Oh god oh god oh god oh god

Would someone just give me a fricking job based in london that will be even vaguely interesting? Here follow some of the things I am good at but that by themselves don't seem to form any kind of profession:

• Project Management (I am a fully qualified PRINCE2 Practitioner - but this doesn't seem to count as I haven't yet had a chance to work on a PRINCE2 project or one with a budget more than £100k). Good with MS Project.
• Organising things. Anything - strategic overhauls, christmas parties, training courses, holidays, exhibitions, schedules, operational change etc etc
• Getting things done. I am completely A1 at getting things to happen faster than you thought they would.
• Public speaking. Small groups, large groups, auditoria full. CEOs, post-room boys, corporate, academic, not-for-profit. Subjects I know lots about, subjects I know little about, with slides, without slides. It's all good.
• Training - IT, soft skills, anything.
• IT - am the daddy of most Office software. Have developed websites, understand html, at a push can still remember some FORTRAN 90 (anyone who knows what that is can stop sniggering right now - it was useful once upon a time!). Photoshop. My speciality is fixing temperamental office printers/photcopiers.
• Adaptable - can turn my hand to most things.
• Flexible - travel not a problem (more knitting time - right?), hours not a problem (as long as averages as 40ish a week)
• Calm in a crisis. Patient with the passionate. Idyllic with the irritated. Afterall, I have a blog to moan on if someone is annoying me.
• Creative thinking. You want someone to think off at a tangent? That's me.

So come on...surely someone has got a job for me?
Meanwhile, knitting continues chez Byrne.

This volumous mass is the back of the fairisle jumper being knitted with proper shetland and evenything. I think it is waaaaaaaay too big but am going to leave it to 'mature' and then see what I think. Also, in the same way that the-car-behind-you-is-always-closer-than-they-appear-in-the-mirror, I am always somewhat fatter than I remember so you never know. I might have grown into it.
I realise I still haven't blogged about the wondrous UK Stitch and Bitch day last weekend. It was really really good. Much more like a gathering of friends than the mass of heaving shoppers to be found at ally pally. Much kudos to the IKnit boys and associates for their work and I'm very pleased to see they will be doing another one next year.
I spotted some tiny skeins of opal on one stand - I think it was Get Knitted.

Very cute but not quite sure what you were supposed to do with it.
The Shellac Sisters were there playing records (I seemed to know all the music they were playing which was odd). This particular sister was wearing a knitted dress that was just the most amazing thing I've seen. She very bravely submitted to my photographing her for which I'm very grateful!

The Dutch knitters tables were very well attended, in part because of the yummy food they had brought with them. They also had some amazing objects. Look at these mittens in blue and white:

I looked at them very carefully and I swear there wasn't a stitch out of place on either one. They really were beautifully made.
There was an amazing diversity of people at the show - proportionally loads more men than I saw at ally pally and the average age was much lower too. I suspected some were boyfriends dragged along but then saw these two getting down to some stitching and so revised that.

Of course one man was certainly not going to be caught there...he stayed home perfecting his pose for when he becomes a conservative MP.

So what did I buy? Well....I made a major investment in natural dye studio silk. I couldn't help it.

I plan a pacific waves shawl starting with the blue at the top and working my way down through the colours.
Also some lovely vintage patterns from the KCG Stand.

Some ToeFootSies sock yarn for me and my secret pal

And finally what started as this...

With free stitchmarker stuck on with a sticker...how cool is that?

and unwrapped into...

Mmmmm. I also met up with Alice (who I keep thinking of as "The Socktopus" but in a nice way) on the following sunday and did an interview for the podcast which I hope you'll all like (should be out next weekend).
Thought SkipNorth had suffered a set-back when our home PC went for a burton and stopped working at the weekend. Fortunately I've got the spreadsheet back so those who have booked in the last few days will be receiving a confirmation from me shortly. There are still places but book soon to avoid disappointment...
So finally - a double whammy. Cupcake calendar AND a pithy quote.

PS: Don't forget about that job