Full of yarny goodness

But first, a view of our kitchen table. Lovely spring flowers against a rare stroke of genius paint colour selection by the old house owners. The hyacinths smell lovely when I get home from work.

Some promised yarn! This is what I got from La Droguerie. Cassis and I forget what. Maybe some socks with contrast toes? Scarf with fancy ends? Fingerless mittens? What do you think? It's 100g and 20g. Answers on a postcard!

Some super dinky ribbon with radishes! This is made to trim some kids clothes I think. Little fingers would like to play with the fluffy radish tops.

And lots of Liberty bias binding! In fact the colours are a bit more peppy. It's almost proper daylight when I get home but not quite yet....



Some pics from the garden! Hurrah for the garden! There are some narcissi coming up in a mystery pot left to me by Grandma.

Some daffs already in the garden.

Large clumps of primroses discovered under the reeds.

And some wild strawberries!

Lots of grape hyacinths.

Some FOs, finally. Firstly the Bitterroot shawl in Fyberspates' Unicorn yarn. More notes on my Rav page. It was a quick and easy knit but the beads are spawn of the devil, seriously. The yarn is sooo soft and silky. I just love blocking out lace shawls, when you pull the points out to be all scallopedy. Pretty!

And the Whisper cardigan.

Supersoft Malabrigo yarn, surprisingly warm for laceweight, and quite boob-enhancing.

The colour is actually grey with undertones of purple. Love it.

You do have to get quite zen when knitting it because it takes foreeeeeveeerrr with teeny tiny yarn.

Flattering from the back view.

I have to say these photo shoots really help the diet. I can chart the gut over the months as I finish projects! The beady eyed among you may notice there are no pics from the front here. There are reasons. A month in Paris with no gym visits did indeed show...

One more pic of those lovely flowers.

Do you remember this post?

Look what The Man got me for Chrimbo:

He swears some computer hiccup meant that both initials came out the same. Double scary!!

Nice though aren't they? And very comfy! Hopefully leak proof and squeak proof. The old pair have gone firmly in the bin - hurrah!

Oooh, shiny.....

I thought I should also do a knitting roundup because there have been some Finished Objects happening, saints be praised.

First off, a baby blanket for Baby Cusack, due any day now. I started this in September and finished it on 12 December. You can imagine the joy...! I have learnt my lesson re baby blankets, don't worry.

It's called the Lace Panelled Baby Blanket and the ravelry link is here.

Very pretty edging but after you've knitted about four yards of it, you've had enough.

Need to work on my labels I think. I've seen some beautiful ones out there that people have designed for themselves. Something to do in the new year.

We also have another bear from Erika Knight's Simple Knits for Cherished Babies (rav link) which is going across the pond to some friends in Atlanta who have just had a baby girl.

I knitted him in a day and my shoulders really knew about it. But good to get that off the list.

Also finally got some time do to the Shalom cardigan! I bought some baby alpaca in the states, the last 4 skeins in this colour, and I was hoping and hoping that it would be enough. Well, I had a satsuma sized ball left after this, so it was perfick. Phew!

It took ten days of on and off knitting.

Love it. The yarn is the softest yummiest warmest cloud of gorgeousness, the pattern is straightforward and I think it looks rather classy, and more complicated than it is. I made a few mods (on rav page) but they were pretty minor. The yarn does shed a little so will be interesting to see what happens when I dare to wash it. May also stretch to bu99ery so I may be taking some friend's advice and fishing it out of the sink in a colander...

So then I was left with nothing on the go! (Well, socks didn't seem to count.) So I cast on an Ishbel with the secret santa yarn I got at knit group - RYC cashsoft 4ply.

And I'm also going to be making a Helena for yet another baby who has popped into the world. What is going on with all this procreating??? I can't keep up!

In other news, we have bought a house. I should be wildly excited but at the moment I'm 50:50 scared and feeling exhausted at the prospect of all that organising of moving over the gas, electric, phone, internet, sky, bank details, and the gazillion other people you have to notify of your change of address. And then we have to contend with a possible rewiring, boiler replacement and redecoration of somewhere much much larger than we're used to. Sigh. It's good timing though, because hopefully we can get all these things sorted out well in advance of the wedding. We have nine months, so hopefully most of it can be done by then. And the families have announced that we'll be hosting xmas next year. There may be at least a dozen. No wonder I'm feeling tired already by the prospect of 2010!

Featuring FOs....

During the recent radio silence (apols) I have discovered a few things:

1. I am a sad commuter who has their own sad commuting games. Mine is trying to get through the station barriers without breaking stride. This involves being able to post your season ticket into the slot at speed without missing, and trusting that the rollers inside will redeliver said ticket into my fingers fast enough so it can be extracted so the barriers open without me crashing into them. Usually I slow down a bit, but the intention is always there to stride through. I really do need to get a life. *;)

2. I hate knitting bobbles. Lace is good, bobbles are excruciating.

3. If I somehow manage to chip a golf ball onto the green and it goes in the hole, I do a little dance. It won’t happen again for another decade though.


So, some catch-up pics.





Escaping from a conference in Cambridge, here is the inside of King’s College chapel (where they have the carols at Christmas). Henry VIII gave them the big oak screens to hide the organ, and there are his initials and Anne Boleyn’s carved into it so it’s dateable to within a few years. How weird, when you know what happened to her, to see her initials there and think that at the time they were oblivious to how it would all turn out.






There's a new clock at Corpus Christi with the Chronophage eating up time at the top. It's the world's largest grasshopper escapement, apparently, and it walks along, driven by the pendulum, moving the disc of the clock around. Sometimes it blinks with golden eyelids. Definitely something to check out!







Here is also the Mathematical Bridge. The myth is that is was built by some dons or something as a bet without using any bolts but only held together with Physics, and then some naughty undergrads came along thinking they could take it apart and put it back together, but then couldn’t work out how it went so they had to resort to bolting it. Apparently that’s all rubbish but I like the story!


We went to a wedding in Paris, as an old school friend was marrying a Frenchman. You have to get married twice, once in the town hall and once in a church. Well, you don’t need to do the church bit of you’re not religious. The church service was done in two languages so at some points the English guests were singing in French and the French people were singing in English. Cool!


And I have finished two jumpers. I know, it’s amazing.

Firstly it’s the Third Time Lucky Debbie Bliss detailed yoke jumper from her Summer 2009 magazine, done in Twilley’s Gorgeous which is 95% bamboo. This is the one that taught me that I hate bobbles. But! I also taught myself how to do mattress stitch on the seams so all was not lost.

Good job I ripped it out twice at the beginning because if I had carried on with the medium size it would have been vast. This is the small size and it’s still plenty big enough. Any why on earth isn’t this written top down and in the round? I did the body and the sleeves in the round anyway. Having done Baby Cables, I am a total convert to doing it that way. You can try on as you go! Genius!




Second is another Debbie Bliss from the same magazine, in Rowan wool/cotton blend DK. I’ve adapted this to make it sleeveless, and I think it works quite well. I keep wanting to put my hands in non-existant pockets in it though, maybe because I have another gilet with pockets. It would bulk it up too much I think. Will just have to make do with jeans.



This could maybe do with some shaping through the body, and a double ended zip. For the sleeves edging I just knitted 5st of garter stitch and then sewed that on to sort of match the front.

It should be an easy throw-on for the spring or the autumn.



The Man has also finally succumbed to being a Knitter’s Partner-Photographer too, sweetie that he is. I think, having made me pick him up at midnight from a boys’ night out on Saturday, and then sit in front of two (or was it three? I tried to blank it out) successive football matches yesterday afternoon while I finished these projects, he felt that he couldn’t really say no when I dragged him to the park to take these pics for me. I told him he was in good company (lots of other bloggers get their husbands to do the photo shoots for them), but I don’t think it helped. ;) Previous knitting pics have been taken by my photographer friend who understands the need to take LOADS so that at least one will not make me look like a gurning horse with three double chins and a beergut.

Only two weeks until holiday! Yay!



And a special pre-festive something for you all:



Fornicating reindeer here on Ravelry.

Big Catch Up

We got some last minute tickets to see U2. Here is The Claw with whirligig searchlights.

The work police have reclaimed my slightly bending the rules long-term-loan work laptop because they might need it in case of a big swine flu outbreak, so I had to pony up the dough and actually buy one for myself (first time ever!), so I bought a pink one. And an ipod. Which is also pink. Matchy matchy!

I'm not at all a pink person but these guys just were calling to me! Actually girls - the laptop is called Mary-Lou.

So, here are the WIPs:

The Third Time Lucky Debbie Bliss Yoke jumper. If it's wrong this time, just tough! Nearly got to the point where you separate for the arms.

Progress on the cable cardigan:

Sorry about the selection of colours here - I don't think the camera was loving the end of the day light.


And interlocking leaves socks all finished!

And now I have to show you the masterpiece of DIY:



Sock blockers from wire coathangers! I saw this on a blog ages ago and actually it works really well. Take a coathanger and pull the middle of the bottom wire down, and then fold back one of the angles and voila. Sock blocker!

Adjustable for different sizes with a bit of brute encouragement, and with hooks pre-formed for hanging. I am inordinately proud of these! Really must get out more....

It's soooo cold at the moment! It snowed on Sunday! And the icy biting wind has not gone away. It howls down the London streets with malicious abandon, making my nose run and showing how rubbish smart city clothes are at anything other than being presentable in meetings (viz, comfort, warmth, lack of ironing requirements).

There are also soooo many things that I want to knit! Just seen these amazing mittens on the blogsphere, which are also here on Ravelry. And I rattled off some more baby bootees for the newest small person generated by a work colleague. They are so quick and easy and cute - I think it was 2.5hrs all in, including knitting the icord laces. In fact, so quick there are no pics, but they are the same as these:


Anyway, I braved the cold on Sunday and went for a shooting lesson. I've not picked up my gun since last season, which hardly seems a minute ago, so I was clearly rubbish out of practice and couldn't shoot a barn door at the start of the session. But, it improved, and practice makes consistency, so by the end I was starting to feel that I was hitting clays by technique and intention rather than pure luck, which has been my style to date. It's all to do with mounting the gun correctly (quit sniggering in the back), ie fitting it into your shoulder in such a way that you can look straight along the barrels at the thing you are trying to shoot. Sounds easy, non? Well, for rifle shooting yes, when you have all the time in the world and a pretty static target, but for game shooting you actually start the mount as the target comes into view, so you only get a few seconds to arrange your gun, aim and shoot. Today, having had the gun in the right place, I have the beginnings of a bruise forming on my cheek, and of course my arms are going to be killing me tomorrow - not used to holding something so heavy up for so long!

The Man, bless him, came with me to this lesson as it was one of his buddies giving it, and having frozen himself in the morning playing football in the snow, defrosted in the bath afterwards, then had to stand for another hour looking like a schoolboy whose mummy had forgotten to pick him up, hopping from leg to leg with his nose getting redder and redder. Aw. I shall have to persuade him to purchase a Proper Country Jacket and (worse) wear it!

Finally, try the Noodle Soup Oracle for some supper ideas.

2008 - Year of Random Events

OK, so, what do you usually do on a Friday night? Dinner? Pub? Stay in and watch Corrie? Or, wait until it's dark and head down to the golf club for a spot of Night Golf?

I am ceremonially making 2008 the Year of Random Events. What with Naked Shearing, Driving Sheep Across London Bridge, and now this... well.

So, Night Golf involves a lot of glow-sticks, glow-in-the-dark golf balls, and much hilarity. What you can see as you look down the fairway is:

Taking pictures is quite entertaining too. You point the camera into the murk and once the flash has gone you get this:


Golfers tee-ing off cannot see much beyond a feint green reflection in their clubface, which they pronounced 'bleeping weird' and took a while to get the hang of. But again, the flash reveals this:

As the mist descended, I caught this rather spooky looking face:

And at the end, walking back to the bar for a well-deserved pint or three....


Events were started by a large firework which startled some people into nearly falling into the lake, some teams failed to remember to bring torches while others (ours) brought the mother and father of all floodlights. Lost balls incurred a penalty but luckily plastic floats and it's possible to fish them out of water (with the right telescopic scoop). Also, if you are going to cheat and take extra glowing spare balls with you, it's best not to wear thin trousers and put them in your pockets....

On knitting news!

Here are some pics of FOs, finally!

Felted bag, in Aragon Yarns, pattern available soon on the website and also at Ally Pally next week. I love what Rowan did with that embroidery - she check-knitted the cherry coloured one for me.


Cabled bolero, finally finished, complete with Buddha belly. Nice. I feel extremely fat, having not been to the gym since March due to poorly bad back, and I don't think I will be looking very svelte in the size 10 Aragon Yarns t-shirts next week... But, I have a month before going to Egypt to lose some flab and get my bikini belly back! I think the back can just about take doing some exercise now, it's just a question of whether the mind can summon the willpower....

And on other whoop-whoop-worthy news, today is the last day I am working in IT. As from tomorrow I am underwriting. I cannot wait. Numpty users and project deadlines making whooshy noises due to other people's ineptitude you can keep, quite frankly. Roll on the business lunches!!