Longleat Love

I had the most AMAZING day yesterday. I have wanted to go to Longleat since I first saw the lovely Ben Fogle looking scared of the tigers on the BBC back in 2000. Even though my Mum's house is much closer to it than london it was still a 2 hour drive each way, punctuated by me stopping to take pictures of fields and sky, such as this one.

I have been thinking of doing a fairisle in landscape colours since a discussion with Nickerjac on a drive back from SkipNorth. I have been collecting bad photos of the landscape since then. Then a query on twitter led me to a colour palette generating tool. 

I chose this one because it gives you 5 colours and a choice of dull or vibrant whereas a lot of the others - google, there are loads - give you 10-20 colours which is too many for fairisle. Or too many for what I had in mind. I am yet to find my perfect landscape but it will occur at some point and then I'll be on to Jamiesons for the wool. 

Back to Longleat - it is the seat of the Marquess of Bath and consists of an enoooormous house, an animal centre with things like guinea pigs and bats and then a mahoosive safari park which has all the wild animals you can think of. Prepare yourself for many, many photos. I am not going to go into it all blow by blow as that would take about 3 pages of text so these are the highlights. 

1. Boat Ride around gorilla island where we saw the silverback gorilla who gets grumpy when it is "too hot, too cold, too wet or too windy" so was obviously grumpy. Hippos and sealions also in the lake. Real, big hippos. 

2. Feeding the Rainbow Lorikeets. I had one on each shoulder, two on each wrist and then one landed on my head. 

3. Holding a python called Sir Hiss. (No photo of this - the downside of doing these things alone is no one to hold a camera.)

4. Seeing an escapee American Chipmunk in a beautiful rose garden.

5. Watching a rhino take a mud bath and wriggle to squidge about in it.

6. Having a tiger walk nonchalantly right by the car - about 2 metres away. 

7. Watching a tiger try to catch a squirrel. There's actually a very poor quality video of that here. This is it pretending it's cool afterwards. (It is cool.)

8. Seeing the lions lying on their backs, legs akimbo, enjoying the sunshine.

9. Zebra bottoms

My top thing for the whole day has to be the Lorikeets. The word 'hard-boiled' kept coming into my head and I realised they made me think of wool which has been felted and has gone quite robust and tough. They did look a bit like normal sized parrots which had shrunk in a hot wash and their expressions were so grumpy - as if they had just felted their best jumpers by accident. But then when I occasionally tried to shoo one of the zillion hanging off me away it would just look at my hand with this world weary expression and give my finger a little nip. Not in a violent way - just to indicate that they had been shoo'd away by better people then me and so I might as well give up. 

I do like animals with attitude. Awesome creatures. 

If you were so inclined you can see all my Longleat photos here. I would 100% recommend visiting and that's without actually having made it into the house. My Mum was a bit worried about the animals being cramped but look at this:

That is just a bit of where the giraffe, rhinos, zebras, camels and a few others hang out. They are free to wonder all over the place and they are all in excellent condition. 

Today looks like being the best weather I'll get down here so I'm up for a quick run into Minehead to look in all the charity shops and a trip to the best fudge shop in the world. Then back here to lounge in my sun lounger and do a bit of knitting in the sun. Knit knit knit. 

Il Pleut

I am on holiday and at such times, even though I am only in Somerset, I feel the urge to break into French. A minor problem is that my french got as far as GCSE and then went down hill in the intervening 16 years. So it's a bit franglais only without the talent true franglais requires.

Imaginer mon surprise quand je saw le pub sign ici.

How I ended up in Malmesbury is again one of those things that can only be understood when you consider my quite obscene lack of any sense of direction. And this is even with a satnav. Ah yes, dear Liam, who has done so much for Nickerjac and I on our trips to SkipNorth, again saved the day in getting me from A to B and I wouldn't have ended up in Malmesbury had I not got it into my head to pop to Cirencester using road signs alone and then got lost. 

Liam did rejoin me to do the right thing in getting me to Lacock where my sister lives and where such tour de forces as Pride and Pejudice, Cranford and Harry Potter have been filmed. Not having seen any of these (although I have admired the mitts) this means nothing to me but she says anyone who has watched those should recognise this. 

It is an amazingly picturesque place without being quaint and 'ye olde' about it. I would recommend a visit if you're in the area.

What will I be doing with my week in the deep south? The plan so far is...

• Boot Fair today (not going to happen because it is pouring  - really pouring - with rain)
• Longleat when it is raining less
• Visit Bath as I never have and there is a quilt museum amongst other things. 
• Knit knit knit
• Read read read

I have rented a car so I will also be doing lots of tootling around looking at the surrounding countryside, collecting clouds. I believe I have mentioned this book before:

And the accompanying one:

And I saw many fine examples while driving yesterday. But being a safe driver I didn't try to photograph them while driving. You need traffic jams for that, a la Crazy Aunt Purl. So if the rain stops and some non-blanket clouds appear expect regular cloud updates on twitter and on here. 

Now where was I...

I literally sit at my desk and say this out loud 10+ times a day. I have one of those jobs where it is rare for me to be doing something without interruption for more than a few minutes at a time. Phonecalls and colleagues combine to keep things fairly varied and I actually rather like it as it's hard to get terribly bored when you can only do one thing for a few mins at a time without a break. But it does mean that I frequently forget what I was doing and so muttering my little mantra seems to help me focus again.

Blogging is something that seems to have been interrupted by life recently. More than 2 weeks since my last post and lots of fairly disconnected things have happened. For example, I have a FO.

The pattern is Prism (Rav link) and is free, simple and quite effective, just how I like my patterns and my men.

I also received an awesome swap parcel from the Spring/Summer Swap via the UK Swap Group on Ravelry.

My awesome benefactor was none other than PurlPower who I am pleased to see has been suitably spoilt by her own sender. The piece de resistance has to be the handkerchief.

Isn't that amazing? I'm torn between using it and framing it.

In between knitting I've been doing some sewing. One FO is this dress for my mum.

I made myself the exact same dress in the exact same fabric and love it. I know making her the same one is a little sarah-ferguson-freaky but she lives in somerset so we're rarely at the same gala events so I think it'safe. I've since made her another in red gingham which is her favourite fabric but I'm not as sure about it as the other one. I am due to go down to visit them on saturday for a little holiday so will see what she thinks of it then. Of course being my mother she'll say it's amazing whatever she actually thinks but I can also take the scissors to it if it doesn't look right.

In what is now a rare foray into yarn shopping I bought two balls of Kauni with the idea of swatching for a fairisle/intarsia jumper I've had in mind for a while. Kauni is so hard to photograph so just do what you can with this, complete with bits of authentic detritus that always seem to appear in Kauni as in Noro.

The idea was for a cloud jumper or cardigan so off I went....

...but that colourway didn't give me the contrast I was after. I'm now wondering about using the kauni as the background colour and dyeing something for the clouds in a more variegated white/grey colourway. Thoughts?

Then of course while all this frankly usual creative stuff has been going on there is Project Humphrey tootling along in the background. We are now up to 5 dates with a 6th planned for friday. He continues to be highly entertaining although things got awkward last weekend when a conversation I started produced the most accurate impersonation of a rabbit caught in headlights that I've ever seen. And I've scared* a lot of men in my time.

Despite that things do look pretty good so that's one vote from me for matchaffinity.com, just in case anyone is considering having a go at online dating.



* When looking on Flickr CC for a photo to illustrate this I came across this: "Scare Bear".

No longer available which is fecking annoying. I so want one.

Transitions

It has struck me recently that while some change is sudden and life changing, life more often transitions from one stage to another. A bit like the seasons. We did have a hot week in April but since then it has been highly changeable and more 'spring' like. Today is warm and sunny as we transition into summer. 

Last night I went to see Cleopatra at Sadler's Wells. It was amazing. I am not a fan of very traditional tutu type ballet, but the Northern Ballet Theatre always produce spectacular shows that combine great dancing with innovative costumes and sets. I cyber stalk them so when I knew they had a new show coming out I was ready to book the day tickets were released - about 6 months ago. Since then I had forgotten what kind of ticket I had booked and so was very pleasantly surprised to find myself in the centre of the Stalls, 3 rows from the front.

When I booked the ticket I had recently moved out of the flat Pooch and I had shared and was staying at a friend's flat in Elephant and Castle. I was worried about money but also knew I deserved a treat so went for the top price ticket. Thinking back, I can remember sitting on the sofa that first night, wrapped in a duvet, and shivering because I couldn't get warm. And today here I am, months later, sitting on a sofa in a different flat where I now live by myself, thinking about a second date I'll be going on tomorrow with Humphrey. While the end of the marriage happened during the course of an overheard conversation that lasted less than 5 minutes, the transition to single woman has been much slower and slightly more gentle. 

It all makes me think of my most favourite experience, one that I rate higher than anything else now that the marriage is over. As the last guide ropes are loosened and as the warm air fills the silk, life is ready to lift off again. 

To float over some old ground. 

And some less familiar.

Before landing again, who knows where. 

Lixie's Adventures with Gentlemen Chapter 3

I have had a number of DMs and texts asking how it all went on Saturday, when I was due to meet Humphrey for the first time.

We met at that romantic destination of choice - Waterloo station.

He immediately got us lost which I took to be a good sign since I am also geographically challenged so could tell how much we had in common straight away. We meandered around the Southbank for more than an hour chatting away and generally laughing. Then got a drink and managed to carry on talking for another 4 hours.

We said our goodbyes and have since arranged to meet again next weekend. Since then we have started following each other on twitter which lead to a memorable email from him which simply said, "Humphrey?". Bless.

I Love This Bracelet

I first saw this type of bracelet when the talented Heather Murray came along to (possibly the first?) SkipNorth and was wearing it. It sparkled on her wrist and was extremely eye catching. 

Fast forward about 5 years and I finally made one of my own. 

Fast forward another year and I wear it a lot and am wondering why I don't make them in all the colours of the freaking rainbow (except the ones that make me look jaundiced. Jaundiced wrist = not sexy.)

The pattern is free and is on Ravelry here. It is well written and let's face it - this is garter stitch, so the hardest thing about the whole project is threading the beads. But if you've got half an hour and a television it is soon done. 

That Heather Murray - she's one clever lady. She knitted her own wedding dress and, unlike many that appear from time to time on the less charitable sites, such as regretsy, this one looked beautiful. And she not only designed this jumper for her City and Guilds, she also dyed the wool herself and knit the whole thing on 2.5mm needles. AND as if that wasn't enough, she brought it as a carryalong project on another SkipNorth and knitted it while chatting. If that was me, doing fairisle on 2.5 mils with 12 background colours, it would be solitary confinement, damp flannel on forehead and occasional cackling.  

So here endeth the impromptu lovefest. It's just that I wore my bracelet again yesterday and spent some time last night considering how awesome it was. Because that's my kind of Friday night. 

Lixie's Adventures with Gentlemen Chapter 2

Chapter 1 obviously went really well. Yup. So I was on a roll for Chapter 2.

I decided to stick with the same ploy - man on bench in the sun - and found one in a park near work at lunchtime. No wedding ring - check. The last one hadn't had one either but at least I was on the look out this time. I sit down. I look around a bit.

Me: Hi. Do you want to have a conversation?

MWIAWWS: --- 

Me: Hello?

MWIAWWS: Huh? Oh sorry, I was asleep, what was that?

Me: Oh sorry. I was just saying hello. 

Man Who is Asleep While Wearing Sunglasses: Oh, well, I'm just really tired. 

Me: Abort! Abort!

So thus far through Chapter 2, what had I learnt? Possibly that the whole men-on-benches thing was a bit too random. The time had come. I was going to have to sign up to a dating site. 

Fast forward to last Thursday and, following advice from Tweeters and Ravellers, there I am messaging a few interesting sounding men. One, let's call him 'Humphrey' since he's a civil servant which just makes me think of "Yes, Minister", made a particular impression and we have now reached the email address stage. For those not in the know (and how I envy you) it goes...

• messaging via the site (all anonymous apart from username and whatever info/pics you post)
• exchanging emails
• telephone numbers
• personal meeting
• fluids

You don't have to go through all 5 steps and the timescales are variable, but that's basically it. So far he seems pretty funny and of course it's impossible to tell at this stage but it's quite fun and harmless which is what I was looking for. 

I have been poorly all weekend which is insanely irritating, but I did manage to do a bit of knitting (more on the grey cardigan), crochet (more on the ripple blanket) and churn out some more home furnishings. I had been looking for a little lamp since I moved in and found them all boring. So I finally bought a bland, cheap one and covered it in leftover fabric from the curtains. 

And not content with the quantity of polka dots in the flat, combined with a realisation that glass coffee tables need fairly regular cleaning, I used another random piece of fabric to make a little tablecloth. 

The red and white polka dot theme is definitely developing well. 

Right, off to reply to Humphrey's latest. 

Radical Honesty

It seems like I have learnt a lot from american television shows. Although if you consider hours of tv watched against amount learnt it's probably not that even. In "Lie to Me" when you first meet the geeky young Eli he is being radically honest. It intrigued me at the time because I do lie a lot (not about important stuff - just to make things more interesting), but my default is to tell the truth and that confuses people because they think I'm joking when I do. Anyway, that was my first introduction to it and I read up on it and did an experiment and then forgot. The experiment was last year and I asked out a guy I have fancied the pants off for some months but who is so utterly unsuitable as for it to be practically a 'Friends' storyline. He genuinely thought I was joking and each time he asked me if I was really asking him out and I said 'yes' he took it as sarcasm and so it never went anywhere. 

Source: imgfave.com via Alex on Pinterest

Then they used Radical Honesty on a recent episode of Bones. I love Bones. I relate to Brennan quite a lot and wouldn't mind relating to Booth ifyouknowwhatimean. There was a debate between Brennan and Booth which went a bit but probably not much like this because I'm doing this from memory. 

Brennan: I think Radical Honesty is a good thing as it means people can work much more efficiently together. 

Booth: That's fine as long as you take peoples' feelings out of the equation. But as soon as you add them back in you need to have the little white lies that show you care and don't want to hurt people. 

Obviously there's a reason why I don't write screenplays and I've undoubtedly done Bones a massive disservice by misquoting all that well-tuned prose but you get the drift.  

I have been thinking about giving this Radical Honesty thing a try. But then I keep holding back because of Booth's well-made and badly quoted point about caring for the feelings of others. But then this highlights my dilemma. I have this ridiculous, pointless, pathetic crush on this guy. It's the same one as in the previous example. Since that incident he has acquired a girlfriend and if there is one thing the last 6 months has taught me it is that One Does Not Go There so it's not even as if I want to act on this crush. But it is unflushable - I can't ditch it. It's like being a schoolgirl again and hoping he sits at your table at lunchtime. It is really annoying too because he is utterly unsuitable, not attractive, not my type at all, we have no shared interests and live very different lifestyles and he often comes out with things that make him sound like a real twat. In fact if something did happen between us I would probably be quite repulsed. It's just so goddamn irrational and I have already tried to get over it in all the ways I can think of but none have worked. So, as a last resort, I have considered radical honesty. I could just tell him. "Hey you. I really really fancy the pants off you but cannot work out why and have no intention of acting on it. So now that's out there let's all just get on with our lives." No. Even as I write that I can tell this is not going to work. But it does seem like it would be a relief to just get it out there. 

The wiki page says "The program asserts that lying is the primary source of modern human stress and that practitioners will become happier by being more honest, even about painful or taboo subjects" It is a bit of gamble though. I just *have* to stop fancying him though because it's fricking ridiculous. 

I've been rambling on about the inside of my foul mind for the last few posts so let's do some non-mental stuff. Doesn't this look awesome?

I spent A Lot of time on the river at the weekend going to and from the Watercolour exhibition at Tate Britain. I had always thought Watercolour was a very specific type of paint that came in little hard cubes and you added water too and it was transparent. 

BUT it turns out that Watercolour is defined as pigment suspended in a water soluble medium. So that means it essentially covers everything apart from Oil Paints. This surprised me but it was a nice surprise as it meant the exhibition contained some nice goache and acrylic numbers that I probably wouldn't have otherwise seen ever. 

I do like travelling by boat. If you're not a Londoner and come for a visit try taking the Thames Clipper for a couple of stops. It's cheaper than those noisy tourist boats and you can still sit outside. It gives you a different perspective on very familiar things.

Plus having read far too much detective fiction in my time I like to keep my eye out for floating bodies. What? Nothing weird about that. It's not like I've ever seen one. My sister has a friend who is on the murder squad of the Met and I asked him if he could find out how many bodies were found floating in the Thames in an average year but he said No. Very sad. Meanwhile back at chez Byrne it looked like Hurricane Craftina had swept through as I had so many part completed projects on the go. Half a dress for muvver, half a skirt for me, parts of a summer cardigan, looking something like this:

...and as for the windows:

It looks a bit jobby but that's the benefit of window crayons - they come off with water and you can start all over again. 

To finish, just when you thought this blogpost couldn't get any more random, here is a heart shaped leaf. 

This is the sign that I really do need to start dating. If nothing else it may put me off men so utterly that I get over my crush. If you know a man who meets the criteria in my previous blogpost then send him over. Must have his own teeth, not be an alcoholic and not try and borrow money off me. I know - I'm picky. 

The Final Analysis

I have signed up for a free trial of a dating site. As part of the sign up you get a personality report. It's all quite interesting (who doesn't like reading about themselves) but I thought the final summary was worth a post here, just to keep in mind. 

Given your most obvious qualities, it would be great for you to meet the kind of partner:

• Who appreciates your need for time spent one-to-one rather than being with lots of people.
• Who shares his feelings with you and feels good about you expressing yours.
• Who listens to you and supports you in practical ways when times get tough.
• Who's able to accommodate when you stick to your guns.
• Who's happy with your direct, straight way of communicating.
• Who can be intuitive.
• Who is as organised and conscientious as you are.
• Who enjoys the relationship here-and-now, day-to-day.
• Who looks at the positive side of things and is optimistic.
• Who welcomes your emotions and expresses his freely.

You'd also really like it if your future partner:

• Isn't too clingy and smothering.
• Lets you cherish and take care of him.
• Is happy to spend some of his free time doing things together.
• Is happy to make joint plans for the future.
• Likes to be physically affectionate.
• Shares your intellectual interests and is able to talk to you on a wide range of subjects.

So there's my checklist for when I eventually venture out.

Make a Clock, using your favourite fabric

This is an idea that popped into my head a few weeks ago and I finally made mine yesterday so thought I'd share the process. 

You will need:

• A clock mechanism with hands (see note below about this)
• An embroidery hoop of the size you want your clock to be
• A piece of fabric big enough to fill your embroidery hoop
• Waste cardboard at least as tall as your embroidery hoop plus 2 cm.
• A pen
• (not shown) Glue suitable for sticking card to wood
• (not shown) Scissors

A note on clock mechanisms: You can get these quite cheaply in a number of craft shops and online. I do not like the sound of ticking and so I looked for something called a "continuous sweep" mechanism. Otherwise any clock mechanism will do. I found mine on ebay where prices went up to £10 per unit, but mine was about £3.50 inc postage.

On your card draw round the inner edge of the inner ring of your embroidery hoop. Then add on an extra 1cm on each end and cut out this shape. 

Using your scissors make a number of small cuts through the extra centimetre of card and up to the line you have drawn. You are effectively making  a number of tabs which will fold up at 90 degrees to the rest of the card. 

Put your fabric in the embroidery hoop and trim off the excess at the back so it looks neat from the front. 

Flip the hoop over and insert your card. You'll see that the flaps I cut earlier are now pressed against the inner hoop while the main body of the card is flat against the fabric. 

Once you are sure everything is fitting properly use glue to stick the flaps to the embroidery hoop (but not to the fabric - afterall you may want to change the fabric in 6 months and having it all glued on will mean you need to cut out more cardboard instead of just changing the fabric).

Using a skewer or your scissors and keeping your fingers clear, make a hole in the middle of your hoop, going through both the card and the fabric. The hole needs to be big enough to fit the shaft of the clock mechanism through. 

Follow the manufacturer's instructions regarding fixing the mechanism in place, placing of the hands and battery. 

Now put your clock up on the wall and sit back while time passes. 

Hints:

1. My clock hands kept colliding and stopping themselves when I first put it together. As they were plastic I got a dish with boiling water and dropped them in for a minute. I carefully fished them out and was able to straighten them so they now move smoothly over each other. 
2. Pliers may be useful for tightening the clock mechanism washers and nuts around the cardboard and fabric. 
3. As mentioned earlier, you are not stuck with this fabric forever. You can make it seasonal with special summer or christmas fabric, or show off some of your embroidery or patchwork. When you do want to replace it carefully remove the clock mechanism and undo the embroidery hoop. The fabric should just fall out and the card is attached to the inner loop so should stay in place. Put in your new fabric, tighten the hoop, make a hole in the fabric where it needs to be and replace the clock mechanism. 

If you use this tutorial please make a voluntary donation of just £1 towards my ongoing craft addiction. 

Chocolate Dipping Sauce Recipe

This simple sauce takes less than 2 mins in the microwave and is good on fruit and, for the true sugarholic, marshmallows!

You will need:

• About 40g of cooking chocolate
• Tablespoon of honey
• Knob of butter
• Microwavable dish
• Fruit/marshmallows
• Skewer/cocktail stick

Precise timings will depend on the power of your microwave, and if you don't have one you can use the traditional bain marie. 

Break the cooking chocolate into pieces and put in the microwavable container. In 30 second bursts, zap the chocolate until it has started to melt (For me this took two 30 second bursts). 

Remove the dish from the microwave and without stirring add the butter and honey. 

Put back in the microwave and zap until the butter has melted (for me this was just one more 30 second zap). 

Stir until smooth and serve while still lovely and warm. 

Additional options: you can add some cinnamon or other spices or a small shot of your favourite liquor. Just bear in mind with the latter that this will make the sauce runnier and so you may want to omit half of each of the butter and honey to compensate.