Case of mistaken identity

Did anyone else think this was the same woman who played Juliet opposit Leonardo di Caprio's Romeo?

Wow, should have seen that one before. 3 x-men films? I thought she'd changed quite a lot. Only twigged when went to see Stardust.

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.