Wool Masher Monthly

Isn't that a great name for a magazine? If I weren't so busy fighting crime while weaing spandex in my spare time I'd probably start it up. But then I would only make another million and lose it after having my heart broken by an unscrupulous nogooddirtydawg.

So here we go, in this first and only edition of Wool Masher Monthly.

Have had a busy day over he old dye pot. Or saucepan. You see, dude, that's the good thing about koolaid - it's nontoxic so you can change the colour of your old grey pants without needing to keep a special saucepan for it. Not that that is what I was doing. Oh dear me no.

So here is what we started off with - 300g of superwash wool all together. 100g each of white, aran cream and pale heathery green. All soaked and in 50g skeins.

Here is what we ended up with at the half way point. One of the green ones suspended over 'grape' and the two white skeins half in and out of 'lemon and lime' and 'cherry'. I love that cherry red colour.

And what happened to the two aran skeins? Well....I thought I would try something Nickerjac showed me about sprinkling the dye onto wet wool then steaming it. Except this is koolaid not proper dye and it didn't exactly work. There were a number of obstacles to be overcome.

1. The only colours I had left were ones I hadn't used before so I wasn't sure of the colours that would come out.
2. The wool wasn't wet enough.
3. The koolaid doesn't have the same permeating powers as dye.
   

Here is me trying to overcome obstacle three.

Yes folks, it's a potato masher. It came to me as if in a dream. It didn't work but it made me laugh for a while.

Anyway after about 2 hours of fidgeting about here is what I ended up with, drying off.

The grape and green. I'm liking the colours.

The cherry and lime. This one I really love.

The 'what-the-hell-dude' that obviously didn't work that well.


Does everyone else own a copy of this book. If not you seriously need to. This woman, this goddess amongst women, is the bees knees. I located the joining technique I was after and socks....socks abounded. My cup runeth over with socks. (You know I'm going to have to abbreviate this episode of Wool Masher Monthly as Pooch is getting the hump with me tapping away while we watch 'Enter the Dragon')


This is the complete pair I am wearing as my fingers strum the keyboard.

These are some for christmas presents.

And then there's these.

OK, Pooch severaly miffed now. Got to go my sweets x

Crimes against Jumpers

Behold... http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/gypsy/gypsy_lg.html

The formatting toolbar isn't working at the moment so I can't make this a link but copy and paste only when sitting down - this one is a baddy.

Plans for the weekend anyone? Personally I have dying on my mind. No, not a return to the bad old days but with Koolaid! Hooray for koolaid! I bought a load of superwash merino yesterday and plan to have my wicked way with it tomorrow. You see I am in a sock knitting frenzy and have been furiously knitting one pair that need sewing up, half of a regia 6-ply jacquard, 2/3 of a regia 4-ply stripey which I realise I have been knitting on one 2.25 and one 3.25 needle (i.e. one of each) since forgetting to substitute the second needles after finishing the first 5 rows of rib. I am now part way down the foot. Doh! I kept thinking the fabric seemed a little on the firm side.

3 whole days. 3 days! Yay. Oh I forgot to blog yesterday - but at lunchtime during a 'kung fu physics' demo I chopped a block of wood in half with my bare hand. It was terribly exciting and I have hardly stopped talking about it since. Really made me feel I had achieved something.

Have given up on the making-a-backpack idea and am instead focussed on the waiting-for-it-to-be-delivered-from-ebay idea instead. A bog standard pale blue one for a fiver which should be slightly better for me.

Do you know I feel far too doolally to actually write anything else coherent here. Sorry peeps - I'm off!

Eye candy part 2

Thanks for the comments and suggestions people - although there is one I want to discuss with you. Nick from CSI. Now Nick you would have thought meets my criteria - beefy, dark hair, fairly chisseled but NO! There is something just a little bit pathetic about him so on my list he will not go. Warwick however...now you're talking. So to continue...

• Warrick from CSI - yeah I could have found out his real name but that really isn't the point here you know. Just look and enjoy.
  
• Johnny Depp - believe me the king of kings was only left off through lack of time before. I actually found the whole pirate thing very attractive but hell you know. I'm now thinking this list is starting to reveal too much about me.
  
• The Rock - can you tell what he's cooking?Yep, another buff wrestler but this one acts too!
• Ok this really is quite shallow. Enough said I reckon.
  

Eye candy

Is that a derogatory title? I just mean these people are lovely to look at.

• Tom Ward - Silent Witness plus a voice to go all crinkly about.
• Keanu Reeves - obviously
• John Cena - WWE wrestling champion and badass
• Pooch - image to follow
• Angelina Jolie - as a straight woman I am not ashamed to say I fancy Angelina Jolie. But I never knew how hard it was to find a picture of her with her clothes on.

To be continued.....

Floating

I went and bobbed about in a flotation tank last night in London Bridge called Floatworks. I've never done that before and the experience was very worthwhile although I didn't manage to switch off that much. I do feel much more relaxed generally though today so I'll see whether that lasts.

In other news Pooch has taken to wearing his red hat...and nothing else....around the house. I thought about posting a picture and then thought how many of you it would upset and decided against.

Told my boss yesterday that I was going to do this other job and he was rather annoyed. He kept saying he wasn't annoyed with me and it was a great opportunity for me but..... He ended by advising me not to let Sean get away with it cheaply and to insist the MBA was from Cranfield or London Business School and on a massive payrise.

I've done a two needle sock in the variegated brown mercerised cotton I bought at the weekend. A lot of people think it's too rough for socks but I'm ok with it. I'm trying it out too as I quite fancy it for a jumper and this is a good way of swatching on a large scale and really trying it out. I feel I might be entering another sock knitting phase (on 2 needles of course) so it's a good time to start bashing out the xmas presents. When I was with Lucy and Lou they both complained I had never knitted them anything and Freddie started in too. Freddie has now been going out with Becky for 8 months so I think she might be a fixture for some time to come - better find out how big her feet are too.

So sorry no pictures this time....the SkipNorth website is almost ready though so if you want to be told when it goes live email me at skipnorth@hotmail.co.uk It's going to be a wicked holiday!