Who dat?

Dat, I mean that, happens to be moi et ma soeur. Did I spell that right? I'm so out of practice.

I am on the right wearing the dress Pooch got me for xmas last year. It is Sian's birthday in about 2 weeks but she'll be away so we had a nigth out last night. She'll be 29. My little sister! Not looking too bad for a 29 year old huh?

We had terribly posh cocktails followed by very unposh dinner at Bodeans. Great fun was had by all!

Meanwhile the Kai Mei socks continue nicely. about 2/3 through the second one. Just love the concept.

And don't forget...

Secret Pal Sign Ups Close Tomorrow!

Go here to sign up.

UK Ravelry Day

Had a lovely day yesterday. Despite the fairly torrential rain! Really felt for the organisers. If it had been last weekend it would have been perfect. As it was everyone made the most of it - I saw one person improvising by using a plait of roving as a scarf. Now that's cunning. 3 people said hello to me after recognising my skirt (the one made out of curtain fabric) and 1 said she recognised me from my voice and others asked for more podcasts. I have been thinking about doing another one but it's just actually sitting down and doing it that's the thing.

The one low point for me was the talk by Meg thingy - EZ's daughter. If someone had paid me to come over from america to talk about my mum I'd do more than just read out of one of her books for 20 mins. That was all she had prepared, apart from the original baby surprise jacket. The rest was depedant on the audience asking questions. Contrast that with what Stephanie Pearl McPhee did at the IKnit day last year and there's just no comparison.

I got some beautiful yarns, buttons and geegaws. This is some Araunacia.

Plus a KnitPro needle to try.

Plus an added bonus - Jane gave me some awesome embroidery transfers. Robots, science and mexican wrestling!

This is obviously my queue for some more pant embroidery. Woo ha!

It's undoubtedly irrational but the "Meg" experience has made me wary of booking for the sessions for the IKnit weekender - that and the fact they are £20-£35 each. All the details are up on the website though so take a look.

It's official - Poor Me

Within the last week and going from past to most recent:

• Fallen over running for the bus = bruises, scuffed palms, wrenched muscle, which only becomes apparent over the weekend.
• Get the sickness bug that's been going around and spend 36 hours convinced am going to be sick.
• Wrenched muscle (in bosom area, directly below left breast) (my left) gets more painful. Miss a night's sleep and end up on prescription pain killers.
• Gave blood. This in itself was fine but the painkillers were stopping my blood clotting as well as usual so start bleeding again and end up fainting.
• Hospital appt with handsome italian to personally examine my freckles. It's not skin cancer but is a non-NHS prescription so ££££. OK, so the italian actually made this a good thing on balance.
• Root canal at dentist. Am in the chair for an hour and he drills into a nerve (which is one of my long-time nightmares) which wasn't his fault at all but caused me to leave the chair and instinctively grab hold of him which was very suprising to both of us.

So yeah, poor me. It's been quite a week. The only thing keeping me going is the thought of the Ravelry Day in Coventry at the weekend. That and my sock. I have sock love. Isn't this beautiful?

I am so loving it, and the pattern is very easy once you get going. It's an excellent book - best knitting book I've bought in a long time. I'm about 2/3 through the first one.

Of course the big news is that...

SECRET PAL 14 SIGN-UPS ARE OPEN!

I am one of the hostesses this time round and I am looking forward to it. Go along to the blog to find out more. And do sign up - you can choose to have a pal in this country if you're not wanting to spend on postage at the mo and you can choose to spend as little as $30 or up to $90, depending on your budget.

She doesn't just knit

When the spirit takes me I sew too. Not as well as A Mingled Yarn, but I do it nonetheless. In the past 24 hours I have knocked out three skirts, all of which I am terribly pleased with and all of which were completely from fabric stash.

The first is from the curtain leftovers.

A straight a-line with a zip and button fastening. Strictly speaking it's too heavy for clothes but I love the print so I've just gone for it.

The second is the same shape but longer.

It's a slightly stretchy cotton mix so didn't need a waist fastening - just some shaping.

The last is my favourite - you know I do love my polka dots.

It is one of those proper circle skirts so has excellent movement...

....check out those pins. Also with a zip and button waist.

I couldn't have done any of these without my beautiful sewing machine with its button setting. Plus of course the book "Sew What! Skirts" which I can really recommend if you're interested in making some simple skirts to your own measurements.

I have also finished my wonderful blue cotton cardi. Hoorah for warm weather!

So nice to be knitting something other than baby blankets!

I have great plans to start Kei Mai from Cookie A's book which finally arrived from Amazon. I got a beautiful skein of Malabrigo sock from I Knit yesterday and just need to disentangle a circ from a boring ongoing sock so I can get going.

Yoiks, splendid, ghastly and other useful words

Just because you don't hear some words very often doesn't mean they are not good words. 'Splendid' is literally a splendid word. Juicy. Full of meaning. 'Ghastly' also. I won't stop using them however much people have taken to sniggering when I do.

So...yoiks! It's been two weeks since I last posted which is pretty ghastly. However, I have some splendid photos to share so stand by.

I'm going to break with tradition and actually talk abou knitting first before launching into the rest of my trivia. I am thoroughly sick of baby knitting and having seen a rather dishy cardigan in monsoon with a price tag of £50 thought "I can do that from stash" and got to it. The yarn seems to have been used as a dog bed at some point in it's past so as soon as it's finished it will be getting a nice bath but it is coming along nicely.

It just goes to show the benefits of aran weight yarn - it's taken me less than a week to get to this point.

Of course some would say there had been more serious events going on that my knitting (they would be wrong - but they say it anyway). Last night saw poor ManUtd lose the something league. It was a tense last 10 mins at our house.

The scarf-round-the-head of exhibit B is a trick that had never previously failed when it came to generating luck - but last night not even that could create 2 last minute goals. Pooch, it need hardly be said, was not a happy bunny.

Fortunately I have a photo from happier times to share too - when we went to the local park for a picnic over the bank holiday weekend.

It was really lovely. Less than 10 mins walk away and the first time I'd been there despite living here for more than three years now.

A mixture of gardens, grass, amazing trees and a beautiful lake.

Featuring baby coots - or cootlings as I like to think of them. Some of the trees really were amazing too. Check this out:

You can picture it walking around Lord of the Rings style.

So there we go - that summarises my last two weeks. Except to briefly mention that the BSC element of the membership at work is in full swing once again so work is once again like being at the wrong end of a firing range. Ah well. I am a hostess in Secret Pal 14 so that is about to swing into action and keep things busy. I'll post here when it opens but there is also a group on Ravelry.

"Bat shit crazy" derivation

If you type this into google you get one useful link.

From everything2.com:

bat-shit crazy, a. (often abbreviated to bat-shit)

Of persons : Not of sound mind, mad, insane, deranged, lunatic. Also to describe any state of frenzied rage, violence, excitement or intoxication. No longer in formal medical use.

Of ideas : To describe any bizarre, unfounded, heretical or otherwise objectionable belief or proposition.

For usage see e.g. 1390 Gower Conf. I. 46 For certes such a maladie, It myghte make a wisman batt shitte. 1507 Shakes Hamlet II.ii Pol : Mad call I it; for, to define true madness, what is't but to be bat-shit? 1910 S. Freud in Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. XXI. 193, I called this hypothetical state Fledermäuse-Scheiße (‘bat-shit’) and considered it was proved by the undeniable existence of resistance.

Of unknown derivation. Possibly :
1) A corruption of the term "batty", see also "bats in the belfry".
2) Relating to the hallucinatory effects of smoking the dried faeces of the Smoking Bat Amorphochilus schnablii.

To me those usages look a little suspect, and although I have heard it said by people who were doctors, or at least knew doctors, I don't think it has ever been in formal medical use - but it's a nice thought.

I have been thinking about this literally all day - where does the phrase come from? And all I can find is this teenage website of waffle. So disheartening. The reason I have been thinking about it though will soon become apparent.

Every professional body, membership organisation, group, congregation, gathering, collection etc of people has a certain percentage who are crazy. I'm not talking medically - I just mean they are so off the scale they think world peace just needs everyone to do what they say and eat acorns or something equally weird. They think the world is against them because they have brown eyes, not because they don't wash and abuse anyone who doesn't immediately agree with their impractical ideas. They go on about their ideas at length, get obsessed about trivialities of how the organisation is run and inevitably end up going off in a dramatic strop and trying to start a rival org with the other crazies. These people are a very small minority but account for a large proportion of the administrative work of the orgs because if you work for an org like that you can't just say "go away crazy" - you have to try and be rational and polite with them. If I were forced to make up a totally random figure based on personal experience of working with or for three such organisations I would say about 0.1%. That's 1 in a thousand for those non-knitters reading this. But the important thing is that every body has them and when they go crazy in the modern age, they do it online.

Picture a traditional organisation representing a proud profession. It has offices in central london which include a business centre - really an airy room with some nice chairs, a sofa and wifi with carefully chosen professional magazines on the sturdy, modern yet traditional coffee table. Now picture a crazy going into this place, because they are a member and therefore you can't stop them unless they start stealing the sugar sachets again, and meeting another crazy. Now imagine the second one (who's only role in life is to prove that there really is someone for everyone) "romances" the first in this business centre. Now imagine that the first writes about it on her website (crazy is equal opps) and describes the expensive leather modern yet traditional, sturdy sofa as "eminently suitable for the purpose". Then imagine she hacks into the website of the commercial arm of that body and turns it into a leacherous dating site, but giving the contact details and address of that organisation.

Now that is bat shit crazy. It's also quite funny for others working for similar organisations in the same way people reportedly laugh with relief when someone next to them gets killed but they survive unscathed.

Crazies, there is no doubt, cause a great deal of work and often misery for staff at these kind of organisations. I suspect they think they are doing it for the best - but possibly in the same way as the inquisition torturers did. While occasionally crazies can act as good team building material (whatever the differences between finance and sales you can all agree when someone is BSC and join to speculate as to their motives and personal habits) coming under fire from one does not make up for it in the long run. Sadly the crazies at the org I work for aren't as amusing as the romanced one in the example above - quite possibly because we are trying to close our equalivalent of a business centre due to financial cuts. Perhaps if we got the crazies together and let them romance each other they would be happier? Or at least stop sending me emails.

Reports of my death slightly exaggerated, mainly by me

Turned out not to be pig flu - just a rotten cold which has left me wheezing like a portable church organ. Ah well. Gave me some bed-time to do some knitting, listen to some audio books and go through old patterns I had filed and weed out the unworthy. In doing this I had a chance to have a proper go over some vintage patterns I bought last weekend in Greenwich Market.

Isn't that great? It reminds me of this blog where she tells stories based on the illustrations of dress patterns from around the same era. It's a good blog and worth dipping in to every now and again. Going back to the booklet it has that pattern and some wonderful embroidery ideas too. I am thinking of doing it for my mum for christmas. Apart from the patterns what I like most about these types of things are the adverts. Reflect, for a moment, upon this one:

What is it, exactly, that would have been 'soluble'? The mind boggles. Or what about this one?

I find this a bit confusing. There is no date on the magazine but it does have adverts relating to coupons and the war so it must be somewhere before rationing ended. I guess it must have been after the war ended and is celebrating that because we don't need to produce airplanes anymore we can put that steel back into knitting needles?!

And then this one just goes to show there is nothing new in marketing. They were playing on the "but I thought it was white" paranoia of parents even half a century ago.

Not being a parent myself I find it hard to believe most parents actually worry about this. Should I ever succomb I am certainly not going to dress the enfant terrible in white. That's just asking for trouble. It's bad enough with pooch.

One of the other patterns is especially twee.

Looks like two broomsticks wearing booties and a fake head. But the booties are rather cute!

A while back I reported that my foliage plant thing has unexpectedly flowered. well, it's now gone into overdrive and has not just flowered, but mutant flowered. Is this normal?

I have no idea and the internet seems as suprised as I am.

Tutley asked about the shoe painting. The original article which got me interested was in the now defunct CRAFT magazine but there is a "how to" here. The paints are Lumiere and you need to use some kind of floor sealant (?) as a varnish which makes sure the colours don't run and is flexible so won't crack. I actually got my paints etc from the website whose owner wrote the article but they don't seem to ship to the UK. I am sure you can get similar at hobbycraft or by googling and at least the sassyfeet website gives you names of everything you need. I wore my painted shoes last week and received many (two) compliments. Very pleased with them.

Lastly, having not been outside for 2 days and having spent most of that thinking I was going to die any minute, what would a girl do but decide to dye her denise needles. It is well known that I *love* my Denises. I have long been interested in dyeing them and have often considered getting another set just so I could get these. But then I joined the denise diva group on ravelry a while back and recently caught up on this thread about dyeing your denise needles. The people on there were largely american so I decided to try about some Dylon. Lo and behold....

I used the little tins (which on investigation they don't seem to do anymore. I assume these are the same?) and a good blob of salt in some tupperware that I had no intention of using again. Mixed it with boiling water. Chucked in the needles. Microwaved on high for 2 mins. Left to cool for half an hour. Zapped again for 30 secs. Left to cool then rinsed. I used a whole tin of Madonna Blue. Am going to be getting some more colours next week to do the rest!

Neddle eeedle eeedelooooo

I am almost dead. It's either the early stages of pig flu or a perfectly normal cold. Bleh. I've been using my bed rest to cough one of these into existence. It's a for a swap.

I know I'm happy with something when I don't want to give it away. It's the same with this and with a pink and white stripe baby top I'm about 1/3 way through. It's on ravelry here but not enough of it to show off yet. I am happy to show this off though!

I do rather like it. Just wish I wasn't so crook so I could go out in it. Bleh.

L is for....

Letter. Which is what Ms Mutley gave me after i asked her for one in this post. So...blog about 10 things beginning with the letter L. Hmmmmm. It's not an easy challenge but I have an excellent first step.


1+2. Lucy (left) and Louise (right).

These are my two best friends ever. This was at Lucy's wedding in 2007, a week after mine. And now Louise is getting married this year within a week of when Lucy got married. Hurrah!


3. Lime

I wish limes were sweeter - then I could just eat them like apples. Whenever I get the chance of something a bit limey I'm happy to step forward. Mojito's, especially, I'm always up for.

4. Lixie-ness

Ok, a bit lame. But I do quite like being Lixie.

5. Ladybird trainers

6. Geez, there really aren't that many things I can think of that I like that begin with L. Llamas don't really move me. Labels, lizards, leprechauns, lilos, lilies, lesbians - meh. Am I really to be defeated? At a mere 5? I guess I'll have to come back to this another time. Am so dissappointed in myself though.

Wait....wait....

6. Lemonade!

I had a particularly nice organic raspberry lemonade when Pooch and I went out for breakfast yesterday. I had lots of time to take pics cause the service was pants. Still, at least the lemonade was good. Here I am, patiently waiting for my breakfast.

Pooch brought me back that hat from a craft market in San Francisco. It's nice!

This weekend I have also been painting shoes. It's something I read about ages ago in a copy of CRAFT. I got some of the paints and sealant and....bobs your uncle. This is the site. And these are the shoes!

I should have taken before and after photos but forgot. The red glittery ones were a cheapy black pair from tescos. The stripey ones were a very pale pink suede type ones that had got dirty. Now they live again!

Now finally...knitting has been going well. This is the not-a-poncho coat I started as soon as I got back from SkipNorth. I wore it yesterday. There are a number of things wrong with it but hey, I made it up as I went along and I'm pretty pleased overall.

Fun at WWE

We (pooch and I) went to see WWE Raw at the O2, formerly known as The Dome, last night. Talk about entertainment! I snapped a few videos which you can see here which show how close we were to both the ring and the runway and indicate the noise level. A lot of the shouting on the videos is actually me. Did a lot of shouting. I took a lot of photos but have managed to select just a few to thrill you with.

First up Pooch and I spent some time on sunday making a sign.

This is an important part of the experience. It also makes it easier to spot yourself on TV and yep, we were on there. Woo ha!

This gives you an idea of what it was like inside. It was pretty packed and the atmosphere was brill. Our seats were excellent, not that we really sat in them much, and we had an excellent view.

Both my heroes were there - John Cena, who is also in two of the videos, although he got boo'd a lot. Such a shame as I think he's lovely.

And then also Triple H (or HHH).

This is home during his entrance, which is very impressive. The matches were awesome. Batista was also there and was brill - really friendly so the kids on either side of the runway and joking about with the referees even though he's 6'7" and really built. Here he is showing off with Triple H after one of the matches.

And then there was Randy Orton who's a third generation WWE guy. Feast on this.

He was close enough to lick. What a body! And he is such a bad boy. Mmmmmm. I think he might knock Cena off the top spot in my heart.

A*N*Y*W*A*Y........

I was doing a spot of blog surfing at the weekend and saw this post on Ms Mutley's blog. I asked her for a letter and have duly received one. My next post will do it justice!

Blossom

This is what I am walking past twice a day at the moment.

Canada Water tube station, as tube stations go, is pretty nicely situated. This line of trees along a cobbled path (with paved option for slippery days) and a dock with ducks and swans. Yes there are cars and buses, but the blossom makes up for a fair amount of that at the moment.

We went for dinner with some friends last night who are due to have their first baby in 3 months. I remembered I'd promised a pink baby blanket and so cast on yesterday morning.

It's some of the yarn from SkipNorth - Winghams to be precise. I bought it with this project in mind and it is pretty nice to use. It's a rippled blanket except the ripples are on each of the 4 sides of a square. It's the first time I've used the ochert beginning and it worked pretty well. Might need to try it a few more times to get it looking properly neat.

For the last project I started I made some stitchmarkers so I thought I'd do the same for this one. I've had these beads waiting for a rainy day, but I had to work on all of those, so I made them yesterday instead.

I want to make some like those I've seen advertised on ravelry that say things like 'crap', 'bollocks' or 'bugger'. They would also suit my style of knitting pretty well.

To finish, the can-you-guess-what-it-is-yet image from my last post was actually this:

Now you can see my dilemma. Nic assures me she'll make it clear it refers to crochet but your average joe is going to think little Pete has developed an early taste for steak. It just never occurred to me at the time. Doh.

I'm going to be embroidering some newborn t-shirts for Pooch's sister and her husband soon too. Now they are pretty religious so I've been considering what to add. Not being religious myself I'm not sure what is appropriate so let me know what you think of these....

• Faith, hope and love - but the greatest of them all is love
• Love covers a multitude of sins
• Let the little children come to me
• Love is patient, love is kind
• Obey your parents in all things, for this is pleasing to the lord
• Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God

What do you think? Any good or something else?

MoFoBloJob

Pooch asked me how mofoblowjob was going. Yeah...not so good. I think I might just quietly retire. I did ok for the first 10 days or so but to be honest - my life just isn't that interesting and I don't knit that fast. Every 3/4 days is about right for me.

Having said that...lots going on chez byrne.

I'm not one to blow my own trumpet - asked to describe myself I would choose words like demure, modest, etc. But this week - I have been looking good. I mean goooooooood. I only have a pic from Wed which Pooch took, so is naturally out of focus. But still, I look good.

The day after I wore a turquoise vintage number with heels. Today I was in a brown polka dot wrap with boots. What's the occasion? Nothing special. Just a passing comment about burkas made me consider whether I was getting a little boring with my clothing. I think this general feeling or joie de vivre is also why I visited Schu on the way home and snagged these.

In case I've never mentioned it before - I do just absolutely fricking ADORE polka dots.

I got home tonight to find a surprise waiting for me. Look at this:

I thought it was just a foliage type plant. Now there are two flowers coming! Apparently they are going to look like this.

Awesome!

Now lastly....can you guess what it is yet?

Actually, I'm a bit worried about it. I just want everyone to know - I don't mean the meat. It didn't occur to me before. I hope it will be clear.