Red Sox traveling scarf

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!