New Endings

I grew up with divorced parents. They split when I was 4 and so I don't have many memories of them being together. Divorce in the early 80s (at least where I grew up) was still pretty rare so I was the only one in my year at primary school with divorced parents and there weren't many more of us at secondary/sixth form or Uni. I have horrified various friends and ex-boyfriends over the years with my voicing the opinion that when I got married I would also get divorced at some point after that. I expected my marriage to last about 10 years. I thought this was the only practical way to be and would help manage everyone's expectations. What I never expected was that it would end after just over 3 years. Yes, Pooch and I have separated. It's a trial separation so you never know but neither of us is that hopeful we can pull it around.

I hesitated for a few days about blogging about this. It is very personal and although this blog always used to be more like a diary than a craft blog, I'd deliberately shifted it to be less personal since I got married. I figured it was all private after that as it was no longer just about me - it was about 'us'. Now though it looks like it is going to be all 'me' again and hell, Crazy Aunt Purl got a two book deal out of it so why not. Besides, even post-therapy I still hate talking about emotional things and find it much easier to find release through writing about it instead. When I have to talk about stuff I get this tension across the tops of my cheeks - the muscles you tense when something smells bad or you're doing a rabbit impression.

Hate it. 

I'm meeting up with Pooch on Thursday to talk about things. I made a decision to move out at the weekend to give us both some space so am effectively flat-sitting for a friend who is away for a month. It means I've got a nice little one-bed flat near Elephant & Castle with a balcony and Sky but no toaster. Being able to move here for a month is a real life saver. But I still constantly have to fight the urge to call Pooch or go back to our lovely flat where we would hug and it would all be ok. Sometimes, life utterly sucks. I'm trying to put a brave face on it but inside I am broken. 

Living in a boy's flat (he owns it and lives by himself) is quite interesting in itself because there are no feminine touches anywhere. There is nothing to hang washing on for instance - because he just hangs it over chairs or on the back of doors. There are also no cushions. Not one. He's told me to do whatever I want to make myself comfortable but there's only one thing I've done so far. The doormat looked like roadkill so I have bought him a red and white polka dot one, which looks nothing like this picture.

I'm not sure what he'll make of it when he comes back but I'll be gone by then (where to I have no idea) and in the meantime it makes coming back to the empty, unfamiliar flat a bit easier.

All this means that I may be blogging regularly, if the cathartic spleen thing works out, or maybe not at all for a long time. But I'll probably carry on tweeting about random things that come to my attention (today there's been the nobel prize for physics, derivative creativity, trade union ballots and which pantomime an imaginary miner should be in) so you can follow me on there if you want to. Link is top left. 

Reasons to be Cheerful

Reasons are few and far between at the moment. Then I saw a ravatar for a Rav member called LacyKate. It is this quote:

"Yarn will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no yarn."

What excellent sense. 

Beady Business

I finally used the beads I got in Istanbul.

The blue ones are cultured pearls and it's doubled up. The bracelet is on memory wire and is what my mum always told me were called Tigers Eye. So I feel a bit sentimental about it even though it is the most seventies looking stone I've ever seen. I used a catch on the necklace that I got at one of the Boot Fairs at the weekend. 

Isn't it sweet? It was in a packet of mixed catches. I can't help wondering what the necklaces they came off were like. I used the last few beads on stitchmarkers, along with some tiny heads from Craftacular. 

I think the cross looking one should always be used at the end of a row to show you should be getting on with the next one. 

On Twitter today there was a post about organising your buttons. I do have quite a few buttons. 

Yes, quite a few. And I am quite happy with them, but I read the post about this method and the sentence... 

"Well as much as I loved having a giant box ful it just wasn't working for me in the organized department. I had to root through looking for that perfect set only to find out I didn't have enough!"

.....really spoke to me. This is her photo from that post and on Flickr. Looks good, huh?

I can't decide whether it will be worth it as it will mean a certain amount of stitching onto cards for the loose ones. But then it will make looking at them much easier. And gloating over them. And oggling. I do love buttons. 

Speaking of Twitter, there was on online conference two nights ago which worked brilliantly (#craftsocial)! Just like the cat cafes I stupidly thought this was my idea and had discussed having a knitting one with Nickerjac about a month ago. We are going to do it so keep an eye out for that. If you're not familiar with Twitter it is very easy to use and there is a brilliantly written tutorial here (thought I say so myself)!

Crochet Button Necklace

I made one of these on Friday but am finally getting my self organised enough to post the photos. There are soooo many tutorials for these. I browsed a few before starting but basically you get some cotton, thread on the buttons then start crochet chaining.

I'm pretty pleased with it! It's hard to take a pic of yourself in a necklace so luckily SB was here to model.

I think she's looking a lot like me nowadays. I told her that and she wasn't happy.

The only downside is that it can get a bit tangly. But hey, I can untangle laceweight so I figure I'll cope.

Definitely going to make more.

Mater's Cinnamon Buns

It's tutorial tuesday. And what better than a gorgeous recipe for something warming as the weather turns colder.

These things are fricking awesome. The smell is almost as good as the taste. If you can have made bread before you won't have any trouble. If you haven't made bread before, you'll be fine. 

Ingredients

1lb strong white flour

1 level tsp salt

4tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp grated nutmeg (mum says fresh is best but life is short)

2 x 6g sachets of dried yeast

2oz caster sugar

8oz sultanas

4oz chopped glace cherries (mum's trademark)

5fl.oz. hand hot milk

1.5-2fl.oz. water

2oz melted butter

1 large egg

Glaze

2oz caster sugar

2 tbsp water

Place first 4 items in a bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and sugar, followed by the sultanas and cherries. Add milk, water, beaten egg and butter. 

Mix into a dough.Knead for approx 6 mins until smooth and elastic. Cover loosely and leave somewhere warm until roughly doubled in size (approx 90 mins).

Press air out and shape into 12 buns on a baking tray covered in baking parchment. Cover lightly with foil and  leave to rise for another half an hour. 

Pop into hot oven (210 maybe - she uses an aga, of course) for approx 15 mins or until sound like a drum when tapped on base.

While in the oven make the glaze, then as soon as they come out brush on glaze and leave to cool. But not for tooooo long....these are absolutely delicious while fresh and still warm with some butter. Mmmmm.

And it didn't end there. She also knocked up this sponge.

The topping is marscapone based which worked exceptionally well - it tasted very fresh as well as delicious. 

The jam is home made, what else. Note also the glace cherry. I am serious - Mum rarely makes a pudding that doesn't include them somewhere!

Weekend Curiosity

This is the venue for Saturday night's dinner. 

That is Mater in the photo. It was pretty amazing which is not surprising when you consider it is owned by the family behind the Miller's Antique Guides, and is actually called 'Millers'. 

It is in Porlock, which is very pretty in itself...

... and the dining room looks out over the sea. 

Pooch was enthralled. This is a really rubbish photo which gives the impression of the just off full moon rising in the sky with the moonlight dappling the water. It was awesome, and that photo is frankly a travesty of it. 

Staying with mother is always excellent as she is a mean cook and has a cat! Artemis is the dog's when it comes to cats. 

She is pure hunter outdoors, and pure softy indoors. It's like a personality disorder. 

She also sleeps with her paw over her nose, which is unbearably cute. 

So not only cats, but also mother's cooking AND two, not just one, but two boot fairs. We don;t have boot fairs in london. No big car parks or fields. Here it seems like most farmers are dependent on renting the odd field out for boot fairs for a living. To the right....

....and to the left.

I scored a large amount of buttons which made me very happy indeed. 

That must be enough for one post so I'll wait til tomorrow to show you what Mum cooked AND share one of her classic recipes. Cinnamon buns dude. They are seriously amazing. 

SkipNorth Holiday - Limited places Left

SkipNorth - knitting holiday extraordinaire - is filling up fast!

Following the KnitCamp debacle there is some rightful doubt about the safety of paying your money to flybynight event organisers, but SkipNorth is in its sixth year and has never caused anyone to be deported. We've got just 12 places left so move fast to snag one.

If you find the idea of a weekend of knitting/spinning/crocheting, learning, socialising, cake eating and shopping appealing, then you should go here to look at the SkipNorth website. Follow the links to the agenda and booking form.

11th - 13th March, Haworth (in Yorkshire), Awesome. Enough said.

Flattr - I made some money!

Woop woop! I made 2.10 Euros on Flattr.

Well, I say made. I put in 2 Euros so I suppose strictly speaking I made 10 cents, but hey, that's a profit. And I never even joined up to make money - only to show appreciation of the blogposts of others. 

I posted about Flattr before after hearing about it from the amazing Craftypod. To be honest I had kind of forgotten about it but I went on there today out of curiosity and found 2.10 Euros waiting for me. Hubba hubba! If you get 10 Euros you can transfer it to your bank account, but I never intended to make any money so I have transferred it back to my 'giving' pile and so it will be shared out again when I flattr some more people. 

While on flattr.com I searched for craft blogs and came across Inspiration Junkie. Love it! Sadly led me straight to her etsy shop to spend some money but it is for a birthday present I had been keeping an eye out for so it's all good. Plus, it means the micro-economy of Flattr has led to money entering the macro-economy of Etsy.

And that is pretty cool. 

 

Inside my house

I really love having pictures on the walls. I spied this girl with her cat at Greenwich Market at the weekend.

Isn't she adorable? I did have a 'keep calm cast on' print there but that has moved to the opposite wall where I've got a bit of a motley collection going on. 

It is my ambition to have a strip of framed pictures like this going all the way around the room. But that is one of those ambitions that is going to have to wait until I actually own the walls I'm banging nails into.

On Regret and High Society

I've posted before on this blog about 'regrets' and the song 'My Way' by Sinatra. I was rewatching High Society* (Grace Kelly - so very beautiful) last week which of course stars the great Frank. There are some lovely scenes between them where they are both drunk and being all flirty and silly. Of course she's engaged to someone else and this is the night before her wedding, plus her ex-husband (Bing Crosby) is hanging about. Really, it's pretty scandalous stuff. And then in the morning she's trying to piece back together what happened the previous night and is all jumpy because she cannot remember what she did with who (of course she didn't actually do anything naughty because this is a family film).

The song doesn't appear in that film, but it reminded me of it. Especially this bit:

Regrets? I've had a few,
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.


I planned each charted course -
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.


Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew,
When I bit off more than I could chew,
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.


I've loved, I've laughed and cried,
I've had my fill - my share of losing.
But now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.


To think I did all that,
And may I say, not in a shy way -
Oh no. Oh no, not me.
I did it my way.

I've been thinking a lot about regrets and whether it is better to regret doing something or to regret not having tried to do something. I've also posted about channelling your inner-17-year-old and I think the two things are connected. My mother was telling me how she wanted to go swimming locally but last time she and my step-dad went they were repeatedly told off by the guard. And to put this in context let me tell you that my mother is quite like Mrs Tiggywinkle.

Me: "What were you doing?"
She: "Well Robbie and I were pretending to be sharks and then I was being a dolphin, and I would leap out of the water like a dolphin and Robbie would catch me."
Me: "Ah"
She: "Yes, they kept saying we just had to swim up and down in the lanes. So we left and haven't been back."

I told this story to my colleagues, and my Director remarked it explained a lot about me. Which is fair comment, since, like my mother, I have always been in the camp of being more likely to regret doing something, than to regret not doing something. Because at least then you know what happened, rather than being in a permanent state of "What if..." In fact...."To think I did all that, And may I say, not in a shy way" could just about sum it up.

So to finish, an example of how this translates into knitting.

This has been variously referred to, but the name I like best is 'malformed buttocks'. It is a bag out of the A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting and is the "Mobius Fanny Basket" which says it all really. It came about because I was very keen on felting at the time, wanted to try the mobius knitting style, and didn't read the instructions properly. So while I am glad I did it (and I later did a cat basket that did work much better), I regret wasting my time on something so freaking ugly and useless. But if I hadn't I'd be wondering what it would have looked like and have convinved myself it would have made my life better in some way.

But really - isn't that the most regrettable knitting object you've ever seen?

*A word of warning - if you google 'High Society' and look at 'images' be aware that it is also the title of a porn magazine. I'm just saying is all. 

Steeking #2

Last year I made my first steeked cardigan, made of Kauni. It is in my view the greatest thing I have ever knitted. Yesterday I steeked my second cardigan. For the uninitiated, steeking is where you knit something in the round and then cut it to create a front opening of a cardigan, or a neckline, or an armhole etc. To stop the knitting unravelling you can either perform some sort of crochet magic which I know nothing of, or use a sewing machine to sew a line of small straight stitch either side of your cut, or if you are using 'sticky' wool you don;t need to secure it at all as it basically instantly felts itself together. I'm a sewing machine gal myself.

Here it is pre cutting. 

You add a band of extra stitching for you to cut through and then fold back, before picking up along the edge to add a button band. And here it is after cutting.

I think I've done the neck too high so there may be some impromptu steeking where I cut a new neckline, but that will wait until it is fitted on my mater next weekend. I have a history of taking FOREVER to knit things for relatives so it will come as no surprise that I started this about a year ago. I'm almost there now though. 

The thing I have found with steeking though, is that it is easy to get taken in by the hype. You read a lot about people getting really nervous about it, but if you sew a line and then cut and then don't suddenly start yanking at it, there's not much that can really go wrong. And taking scissors to your knitting is strangely liberating. So if you have avoided steeking, give it a go. It is good and so much easier than trying to do fairisle with the wrong side facing you. 

After my course on machine embroidery and applique at the Make Lounge I wanted to have a go on my own machine. I got the quilting/free motion foot for my machine and yesterday I went for it. Here is what I ended up with. 

Six rather odd looking xmas tree decorations! I tried out a few different designs. It is definitely the ones with the circles I like most though. Like do it yourself polka dots, and after sewing them you get to decide how many and where you want to cut them out. 

They are a bit jobby but you can always rely on your mother to coo over this kind of thing so they are destined for her. 

Pooch has been away all this week and so to cheer myself up I introduced a new friend into the family. 

They are possibly the best shoes I've ever had and arrived chez byrne via Office. They are one of those things that show me up to be terribly shallow and materialistic but I just don't care! Wearing them makes me fabulously happy!

Twitter on Tutorial Tuesday

It's Tutorial Tuesday. And this week, it's Twitter.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free service where you can send messages to your "followers". Messages are a maximum or 140 characters long. So that's 140 letters, including spaces, punctuation, web addresses or whatever else you want to include. 

Essential vocab and basics

• Followers = people who are subscribed, or who "follow" your tweets.
• Tweets = the messages you send through Twitter are referred to as Tweets. 
• Reply = messages intended for just one person, but which will be seen by everyone following you. Adding a @ symbol in front of someone's twitter name indicates your message is directed at them. Example below. 

• @ can also be used to indicate who you are talking about. In the first of the hashtag examples below, as well as using a made up hashtag (explained below) I've also indicated who Sister Diane is. This means others can click on her name and see her tweets. 
• Retweet = a message someone else sent that you want to forward to your followers. Designated by the letters RT at the beginning of the message. It is also normal to credit the original sender by putting @[sender's name] in the message. 

• Hashtags = ways of following a topic rather than a person. People tag their own tweets with words which sometimes they've made up (first example below) and which more often are related to an event or topical subject (second example below is for the IKnit Weekender).

• When tweeting web addresses it is useful to use a service like tinyurl.com to shorten the URL. So for example, a link to one of my blog posts might be http://lixiemakesit.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-20-of-podcast.html which is using up 67 of my precious 140 characters. Using tinyurl (free and no registration needed) it becomes http://tinyurl.com/38yz8jl which is only 26 characters. There are lots of other websites which will do the same kind of thing but I like this one. 

Reading Tweets

Option 1: You don't have to sign up to twitter to read people's tweets. This is worth remembering as it highlights that NOTHING on the internet is private. To read tweets without registering just go to twitter.com and type in the name of the person or the thing you are interested in. In this example I've typed in my twitter name (littlelixie) and hit search. 

I can now go further. I can click on any of the tweets from littlelixie or that are addressed to me (using the @littlelixie tag) and that takes me to my twitter homepage. Because I have not logged in the computer does not know I am looking at my own page, and is encouraging me to "follow" littlelixie. 

You could bookmark each person you wanted to "follow" but it would be a bit tedious switching between pages to keep up to date. That is why I could recommend Option 2....

Option 2: Register with Twitter and "follow" people as this then groups all their tweets together each time you log on. If you are worried about online security just use a different name to your real one. Simply click on 'sign up' at twitter.com and in 30 seconds you can have your own account. 

Navigating a Twitter Page

Once you have logged in, this is roughly what you will see. 

The five labelled sections are...

1. This is where you type your tweet. It can include web addresses, plain text, numbers, hashtags (#), @ symbols etc. Just remember that what you type will probably be seen by others unless you have altered your privacy settings (see below for more).
2. This indicates how many characters you have left. If it goes into negative numbers then you will have problems sending that tweet. 
3. This is where your own tweets show up once sent, plus the tweets of anyone you are following. 
4. This is your little dashboard showing the tweets you have sent, who are you following, who is following you and how many 'lists' your tweets appear in. I am not going into lists here as that is a bit more advanced but easy to understand once you are used to twitter itself. 
5. This is where you can search for a topic (i.e. knitting) a hashtag trending topic (such as #iknit) or a person (such as Bill Bailey). You can also save searches. 

How to Follow People

Find someone you want to follow and go to their twitter page (use the search tool described above).

Underneath their twitter name is a button that says 'follow'. Click on that while logged in and you'll get all their future tweets. 

Things to Remember

1. Your tweets are public unless you change your privacy settings. If you want to do this log in and click on 'settings'. At the bottom of the screen is a 'protect my tweets' tickbox. This means only people who you have approved as followers will see them. This is good if you want privacy, but bad if you want followers as it makes it impossible for people to casually come across you. 

2. You will probably get followed by some strangers. But not too many and you can block people from following you if they are being annoying. 

3. People may not be who they seem to be. You can sign up with any name on Twitter and there is no identity check. Someone may be tweeting as Lady Gaga and it turns out to be your cousin Eric. 

4. You can get lots of free and paid for apps for 3G phones that mean you can tweet from your phone. They vary in what they offer a reliability so look at reviews in the app store before you download anything. 

5. Never ever ever ever share anything you would not mind everyone knowing. For example, no email addresses or phone numbers unless you immediately want to get spammed to Herne and back. It's also easy to fall into the #tmi (too much information) trap as tweeting can feel like you're just texting your friends. 

6. Twitter.com recently announced that at any one time 3% of the servers were taken up with tweets about Justin Bieber (small teen canadian singer who teen girls can not get enough of). So don't bother tweeting about him because there's enough info out there already. 

Tweeters I would recommend

• Littlelixie - this is me!
• Craft Gossip - be warned, they send A LOT of tweets. 
• Craft - the O'Reilly craft magazine. I love their blog.
• Ravelry - got to be done really
• CraftyPod's Sister Diane - the Dude. 

There are zillions of others - try Nickerjac, Woollywormhead, yarnharlot, or the name of just about any crafter or shop you can think of. 

If you found this blog post useful then tweet it to your mates!

Episode 20 of the Podcast

(It may be a few hours before episode 20 shows up below. Click here if it isn't showing.

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First Block of Interviews are from....

• KnitExpo
• Knitting and Crochet Guild
• Woolly Wormhead
• Toft Alpaca
• Anova Books

Explanation of swiss darning.

Second block of interviews are from...

• Knitting 4 Fun
• EasyKnits
• Coco Knits
• KnitExpo (link above)
• IKnit London

Try twitter.com and search for #iknit. Click on that last link to go straight to that search on twitter (no log in needed). Tutorial on "Twitter for Knitters" will be on my blog soon. Plus Follow Me on Twitter.

SkipNorth knitting holiday - more information here.

Third block of interviews are from...

• Woolly Thoughts. Illusions knitting gallery here. 
• Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop
• The Bothered Owl
• Hedgehog Equipment
• Artisan Threads

Extra links:

• Excellent podcasts from CraftyPod
• Six weeks of free patterns from Duo Fibreworks