Secret Pal Goodness

My second parcel from my wonderful Secret Pal. Just the outside of it promises so much goodness. Beautiful box.

Inside did not disappoint! Gorgeous wool/silk and the most perfect red, wonderful chocolate smelling soap, and blueberry flavoured licorice - I never even knew such a thing existed. I have reached the age of 31 and 364 days without realising you could get flavoured licorice.

Isn't that yarn gorgeous? It is enriched with aloe vera and jojoba too just too make it even more perfect. Meanwhile I have been busy with the first lot of yarn she gave me and have finished the back of the flower child top. Except I think I've made a mistake with part C as it doesn't seem to match D. Ah well. Plus of course there's the seaming. May do the front in one piece.

Of course SP isn't all one way - I have my own pal to spoil and so I made her some stitchmarkers from some of the beads I bought in Istanbul.

I've made a matching set for myself. I always used to find the eye thing a bit freaky but I guess seeing it every-single-where in Turkey has cured me of that and I like it now. Small ones at least.

While making stitchmarkers I also whipped up this bracelet using some flower beads I got months ago.

It seemed suitably summery. And then I played with the safety pins I got along with the beads.

I've never seen such beautiful ones!

It is of course the big 3-2 birthday tomorrow and I've been very lucky to get some presents already. This is one I bought myself.

It's the Crafty Leftovers zine which I saw when I was reading Tangled's blog. She's contributed some things to it this time. You can order one here. It's not cheap but I rather like it. Then I've received some excellent books from my lovely m-i-l and s-i-l.

I loved the Freakonomics book and regularly use examples from it in random conversations. So I'm looking forward to reading the follow-up. Then the bead book is a brilliant "learn the techniques" one and the Knitting Green one I didn't know at all but is full of knittery goodness.

I also got a fabulous Cath Kidston bag with a perfect card of a me-a-like surrounded by beautiful presents. Someone has been spying on my dreams.

And I've got even more to open tomorrow, including ones from Pooch and another from my m-i-l wrapped in the most perfect paper.

Isn't that awesome!

So all that's left is to show you the socks I did based on the Impasto Shawl from the last Interweave.

They weren't what I intended but they're fine and Pooch likes them. Then there are the ones I am doing for me using the free Aquaphobia pattern.

Very beautiful and I love how it breaks up the yarn.

Beautiful Patchwork

Long, long ago I saw this quilt on Flickr. It was love at first sight. After a year of work it is finally coming together. This is it laid out on the floor without the quarters sewn together.

Then with the corners of the squares placed in the right places.

So exciting to see it like that. Just look at some of the individual sections.

The colour of the surrounding corners really brings out the colours of the fabrics in the circles.

I've started sewing them together and have the first two with all the paper removed. This is my first double-bed sized fabric quilt of this complexity so it is wonderful to see it coming together.

Knitstanbul Part 2

I left off just where things were getting interesting - the knitting section of the Grand Bazaar. I scored. Not too much because I had to get it in the suitcase, but still pretty well. No ball was more than £1.25 and some were 25p. Good stuff. Firstly 5 colours of sock yarn, of which these are 2.

Then some acrylic but very soft and lovely colours. I would have got more, but space demands constricted me. Such a shame.

Some lovely metallic (plus another of the sock yarn colours).

And lastly some ribbon yarn which I thought might make another floaty scarf.

Elsewhere I also got a load of beads, gorgeous rayon embroidery skeins and other goodies.

One of which is these lengths of beautiful flowers which I saw made into necklaces.

And last but not least, my fabulous shoes.

At this point we moved to hotel number two, which was very modern and luxiourious.

Sadly it coincided with us both getting stomach bugs. Poor Pooch.

We still managed to enjoy ourselves though and especially at the Pere Museum who had a huge exhibition by an artist I hadn't heard of but who I definitely love - Fernando Botero. This is a sample:

I just adore the face of the clown on the right. His paintings were quite astonishing, especially when collected together. I especially loved the pastiche ones like his version of the mona lisa and of course this one.

The most memorable part of this second part of the holiday for me was undoubtedly the turkish hammam scrub I had in the hotel's spa. It was an unusual experience. I started off with a kind of sarong round me but that rapidly vanished. It really was an amazing experience. I was sitting on warm marble next to a little fountain running with warm water. The guy had a silver bowl and kept using it to ladel water over me. He scrubbed me all over with a loofah mit which removed a horrifying amount of dead skin. Then it was face down onto hotter marble covered with a towel to be literally covered from head to toe with soap suds which he then massaged into me all over. Then back to the warm marble seat to be sloshed with more water and he washed my hair too. I came out literally floating and feeling like I was high. Since we got back I've been looking for a place in london for a similar experience and darling pooch has got me a voucher for one for my birthday. Huzzah!

Since I've got back I have been patchworking and adding to the tutorial page of this blog. Having used my travel jewellery pouch extensively on holiday I am thinking it is a perfect place for handmade present inspiration as well as rainy day moment.

Knitstanbul Part 1

(To be fair, this is the name of a group on Ravelry that I would strongly recommend anyone thinking of going to Istanbul visit first. They give great advice.)

Yay! Istanbul! It was brilliant, Our first hotel was sublime. This was our little balcony.

The hotel had three resident cats. This is Lonesome George. He was slightly senile and spent a lot of time sleeping.

This is Mr Mijage. He was very affectionate, especially if you gave him your breakfast butter.

Cats abound in Istanbul - especially in the traditional half around Sultanamet. I saw that in Morocco too but there the people didn't seem to like them. Whereas in Istanbul it's like they both exist together quite peaceably, doing their own thing.

The city is the most well defined 'city of two halves' I have ever seen. Sultanamet has Aya Sophia, Blue Mosque and traditional museums. All were extremely inspiring. This column...

...reminded me so vividly of this sock. Now there's a sentence you don;t see very often. Then look at this door carving at the Tokapi Palace.

Awesome.

But of course, we weren't just there for culture. There was the football too. We had a number of meals like this.

It was rather sweet really, and left me free to knit away. Speaking of which, this is what you want to be looking for in the Grand Bazaar.

And this is what you'll find when you get there.

Wall to wall knitting shops all round a courtyard. Admittedly it is mostly acrylic but hey, it's still good.

More to come in part 2.....

Sultan's Revenge

Every city seems to have something like this. The pharoah's curse, delli belly, blight of blighty and so on. Sadly pooch and I both have a touch and that and the British weather which is smothering Istanbul in sticky rain have brung us a bit low. Ah well. At least England won the football. The idea of being marooned in the hotel with a grumpy poorly pooch who was also feeling personally responsible for losing the football is more than I can get my head round. At least the wifi is ok and so is the knitting.

It's the aquaphobia pattern which I've made before and us great for preventing pooling.

Home tomorrow, which is a relief as it's always awkward being unwell away from home. It has been a lovely holiday, despite the current upset, and I'll have lots of photos to share later on.

GOAL!!!!!

Pooch insisted we get here ninety minutes early to ensure we got good seats. As the game kicked off we were two of six customers. The bar holds about fifty, although to be fair only about thirty seats have a view of one of the four screens on offer.

We have now moved to our second hotel and although the new one is 5 star and truly glitzy, I am missing the Empress Zoe already. But on the plus side this one has a spa and pool so once this silly game is out of the way it will be relaxation all the way.

Istanbul

I blog from my hotel terrace with the breeze cooling me off after a cold shower. It ain't half hot. It's highly blissful, even with the sound of vuvuselas in the background. I also visited the much talked of knitting district of the grand bazaar. Wowser. Will describe more when I get back. Until then....

Istanbul here I come!

Pooch and I are off for a blissful week in Istanbul. We have 3 nights in a traditional place and 3 nights in a very swish modern one. Both have wifi so I may blog if I have a minute. I've got a map of a great knitting shop, curtusy of the Istanbul knitting group on Ravelry and Pooch's agreement that up to an hour will be spent there and in the haberdashery shops nearby. Awesome.

I got it into my head that I *must* make a bag to use while there. So regard! Possibly the jobiest bag in the world!

The best thing about it is the kitten fabric on the inside. I love that fabric. Not sure if I'll actually take it with me but may do just for the fun of it.

Before I vanish allow me to direct you to Nics Knots. Gorgeous knitting bags in gorgeous fabrics. I do like the sheep designs, and the skull and crossbones, but the Laura Ashley poppies is the winner. So elegant.

If I do not get a cat soon I'll......I'll......

I have been asking Pooch to get me a cat for my birthday. He keeps saying 'no' but I won't give up. Meanwhile I torture myself....

In February I spotted a picture of a cat wearing a devil hat. Too cute. Then on Ravelry I spotted the designer has a new pattern out for a unicorn cat-hat. That one didn't appeal to me especially....but the bear ears? Oh boy. So I have shamelessly nicked her photos from Ravelry in the belief she won;t mind in return for this plug - all the patterns are available on Ravelry here or on Etsy here and are only about $4 each. So if you have a cat, and it needs a hat, you know where to go.

Bear Cat

Frog Cat

Party Cat (Pooch did point out that in this one the cat looks like he's had enough hats for one day, but still)

Monster Cat

And then just in case you are deranged like me in your desire for cats, but your hateful husband has deliberately set out to be allergic to them, she has cat patterns too.

Meow!

Finally, just so you know I don't exaggerate about my working conditions....

And I'm the one in the middle. Although I'm hoping that was clear and didn't really need saying.

Slow Week

Pretty slow week at work so far. New boy started yesterday and has so far born up well to the torrent of abuse that passes for our team dynamism. He just took a picture of me and two of my colleagues with our bellies' exposed and a 4th colleague's name written on the aforementioned exposed bellies. So as I type I have a big 'A' hidden under my t-shirt. He's still managed to eat lunch too. I guess it's only tuesday though, so goodness knows what horror will strike in the next few days.

Life outside work has been pretty exciting though. You don't end up like this by playing it safe you know.

(It's the inner side of my elbow on my right arm - I know the angles look weird but it is - trust me on this.)

I went to give blood. I really should stop doing that but it was World Blood Day and they'd sent me a postcard saying the blood stocks always plummeted during a World Cup so I thought I would. Plus they had a big cake. It was good. I got through the iron test and listing current meds with flying colours and she found a vein straight away too. Possibly over confident following my assurances that something usually goes terribly wrong she said "Here we go.......................Um...............................SHE'S BRUISING!!!!!!! SOMEONE GET ME A SWAB!!!!!". I took great pains not to look, since that's what lead to my fainting last time I went. It doesn't actually hurt but I have to wait four weeks for it to heal and then they'll try again.

Do you give blood? The two main disqualifications are being a gay man (so backward but there you go) and having had a blood transfusion since about 1980. If neither of those apply to you then you really should. Click here to find your nearest donation point. There might be cake.

So apart from that....I've become mildly obsessed with the look of my blog and with having weird dreams. I've really got to write down that one about the crab. It's not even like I've been eating cheese. I have been compiling tutorials for crafty goodness and have added another page to this blog to keep track of them. I was thinking about this in the bath last night and got quite annoyed with Pooch for not earning enough to make it possible for me to sit at home crafting more often. But then he came in and said something sweet and I remembered he was ok again.

Blog pimping, again

Darling Blogger, how you do aim to please. Blogger have just introduced a new template editor which is amazingly simple to use and highly configurable. So as you can see I have changed my look - for today at least. I went with books to suit the sexy librarian theme. But who knows what tomorrow will bring!

I'm also going down the advertising route so if you are a LYS, an etsy/folksy seller, a budding author, or just have something to say I have a blog for you to do it on. I know it's a bit commerical but I really want to be able to stop scrimping to save for a deposit - and every penny from ads will help that happen sooner.

I'm a sexy librarian.

Although the boys at work say I'm more like that old lady librarian ghost from Ghostbusters.

Well what a weekend. Having dismally drawn England in the office sweepstake I am now semi-obliged to take an interest in their inevitable downfall. It was probably just as well since we were having a roomful of people round to watch their first game yesterday. I made key lime pie using this amazingly simple recipe. Pooch made chilli. Everyone was happy basically. Apart from that goal keeper. Ah well.

Of course no evening with Pooch is complete without a laptop. And in this case it was used so that one of his mates on the otherside of london who was looking after his baby girl could be with us in spirit via Skype videocall. Skype really is amazing technology - and on top of that it is free. So we were able to keep an eye on each others' reactions and to share analysis at half-time. You can see him circled in red here.

Just to balance things out and make sure no one thinks I'm actually supporting england long-term or anything, I have placed my first ever bet with a bookmaker. £5 on Germany to win the whole thing. And they've just scored twice in their first game so I'm feeling good about it. It might make the next few weeks slightly more bearable too.

On the craft side it is still all about the hexagons. So not much to show. However, I did take a break long enough to whip this up.

It ties around the door handles of the front room. The door never stays shut when a window is open because of the throughdraft and it bangs and scrapes where the catch is. So now it deliberately doesn't shut, and the padding inside it stops the banging. I is genius.

Perfect Sunday

Heart-shaped cherry crumble!

Om nom nom nom. Got cornish cream ice-cream to eat it with...and I still have a husband to eat it with, although it was a narrow thing. This is him hanging out of a window.

He'd decided that his england flag (goddamnworldcup) was blowing about too much and so should be stuck down with sellotape.

Nutter.

The rest of the day has been a mixture of knitting, patchwork and tidying. I've started on the flower top from the front of Norah Gaugan's fourth berocco collection. The yarn my SP sent me was perfect for it so I couldn't resist casting on and am onto the 3rd section of the back already. Going to be lovely.