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Wear Your Wool To Work Day

I have been meaning to do this for ages and the thing that was holding me up was not having a button. But now I still don't have a button but am not waiting any longer. To fit in with Ally Pally and it being National Knitting Week I declare next wednesday (11th October) to be WYWTWD - or Wear Your Wool to Work Day! Your challenge is to create a button and also spread the word! What you do is.....wear soemthing that you have knitted to work. Or school. Or Uni. Or around the house if you're not working that day. Pretty simple!

In other news here are some photos....

This is the spiral tank top which I have run out of wool for! Tess thinks she can do me some more. Feel like such an amateur in running out!

This is the first of Pooch's lobster mittens. Long story. In case some of you haven't noticed, and for the rest of you to read once you recover from your faints, The Byrne is using dpn's. I know. I knwo I hate them. The fact that I'm using them and for fairisle no less is surely a sign of my immense love for The Pooch. Or some sort of sick, masochistic thing.

I bought a book in Oxfam called 'knitting 4 seasons' which is pure 80s but has some rather interesting things in it. One of them is this coat.

There is also a top in the same pattern. It seems to call to me....

I received mt copy of the 'cut out and keep' zine which is really lovely. It is A6 size.

I also got some wicked 'to do list' bookmarks and a 'girl hooker' badge which is pink with a crochet hook on! I will be watching for the second issue. You can buy the first one here.

And talking of zines....here is my entry into the first challenge!

I'm pretty sure I'm not eligible for the prize since I'm judging although I wouldn't mind keeping one of the goody bags that are on offer. There are still a few zines available so email me (littlelixieathotmail.com) with your postal address and I'll send you a copy. Everyone else send me your photos and they'll be posted in this album. Top three get the prizes.

Glitter sperm

I told you I'd try and sort out a picture. It looks better in the flesh.

Did I mention Pooch's pants? Can't remember now. But many of you who have items similar to Pooch around the house will know that once they find something they like they seldom want to change. Pooch liked the 3 pairs of pants he had and nothing would induce him to change or, and this is key, add to their number.... So byrne breaks down and buys Pooch pants but lo and behold, they are the wrong sort. So Pooch goes out and buys his own pants to prove his point and.....

{as an aside - let's all speculate on how this is going to end. Before you scroll down post a comment and let me know!}

....the pants Pooch buys are IDENTI_FRICKING_CAL to the ones Byrne bought except hers were from Tescos and his are from M&S. This is the result of 10 minutes alone with these pants.

The bars on the 't's aren't very distinct in the photo :(

I was in Greenwich last night and saw this billboard. Isn't it amazing? Not the actual billboard - more the fact I had my camera with me.

Of course this is actually quite appalling and I hope no one was hurt.

SkipNorth has, by popular demand, expanded to take a whopping 35 people. Now that really is a whole lot of knitters! This means we now have some extra places available on this too-cool-for-somethingorother knitting holiday in March 2007. More details at www.proudtobecrafty.co.uk. There are going to be flyers handed out at Alexandra Palace so I don't expect the vacant slots will be vacant for much longer!

Reasons to be cheerfull. 1, 2, 3.....

I really like that song – reasons to be cheerful by Ian Drury.

I spent more time navel gazing (or naval gazing as one of my colleagues once wrote in a widely circulated email) this weekend and have an addiction to craft (or cr-aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-ft as Pooch nows calls it – he’s been working on his south of england vowels after a life of phonetic crime up north). I obsess in order to distract myself from having time to feel stuff, innit. And then I hoard stuff so I can never run out of things to do. Because then I would have to use the byrne noodle for something other than glitter positioning. And on the subject of this, because life is never too short for such things, I made some sperm out of glitter glue last night. Now let’s review that sentence for a minute and reflect.

Yes.

I would show you a picture (have just realised I’m making this sound worse) but didn’t have the camera handy. Suffice to say it is an ATC for a pregnancy and still-birth awareness ATC swap on swapbot and no glitter was cloned or harmed in the making of this object. I guess you need to see the picture really.

The first copies of the zine have reached their destinations and people are being very nice about it. But I need ideas and suggestions for the next one folks so email away or leave comments. If you are thinking to yourself, “What zine?” or even “zine = ?” I refer you to my previous post (scroll down because I screwed the formatting). Remember if you would like a copy (it is FREE!) you need to send me your postal address as I can’t get that from your blogger ID. Thank God. Goodness only knows what nonsense we’d all get in the post otherwise. Drifting off there into snail-spam-holocaust-mode. You can email me your address to littlelixieathotmaildotcom and be assured I will not post you any snails. Fnah fnah.

I leave you with this. Surely one of the most amazing creations of our time. It is firmly on my to do list.


(naval gazing)

And the beat goes on

Ugh. I am supposed to be going to a keep fit class tonight after work. You can tell where this is going though right? I don’t wanna go! I wanna go home and eat cake. Poo.

Anyway. Let’s get over that and move on.

I have had lost of swap post this week. The first was a couple of brooches with are really rather lovely.

The one on the right is double sided and has a pixie on the back in black and white but for some reason I don’t have a photo of that.

For the second I’m going to take you on a little journey of discovery because it was such fun to discover the contents.

Then…

Wait for it…

Ta da!

Loads of lush stuff! Lots of papers and things for card making. And then some choc and shower gel and mmmmmm, lovely!

Lastly I’ve had two lists for the list swap.

One of these was 10 bits of advice. The advice given was so good I didn’t think it was fair to keep it to myself.

The other was 10 things that make you happy and that is the one with the maple leaf on it. Receiving them definitely made me happy!

The thing is, I have had a bit of a revelation about swaps. What I’ve realised is that they are far too much hassle and why on earth am I bothering? I think I got too excited about the last secret pal and missed the sending and receiving. I spend money buying things to swap and then have to spend twice as much posting them. So I have resigned from all swaps in future other than ATC ones. Because I am pretty hooked on ATCs.

I had loads to think about last night so ended up not going to knitting so I haven’t seen the gals at Golders Green for about 2 months now which is quite distressing. I wonder whether I didn’t go in order to avoid any kind of emotional response because that is what I was talking to therapist Janet about. It’s worse than I thought which worries me, although you wouldn’t know it to look at me. I’m basically suppressing every reaction to things and avoiding all sorts of stuff so as not to have to experience things. Janet was commenting on how I don’t have any wrinkles. She was wondering whether it was because I don’t do facial expressions unless I am overdoing them when overcompensating and playing the fool. The thing is, I just don’t know what to do. How do I learn to react to thing or to learn to react to them without then running away from that reaction? All quite glum making. Could really do with a bar of chocolate. I just realised I’m feeling sad.

There are somethings that are just too cool to put a short title on

This is one. For I am talking about SKIPNORTH.

Man. I know I am the organiser so should probably be a bit calmer about things but this holiday is shaping up to be one of the baddest things ever. In a good way. Because now we have a history (i.e. Feb 2006) and have proved our buying worthiness places are actually willing to open especially for us. It is just awesome. And people keep volunteering to run workshops on the Friday afternoon. There is just too much good stuff going on to believe it will fit into one weekend.

Incidentally, bookings are still open at http://proudtobecrafty.co.uk although 19 places have gone and we were originally only taking 20. I've maxed us out to 28 but that will leave us straining at the seams so once they're gone they're gone unless I go mad and get a bigger coach. Unlikely.

You'd have thought an international playa such as myself would be rolling in wonga but alas this is not so. I am on a strict budget this month although in fairness this is so that I can afford to splurge at Ally Pally. Ooooo, I am just so excited about that too. Got a mental shopping list of all sorts I need to get. Yeah, *need*, right. Whatever. This all means more selling on ebay and I have decided that one of the things I will be passing on will be some of the sockhop sock yarn. I'll let you all know when it goes on. That stuff is fricking nice but I've discovered I can get a pair out of one skein so have ended up with twice as much as I needed. And that's on top of my already crazy stash of sock yarn.

I got my magic yarn ball last week and it was awesome as I believe I might have mentioned. Here is what it looked like when it arrived:

Looks good enough to eat! Here it is afterwards:

So many lovely things! I had a dream last night that I was using the littl green flowers to embellish something I'd knitted. It looked absolutely amazing - the most amazing anything has ever looked but I can't remeber what it was now.

The last photo is Proud to be Crafty- the zine that beats all other if only because it is free. Let me have your postal address and a copy is yours. Email it to me at littlelixie@hotmail.com or leave it in a comment. Just remember - it has to be your real actual living address and not your email. It's not available online. Ooer.

Epiphany

Had an appointment with my therapist last night. That's my therapist Janet, not the one Pooch and I go to together. The crux of it is this...... (sit up straight folks, this is the big one.)

I get depressed because I withdraw from emotional situations and don't open up to people. I won't let people look after me or show emotion to me because it freaks me out. I avoid any situation that couold get emotional.

Now when I say emotional I don't mean *any* emotion. There's a sliding scale. Emotions I can't stand are things like compassion and sympathy that is being directed towards me. I'm fine doling it out to others but witnessing others receiving it or god forbid it coming my way is a big no no. There are other emotions as well but those are the obvious ones. So anyway. This explains a whole heap of stuff. The next steps are to

1. Recognise how I have avoided emotion in the past.
2. Recognise the situations I avoid in order not to have to be uncomfortable
3. Start exposing myself to these situations.

That's going to be the hard part because it literally makes my skin crawl when I feel what are really perfectly normal things. If you are talking to me and you see me wrinkle my nose I'm either about to sneeze or the skin on my face is (almost) literally trying to move to the back of my head. It is quite uncanny.

SOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.....................

Enough of all that. Let's just say things are looking up and for the first time I really feel like there might be some tiny pinprick of light far away there in the distance at the end of the tunnel.

Il pleut

Beaucoup or however you spell it. Basically it's wet in london. And it matches my mood because I'm well pissed off. And I am trying to work out whether this is one of those animal, vegetable or mental type annoyances.

It is true that aspects of work are quite trying at the moment and I have a presentation to 1/3 staff this afternoon where most of them are only there for the cake and the rest are worried, confused and therefore not far off irritable themselves. So this is fair reason for being moody. This definitely counts as vegetable.

It is also true that I have 'got the builders in' and other such dumb arse phrases men use for women having periods. This then could be an animal cause.

This brings us to the mental. I have a postcard that says something pithy like 'I used to be sane but the effort drove me mad'. When, dudes, do I get a fricking break from effort? I am now sorely tempted just to go all out there and sit at my desk naked smoking a haddock like a cigar. Or perhaps a little torrets (you know what I mean, I just can't spell it). How about if I just sat here and shrieked 'fuck, shit, bollocks' every 30 seconds. Is that how people who develop these little quirks start out? Are they one day just fed up with the urge not to strangle their fellow tube traveller and so they start taking their tights off on the tube before this develops into a fully fledged naked-haddock-smoker type manifestation? Because, basically, I have to keep telling myself it's just PMT. Now, do 'normal' people have to sit around reminding themselves they're not insane all the time? What if I stopped telling myself this. Would that mean that I then went mad? In which case surely that means I'm mad already and it's actually slightly insane to be pretending not to be.

I was having an early morning conversation with a colleague 2 days ago and he started talking about euthanasia or something and I pointed out I wasn't the best person to ask. He had forgotten my little holiday in the madhouse a couple of years ago and was shocked to hear I was a depressive. "But Alex, " he said. "You are so young and you have so much going for you. There's no reason to be depressed." Is there perhaps anyone in the world who when they think about this thinks that it genuinely helps to say that. When that is said this is what I hear: "But Alex, there's no reason to be depressed. Stop being so self-indulgent and think about all the people in the world who are actually having a bad time. And by the way the fact that you actually are suicidal really underlines that you are sick. Sick. And doomed." But I know he meant well and was trying to cheer me up.

Anyway - no one is to leave any comments about all this. Let's just pretend it didn't happen.

In OTHER news, sane news, the adult surprise jacket is going well. I must have all of about 2 inches on the needles now. I do remember thinking about doubling the yarn and doing it at least DK but no, I've started in 4-ply so I'll finish by god. It is very relaxing to do - all that endless garter stitch, but the yarn is a bit splitty so it does take a little bit of attention to make sure I've got all of it when I go to wrap a stitch.

I got my Magic Yarn Ball yesterday from the swap bot spot. This is basically a ball of wool which has been unwound and then rewound but with lots of cool little things inside. Mine was AWESOME! I have forgotten the camera or you'd have a chance to share. I think I will include a description inside the second edition of PtbC.

Zines still available BUT you MUST MUST MUST send me your postal address. leaving a comment is no good. I need your postal address to post it to. You can email this to me at littlelixieathotmaildotcom and a copy will be in your postbox a few days later.

I have to end there as I have to go and set up for this dumbarse presentation. Still no internet at home so no more from me for this week. Have a good one peeps.

White collar crime

I tried, right. I tried to go to Rymans and use their photocopier and what happens? It costs me 80p in jams and then after i ask the staff which way round to put the paper it copies twice on the same side of the paper I'm using. That's a fiver I'll never see again. Anyway... I am now forced to abuse the office facilities and also to stay late tonight so no one sees me doing it. I guess if I were to try and rationalise this I would say something along the lines of unpaid overtime in exchange for use of copier but in all likelihood I'll be on swapbot so it doesn't really work.

Anyone who wants a copy of the zine leave a comment but INCLUDE YOUR ADDRESS! I need to know where to post these stolen copies.

On a swapbot theme I am now well into ATCs and have been flinging them around the world. I posted about a squillion parcels yesterday so look out those of you who have me as a swap partner. One of the things I sent was this which I am really in two minds about.

It's a brooch incase anyone was wondering. Yeah I know. I wonder if it would have been better with just 4 petals.

Doing a round up I have finished the first pair of socks made with the divine sock hop sock yarn. I found you can do a pair out of just one skein which wasn't what the website said but I won't cry about it. It does mean there might be some skeins available if anyone is interested. I'll let you know when and which though once I've finished my xmas presents.

(Note half-arsed cable attempt up centre front.)

So does anyone remember this?

This ugly little booger was a baby jumper started approx 9 months ago for darling Yoshimi who is now about 9 months and wouldn't fit into this if you steam boiled her for half an hour. It's also quite ugly. I can see it flying towards the dulani project or whatever it's called. Is it possible there are hundreds of kids running round war torn, far-flung places wearing ugly jumpers? Poor little buggers - I know it wouldn't matter to them what the stuff looked like as long as it was warm.

On the subject of knitting (which strangely, this being a knitting blog, I do seem to be talking about) I have been reading deeply and one might say obsessively of my new Elizabeth Zimmermann (or 'The Mann' as I am going to refer to her from now on) books. I'm on 'knitting around' which gives a different pattern for each month. I keep getting these urges to pledge to knitting each of these garments in the order given. And all those in The Mann's "Opinionated Knitter". The patters are just sublime and so easy to adapt. Lots are based on a percentage system so it doesn't even matter what your guage is as long as you know what it is. What a dude. The reason I bring this up here is because it has already occurred to the byrne brain that baby jumpers knit up faster than adult (dur) and still give you a chance to try out the techniques she uses. So watch this space.

Yeah, probably won't come to anything but I'm thinking about it a lot.

Catch up round up thing

The first edition of the only UK crafty zine I know about is out and available (but tell me if you know of others as I want to read them!). I have already emailed a couple of you for addresses as this is one of the old-school paper varieties and not some downloadable didgery. The first edition is strictly limited to 50 copies which have a hand-stitched binding and is FREE! Whoopie for ‘free’! In return all you have to do is email me and let me know what you thought of it and what changes should be made. Be constructive in your criticism but make sure you’re honest.

I’ve been away all this time taking a week of very hard earned leave from work which has meant no internet for all that time. How did I survive? Well, actually it was hell! Not only did I have no access to blogging but also no email! So there has been loads going on that I have only just heard about. One thing is that we should all be sending much love to Woolly Wormhead at the moment as she has had a bit of a set-back. I’m hoping it will be a set forward though with her fibre business but I know how something like this can herald the darkness so big hugs going her way.

Having been away means there is a lot to catch up on chez byrne. I did manage to get a little shopping done while I was away. How is it that in London you, until recently, had just 2 knitting shops, 2 bead shops and 1 stamping shop within zone 1. Then you go to Penzance and believe me when I say – this place is small. This place is so small you can walk from one end of the town to the other in 10 minutes. And that’s at my pace. Pooch could do it in 5 and Joe in about 3. And in this tiny town there were…. 2 knitting shops, 1 beadshop, 1 papercraft extravaganza and 3 other shops that had floors or sizeable sections given over to all things crafty. St Ives had a knitting shop and that is even smaller. There must be some sort of inverse square law to do with shops per square millimetre or something like that. Let me just practice my physics and whip up a small graph in excel…

One of the knitting shops in Penzance was one some of you will have seen mentioned in Vogue and other mags called “KnitWits”. This is it.

It’s not all good though. They made me, right. They MADE ME. I came out with 6 balls of this stuff.

It is SWTC Karaoke and DAMN it’s good. Fortunately they only had 6 balls otherwise I would have been in real trouble. I got a few other little bits and pieces including a fairisle thimble that helps you keep the colours separate without needing to keep dropping one and picking up another. Pretty nifty. While I was away I also popped into Taunton and saw my muvver. On top of the usual filial joy this brings it also brought 3 Elizabeth Zimmemann books. Man, that woman is gold. I am half way through the Opinionated Knitter and it is bliss to read.

I also got a classic fairisle patterns book and a few other crafty jems in a second-hand place in St Ives.

While away I managed to gather up an impressive pile of post because of all the swaps I've been doping on Swapbot. Look at these envelopes:

I thought my efforts were quite good til I saw the trouble people go to on just the envelopes. Nevermind what's inside! I have now got some lovely ATCs though and some good ideas on what to do for xmas presents so I am very happy.

I think that is just about all people have the strength to read so I’ll leave it there. Except that I did have a little hair adventure. First I had a load lopped off then I did a home dye job. The eventual outcome was fortunately not comic but I did enjoy trying out various hairstyles, such as this one, along the way!

I almost forgot. I managed to put my back out again while I was away – too much rucksack carrying I suspect. It wasn’t as bad as last time but is taking ages to recover. It has meant I wasn’t able to do the sponsored walk on Saturday and I know it doesn’t sound like me to be bummered about missing exercise but I actually am really annoyed I missed this. Some people had sponsored me and so I feel like a bit of a woos. But we did sign up as a team (the NWKTog Group) and so the others bravely walked for me and for the Children’s Society. You can still sponsor the team here. Just £1 will count.

OK, all together.....

*sigh*

Hello Joe

This is what the view from my tube platform looks like.

Rather too much has happened in the last week. One of those things is that I have started a Zine. For those of you, like me up to about a week ago, who don’t know what this is think Blog being a web-log so Zine is a magazine. I used to do a physics dept one when I was at Uni but this is a loosely knitting based one with general crafty stuff and nonsense thrown in. It will have print run of 50 and the first issue is free. I’ll let you know when it becomes available and how you can get hold of it.

I haven’t been doing that much knitting recently although I am now the proud owner of one dubiously felted carrier bag holder. I think it needs some more hardcore washing though to shrink it better (innit) so we will see what the weekend brings.

I have various things on ebay at the moment including some Koigu. Take a look by clicking on the ‘lixie’ icon in the sidebar.

And lastly I don’t really know what this is. I just felt like it.

Guys, you gotta help me

because I have an urge. It's a disgusting, nasty, dispicable urge to go onto ebay and BUY things. preferably things that are 'buy it now' so I can get them NOW and they will be MINE. God. Someone stop me. Phew. Forgot I was going out to a leaving lunch. But hey. Don't go anywhere because I'll be back in an hour and then I'll be in trouble again.

....

Blogalogadoodah

I imagine saying this to the tune of 'shackalackababy'. I apologise to those of you who don't know this epic but you should strike out and find it as it could just change your life.

I was going to blog mightily about knitting and such but when I downloaded my camera just now I found only one even slightly crafty and that is of the ATCs I am so obsessed with. Here it is.

The reason for this could be that instead of just sitting at home knitting this bank holiday weekened (not that there is ANYTHING wrong with that, oh dear me no, I went out to the City Farm in Mudchute (no I didn't just make that placename up - it is in Docklands). Those of you who have similar mental make-ups to my own (you lucky devils) will find this as amusing as I do. The commentary, though sparse, is genuine 'Pooch'.
Click here to view movie.

Hope that link works. Couldn't embed the movie as photobucket is being daft.

So anyway. I started a new therapist today. Her name is janet as in 'dammit janet' except I really can't imagine her sighing for any guy called Brad. I have had about 37million therapists before and so I know the drill. Family history, mental history, timeline of decline to putrid state now seated infront of them etc etc but wait....what can this be.....Janet is more akin to one of those vets who don't hang about waiting to be offered tea. They're straight in there up to the armpit telling you exactly what's wrong with your cow. So it was quite new and invigorating. But d'you know, I do love hearing people tell me about myself.

At least I kind of do.

I do when they are coming up with new and exciting names for whatever is wrong with me at that moment in time and when they put it in interesting ways. I like it when they take the metaphors and similes that I've been using (because I do, a lot) and develop them to their own ends. I like being told I'm a mixture of complete opposites and that I am complicated and am going to need to be really thought about. It's just so.....indulgent. It's like being told you have unusual eyes by an admirer or rare blood by a doner nurse. Like a man saying he can't work you out (in an admiring tone of voice) or that your doctor has never seen a rash quite like it. Maybe. It's just so..... me

Of course it's not all fun. But today I indulged in being talked about. She basically concluded that I don't trust myself and that I bottle everything up still and use therapy as a release valve rather that knowing how to release tension myself. Which is all true so next week we start doing something about it.

Penny left a comment about meeting up at the NEC knit show - I was so bummered to have missed you all - would have been great to meet up. I won't be at the NEC one as I have time off work booked to indulge in the Ally Pally one (talk about 'me' time. Oooo baby.)

Tonight I am off to a book group which is a new experience for me. We will be discussing "A Farewell to Arms" by Hemmingway. I don't want to put anyone off but my review could be summed up thus:

1. Well-written
2. Excellent descriptive passages
3. Predictable, and disappointingly so at the end

I am the new bod so I get to choose the next book. It will be 'Spanking Watson' by Kinky Friedman in case anyone feels like joining in in an internet type way... Trust me! It's a classic.

Let us commence

We will begin with the baby cardiagn which is finally finished.

It actually looks much nicer in the photo than it does in real life. I have taken badly against these colours. The yarn is from the regia brasil range and Bernie (in the office) LOVES them while I LOATHE them. Just goes to show. It's a funny old world.

My world now officially contains ATCs. These two are the first ones for the swap I have set up on swap bot. The first is 'just' textile (front then back below).

And the second (front only as the back is quite boring).

That's silk ribbon sewn trhough it that is. I have plans for lots more at the weekend and in true Byrne style have been on ebay and found a set of those holding pouches to keep what I plan to develop into a large collection in. Oh yes. (Poor pooch)

My swap bot addiction has replaced my ebay one which I guess is good in that I only have to spend minimally on the swap and there are a limited number of them. This is what I sent in my second swap - the girly box swap.

My buddy's fave colours are yellow and blue so I tried to get pampering things that were those colours. She is also a knitter so I included a couple of the postcards I was hawking on ebay. I have set up another swap for knitting magazines as I tend to buy them and then be a bit disappointed.

Poochwise things are good. Not even a cross word for almost two weeks now. Madwise things are looking sideways. I had a leetle bit of a problem 2 weeks ago (nothing to worry mum about Sian) and saw Dr P for the second time in 3 weeks to admit I'd been fibbing when I told him before that everything was fine. That man is such a dude. I have designed some intarsia socks for him and cast on last night. They will be sublime. He and I had the most amazingly frank conversation about all the hardcore side of being mad and he didn't turn a whisker with me spouting out all this stuff. In the end he recommended I cut the fluoxetine to 40mg a day and start taking 15mg mirtazapine at night. That is the one I was on about 5 years ago so I feel pretty comfy taking it. The only thing is the pharmacist only had the ones that dissolve on your tongue. They have artificial flavourings so taste OK except it wasn't til about 10am that I got any kind of proper taste back. Made my morning cuppa of hot orange squash distinctly lousy. I have to be careful and watch out for signs of seratonin syndrome as now I am taking two sources at once. Most of the symptoms sound like my normal existence though so I'm not worried.

So plans fos the bank holiday people? Mine include a massive tidying operation which includes carting about 8 bags of charity stuff to the nearest charity shop which is about 20 mins away by bus. 'How can one A Byrne be that far from a charity shop?' you ask? Yes, I know. Mistifies me too. There will also be a lot of photographing for ebay and making of ATCs and in my spare time I will be knittign profusely and planning more xmas presents. Oooooooo 3 days of time all to myself! Hoorah! Hope you all have a good one too. See you Tuesday.

ATCs and quilts (lots of photos)

I know what you're thinking - what the hell is an ATC? Is it some weird cash machine? Well click here and find out all about it and then join the associated swap. It's going to be fun!

Now let us get to sturdier matters. Let us speak of quilts and men. I've got some rather lovely photos which have mostly turned out reasonable and so this post should really be retitled 'quilt porn'.

Quilt Porn

Isn't the handbag rather cute? They had a lovely range of handles on display that I am determined to take advantage of as soon as I create a bag worthy of some.

So what did I actually splurge on (while keeping to budget)? This rather nice collection of fat quarters:

Some very cute charms:

Some quite insane felt:

Plus a load of stuff designed to make life easier if slightly more cluttered.

I have sent off my stitch markers for the first swapbot swap I've joined. This is them:

I had been saving the beads for ages to do these for me but then realised that half the time I lose them as soon as I make them and end up using a hairband so my recipient would be better off with them.

I've been doing the early waking thing - this morning at 3am with food poisoning but that's an exception - and one morning at 4am cast on a scarf modelled on Nickerjac's kits. I have collecting the motley bits for ages and this is it in close up:

Here it is on:

I cast on 100 stitches on 15mm and used about 20 rows of different bits and pieces. It is super long and I really like it even though I can see that some of the rows don't quite work. It is astonishingly warm as well although I think there's only 3 rows of wool in it. People not wanting to end up with a weird version should hot foot it to Woolly Workshop to buy one of Nic's kits as she really is a goodess when it comes to colour (and many other things of course!). Actually i can't see them there at the mo but hop over to her blog and maybe she'll sell you one direct.