dragonfly charm on it and the chain part is made of purple ribbons. The one below however is probably my favourite piece out of everything- it's made of purple beads and fish vertebrae. Yeah, bone necklace :D

Woolfest 2009

2009-07-06T12:13:00.009+01:00

I only got a few photos of the event itself. Hopefully no one will mind if I have accidentally taken a picture of them. It was quite hard not to get peoples faces- in retrospect what I should have done was gotten the DH to run down the far end of the aisles and make some kind of scene so that everyone was looking away from me but I didn't think of that at the time.
The shots I did get are of the animal pens that were situated in the far right aisle of the humongous storage shed we were in. I didn't want to take any of the stalls that were there as some people had signs up asking that no photos be taken but that's okay, as this area was full of cuteness.
Far end of the pen area. I was standing next to these fuzzy wuzzy things when I took the shot. I probably took more photos of the alpacas than anything else actually. One day I'll own one- I will, I promise!

Other end of the aisle where they had the fleece sale and lots of fun things for spinning:

My favourite sheep from the show is below. They had pens with different breeds in but these ones made me laugh the most- boucle straight from the sheep :)

This is a Wensleydale sheep- after clocking the name I laughed twice as hard as 'wensleydale' just makes me think of Wallace and Gromit and I have a terrible urge to just shout 'Cheese!' all the time.
What you can't see- well, you can just in the very left hand side of the first photo, is the stall with the angora bunnies on which I must have visited at least 5 times. They had two bunnies with them- I want one soooooo badly at the moment. My mum used to breed them as pets when I was a kid and I loved them. Obviously I had no idea at the time that I should have been collecting all the fur up. I can remember my mum cutting their fur back when there was a really hot summer and just chucking it in to the bin! Oh, the shock and horror when I think of that now.
The day at the show was great- it wasn't quite the same without the best friend in tow though the DH did a good job of looking interested. He even managed to make a pertinent comment or two and lasted about 4 hours before demanding that we leave (which is an all time record). Next year if I go again I think that I will try and take knitters with me though it is a bit of trek from Oxford so I'd need at least one other person to share the driving with me. Unless I actually took time off of work and made it into a great big road trip- that might work.
Anyways, I guess you want to see what it was that I bought... :D
I was relatively restrained and only bought 4 skeins of yarn, one of which is a swap gift so I am not going to post it here just in case it gets spotted. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise after all. For me though I got a couple of things from The Yarn Yard which was a new shop to me. It may prove to be a fatal move as they had some beautiful yarns AND they are organised and proactive enough to have got everything onto Ravelry- yay!
For a real treat I bought myself a skein of lace weight cashmere:

I could only afford to get 470ms of this (that's the one skein) but I plan on making something small and pretty from the soft fuzz.
I let the DH pick out some sock yarn for himself from the same place:

Who would have thought that he would go for a Boston Red Soxs colourway?
I also stopped at the Wild Fire Fibres stall where I picked up some shiny sock yarn- it's 50% tencel and 50% merino and has a wonderful shimmer to it. In truth I didn't need anymore sock yarn- and had in fact promised myself that I wouldn't buy anymore but I just couldn't resist.

And that's it other than the mystery skein as far as yarn buying goes. I did pick up a little gift for the person who was house sitting all the animals for me and a little treat for the best friend (hah, I taunt her with the knowledge that there is a gift but shall say no more...) as well as some roving for myself. I have never been tempted by roving before but the best friend taught me a bit more about spindling the last time I saw her and I enjoyed it much more. I figured that as it was an incredibly cheap price it wouldn't matter if I bogged it up completely but that the long fibres might be slightly easier to learn with than the stuff I had been previously using- oh, who am I kidding? It was pretty and soft. THAT'S why I bought it :D

Woo hoo!

2009-06-30T07:55:00.005+01:00

Don't ask me how this happened or why it works because I JUST DON'T KNOW! The video is a little clunky (the original is much smoother) and this may well be as good as it gets but look! it works!

Just a quick update

2009-06-26T08:45:00.004+01:00

Things at work have been scary busy for the last week- hence no blog update or comments on anyone else's. I just haven't had the time! Though it is not all down to work being busy I must admit. I have joined and volunteered to moderate a new Traveling Scarf Group and setting that up has sucked away some of my time. I also signed up to do a Baby Blanket swap- well, bits of blanket really as we are knitting strips and then exchanging them amongst the group and as we are each using a different colour it will eventually end up being a rainbow coloured blanket once all the exchanging is done. Only problem is that what with work, TSG and this, PLUS all the other stuff I am committed to doing I have no time for things like my blog, reading books or any of those other little things that I would gently have filled my time with. I think I'm just a bit over committed on things at the moment.
Ah well, it's only a month or so of hard work and then it should all be out the way and I will have a ton of stuff to share with you all. I'm going to try and keep on top of things as I go- I already have a post backlog here so it would be a good idea to not just let everything slip but no promises. I have much knitting to do after all!
One thing that you will be hearing about though is my weekend away. The DH is taking me to Cumbria for the weekend today. It's a long way to go I know but what with attractions like 'Cars of the Stars' (seriously, they have cool things such as Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, The A Team Van, Herbie, Bat Mobiles and a ton of James Bond cars amongst other things. Yes it's geeky I know but I'm really excited about going), the second biggest stone circle in the country and WOOLFEST! I hadn't even realised that is was this weekend until a few days ago. I'm going to Woolfest! How cool is that? Not quite sure how it happened or why the DH is taking me as he hasn't ever really shown any interest in fibre related fun before but who am I to question his decision? I have a few short hours in which to clean the house, get all my stuff packed and then run into town to meet the wonderful person that is looking after the kitties this weekend so that I can give them the keys to my house.
So really I shouldn't be sat here at all but getting ready instead. Unfortunately there is one other reason for my prolonged absence recently and that is the deluge of headaches that have been plaguing me for the last 2 weeks. I've had some kind of headache pretty much every day ranging from 'migraine' to just 'dull ache'. This morning I've had 'might be a migraine but if not it's going to be pretty bad anyway' headache. Argh. I really really need to get going. I tried sleeping for a bit- didn't work. Tried getting up and doing some gentle housework etc- didn't work. Am now trying 'taking lots of pain killers and coffee' route. Thankfully this does seem to be working. Not ideal but I have to be places and doing things today so no choice really.

I guess the over riding message is bear with me and it will be worth it. I have lots of fun things to share with you all and I do so hate getting out of touch with people. My posts may be short but I will try to make them often enough that you don't end up thinking I have dropped off of the edge of the world :D

ETA: Oh, and apparently Micheal Jackson is dead. Which has completely weirded me out. I always find surprise news like this in the media tends to bump my brain off of track- similarly when Heath Ledger passed away. Which is odd really, as I don't know any of these people, I just know of them if that makes sense but I still find the news of their deaths shocks me. It's like part of my brain just can't believe that it could have happened and I spend all my time listening to it going 'nah, it's not true' 'it'll turn out to be misreported' 'it'll be some sort of sick publicity stunt' etc until about 3 days later when it really does have to accept that yes, that person really is dead. This one in particular I think will be quite a strange experience as there really will be a global mourning- and overloading of the media with all aspects of his life, trials, times etc. It's going to be an odd weekend in that reaspect. I think I might try and an avoid the tv for a bit...

UK Ravelry Day 2009

2009-06-12T07:50:00.004+01:00

So UK Ravelry Day was last Saturday. It was held in Coventry in Central Hall- and out of Central Hall as most of the stall holders where in a open air market place outside the church. This was a bit unfortunate as it rained and rained and rained.... Not that this put off any of the shoppers but it did mean that everyone got quite soggy. Because of all the rain though I didn't take any photos of the event itself. Even the pockets of my coat where filling up with water by the end of the day and I just wasn't willing to risk getting my lovely brand-spanking new camera all soggy.
Inside the church hall there where several stalls and displays that I completely failed to see. I did whizz by the Alpaca Select one right at the very end of the day just when people where starting to pack up and pick up some more of the purple alpaca that I have been using for my mini crochet squares project:

I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't find the time to visit that area- or the one upstairs where the spinning displays where taking place. Having said that though it's is a good thing that I didn't find the Alpaca Select stall earlier- I love their stuff. It's the best alpaca that I have used and fills the 'soft and squishy' bracket 100%. The balls bands may be lacking in helpful details like tension/gauge etc but the weights of yarn they do are pretty straight forward (e.g. DK, 4-ply) and consistently fit to what you would expect of that weight stitch wise. It's the choice of colours though that really gets me. I asked the best friend to run and grab me some of the purple DK weight and she came back completely confused. I didn't understand until I saw the stall and realised that there were about 7 different purples to choose from alone.

The majority of my time was spent going around all the stalls in the marketplace. I turned up wanting lace weight yarn but quickly got sidetracked into other things. One stall had some great prices for undyed yarns. I picked up a skein of undyed sock yarn for £2.50 which seemed like a good bargain to me. I hadn't planned to get any undyed stuff but I figured that getting some kool aid sachets wouldn't be too hard and I could have some fun playing around with this one afternoon. They also had other undyed yarns and I pitched in with the best friend to get some aran weight yarn so that we can have a KAL on the Jayne Cobb hat. We both got a bit over excited to find that the other wanted to make this pattern the evening before- we had come to Firefly independently and at different times. It led to much squeeing. The original plan had been to buy dyed yarn in the right colours but we only found one stall with the right colours and it was over £5 a ball.We worked out that we would need a whole ball of each colour each and that the hat would thus end up costing us over £15 (each) to make. Eeek. So we bought undyed yarn instead as the best friend is on a bit of a dye kicking at the moment and wanted the fun of turning it all pretty colours.
One of the biggest draws of the day though was The Knitting Goddess stall. Both the best friend and I got sucked into this one and could have happily have stayed there for hours and hours. It was also the stall that broke us. We had originally planned to be sensible people and go round all the stalls first before making a purchase but this one just blew all that out of the water. They had sock yarn to die for! ~nom nom nom nom nom~ We were practically drooling. How I managed to restrain myself and only buy one skein of yarn I will never know:

This is one shop that I will definitely be revisiting! I have a funny feeling that they will be getting much of my sock yarn money for the next little while. I couldn't resist the yellow above. I was just so pleased to find awesome variegated yellow sock yarn.
Another shop/stall that was completely new to me was KraftyKoala. The best friend was drawn to it because they had plaits of roving in pretty colours and whilst she was browsing I spotted their selection of lace weight yarn. This was probably the best priced lace weight yarn that I found. I think I paid about £10 for the skein and it is approx 13oo yards which is great. The only down side is that it contains some silk so I had to remain deliberately ignorant on that point until after I had bought it- I just loved the colour so much I couldn't resist. It's called Mayfly lace and can be found here on Ravelry:

I was treated by a friend of mine to a skein of undyed alpaca lace from the John Arbon Textiles stall as a thank you for giving her a lift to and from the event. It is beautifully soft and fantastic at £5 for 1300 yards. I am going to be going to another show called Fibrefest in August that is being held at Coldharbour Mill in Devon (happily the parents live not all that far away so I can double up on things and see them as well as getting free room and board) and I know that John Arbon Textiles will be there as well so I will have a chance to buy some more of this :D

My final bit of lace weight yarn that I got is really the gem of the piece. There was absolutely no question as to whether or not I would be buying this- the second I saw it I knew it was destined to be mine:
The one other stall that I had really, really been looking forward to getting a chance to stop at was the Fyberspates one. I have been eyeing up their yarn over the Internet for ages and ages but had refrained from buying any as I wanted to have that experience in person and my-o-my was it worth waiting for.

The post before the storm

2009-06-08T13:17:00.002+01:00

Whoo-whee do I have a big post coming up for you chaps. Just before I type that one up though I thought I would share some more insect relatedness cuteness with y'all. Think of this as the starter in this weeks meal of blog posts.
First up for your delectation is a washcloth of dragonfly:

I was given this by a friend who had one of those 'saw this and thought of you' moments when she came across the pattern. I think she must have been paying special attention to all my recent wittering as well as not only did she knit me a insect but she did it in green which is my latest colour passion. I would have squeed but I was too touched to make noises so I have just been carrying it around with me instead as though it were some kind of mini comfort blanket. This is ever since Saturday, concerning which I think you should know that UK Ravelry Day was held in Coventry on Saturday hence the main meal of yarn and wonder coming up next. I did lots of yarn shopping with my best friend who travelled over from Cambridge to be with me for the day. It was soooooo much fun. I can't even begin to put it into words. I bought an impressively small amount of yarn considering what was on offer there; photographs of purchases coming up in the next post. Apart from these purchases:

I had to share these with you now as I am exceedingly pleased with them and thought they went well with the bug theme. I was so happy to find insect buttons. I had to fight to get to the stall (the button stall being extremely popular and thus crowded on the day) which is something that would normally put me off as I'm not very fond on being packed into a dense crowd but I just had to have them. Thanks go to my best friend for pointing them out to me. She is much better at dealing with the whole 'too many people' problem and eagle-eyed all the stalls for me so that I didn't have to fight every time. My only regret is that I could only afford to get four of each kind. Undoubtedly when it comes round to the time when I actually use them I'm going to need more of them- that's just the way fate works. But four of each was significantly better than none of each so I can't complain too much.
And talking of bugs- look who tried to 'help' me take pictures of things yesterday:

There's my bag of yarn in the background all ready for the photography session. There's my table out in the garden so I can use natural light for my photos and there's a big fluffy, black and white bug called Hoshi who leapt up onto the table and proceeded to paw her way up my front in an effort to reach my hands, which at this point, were clutching my camera for dear life. Hoshi then did her owl ears and the 'I am not amused' glare before flumping onto the table in the 'look at how cute I am' manoeuvre in order to get some strokes and attention. It worked too :D

I have the tools

2009-06-05T08:55:00.003+01:00

Look! Pretty paper! I finally found a shop that sells authentic Japanese rice paper origami squares for my crane project.

I have been hunting for the last two weeks for some of this and just as I was about to give up and order it over the Internet I happened across packs of it in Hobbycraft of all places. Why they should be importing genuine Japanese origami paper I don't know- it's really not one of those shops you would have thought would have something like that. (I guess the American equivalent might be something like Hobby Lobby. It's essentially a chain brand that has big warehouse shops full to the brim with all things craft related from sewing and knitting through to air fix models and doll house furniture).
Anyway, not only did they stock what I wanted but they had a choice of papers and packs. Some of them just made me drool they were so pretty and I had a real hard time picking out which ones to get. In the end it was the cost that limited me. The paper was just expensive enough to make me think twice about whether I would buy it or not. In the end I settled for getting one pack that was good value from the number of sheets of paper point of view and another just because of the range of colours and designs on the the paper.
So here's the first one:
And here's the second one:

See- yummy colours! though I have to admit that the pictures are not quite right as I'm still learning how to use my new camera.
I have yet to start using any of this paper. I got distracted by other shiny things when at the store and besides, I just wanted to look at it for a bit before I start folding it up. There is something very pleasing about a perfect uncreased piece of paper in my mind. That and I am still gloating about the fact that it is proper origami paper. I'm a total Japan junky at the moment and have been harbouring a desire to take a trip to see things for myself first hand. For the moment I will just have to make do with indulging myself in the few bits of Japanese culture that make it to Britain.

Technical whine and an off topic post

2009-06-02T08:55:00.004+01:00

I realise I have been quiet recently- it's not my fault, it's the blasted world of blasted high tech gadgetry. I had a post all written up and looking wonderful but try as I may I just can not get the video that I want to add in to load up. It's one that I made myself on my spanking new shiny camera but for some unknown reason Panasonic uses Quicktime files which means that I can not edit or alter the video on my PC because like most other people in this world I have Windows Movie Maker and a bank balance that doesn't let me spring for anything I may happen to want, whenever I want it. My only other option as far as I can see is to load it into YouTube but I'm a bit reluctant to go down that route. I tried Flickr but they only take 90 second videos and mine is waaaaaaay too long- and I can't cut it down because I don't have the right program. Grrrr, frustration.

This all kinda spoils the post that I was going to put up :(
But I'm going to go ahead anyway as I do at least have some stills that I can show you. It's not nearly as impressive this way and the cuteness factor for most people will plummet way, way down but I can't not share it. I still think it's fun.
So what is all the hype about? Well, I managed to get a video of some praying mantis nymphs emerging from an ootheca that I'm looking after (raspberries to all you who live in the tropics, we don't have mantids here so this is still exciting to me). The pictures (and video) are a little blurry as I had to film through the lid of the tub that they are being kept in- don't want tiny mantids every where after all. I was delighted to find that the nymphs are a delicate pink as they emerge- the black one that you can sorta see in the background of one shot is a bit older. The nymphs darken after a couple of hours. They pretty much hit the ground running though and are ready to take on small prey items such a fruit flies (which they have been scoffing ever since).

The photo above shows how the nymphs all emerge from the central spine of the ootheca. Normally it would be fixed to a trunk or tree branch and the nymphs would drop from the the oothca. In this case they had to fight a bit of kitchen roll as well. I wasn't prepared for them to start emerging when they did and by the time I got to them it was too late.

The most interesting bit for me was seeing how the legs are held straight alongside the body right until the very last second and then they just pop out and the mantid scuttles away. They look like tiny little pink worms or shrimp as they wriggle back and forth- all of the 'pull' to get the body out of the ootheca seems to come from muscle and fluid movement rather than them gripping something and literally pulling themselves out.
This is something that I did know from reading text books and so on but to see it for myself happening in real time (and for the first time) was really something special. It's amazing how much better my understanding of the process is now that I have some first hand experience. I also have to say that 'baby' mantids are really quite despicably cute. These guys are about 4 days old now and no more than a centimetre long but they act just like adults, being both tenacious and professional in their pursuit of prey whilst still being nothing more than a little wisp of a bug.

A good yarn

2009-05-23T12:07:00.003+01:00

A good yarn- in both respects :D These are two of the gifts that I was given for my birthday by my best friend. There where others, and indeed, other gifts from other people but these two are (looks around furtively) ~whispers~ my favourites. Just don't tell the DH that as he bought me the camera that I have been wanting for ages which also rocks mightily but there is something about the ones above that make them extra special.
Firstly, the yarn; multiple greens, deliciously squishy, hand spun by my best friend!!! She has obviously been practicing hard and mastered the art of spindling. I'm not kidding when I say that this yarn rocks. I got hugely excited about it once it was free of the pretty paper and then once I found out that she had spun it for me I nearly started hyperventilating. I am going to have to think of something very special to make from it- something all for me and me alone.
Secondly, the book; ~snort, chuckle, chuckle~ was pretty much my response. Yes people- it is exactly as it appears, somebody has taken Pride and Prejudice and added in Zombies. I just finished reading it last night and I have to say that it is magnificent. It takes all the best and most loved bits out of P&P and mixes them in with a zombie plot line. It's both sympathetically and cleverly done and the outcome is really quite funny. It's a smooth and griping read and I really, really enjoyed it. This is quite impressive given that I am mortally afraid of nearly all things Zombie related- don't ask me why, I'm quite happy with other members of the horror genre but there is something about Zombies that really gives me the creeps. I can't stand most Zombie movies, the only exception here being 'Shawn of the Dead' and I think it's because the Zombies are not as green/rotting/falling to pieces as they are in other things, nor do they run fast or have much in the way of intelligence so are thus easily avoided and/or defeated in battle. I feel I could survive a major zombie incursion if they are that kind so therefore I am fine with it. The zombies in P&P are much the same and are used mostly for a bit of comedy. There are one or two significant changes to the story lines of a few of the characters but nothing that alters the main course of the book or in one or two instances, add to it. My only complaint if it can be called such a thing is that the zombie plot line doesn't in itself develop all that far. I was kinda left with a feeling of wanting more though I wasn't disappointed in anyway. This may just be part of that feeling of regret that I get whenever I finish a good book. I always find the sudden parting with characters and injection of reality upsetting and from this book I even miss the Zombies.

Origami cranes

2009-05-13T07:24:00.007+01:00

I have to admit to being a little tiny weeny bit of an origami fan. It's not ever something that I have done that regularly but whenever I do find the time or happen across a piece of origami paper I love to sit down and have a little fold. I won't profess to having any major talent or getting much beyond the basics though I have managed to make a few origami insects that I'm quite proud of.
My latest passion however has been for cranes. I'm not sure how this came about but I think it's an amalgamation of ideas that have been swirling around in my head for a few weeks now. The first part came from wanting to make something other than by knitting which I realise is a shocking and scandalous thing to say. I used to do a lot of different arts and crafts though and whilst I'm not particularly inclined to pick any of them up again at the moment due to time commitments or cost I still thought it might be nice to just have another little string to my harp (that phrase should be 'string to my bow' but it never made sense to me as it meant you could only ever use one string at a time and people are much more complex than that).
The second part I think came from reading about a friends personal spiritual and emotional journey using Buddhist teachings. I was quite touched by what she had to say and it gave me a reason to sit and read around on a subject that I haven't ever really taken the time to explore. From this came a desire to spend more time on me, doing some meditation and generally having a purposeful relax. I realised that whilst I spend a lot of my time at home sat on the sofa knitting away I wasn't actually necessarily relaxing whilst doing it. This is especially true of recent times when I have been working on a lot of projects that have deadlines.
The third part is a little silly but it was a good reminder. I was watching Season 1 of Heroes the other day with my DH in which there is a scene where one of the characters, Hiro, folds a thousand origami cranes and hangs them in the blink of an eye to prove he can stop time.

(Photo linked from the Origamisources website)

It served as a good reminder that I do have one interest/hobby that doesn't take up much time, room or cost a lot of money. It has the extra added appeal of something that requires precision and just enough concentration that I am forced to stop thinking about problems and just think about folding and breathing.
I knew about the Japanese legend that promises that anyone who 'folds a thousand cranes will be granted a wish by Crane such as good health, long life or a cure from illness'. I didn't however know the full story behind this legend or about other stories/practices that have arisen around it.
At this point Wikipedia came to my rescue. To read the whole article go here but the essence of it is that the crane is one of Japans Mythical Beasts (along with e.g. dragons) and strings of cranes have thus become popular gifts in Japan and China. A thousand cranes are often given as a wedding gift, for the birth of a child and when hung in the home are thought to work as a kind of lucky charm.

Strings of paper cranes (very pretty)

A thousand paper cranes have also become a symbol of world peace, mostly bought about by the story of Sadako Sasaki who developed leukemia after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Sadako started to fold paper cranes with one wish in mind- to live. There are conflicting accounts of whether Sadako managed to complete her thousand cranes before her death at the age of 12, but her story has spread through the release of a book entitled 'Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes'. There is a statue of her holding a paper crane at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial as well as in Seattle Peace Park and she has become a symbol for world peace.

A quick search of the Internet will produce many other uses for paper cranes ranging from peace initiatives to art installations- well worth a look in my opinion.

With all of this this in mind, I have decided that I will make an attempt at making a thousand paper cranes myself. I figure that it will give me a few minutes in the day where I have to relax and I can take those minutes whenever and as often as I like. As I make them I'm going to try and keep my mind clear, focus on my breathing and if I can't do that then I'll think of someone to send some love to as I fold my little crane up. It will also give me a nice little goal that I work towards in my own time and at my own pace. On top of this it is great practice at origami and I hope that by the end of it my creases will be razor sharp.
I've already made a start at stockpiling cranes- I have 10 done already. I think I will be stringing them up with beads in between (so not piled up like they are in the photo above) and hanging a few around my house. The rest I plan to give away. I might even make some mobiles from them just for something a little different. One of the other things I'm really going to enjoy about this is the chance to geek over the paper. I plan on making my cranes in a multitude of colours and patterns. I know that it is possible to get origami paper with Japanese prints on the sheets (which I love) so expect to see pictures of pretty colours here soon. Just to start off with here's a photo of some of my 'early works'.

Wedding plans

2009-05-12T07:58:00.002+01:00

Not my wedding, I hasten to add- been there, done that. This is for some of our friends who have recently announced their engagement and have scheduled a date for August 2010. This gives me enough time to sort out a knitted gift for them (as I mentioned previously in another post) and seeing how I have gone to all the effort of doing all this thinking I figured I'd share it with y'all. Apologies in advance for this being heavy with Ravelry links . I have tried to put in ones from others sites as well. I should also point out that any books I have linked are merely for the purposes of illustration and not ones that I have actually read/used. They are just things I came across in my travels as I was thinking all this through.

First up my thinking led me down paths of 'things I could knit for the bride'
*Knitted wire jewellery- this was an obvious first step. I remember my tiara type thing that I wore being exceedingly expensive and although I've not done wire knitting before this seemed like the sort of gift that would be appreciated not only because it would save money on the wedding day but because it can be personalised very easily and kept as a keepsake afterwards.
*Knitted garter- one of the ladies at my knitting group just finished making a lace silk garter with blue ribbons through it for a friend of hers that is getting married this summer. A perfect project if you want something small that you can splurge on fantastic yarn for.
*Knitted shrug/bolero- there are some fantastic lace shrug patterns around again this wouldn't need much yarn.
*Knitted gloves- probably not much use for someone who is getting married at the height of summer but a good gift for a winter or spring scheduled wedding.
*Knitted bag/clutch- you could even flex your felting muscles with this.
*Knitted shawl/wrap- I was thinking lace here, possibly with beads.
*Knitted veil- yup it could be done. If you can knit lace then knitting a veil would be a piece of cake, especially if you went for something plain with the odd bead on it.

After that I started thinking about things I could make for the couple. I discounted making anything for the groom as he's just not that kind of guy but I did come up with a couple of ideas:
*Knitted socks- you could even knit in a motif with the couples names and/or wedding date if you wanted.
*Matching waistcoat for groom and best man

Things for the couple are, let's face it, going to be home goods. Almost any of these options could have a motif of some sort incorporated into it. You could even get really carried away with adding in details- put in specific things to bride/groom relating the their interests, use photos and pictures from their homes for colour ideas, get other family members or friends to add a piece in as well etc.
*Cushions
*Heavy weight rugs (think extreme knitting here)
*Dishcloths/scrubbies
*Table cloth/place mats/napkins etc
*Sofa throw/Blanket/Afghan

If none of this is setting the spark off then there are still a few other options. There are whole books on the subject of knitting for weddings just to get you started. You could also try thinking of something a bit more unusual- maybe the bride would like her bouquet made of felted flowers so that it can be a keepsake as well (with matching buttonhole for the groom)? Perhaps you could knit up some bunting to decorate the reception hall? Or, if you know the couple well, maybe you could go for something a little bit naughty?

Scritches for Fenway

2009-05-08T12:45:00.002+01:00

Everybody must send scritches- and mice, lots of mice. My little black cat has had to go into to hospital with a poorly tummy. His symptoms are, rather disturbingly, very similar to the ones that landed me in hospital a few weeks back. They don't know what is wrong with him either at the moment though he is having a endoscopy done this lunchtime which might give us some clues. That and the rest of his blood tests that are due back as well. The vet has ruled out poisoning and 'foreign bodies' which is the little bit of good news. The current working theory is that he has some form of gastroenteritis. I'm going to visit him at the vets later to see how he is getting on. There is a good chance that he may be in for a few days so I'm going to take him one of the little cat blankets that I knitted for the cats when they were little tiny kittens so he has something that smells like home.
Hoshi of course is completely loving the fact that her pesky little brother isn't around to steal all the attention and pinch the best snoozing spots on the sofa. I keep telling her that she shouldn't be looking so smug as Fenway is very ill but it's not making any difference. I insisted that we take her up to bed with us last night (kitties normally sleep in the kitchen) and she spent all night moving around our king size bed and purring in our ears. I think she will start to miss him after a day or two though as they have always been together. The longest that they have been apart for before now is a day. Anyway, it's extra fish and cream in our house for a bit.
Looking after sick kitties has rather taken the fun out of my week though. I had a lovely weekend in Devon last week. The sunshine was glorious (I burnt the back of my neck though which was exceptionally irritating. I much prefer to remain out of the sun and be pale, as does my skin), the bees where buzzing in the hedgerows and we got lots done- including lots of fantastic shopping. My mum took me to Spin A Yarn in Bovey Tracey where I tried not to get carried away and buy up all the shop. We also went to a fabulous little sewing shop that I hadn't ever been in before despite having had ample opportunity. They had a whole shelf full of beautiful Japanese print material that I would merrily have given my right arm for. We also visited the wonder/abomination that is Trago Mills. I can't even begin to describe what it is like but imagine a factory outlet rolled into a theme park, sprinkle it liberally with every cheap advertising trick and cunning retail ploy you can think of and top it off with a little junk shop wonder and you're getting close. Trago is one of those places that proves that you can love and hate something in equal measure and at the same time. It is my very favourite place to go for people watching as sooner or later, everyone walks through the doors.
We also visited Burnham Nurseries which is a specialist orchid center. I love going there- it smells wonderful and the flowers are just so beautiful- it's out of this world. The best bit was that they had a lot of orchids out ready to go to the Chelsea Flower show which I looked into going to this year but couldn't afford the ticket. Seeing all the flowers in store was like a mini flower show just for me which went some way to making up for not being able to go to the big show. The orchids were what I wanted to see most anyway. I bought myself a spider orchid (can't remember the species) as a special treat. All but one of my other orchids are in flower at the moment so I was feeling a bit chuffed and confident in my skills so I stretched and got a slightly more expensive plant for once. It's a new kind to me though so I hope that it is easy enough to look after. Also something else to hope for is that the plants are still in bloom when I get my camera for my birthday. Not long to go now... :D

Yellow silk shrug

2009-04-28T11:12:00.004+01:00

I started yet another project last night- I seem to have startitis at the moment. It's going to be a shrug (Ravelry link) but so far I've only managed to get ribbing around the neck line done. It's going well but there's a little tiny problem. My gauge is twice that that is given for the pattern. That's not a problem in itself as it's an easy calculation to fit my gauge into the pattern. What I am worried about is that I might not have enough yarn to complete said project now. I only have three balls of this yarn in my stash and the yardage isn't great. I really don't want to have buy anymore- not only because matching the dye lot would be next to impossible now but also because the yarn is 50% silk.

Now I know that y'all know about my 'views' on silk (if you missed the previous rant on this subject then check out this post) so let me quickly explain myself. The yarn that I am using here is Lang Silk Dream (second link is a Ravelry one) which my mum bought for me last year for my birthday. It got included in the haul as I was on a bit of a yarn high at the time. My mum took me into a wonderful little LYS that I hadn't been to before called Spin A Yarn in Bovey Tracey, Devon and basically told me to keep piling yarn up on the counter until she said stop. They had so many brands that I hadn't seen before that I got a bit carried away looking at the colours and picking things up and petting them that I didn't really pay any attention to what was going on the heap as far as content was concerned. The Lang made it based purely on the colour. Yellow is my very favourite colour. I know it's one of those colours that really polarises people and I think that's because it's very easy for yellow to look horrible. It can be very difficult just to find a nice plain yellow yarn- it gets even more difficult once you start combining it with other colours. One of my friends summed this up succinctly the other day but I'm danged if I can remember how she put it so I'm just going to hope that you get what I mean. Anyway, my point is that the buttery yellow colour of this yarn is just beautiful- it's almost my perfect shade of yellow, hence I own some.
So after having 'sat' on it for the better part of a year I finally got around to doing something with it. It was choice #2 from my 'posh' stash that I was going through the other day. I picked the Hacho (Mirasol) over it but only because I couldn't think of anything to make with it. Well, it obviously played on my mind.
Oddly enough, I picked a shrug pattern out because it felt like the right thing to make with the yarn but it wasn't until this morning that I realised just what a good choice this had been. I think I've been processing this all subconsciously. Just recently I've been thinking about weddings- I have to go to one this summer and some friends of mine recently announced their engagement (so the inevitable planning of a knitted wedding gift has started). Specifically though I've been thinking about that I will wear to this years wedding. It occurred to me the other day that I don't need to buy a dress (woohoo) because my mum has made a fabulous one for me from some Alexander Henry* fabric which is, I think, called Yellow Bird Seed and looks a bit like this (the colours aren't exactly right I'm afraid):

I had forgotten about it as she still has to fit the straps to it and I haven't seen it since Christmas. Well, maybe I hadn't totally forgotten about it- weirdly enough I think that the shrug will be the perfect accompaniment to the dress. I'm going to see my parents at the weekend so I will take the yarn with me to see how well it matches the dress but if it does then that is both a strange and wonderful coincidence.

*BTW Alexander Henry fabrics are my absolute favourite- I have a secret hoard of fat quarters of different prints from the collection. I'm a complete sucker for it every time. Whenever I have a few pennies spare that I don't need for yarn I buy another little piece of fabric heaven. I have no idea what I will do with all of it as I'm not really much of a sewer but I do love it so. I have plans to one day go on a course and perfect my sewing skills to the point where I will dare to use some of it. For the moment though it has it's own special box all to itself :D

Is it a bad thing...

2009-04-27T17:39:00.003+01:00

that being presented with the following made me immensely happy? Or that I then had to immediately arrange them and take a photograph? And blog about it? Or should I be checking myself into a padded cell as I type?

Sock Madness

2009-04-23T13:21:00.004+01:00

I wasn't feeling terribly happy with the world at the weekend and so, after mooching round the house for a bit I found myself diving into my stash of posh yarns. I have a fairly large stash of fibre based goodies that I geekily arrange according to type and grade. My 'posh' stash lives in a wicker basket in the lounge, in a cat-proof cupboard, away from light, smells and guinea pigs. All my very best yarn is in there including that yummy yummy angora that I bought as a treat for myself. I have to admit that I don't often go into it. It's more a place to put things after I have finished petting them than anything else. Most of the yarn is merely for having. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this, buying really nice yarn as a treat or on a whim and then squirreling it away like some kind of fibery nut. Usually I haven't got a clue what I would make with any of it but really, that's not the point of owning it. It's the skein version of a comfort blanket. Which is how I found myself digging through it at the weekend. Surrounded by beautiful fibre and glorious colour I started to feel better and well, comforted.
Whilst I was going through it skein by skein I suddenly realised however that if I was ever going to use any of it then there was no better time than right at that moment. It would give me something to do, something to concentrate on other than the gloomies, plus it would be as much of a treat to work with it as it would to own and hold it. So I had a really good rummage and spent a happy half hour picking out which one to use and then working out what I would make from it.
The yarn that I eventually chose was 'Hacho' by Mirasol.
I had 2 skeins of this in my stash that my mother had bought for me as a birthday present last year. At the time I thought I might make socks with it- this was mostly driven by the colour. I mean look at it! It has a little bit of everything in it. It's not sock weight- in fact I think it's classed as an aran weight yarn but that only makes for thick spongy socks for hiking. At first I was tempted to try and think of something other than socks to make with it. It kinda seemed a shame to use such nice wool for socks in a way. In the end I just thought 'what the hell' and went with the sock idea anyway. I mean, I only had 2 skeins so I wouldn't have been able to make anything very big without combining it with another yarn. All the planning and swatching that goes with that just wasn't appealing. I wanted to be using it right there and then! I don't need any more gloves or scarves or hats at the moment and I wasn't convinced I'd wear them anyway as the yarn is so colourful so socks were the logical and indeed, only choice.
After having made up my mind to just go for it and make the thing that I wanted to make I set to it with fervour. I was very happy to find that it also gave me a chance to use some gorgeous wooden Lantern Moon dpns that my mum had bought me for Christmas this year. At the time I had thought "whatever am I going to use 4" 3.75mm dpns for?" and it turns out that it was this!
I went with a toe up attack as I wasn't sure how much yarn it would take- this way I could just knit until it ran out. I used a short row heel/toe as I always do- there is no other way as far as I am concerned. Finally I added in a bit of staggered ribbing to make it interesting to knit and ta-da! my newest socks were born. Here's the first one in all it's finished glory:

Bit of a pain to photograph as I was trying to wear it at the same time as taking the picture :)
A real easy and fun knit though- the yarn made it delightful in fact. It's super comfy to wear, fits nicely and has all those pretty colours for me to distract myself with. The cast-off was a bit of a pain. I had to do and re-do it a total of 4 times, eventually working up to a 10mm needle just to get the gauge right. But it's done now and I love it. Number 2 is on the needles as I type, and yes, it did make me feel much happier!

Playing catch up

2009-04-22T08:12:00.003+01:00

There are a number of things that I have to admit to being horribly behind on. Two things in particular need some attention right away and those are my traveling scarves. Both my TSG #27 scarf and my Red Sox scarf are home now. I have had them for about 2 weeks and haven't yet, I have to admit, finished them off. I think I was a scarfed out by the time they got back which is a real pity as both of them are beautiful.
So, in an effort to start the process of completion off, I'm going to put up all the photographs of the last pieces that I knitted for other peoples scarves. This then leaves me with just my own scarves to report on- hopefully being so close to finishing will prompt me to get them onto the needles and get them done. The theory is that a public shaming will prompt me into action!
First up then is the final section that I did for a Red Sox traveling scarf:

This section was an absolute pain- not the finished item that is as it was a relatively straight forward and quick knit to do in the end but getting the tension right! Oh! Painful, painful, painful. The owner of this scarf is a complete polar opposite to me as far as tension is concerned. Where mine is relatively tight and thus gives small, close stitches, theirs is much looser giving a light airy material. The challenge was to use the same stitch count and match the width of the scarf which required much, much swatching with different sized needles and different thicknesses of yarn. Nailed it in the end though!
TSG scarf #7- first an overview:

Check out the section 2 back from mine- I love how the variegated yarn has turned out for this section.
And then a close up of the section that I knitted for it (awful photo I do apologise):

I think I used this stitch on another section that I did for the Red Sox Traveling scarf that I have been working on. It uses those twisted stitches that I love so much (guess why I picked that then) but they do tend to pull in a little. It had lots of bounce though so I'm sure it will block out to the required width.
TSG scarf #6- first an overview:

It was really nice to see a colourful scarf going round- some of the blues in this are just beautiful.
And then a close up of the section that I knitted for it:

This is a simple float stitch motif. Again it has a lot of bounce so should block out. I enjoyed knitting it but I was disappointed that the yarn didn't look nicer after I had finished. For some reason the stitches just end up looking messy. I'm not sure whether it has something to do with the fibre content in this case. It's a wool blend mix I know that much but the original ball band had gone walkies.
I knitted 2 sections for scarf #4 as it had skipped a person en route. I don't have a picture of the finished scarf as I forgot to get the camera out before I posted it back to its owner so the following two photos of my sections are courtesy of them. My thanks go out! (It was bugging me terribly that I had forgotten).
Here is the first section that I knitted:

This is a slanted slip-stitch. Great fun to knit once I had got the hang of dropping a stitch, not panicking and not insisting on putting it on a third needle. I think I'll use this again.
And here is the second:

Just a simple stockinette with some nice purple stripes to balance out the scarf. The rest of it had bits of colour through out and this just seemed to compliment it all. I was especially pleased to find the purple in my stash as this scarfs owner had said that they liked it after I used it for another section on someone else's scarf.
And that's all folks! I think that now makes me all up to date on my traveling scarf adventures. Now to finish them off- just in time for the hot summer weather. D'oh :)

A few changes

2009-04-21T08:50:00.003+01:00

So, what do you think?
I've been having a little play with the settings and format (as you may well have noticed) and tweaked a few things. Some of which will be immediately obvious such as my title bar- I finally got around to working out how to make a picture fit up there. Others are a little more subtle. A few are on trial such as the buttons that I added in under the posts. I have to admit that I ripped this idea off of a friend albeit very slo-o-o-wly as it's taken me weeks to work out how to do it :)
Of course, after having found said setting I couldn't decide what buttons I wanted so I tried to think of the ones that I would like to see on other peoples blogs. There's a good chance that they will change about or maybe even disappear but for the moment you call all have some clicky fun. I spent a substantial amount of time just worrying over the colour. I've always plumped for a plain white blog until now as I know that colour can polarise peoples reactions, i.e. if you are someone that doesn't like colour X then you aren't even going to bother reading a post before deciding that you don't like the blog. In the end I went for just a little bit of colour. I'm on a green kick at the moment because it's spring time and all the leaves are starting to peek back through so that was an obvious choice. That and all the yellow options were horrible!
Nearly all of the changes that I have made I'm still undecided on so if anyone has any comments or thoughts I'd love to hear them whether they be good or bad.

Eco Tote FO

2009-04-20T08:24:00.004+01:00

So you remember that skein of Lily Sugar'n Cream that I was gifted recently? Well, this is what happened to it. So if you could just take your eyes away from the stunning wood door and beautiful inlaid brass lock and focus on the bag for a second I'll take you on a little knitting tour. Now I've mentioned this before but the pattern that I used for this is called Elisa's Nest Tote which can be found at the Purl Bee (or via Ravelry if you are a member). I also think I have spouted on about just how pleased I am with this bag so I'll try and keep the gushing to a minimum and just try and persuade you what a great project this is to make by adding in extra pictures.

Okay, so I'm not fooling any of you by saying I'll stay away from the keyboard but I'll keep it to a minimum and only point out three things.
Firstly check out the stripes. I used a combination of Rowan Cotton Glace with the Sugar'n Cream. I love how the variegated yarn has come out to so that the stripes there aren't solid. This yarn was lovely to knit with. It's one of the softest cottons I've used and didn't dry the skin out on my fingers like some other cotton yarns I've used. Plus it has yellow in it which is my favourite colour- I think it makes the bag look even more summery.
Secondly, you need to know that the Cotton Glace that I used is 'recycled'. It's part of a stash that I got on Freecycle last year. I'm sure the previous owner would be just as pleased as I am to see it going into a project like this.
Thirdly, the final part of the beauty of all of this is just how flexible the pattern is. Because the gauge doesn't really matter unless you want a very specific size of bag you can substitute any yarn that you like and change the size really easily. I made my slightly wider than suggested by casting on an extra 10 stitches. The size was otherwise determined by how much yarn I had- I just kept knitting until I ran out of the Sugar'n Cream (I was delighted to find that by the time I had woven in the ends and snipped the excess off I was left with less than 3" of yarn- how's that for efficiency?). The only drag was adding on all the i-cord as I find it utterly boring to knit but the applied i-cord does give the edge of the bag a really nice finish and the handles are, I have to admit, quite comfy. I only used 4 stitches for the i-cord instead of the recommended 6 because of the difference in thickness of yarn from that of the pattern. It made the i-cord much much quicker to knit though which was brilliant. Otherwise I may have gone mad. The thicker yarn also makes for slightly smaller holes so I've found that I can put my keys in the bag with fear of loosing them.
So to say that I'm pleased with this would be a bit of an understatement as I'm sure you have all worked out :)

Eek, eek, grr...

2009-04-16T18:23:00.002+01:00

Double eek because Blogger appears to have wiped my entire blog roll (you know, that bit at the beginning where you can add peoples blogs and it lets you know whenever it gets updated. That thing, yeah, what ever its called. You know...) so now I have lost my entire list of contacts. This means that I'm going to have to spend ages trawling around the Internet hunting down peoples blogs to add back to the list. Luckily I should be able to find all my fellow 'Lesser Known Skein-ers' without too much problem but is was a pretty hefty blog roll to have to replace in one go which is the reason for the grrrr.
What I guess I'm really trying to say though is that I'm sorry if I have suddenly dropped off of peoples 'following' list, don't leave a comment for a while or seem to be lost in the ether. I will be trying to hunt you all down again! and I promise that it is nothing personal. I'm actually quite upset that it has all been lost. I really enjoyed spending my lunch breaks reading people's posts, especially as it was a good way of keeping in touch with many of my friends from Ravelry.
~sigh~
I'll get it done though- even if it takes all week!

So I got distracted...

2009-04-16T12:08:00.002+01:00

The Easter break has really put a mockers on all that I had planned to do. I diligently made a big long list of all the targets and little jobs that I felt would make my life a brighter and cheerier place and set myself the task of crossing off half of all the things on the list (it was a very big list) during the break.
Unfortunately (and you heard that one coming I'm sure), I got a little sidetracked. There are three things at fault for this. Firstly, I got sucked into playing a computer game. Not any computer game I'll have you know, but one of the most awesome games ever created. If you don't know it and you like RPG's then I would seriously suggest that you go out right away and buy yourself a copy of Okami. This game is right up there with Zelda (my all time favourite) for me. It is a beautifully executed piece of game play with just the right pitch, look and puzzle to keep anyone hooked. What makes it especially fun is the innovative use of the Wii-mote that you use as though it were a paintbrush.
So, yes, ahem. I might have been spending just a little bit of time playing that :D
Second on my list of distractions was the ball of Lily Sugar'n Cream that I was gifted recently. It pretty much jumped straight onto the needles as soon as it walked out of the bag. I then had to spend some time knitting up a tote bag (Ravelry link) which came out beautifully. There was a reasonable amount of i-cord involved however which I find both tedious and slow to knit although the thick yarn and larger sized needles helped to speed things up a bit. I haven't got any photos of the FO yet but expect to see it here shortly. I have a big pile of things that I need to take pictures of and I hope to tackle it tomorrow. It's the one thing that is a real pain at the moment but the DH told me the other day that he is going to be getting me a camera for my birthday! which is wonderful news as up until now I have been totally reliant on using the facilities at work. This hasn't been too much of a problem as I come in early and can do all the yarn-porn photos outside of work hours but it will be great to able to take some that are a bit more exciting and set in the 'real' world as it were. It also means that I will be able to take photos of things-other-than-yarn such as the kitties and the Great Vegetable Experiment II.
Third and certainly by no means least, IT'S BASEBALL SEASON! Yay! we are back into regular season baseball once more and it just so happened that a lot of the games were on at a good time for us to watch. Most of the regular season games start at 1am our time :( but we had at least four over the Easter break that started at about 9pm. Unfortunately the Sox didn't seem to want to win many of them for us but I did get to see both Varitek and Lowell homer and run around in tight pants and knee high socks. Yum.

I'm a lucky girl!

2009-04-08T16:35:00.002+01:00

So things have been getting a little hectic again at work- its looks as though any reprieve I got from playing the 'I'm really sick' card has now worn off. Which means that I am horribly behind with my blog AGAIN and my knitting AGAIN and everything else that I want to be working on. I have made some progress with a few crafty things recently because I had to- they had deadlines attached and I didn't want to let anyone down. I'll post about that next but first I wanted to share something with you all that really really cheered me up this week. Just when I was having a glum and gloomy Eeyore day I got a surprise parcel in the post. It was full of marvelous goodies.
Check out this photo:

So starting in the top left: Wonderful scrummy tea that is now nearly all gone. The stuff right at the top was delicious. The buttons/pin badges have been added to my collection (the owl made it onto my jacket already). The blue Tagua nut button is perfect for a project that I have in mind. In fact its a bit scary just how well the colours match. The Sugar'n Cream is a real treat for me and made me go squeeeeee all evening as I plotted what to do with it. It's one of those mythic yarns that seem to be in plentiful supply in the states but you never ever see over here. It's going to go into a eco tote that I can pack into my handbag. I shall never ever need a plastic bag again. The mouse is one of a pair that where a gift for my kitties. Fenway has already mauled them both- he loves them so much. It's really cute to see him carrying them around in his mouth, especially the black one as it matches his fur so it's hard to know where cat ends and mouse begins. The CD is a few songs by the Beuna Vista Social Club (lovelovelove). The blue envelope is a handwritten note for me that makes me go all squooshy inside whenever I read it. Finally the pretty black yarn to the left of the photo is a skein of Koigu KPM yarn (another first for me along with the Sugar'n Cream). This I am just going to pet for a bit :D

Knitting addiction

2009-04-03T16:40:00.002+01:00

I was just browsing Ravelry (yes, again) and I came across a link for a Knitting Addiction Quiz. Here's my results:

"You scored 74%. You have the optimum level of addiction; beginning knitters strive to be you! You'd knit almost anywhere and anytime, but there are times and places where even you know knitting is not permitted. Like, maybe, a wedding or a funeral. Tell your family they don't have anything to complain about."

Hahahahahahahahahaha

More sock madness

2009-04-02T07:48:00.002+01:00

Whilst I was ill I got a bit of a sock fetish going. My Vegetable garden socks only left me wanting more after I had finished them so I cast on for anther pair straight away. For my second set I decided that it was time to start tackling some of my stashed socks yarns and there was one skein in particular that I felt guilty about having ignored. It took me a while to find it but eventually I unearthed the ball of Opal sock yarn that I had bought 2 years ago. It's in a rainbow colourway and when knitted up comes out in fairly broad stripes of blue, pink, yellow, x2 oranges and green. I'd played around with the skein a couple of times trying to find a good pattern to use with it but there's not many patterns created deliberately for socks that have this kind of striping in them. In fact, as far as I can tell, most sock patterns seem to be created for a plain yarn- or one with short colour repeats. I'm not sure why this should be as there is plenty of crazily coloured sock yarn out there. I guess people are just happy to have the colour changes do all the work but I get so bored knitting plain socks nowadays.
So I took it upon myself to do two things. The first was to make a pledge to try out and collect as many sock patterns as possible that would work with crazy sock yarn. So from now on I shall just use a pattern that I like with whatever yarn I like and see how it comes out. Now this may well result in some pretty fugly FO's but I like wearing crazy socks so it won't be a bother to me. I can just giggle about it to myself when no one else is looking.
The second thing I decided was to try designing some socks of my own. Well, when I say design I don't really mean in any kind of professional way. More a sort of 'throw it together' approach. To start me off on this I put my rainbow Opal to work and decided to combine socks with my new all time favourite stitch- Mock Cables.
And lo, the Mock Cable Monsters were born...

Might have gotten a bit carried away with using the Mock Cable stitch...
but I do love how the striped come out with this yarn especially around the heel. There's no faffing around or cutting of yarn to get the stripes arranged into a pleasing manner although it does help that the mock cable is only a four row repeat as it gave me a bit of freedom about when I should insert the heel.
Speaking of which, the heel has got to be one of my favourite parts of these socks. I always use a short row heel and toe when making socks, regardless of the pattern but normally just settle for it being plain with some twisted stitches to make it stronger. In this instance I carried on with the ribbing as well and the combination of that with the twisted stitches worked much better than I could have hoped.I still have the other sock of the pair to make. I'm going to jog the colours on a bit so that the stripes are out of sync with this first one. I figured that it would be almost impossible to get the second one to be the same as the first and that if you are going to make ugly socks then what the hell, why not make them properly ugly? Not point in holding back at this stage.

Vegetable socks

2009-03-30T17:49:00.003+01:00

Remember those orange, blue and green swirly socks I was making a couple of weeks ago from the Knitpicks Confetti yarn that a friend sent me from America? (cos Knitpicks doesn't post to the UK yah-boo-sucks). I was using the Artichoke sock pattern by Megan Humphrey (sorry for yet another Ravelry link).
Well, they're just one of the projects that made it to FO status whilst I was on sick leave. I'm really pleased with how they came out and they really where super quick to knit. It's the yarn that really makes them for me though :D

This was the first time I had used this yarn (due to the aforementioned problem) and whilst it looks thicker than a normal 4ply sock yarn it knitted up to the same tension. I wasn't sure how the heel and toes would work as I knew that they would be completely different stripe wise but to me they are just so pretty. Here's a close up of the stitch detail:

And here's a close up of the fabulous little heel:

I loves these socks. They are the perfect fit for me, nice and snug and warm and in wonderful bright colours. I love knowing that I have slightly insane socks on under my boring work clothes :)

Final TSG Swap gift

2009-03-30T08:21:00.004+01:00

So now I've started this post I can't remember if I have posted about this before and if I did, just how much I told everyone (d'oh). The solution? Well, I'm just going to assume that I've told you nothing and go from there because even if I have posted about this before it is so wonderful as to deserve repeating.
And what is it that I am talking about? It's my final TSG secret swap package that's what! March is our final month in the swap which is a bit sad but it also meant that I got to (finally) find out who was sending to me (yay!).
Want to see what I got? Here it is in all it's glory then:

From left to right; x1 skein sock yarn from Flutterby Creations, custom dyed for me in the colourway 'Gytha', x1 skein sock yarn from Flutterby Creations, custom dyed for me in the colourway 'Eldritched Voice' (both of these are modeled after characters from Terry Pratchetts Discworld series and are Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax respectively), x1 skein 2ply lace weight, custom dyed for me by Gemini Knits in some of my favourite colours and finally, x1 skein 2ply lace weight, also custom dyed for me by Gemini Knits in a slightly different combination of favourite colours (she also included 2 little stitch markers with beads to match the skeins that she had dyed for me).
I am so impressed with these. My swap buddy surpassed herself just when I didn't think that she could possibly do any better. I really can't find the words to express how I feel about this other than blathering nonsense such as "wool?! for me?!, dyed just for me?!" and this is me two weeks on from having received all this woolly goodness. Everything that my buddy sent me has been right on the mark and I lovelovelove it all. I have spent some time whilst I have been ill, plotting what I am going to do with each of the skeins. So far I have only worked out what I am going to do with one of them (this one in the little photo here).

It is going to be used to make a Kiri Shawl (see bar on top left hand side of screen for a link to the pdf). I have been meaning to make one of these for ages and I hope that this will be just the right yarn for it. I'm not sure how the variegated yarn will knit up but the colours are soft enough that I think they will blend in nicely together and give this a light, airy spring feel.
As for the other skein of lace weight yarn with the black in it I am torn between making 3 different shawls with it. So far I have picked out Cobweb by Emma Crew, Wild Flower by Dee Bamford and Wa na na na na na na na Bat Shawl! by Emilee Mooney. I just can't make my mind up and I think that this is partly because I can't visualise how the yarn will knit up. I need to get it wound up into a cake and then maybe do a little swatching before I make the final decision though at the moment I'm leaning towards Cobweb. Having said that, yesterday I was thinking something completely different :D so any pattern suggestions would be gratefully received.
As for the sock yarn- well, I'm sure if you are a regular reader of my blog then you will have realised by now that I am big into the Discworld series so it should come as no surprise that I want to make something extra special with these skeins. Both will make a pair of socks for me- I'm being selfish with this yarn as its just so nice. As both skeins have been dyed to reflect the characters I would like the patterns to as well- which is going to mean much searching on the internet and/or designing of sock patterns. 'Gytha' should be something a little racy to reflect Nanny. There's lots of red in there and this might look good as lace. I can see Nanny wearing something very practical on the top but loving the fact that she has something a bit naughty on underneath. So far I have thought about these patterns: Sodera socks, Vine lace socks and Thigh-High Stockings and Lacy Cables Knee socks.
Granny on the other hand would not have any truck with something like that and instead would have practical hard wearing socks. The colour alone would her way of being flamboyant but I figure that if I can add something in that has a practical reason for being there she wouldn't object. So I'm toying with the idea of putting cables in seeing as how cables can be useful to make a sock thicker and stronger. The fact that they can also be decorative will of course, be purely coincidental. No ideas at all for patterns for these socks as of yet.

P. S. Apologies for the Ravelry heavy selection of links. I sometimes forget that not everyone is a total Ravelry addict like myself.

Pratghan square- Sorcery

2009-03-27T13:01:00.001Z

Sorcery 1
Originally uploaded by tekgirl

I actually finished this before I was taken ill so it made it to the top of my list of things to write about. This is my February Pratghan square for the ongoing Terry Pratchett afghan project. Here's the blurb:
So 'Sorcery' proved to be another book that doesn't have one defining scene for me. The only bit that really sticks in my mind is the patrician as a lizard which I couldn't quite work into a whole square. After re-reading the book and a little internal debate I settled on making this my Librarian square. I want to make sure that all of the major characters have at least one square that is mostly dedicated to them. So far I've only be able to cover Great A'Tuin with my Light Fantastic square so it felt good to check another one off of the list. The background is supposed to represent the Librarian- I realise that its a bit too orange, orangutans are much darker than this but the yarn was a gift from a friend and somehow it just seemed to fit despite the inaccuracy. I then put in bookshelves with a few necessary tomes. The patrician got his jar and both Rincewinds and the Arch Chancellors hats make an appearance on the top shelf. My final touches where to add in a comb and scissors to represent Conina, the lamp and nice squishy banana. After that was all done I gently brushed the background panel to give it a soft halo of fur. The Librarian will undoubtedly be making other appearances :)

It's been a long time

2009-03-27T08:14:00.002Z

Or it at least seems a long time since I stopped by here. Just to update you all I am now back at work and feeling mostly okay. Is still have a pain in my stomach- its a sort of low grade constant nag and feels a bit like when you get a stitch in your side except it's in the wrong place. I'm still getting the associated fatigue and I can't really lift anything heavier than a cup of coffee but other than that I feel pretty good. It's nice to be doing something with myself rather than rotting away on the sofa watching daytime TV. Not that the break wasn't great but it wasn't the most restful I could have hoped for. The DH took sick mid-week and joined me on the sofa for a bit of mutual moan and groan time over how ill we both felt. Shortly after I then picked up his cold so managed to be doubly ill. It was a horrid viral cold thing that made us feel sick and feverish. I had some crazy hallucinogenic dreams on Saturday night and tonsils that King Kong would have been proud of. This has now (almost) passed for both of us so we can get on with enjoying that feeling of being well. I've felt so ill recently that even though I'm not 100% I'm still happy to be feeling this much better. Being able to do things, even if they are boring things like washing dishes is strangely liberating after a period of enforced rest.
In knitting news I have TONS of things to tell you about. My week off work turned out to be quite productive and I have picture galore. In fact, I have so many things that I want to tell you about that I'm not sure where to start. Hmmm, I shall have to cast my mind back over three weeks of knitting news and get it organised. Maybe write myself a little list :)
Finally, for this post, I just want to say thank you to everyone who left me a message or comment over the last couple of weeks. I love to know that people have stopped by and I really appreciate comments on my projects but I've had some lovely messages full of well wishes for me which are even more special. So thank you everyone. It's been so nice to know that you've spent a minute or two thinking of me. It has given me a lovely warm glow inside :D

If I'm not knitting, I'm reading

2009-03-13T15:55:00.002Z

And that's it. That's all I'm doing because the doctor has now signed me off of work for a week which means I can try and relax. As part of this I am not planning anything beyond what I have already told you- knitting and reading. I don't know which projects I will work on, nor which books I shall read but right now I just don't care. It's all good.
To keep y'all updated on what I have been doing over the few days I have, as promised, a list of books that I am going to rant about a little but first I'd like to post a picture of my new sock project. My new mad-insane-crazily-coloured sock project that I LOVE. I was sent the yarn as a gift from a friend of mine in America. It is some Knitpicks Essential multi which is a real treat as Knitpicks do not post to the UK. So this is the first time that I've had the chance to fondle this yarn. Just look at these colours! I've ended up nicknaming them my vegetable socks as the the colours put me in mind of a vegetable patch- well, a pumpkin patch to specific. The colours are a bit more muted in real life than the picture would have you believe but they are still pretty impressive nonetheless. I love bright socks- in my mind every sock should be bright and patterned and as fun as possible. I don't think I have a sensible sock in my whole entire clothing collection.
I have finished sock number 1. They look even better on. Once the lace pattern is pulled out it looks really good but I'm afraid that you will all have to wait for a bit before I can show you what they look like as the camera I would normally use is at work. This will however give me the chance to finish sock number 2 off in the meantime so you can have the full effect of the pair.

Other than a bit of gentle sock knitting I have been reading, reading, getting stomped on by cats and reading.
I have read my way through 'The Graveyard Book' by Neil Gaiman, 'Anno Dracula' by Kim Newman, 'Wyrd Sisters' by Terry Pratchett (that's the book for this months Pratghan square) and 'Runemarks' by Joanne Harris. I am currently in the middle of 'The City of Dreaming Books' by Walter Moers and this morning I went out and bought myself 'Lost in a Good Book' by Jasper Fforde.
All of the ones that I have read (re-read in the case of Terry Pratchett) have been great books. The copy of the Graveyard Book that I was lent has illustrations by my favourite, Chris Riddell who illustrates 'The Edge Chronicles' series (wuh-wuh). This made it even better in my opinion but then I am totally biased on the subject :)
The Walter Moers book is proving to be the very best so far however. I love his works. Most of them are written in german so I only have access to the four that have been translated. The first book I ever read was 'The 13 1/2 live of Captain Bluebear' which is my hug book. Whenever I'm feeling gloomy and in the need of a good read that I know is guaranteed to cheer me up then this is the book that I go to. 'The City of Dreaming Books' is actually the third one in this series hence I am already half in love with it despite the fact that I haven't finished reading it yet. I have been trying to make it last for as long as possible so have been limiting myself to about 50 pages at a time. It's quite a hefty book so this has been working well so far.
I would recommend any of them to fellow fantasy and sci-fi lovers. Although some of them scoot well over into the humour section in the fiction department so you don't have to be a geek to love them. Jasper Ffordes books are particularly good with lots of clever language and puns to keep you giggling.

So if anyone wants me then you will probably find me with my nose stuck in a book. Or under my lamp a-knitting away. I'm going to have a dive into my projects basket later to see what I have that can be finished off. There's nothing like a freshly completed FO to get good and healing juices flowing :)

An update of sorts

2009-03-11T08:06:00.002Z

I really hate having to write posts that start 'I'm sorry I've been away but...' as it just feels like I'm writing a list of excuses. In this instance however I have a reason and not an excuse for my absence so I shall try and hold back the tide of guilt in favour of something more constructive.
My reason for having been away and neglecting my blog is that I have been in hospital. I wasn't expecting to be in hospital otherwise I'd have let y'all know- it was very much a surprise visit. Surprise for me that is, though given the socks that I was wearing (my second best hideously bright pair) I think the staff at the hospital may have been a little surprised by my arrival as well :)
I was taken in to hospital from work with severe abdominal pain, fed some morphine, poked and prodded for 3 days after which they let me go on the agreement that I didn't ask what was wrong with me as they didn't know. That's right folks- three days in hospital, x-rays, a CT scan and an endoscopy and they still don't know what's wrong with me. A week after the event and they still still don't know what's wrong with me. All my tests came back as normal so at least they have ruled out all the immediately worrying things like cancer, stomach ulcers and twisted bowels which is a little reassuring I guess. Problem is that my stomach still hurts, especially after I eat so I'm kinda loosing my appetite which does not help when my other main problem is fatigue. I think the words the doctor used yesterday were 'chronic pain fatigue' which seems a bit much to me as I'm not in a lot of pain- just constant pain, but boy am I tired. Stairs turn me into a wheezing wreck. I'm awake for 4 hours and then I'm ready for bed again. I can't concentrate for more than 20 mins at once. In fact, all I really want to do is curl up under a blanket with a hot water bottle and doze all day.
Ah, poor me. I'm totally going for the sympathy vote here of course. On the whole though I guess I don't actually feel too bad. I can function and although I'm only managing half days at work I'm sure I'll get back into it again soon enough. There are people so much more worse off than me that really I have no right to complain at all and part of me really detests that kind of weakness in myself. I should be up and doing! But then maybe that's part of my problem. Can't rest, can't stop, can't recuperate properly. Need to be getting on with things! And at the same time I'm scared- scared because no one can tell me what is going on with my body. I think maybe the worry is the worst part of this- the not knowing.
But I have a proactive doctor who was very reassuring yesterday and has started me out on some basic IBS treatments to see if that helps at all. He's not working from a diagnosis of IBS but he thinks that some of the drugs for things like intestinal spasms (peppermint oil) and acid reflux might be worth trying just in case as they won't do any harm if they don't work, but at the same time if they do help a bit then that can only be a good thing.
So now it's a kind of watch this space type thing.
In the meantime I am trying to keep myself occupied. I haven't been able to do much knitting. I've either been too tired or had a cannula in my arm which stops the bending of the elbow that is required for knitting. I have managed to start a new sock over the last couple of days now that I am feeling better and that is keeping me cheery. The rest of my time I have filled by reading books which has actually been a wonderful feeling. I had been neglecting my love of reading for some time and had been getting angsty about finding time to read recently so it was one positive thing from being in hospital that I suddenly had lots of time to read. I have ploughed my way through a bunch of books that I have every intention of reviewing here as I read a couple of great books that I want to share. So over the next few days I will be able to share these with you and show you one or two other things that I had finished off before I was taken ill. I'm going to be taking a couple of days off of work so I can just rest and try and feel well again which should give me lots of time to drink tea, knit socks, potter in my garden and catch up with things which should help me to stop being full of self pity and misery and instead, concentrate on all the fun things that make life worth living.

Pratghan square for Mort

2009-02-25T17:26:00.003Z

So it's only 25 days late but I finally finished the afghan square that I am doing for the Terry Pratchett book 'Mort'. Here's the passage from the book that inspired the piece:

"Light on the Discworld moves slowly because of the vast magical field. Light on the Discworld isn't like light elsewhere. It's grown up a bit, it's been around, it doesn't feel the need to rush everywhere. It knows that however fast it goes darkness always gets there first, so it takes it easy.
Midnight glided across the landscape like a velvet bat. And faster than midnight, a tiny spark against the dark world of the Disc, Binky pounded after it...They moved in silence. Ysabell took one arm from around Mort's waist and watched sparks glitter around her fingers in all eight colours of the rainbow"

And here is the finished square (excuse the squiffy edges but it was bit crumpled after being in my work bag). I have to admit that Mort isn't one of my favourite books. Shocking I know. It seems to be one that loads of people love but it just doesn't do it for me. That's not to say that I dislike it in any way, it's just that I find it easier to get more excited about other books in the series. Even after re-reading the book there wasn't anything that really stood out for me so I sat down and had a look at the list of books and the list of characters that I want to make sure I include and it suddenly came to me that really this square HAD to have Binky on it (Deaths horse). Once I'd worked out that much the rest was kind of easy as the scene that immediately sprung into my mind was the one where they try to outride the dawn. So I sat down and tried to intarsia a horse.
It was an exceedingly steep learning curve it has to be said. Not much else to recommend on that front.
After creating the most hideous lumpy looking not-a-horse-at-all thing I gave up and decided to cheat a bit and cut Binky out of some sparkly felt that I had. This then presented the next problem which was finding a picture of a horse I could copy. Luckily my illustrated copy of 'The Hobbit' was on hand so I stared at that for a bit and freestyled it from there. Binky came out a little bit lumpy but at least he was recognisable as a horse so I rolled with that.
I then knitted the dress and arm for Ysabell from some nice squooshy alpaca and Mort's cape from some black wool. The rest of the detail was added on by hand and stitched in. I added in the scythe and life-timer as an afterthought as I had some free room in the bottom corner.
All in all I'm pretty pleased with the way this square turned out considering I am impartial to the book. Next one to tackle is 'Sorcery'. And I only have three days in which to do it... (eek).

In other news

2009-02-23T13:46:00.004Z

I had to work this weekend so I haven't been terribly productive craft wise but there are a few things that are now progressing along nicely that I thought I'd just mention here so as to tantalise those that are in the know.
Firstly I got my first batch of crocheted afghan squares off into the post. These are going to one of my TSG buddies as a big 'Well done' for working out and getting fit. In fact she gets one each time she checks in to say she's been pumping iron or doing star jumps. Each square is only 2.25 x 2.25" across but they are really sweet once they've been blocked. I'm making them out of some squooshy purple alpaca that I had in my stash which is lovely to work with so I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of making them. I'm making them in batches of 15 which makes a piece of blanket that is approximately 1' by 6" (okay so its 11.25 x 6.75" for all you that want precision on this). According to Wikianswers a double or full sized bed in the states is 54 x 75" so that makes...24 by 33 squares which gives a total of 792 squares.
Hmmm, not sure I'll be making quite that many but I think a half size spread to go across the bottom of the bed or around someones shoulders would be achievable. That' s only about 396, so say a round 400 to make and 15 squares took me no time at all really. Will have to keep a count somewhere on my blog maybe just to encourage me along though...just in case.
I have also finished off another small gift for my TSG swap buddy. The final parcel is starting to shape up nicely now. I am just waiting for some stuff to arrive in the post and I have something else that I want to knit but other than that I think that I have everything covered. I'm no sure how I will do the big reveal though- do I just put in a card? Or a picture maybe? Or how about a riddle? I guess that would depend on whether my buddy is into riddles or whether they'd prefer an easy answer. Extra stalking to be done there me thinks.
I'll miss the swap once it's all over but I have to say there is one thing that I am looking forward to and that is being able to put up pictures off all the projects that I have been working on. I use my blog and Ravelry as on-line diaries or journals so I have a record of all the things I've made. Not being able to put things up kinda makes my OCD itch a bit but I also forget every now and again that I have worked on things so when I go back and look at my projects I end up thinking that I haven't been making very much whereas I've actually been crafting pretty much constantly for the last three months or more.
The other thing that I have been racing along with is my Pratghan squares. I finally cast on for my Mort square and am oh so near to completion with that one. I had to knit some bits to be stitched on and am currently waiting for them to dry as they had to be blocked to stop the edges rolling. Once they are dry I just have some hand stitching to finish it all off- all the actual knitting is now done. I have also worked out what I am going to do for the Sorcery square but I have been prevented from casting on for that as I have no orange yarn in my stash. No idea why this should be the case- I have little bits of all the other colours I could possibly need but no orange. I had a major stash rummage and there's not a strand to be had in the house. I figured though that there was no point in buying a whole skein of something so I'm going to go through my knitting groups box to see what we have there. Hopefully there will be a little ball of something usable tucked away in a corner. With luck I might even be able to get this square finished off this month as well which would bring me neatly back onto track with my Pratghan squares project. Now that would be sweet.
I'm also trying to finish off the second half of my secret TSG project that I am working on but given that I have pulled it out 16 times so far and re-started it twice I'm not so sure that I will be getting it done. I have made some progress today though so I'll stick at it for a bit longer before deciding whether or not to give up on it.

Playing catch-up

2009-02-23T08:35:00.005Z

So I'm behind with posting and now I need to overwhelm you with the other things that I finished off just over a week ago. Yet more scarves you'll be pleased to hear.
First up is Scarf #8 from my traveling scarf group.
Here's a shot of the entire scarf:

A very manly man scarf I think and I hope the wearer will like it. The combinations of greys work well together and the stitches make it interesting despite the subdued palette. I was a little surprised with just how nice this scarf looks- I didn't think that the grey/black scarves would look as nice as they do. Here's a close-up of my section:

I used a mock cable twist stitch. I really am falling in love with these. It does pull in a lot more than I wanted it to but the material is very flexible so I don't think that there will be a problem with blocking it out at all.

For my second triumph I completed the second-to-last section that I will ever knit on one of the traveling scarves that I am doing for the Red Sox group. I'm a bit perturbed about only having one left to do- it will be very sad when these are over though I'm kind excited about mine making the trip home soon (squee). It's been a good experience all round in fact, from moderating to knitting. I have to say that I am particularly proud of this scarf if only because I picked one of the more unusual stitch patterns from the Vogue Stitchonery and not only managed to work out how to do the stitch but also got it looking nice.
So here it is folks:Hopefully you can make it out from the picture. It's the Peacock pattern and has a combination of twist stitches and some funky extra long ones that you pull through a hole from about 4 rows below. I used Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino which is sooooooo nice to knit with. I used just over 1 skeins worth as I had to hold the yarn double in order to get the right tension which means that I have most of a ball left to make something for myself with.
And just to finish off with here's a little peek at this scarf so far:

Outgoing Igor thwap parcel

2009-02-20T13:11:00.005Z

Phew, I've been so exhausted after last weeks marathon knit-and-posting session that despite having much to talk about this week I haven't managed to find the strength to type up a full blog post. Yesterday though I managed to get to to bed early AND do an hours meditation beforehand. Well, more like 45 minutes I think because at some point towards the end I was so relaxed that I fell asleep. Anyway, I am now feeling a bit more refreshed and able to deal with the strains of daily life so back to fun blog posts.
So the very first thing that I must show because I am still so proud if it that when I think about it it makes me little feet lift off of the floor is the Thcrapth toy that I knitted for my Igor thwap buddy. My parcel was a little bit less imaginative than the one I got. Most of the space was taken up by the balls of yarn that I dug out of my stash but I also put in a rubber spiders web, a spare plastic toe (I was all out of thumbs at the time of posting), a tin of safety pins, a little back of roving for needle felting and some kilt buckles (I just had to get them once I saw them in the shop) but my pièce de résistance just has to be Thcrapth. Thcrapth makes his appearance in the Discworld book 'Carpe Jugulum' and is described as 'appearing to be made mostly of slobber', hence the enourmous tongue.

Here he is folks. Thcrapth is made up of lots of different bits of dog- he's a sort of Frankenstein monster type pet but with a tendency to drool and get overexcited when he meets new people. He's the epitome of a Heinz 57 variety dog what with their quite literally being many different bits from different breeds in his make up.
The body is knitted as one piece in different colours and weight yarns with the stitches being added on afterwards along with the face and tongue. The ears, legs and tails (Thcrapth is supposed to have two tails btw it's not me going mad) were made separately and are attached with poppers to the body. I wrote up the pattern for him as well which includes three different kinds of ear and two different kinds of tail. The legs are all the same only you change the yarn to make them bigger and smaller and the stitch to make them smooth or nubbly. He's about 8" long in all so a fairly large sized toy but not so huge that he seems out sized. My favourite bit though was making some parts of him have long hair whilst others have short. I finally got to use my mini slicker brush that the best friend gave me ages ago to use on another toy (that is still languishing in my knitting basket half completed). Turns out that bamboo yarns produce a very short soft fur whilst acrylics give longer more tangled fur. That was a good experiment.

AMKG Igor Thpare partth thwap

2009-02-13T09:30:00.012Z

My parcel for the Ravelry group 'Ankh-Morpork Knitter Guild' (we're talking Terry Pratchetts discworld series in case you are wondering) Igor Spare Parts swap arrived this week. Though really that should be 'thpare partth' as Igor talks with a lisp and one of the conditions of the swap was that we use Igor-speak in all our swap related communications.
For the swap we were partnered up with a buddy to whom we would send a parcel and receive one back in return. The premise was that we would send 'spare parts' so it was a stash swapping exercise though you could trade or add in other things if wanted. It was left to the pairs to communicate between each other as to what would be good things to send. My buddy and I have both been fairly relaxed about what we got. I think that we have both been having too much fun exploring the character of Igor and giggling over all the devious little gifts that we have been dreaming up to worry to much about what was going to be incoming. At least that's how I felt about it. I had just as much fun putting the parcel that I sent together as I did receiving one from my buddy.
So this is what I got through the post the other day, what with my buddy being just a bit more organised than I am.

The photo on the left is a picture of the parcel as it looked upon arrival and the one on the right is it after it has been stripped of its brown paper. Both the brown paper and box had stamps, stickers and Igor related messages all over them. The post-person must have thought it hilarious. The stamps are especially nice though as they are reproductions of Prachett stamps. Not only are they beautifully done but they are so geeky that it made my little heart sing.

Once I'd lifted the lid off of the groaning box (it was stuffed so full the lid had to be held on with rubber bands!) the top layer of goodies was exposed. First thing out the box was the squooshy rat with the wonderful little tag attached that says:
'Thorry about the thtowaway, he wanted to thee the big thity. Hith name ith Tharthons Malt'.

So this is what was in the first layer of the box- Tharthonth Malt (the rat), two skeins of Sirdar Illusion, some glow in the dark yarn (!), some little balls of odd colours for toy making (and Pratghan!), some instructions on how to crochet left handed (so thoughtful), a storage box full of even more treats (see next photo) and The Cunning Artificers Discworld Stamp Catalogue (guess where I'm headed next...).
Inside the storage box are 8 further smaller boxes. Starting top left to bottom left they contain: 'Bobth'- eyeball dpn protector in blue, 'Knitting Keeperth'- eyeball dpn protector in green, 'Needle holderth'- in a variety of sizes, 'Thitch markerth'.
From top right to bottom right: 'Bitth'- spare green eyes, 'Bobth'- small skeins of yarn for more toy making, 'Oddth'- chocolate eyeball, Black Bat plant seeds and tooth charm, and in the final box, my very owner click counter for counting up lightening strikes!

In the bottom layer was a plain canvas cloth bag (that I intend to personalise Ankh-Morpork style at some point), a lovely red striped wrap, a bag of wine gum type sweets labelled 'Thpare nutth and boltth', edible paper labelled 'Prethcription pad', strawberry laces labeled 'Thutcherth' and two syringe pens!
Oh my gosh, I nearly had palpitations after unpacking all of this I was so excited. It got even more exciting after I got a message from my buddy to say that the tooth had come from the pile used in the recent Sky1 adaptation of the Hogfather that came out in 2006. Squeeee!
What a great swap. I had so much fun. My parcel went to my buddy yesterday so I am now standing by nervously to see whether they like it as much as I liked mine.

More output

2009-02-10T08:39:00.006Z

Oh, and another thing...

I did something else at the weekend that I feel I should share with you. I was going to post about it yesterday but I thought I'd better just check that it was all okay before rubbing my little hands gleefully together and chuckling madly. So after a quick peek at it last night to make sure that I hadn't just felted into one giant mass I am now pleased to present the results of my first attempt at dying yarn.The set was sent to me by my wondrous TSG swap buddy for Christmas and I've been meaning to have a play for ages and ages and ages.

Included in the set was a skein of Zitron Trekking un-dyed sock yarn, 3 packs of Kool Aid- orange, green and purple, some gloves and a full set of instructions detailing no less than four different methods. I chose to use the good old microwave method which proved to be exceptionally easy. All I did was tie my skein in two places so that there were long sections at either end and a short bit in the middle.
I dyed the short bit first with the purple dye and then either end with the other ones. It only took about an hour including the half hour soaking that I gave the yarn first.
The only bit that I didn't do so well was that I didn't dilute the dye well enough to begin with. I ended up with really concentrate juice mixes that the yarn just slurped up as I was pouring it on which led to the top getting lots of colour but the underside only getting a little. This meant that the end results came out a bit patchy. You can see the difference in the colour if you look at the long green segments (ignore the big white bits either side of the purple as that's where I tied the skein off). So next time I'll know to use more water to dilute with if I want a solid colour all through the section.
In this instance though I do think that this will actually work in my favour. The patchiness of the colour will help to tone it down so that the resultant socks aren't eye-wateringly bold. They'll be bright, but a bit more subtle than they might otherwise have been. I can't wait to see what the yarn looks like once its been knitted. What I was hoping for was that I'd get wide green and orange stripes separated by narrow purple ones (so wide green, narrow purple, wide orange, narrow purple and so on). I'm going to have to resist the urge to cast on with this yarn though until I have all the other stuff out of the way. But the curiosity is building and it smells so yummy and sweet after the dying. Must. resist. must...

A most productive weekend

2009-02-09T12:40:00.007Z

I managed to get a whole pile of things done this weekend including 2 of my 4 traveling scarves which made me very happy. These have now gone off in the post- so that's about half the weight that is on my mind gone. I also completed one swap gift so that leaves me with 2 traveling scarves and one and a bit swap gifts left to do. Except I need to get them done by the end of the week. And I have someone coming to stay for a couple of nights this week.
But, lets not think of things like that. Let us instead concentrate on all the things I did get done. First things first, I got my next Traveling scarf done-

My section is the one on the top left. I just did another easy stitch pattern for this section- it's called 'little scales' or some such. It basically involves a bar pick up that you then pass over the next two stitches after you have knitted them. The finished pattern is very subtle and I think fits in quite well with what has gone before.
The next thing that I got completed was another traveling scarf but this time for my Red Sox group.
My section again on the top left. Apologies for the terrible lighting in these pictures by the way. I was trying to be a bit more exciting with my photography and I think I have failed terribly. Anyway, I love the stitch that I used for this scarf. It has some of those right twist stitches that I love doing so much where you knit into the second stitch from the end, then the first and then drop both off together. They give a lovely smooth twist effect in a mock cable style.
I also made stitch markers:
These are for some of my TSG ladies to go on their scarves. I sent off the purple ones today and the pink ones go with the next scarf.
My swap gift that I finished off I can't show you as it's a secret one which is a shame as I am particularly pleased with it and the way I finished it off. I did manage to get a large chunk of another swap gift finished off. I really want to gloat about that too but there are still plenty of bits for it to be done and I want to give it before posting any pictures.

Snow daze

2009-02-06T11:50:00.011Z

More snow today- this was the view from my office window first thing this morning:
First the to the left
And then to the rightIt was snowing heavily at the time the pictures where taken hence they look so grey and miserable instead of twinkly and wondrous like snow normally does. The snow has since settled down into light flurries and the sun has come out but students have decimated the front lawn of the building and much of the snow on the pavements and roads has turned into grey and brown slush.
Just for a moment this morning though I had one of those blissful little seconds when it feels as though the whole world has emptied of people, all the noise and rubbish gets eliminated and you can just be. Be in a little space, a little bubble of time that is just perfect in every way. I stood outside the building and stared up at the snow falling, watching the fat flakes swirl down from the sky and then whip along the edges of the building as the wind caught them up and tumbled them away. It was wonderful. My whole brain just focused on watching the snow; all I could see was snowflakes, all I could hear was my own breathing, all I could taste was the air and all I could smell was the sharp tang of ice. If it wasn't for the fact that all I could feel was cold I'd probably have managed to held onto that feeling for more than a second but snowflakes falling down the back of your neck have a way of dispelling any little magical moments one might be having.

We finally got some snow too

2009-02-05T12:59:00.003Z

I love snow. I love playing snow, jumping in snow, throwing snow. I love the squeaky noise it makes as I crush it with the soles of my wellies. I love the way it dampens sound and makes the air feel still. I love the way it sparkles in the sunlight. I love the way it coats everything like icing and most of all, I love the way it drifts down from the sky in great big swirls, like honey running off the end of a spoon.
So you can imagine just how excited I was this morning when the husband peeped out the window and exclaimed 'it's snowed!'. Yay! Happy dance from me. Except it was more like a happy snuggle as I was still under the duvet at that point and enjoying the fact that the husband wasn't as we had spent all night fighting over the blankets. I had lost on nine out of ten occasions so having a whole king sized duvet was just bliss.
Ten minutes later I was just starting to stretch and climb out of my warm little pit. I had plans to build a snow-insect out on the front lawn of work but the husband arrived back in the bedroom with even more good news. Work had called to tell him he didn't have to go in. Even though I still had to go to work (there's no way I'll ever get a snow day unless 8 foot of snow falls all at once) it now meant that we were no longer in a rush to get in. Which meant snowball fights, building of snow ladies and drawing of big happy faces.
The first thing we did though was get the cats fed and let them out into the garden. Hoshi was so funny- we had to stand and watch her for a few minutes. Neither cat had seen proper snow before. The smattering we had the other day just doesn't count. Fenway was deeply suspicious and tried to avoid touching it as much as possible. Hoshi on the other hand pranced round the garden, chased snowflakes, hunted the snow despite the fact it was just lying there all passive and cold and dug holes and tunnels through it. What exactly caught her eye I don't know but it was more fun than watching her chase butterflies (which is a good laugh as well) as the snow stayed put rather than escaping by cunningly flying higher than 4 foot above the ground. Within ten minutes the back garden was covered in little paw prints and looked like an entire family of snow moles had been at work.
After that we made big mugs of steaming hot coffee and kitted ourselves up with hats, gloves, boots and big thick coats. We got out on to the cul-de-sac in front of our house at about 7:15 am. We were the first ones out- only one car had driven through the snow so it was almost perfect. We promptly started a snowball fight between the two of us and ran up and down the road giggling. At least two mums assumed that we were kids out playing and opened their doors to find out which schools had already been shut. Luckily everyone on our road is used to us doing things like this so we got nice smiles and a quiet chuckle or two in response.
I had to leave at eight in order to get to work in time but we managed to clear all the snow off the car for using in snowballs and I made a little lumpy snowman to sit on our bin lid before rushing back indoors to get changed. A brilliant start to the day in my mind and one that I hope to get to repeat tomorrow!

February swap gift

2009-02-04T12:16:00.002Z

It's mmmmmmmmalabrigo. And gosh is it nice.
This is the first skein of this kind of yarn that I have ever had the pleasure of owning and now all I can think is 'why haven't I ever bought any of this before?'. I mean- the colour, the softness, the colour, the wonder of it all, and the colour! Did I mention the colour yet? Its going to be socks for me. It has been decided. Squooshy purple socks :)

Gosh, it's been like, a week already

2009-02-04T08:42:00.002Z

I can't think what I have just done with myself for a week- it feels as though all that time has been sucked into one great big black hole. Maybe it's because I have had a lot of work work to do. I was in work all day Saturday and I stayed until about 9pm on Monday. This is on top of being in at 7:30 every morning. Which may also go some way to explaining the slightly fuzzy feeling I have in my head right now (though that could be explained equally as well by the lack of coffee this morning).
So let me think, what else has happened? Hmm, Sunday was a lazy day. I spent most of my time asleep or trying to get some knitting done. Actually that's been a big frustration recently- my knitting. For some reason I'm struggling to get things done. I do have a major stack of back logged knitting (especially traveling scarves which all seem to have turned up at once) to try and get through this week but every time I start something I just end up throwing it down again in disgust. I've been attempting to get this one particular scarf done for about six days now and I must have frogged it back about 18 times. I have managed a couple of positive steps but they have only been tiny ones. I did complete a gift for one of my swap buddies and I made a start on the other one that I wanted to do but that's it. It has mostly been frogging for me.
What else, well, the gardens far to cold to go out in and I can't get to shed anyway because I haven't gotten around to putting in a path yet and if I walk on the grass it will kill it. My orchids are doing just fine thank-you-very-much without any interference from me (I like to think that they are rather snooty plants). It's not yet time to get the seed trays out and I can't plan my vegetable patch until the fence has been fixed. So no green fingered things going on.
What does that leave? Reading and playing computer games. I have done some of that but it's been rereading of Terry Pratchett books for my afghan project and a little bit of Wii-ing.
Seems I did more sleeping and working than I though then!

Look what I just did

2009-01-28T17:30:00.003Z

One small step for entomological kind......one giant leap for little old me!

This is, with my camera skills, an amazing achievement. It might look like a grotty old bug to you (which it kinda is in truth) but it's an important grotty old bug. This is a shot of the face of the type specimen of Vates amazonicus (Westwood, 1889). That's a species of praying mantis for those that don't speak latin ;) and in real life it has a tiny head so getting a good shot of it is pretty difficult.
So yes, this is me just being chuffed and gloating but its taken me years to get my camera skills to this point and I just had to share.

Look what arrived today!

2009-01-28T15:51:00.002Z

Yay! I swapped!
I put a ball of dark blue Rowan Calmer that I had on Ravelry hoping that someone might swap me for another one but in a funkier colour. I had bought a blue one to make myself another pair of Twinkletoes and had decided to be sensible and use a dark colour so that it would match with whatever clothes I was wearing at the time. But of course after I had bought it I then changed my mind and decided that that was a daft idea and actually I wanted to make bright coloured ones. I had already made myself a pair of green ones which didn't fit me (which made me very sad) but I loved the colour- and then a wonderful Ravelry person turns up and says that not only would they swap me but that the skein they had was in the same colourway as my first pair! Brilliant, just brilliant. I still have some of the first skein left so this way I know I've got a bit of extra yarn to fall back on if needs be when I size the pattern up.
Plus, and this only gets better, they also put a Ravelry badge (that's button to any Americans out there) in the parcel AND the note is written on real funky paper that has flower seeds embedded in it that I can plant in garden when the weather warms up. How utterly cool is that?
I love this person and I love Ravelry- where would I be without it? ~grin~

I'm only putting this here because it made me laugh

2009-01-27T17:35:00.002Z

TSG scarf #9

2009-01-27T13:14:00.004Z

So here's the next installment for my traveling scarf. Well, I say mine but this is just one of the scarves that I'm working on. We are about half way through the group now I think though the scarves are a little out of order at the moment as I only just received scarf #10 after posting off #9 but it's no great shakes.
So here it is in all its glory:

I'm a big fan of this scarf- not sure exactly why other than its a really nice scarf to hold and its interesting visually without looking wrong or being over powerful in any one section. I think its going to be quite a nice one to wear as well. My section is the end one in black- here's a close up for you all:I just used a very simple basket-weave stitch and some 100% black wool yarn. I just felt when looking at the scarf for the first time, that it needed something simple yet textured to make sure my section fitted in and that there was not change in width of my section from the last. It was also fun and easy to knit and the reverse side is quite similar to the front which is a nice bonus. You can also see the stitch markers I made. I'm quite pleased with these ones as I used a new method for making them and it seems to have worked better than I thought it would. I didn't get the chance to research the person that I was sending them to though so I have just had to cross my fingers and hope that she likes them.

The Knitting Project Store

2009-01-23T09:29:00.005Z

The store currently stocks:

Long-term projects:
* Pratghan- 1 square a month, every month for 36 months. I have done 3/36 for this project.
* SO traveling scarf- 1 scarf every 2 weeks for 13 scarves. I am on my 6th scarf for this.
* Red Sox traveling scarf- 1 scarf every 2 weeks for 5 scarves. I have done 2 scarves for this.

Swap gifts:
* Igor swap for the AM Knitter guild- I have plans to make a 'build your own Thcrapth' kit for my buddy. Parcel must arrive by the 14th of Feb.
* Secret present for my swap buddy has now been decided. Yes, I know I added yet another thing to the list!

Secret squirrel project:
* I have done half of this including writing up the pattern. I am now working on other half but it will be very, very slow.

Outstanding Christmas presents:
* 1/2 of a Spirogyra glove- I am making these for my best friend (I've already done the other glove in the pair).
*1 sock for my dad- I have already done the other one.

Current WIPS (other):
*Crocheted wrap- time being the only issue in getting this finished.

WIPS that are snoozing:
* Fugly purple tank top- this just needs seaming
* Fenway's cat bed- I have done half of this and just need to finish off the top
* Olympic jumper- I have done the back, front and half of one sleeve for this but I am no longer sure whether I like it or now.
* Falling in love socks- I have done but the bind off is way too tight and I can't find the end to unpick it. Some major reworking is required.
* Lacy bed socks- I am about half way through the first sock and the pattern is proving to be quite difficult. I just need some quiet time so I can concentrate on them for more than 2 minutes at a go
* Skull illusion scarf- I am about a 1/3 of the way through this and just need to get on and do it. I am immensely frustrated by my lack of progress on this.
* Jumper for the husband- do not ask me about this
* Knitted Winniethe Pooh- ditto above

Planned projects: (at least all of the ones that I can think of immediately)
* Entomological mittens
* Rainbow stripe socks
* Bumblebee socks
* Baby blanket

A much needed review

2009-01-23T08:44:00.004Z

So, I was scooting around the internet looking at other peoples blogs today- just catching up with friends, seeing what people are up to and having a think about what makes a good blog good.
Some of my favourite blogs are of course, the ones that concentrate on knitting most of all, but when I thought about my own blog I realised that I just am not able to do this. As much as I would like to be able to have a massive list of all the fabulous projects that I'm working on I just don't have the time to do the work. I just can't knit as much as I would like to.
So what does that leave me with? Well, I like to let people know how my other projects are going such as my garden and fun things I get to do at work. But after I'd considered that I started getting increasingly worried about content. Questions such as 'what is it that I actually do with my time?' started floating to the surface, along with the age old one of 'so why do I write a blog?'

Now I'm not sure that I have any answers as yet. It's something that I'm going to have to think about for a bit but I do know that the main reason I write my blog is because I enjoy it. I enjoy the process of writing and of keeping a log of my projects but I haven't ever really written for a specific audience or with any kind of aim in mind. Which might be why I feel as though it is lacking direction. This has also been happening with my knitting. I seem to have lots of projects on the go but I don't feel as though I am achieving anything. There is no forward progress in my skills, I haven't started writing up any patterns and I get the feeling that I am falling into the trap of making things just for the sake of having something to do. Not that there is anything wrong with doing this every now and again but I like to feel as though my projects have some purpose to them, that they are valuable in some way and right now I'm not sure that I feel that way about any of them.

Just recently I seem to have gotten myself involved in a lot of long running term projects which might account for some of these feelings but before I start making any major changes or getting too bogged down in existential questions I thought it would be a good idea to do a stock take of the 'knitting project store'. Maybe this will help me to get a bit of perspective on things and let me prioritise my projects so that I can stimulate a feeling of forward movement. If there is one thing that I have learned about me is that I need to have something to work towards. My whole life has been about hopping from one goal to the next and I find that without a goal I feel as though I am stagnating or that things are going wrong. So, seeing as how I know this then maybe I should work with that idea rather than fight it. Today's plan therefore, is to think about what projects I have on needles, what I have planned and what the purpose of the projects is. I'll make some notes and try and keep an active blog list as I go to help get myself organised. With luck this will help me find some of those answers for all these darn questions!

Red Sox traveling scarf

2009-01-21T13:12:00.005Z

The first of the traveling scarves from my Red Sox loving ladies has been and gone over the last week or so. I had to go out and find some special yarn for it as the first section was in a really lovely raspberry colour and the yarn I had bought ended up glowing neon red when put next to
it. In the end I invested in some Debbie Bliss cashmerino which had a lovely colour match and was beautifully soft to work with.
Each section needs to be 10" long and I managed that with yarn spare from one ball which I was really pleased with- right up until the point where Hoshi decided to play with it and bit the centre section of spare yarn out. Now I have three bits of slightly soggy spare yarn instead of a nice length for a small toy project. And there was me thinking that she would have grown out of it by now.

Anyway, here's some photos of the finished section:

I used the mock cable stitch again (from the Vogue Stitchonary) with the argument that it looks a bit like little baseballs. Kinda. A bit round anyway. You also get to see my new office carpet- though neither picture is actually a true representation of the colour. Now don't tell me that that is not thrilling for you ;)

I was quite pleased with how this scarf came out. The width was a little difficult to match as the first section hadn't been blocked but the stitch I picked is quite forgiving that way and will stretch A LOT so it should all be good.
What is really exciting about this all though is that it is going through the hands of fellow red sox fans- proper fans in a way, or at least that is how it feels to me as they get to go to games, get a ton more information and can immerse themselves in the whole thing rather than me who is kinda bouncing behind the fence trying to peek over and join in. It's also nice to get the chance to know other women who are into the Sox- everyone else I know that is into baseball is male and they all insist on talking geek speak the entire time.

Little Bluebird of Happiness

2009-01-19T13:23:00.005Z

My newest FO-

This is my little bluebird of happiness which is based on the 'Sweet Little Bird' pattern by the lady at the Knitted Toy Box. It is supposed to sit flat on a surface but I fiddled with the pattern just a little bit to get it to look like it is flying. Actually all I did was stuff it slightly differently and put the wings and face on in different positions. All the bits that count pattern wise (such as stitch number etc) are all exactly the same. As a final added touch I put a loop on him so that I could hang him above my desk at work. That way, every time I look up I now get to see my little bluebird. He's quite tubby which makes me smile. And if I'm feeling put upon then I get to curse people with an old family saying- "and may the bluebird of happiness fly up your nose!"
As with all really good family sayings it is practically nonsensical but I think you can get the meaning. We normally use it when someone seems to be going out of their way to be a miserable whiny kill joy. I'm sure you'll have met that kind of person at one time or another. You tend to find them most often when pursuing free outdoor activities- such as puddle jumping. There's always someone who, when presented with the opportunity to jump in a puddle, will, no matter how much protective gear you give them, still complain that they might get splashed. At this point you may wish a bluebird to fly up their nose.

How can I make this clear?

2009-01-12T17:48:00.003Z

I have the best swap buddy ever! Fact.

No argument. I don't care what anyone else says. They rock.
Look- here is proof. My January swap package turned up today- it is almost too much!

I got the DVD box set of Eddie Izzard's stand up shows. I'm not sure if I can even put into words how amazed I am with this. It's generosity in the extreme! This has been on my wish list for months now. Actually, you know what- I think words have failed me on this occasion. I just don't know what to say. I am absolutely blown away by this gift.

Check this out

2009-01-09T13:29:00.002Z

Sometimes you get sent a link to a website that just blows your little socks off. Happily for me my best friend has gone and done just that. Look what she found! You can bet your bottom dollar that I will be making one of these soon. But then there are these spider socks as well! (sorry for those of you who don't have a Ravelry account). Wait a minute it gets better- for a grand finale she also sent me a link to a most fabulous pumpkin coloured hat that has little black cats all over. I also most fainted from hyperventilating over how great these are.

Pratghan Equal Rites

2009-01-09T08:20:00.002Z

So here it is everyone- my next square for my Pratchett Afghan. This is Decembers offering and the book we were working from is Equal Rites.

The plan for this square was bit harder to come up with. Equal Rites is not one of my favourites books. It has scenes I like but there isn't one that really defines it for me. So once again I was forced to go with a collection of symbols and combine different elements from the book. It did turn out looking a bit like a giant eye however which is unfortunate, as its meant to be the staff lying in a pool of water surrounded by ice. I love the bit when Granny and the Arch Chancellor have to go out to fetch staff and they find it sulking in the Ankh. Granny has to give it the hard stare and a stern telling off.
Anyway, the ice is then surrounded by the grey sparkly sand of that in between place where the 'monsters' live. I had some lovely luxury Donagal Aran Tweed left over from a Christmas present that I used for this so its wonderfully soft and fun to knit with. Which acts as a good contrast to the metallic thread that I put through with it which is a bit crunchy but oh so twinkly. I put a border of darker grey in to try to help keep the focus central but I think this only added to eye effect.
Anyway, after that I had a near disaster. When tying in all the threads on the back of my rather naff intarsia I accidentally cut something that I shouldn't have. I had stranded across the back of the blue water which had puckered it a bit. When investigating and tying in ends I chopped through some of the stranding. Argh! Nearly had a hideous unravelling of intarsia nightmare. Luckily I was at my parents house which meant that I had access to an embellisher. So I felted the ends into the back of the knitting and then carefully proceeded to cut the rest of the threads and do the same with them. This meant that the blue bit stopped being puckered which was a lucky break on what could have been a complete and total disaster. I think it would have broken me- it took days to complete the intarsia.
But phew, all was okay. I took the opportunity to add in a little detail whilst I was there. I felted some octarine around the edge of the water. Not only because it covered up the edges but also to reference the strong magical discharge that was occurring at the time. Ahem. And I cut some monsters out of grey felt and embellished them on round the edges as well. I also had a quick run over the ice to make sure that I had tied in any loose ends. I was forced to add in quite a few sections of yarn when knitting the ice. I was using some left over bamboo yarn and it seemed to take a ton more of it than I had anticipated. It made good ice but the ends are really splity and have a horrible habit of popping out all over the place.
After that it was all detail. The staff I embroidered by hand. I raided my mums bead stash and picked out all the odd shapes to represent the worlds that Simon's makes for the blobby creatures. I stitched round the monsters to make them stand out- three tone grey just didn't work. As a final touch I added in Esk's necklace that she gets from the Chief Liar of the Zoons (the blue spiracle on a fine silver chain).
Something that I hadn't noticed I had done but someone on Ravelry pointed out to me was to include the star from Esk's wizard hat. So I ended up adding more stuff in than even I had realised. I had it finished at about 10:30 New Years eve so I got to start the new year on a positive which was nice.
Next book though is 'Mort' and whilst ideas are not a problem for this one, executing them in yarn format will be. I'm still waiting for the wheels to fall off of this whole project and I just know its going to be an early book that makes itself difficult. Hmm, probably best not to think about it right now. Have to work out how to not do crap intarsia and do good intarsia instead!

I love my secret swap buddy

2009-01-07T13:24:00.003Z

Okay, so I know that I have already posted about this in two different places on the TSG board but I want to make sure that everyone knows just how wonderful my secret swap buddy is but, more importantly, THEY know it too.
And what has bought about this display of affection? As if you didn't know- it's cos they sent me an extra gift for Christmas! And look what it had in it-

Yay! I get to try dying my own sock yarn!! Not only is it one of my most favourite brands of sock yarn (they have some real crazy colours) but I've got orange, green and purple to do it with. I have been bouncing around ever since receiving this. This coming weekend is the first chance I will have for trying this out so I'm going to give it a go then as the DH is going to be working hard. I'll be sure to post soon with the results but in the meantime could you all just marvel at how lovely my swap buddy is? It makes feel just a little bit lame- I'm not sure I have been half so good at matching gifts up.

Moth madness

2009-01-07T08:17:00.002Z

Now I know I said that I would put this up yesterday but it was my first day back at work after the Christmas break and I got a bit bogged down in paperwork. I'm sure y'all can forgive a girl for that can't you?
Anyway, I promised to post further about my views on silk moths (as if they really mattered) so this is me fulfilling my obligations. For those of you who aren't here after following a thread on Ravelry then let me expand on the point.
There has been, over the last couple of days, some small debate about the issue of ethically produced silk*. This came up because I mentioned that I try not to buy yarn with silk in it. Now I know that there is an awful lot of rubbish that goes with a subject like this and I hastily remove myself from any 'rose-tinted' territory that skips alongside. I'm a practical biologist and I like to think, a scientist to boot. In fact, I trained as an ecologist and have done some small amount of animal behaviour study. I now work as an entomologist where I study insect behaviour and morphology. As a consequence I try very hard not to anthropomorphise animals unless I'm being silly and doing it deliberately. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that its wrong to kill the little moths because they are pretty or it hurts them. I don't assign to the belief that it is wrong to kill animals as long as there is a practical reason for doing so. And I think that this is the important point.
In my book a practical reason would be, e.g. to eat. I am a firm believer that we are meant to eat meat- our morphology and evolution lead me to come to this conclusion (along with a number of other more minor points). But I also know that it is possible to survive nowadays without eating meat. There are plenty of other options as far as protein and vitamin supplements that mean that you can get by without eating any meat at all. I also think that it lowers your quality of life and that it's not practical but the point is that is is possible. (The whole meat eating thing here is not the issue- that's a whole debate in itself and to be honest I think it is a purely personal choice so not really something that requires the debate but anyway...)
Okay, so given the conclusion that it is possible to get by without eating meat this then leads me to believe that if you are still going to go ahead and kill a cow for food then you have a moral obligation to make best use of its body. By 'best use' I mean use as much as possible of it- eat as much of the flesh as you can, use the bones to make glue, use the skin to make leather, use all the squishy bits left over to make dog food, whatever- just use as much as you possibly can. This is not because I feel obliged to the cow in any way. Yes, the cow would probably still like to be alive and doing cow things but for me its more about the efficiency of energy transfer. If I make the most out of this cow that I have killed today then I can put off killing another cow for another 'x' number of days. That way I use less cows overall and I have done my best to put in as much as I get out. I'm not sure its possible for a person to be 'carbon neutral' (shudders at use of jargon) without taking a few steps down in quality of life (i.e. ditch the electrics and grow your own veg- though I have to say, that does sound kinda nice to me) but you can be sympathetic to your environment.
So what's this got to do with moths? Well, it's about an attitude to life really. That and the fact that I am constantly annoyed by people who go 'Oooh, look at the furry animal' whilst stomping on bugs. So my attitude to life is to try and be sympathetic to my environment and lessen my impact on this world insofar as practically possible given my circumstances whilst my inner insect lover tells me that I should appreciate the value of ALL life, great or small, cute or ugly, furry or crunchy.
As for the moths, well, they are bred for the purposes of silk production in the same way that we breed herds of cows for beef. But silk for me whilst beautiful and wondrous is not a necessity. There are very few things in life that actually require the use of silk and it's quite possible that I could go my whole life without any need for it. So for me its an easy choice to make. The moths don't need to die so therefore they shouldn't on my account. It is also another small way in which I can wave the 'insects have rights too' flag.
However, this does eliminate practically all Noro for me which makes me sad. I did treat myself to a skein recently that had a little silk in it and I had a minor pang of guilt around the point but decided that just occasionally a little frivolity is allowed. This is because at the end of the day I remain practical. People can only do as much as they have time for. I'm in a position where I can set my house up around my needs- we have about 5 different bins to split rubbish up into and the time to do it as there is only myself and the DH to look after apart from a few small furry animals.
As a disclaimer to all this- I also believe that it's not my job to tell others how to live their lives or judge them for not putting their cardboard out for composting. I would like it if they could and I admit, I don't understand why more people don't seem to think the same way I do but at the end of the day these are my views and my reasoning and I appreciate that others may think something completely different. Our opinions are an amalgamation of experience, education and personality which probably goes a long way to explaining how we seem to have ended up with so many different ones in this world.
So anyway, that's my two pennies worth on this particular subject. I hope it all made sense. Now I'm going to return to the more familiar and safer territory of knitting. I have things to say about woolly goodness that also need airing :)

*If you are not sure what I mean by this then let me explain. To make silk you take silkmoth larvae (caterpillars) and wait until they have created their pupae (in which they will pupate and transform into rather handsome moths even if I do say so). You then take the pupae and (normally) chuck them into a big vat of boiling water. This kills the moth and loosens up the silk. The silk is produced as a big long chain that the moth winds around itself as a protective shell so that it can go through the delicate procedure of turning from a caterpillar to a moth. These long chains of silk are pulled from the vats, stretched out, dried, dyed, spun etc to make silk. Okay, so I simplified this a bit. Anyway, to make ethically produced silk you have the option of letting the moth pupate before claiming the silk. This does mean that the silk you make is of a lower quality though as the moth chews through the pupae (also known as a cocoon btw) to get out which breaks the long chains into smaller pieces. This makes it harder to spin and produces a rougher quality silk but moth does live to breed and make more moths.

Post christmas thinking

2008-12-30T19:51:00.002Z

So I know that I've been quiet over the last week or so but I have been working hard looking after animals and my parents house. If it was my own home I don't think it would be so much of a problem but this house is big and I don't know where anything lives. Also my brother is here and he sort of ghosts around the place doing odd jobs here and there but not really communicating at all. I keep doing things that have already been done (nearly fed the dogs twice this evening) or not doing things that need doing. It's very frustrating to not have a routine or controllable surroundings. Our cats have come with us and seem to find it as weird as we do. They really hate the dogs which is proving to be a bit of a minefield. Weirdest of all though is the fact that my parents do not have word or excel on their computer. I just can't work out how they survive without them.

Anyway, one thing that I have been giving a little time to is New Years resolutions. Now I'm not one for celebrating New Year- it has always been a bit of washout as far as I am concerned, and I don't normally bother with New Year resolutions but this year I'm feeling a bit different. So I've decided to make some resolutions and see if I can stick to them.

First off is that before I start any project I am going to go to my stash first, shop second. I'm still allowed to buy yarn but I have some lovely stuff sitting at home and it would be wonderful to actually use some if it.

Second, I'm going to try and finish more projects than I start. I have a bunch of WIPS that only need time pouring into them to get them done. All the materials and patterns are right there waiting. If I really decide that its never getting finished then I'm allowed to take them apart and return stuff to my stash but I'm not allowed to just leave them there.

Third- I'm going to make things for me from all the lovely yarn in my stash. It's not that I object to knitting for other people. Nearly everything I give is well received and I enjoy making it. But I don't make things for me and it's about time I did. So I'm going to! :)

Now I know that these are all KNITTING resolutions. I am working on some other more normal day to day ones as well but I haven't finished formulating them yet. I want to make sure that they are achievable otherwise I'll just end up feeling pants when I fail miserably at them.

I also got some Christmas present updates for you all to see but I'm feeling a bit Christmassed out at the moment. I think I'm in that post Christmas slump that you get when all you want to do is curl up with a book on the sofa or take the time to do some quiet knitting in front of the fire. Everything was so hectic pre-Christmas what with packing and getting our house ready and all so that we could go away that now I'm too tuckered out to do much else.
I hope that everyone else had a lovely time of it all though regardless of who you spent it with or how it was spent. And here's to looking forward to a New Year. I feel a fresh beginning coming on!

Bunny fur magic

2008-12-17T08:12:00.001Z

I really am terrible at this time of year- all this shopping that one has to do just leads to bad things happening. This year I have managed to be reasonably restrained but only through sheer force of will power and more importantly, lack of cash. What I have bought though is the wonder of the gods. You see, I had a little accident on Etsy. I'm sure I am not the first, and certainly will not be the last to have such an accident which is a comforting thought but nonetheless I spent money that really, maybe I shouldn't have. Ah, but what the hell- when you get bunny fur magic in the post who gives a crap?
Look at the wonder:
I just wish that you guys could have touch-vision on your screens. Its sooooooo soft. I bought this from HoppittyAngora on Etsy though the lady also has a website that you can get stuff from as well. All her bunnies are home grown, home sheered and the fur homespun. If you make it to her website she even has a picture of the little snuggly bunnies concerned.
I have a real soft spot for this breed of rabbit- not because it has wondrous fur that you can spin and make scrummy things out if- but because my mum used to breed them. I must have been about 9 or so when she started keeping angora rabbits and at the time I didn't really have any interest in them for any other reason than because they are ridiculously cute. The bit I love most is their little ear tassels. That and the fact that they look like giant bouncing pom-poms. Now that I am older, wiser and knit 24/7 I love them for many more reasons, especially after having got my hands on a couple of skeins of pure angora. Each of the skeins above is 50ms long but only weighs 20gs. Now I really wish that my mum still kept them. If that was the case I think I could bring myself to find the time to learn to spin. Then I could surround myself with soft fluffy clouds of fur.
Oh, and there was one other thing that I got for myself as well. Just a small skein of Noro Kochoran. I was awarded a merit award at work this year (which was a wonderful surprise I have to say) and decided that at least a small part of it must be spent on me rather than it all going on Christmas presents for other people. That and bills. Anyway, so I bought this. I have only ever had the pleasure of owning one skein of Noro before now and felt it was time for another. I have no idea what I am going to make with it (1 skein, Aran weight, 160ms- any ideas would be appreciated!) but then really this is another one of those things that is more for the having than the using. At least for a bit anyway.

Cinematic fun

2008-12-15T17:14:00.003Z

Forgot to mention this but the other weekend I went to see Changling at the cinema and I know I'm not going to be the only person to say this, but I want The Hat. If you are not sure what The Hat is then let me educate you-

Had to erm 'borrow' this picture from someone elses website but it was by far and away the best picture of The Hat. Can you see now why it gets its own capitals? In fact there are many hats in this film that I want, along with gloves, handbags and shoes. The dresses I'm a little less fussed about. They look good is you are painfully thin but otherwise are (to be honest) quite unflattering on the figure. That's not to say that Angelina didn't look great in them but then she looks like a little skeleton with skin stretched over the top in this movie. I should also say that this film, despite all my reservations, was actually quite enjoyable. The acting is generally terrible throughout apart from, surprisingly, Angelina's. In fact I would go so far as to say that she carries this film for the greater part. The sets and costumes are wonderful though and they are what really make it. You can get quite caught up in the drama of the moment just by looking at the detail that has gone into the clothing.
Anyway, enough already about the film and more about The Hat. I have been having a search around to see if I can make such a thing without, and this is the important bit, having to take up hat making. This is not because I do not want to make hats- much to the contrary. It's more that I just do not have the time or the money to do proper hat making so I am forced to source from elsewhere. The closest knit pattern I've been able to find is the Better Bucket Hat by Amy Swenson but even then its not quite right. The top of the hat is too flat. I think that if I had a head shaped stand (like hat makers do) then I could probably knit something up, wet felt it and then stretch it to be the perfect shape. Unfortunately I am lacking the most important part of that plan. If anyone knows of a good pattern then I would love to hear from you. The Hat must be mine!

WIPs = FOs

2008-12-15T08:43:00.002Z

Haha! I had a brilliant day yesterday. The husband and I went to Tockington to meet up with the rest of my immediate family for lunch. We went to The Swan which was packed- and rightly so, as their carvery was just brilliant. My pa had doorstop wedges of beef on his plate. All the food was mmmmm, yummy and came in big portions. It was one of the few times that I haven't been able to fit pudding in when out for a meal (which is saying something).
Anyway, the really brilliant bit of the day was that I manged to finish not one, not two but... two and a half knitting projects off! Yay!
I completed my Best Friend scarf that is intended as a gift for one of the ladies at my knitting group. Hopefully she will be there tomorrow so that I can pass it on. The only thing that I have left to do with it is give it a quick wash and block so that stitches even out and it is done. Am quite pleased with it. The slightly fluffy yarn that I used actually quite complements the pattern. I was a bit worried that it would fill the little lace holes up but its not so fluffy that it does that. It just gives the scarf a nice halo and softens up what might otherwise be quite a squeaky acrylic yarn.
I also completed a last minute Christmas gift. I made a short scarf (the kind that wraps round your neck and tucks in to a jacket without looking lumpy) using four strands of DK yarn held together- 2 different pinks, a grey and a sparkly silver yarn. It took me a while to work out what I wanted to do with it. I had originally intended to make a loopy scarf using a strange 'C' shaped device that my mother had given me but I wasn't pleased with the results and it was going to take ages so I switched to hand knitting it. I then tried to do a simple yo/drop stitch pattern to give it a bit of interest but I realised that I didn't have quite enough yarn to make something wide enough. In the end I went for simple moss stitch though it took me a couple of changes of needles size to get the finish that I wanted. After casting off I pulled the scarf gently to stretch the stitches out a little and make the scarf a bit longer. As it was knitted on 8mm needles it grew another 6 inches or so. I was going to take a photo to show y'all the pretty twinkly bits but I have packaged it up ready to go into the post this morning.
Finally, I have finished the first sock out of the pair that I am making for my Pa (hence the two and a half projects). For some reason they seem to be taking me forever to get done so I am glad that I finally got the first one finished- and that it fits. I got him to try it on yesterday when I saw him and was very pleased to find that my calculations where correct. I couldn't have gotten it any better size wise. Luckily for me my parents are off on holiday over the Christmas period which gets me a few days grace on getting sock number 2 completed. This means that I should now have enough time to get the last pair of Spirogyra mitts finished in time to give them to the best friend as part of her Christmas present. I have a longish train journey down to Devon next week that I hope will provide me with enough time to whip through the bulk of the remaining glove. Then it's just the slightly tricksy thumbs to do and its all over bar the small talk.

Surprise parcel

2008-12-11T09:16:00.003Z

I got another gift from my TSG swap buddy today which was a total surprise as I have already been spoilt rotten for this month. It's all wrapped up in christmas paper so I'm going to put it under the tree and save it for christmas day as a real treat. I couldn't believe it when I went to fetch the post- ANOTHER parcel? WOW!
I'll make sure I take some pictures of it when I open it.
What is useful though is that I have now had two parcels both from London. They were different postcodes right enough but it might be a little clue as to the person is. Hmmm, some sleuthing is in order I feel.

Stripped

2008-12-11T08:36:00.002Z

Last night was spent doing something very naughty. My husband and I didn't go to bed on time, oh no. Nor did we make the sandwiches for lunch today or do any of the washing up. No, we left the house, in fact we left the city and headed on down to London to go and see Eddie Izzard performing his new show 'Stripped' (and you where thinking something else then weren't you!).
Normally we would not go out on a weekday night- we have very early starts in the morning and both require lots of sleep- but I couldn't pass up the chance to see Eddie live. I have been a massive fan of his for about 12 years now, maybe longer even, and this was the first chance I got to see him. Before now I've either been too young, too poor or in the wrong part of the country to catch one of his shows so when the tickets came up for grabs a couple of months back I purchased two without stopping to breathe. Am I glad I did?- you bet I am. Tickets were expensive it has to be said- we got the cheapest ones of course for a mere £20 each. You know, the kinda seats that are that high up in the flies the person on stage appears to be a Munchkin and you start getting dizzy from the vertigo. Seats nearer the ground where £40, £60+ which had I a massive disposable income to fritter away, I would have bought. But I don't, so up in the roof space we went. To be honest though the view wasn't tooooo bad. I could see most of Eddie for most of the show. He does a lot of miming but I caught everything that was important and he was so funny. Like so funny that I almost stopped breathing at one point. But, and there always is a but (could you hear it coming folks), once again the Kool Aid guy had followed us.
This seems to be happening every time we go out now. We first noticed this phenomena about three years ago at a Franz Ferdinand gig when some complete idiot in the crowd kept up a constant and repetitive cheer of "Yeah, oh, yeah!" for the entire 2 hours we were there (we left early it was that bad). Ever since then someone has felt it necessary to repeat this performance in one way or another. Sometimes we can ignore them. They kinda get drowned out in a crowd and if it's a really good gig for instance then everyone is jumping around clapping and cheering so you don't notice. But they popped up at the Ryan Adams gig that we went to recently and nearly ruined it. The guy last night, well, he didn't shout "Oh yeah" all the time but he did have a laugh that was about 5 times louder than anyone else. And he laughed at EVERYTHING. And he was sat right in front of us, yes directly in the seat in front of the husband and I.
Argh.
I couldn't believe it. By the end of the gig you could see about 40 really angry looking people all giving him evils for having been so annoying. I can't explain just how frustrating it was. Looking at him I guess it was just exuberance on his part. I reckon he was maybe 16/17 years old and really excited about being there. But so excited that he was giggling before the show even started like a five year old on a sugar high and he could not control the volume of his voice at all. I just about managed to tune him out. It helped that some brave person went and had a word with him during the interval- it made the second half just that bit more bearable. The husband however really suffered. By the time the show was over he was really tense and angry and it was only his British reserve and natural politeness that was keeping him from strangling the guy. So that kinda ruined it a bit for us. We didn't really get into the flow of the show so didn't get to leave with that wonderful feeling of 'wow' that you get after gigs and shows where you just get so caught up and carried away in it that it takes you all the way home and beyond.
Sigh.
But it was good and I am glad that I went as it's unlikely that I will get a chance to see Eddie again soon. Not only because of the extortionate tickets prices that he can command but also because he doesn't seem to be doing as many stand up tours nowadays as he is concentrating on his TV/Movie career (hopefully you've all seen The Riches and thus will be pleased to know that they are making a film version as well). The downside though is that we didn't get to bed until 1am and the alarm went off at 6am so today I am sooooo sleepy tired that I'm going to need to drink coffee until it comes out of my ears just to stay awake.
Speaking of which....

Oh, and P.S. I manged to knit some more of my Pa's socks whilst on the bus. I've nearly completed the first- just a few more rows on the short row toe and it will be done. That leaves me with two days to knit the other one. Ah. Maybe I won't be catching up on my sleep any time soon after all.

Cthulhu 2

2008-12-11T08:31:00.003Z

Gratuitous link to show show you the second mini Cthulhu toy that I have made. I'm still so impressed with myself for picking up a crochet hook that I have to do a happy dance whenever I look at these guys.Only thing is that I rushed taking this picture (after getting paranoid about missing things since I missed a scarf out) so it was taken pre-wing attachment. This little Cthulhu is for a friend and I was hoping to present it to her last Tuesday evening at knitting group but she wasn't there. It did give me the chance to finish him off nicely though and he looks super spiffy with wings. Now all I have to do is try to remember to photograph him again...

Edited to add the above photo. Look! I remembered!
And doesn't he look just wonderful? I even made him a little tie using a piece of black ribbon so that he would look smart for when I gave him to his new mom.

I forgot to photograph it

2008-12-08T13:14:00.003Z

I am so unamused with myself right now. I have just put Travelling scarf #12 (numbers are not sequential- this is the fourth scarf I have had) in to the post box and only afterwards did I realise that I had forgotten to take a photograph of it! Grr. I am so cross about it despite the fact that really it just doesn't matter all that much. But it's a break in continuity and that's annoying, PLUS it was quite a nice square. I ended up using a blue and green tweedy style yarn and doing a very simple moss stitch square. I had unpicked it about nine times before I finally settled on the stitch- it really needed something simple to show the nice mottled flecks in the yarn though I had tried a few more complicated ones first just to see how they would look. I also made some nice ring shaped stitch markers in gold and red that I thought quite pretty.

It's been a busy week

2008-12-05T09:13:00.003Z

It's that time of year again. December is always a hugely busy month for me. I have three birthdays as well as Christmas to deal with and I have to try to be super organised with my money and time to be able to get everything done. So far this year has been no exception- it's been a case of hitting the ground running.

Last Friday we worked the open evening event at the museum. There where three of us doing the bug handling and it wasn't enough- we got totally swamped and things like breaks, drinks and patience where either skipped or ran out.

We then had to get get up early Saturday morning as my husband and I went to London to meet up with my parents. We had lunch in Chinatown in Soho (I ate so much Dim sum I thought I was going to explode) and then went to Vinopolis to do some wine tasting. My mum had bought some tickets for my dads birthday and via a long convoluted route that involved much complaining, got some free tickets as well so we got to go too. It was quite an experience. I'm not much of a drinker- I don't know why but it just isn't something that appeals to me all that much, but then it's not something I dislike either. It's kind of a take it or leave it situation and I'm just as likely to take as leave. So wine tasting wasn't ever something I really considered insofar as going out and learning the correct way to assess a wine. The 'tour' consisted of a learning to taste session, tastes of three different kinds of Champagne (none of which where any good according to our popular vote), eight tastes of 'standard' wine some of which where okay. It was amusing to see how between 4 of us we all liked different things. There was one wine from South Africa that I quite liked but everyone else hated. My mum said it tasted like burnt tires whereas I felt it was pleasantly smooth and quite drinkable. We found one really nice red Argentinian wine that we felt might be worth a revisit. We then had 2 tastes of Premium wines. I picked out a sticky German dessert wine for my first one and then had it again as it was so nice. By this point we where getting bored of queuing though. The 'tour' of the wines is more like a scrummage. You have to go to the tables that have the wine on (of which there are 3). Each table has a selection of about 6 different wines from say, 5 countries. You then have to wait to be served a taster of wine which you exchange for one of your prepaid vouchers. Easy enough but the queues where huge and you spent more time waiting for wine than enjoying it. Okay, so going on a Saturday afternoon would always mean that it was going to be busy but I think that they where packing just a few too many people in for it to be a really comfortable and enjoyable experience. Rather than it feeling classy, fun and effortless it ended up being a bit stressy and boring. At least we got a gin cocktail to finish the tour off.

Sunday was a horrid wet and rainy day. The husband had lots of work to be getting on with so I shut him in the back bedroom and went out to do some shopping. I had to do the weekly food shop by myself which is a real mission at our local Tescos on a Sunday. I had much dodging and weaving to do to get through the shop but thankfully found a cash only till which was a real break as it meant that I could walk right up instead of joining the usual mile long queue. I really hate the weekly shop- its such a boring chore so on this occasion I treated myself to some girly shopping at TK Maxx afterwards. I didn't find half the things that I had been looking out for but I did some therapeutic trying on of shoes (all very pretty but none fitted), rummaging through handbags, laughing at the awful tacky tack that seems to end up in the household goods section and browsing the books in hope of a knitting book bargain (they have come up before- it's one of the weirdest places to find knitting books and you only get one for every 10 times you look but its so pleasing when you do find one its worth it). I did come up trumps on 3 Christmas presents though. I got gifts for both grannies and something for my mother-in-law. Awesome. The final part of the day was spent trying to get some knitting done. I say trying as I ended up ripping out nearly everything I did do but I was working on a travelling scarf and couldn't quite figure out what kind of stitch I wanted to use.

The work week has mostly involved moving furniture (we are getting new carpets next week). I worked late on Monday, went to my knitting group Tuesday (I created fugly things with a crochet hook and sparkly yarn) and then made an emergency trip to see my grandmother on Wednesday. That's been the worst part. Wednesday was meant to be my catch up day when I could write my blog, sort my knitting out and get an early night but my Nana has caught a cold which has developed into a chest infection which has developed in pneumonia. The husband and I went over to make sure she got some food and took her tablets. I love my nan and it was nice to spend time with her but she's so ill at the moment that all I can do is worry. I couldn't stop myself from fussing around the house the entire time I was there though it didn't help that I had a constant stream of relatives phoning up to find out how she was. We were exhausted by the time we got home but happy that we had visited. Thursday finally arrived and my husband had to work late and I spent the evening baking a cake for him to take into work. Now that should have been all nice and restful but the kitchen was a bomb site as we hadn't been able to do anything in the house all week so actually it meant a lot of work. He does at least have a pimp cake to take into work today (no competition there of course).

So that's my week for you. Not terribly exciting really though busy busy busy. And it's just going to continue like this for the next few weeks until either I die or Christmas arrives. It's kind of nice though. My swap group for TSG on Ravelry are sending nice messages thanking me for my work and it's real good to catch up with family and friends. Today is going to be especially nice as its the husbands birthday so we have an evening in for the two of us planned with nice food, nice wine and a new wii game to play. Yay!

The arrival of Saturday will herald yet more chaos as we have stupidly busy weekend planned but for now I'm just going to sit and relax for a few minutes. I might even try and find something fun to do at work for the day as a treat for working so hard for the last 7 days. Actually, speaking of treats- I did do one really naughty thing this week (ssssh, don't tell anyone!). I have done nearly all my Christmas shopping this week (that's about £400 on to the credit card then) and just happened to be on Etsy. Complete accident you understand, and I might have accidentally ~hushed voice~ bought a couple of skeins of Angora bunny yarn. I don't know how it happened. I was looking at it and now I own it. I can't wait for it to arrive. It's coming from America so it'll take a little while. I so totally shouldn't have bought it as I no money to spend on myself this month- I don't have enough for presents for everyone else let alone me! but I keep thinking about how lovely and soft its going to be and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Ah, it can help line my happy little place :)

The Light Fantastic

2008-11-28T18:57:00.004Z

More knitting news for you all- I have, as well as finishing my cthulhu, finished my Pratghan square for this month. This is for book 2 of the series (see name of post) and I think I'm pretty chuffed with how it turned out.

I started off by knitting the blue square background and using intarsia to put the turtle and the sun on it. I then added the detail in by hand and embroidered on the fun bits like the elephants trunk, shell detail, baby turtle, and the discworld. The elephants ear and the turtles flipper I knitted up separately and stitched on afterwards. The variegated yarn edging was necessary to make the square the right size but I picked a colour that was meant to represent the swirl of magic that fills the air after the book has been read. I had to crochet this border on which was a new one for me. I really struggled to get that part completed but thanks to someone nice on Ravelry giving me some ideas it got done. I was ready to scrap the whole things at one point and put it through the paper shredder but I'm glad I stuck with it.
The next book is going to be harder I think. It's Equal Rites and so far I can't fix an image in my mind as to what I think might work. I'm still reading the book though so maybe by the time I've finished it I will have figured something out.
Oh, and it is square by the way- it just got a bit scrunched up in my bag.

Excitement

2008-11-28T13:06:00.005Z

So you know how I said that I wouldn't ever do any crocheting until they made a left-handed crochet hook? And how I said I had a secret project that I was going to spill the beans on today. Well, guess what- I've only gone and done some crochet!

Cthulhu: "Mwhahaha! Hear me brief mortals for I am the Harbinger of Doom!"
Everyone else with fingers in ears: "I can't hear you!"

Ain't he just the cutest? I used the Tiny Cthulhu pattern that a most wondrous lady has posted on Ravelry and given all us mere mortals access to. There is also a blog accompanying this that has even more details than you can shake a stick at.
I've been thinking Cthulhu thoughts for a while now. This was mostly set of by the best friend e-mail me a link to Cthulhu slippers. After having delved a little deeper and coming across him in his many incarnations (most recently in Munchkin Cthulhu which is another topic for another rant as Munchkin is one of the best board games ever!) I realised that I just had to have my own. So I set out to find a pattern and after hurumphing my way around the internet for a few months I gave in and decided that crochet really was the only way to go. I enlisted the help of a friend who has been telling me I should learn this skill for ages and set to it. I think she quickly realised that I wasn't kidding when I said I was cak-handed and inept at crochet but she persevered and lo! Cthulhu was born. To say that I am feeling all pleased and smug would be a huge underestimation. I did manage to turn his head inside out before doing the tentacles so he has a weird ridge around his brain cave but I think it only adds to his appeal. And now that I've figured out how to do the pattern there are plans for more. I already have a mark2 cthulhu underway- this time with a spiffy red jumper, but what I really want to do is a giant cuddly sized version that I can squoosh when I'm watching films in an evening. Finding the yarn for him will be the trick I think.
Anyway, I'm off to play with my new toy :)

Travelling scarf- next installment

2008-11-24T12:03:00.007Z

Sorry for the extended hiatus people- I have been either lolling around in the doldrums or zipping around like a very busy bee. I do have a number of exciting things to share with y'all now which is good though I'm only going to let you have a little taster today and save the really good stuff until tomorrow. Not that this scarf isn't exciting you understand but I have something really peachy to show you tomorrow- I just have a little bit left to do on it and then I can show you.
Anyway, here is the latest travelling scarf that I have just posted on:

Hmm, the pictures doesn't do it justice at all as it's really lovely in real life. All the colours blend into each other very well and it is so soft in the hands. My section is the top one with the red thread through it. I have taken a close-up photo of it
but as you can see- it's really not that good as it makes it look like a grey blob. I did do something a little more funky than a plain stocking-stitch block I promise. I used some slip stitches with yarn forwards so that there are little lines of yarn across the block in a staggered pattern. The lady the owns this scarf requested something in black or grey and that we keep it manly. I love how many different shades of grey have been added. It's like a little monochrome rainbow.
As I have done for the other scarves that have passed through my hands I have added in some stitch markers. I thought that I'd put in some really pretty girly ones on this occasion.
In other news I have been working busily away on my secret project. I'm not going to say anything else as it deserves an entire post to itself. I have also been getting on with my next Pratghan square. Well, more sort of despairing over it really but I had a break through about three days ago and I'm feeling much better about it now. I had been threatening to put it through the shredder at one point it was driving me that crazy. I think that that was all linked in to the general meh feeling that has been getting me down for the last week or two. Thankfully I seem to have shaken most of it off now and I'm generally in a much more productive frame of mind. I think that this is partly because I have so much to do now that Christmas is creeping closer and closer. I have three big birthdays to deal with in December- my husbands, my fathers and then my mothers (who has her birthday on Christmas eve), so there's lots of organising of presents, visits and parties to be done. It doesn't help that my husband is absolutely pants at Christmas shopping. I knew that this year was going to be both hectic and expensive so I started my shopping and knitting in October. Those presents that I have yet to buy have at least been thought about. I think I know what I am getting for everyone now except maybe my brother-in-law. Yes, you heard it I'm sorting out my brother-in-laws present. I asked my husband this morning about his lack of concern over all this and he protested that he had done some stuff for Christmas as he had already got a present for his father (he bought two birthday presents by accident so it's been sat on the side for like three months now). I pointed out to him that that was all well and good but it wasn't much use it being on the side in our house when his father lives in Scotland. I think I was a bit mean to him bringing this up so early in the morning whilst he's trying to drive me to work but I had this horrible premonition about the next phase of the plan and just knew that it was going to involve me going out and buying wrapping paper, wrapping said item, writing the card and putting it in the post.
Anyway, enough about Christmas as I'm almost bored of it already. What I really want to enthuse about is the Traveling Scarf group that I am a part of on Ravelry (yeah, like you didn't know that already). Other than having the chance to work on all these fantastic scarves that I've been showing y'all I've also been helping out on the Welcome Wagon Team and taking part in the Big Swap. I got my first swap gift yesterday which I still haven't stopped humming about yet. I really wish I had had the sense to take a picture of it as it is just so beautiful. It's a skein of Indigo Moon fingering weight yarn called 'Sunshine' and its a lovely soft buttercup yellow colour. Oh, it's so scrumptious that every time I think of it I get a little warm feeling of squee inside. Now all I need to do is think of a project for it which is almost as much fun as receiving it. Yay! I am definitely feeling a bit more cheery now.

Not quite there yet

2008-11-17T12:18:00.005Z

Well, I'm almost back to normal. I still have that distracted feeling that is preventing me from really getting on with anything but it's down to fits and starts now rather than a full-time experience. I think it helped that we had friends over for the weekend which distracted me from the meh and after a few hours I was starting to get itchy fingers. I couldn't work it out at first but suddenly it struck me- I wanted to knit. Normally I sit and knit when we have friends over as I'm more than capable of knitting and talking at the same time now after many hours of practice but on this occasion I just hadn't been interested enough to touch it. Once I realised though that the mojo might be sparking a bit I decided that I would deliberately ignore it. I didn't want no bitty bit of mojo- I wanted the whole thing back! So I sat and ignored the feeling and it was almost getting to be too much and then our friends slapped down the trump card and produced the new Mario Kart for the Wii. This then took up several hours as we raced our way around mushroom kingdoms. I won three trophies for coming in first- once just among our little group and twice for winning outright overall mwhahahaha. After this glorious triumph I picked up my needles and started to knit up a storm. I worked on the scarf that I am making for a friend from knitting group and then tackled the next square for my Pratghan. I manged to intarsia a passable discworld, elephant (not sure which one of the four that it will be) and Great A'Tuin all floating around through space. Only problem is that the square is a bit small so I am going to have to pick up some stitches and knit a bit more around the edge. Better that than the other way around though- I can add as many stitches as I need but there's no way to take them back off again. I filled in a whole afternoon with this little diversion and finished it off just in time for bed. The positive feeling of achievement was just delightful and I think it's the first time all week that I felt proud of something that I had done so it was time well spent me thinks.
Two other good things happened over the weekend (and not just that we had lovely guests over). The first thing is that I got my new winter coat on Friday. It is my Christmas present from my in-laws so it's a bit early but I was cold and the coat is just beautiful so I wasn't going to put it away for a month and half. It is a red wool coat. A wonderful fire engine red knee-length warm as toast wool coat. It has a belt with a big buckle round the waist, buttons to do it up and a high collar that can be worn either flat like a normal coat collar or done up so you look like Wilfrid from the Bash Street Kids (only more pretty). I love it. I didn't expect to- I have been searching for a red coat for ages but with extra vigour since the in-laws said that they would get it for me as a Christmas present. I have wanted one ever since I saw one in Paris when I was on honeymoon. I have regretted not buying it ever since and when searching for this one it was the idea I had in my head for how the coat should look. This led to much searching through shops and on the Internet. Nothing quite matched up until I decided to stop looking for a coat like that one and just see what they had in the shops. A week later I own a wonderful coat that I am so so happy with. Just goes to show really...
The second thing that happened was that all the potential problems that I might have had with my swap group on Ravelry have just melted away. No need to stress there then so I am very glad that I decided not to worry. This has left me free to get on with sorting out my first swap gift (which is now complete and oh, how I would love to show you a picture of it as it is just so pretty), my Pratghan square on which you have already been up dated and finishing off the two remaining Christmas presents that are to be done. I just need to keep the mojo revved and hopefully all will be well.

Bubbles make me feel better

2008-11-14T17:36:00.002Z

So after a looooooooong soak in the bath and a couple of days of not doing anything I am starting to feel a little bit more like myself. My knitting is still on stand-by though I have come with a fab little idea for something to make for my swap partner in the Travelling Scarf Group on Ravelry. I can't share it with you for about another 5 months so I'll try not to mention it again.
Talking of the TS group I feel compelled to mention just how great it is- in fact, it's awesome. Everybody that I have met via this group is just amazingly nice. One of members is real sick at the moment (much love going out there) so what do you think has happened? They've started a collection to buy her a laptop thats what because she keeps on insisting on crawling to her computer just to look after the group. How wonderful is that? It's so wonderful to see the outpouring of emotion and love that is being sent to her to say thank you for all the support she has given us. I've hardly been in the group any time at all and I already feel happy in my new found family.
The swap that the group has been working on has been going real well so far though I have a couple of potential problems in my group. I'm trying not to mention it to anyone at the moment as it's a bit too early to panic. Oops, maybe I shouldn't be saying anything here?- ah well, it really is too early to worry about them so it doesn't matter. Anyway, I'm off this evening to the shops to hunt down the necessary item for completeing this months gift for my swap buddy and then I can get it in the post next week. I really hope I've pitched it right- her main interest is in something that I know very little about so I hope that I'm on the right track. Of course the main problem with all this is the amount of time I have to spend snooping around the internet looking things up. I keep finding stuff that I want all the time. The thing that I now want most of all in the whole world is one of those little sticks and chart kits for working out wpi of yarns. Many of the patterns that I love turn out to be american and say things like 'sport' or 'worsted' weight on them which confuses me once I get into the shops to buy yarn.
Ah, it's that age old problem of shopping isn't it girls?

Can't beat the feeling?

2008-11-12T13:32:00.002Z

Then join it. I had another frustrating day yesterday where I seemed to spend all my time flipping back and forth between one job and another and not really accomplishing anything. My house is littered with bits of knitting and projects, my office looks like a hurricane passed through it and me?, well I'm starting to think that someone new has been put in charge of the brain controls and they are just fiddling round with all the dials and switches to see what happens.
So today I'm taking a new approach. I figure that if I'm feeling a bit dysfunctional at the moment then instead of fighting it and getting stressed out I'm just going to have to quite literally press the reboot button. So this evening I intend to go home, run a hot bubble bath and sink into it. I'm not going to touch my knitting, think about how much work still needs doing in my house with regards to painting and decorating or how much cleaning there is that could be done. In fact I'm not going to do anything other than lie there until the water gets cold and then I'm going to go to bed. Everything that needs doing to going to go on pause and I'm not going to feel guilty about it at all.
I will probably be thinking of knitting though. The next travelling scarf has arrived and is going to take some thinking about (although not much as it's quite a simple one really), I have to work out what I'm going to get for my swap buddy as her final gift. I have figured out most of it but not what I'm going to get as the final gift that is to be sent in March as it has to be something a bit special. I also have to work out what I'm going to do about gifting the organiser of the swap who has been working tirelessly behind the scenes on our behalf. I have to send some other stuff to her anyway as she has also been running all the competitions and sending out prizes but I think she deserves a little something for herself. The only problem is that she's been getting a lot of RAKs recently so I think that she's going to be stocked up on soaps, candles and yarn for a while.
So there's a few things for me to muse on. I think the important thing will be not to expect to get anything done and then I can't feel bad about my indecision. Hopefully this will drown the meh out.

Gratuitous linking to get extra competition entry

2008-11-11T12:11:00.002Z

Go here for a chance to win a copy of the sequel to 'Friday Night Knitting Club'. It's a put your name in the hat competition and just requires you to leave a post. Don't say that they didn't make it easy enough for you :)

Meh

2008-11-10T18:27:00.002Z

Harumph, harooo, am feeling a bit meh. I have had an extraordinarily long day at work and now I am tired and feed up and can't decide what to do with myself. Unfortunately this is not a state of mind precipitated by my day at work, it is something that has followed me since yesterday. For the first time in ages I had a whole day where I didn't have anything to do. No plans, no commitments, no nothing. And so what did I do? I sat around on the sofa watching House whilst being plagued by indecision. Nothing I started seemed to keep my interest for more than five minutes. I couldn't get comfy, I couldn't decide if I was thirsty or hungry, or if I was, what it was that I wanted. I tried reading, playing cards, three different knitting projects and still I could make my mind up and before I knew it it was six in the evening and I had wasted the whole day feeling bad about not doing anything whilst not getting anything done. If only I could have decided not to do anything to begin with then anything I did do would have felt like an achievement but no, that would have been too easy.
Instead I wasted a day, felt bad and then carried on with it today- though I did kinda get good stuff done today but in a very slow, boring, cold way that very few people would appreciate if I told them. What I want is a big, warm, furry project that has loud, brash results that give me the instant gratification and feelings of fulfilment and success. I am fed up with feeling meh but can't do anything but sit here and go meh at the thought of doing anything. A paradoxical situation me thinks but when the meh has got you then there's nothing that can be done but to try and find the reboot button.
Where, oh where did I leave that thing this time? If anyone finds it out there could you give it a good prod for me please? Even my knitting is failing to inspire me at the moment which must mean that its a serious case. Oh well, for this evening I will just have to hope that chocolate has all the answers.

In knitting news

2008-11-07T08:43:00.007Z

Gosh, for a knitting based blog I seem to have been wandering away from the subject quite a lot recently. So in knitting news: I am working on my pa's socks and a third pair of spirogyras for Christmas gifts. These have kinda not been going anywhere recently as I had to first finish off my Pratghan square for October. The first month was for the book The Colour of Magic and I go a trifle carried away with it all I can tell you. The basic square was very easy to make- I knitted it out of thick black yarn and added in some hand spun octarine wool. This was the first time I had attempted to spin yarn so the results are a bit lumpy but I was pretty pleased with it by the time I had finished.I needle felted the skull on and then embroidered the rest. There are little links to the book all over the square- the octarine is knitted into a octagon shape, there are eight tentacles, the dice add up to eight, I worked snake eyes onto two of them as a sign of bad luck, finally the little symbols stand for Rincewind (wizzards hat), the luggage (check out the tiny pink feet) and two flowers for Twoflower. I am immensely pleased with way it turned out and can't seem to stop gloating to anyone who will listen.
The next book is the Light Fantastic and I have already picked out what I am going to be doing for that one- in fact I knew that before I started this one. I got the yarn for it out of the knitting groups box the other day so I am all set to cast on this weekend.
The other thing that is slowing me up is this scarf:

I got the pattern for this from the Ravelry group 'Almost Knitty' which hosts patterns that were rejected by Knitty for on reason or another. To be honest I'm not sure why I cast on for this as I have so many other things to be doing right now. I guess it was because I thought it would look nice in this yarn I had in my stash and one of my friends from knitting group said she was drawn to grey wool at the moment and it all kinda happened from there really. I've been enjoying knitting it. It is just complicated enough to keep me interested whilst be easy enough that I can memorise the pattern. The only thing I don't like is that it has an obvious front and back- normally I would refuse to knit a scarf with such a blatant error in it but I really liked the finish look and I knew that it would be going to a friend. It is quite a short scarf as well, more the sort you tuck into a coat than the ones that I usually wear that are super super long even after you've wrapped them round your neck three times so she should be able to wear it right side up without any problem. I'm about half way through and have been steadily adding three or four inches a night. Really I should be working on the last of the Christmas gifts but I can't seem to find the enthusiasm for them at the moment. Hmmm, the wips are building up again.
Sigh
Better do some knitting then hadn't I? ;)

Still on catch up

2008-11-07T08:20:00.010Z

Can't believe how busy this week has been. I think it comes from volunteering myself to help out with the swap that the Travelling Scarf group is doing on Ravelry. I've had sooo much fun and have met so many nice people from doing it but it does mean that I've become totally addicted to checking my rav page every five minutes. I really want my swap group to have fun and for all of it to go really smoothly for them so I've been putting in a lot of time to keep up with e-mails and correspond with people. I'm gonna have to kind of rein my enthusiasm in a bit this weekend though as I need to attend to my own swap buddy and get her first gift sorted out. I have it planned but I need to go buy something from town before putting it into action. I shall say no more...
Anyway, in an effort to finally catch up with myself from over a week ago I want to share just how wonderful my pumpkins were for Halloween this year.

This is Hoshi enjoying a scratch. I was trying to get her to sit next to the pumpkins to pretty the picture up and provide some kind of size reference but she kept trying to get me to stroke her so this was the best that I could do. Both of these pumpkins are home grown. The one on the right is mine. My husbands pumpkin died so technically I win the pumpkin competition but I did say he could have the one on the left after the other snuffed it so he's arguing he won. The massive pumpkin was rejected by both of us as being too weedy- guess we don't know a thing about pumpkins then.
This is what my husband cut out of his pumpkin- a big Red Sox 'B'. My mum found a pumpkin carving kit for him via the internet that has stick on stencils and the most awesome little carving saw with a handle in the shape of a skeleton.

And this is what I did with my pumpkin. You can't see it terribly well (I was taking arty photos at this point) but I carved a quote from Funny Bones on it- it says 'on a dark dark night' round the top and then I attempted to carve a wood, a road and a town with street lights.

Finally, my best friend had given me the cutest smallest pumpkin I had ever seen when I visited Cambridge the other weekend. I decided to go with a more traditional approach for this one and I think it probably ended up being my favourite. It took an entire ten minutes to cut, scoop, carve and get a candle into.

Boosh, boosh, stronger than a moose!

2008-11-05T12:39:00.003Z

Thursday last the husband and I drove over to Bristol to see the Mighty Boosh live at the Hippodrome. It was a bit of a rush as we had to leave straight from work and drive flat out to get there in time. We almost managed it- just 5 mins late so missed the first few lines of banter between Howard and Vince (aka Julian and Noel). The show was really good- both of us enjoyed it immensely. It didn't really have so much of a plot as their first theatre tour (which we saw on DVD) but it did have some hysterical linkages throughout the show.Some of the best bits were where things went wrong though- Tony Harrison nearly fell through the chair that he was sat on, Howard lost his beard and Rich Fulcher came out with a classic (and very rude) line that reduced the cast to giggles.
For those of you that have not yet come across the comic genius that is the Mighty Boosh then I suggest that you jolly well get yourselves on the case and find out now. Its worth reading the wiki link but you really want start with the first episode, first series and sit down to do some serious watching. Just so that you know the Iceflow song is one of my favourite bits from the first series.
Friday was spent painting, cleaning the house and hosting friends for dinner (after a quick nip round to a Halloween party that one of my friends was throwing). I trucked out all my knitting for them to see whether they liked it or not- mainly my Pratghan square though as I knew one of them was a massive Terry Pratchett fan as well. We had a highly amusing game of Munchkin that I won!!! but only because the husband let me apparently. Munchkin is rapidly becoming one of my favourite games as it is possible to win after having lost nearly everything you have with regards to equipment and bonus points. I am still an amateur player and haven't quite figured out all the nuances of the cards yet (it doesn't help that I usually have a glass of wine nearby when playing) but I can see this becoming a well practiced game in our household.
Saturday we drove to Hereford to see some friends and on the way back stopped off in Hartpury to see the Bee Shelter. It was a last minute visit as we only found out about it via roadside signs. It was freezing cold day but it was well worth the short stroll from the car to see it. I spent the rest of the day enthusing over bees and making zubbbzubb noises.

Miscellaneous items

2008-11-03T16:37:00.005Z

Let me fill you in on a variety of other fun things that happened before I start on the really good stuff :)
Monday my brother came to visit me which was a bit of a shock but he obviously felt that it was time for his biannual visitation. We had a nice day out looking round the shops and touring the most horrible parts of the town centre (that was accidental- we needed somewhere to park the car and ended up at the edge of the hellmouth). What was most useful though was that it allowed an exchange of stuff. My mum sent things for me and I sent things for her. Unfortunately for my bro there wasn’t anything for him but I bought him a milkshake and took him to Krispy Kreme* for doughnuts, both things that you can’t do when living out in the sticks. Hopefully this made up for being a shuttle service for the women in our family.
I feel utterly compelled to tell you about one of the gifts that my mother sent me. In fact let me show you in picture format:

Ain't it cute? Apparently these where all the rage in the 70's. You just HAD to have a siamese cat climbing up the side of your brandy glass and a little mouse at the bottom. I can't imagine how anyone actually drank from them so they must have been an ornamental thing. Apparently the cats come indifferent sizes and colours which makes them more collectable. My mum showed me a picture of one a few months back and I must have squeed over it so much she decided to buy me one. This is now taking pride of place on my sideboard.
Despite being ill Tuesday (as I have previously mentioned at great length as I take headaches as a personal attack and not just a process of nature) I eventually struggled into work late in the day to find a surprise present from my upstream raveller (Travelling scarf group). Apparently she had been over visiting a family member and thought to drop off a little something for me where I work-

I was a) extremely surprised and b) chuffed to pieces with this gift. How sweet is that? (No pun intended). I’m not going to mention her by name here as it’s a policy of mine never to name anyone without permission and getting permission seems to be too much of a hassle for me BUT if you are reading this then THANK YOU! once again with extra glitter and gold stars for being wonderful. I’m still hugely pleased with it all especially as I love jam. Mmmmmm.

*BTW I feel that I should point out that Krispy Kreme has only just made it to the UK. I think that there are about 15 stores in the entire country and the nearest one to my brother is over 100 miles away hence his excitement at being able to actually visit a store with inhouse doughnut making technology :)

First of many catch up posts

2008-11-03T12:28:00.002Z

I have already mentioned this but I have to start at the beginning of the past (which is the furthest away point rather than the nearest as most beginnings are) to be able to make any sense of anything in my own head, let alone yours. So, two weekends ago I was in Cambridge to see my best friend as it was her birthday. Because I love her so much I left work on Friday and climbed onto the grim, grim Oxford to Cambridge bus that travels via Milton Keynes and Bedford (also grim in my opinion but then I do only ever see the bus stations) and takes 4 hours. The buses are old, rattly and have a disturbing habit of smelling of burnt plastic. I managed to entertain myself reading and knitting socks for most of the journey and was feeling only mildly psychotic by the time I reached Cambridge. I had wanted to nap for the last hour or so (looooong day at work) as I knew I'd be up late and didn't want to flake out but there were a couple of people sat near me who had taken the cramped bus conditions as an opportunity to strike up a conversation. The fact that everyone else had to listen to it for over three hours didn't seem to bother them.
Anyway, this was all quickly overtaken by the fact that I had arrived and I was on the way to the pub. I met up with the best friend, was introduced to her friends and work colleagues, handed out her presents that I then forced her to open in the pub and went to the bar. The kinky stockings I had bought her went down a storm (teehee) as did her gloves that I had knitted for her. Unfortunately I was enough of a bonehead to forget to photograph them so I can't show y'all the mystery project that I was working on. I was very pleased to see that they fit and everyone made nice appreciative noises and admired them which made me smile. We had a great night out and as predicted, didn't make it to bed until very late. Saturday we wombled around the shops, stopping tea and hot chocolate wherever we could. We dropped in to a craft event where people were selling handmade clothes and jewellery. The Cambridge knitters where also there and if I had taken my knitting along I might have felt brave enough to go over and say hello but I suffering from a lack of sleep so decided to lurch in another direction. I got to meet some of the roller derby team which was nice though I was mostly asleep on my feet so they probably thought I was mute or maybe just plain weird. We spent Saturday night huddled on the sofa knitting and watching movies. The best friend is working on a wonderful jumper that is made from yarn that she bought from Shilasdair when we visited Skye at Easter. It is soooo pretty and I felt compelled to steal it for a quick fondle when she wasn't looking. Sunday we just lazed around talking shop about yarns, books and TV. I was treated to hot pink milk for the first time in my life and it was wonderful. I couldn't believe I had been missing out all this time!
The only other thing of note is that I bought the wool for making my husband a pair of baseball socks. They are going to be red and blue with little Bostons 'B's down the sides in stripes. The pattern looks a bit complicated but it involves learning a new technique called festive knitting. Having read the instructions I think I have an idea of how it works. Its just putting it into practice that is the hard bit. I haven't started the socks yet as I want to knit them in secret as a Xmas gift but as soon as I have made any progress I'll get some pictures up as the construction really is quite interesting for any geeky knitters out there.

An unplanned absence

2008-11-03T09:10:00.003Z

Apologies people for my prolonged and unusual absence from this blog. I was a trifle unwell last week though it was not the snot demons that got me I hasten to add, but the migraine monster. I am prone to getting headaches as I have a bad back and neck so changes of bed (for instance) cause all my muscles to shift around and spasm. This then leads to severe headaches or migraines and I got caught out after a jaunt to Cambridge two weekends ago. The bed I was sleeping on was fine for the first night but on the second I was joined by my husband and I was forced to sleep on about 4 inches of mattress. I managed two nights before things went pear shaped- I woke up in agony Tuesday morning. This led to a couple of days of nonsense on my part before things got really busy and I was unable to be ill anymore due to having too much stuff to do (last week was half term in our county which meant that the husband was at home hence the hectic week). It does mean that I have a ton of stuff to tell y'all and pictures to prove it as well. Despite the awful headache I managed to do everything I had planned and enjoy it all. We've done lots of travelling to see friends, been to a gig and eaten enormous quantities of food. I also managed to get some knitting done in amongst everything else so have some updates there as well. In fact I have so much to say that I'm not sure where to start but you can be expecting a higher than normal number of posts over the next two days to make up for my enforced break. Hope you didn't miss me too much ;)

Travelling scarf update

2008-10-24T12:09:00.003+01:00

Eurgh, before I start talking about scarves and the like I just want to say that one more time- eurgh.
I have been suffering from a horrid little cold all week that has finally decided to manifest itself on the day that I am due to be travelling to see my best friend and celebrate her birthday. Boo! Have been feeling crappy all week but now the snot goblins have moved in (attractive) along with extra fluff monsters that are making it almost impossible to think. To make things worse everyone else at work is feeling the same way so there's no sympathy coming from there and once I'm finished here I've got to go sit on what may well turn out to be the worlds most uncomfortable bus for three hours. At least I have books and knitting to keep me company and I packed a nice thick jumper so I can curl up and try and sleep if needs be.
Anyway, the reason for my post was to show you my next block of completed travelling scarf:

The only remit for this scarf was that it be in autumnal colours so I picked out a lovely thick fire engine red. I was a bit worried that it wouldn't be considered 'manly' enough (these scarves are supposed to be for our SOs after all) but red is one of the most evocative colours for me when it comes to the fall and I figured that it would look nice once accompanied by more sedate browns and russet colours. I used a very simple broken slip stitch to give it a little bit of texture for interest. This stitch leaves an almost plain back however so there is no really obvious right or wrong side to the scarf. The stitch markers that are pinned to the scarf are ones that I made for the lady that this belongs to. I decided that I would send a little set of stitch markers for each of the ladies that are in my group so I've been pinning them to the sections as I finish. As I don't know much about any of them however I've just had to guess at what people might like so for this one I picked out beads that matched the block that I had done. I think that the scarf group will slow down a little now after all the initial excitement which gives me a chance to finish off my first afghan block for the pratghan-along that I joined. I washed and blocked my square last night so that all I have left to do is some embroidery and a bit of needle felting to embellish it to add the detail in. This will have to wait until Monday now however- I'm off to party for the weekend!

Further weekend fun

2008-10-21T08:33:00.003+01:00

So after all the fun at the bug fair during the day on Saturday I then managed to make it back in Oxford in time to get to my friends house for a girly evening. I met lots of new people, the thought of which would normally have me hiding in a cupboard but I was brave and had a good time. There was pizza, Guinea pigs and watching of Heathers (which is film that I haven't seen since I was in my teens and made me realise just why I had such a bad crush on Christian Slater at the time. Mmmmmmmm. Still think it was a bit criminal letting him kill himself at the end of the movie- oops, that's gonna spoil it for a few people isn't it? Sorry, but I have a soft spot for the bad guy in movies- it's normally the man in black that makes me go weak at the knees rather than the hero of the piece). Getting to cuddle the piggies was the high point of the whole evening though- so fat and warm and squeaky!! And they make such cute noises when they crunch their way through lettuce leaves. Squee.
Ahem.
So I got home late and decided that rather than going to bed and getting up again an hour later to watch baseball I might as well just stay up and read for an hour. I set the game up for my husband so that it was ready for him when he came down from bed and watched the first three innings with him before retiring myself from the side. Luckily the Saturday night game was one that the Red Sox won so he was in a pretty good mood come Sunday despite the lack of sleep.
Sunday we finally got our carpets fitted!!! I am soooooo pleased with them its unbelievable. And they make such a difference to the house. It no longer sounds like a herd of elephants when someone goes up or down the stairs. The landing is all squishy and comfy on the feet. My bedroom has a floor that is one colour- it looks finished and grown up and comfortable. But the best bit is that we had to empty the back bedroom in order to get carpets in. This now gives me a chance to go through all my knitting, sewing and beading stuff and put it away properly in a wonderfully anal order. I can set my work area up properly- get my sewing machine out of storage and be able to use the space rather than just having a stack of stuff that we keep meaning to go through two years on from having moved in. The back bedroom is the most multifunctional out of all of our rooms. It acts as a spare bedroom, a library, an office space for the husband, a storage space for craft goods and misc sundries and as a work space for me. Except its only ever managed to perform three of those functions at any one time since we moved in. Normally it only manages one. At the moment it remains empty yet full of potential. The contents of the room are stacked in our lounge currently which isn't so fun for the husband and I but the cats love it. I'm going to start slowly taking stuff up over the course of the week. There will be much, much sorting out of things. Bliss.

Bug show

2008-10-20T13:07:00.003+01:00

So I held off posting at the end of last week as I knew I'd have a ton of stuff to talk about today. I've had a super, super busy weekend but above all a FUN weekend.
Most of Saturday was taken up with attending the AES (Amateur Entomologists Society) Show at Kempton Park Racecourse. This is the biggest insect show in the UK as far as I'm aware. It has everything insect/arachnid related that you could possibly want from live specimens, to collecting equipment, to storage, to squishy rubber toys you can bounce off of the floor. I love going as it's a great chance to catch up with people. I've been going for about four years now and each time I go I have a great time. I spent this year wandering around with one of my best friends who I hadn't seen in ages. She was hunk spotting (normally quite a difficult thing to do with entomologists- we are not the prettiest race) and we giggled our way around the show assessing what was on offer. There was one particularly attractive young man who put me in mind of an elf from LOTR that won first place. As expected he has a girlfriend though so she was unable to pick up that bargain.
What I did get for myself was a couple of keys to identifying flies, some stripey cockroaches (I'll try and remember to take a picture of these for you. I defy anyone to tell me that they are icky after they've seen how pretty they are), some prints that I intend to frame and put on my bedroom wall and some stick insects for my husband to take to school. It was a fairly restrained outing all in all but then I wasn't on a mission to purchase much in the way of livestock and I have access to most of the books that I need so I only bought my keys because they where going cheap.
I also got given five Chile Rose tarantulas which was unexpected but seeing as how they are so cute and fluffy I couldn't help but be chuffed. There is one in particular that is just adorable expect a picture of her soon as well. My love of spiders is slowly growing and having to look after so many forces me to get used to being around them (we now have 10 in the department). One day I'll work up the courage to hold one but until then I think we will just have to be friends that remain separated by a pane of glass.
The really exciting point of the day had to be the fact that Bill Bailey turned up with Mrs Bailey and all the little Baileys. My friend and I squeed over this from a distance- I'm not the sort of person to go rushing up to someone just because they are famous but I do appreciate the fact that I've been within ten metres of them. It was also completely unexpected. I think Mr Bailey is about the most famous person that has turned up to an entomology gig that I've been aware of so far. I'm just holding out for Johnny Depp...
Anyway, getting away from that thought for a moment, I also got to play with a bunch of other live things (those with six legs not eight that is) including some of the most beautiful mantids I have seen yet. I managed to swap a couple of my red legged millipedes for some white legged ones which was cool and hopefully managed to encourage the people who run Metamorphosis (the ultimate livestock supplier and owners of all the mantids that I was playing with) to come in and spend some time in the collections.