Soapbox and geekiness

Well, having had a go with this new ipod, I have to say that I object, strongly. Perhaps I missed a tiny button that said 'skip' on the screen, but having to put my name, address, bank details and inside leg measurement in before I could even use the blimmin thing is rather objectionable. As and when I wish to download some itunes I will do that, but not before! I suddenly feel a fond affection for my previous, anonymous, clunky mp3 player...

Anyway, Clare sent me a great link to this on xkcd.com:

I have sent this to my mother and MIL-to-be. I hope they will print it and laminate it and refer to it at all times, but it won't happen. Hey ho.

From the xkcd site you can also purchase stickers to put on the spare buttons in your car.

It would be so tempting to use the armageddon one sometimes....

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....

Rearly

Today The Man, Dad, my brother and a buddy of my Dad's are playing golf - there seems to be an ongoing tournament forming, as none of them like to lose. I am thinking of getting a trophy for them to award at the end of each game - a Perpetual Challenge Trophy, if you will.

Trouble is, do I go for tasteful or hideous? There seems to be a lot to choose from!

Something in the Swwwinnnggg!! school?

Le Comedie? (Love that turkey's expression. Perhaps he just got a ball up his butt.)

Slightly misshapen man with a slightly misshapen stick?

Crystal balls?

Not quite sure what category these are in apart from 'something I really don't want in my house'.

Amputated club heads (one with a clock!!!) One of these, and I did LOL in our very open plan office, was titled a 'Rearly Lovely Golfing Trophy'.

And the 'misc' section - one completely lacking in all taste, one pretending to be tasteful but I'm not sure if it quite succeeds, and one so completely off-piste I don't know what to think! Golfing angel anyone?

What do you think? Is it better to admit that a tasteful trophy for under 40 quid is never going to happen and just go the whole hog and get something hideous? Will that actually stop them wanting to win???

Answers on a postcard please.

Knit Global

I am intrigued with the phenomenon of meme knitting patterns. What is it with a pattern that causes a pandemic? Things like, Evelyn A. Clark’s Swallowtail Shawl, Knitbot’s Whisper and Featherwight Cardigans, Ysolda’s Ishbel, the February Lady Sweater. Somewhere along the line there’s a tipping point and the pattern goes global. The Owl sweater by Kate Davies suddenly is in the magazines as new and exciting, yet the pattern was quietly around since Nov 2008 – my old flatmate pointed it out to me.

What do you think it is? Does the pattern have to be simple or challenging, or strike just the perfect balance between the two? Does it have to be endorsed by some influential people before others sit up and take notice? Can the sea of opinion change and suddenly from indifference, people love it? I have to say I was a little underwhelmed by the Whisper cardigan when I first saw it in IK, but seeing how other people have knitted it, how they’ve adapted it and made it their own, how they've delighted in the simple but cunning construction, you can see why it’s become such a popular choice. This has been especially well adapted with this Featherweight, as pointed out by the pattern designer herself!

My current favourites list? Well, it’s got:

Whisper Cardigan – 1042 projects (although this might become the Featherweight (499 projects) if I think the yarn I bought for it is enough!)
Ysolda’s Liesl – 992 projects
Ysolda’s Ishbel – 2236 projects
Print o’ the Wave Stole – Eunny Jang – 846 projects
Grumperina’s Jaywalker’s – 6490 projects
Evelyn A Clark’s Flowerbasket Lace Shawl – 1422 projects

(These project numbers are the number of people knitting it (or finished) on Ravelry as at 4 August.)

I doubt I actually even want to knit all of these things, but somehow not to have them there means I feel like I'm missing out. I love to look at all the projects people have knitted and to judge the successes and failures. I love being fascinated at how global knitting (facilitated by Ravelry) has become - often comments and explanations of projects are in French or German or those little squares because I don't have the right characters installed on my computer. I love, when I do actually knit one of these patterns, feeling 'in', one of the kniterati, because I too can put my notes down on the Projects list and people can go 'Ooooh, you've done a Baby Cables!'. If this means I've succumbed to the pandemic, then so be it. I'm in with the in crowd!

Does anyone know the way to the garden party?

So, all the life coaching training courses are now over, and bar another 20 hours practise coaching I am qualified! (And what’s 20 hours between friends?) We also got a freebie course to learn how to become a trainer, which I think is going to be very useful at work; and I am picking up loads of practise at negotiation with this wedding planning. Argh. Input and suggestions I love, but then please, let me make the decisions? So, I am officially People Skilled up. Ask me anything, and see if I can give you something powerful and incisive in reply. (Well, anything bar nuclear physics or about the finer workings of an internal combustion engine.)

Learning to train was entertaining. We all had to do 20mins of training each other on something, so now I can make a cocktail, frost a cupcake, and have an inkling about photo compositions and swimming butterfly. Can you guess what I got them to do? Can ya? Yes, I got them all knitting. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to make sense of a tangle on a stick when you’ve never looked at stitches before. I had people trying to knit from the blunt ends of the needles, with the knitting sticking up rather than hanging down from the needle, knitting over and into the next stitch instead of slipping the just worked one off the needle…. Phew. And all in 20mins, less preamble! I was shattered! But good to realise for next time the things that knitters take as read that you actually have to point out to a newbie.

This was the view from the training room.

Right into the Queen's back yard, where they were setting up for a garden party from the looks of things.

We managed to coincide some breaks with the changing of the guard.

You can just see the brass band bits there. Good job the horses don't mind all the racket.

I’ve started the summer jumper. I know we’ve had our annual week of sunshine, but this is for Florida in October. I have a horrible feeling that although I measured my bust size properly (Liz can vouch for this because I did it during knit group in the middle of the restaurant), it’s going to be rather capacious. Possibly there’s not as much shaping as the baby cables jumper, which is my main comparison. Hmm. Anyway, it’s being done in a Twilley’s yarn called Gorgeous which is 75% bamboo (how terribly modern of Twilley’s!) which looks like being quite nice and drapey. Not as silky and floppy as the Soya yarn I used for Daisy’s hoodie, but not bad.

Uh-oh. Just found the jumper on Ravelry and everyone says the sizes come out big. I have a feeling that I should have succumbed to my inner vanities and gone for the smaller size – it was borderline between the smallest given and the next one up, but I went for the next one. But having spent three days worth of train journeys on it already, I’m not sure I have the heart to rip it. What to do what to do? Ah come on woman, where’s your knitterly bravery, people have ripped a lot more than 5 inches of st st. Just because you had that trauma of starting out and realising your lovely knitting-in-the-round was twisted into a mobius strip… you can do it again. Deep breaths.

This weekend The Man is competing in the London Triathlon at the Excel Centre in the Docklands. He came up a few weekends ago to practise the swimming section, which was just as well, as he now has tactics on how to avoid being drowned by other competitors. Watching him wriggle into his wetsuit is the funniest thing in the world, but hopefully he will be in The Zone at that point and not thinking about me unable to breathe from laughing!

Update: It's ripped. That'll teach it.

Goodness, where does the time go?

I knew June and July were going to be rather manic, but they’ve been fun too. The prospect of having a quiet weekend at home is beckoning though and I am soooo looking forward to it.
I’ve been on life coaching training courses, a hen weekend in Bath, helping at the shearing competition, to a wedding fair and a birthday party. But this weekend The Man is celebrating his birthday and I am not going anywhere. Bliss! A lie in! Time to tidy up!!

Knitting seems to have been on a go-slow lately, but the interlocking leaves socks are looking great, and such a cunning heel design! I’d not come across it before, but then again I’ve only knitted three pairs of socks in my life, but this is so cool – a sort of short row heel flap but the slipped stitches make it double thickness. I can see me using this technique again. I managed to finish one on the train back from the hen weekend, and am just about to turn the heel on the other. It’s all about being disciplined and not snoozing on the way home but making use of the time!

(I must ‘fess up to making a positive choice to take the train to Bath, rather than drive, so I could knit. I am turning into a true yarnie.)

The new Socktopus club parcel arrived last week, and I’m not sure what to think about it. OK, I still haven’t finished using the previous yarn, which is making me feel guilty for a start. But this one came without the extra goodies (for which there were apologies, granted) and seems to be a rather plain pattern with block colour yarn. It is an Ysolda pattern so no doubt with be full of hidden complicatude, so we will see. I hope the goodies are exciting when they arrive with the next parcel. I was disappointed with the last one I have to say – a few peas to plant? (I don’t even have a garden!) I’d heard great things about this sock club! So there, I’ve said it – I shall have to subscribe to that Knitting Blasphemies thread on Ravelry.

So you know of my quest to find the perfect Pride and Prejudice spin off? The other week I came across this:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

‘Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class conscious landed gentry?’ It’s had mixed reviews, not surprisingly. There are brilliant illustrations including Lady Catherine du Bourgh sending her ninjas against Elizabeth, and Elizabeth kick boxing with Mr Darcy. Barking. It was suitably ridiculous, but I have to sympathise with one reviewer on Amazon who said the good bits were the bits taken from P&P and all the badly written bits were the new additions about zombies. So you may as well save yourself £6 and reread P&P from the bookshelf. Although I will never look at Charlotte Lucas in quite the same way again.

So, while sort of on a Jane Austen theme, I have to tell you Bath is a lovely place to spend a weekend. Especially when the sales are on. But if you’re over that way, you must try out the new thermal spa, where you can actually bathe in the spring waters. It’s a great facility, four floors, two pools (one on the roof with great views) and one massive steam room with four pods, all with different essential oils, and a yummy restaurant. We also got around the Jane Austen museum, the Roman baths and popped into the Pump Rooms to try the water (which is much nicer than T Wells water), took a boat on the river up to Bathampton, and ate out in some great restaurants (Fishworks was amazing). The girls (bride and her sisters) discovered this bizarre shop called Hansel and Gretel which sold anything Bavarian and German, and had a strudel bar downstairs. They loved it. (On the other hand I discovered a bead shop downstairs in this little jewellery/gift shop which was amazing, but they were completely uninterested in. Each to their own!)

On Saturday night we were joined by John who apparently entertained the traffic stuck in a jam on the M4 on the way back on Sunday. He is so thoughtful.

The Man and I went to see Thriller. I’d spookily booked tickets on the morning before the news broke that MJ had died. I suspect tickets are like hen’s teeth now – it was booked out when we were there. Including some fanatical fan who kept shouting, ‘Michael! I miss you!’ until someone told him in no uncertain terms to shut up. It redeemed itself in the second half with an amazing dancer from LA doing the routines from Smooth Criminal and Billy Jean, but on the whole I preferred Jersey Boys. Jersey Boys had a plot, whereas Thriller didn't, and could have really done with one.

Mum and I went to a wedding fair near Maidstone on Sunday, and I think it was a bit of a revelation for her. I was quite surprised – she’s been involved in organising weddings recently, but there were things there she was pulling my sleeve and pointing at. We both tried on some tiaras and veils - I don’t see why she can’t have some fun too! And we found a really nice dress in the sample sale, which I didn’t buy because I’d probably be bored of it in a year’s time, but for 400 notes you can afford to run that risk and just bung it on ebay or sellmyweddingdress.co.uk if I changed my mind! Hey ho, it’s gone now. I must stop thinking about dresses and sparkles and concentrate on the bigger white thing ie booking a marquee! We are still in negotiations about that. I found this amazing company that does marquees with indian block-printed liners, but the quote was the GDP of a small country. There are other marquee companies which also do the marquees at the county show and other such events and are not very weddingy, but apparently they’re happy to put the bill down to hardcore (tarmac rubble) or cherry tree covers so you can put it through the farm books and claim the tax back. (Was I supposed to write that here?) So, we are still working on marquees. Will need to be inventive I think. And also check out our requirements in the way of generators, toilet trailers, chiller trailers, lighting and flooring. Then we can get on to the tables, chairs and catering stuff. Argh!

Just had a mail back from a photographer though so we will have a chat with him and see what he has to say.

Sigh. I am really looking forward to that Hannibal moment when I can suck on a cigar, smile, and say, 'I love it when a plan comes together...'

How to shear a sheep

Yesterday was the second Romney Shears International Shearing Competition to be held at Aragon Farm.


The winning shearer managed to shear 20 sheep in 18 mintues, which is a sheep in approximately 40 seconds.

There were also ferrets. These were babies and made only a half-hearted attempt to take my finger off.

And spinners.

We were of course also selling yarn, and didn't do too badly considering.

Hurrah for random things to do in the British summer!

Blimmin Chavs

This is not a classy new look. This is down to chavs. I'd just done perfect nails last night, gone to bed before they were totally dry, which I often do because I can fall asleep with my feet sticking out, but because the sitting room windows were open I could hear the drunken chavs out in the street. So I climb out of bed, close one window, but to get to the other one I had to climb on the settee, and... guess what. Smudged nail, which I had to take off until I have time to fix. Blimmin chavs.


Another unusual look is this:

Sainsbury's Wild Alaskan salmon fillets. What's with all that white goop that's come out of them? Ew! Like cheap bacon. They must have been pumped full of that salt sugar water preservative stuff to keep it and make it weigh heavier. Well Sainsbury's, that pretty icky. Kindly desist.

La belle France

So, work sent me on this terribly painful course for four days at a chateau outside Paris.

The food was amazing and there was wine with every meal (well, not breakfast).

There were opens bars all around the house, and they fed us every hour and a half.

There was pool and archery and a tandem bicycle and Wii and poker and karaoke and a hammam and tisane de rose boutons (rose bud tea). Isn't that just the best teapot you've ever seen?

And now I'm back to curled up sandwiches and manky machine coffee. Sacré bleu.

(All is not lost, they're sending me back there in November and most probably April as well.)

As penance, we have to do a team challenge, and the decision seems to be the Three Peaks. It seemed a good idea after a couple of glasses of vin rouge... The team is made up of English, French, Germans and Italians, but they are a good bunch and they all speak very good English. I always feel so bad when you go abroad for business meetings and everyone else there is fluent in three languages, although I suppose if English wasn't the international business language then we would be too. My French is coming along but it's still woefully clunky.

On the way, I met an old school friend in Paris. She's been living there for years and recently got engaged to a Frenchman. We all had lunch together and I am happy to report her man is lovely! They are very loved up, but I didn't mind being a gooseberry because I am sickeningly loved up too. After lunch us two girls went to investigate the wedding dress shops on the Boulevard de Magenta, which is right by Gare du Nord. There are some uber tacky and some nice ones, and dresses are much cheaper than in the UK. It appears we pay for having some customer service. Where in the UK you have a huge dressing area with pretty chintz curtains and a chaise longue for your long-suffering friend/mother to wait on for two hours while your helpful and cheerful attendant helps you trying on every dress in the shop, in Paris it's cubicles with formica doors and you have to use the mirror on the (spartan) shop floor. Getting a smile out of the staff is rare. Dresses rammed on the rails are shrouded in plastic like the chiller section in Sainsbury's. I'm happy to pay an extra couple of hundred notes to look back with pleasure on my dress buying experience.

That said, my friend has got hers already and it sounds beautiful, and very similar to what I'm looking for myself. Yay her!

No new knitting news other than I've finally finished the back of the cable and rib cardigan and have started on one of the front panels - with proper cabling. I thought the back was slow going... I fear this might have to go on hold if I want to ever start my summer knitting!! (It was supposed to be a spring cardi, but looks like being an autumn one instead.)

Cake

Look, I've made my first yarn cake. Yum! The Man acted as a very good swift until the football started and then attention waned and we ended up with a massive tangle which took half of NCIS to unpick. But Cake!! Why are yarn cakes so satisfying? Is it the squishiness? Is it the diamond shapes? Is it the promise of creating something professional-looking from your I'm-a-real-knitter-now properly wound skein?

So this yarn is from the Socktopus sock club March parcel - Artist's Palette yarn Sweet Feet, 80% merino and 20% bamboo, in a beautiful angry sea slate grey/blue. I'm not doing the sock club pattern, this one is Interlocking Leaves from Knitty.

Also found this handmade yarn at a craft fair yesterday at Petworth House:

It's a very autumnal looking blend of wool and silk with a few metallic sparkles. Not sure I approve of metallic sparkles in yarn but they are very subtle in this one so I'll let them off.

It's hot hot hot out today - hurrah for some British sunshine!

For goodness' sake

So the Speaker of the House of Commons has quit because MPs have been diddling their expense accounts. For goodness' sake. That's like a load of schoolboys getting caught, standing there looking shocked, then all as one pointing the finger and going, 'He's in charge! It's his fault!'. This expenses system seems to have been in place for decades, certainly since before this Speaker was incumbent. If it was me, I'd be furious! I'd bash my gavel and shout, 'Don't you dare blame me you dishonest bunch of [wotsits]!', but he just apologises!!! What are they going to fob the blame off for next? Things are not perfect. The law is weird in places. We have a PM who looks like this

rather than this.

Deal with it and sort it out people! Don't just keep manoevring for position and trying to keep the newspapers happy. You're not going to achieve anything that way, apart from piss a load more voters off.

Sheesh.

She said He said

I seem to be in a spin-off vibe this week. A friend has directed me to a piece written from Edward’s point of view (Edward the vampire from the Twilight books – yes all right I know I should be reading something more high brow but everyone has their guilty pleasures, right?) which is as yet incomplete but is an entertaining start, and then a book arrived which I’d ordered from Amazon which tells P&P from Darcy’s point of view. I am still searching for a satisfying P&P spin-off. This one, praise the lord, has not offended me with horrendous clangers which the editor should have picked up on, like using modern language or playing free and easy with the characterisation (Darcy does not go to haunted house parties in the wilds of Wales, get pissed trying to forget Elizabeth and end up with a deranged woman trying to seduce and/or kill him). It is, however, a little dull in the end, despite some good angst in the middle. Perhaps there is something to be said for the bodice-rippers after all.

I have another weekend of coaching this weekend. I am shattered to start with, so I’ve booked off next Monday for holiday. As usual, I was hoping for an easy day, but suddenly everything has become booked up. Uncles and aunts are coming over from France and want to do lunch, but I have already arranged lunch, so perhaps we can do tea? And I need to do some much neglected cleaning, and shopping, and I suspect sleeping. Not sure I can remember how to have a lie-in, or even how to turn the alarm clock off….

We finally managed to book a day to see the vicar. 1 June. What kind of world is it that it takes over a month to get in an appointment with a vicar? I’m not quite sure what he wants to say to us either, and whether there are some answers to questions that are real no-nos. Any advice on this gratefully received! I know one of the questions he asked my brother was, ‘What would you do if you found a bottle of gin in [sister-in-law’s] handbag?’ (I believe Pete’s reply to this was, ‘Ask her for some’, but I can’t swear to it.)

Musings on Sparklyness

One of the knitting girls quite rightly commented at the last meet-up on the proximity of a blog post here whingeing about not being engaged and wanting to be, and one featuring a heavily sparkly finger. Indeed an interested phenomenon. I’m 99% sure that The Man doesn’t read my blog, but hey ho. Just shows the power of articulating your wants and desires! Or something.

So, I am getting used to wearing a ring on that finger, so much so that sometimes I have to check it’s still there. I’m also getting used to being engaged. A couple of the girls at work warned against the one-week-cross, where it seems that about a week in you get cross and grumpy for no real reason, but apparently that’s normal. Have to say that I didn’t notice it, but now, at nearly a month in (already??!) I’m starting to come down off the champagne fuelled cloud.

I did initially have three days of panic at the prospect of organising a wedding, which really perplexed me because that’s the sort of thing that I usually love doing. (Some lovely friends talked me down with stories of how much fun they had organising their weddings.) I think now it was the prospect of the soul-destroying task of sorting the nice wedding things from the tacky hideousnesses that some purveyors of bad taste seem to think that brides will go for. Your portrait etched in a heart-shaped lump of glass and backlit in colour-changing neon anyone? See through lace wedding dress? No? I could physically feel my heart sink as I sat with the first bridal magazine in my lap, gearing up to peel back the cover. Needed brandy rather than tea in my hand. But I have found it very cathartic to scalpel out the few things I like and then throw the rest of the wretched publication away. To be fair there have been a few good ideas. As long as you try to ignore the pouting models with their heaving bosoms. The vicar would have a heart attack.

It’s been interesting to people watch girls on the train and around town with engagement and/or wedding rings, and speculate about their state of mind, especially when you see them out with their other halves. A ring is a real brand to the world that you belong to someone else. On one hand, that’s good – you are in a partnership, a team, and someone loves you enough to spend the rest of their life with you. But on the other hand, it changes you. I feel a little like a pie (bear with me on this) in which a slice has changed forever. That slice is now The Man’s, and that slice, slim though it is at the moment, cuts right through to the core of me. And it’s taking a little time to get my head around that, because I’ve always been very self contained, and to have something dissecting me is something I instinctively resist. Well, you do, don’t you? Change is hard. And that slice of pie (or thin end of the wedge, whatever) is just going to get bigger. I’m going to have to change my name! That’s drastic!

Do men go through all this? They just get to wear a ring, and even that’s not compulsory. They get a social secretary and someone to do the laundry. And bear their children if they want. Good deal?

Before I get Anon on my back again, I am very very happy indeed to be engaged, but I’m just taking a while to get used to it. And learning to get used to the idea that The Man does actually love me that much! He’s so laid back sometimes that it can be a stretch to imagine him doing something so extravagant, but he does, even though he’s only going to let me talk about wedding planning three days a week.

In other news:

1. Life coaching training continues this weekend and I’ve just started with a new client which went well, so fingers crossed it continues to do so.

2. Mum and I just realised that I’ll be away in Florida during the knitting show at Ally Pally this year, which turns out quite well because we both dread it and we can try to go to Woolfest or Wonderwool instead next year. Which are nicer and smaller and cheaper for exhibitors. Hurrah!

3. Have nearly finished the baby hoodie but the hood/collar border needs ripping out and starting again because I can’t work out how to overlap the front and keep track of how many k2togs I’ve done at the ends of the rows. But it’s nearly there.

4. Have picked up the cable/rib cardigan/gilet again and god, it’s the slowest knit in the world. [sigh]

5. Have had a genius thought that perhaps our yarn with work for Liesl. In discussions with mum about giving it a try.

6. Ordered more yarn for projects I don’t have time for, inc some malabrigo lace from Pure Purl, who I have to say have great customer service for people like me who can’t make up their minds. Thanks Kim!

And now I’m off to meet some friends who are taking us out to a posh restaurant underneath the Metropolitan hotel. Oo la la, aren’t we high falutin’.