Cute stuff all over

The cutest first....

Isn't he adorable? This is of course Pete wearing quite the snazziest handknit tank top I've ever seen. Spent yesterday in Romford with Nic and Andy who are both well. The pics are a little blurred as I didn't want to put my flash right in his face so you can't exactly see what he's holding onto - but it is the skeleton called Jack from the night before christmas! Andy got it for him the other day and Pete is obviously very attached to it already. Pete does this amazing thing where he looks at you with as if he's got his eyebrows raised and his expression seems to indicate that you've just performed a social gaffe. It's how I imagine oscar wilde would have looked if he'd come across a modern chav. It is terribly sweet and makes me laugh each and every time. Of course he also has the most lovely smile...

I had a lovely time in Romford and Nic and I managed to find a few crafty goodies along the way. Here's my haul:

There is a copy of 'Knitting' magazine there because, as I only found out after Nic spotted it, I am in it.

Above Lime & Violet! Not that I care about stuff like that of course. Ahem.

There have also been other goodies coming into the marital home - the latest parcel from my SP arrived! Woo ha!

The soap has reall loofah in it which I think is rather exciting. These especially caught my eye - aren't they cute!

I am a firm believer that one can never have to many stitchmarkers. And these ones are especially cute!

The yarn in the pic is Shiladair in a beautiful red but there was also one other skein - Dream in Colour Classy in blue lagoon.

Mmmmmmmmm. I was fingering this stuff in either IKnit or the 'other' shop on thursday but dragged myself away. Now I know it was the right decision! (The postcard under it is the portrait of Charlie Chaplin by Lee Miller. Amazing.)

I know what you're thinking - there's already been so much good stuff in this post. How much more can she possibly pack in? Well... the results of my dyeing have been making it into cake form.

I particularly liked some of the cotton. I'm just hoping the colours survives a wash - test swatch at the ready.

And finally two finished objects. A thick and robust scarf...

...and a pair of mittens.

The mittens are from Knitting Nature which is a really lovely book. They only took 3 hours from start to finish. Can see myself making them again in the future.

Just before I go things are hotting up for SkipNorth (knitting holiday extraudinaire!). We've got 17 people booked already with about a third of those being people who haven't been before. Lots of others have told me that you intend to book soon but don't leave it too long! Once the places are gone they're gone.

New shoes...

I'm pretty sure I started another post with this title just a few weeks ago but anyway...here we are again. As dame shirley sang "It's all just a little bit of history repeating."

These were bought with the specific purpose of replacing the green ones that lead to my having the MOST unpleasant wet feet experience ever at the weekend. Pooch wondered into the bathroom last night cradling them and calling me a mass of contradictions. He said the shoes were absolutely 100% me and yet didn't go with the knitting/fat pants aspect of me. A bit like the WWE and knitting I suppose. Anyway, I think they are rather snazzy!

Today was the 'arty' day of my holiday. I started it with a bit of embroidery on some mediocre black jeans I bought a few weeks ago. They fitted OK but weren't really inspiring me to wear them so half an hour later we have...

Can you see what it is yet? (Cue diggerydoo noises.) I think this photo illustrates very nicely the difficulties one encounters when one tries to photograph one's own leg.

The day continued with a trip to the V&A to see both the Lee Miller and Couture exhibitions. Now anyone thinking of going to see them both together I would suggest visiting the couture one first. Having not done this I came out of the Lee Miller exhibition feeling quite overwhelmed and in awe of a woman achieving so much during an age not terribly welcoming to strong-minded females. Something I didn't know is her photo essays and actual essays for Vogue reporting on the concentration camps during WW2. To have photos of jaw droppingly beautiful people contrasted with an equally artistic shot of a stack of cadavers - all people who had starved to death in one of the camps.

The Golden Age of Couture exhibition *was* very good. I think I might go back some time when it doesn't seem quite such a triviality.

My view of arty naturally includes knitting so I went on a journey to two yarn shops. I try not to be mean on this blog. So I shall merely say that the second one, IKnit, was really good. I found myself almost magnetically attracted to cones of habu silk in an amazing dark pink....even now I feel myself wincing that I came away without them but it's just as well since I didn't have a pattern in mind for them. Instead I came out with The holiday Interweave Knits and a Jean Greenhowe (I love it that they stock them). I got the Knit 1 at the 'other' shop.

Then just three balls of yarn from the bargain bin.

There are a couple of thing I'd really like to make. I've got elann silk mix that just wants to be this:

I'd still want to make this even thought it is a Teva Durham:

And this although I'm not sure it would suit me really.

Yesterday saw me dyeing like crazy with a the result that this is still inhabiting most of the bathroom.

The big purple mass at the front is a load of boucle I got about 3 years ago and which has been sitting refusing to speak to me all that time. Now I know it is destined to be the EZ Pi Shawl!

Podcast!

Episode 11 is up.

Where does the time go?

Here I am on day two of my holiday and I realise I haven't blogged in months, weeks, a week maybe, and nor do I have much to show for the last two days.

Last weekend saw the handover of the everton top for the baby due at the beginning of December.

I'm not actually that pleased with it as it looks a bit rough and ready but I do like the little button closure at the back.

I have also been doing some ebaying and so have pattern books arriving most days. This is one that I have been ebay stalking for a while. I know this is sad but it became a kind of personal goal in life to make it mine since I have been pipped at the post about 5 times. It's the cover dungarees that I really love with the little bow on the front. So cute!

I have also started the shilasdair kit I bought at ally pally. It is using their blend which I think is wool, cashmere and a dash of angora and I have to say it is practically creamy in consistency. I am not enjoying the actual knitting as the pattern looks simple but is actually bloody awkward.

I have also been winding skeins into balls like you wouldn't believe. This is the softest laceweight that I got in the US. Colourway is called fog.

It really is lovely. I had bought a leafy shawl pattern but I am just not sure about this colourway with it.

This morning I made it for the first time to the Foyles knitting group and had a good knit and natter. Definitely a good natter. I didn't contribute much as I was the newbie but it was very entertaining and they were very welcoming. Then lunch with my sister and then a foray into covent garden to buy what turned out to be.....gold trainers. Gold! After a very unpleasant wet feet experience on sunday I finally realised the pumas I got from TK Max 5 years ago had done their duty and should be retired. I will have photos for the shoe hungry out there next time I can find my camera.

Tomorrow promises to include lots of dyeing as I still haven't tried out the dyes I picked up at ally pally and because I have been meaning to do some for ages. I am now skeining yarns ready to be soaked overnight. Is going to be mainly wool but I bought some cotton dyes a while ago and still haven't used those so I have a couple of balls of dishrag cotton sitting about which I plan to transform.

Very lastly, I have joined bookmooch.com which I would recommend. You list your unwanted books and those that you'd like to receive. Then people request your books and you post them off and then you request another person's books and they post them to you and you get points for sending and lose points for requesting and so basically it all balances out nicely. You can list knitting/crochet books and there are a few on there listed by others. Some people have also listed magazines which seems a good idea and I will be adding to my listings soon. In fact I only joined yesterday and have already had requests for two books and asked two people to send me theirs. Bonza!

October catch up

One of the things I like about the CraftyPod podcast is that she has these periodic catch ups and so that is what I'm seeing this post as. I have been a bit of a lazy blogger recently and there really is quite a lot to share.

First we have a little bit of jewellery. One of the things that held me back from spending my limit at ally pally was the thought that I already had one of everything. That 'everything' included a necklace kit from one of the fabulous bead stalls bought at last year's AP. So out it has come and we've got this far.

I think it's rather pretty and is pretty easy to follow.

That spurt of jewellery making saw me get out a few beads I had been maeaning to make into a bracelet for a while. Queue my yarnstorm moment...

and a slightly more practical shot of memory wire creation:

I got the beads in america earlier this year. I am always a sucker for polka dots and I just adore these little ones.

That is the non-knitting content out of the way. So now two finished objects to show off. We have the bag...before felting:

and after felting:

No real difference to the untrained eye but looking rather good nonetheless. Will get its first outing tomorrow.

The second are the fabulous socks using the custome dyed yarn Fabienne gave me during the last secret pal round. I have worn them already and they are perfect - the yarn is wonderfully smooshy.

Then (well I did say there was a lot to catch up on) there is the mermaid which has hit a wall because I've screwed up the colours. The light pink just isn't working and looks positively dirty next to the other two which definitely work together. I was thinking maybe a dark blue instead. Thoughts?

And finally the current WIP next to me on the sofa, a scarf. Yes, I know it's a bit boring but I'm a knitter and I need a scarf and so I'm knitting one. Not to make it too boring I'm using this pattern from ravelry and the texture of it really is pretty amazing.

Made all the better by the coordinating needles. Oh go on then, another yarnstorm moment...

Water, water everywhere...

...but not a drop to drink.

I have started seriously craving Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry.

This worries me slightly as, wearing my fat pants and sitting on the sofa with knitting in one hand and a glass of sherry in the other, I fear I'm turning into a stereotype. The weekend was mostly spent on the sofa due to nausea caused by latest round of antibiotics. This also explains the dearth of sherry and indeed all alcohol as lovely dentist assures me I will be horribly sick if I try and combine the two. Normally this wouldn't matter but Pooch has been peer-pressuring me to up my intake recently (i think to disguise his middle-class-alcoholism) and I now distinctly miss my evening snifter.

All this sofa time has meant some progress knitwise but don't have any photos handy so will have to wait. But I do have one thing to share. I am sure most people must have seen this by now but check out this woman's stash. I wonder how she would come out on the stashtimator?!

Ally Pally and a Podcast

Podcast is over here.

So I was there yesterday but think I must have been doing rather too good a job on myself in the way of stash management. Everything I looked at I just ended up thinking 'but I've already got some like that....' Of course this did not extend to sock yarn which we all know doesn't count, especially whenit's £1.60 a ball.

Very impressive stall actually which have talked about at length on podcast. Is this place.

I thought there was rather more non-knitting than knitting but this was not all bad as there did seem to be fewer cross stitch stands and more like this one...

String upon string of beads and only a pound or three per string.

There was the usual black sheep scrum - quite a lot of jeager matchmaker for £2 a ball.

And some lovely buttons. That's my mum in there having a look.

There was a quite meeting of the Golders Green knitters, during which they all went resolutely silent as soon as my recorder appeared!

So the haul is a little on the light side.

Plus a kit from Shilasdair:

Although I'm not totally happy about this. £65 for the kit and pattern says 'a medium sized garment' and then doesn't give you any measurements and is only written for that one size. Teaches me a lesson though to enquire more closely before shelling out on a kit.

Pooch spent the weekend in Cardiff and appeared triumphant with a present. Considering past offering I was a bit concerned about what it would turn out to be but in fact the boy done good, if slightly weird.

Parcels parcels

Woo hoo! I was made very happy this morning by my secret pal's parcel arriving at the crack of dawn (Pooch always thinks this is hysterical when I say that because my mum's name happens to be 'Dawn'). Lookie...

So much good stuff. Had a good rummage through the Interweave Crochet and found this:

..which I rather like but without the peplum. I like my circular yokes. There was of course yarn too:

Lovely malbrigo and some rowan yorkshire tweed 4-ply in a beautiful red. This was being discussed at golders green last night so very well timed. And then there was la piece de resistance....

Aren't they just divine? So ladylike. I fricking adore the colourway and the little buttons just make them absolutely perfect. I have long believed that

1. When you see a magpie you should say 'good morning mr magpie' or the world will end
2. You can significantly raise or lower your body temp by apply warmth/cold to your pulse points

I actually crocheted a pair of wrist warmer things while at the first SkipNorth but they were really rubbish. I think general cosmic karma was stopping me from making anymore because I knew these ones would be coming my way. Am going to wear them to tesco later. And then never take them off. I really really like them - thanks Plum xxx

I'm catching up after that wobble at the weekend so haven't shown you these:

I got them while visiting Nic and the gorgeous Pete at the weekend. I was actually holding Pete when I picked these so I like to think he had a hand in the choosing. Once again I took my camera but failed to take any pics. He really is just the most adorable baby. Everywhere we went people were stopping Nic and admiring him and asking his age, name, weight and all sorts of other things that were one more than 8 weeks old would probably seem terribly intrusive. But then I don't really need to take photos because there are lots over at her blog. Doesn't he look amazing in those hats. Broody? Moi? Ahem, moving on...

Earlier in the week I did get hold of my yarn and chocolate swap parcel from the ravelry swap. Yum! Reeses pieces and m&ms and lots of other stuff now sadly gone but not forgotten. Chocolate tends not to last too long around here. I did get this rather lovely stuff which is Lorna's Laces sock yarn.

I am vaguely thinking of this for them. But then I don't know if that is a bit aggressive for such a mellow colourway. Perhaps this could be the yarn that does justice to Jane's bracket fungus socks? Hmmm.... There was also an adorable felt covered tape measure that gives me an idea for my next parcel to my SP.

Very last thing - am not totally comfortable with the idea but I do need a voice recorder so have added a 'donate' button to the podcast site.

Turning a corner

Wowsers - thanks everyone for sending me all those lovely messages and especially to lurkers who de-lurked for that reason. It's all meant a lot to me.



Pooch and I had a big old talk last night where we shared a whole heap of stuff and talked like we hadn't done for months. We really do love each other an awful lot and want to make each other happy which is why I think we were both so shocked that things got to the stage they did. I'm still not sure who was more upset by what happened but I know that he was lashing out and that it was p[artly a result of a position I'd put him in so I fully accept some responsibility. We are going to see the lovely Relate counsellor who helped us before but as pooch puts it "I think we only need a couple of visits - just to remind us what we've forgotten".



As I've just written in an email to my SP - in a way this might have a silver lining as it has reminded me of how before my last spell of madness I was holding everything in and how I learnt the hard way that I needed to share things. It's reminded me just in time to share my feelings with people, especially Pooch. It's also reminded me not to cut myself off from experiences and not to give the negative voices so much airtime. Listen more to the sqeaky me!



I don't want to come out with a whole list of "...and therefore I am going to do this that and the other..." but I have decided to give the MBA another go. I've been getting good marks and there's no point giving up til I am sure about what I want to do.



So things are looking a bit better today and hopefully normal knitting service will be resumed shortly. Thanks peeps x

When is what someone says true? (non-knitting)

Things have not been so hot chez byrne recently. I don't want to cause a panic so let me start by saying that the stash is safe and the lack of temperature refers solely to non-knitting things. The fact is that married life is not quite the domestic bliss it's cracked up to be. In fact I'd go so far as to say it was periods of domestic silence interspersed with blazing rows and tentative reconciliation. The best, or quite possibly worst, episode took place on friday night and the repurcussions are still being strongly felt.

Now naturally I am not blameless in all this because as ever it takes two to argue. I don't want to go into the details but some things were said that I never thought I'd hear someone I care about say to me and I can't get them out of my head. I've just been talking to a friend who tells me that it isn't good to hear things like that as sooner or later you'll start believing them but I think it might be a tad too late for that.

When things started going bad at work I was being repeatedly told that I wasn't good with people, that I wasn't communicating ideas appropriately and that I wasn't any good at persuading people. For a while I fought my corner and insisted that it's hard to sell bollocks to clever people who are being told by people more senior to me that it is bollocks and they don't need to buy. But then I gave in and decided they must be right and I was wrong and that must mean that I was a bit useless. This is what Dr P and countless others would descibe as 'entering a phase of low self-worth'. Since then it has felt like I was like one of those russian dolls. There's the outside me all painted and strong and then there are these other versions inside, each a bit smaller than the last but trapped and that can't be seen until you take away the larger one. Somewhere right in the middle is the littlest one who has a voice even higher pitched than mine and who squeaks about having value and being good at things and having useful skills. It squeaks about deserving respect and trust. It likes socialising and doesn't feel ashamed about how it acts as it has the confidence to back up its actions and to judge these as appropriate. That's somewhere in there right in the middle.

As you move through successive layers there are hurtful things people have said tatoo-ed on the outside of each doll. You can still hear the squeaking here but it is pretty muffled so sometimes it's hard to make out the words. Then as you move out further the surfaces of the dolls get thicker and instead of other people's words being tatooed on the surface my own thoughts are carved into them. Lots of things like 'what if they're right that...' or 'what if it's my fault that...'. You can barely make out the squeaking except every now and again when a word or two comes through and reminds you that there is a person inside that used to be different. And each time that happens a new doll forms with a skin even thicker than the last one trying to block out the squeaking because somehow it's better to be worth nothing and just to accept that than to remember that once you were worthy of more than that.

I told Pooch this morning that I felt like I was trapped inside a facade that was painted to look happy. I felt like there was something inside screaming to get out, clawing at the walls until my fingers are all bloody and my voice is hoarse. He said he didn't understand. He said an awful lot more than that on friday night but I'm supposed to be able to forget about that and move on.

My friend says that people don't think it's my fault things have gone like they have with Pooch. That people are concerned and that if Pooch doesn't want to come out I should go by myself because people want to see me even when I'm by myself. But I just can't believe it. I am so ashamed. Ashamed of my marriage, of what I've become, of the things I can't bring myself to do because of the shame. Ashamed that I don't want to go out by myself, ashamed that I secretly believe people think his behaviour is down to me, ashamed of his behaviour, ashamed of him.

I haven't written anything like this on my blog for months because I was ashamed. I didn't want people to know what was going on so I tried to hide it. But at the same time I ended up not going out because I thought that if they asked me I might not be able to lie and it was better to be ashamed and alone than to admit all wasn't rosy. But to be honest that hasn't really been working that well for me so after much consideration I am effectively jumping out of the closet. I am at the moment terribly terribly unhappy but not depressed. I think if I made myself hide it any longer that would change and it is (probably) better to be outed than to risk falling back into the abyss again.

When you next see me will you do me a favour though - don't ask me about the specifics. Don't ask me to talk about how I'm feeling because I'm just not good at all that emotional stuff. Just talk to me about normal things and remind me how comfortable it can be to be a part of the world even when things aren't going that well. Remind me that it doesn't make any difference if you don't hide things and that you don't have to pretend to be happy and robust to be treated with respect. Or if all else fails ask me what it's like trying to keep the tension even when making cabled socks in two colours using the magic loop method.

A little time out to mourn the passing of an era

When I was mad an exercise my therapists were fond of and I loathed was "Putting things on a scale of 1-10 where 10 is where everyone you love is dead". My reaon for loathing this exercise was that it seemed obvious to me that if all my loved ones had just died I wouldn't be in whatever situation would cause me to panic because I'd be at home grieving. But depsite this I do recognise that it has its moments.

Let us for a moment consider orange squash. I assure you this is not a deviation. When I was weaned off mother's milk I was put onto orange squash. Robinsons Special R orange squash with no added sugar. It was orange. It came in a bottle with a blue cap. It was good stuff. Over the years Robisons decided to try out the occasional new recipe but somehow my love for it always managed to see the silver lining in this dark grey cloud of marketing and find something to love about each new slight variation that came along. Until now. Now Robinsons has discontinued Special R and replaced it with.....Robinsons no added sugar Orange. Yuk. And believing the picture on waitrose's website and ordering what I thought may well turn out to be some of the last stocks of it surviving on the planet I thereby ended up with 6 litres of the yuk being delivered to my house last night. Thank goodness I decided that any more than 6 might seem a bit unseemly.

So here we come back to the exercise - this is obviously a disaster. Not only do I not have any special r, I now have 6 litres of yuk. Also I squandered what turn out to be my last ever glass of special r thinking I had another 6 litres to go. How could I? So you can see that for me it goes in at roughly an 8 on the scale.

I have emailed Robinsons and asked them to reconsider but just got a standard reply saying my comments would be passed to the brand manager. 'Woe is me' doesn't even come close....

Has it come to this?

I was cruising for a bit of tv action when I came across "The Most Annoying Pop Moments We Hate to Love" at 7pm today on bbc4. Not only that, but this was episode 5. The mind boggles. By the time you get through episodes 1-4 what can still be left to cringe over? And as if it's not bad enough that they've gone through every conceivable "100 greatest/worst (insertnamehere)" in the last 12 months on british tv we now have entire series built out of these ghastly things.

Pooch is out tonight so I was resolved to put my feet up with a decent film and what I sincerely hope will be the last of my secret project. A few sewing in of ends and it should be ready to hand over, even though it is rather late.

Before leaving work this morning I made a row counter bracelet for my secret pal. I really wish I could post a pic of it as I am really really chuffed with it but it is personalised so it would be a bit of a give away. I am almost definitely going to be teaching people to make their own row counter bracelets at SkipNorth next year. They are so cunning and yet deceptively simple to put together.

So no pictures today as it's secret knitting all the way. But soon it will be over! And then it will be knitting as far as the eye can see...

New blog alert

It has finally happened. Pooch has entered the blogosphere. Go over there and leave a comment. You just know he wants you to.

So in other news, you know how I was going on a bit about how I didn't need to buy stuff to make me happy? Well let's just reel that back in a little bit and have a little shoe-love. Now bear in mind when looking at these pics that it was *pouring* with rain in london and they are a bit on the soggy side.

These shoes....are It. Oh yeah. I love them. And I wore them for a whole day and they didn't hurt or rub or anything.

They've got a kind of little nose at the end. And most of all they are exactly the right height to wear with long length trousers.

I think their acquisition may be a direct result of my training course last week as I have been pondering the johari window. The 'unknown' 4th quadrant is said to be where all those intuitions and lucky guesses come from. I like to think it was my 4th quadrant that was picking up signals that these shoes had arrived on Oxford Street and yesterday was the optimum moment to meet up with them.

Speaking of optimum moments, let me bring some sock yarn and needles to your attention. This yummy parcel arrived last weekend after an unfortunately long stay at the post office due to their random strikes.

Now that is a rubbish photo so here is a close up of the two coloured ones.

Oh yeah, it's good. The blue/purple is 75% wool and 25% bambus, which I am choosing to believe is bamboo, and is called Admiral Bambus. The stripey is 75% wool and 25% Poly and is called Admiral R Druck. There was also a skein of undyed which I'm thinking of dyeing for my secret pal, and not 1 or 2 but 3 sets of dpns! Purple pins (which are obviously purple) and metal, hiya hiya which I have been hearing mutterings about and which are steel and some Pointy Sticks bamboo ones. The yarn is satisfyingly soft and squidgy without the slight harshness of mixed-fibre sock-yarns like trekking and opal.

The whole lot came from Knit'n'Caboodle whose tagline is rather satisfyingly "where only the sheep are fleeced" and who I see will be at Ally Pally. I can see the Admiral R Druck having a pleasant stay with me but I fully intend to share the goodies and the blue bamboo mix and some of the dpns will be the competition prize on the next podcast. Don't forget there's still time to enter the last competition...

400th post

since March 13th 2005. Almost 67,000 hits and still going strong. I've been discussing life with pooch and and co recently and feel that I've reached a point of consolidation. I no longer have the same urge to go out and shop my socks off. In "How Proust can change your life" AdeB talks about how in modern society once you're earning a certain amount there is no need to yearn for things any more because you can go out and buy them. I don't want to be big headed and sound off but I reached this point a couple of years ago. If I wanted something I could just go out and buy it. Made life a bit boring really, which probably says more about my life than it does about my earnings. Recently I have slowed down my acquisition of things and am thinking more about what, besides shopping, makes me happy. Geez, how hollow does that sound?

One of the things that does make me happen is sorting stuff out. So today I've been making lists and thinking about things that need sorting out. I've set myself a deadline of ally pally to get the proudtobecrafty.co.uk website sorted out and the spreadshirt shop finished and ready to be publicised. I'm planning to make the PTBC website into more of a portal so not just for Skip Holidays but also for the podcast and also as a distro for crafty bits and pieces I and others want to sell. I've also been talking to Pooch about restarting the zine as I did like doing it - but that depends on making a decision about whether to continue with the MBA which is a whole other can of worms.


But there has definitely not been enough knitting content in this post so a little teaser for you - SkipNorth will definitely be taking place in 2008 and the dates are Friday 7th March - Sunday 9th. I will be letting the SkipHolidays yahoo group know first when Nic and I finalise the price. It will still be well below the £200 mark but costs have risen this year so be prepared for a bit of a hike.