310th post

I made that the title as there must be something to celebrate in this otherwise most unlovely of Tuesdays. Those masochists among you who have been checking in for some time now may have heard me mention the film "Zoolander" once or twice. There is a point in that film where Hansel (Owen Wilson) is telling a story to a group of himilayan pygmies while baking bread. It goes something like this....

"So I'm free-basing down this mountain in the alps and all of a sudden I feel the snow slide under me and I'm like 'oh no' and suddenly I'm falling and I'm falling through the air waving my arms and screaming 'aaaaarrrgggghhhhhh'.... when all of a sudden I'm like.... 'Hansel? Haven't you been smoking Peyote for 6 straight days? And isn't it possible this all a hallucination? And you know what?..........It was! I was in Utah. I've never even been to the alps!'

(Pygmie) 'Cool story Hansel!'"

From which story you will of course guess that it was only at the end of the day that I remembered I have PMT. Everything was fine up to when I got back from lunch and so to say it was an awful 'day' is taking it a bit far. It was more like an awful 2 hours which may run into tomorrow a bit but frankly who gives a shit.

Hoorah, hoorah, for I am not mad!

Had a day off yesterday and spent it putting in hard graft on xmas presents. And also putting in some serious cherry consuming too. Here are the two combined in my effort to be a bit yarnstorm-ish.
Aren't cherries fabulous? And don't they just taste great? You know, I didn't even like cherries until about September. Now I can't get enough of them.














You'll also see my beautiful pink denise cables in the photo above which are an early xmas present from The Pooch via Woolly Workshop. They remind me of just how much I totally adore my denise needles. I was further reminded of this when my blog went awol when I switched to blogger beta at the weekend. About 2 days it was missing for - rather annoying. When it came back all the info from the sidebar had gone so I had to look on google for a cache'd one and it came up with this. They really are so good. I have the plymouth bamboo interchangables and frankly they are not up to much. Fine to knit with - in fact divine to knit with - but not enough cables for a multi knitter such as me.

Here is a kind of knitting themed post of what I shall be knitting first once I get the xmas ghastlies off the needles. It's the socks that rock yarn I got in a swapbot swap. Aaaaahhhhh, lovely yarn.....beautiful yarn.....lovely yarn. Soon I will come back to you my pretty....

Ok. That's enough time off the ghastly knitting. All that remains is for me to insert a quick political spot...

[Ding, Dong, Pinochet is dead - hoorah hoorah may he believe in hell so he can rot there]*

....and to apologise for the lack of a report from Pooch's Kennel. He seems to be enjoying the attention too much so I'm going to suspend it for now.

*My revised religious beliefs still maintain that I can spell the 'r' word wrongly and have been updated to include a bit about how if you believe in heaven or hell you might end up going there. But if you believe that when you die that's it then that's what you get too.

Hexalong - yippee!

There is a woollywormhead pattern in knitty, which also contains umpteen other cool things. I am joining the knit along for it! Click on the button below to get to it or the pattern is here.

This is me, right?

This is me, right, with a young lady we will call Vinnie. Except she's not holding an apple. It's more like she's holding her first ever piece of red knitting. She managed to do it without a mistake and even cast off and on with no problem. Not too shaky for a newbie. Incidentally, mobile phone covers are the new pot holder. She was just lamenting that she is away for the weekend and has nothing to knit on the train. Oh yeah. I got her good.

I don't have long to blog today as just as I sat down to do this the xmas fairy landed in our office and I got heavily involved in The Decoration Project. Believe it or not I am one of the tallest on my floor (at 5'7" - place is full of midgets) so was called on for lots of sticking of blue tak. Fortunately we have a temp in who is seriously 6'10" and so no standing-on-rotating-office-chair-accidents took place.

Off to see Sound of Music tonight with the in-laws and then a weekend of family style debauchery - i.e. Greenwich market and Harrods. Have a good weekend everyone!

PS: BUY THE ZINE ;)

Live life like you're gonna die... because you're gonna

Nope, not a return to madness but the title of a great song that Will Shatner stars in. Let me lay some lyrics on you...

You'll Have Time
(William Shatner/Ben Folds)

Live life
Live life like you're gonna die
Becasue you're gonna
I hate to be the bearer of bad news
But you're gonna die

Maybe not today or even next year
But before you know it you'll be saying

Is this all there was?
What was all the fuss?
Why did I bother?"

Now, maybe you won't suffer maybe it's quick
But you'll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn't I taste it?
You'll have time
Because you're gonna die.

Yes it's gonna happen because it's happened to a lot of people I know
My mother, my father, my loves
The president, the kings and the pope
They all had hope

And they muttered just before they went
Maybe, I won't let go
Live life like you're gonna die
Because you are

Maybe you won't suffer maybe it's quick
But you'll have time to think
Why did I waste it?
Why didn't I taste it?
You'll have time
'Cause you're gonna die

There's more but I don't want you to get bored. What was making me think about this song was that I haven't been able to take my second anti-d for the last couple of days for various reasons and boy, am I feeling the effects. Lethargy, confusion, I feel like I'm thinking through treacle if you know what I mean. My memory is shot too. This is how I was feeling before I started taking the second one on top. It got me thinking about what a funny old thing the brain is and how the odd chemical here and there can make so much difference. It also reminded me that getting better is only the beginning of the end and I still have the long cut-down period to get through. But once I get to the end of it and once I have cut down there is a whole big future out there waiting for me.

Current medical thinking is that it is not wise to get pregnant while taking prozac. Bit of a no brainer some might think but there is research suggesting it adversely effects the brain chemicals in the baby. At one point they thought you should leave it for two years after stopping but this has been shorted to one cycle. I'm not gagging to have kids but that bint at work asking me whether I was pregnant did get me thinking about the whole thing. The idea no longer repels me anyway.

In knitting news am still banging away at the ghastly xmas knitting. Ghastly. Soon be over. Am also gearing up for the in-laws visiting this weekend which means a visit to 'Sound of Music' starring the people's choice woman who I think is called Carrie. Means I won't be blogging much towards the end of the week.

Right, back to the ghastly knitting....

Moo is home and has brought donuts!

Nicked this from Mooknits.

You Are a Caramel Crunch Donut

You're a complex creature, and you're guilty of complicating things for fun. You've been known to sit around pondering the meaning of life... Or at times, pondering the meaning of your doughnut. To frost or not to frost? To fill or not to fill? These are your eternal questions.

What Donut Are You?

*sigh* another load of no-sends on swap-bot.com. I am so disillusioned with that site although I have done a lot of good swapping on it. It is just so dispiriting when you make something, like a handknit dishcloth, and then get nothing back. I have just signed out of all the swaps that hadn’t started yet and will just slog through the ones I have left and then leave it entirely with atcards.com and the eclectic ATC Yahoo group. Maybe.

I have this internal conflict going on at the moment concerning the throny issue of organisation. As much as it may seem to conflict with my whole life I would really like to be organised. I am always writing lists but then tend to lose them or at least lose interest. The area of swaps is another one where I really want to be organised but am just not getting there. I have an excel file on my PDA but I keep forgetting it. Then I started another list in my notebook but keep forgetting about it. Then I tried writing it down but the paper wasn’t wide enough. My latest decision is to go back to the paper route but (and this is the big BUT {dissimilar to my big ol’butt}) I am going to do it landscape on coloured paper.

I had to break the paragraph there to leave room for the hushed she’s-a’fricking-genius type silence that just happened there. Who’d have seen that one coming?

The Pooch forms one corner of an uneasy triangle in my life at the moment, the other two corners being me and my muvver. Mumsy has asked that the cottage be a laptop free zone at xmas (we are going down to her this year) and Pooch has taken this rather personally. I spoke to Mum about it this morning and she has taken his taking it personally rather personally. Her argument is that it is antisocial. Pooch’s argument is that he wouldn’t dream of asking her not to bring a book or me to bring my knitting. My compromise is that the laptop stays elsewhere for xmas day and is then optional on other days. My argument is also that by his very nature Pooch = antisocial so you can either have him sitting in a corner glowering at the laptop screen or just sitting in a corner glowering. He looks as cute either way although the light from the laptop gives him a kind of ethereal anti-halo which does something for his image although I’m not sure what. All this calls for another entry from the kennel.

(Big Brother announcer’s voiceover…..)
Day 2 in the Pooch Kennel

Set alarm for 6.40am then objected loudly when Byrne got up at 7 and wanted to turn the light on. Even though she brought me a cup of tea I still loathe her. After she had left drank tea with sulky expression on face while counting ways to bring about her downfall. Got up and rearranged two bottles of wine in my 56 bottle winerack. Made my winerack some tea but it didn’t want it so I drank it.

Last night spent some time enumerating the number of meanings of the word ‘Byrne’.

1. Byrne? – cry of a wounded Pooch (wounds are generally a self-inflicted hangover)
2. Byrne! – sharp bark such as one uses on a cat when you have caught it munching on the Sunday roast. Used to reprimand and gain ceasing of current action. Usually ineffective.
3. Byyyyyyyrrrrrnnnne – stealth Pooch gearing up to ask for something.
4. Byrrrrrne – howl of despair when disco-ordinatedness has made me hit myself in the face again.
5. Byyyyyrrrrne – exclamation of surprise, such as when Byrne is found building my winerack. Usually denotes pleasure. Also used when discover Byrne has embroidered ‘Byrne was here’ on my underpants.

Me & my winerack have some tea

Every day in every way....

Do you know how much knitting I have to do? God damn christmas. Bah humbug! I am also somewhat preoccupied with the memory of how much time the MBA is going to take up when it starts again in May. I have to learn to really make the most of all the time I DO have. Which includes no more xmas knitting. NO MORE. But it's a bit late now. Oh poo.

Have been thinking for some time that Pooch should have a blog to put across his side of things. I wanted to call it Pooch's kennel but he has steadfastly refused to do one and this afternoon officially trademarked his name meaning I can't use it at all. So I have decided to have Pooch's blog as a subset of this one. So here follows the first entry of Pooch's kennel

Sunday 3rd in the Kennel

Got up today and drank a lot of tea. Then went back to bed with tea and my laptop. Did you know that the ATG couldn't find the SPU input with their elbows? Spent 3 hours on wikipedia reading about code breaking, mafia bosses with funny names and crocodiles while drinking tea. Surprisingly little overlap. Byrne bought me a winerack. About time since I've been asking for one for more than a year. She had to put it together because I'm too disco-ordinated. Yay, disco! Let's dance like Bez from the Happy Mondays. And drink tea!


My Winerack
(except mine only has two bottles in and I officially give Byrne permission to keep her shoes in the rest of the spaces. This is official because it is on my blog.)







So apart from that there is not much else to say and still can't post any pics as is all too sensitive. Oh except....
These are are just some of the squares I've been crocheting in my spare moments. It's a humungous blanket from the interweave crochet mag my SP bought me oh so long ago. I'm really enjoying it actually. And I like the modular nature which means I can just do a little bit at a time but see how it is building to make the whole. Which brings me on to the subject that is never that far from my mind.

I had my appraisal last week and was talking to sean about my feeling of isolation in my role and what I think I have realised over the last couple of days is that it's something that isn't going to change and as I'm not working closely with anyone I'm the only one who's going to notice what I do achieve. And I'm not going to notice unless I define the signposts or whatever they call them. Tomorrow I'm going to go into work and use the wonderful MS Project for something other than ATCs. Maybe.

lalala

Look at this site: http://www.captionmykitten.com/index.php?id=37&cap=584

Fricking hilarious.

So I have been away partly because I have been finishing issue 2 of the zine (and it is FINISHED and being printed as I type). You can order your copy here: http://proudtobecrafty.blogspot.com

Anything you want to share?

One of my colleagues just asked me if I was pregnant.













Great.






Anyway, spent the weekend in Oxford with the Pooch where there was a complete lack of yarn shops. I think I may claim the last week or two as an unofficial start to another stashalong month of abstainment. Can I do that retrospectively? Maybe if I told myself it was going to be a 2 month stint. But then that would mean missing out on the sales. But then I do have enough yarn to bury my pregnant looking form several metres deep so maybe that won't be such a bad thing.

OK, yes, 2 months, but backdating it to when I last bought yarn. Naturally this calls for a ticker to be created......


In knitting news I have finally finished the jumper for the wretched child and have begun the leggings - probably about 1/4 done on those. A colleague has offered to knit the hat to save the baby from total hate-knitting karma which is nice of her.

The second issue of the ProudtobeCrafty Zine is almost finished! (Go here to pre-order a copy and find out more) Hoorah. This is partly due to my being borrrrred at work - but you know how that bluesy tune goes as I sing it so often. It is my appraisal on Wednesday and I am expecting to receive another sonnet on tact and how I don't have any but at least it should be followed by some objectives I can't complete in 2 mins.

ATCs continue to occupy my thoughts when they are not taken up with knitting or the speed with which I can minimise my screen should someone important suddenly appear over my shoulder. I am quite into the digital versions where you create the image on the screen and print it out. I really think I should have been a graphic designer. Maybe it isn't too late although I'd need to take a pay cut for about a decade. Anyway... I am seriously into layering in photoshop. Ad speaking of layering - I am thinking of chopping all my hair off again. But considering I have a round face/head/body will this make me look fatter? Or more pregnant? Let us not forget it made me look quite weird when I was skinny.

Big old rant time

I've got a few minutes to spare and it so happens that my temper has been sorely tried today so what else does a blogger do in that situation other than sit down and inflict their views on the world?

I have been in a training course all day on customer care. I have been in a training course all day with a load of people who are mostly perfectly nice and about 3 who are the most ignorant f*cking idiots you've ever come across. The thing that finally got my goat was the all-physicists-are-weird chorus that gets trotted out by the aforementioned idiots every now again. The woman leading the chant this time happens to be jewish so having said I found the statement rather offensive and being told how stupid I was I asked her how she'd feel if someone said "All Jews are tight."? Now what I should have done was kept my mouth shut and just privately reflected on how good life was in that I only had to come into contact with her at these sorts of events. Instead she got all uppity and said you couldn't compare religion and an academic subject. I don't want to offend any readers of a religious pursuasion but perhaps this is because science is based on fact whereas religion is based on a load of lala. Don't tell me all physicists are weird and then tell me it's 'normal' to walk around convinced there's a trumanesque god watching over you. What kind of dumbarse thing is that to say?!

Another thing (AND ANOTHER THING) that happened was someone who would be the stupidest person working here if it weren't for the 'normal' woman and one other who I swear has nothing but stale air between her earoles said that George Bush was responsible for 9/11. Completely. And possibly MI5. WHAT??? I can only imagine that she is a creationist. What kind of moron thinks that a man as dumb as george bush could possible orchestrate a disaster like that and fool EVERYONE into thinking it was bin-laden? She even wrote a web address on a piece of paper for me so I can learn the truth. THE TRUTH??????








I have a card at home.

On the front is a rather troubled looking lady with a speech bubble.

It says,

"I tried to be normal but the effort drove me mad."

I feel, people, that I keep trying and society just conspires against me all the time. I realise I shouldn't let these things get to me but it really does bother me an awful lot that f*cking morons

like this walk around and can do things like breed, vote, buy a gun.

Yes, I guess you could say I'm feeling a little bit tense. Rather than go and blast some of those 'normals' with a weapon I am going to go to a hip hop dance class so I can blow them away with my moves (should I ever meet them on a dancefloor). At least I am hoping this might turn out to be mildly enjoyable so that I can finally find a form or movement that I don't totally detest and can treat like exercise. If this doesn't work I am going to try pole dancing. I hear it's good for toning you up.

New Crush - behold a god

I have a serious new crush. I just watched sunday night's episode of Torchwood. Does anyone else get the raging horn, as I believe Derek & Clive called it, about John Barrowman? I am totally loving this man. YES I know he's gay but I don't care. I just adore him and am happy to do so from afar. And not only that but I think Torchwood is much better than doctor who. I love the 'grown-up' feel about it and that none of them are smug.

Um, that's kind of all I've got to say actually. Except,

I love John Barrowman

So there I was

minding my own business in a one-to-one with my boss when he turned to me and said "Well, one thing's for sure. You're not destined for a career as a diplomat."

Actually it wasn't quite like that. The words that may have passed my lips before the long pause which preceded this statement were "Bring it on." Not to much of the "J'ACCUSE!!!!!" with pointy finger that I am imagining I have seen in some french melodrama as a "Yes, not everyone likes your style." Which is fine. Old Byrne would have gone into a tailspin about this and sat and had it go round and round and round and round and so on until she ended up on the phone to the samaritans. New Byrne is above such things. New Byrne accepts constructive criticism and uses it to learn and grow from, like watching an OU programme at 4am with your feet in a bowl of manure. So New Byrne sat on the tube (yes - sat - hahahahahahaha!) and did what she does best. I'd alrready got a gantt chart for my ATCs so this time I did a balanced scorecard of my life. I'm not going to put it up here because New Byrne understands that some things are for blogging and some things are private.

The most useful thing sean said (and there were a lot - he isn't one to just criticise and then leave you hanging) was "You are too process orientated. If you focus on the goal more then any progress towards it is positive." Which fits perfectly with the New Byrne life. New Byrne incidentally looks set to be an IT Project Manager. Oh yes.

So that's enough about schitzo byrne and the dizzy world of physics admin.

My crafty mojo hasn't yet reappeared. Have been slogging away on an erika knight baby jumper in cashsoft 4-ply in pale grey. Finished the equivalent of the front and one and a bit sleeves considering it is all being done in one piece. Leggings to do after that and a hat. Curse all babies.

Am having a silly amount of trouble finding a puzzle piece to alter as the conclusion of my altered art chat class last week. Does anyone happen to have a puzzle that has lost more bits than is good for it and who is prepared to put a couple of the hangers-on in the post to me? Can you believe people actually don't put puzzles with missing pieces on ebay?! They put everything else on there so I don't see why not. The idea of using just one piece of a new one repels me as a huge waste.

Another day in the life

Here is a microsoft project plan of the ATC cards I had to do when I created it on Tuesday.


Good, isn't it? For those of you who know about such things you'll notice that the tasks aren't linked but what I did do is make the time to make 1 ATC = 1 day so where the task is 4 days long that means 4 cards. Then I decided that I can make 3 cards a day. So my Alex resource = 300%. Then I assigned myself to each task and then levelled the resources to see when the making hot spots were. I fully intend to update it today and add in the slack bars but I don't want to run out of things to do like I had yesterday by 9.30am.

So peeps, do you get what I'm saying here? Yes, work is still a tad on the slow side. What I have done is written 4 project proposals and fired them off to various people internally. Much to my surprise one has been taken up and IOP Enterprises will soon own an online shop selling funky stuff with funky graphics on obscurely related to physics. This gives me about half an hours work to do later on which I'm saving so as I have something to look forward to.

All this means that the zine is practically ready - many thanks to those of you who have already pre-ordered #2 here. I will also soon be announcing the winners of the first challenge who will be in for prizes of crafty goodness. The first challenge was to make a pincushion (any theme) and get a photo of it to me asap. The best three get prizes.

In knitting news I am still on the xmas presents. NEVER AGAIN DUDE. I hate them all. Although apart from knitting I have been getting myself into a bit of a crafty tizz. I took part in the altered art online chat class on tues eve and it was FANTASTIC. Chat rooms are such great fora for this kind of class. The woman doing it was on one side of the US and there was me and others from the rest of the US and a couple of other countries. But when I actually came to sit down and do something I felt strangely unable to act. So in fact I haven't done very much in the evenings since then. I think I've lost my mojo a bit.

Pooch and I had the 2 1/2 year anniversary of our hooking up this week so tonight we are off out for dinner and james bond. Hoorah!

Blog trawl

Felt compelled to post for a staggering second time today because of the most recent cat picture over at Crazy Aunt Purls. I really wish I had a cat. Then my job wouldn't be so boring and I wouldn't get so obsessed with ATCs - apologies to annarella for banging on about them in a comment on your blog a minute ago!

Since I'm here, we also have the following from today's blog trawl....

• Excellent flea story linked to from purlpower (you just have to take a leap of faith that a story about fleas is worth the clicking to get you there) (and it is)
• New hat patterns from woollywormhead. Just splurged a full £1.75 on the spiral cap. But it's DPNs, curses. Then some things are worth the agony. Like childbirth. Or so I hear.

A light haul this time. Off to ATCards.com for an online class on altered art now. Yippee!

Digital ATCs

Have found a new website called atcards.com and have joined a new swap for digital ATCs which I've never done before. We have to do 4 each based around 'your wildest dream'. Here are my first three.

Tulips

Swimming in chocolate

Knitted Byrne


Ha!

As you might be able to tell it has been a slow day at the office. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bored. Have emailed me boss begging for more work again which is just such an unnatural act I feel sure there must be a law against it. It's just not natural. My one concern is I'll get made redundant but then I'd get a nice fat cheque and the kick I need to change direction and actually do something interesting with my life.

The second issue of the Proud to be Crafty zine is oh so nearly finished. It is very exciting. Certainly much more exciting than my day job. It's not very refined yet but you can preorder here. If you want it sent overseas please be honest and add the postage. For some reason paypal wouldn't let me have more than one shortcut set-up at a time. If you know how to fix this do drop me a comment.

So where the hell have I been?

Yeah, I don't really know really. I have been off work for a couple of days with a heavy cold but the blog was already a week old by then and I do have broadband at home so that's no excuse. I guess I just got a thing about it and didn't feel like posting. You know. A Thing. Like not walking under ladders or something. Maybe.

I have been knitting non-stop since I was last here but can't show any of it because it is all destined for stockings of the great and the good, which is to say, my family and friends. I have been getting a fine bevy of post not all of which has been photographed but most of which was concerned with ATCs. Here are some that did make it to the camera....

These are ones I did for a Kinky Swap.

I've been having a bit of a crisis of confidence about them. I'm just not convinced mine are really worthy. I posted a message on the eclectic ATC group about this and it seems I'm not alone. Anyway.....

The second issue of the zine is shaping up very nicely and will be available from 1st Dec. That is to say it will be sent out from then but will actually be available to pre-order very shortly. Watch this space. Have been getting some great stuff from people to include so should be an awesome issue. In case anyone is wondering about the first issue the limited edition run of 50 has well and truly gone. Sorry to those of you who missed out.

Madwise I have experienced the 'profound shift' that therapists want their patients to have. I'm not going to go into it because part of it is having to talk about it instead of using this blog as a life noticeboard but it's good stuff and I feel whole for the first time in ages.

Today is of course remembrance sunday and I did the silence at 11am thinking about Grandpa Noah and all the others who have fallen while defending us. It makes me mad that the people who are dying now in Iraq are there for such a damn stupid reason but just because I disagree with the war doesn't mean I don't want to support the veterans. So I've decided to add The Royal British Legion to my charities that I donate to. You can make a one-off donation or set up a direct debit here.

I know I've got lots of blog news to catch up on. One more bit of news from me - I think we might be maxed out on SkipNorth but I need to check. There's definitely no more than 3 places left after a group of 4 joined up on friday. All so exciting!

Craft Porn

First off a little yarn porn.... Socks that Rock. This stuff deserves every inch of its reputation. Blissful to knit with.

Not a colour combo I would have picked out on a shelf but I am *loving* the way it is knitting up. Have done one sock already and about an inch of the second. Should serve as a reminder to think ahead to what colours will look like all merged together rather than judging them in skein form.

Now we have some ATC porn. When I got home last night I had post from all corners of the globe. 4 packages of ATCs not to mention my fave magazine.

Every time I get ATCs I am amazed with what people do. Makes me wonder what my paltry efforts are thought of.

I am still thoroughly into swapping on Swap bot and most recently completed my first ever dish/face cloth for a swap. I had always meant to do one but kept thinking they were a bit pathetic. Let me tell you - that opinion has been thoroughly kicked out the window. Look what I did in about an hour last night (my swap partner has a green and blue colour scheme on the theme of apples and chickens. Thought a chicken might be a bit beyond me!)...

It is just so cool! (modest? me?) The pattern is from knitting pattern central which is where I am heading just as soon as I finish typing this lot. I have been mucking about with soap making in my spare minutes and one of these with a handmade bar of soap as a xmas present? - yeah baby, I'm there.

In other new the second edition of the Proud to be Crafty Zine is shaping up nicely. Am having fun with fonts. Deadline for submissions is 12 Nov so email me at littlelixieathotmaildotcom if you have something you'd like to see in print.

lalalalala

You know those frumpy looking women on the tube?

Those ones who wear either all black or really clashing clothes that don't fit too well and whose trousers are normally a bit too short? They tend to be reading some sort of zany fantasy book and eating something weird. They also tend to have rosy cheeks, be slightly overweight and look like they could really do with a haircut.

They also tend to be about 28, dark haired, freckled, called Alex, reading a Terry Pratchett hardback and eating chocolate coated raisins out of a paper bad like a healthy-hobo (except no one ever really kids themselves well enough that whatever the fruit, eating it with chocolate smothering its natural form ever makes it healthy).

Yes, people. I have turned into that woman. I realised this when I was on the tube home on friday night. Now this is the first give away - going home at 7pm on a friday. Obviously going home to stroke cat or if doesn't have one to search the internet for pictures of cats. I had almost fallen over because I was completely engrossed in the new Terry Pratchett ("Wintersmith") and was also trying to eat chocolate raisins out of a paper bag and was not holding on to the post on the tube so there was a not particularly sudden stop accompanied by a moment of extreme fear that, never mind falling on a complete stranger, I might have dropped a raisin along with its precious chocolate covering. (There have been some people in my long and ghastly life who have dared to suggest that I buy chocolate covered raisins to just suck the chocolate off and then spit out the raisin. That is absurd and unfounded. I only do that with chocolate covered nuts.) I had one of those flashes of inspiration when I saw myself through the eyes of your average joe and realised what I had become. There followed many vows to exercise, never wear all black, start using eye shadow (but not zany ones), to not try to stand, eat and read on a moving tube and so on and so forth.

I present my Monday-self to you now for inspection. I am wearing black trousers and top but......a brown cardigan. Not bad eh?! I am going to the gym after work. (Yeah, well, I am all right so stop laughing.) Plus I didn't try and eat anything on the tube this morning. Although I did read the end of the Terry Pratchett. It's not soooo bad when you think about the long decline that has lead to me having dulled to a boy george sans make-up lookalike.

In knitting news....I was the luckiest person EVER to get 'socks that rock' sock yarn in the post on saturday. Curtesy of a little swap on swapbot. Oh yeah. Cast on straight away and would have been able to show progress by now if hadn't left camera at home. Suffice to say I have turned the first heel and picked out a nifty cable diamond pattern for the ankle. I also got some of the good stuff from my sister who has brought back none other that SWTC 100% soy silk in a great cherry red AND a hank of yellow and red cherry tree hill supersock plsu another ball of something good with a name like Bergerac. Oooooo, good stuff going on for me this weekend.

Anyway, I only actually logged on to blogger to put up something about this:

The deadline for submission to issue 2 of the 'ProudtobeCrafty' independantly published zine is 12 November.

1/4 page adverts can be had for £10 a time. Articles, reviews, tutorials and patterns are welcome from all comers with the editor (moi) reserving the right to edit to fit space and so on. Don't think it is just knitting either - this is all sorts of craft and will, in the next edition, wax lyrical about knitting, crochet, soap making, paper craft, bag making, bracelets, cake and much much more. If you have something you'd like me to include please email me at littlelixieathotmaildotcom with a little summary and I'll let you know if it fits in.

The second edition will go on sale on 1st Dec. There are now 3 remaining copies of the first zine available which is bound to become a collectors edition! Email me your postal address and one will be yours (UK only I'm afraid as the first edition is free).

Lastly, the pin cushion challenge from the first edition has a closing date of 12 November. Send me your photos and you will be entered to win one of three goodie bags featuring some of the good stuff. So get crafting to start winning!

Links and news

Linkwise here we have the link to the crasfter index page of bag tutorials:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=69911.0

I also wish to show those of you have not yet seen it this site of subversive cross-stitch.

The reason I want to show you that is because I am combining free fonts from www.fontfreak.com with 'draw your own graph paper' to map out an embroidery of my favourite quote, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" a la la (la = on the left). I tried out tonnes of different fonts before settling on this one which is called 'Once in a while'. I am not sure yet whether I am going to do just the outlines or fill it in in solid of variegated colour but I have some 14 count black aida in the post and so should have the design sorted by the end of the weekend.

This weekend of course brings the mumsy and, to be thorough, the Robsy too. The schedule at the mo includes lots of good food, the rodin exhibition at the RA and possibly a boat ride on the thames. It doesn't leave me much time to be crafty but I am pondering a trip to hobbycraft. I can't quite remember why now but I shouldn't go anyway, terrible idea. Have enough stuff. Oh I remember - to get the embroidery threads and a hoop to hold it while I'm dallying. So maybe actually it isn't such a bad idea after all. Hmmm. Ponder ponder.

Now I've started thinking about having the writing as a kind of stencil over a funky abstract image like a chaos pattern or something like that. Actually something more like this rose.

Hmmm, that's making it a lot more complicated though. Plus I'm a complete splitter and will probably get bored of even the most basic version before I finish so let's stick with basic and move on from there. And although it might be a few pounds cheaper to buy from hobbycraft John Lewis has everything I need and will be a whole lot cheaper in the long run with minimal temptation!

Blog trawling

Just catching up on some blogs people and so have the usual trawl of stolen objects...

You Are 64% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care. Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Want a needle holder thing that goes on the back of my door like the one in this post:
http://goknitinyourhat.blogspot.com/2006/10/feast-your-eyes.html

I want to do bullion crochet as good as what Nickerjac can. And I want to be able to put colours together like she can and not like I do which makes it look like a hobo has vomitted.

I want to know what 'the power of jam' is as Pixeldiva has it and I want it. Probably. At least tell me what it is.