Catch up round up thing

The first edition of the only UK crafty zine I know about is out and available (but tell me if you know of others as I want to read them!). I have already emailed a couple of you for addresses as this is one of the old-school paper varieties and not some downloadable didgery. The first edition is strictly limited to 50 copies which have a hand-stitched binding and is FREE! Whoopie for ‘free’! In return all you have to do is email me and let me know what you thought of it and what changes should be made. Be constructive in your criticism but make sure you’re honest.

I’ve been away all this time taking a week of very hard earned leave from work which has meant no internet for all that time. How did I survive? Well, actually it was hell! Not only did I have no access to blogging but also no email! So there has been loads going on that I have only just heard about. One thing is that we should all be sending much love to Woolly Wormhead at the moment as she has had a bit of a set-back. I’m hoping it will be a set forward though with her fibre business but I know how something like this can herald the darkness so big hugs going her way.

Having been away means there is a lot to catch up on chez byrne. I did manage to get a little shopping done while I was away. How is it that in London you, until recently, had just 2 knitting shops, 2 bead shops and 1 stamping shop within zone 1. Then you go to Penzance and believe me when I say – this place is small. This place is so small you can walk from one end of the town to the other in 10 minutes. And that’s at my pace. Pooch could do it in 5 and Joe in about 3. And in this tiny town there were…. 2 knitting shops, 1 beadshop, 1 papercraft extravaganza and 3 other shops that had floors or sizeable sections given over to all things crafty. St Ives had a knitting shop and that is even smaller. There must be some sort of inverse square law to do with shops per square millimetre or something like that. Let me just practice my physics and whip up a small graph in excel…

One of the knitting shops in Penzance was one some of you will have seen mentioned in Vogue and other mags called “KnitWits”. This is it.

It’s not all good though. They made me, right. They MADE ME. I came out with 6 balls of this stuff.

It is SWTC Karaoke and DAMN it’s good. Fortunately they only had 6 balls otherwise I would have been in real trouble. I got a few other little bits and pieces including a fairisle thimble that helps you keep the colours separate without needing to keep dropping one and picking up another. Pretty nifty. While I was away I also popped into Taunton and saw my muvver. On top of the usual filial joy this brings it also brought 3 Elizabeth Zimmemann books. Man, that woman is gold. I am half way through the Opinionated Knitter and it is bliss to read.

I also got a classic fairisle patterns book and a few other crafty jems in a second-hand place in St Ives.

While away I managed to gather up an impressive pile of post because of all the swaps I've been doping on Swapbot. Look at these envelopes:

I thought my efforts were quite good til I saw the trouble people go to on just the envelopes. Nevermind what's inside! I have now got some lovely ATCs though and some good ideas on what to do for xmas presents so I am very happy.

I think that is just about all people have the strength to read so I’ll leave it there. Except that I did have a little hair adventure. First I had a load lopped off then I did a home dye job. The eventual outcome was fortunately not comic but I did enjoy trying out various hairstyles, such as this one, along the way!

I almost forgot. I managed to put my back out again while I was away – too much rucksack carrying I suspect. It wasn’t as bad as last time but is taking ages to recover. It has meant I wasn’t able to do the sponsored walk on Saturday and I know it doesn’t sound like me to be bummered about missing exercise but I actually am really annoyed I missed this. Some people had sponsored me and so I feel like a bit of a woos. But we did sign up as a team (the NWKTog Group) and so the others bravely walked for me and for the Children’s Society. You can still sponsor the team here. Just £1 will count.

OK, all together.....

*sigh*