Ginger Knits UK

The first CO of 2012

2012-01-03T08:30:00.000Z

Taken on Sunday. It's a test knit for a new p/hop pattern.

Monkey year?

2012-01-02T17:20:00.003Z

I'm pretty sure 2012 isn't going to be year of the Monkey in the Chinese calendar, but I couldn't resist this kitsch calendar when we were in Hong Kong last year.

I was taken with the different picture for each month.

The First FO of 2012

2012-01-02T17:16:00.004Z

Here's my first finished object of 2012. A bit like the food most of us have been eating for the last post-Chrimbo week, they are leftover socks.

They've been on the go for yonks, and almost finished but I was dithering over the cuff colour. The teal green of the toe and heel felt too dark for the cuff.

In the end I used a smidgen of my Old Maiden Aunt Put on the day sock yarn which I think compliments the colours in the body of the sock, which is Misti Alpaca sock yarn.

The toes and heel are Lang Yarns Jawolle, the name of which is a work of genius. I've used the nylon thread that comes with Jawolle in the toe and heel so I'll see how well they wear.

The last FO of 2011

2012-01-01T14:14:00.003Z

Yesterday we went to London's Natural History Museum, one of my favourite places in the city, to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. We went with our good friends Paula and Brian who are also travel and photography fans.

The exhibition was surprisingly quiet so there was plenty of space to take in the awe inspiring images as well as chat about travel, photographic techniques (In camera double exposure anyone?) and of course, the wildlife.

Paula and I were both taken with this abstract image of a spider's web, by Finnish photographer, Antti Partanen, titled A Spectrum of Silk.

There were also some outstanding entries in the Black and White categories. This photo of a chachalaca (it's a bit like a jungle turkey) , by Gregory Basco, would make a lovely fabric print.

If you can't make it to the exhibition you can view all the images online.

So where is the knitting in all of this? Well back in the summer I asked Brian which bespoke knitted item he would like for his birthday. He asked for socks. I started the first sock on our holiday to The Philippines and finished the first sock on the flight home.

I'd been meandering along with the second sock, other projects took priority, but I completed it just before Christmas, or so I thought...

MrG to tried on the socks to check the fit and despite looking the same length when flat, the leg of the second sock was about 1.5cm shorter than the other.

Me being me, I left ripping back the second cuff til yesterday morning, just before leaving for the museum. I grabbed my DPNs, a sewing needle and of course the socks and yarn and knitted on the underground...

... and in the members room of the Natural History Museum, while we all had a post exhibition cup of tea and cake, til the cuff was reknit and the correct length.

Brian then kindly modelled the finished socks for me with some interesting objects in the background.

After the photo shoot we went to a new Lebanese restaurant, near the tube in South Kensington, called Comptoir where we had a slap up meal of mezze, mmm, falafel. I'd recommend it if you are visiting the museums there. It's reasonably priced and delicious.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to learn how to make my own falafel, baked rather than fried.

After a late lunch Mr G and I walked to Peter Jones to buy some new pillows. This was surprisingly exciting, though I was disappointed to see I was the only person in the shop using their head to test the pillows, rather than their hands.

On the walk there we spotted some interesting lights.

Firstly a giant penguin...

Then the lovely Michelin building which is worth a look during daylight hours too

and finally the mass of lights outside Peter Jones, reflected in the windows opposite, which we spotted while waiting for our bus home. Which was a very comfy bus ride thanks to the new pillows we were carrying.
A very nice way to end 2011.

Hello 2012!

2012-01-01T11:29:00.000Z

Hello 2012!

I hope the New Year is full of joy, success and happiness for you all.

December 2011 was full of knitting so I'll be showing you some of my FOs, yes I actually finished things, over the next few blog posts.

I've also been bustling around London since Christmas visiting exhibitions.

We had a quiet evening last night, eating good food and sampling interesting beers and ciders. Back in October we collected some quince from our friends garden, which I turned into Quince cheese. We saw in 2012 eating grapes, in the Spanish tradition*, Manchego cheese and the quince cheese. A delicious way to start the new year.

*Eating one grape on every stroke of midnight. It's harder than it sounds. It's also good fun.

Festive Dentist

2011-12-31T23:16:00.002Z

I spotted this festive dentist's window while visiting my parents in Yorkshire over Christmas. It's a very creative use of teeth.

A fine front page

2011-12-31T17:35:00.000Z

Good to see fine knitwear and a cracking female lead on the front page of today's Independent newspaper.

Holy Christmas Packaging Batman!

2011-12-13T00:30:00.001Z

The box I have decorated to send my brother in law's Christmas gifts in.

Walking the Dead Monkey

2011-12-11T18:28:00.001Z

Last year when I went to Dublin with p/hop I stayed with my good fibre friend Bioniclaura. We had the traditional viewing of the stash, in Bioniclaura's case, the yarndrobe, browsing of pattern books and general knitchattery.

Laura is an excellent knitter and crocheter. However she was lamenting her inability to knit socks (she has crocheted a fine pair which you can see here on Ravelry).

When I returned home I decided to knit her a pair as a thank you for having me gift. Monkey is a classic pattern and great for variegated yarns. The yarn I used for Laura's socks is some I'd dyed myself. When I was knitting them I was watching a lot of zombie films, mainly the Ramero living dead series, The Walking Dead and Simon Pegg Classic, Sean of the Dead.

The way the yarn knitted up reminded me of gory zombie inflicted wounds. So dear reader, I give you Walking the Dead Monkey socks. Grrrrrrreat.

Advent - Day 6 - Eh?

2011-12-06T22:25:00.001Z

Yes, you did read that correctly. As one of my friends just said, Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot?

Advent - Day 5 - Still hot

2011-12-05T09:00:00.000Z

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much is because I've been on my travels. Lucky me. One of my best mates has been travelling around Asia this year so myself and a few friends went to visit her in The Philippines. I find travel tricky to write about, mostly because I do so many things I don't know where to begin. So, to counter that here is a festive snapshot of my travel companions in Coron, on Palawan Island. Even though it was the end of October Christmas things were everywhere, a bit like the UK.

Advent Day 4 - Hot hot hot

2011-12-04T09:00:00.000Z

I quite often like to make Christmas presents, usually knitting, sometimes food.
I spied this recipe for Candied Chilli Grapefruit by Mark Hix in The Independent a few months ago.
The recipe is easier and less faffy than it looks. The downside with the ones I've made is I used rather potent Chilli flakes so the taste is overwhelmingly of "oh my god, get me some water, ow ow ow"

I've actually developed a taste for these blow your head of snacks and am finding them a useful expectorant for the chest infection I've got at the mo. Mmmmedicinal.

Sadly they will not be Christmas gifts so I am going to make another batch with less chilli. I've also experimented with Candied Ginger Lemon which worked so well I ate it all. Bad gift giver. Bad.

Advent blogs - Day 3

2011-12-03T16:11:00.001Z

Whoopsie! Where have the last few weeks gone? Hello dear neglected blog. To be honest I don't have much spare time to devote to my little corner of teh interweb at the mo but I have seen quite a few people doing Advent posts, ie making their blog into an Advent calender of short posts.

I like that idea. While I'm a few days late getting started here is Day 3.

Some tweeters have been sharing their advent calender pictures. The only calendar I have this year came from the World Wildlife Fund as part of their awareness raising about the plight of the snow leopard. So far all the pictures have been of..... yes, you've guessed it, snow leopards. I don't mind this as they are beautiful animals, though I expect I'll be disappointed as I'm hoping for a Nativity scene using Snow Leopards.

Unravelling the NHS

2011-10-13T12:02:00.000+01:00

If you follow me on twitter you'll already know I have a healthy interest in politics. Our current government is slowly and steadily dismantling our beloved NHS (National Health Service) from one with full public accountability to one which is more dependent on profit margins rather than evidence based medicine. THIS MAKES ME VERY ANGRY.

There's a lot of despair at the moment, many of us feel our government is not listening to us, the people, or experts in the field such as the British Medical Association or the Royal College of Nurses.

Yesterday our unelected second house, the house of Lords, voted through the government's ill-advised health reform bill. We all felt hopeless, then I read this blog post. You should read it too.

Many of us are working out what to do. How can we reverse this disastrous decision when essentially the democratic process is failing us.

"The NHS reforms did not appear in either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat manifestos. They were not in the coalition agreement. This government has no mandate to implement such wide-ranging changes."

Lying in bed last night I had an idea. It's only a small idea but it's a way of demonstrating how we feel through the medium of knitting.

Unravelling the NHS

Knit the NHS logo, carefully, with time, building it up slowly just like the NHS was built over many years. Record your knitting progress through video, if you have it, or through photography. Do not tie off your final stitch, leave it undone...

Point out how long it took you to knit, the care and attention involved and how it it yours. You may also like to share your stories of how the NHS has helped you. Also point out what you fear about the NHS reform bill's implementation. As you talk about your fears unravel your knitting, demonstrating how quickly something that has taken much time, care and love and can quickly become unravelled.

This could also be used as yarnstorming.

You could knit something personal to you instead or as well as the NHS logo. eg I would make an inhaler to show my gratitude for a lifetime of NHS asthma treatment or a knee joint for my thanks to the NHS for repairing my knee following an accident. You get the idea.

This is just an early idea. Please feel free to add to it, make it your own. At the moment the NHS is ours, but I fear it won't be for much longer unless we take action.

If you like the idea please share it (twitter hashtag #unravellingNHS) and spread the word. Also share other ways of demonstrating that we, the people do not want this to happen. I'll leave you with the wise words of the great Nye Bevan:

"The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it."

Ally Pally 2011

2011-10-09T11:38:00.001+01:00

I've been working at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace for the last few days. I'm a bit zonked after three full on days of yarn selling so here are the photos I took.

Knitted bunting at the entrance

Ghanaian Kente weaving demo, check out the length of those warp threads.

Where I've been working. Lovely MillaMia stand with squishy merino and very cute and contemporary kids knits....

... in a brilliant range of colours.

Some super work in the graduate show. I love the colours and texture Maria Sanvito has created here.
www.annaemme.com (website should be up at the end of the month)

More Marisa Sanvito creations

Check out the crochet (sorry, didn't get the name of the designer. If you did please let me know, thanks)

I loved these knitted birds by Alice Wolfe

Islamic textiles. This is Tunisian fabric.

And as always that superb view of London that greets you when you stagger out of Alexandra Palace into the daylight.

I've only bought a set of square knitpro DPNs and a fantastic reversible cloth shopping bag so far. There hasn't been much spare time to shop as the stand has been so busy.

If you are there today please try and visit stand TGI10 (In the smaller hall where the graduate show is), where I bought my reversible shopping bag. They sell textiles from Burma which are made by Burmese refugees. The money from their products goes to several development projects and they have some beautiful things for sale. If you're not at the show their website is here.

Stitch London?

2011-10-07T23:24:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday evening I took a lovely walk across Hungerford Bridge to the Royal Festival Hall...

...well to be accurate, Foyles Bookshop which is under the RFH, for my friend DeadlyKnitShade's book launch. It was pretty exciting, so much so that the Queen and her corgies came too.

Lauren's book, Stitch London, is inspired by and based on London and is packed full of quirky knits which capture the knitterly side of our fabulous city. Here's the author busy signing her book

and giving a speech, in which we all cheered the marvellous news that Lauren has been cancer free for five years. Not a bad way to celebrate not being dead.

The cakes were ace, decorated with balls of yarn and tiny knitting needles, they tasted good too. I must admit I still don't have a copy of Lauren's book but it is so much fun with great photos and of course the projects. You even get yarn to knit your own pigeon. Coo.

Cake & Clare aka DragonflyKnit

Part of the money from Lauren's book is going to Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, to help fight the horrible disease that put Deadlyknitshade out of action for so long, so if you buy her book you are also helping to kick cancer up the arse. Not bad, eh.

Not knitting?

2011-10-04T23:51:00.000+01:00

In my self imposed knitting break I had to find other things to do to fill my time. I love reading but over the last few years knitting has eaten into my knitting time. Rather than going to bed a little earlier to read I'd be browsing Ravelry or knitting just a few more rows...

So no knitting meant lots of reading. I also realised I wasn't keeping track of what I have read this year so I think I'll start another post to keep a log of what I have read.

I'm currently reading a Victorian crime novel based around a part of London I know very well. The MSF office is on Saffron Hill, so named as saffron used to be sold there and it often gets a mention in the book, though I'm pretty sure it looks fairly different now, with the 60's style buildings which line most of the road.

As for the books, I get most of mine from charity shops though have splashed out on a couple of brand new novels. I'm passing some of the books I don't want to keep on through p/hop, rather than taking them to the overstocked shelves of my local charity shops. If I had the space I would keep all my books but I'm not sure there's much space left in my flat. Unless I start double stacking or , horror of horrors, get rid of some yarn!

Crampfords

2011-09-28T01:47:00.000+01:00

I've had pesky RSI/Carpal tunnel/hurty left arm on and off for a few months now. I'd mostly been ignoring it as I'd had similar symptoms in my right had which cleared up when I went travelling back in June (eep, just realised I still haven't blogged about that trip), but ignoring the symptoms didn't work and my hand had become more and more sore. So I decided to take a self enforced break from knitting, which seems to have worked.

Anyone who things abstinence is a bad thing is quite right. While on my break all I could think about was knitting. I'd plough through pages and pages of pattern searches looking at all the lovely things I couldn't make. And of course I wanted to make all of the things. Lots of friends have had babies over the last few months and my dark side kept on whispering "go on, just a pair of booties, it won't hurt, go on, do iiiiiit". Self control won over the lure of the knit, my symptoms have improved, and over the last few days I've done a spot of knitting. My symptoms have come back a little and I've found it's worse if I use metal needles so sticking to wood and bamboo helps. As does taking breaks and not knitting for too long. So it turns out abstinence is a good thing, if only for a couple of weeks in my case.

There's a Cranford knit-a-long happening in the p/hop Ravelry group. I didn't think I was going to join in but then found out a good friend who also volunteers at MSF is leaving. She's also a knitter and we used to work together years ago in the same hospital unit.

I dithered over which yarn to use. Lorna wears a rainbow of colours so rather than plain sophistication I went for all out colour with the yarn I recently won. It's beautifully soft as it has a touch of cashmere and the wild colours will be fine in Lorna's new home in Los Angeles. The edging is in YarnYard Clan in a deep pink colour. When I ordered it it looked very red on the website but is a little too pink in real life for my liking. It's a nice colour, just not my colour. I think the rest of it will become a fine pair of socks for my mum, who does wear deep pink.

In my haste to get knitting I completely forgot about the purl stitches in the pattern, which made the mitts very quick to knit and worked well with the variegated yarn however they are less stretchy than your average, properly knitted, Cranford.

I'll miss Lorna, but she won't forget me as she now has a shiny new pair of Cranfords.

Post

2011-09-09T01:25:00.000+01:00

Remember this? Well it turns out I did win a prize. Not enough people finished the actual challenge so there were prizes left for runners up.

Well look what came in the post today all the way from America. See that customs label?

Ooh, and the nifty postcard and yarny sticker...

and all together now, aaaaaaah!

A big thank you to Jill Draper who donated my prize. Check out her etsy shop here. This yarn is so soft and squidgy. I wonder what it will turn into?

Wedding Tea

2011-09-06T17:03:00.000+01:00

My lovely cousin Jane got married at the weekend. She's been with her ~~partner~~ husband Chris for ages so they have everything they need so requested charity donations instead of wedding presents, but it it nice to receive presents, and I was pretty sure they didn't have a cricket tea cosy.

They are both ex-Navy so I made the cosy in Royal Navy colours. I also pointed out on the gift tag that this is not a cat jumper in case their ginger moggy ended up sporting knitwear.

Jane is a Yorkshire lass so I used DK Wensleydale Longwool yarn, held double for the body and singly for the sleeves and collar. The pattern is fun and quick to knit and I will definitely make this again. And it is a p/hop pattern designed by my brilliant friend Ros.

On the morning of the wedding we went into nearby Malborough with my parents to have a look around. Malborough was as lovely and as twee as I expected, the good side of which is it has loads of great charity shops so we picked up some books, including Douglas Adams and John Lloyds Meaning of Liff which has been on my wishlist for ages, a Neil Gaiman book and Kazuo Ishigoro's Never Let Me Go. Mr Gingerknits found an almost new pair of snowblades in a Blue Cross shop which might come in handy if we have a similar winter to last year. I can see us going up to Hampstead Heath to try them out if it snows.

Malborough also has a knitting shop called Fair Isle which had some Jean Greenhowe knits in the window in preparation for the Malborough show which was taking place that afternoon.

The knitting shop stocked lots of acrylic blend yarns such as Sirdar and Wendy and it was handy seeing them in the flesh as my LYS's in london only sell posh yarns and sometimes an acrylic blend is preferable (and cheaper) than pure wool.

I picked up some Sidar Escape which I was going to make mittens with but I have predictably started knitting socks. Quelle Surprise!

The wedding itself was lovely, and there were a few surprises such as the wedding cake being cut with a ceremonial sword! In the evening we went back to my cousin's friends we were staying with. Myself and my parents were expecting a relaxing evening when almost everyone else came back to the same house to carry on the party. Luckily I hadn't quite changed into my PJs but I was sock knitting. I didn't realise I could impress retired Royal Navy commanders with circular needles and some ribbing but I did. I just felt sorry for their wives as they all started requesting socks. I told them to learn to knit, the men that is!

2011-08-22T13:58:00.002+01:00

My lovely American Ravelry and twitter friend @mostcurious came to stay last weekend. We visited the British Museum and Eastbourne and Mostcurious did her own exploring too. As a thank you gift she gave me a brilliantly retro tea towel (I have a thing for touristy tea towels) from her home state of Minnesota, which apparently is the Gopher State (Caddyshack anyone?) and a couple of things I have been coveting for a while.

Check out the Pirate DPN holder which will stop my yaaaarn slipping off my needles and the pickle stitch markers. They are made by our fellow internet friend peanutga11ery1 who makes a quirky range of stitch markers, DPN holders and beautiful hand carved lazy kates.

So I have new stitch markers and a DPN holder. You know what this means don't you? More socks!

Yarn been tangoed

2011-08-22T13:16:00.001+01:00

When I was at KnitNation last month I was chatting to Andie from Renaissance Dyeing (who make gorgeous yarn) and mentioned I'd experimented with dyeing with carrot tops. When she exclaimed "oh you get such a gorgeous silver green with carrot tops" I looked puzzled and a little disappointed and told her about my dayglo yellow yarn. Andie recommended adding Cream of Tartar and more vinegar which I dutifully did the next time I had a bundle of carrot tops from my allotment. Here is the yarn I got. The yarn on the left is Bluefaced Leicester and the right is superwash merino.

It has a greenish tinge but lets face it, this is still yellow yarn. I like yellow, I don't want loads of it in my stash. On our day to to Eastbourne @Goldenblades91 and I were talking about dyeing and she mentioned Kool Aid dyeing. I have a stash of Kool Aid so decided to experiment over the yellow yarn.

I figured I couldn't go wrong if I stuck with colours that blended with yellow so I picked out oranges, mixed up solutions with just orange Kool Aid, orange + a smidgen of purple and orange + red.

I split the skein of superwash yarn into thirds and did a third in each colour allowing the middle portion to take up less dye. Superwash is incredible and sucked up the dye within seconds. Here is the result unwound...

.... twisted into a nest...

and reskeined.

I love it and am now decided which sock pattern to make with it. I also dyed the Bluefaced Leicester yarn but need to take some decent photos of it before I show you.

While I'm happy with my new yarn my flat smells like it's been Tangoed!

I do like to be beside the seaside

2011-08-17T19:38:00.001+01:00

On Monday I had a marvellous day out at the seaside with some other twitter knitters at Eastbourne and Beachy Head.

It was very easy to get around with a great bus service. 13x runs hourly and stops off at points all the way from Eastbourne to Brighton. The timetable is here. There's another more frequent service, the 12x which you can look up on the same website, though this doesn't get you as close to the sea.

We had ice cream, a pub lunch, walked up and down rolling cliffs, scared ourselves with the huge drop (x1.5 the height of St Paul's cathedral) down to the sea and poked about in rock pools. Sadly the shops were closed by the time we got back to Eastbourne so we didn't get any rock but it was a fab day out with fantastic weather and scenery. I could go on and on but instead I'll show you my photos...

Eastbourne Pier

The view from Beachy Head

Finding knitters in rock pools

Birling Gap beach

Us

Frakking socks - Episode VI - The Finale

2011-08-02T14:47:00.003+01:00

Is this where we all go camping?

Sorry, BSG reference for those of you who haven't seen it.

Here are the finished socks:

Modifications:

Knit on 2.25mm needles

Cast on 68 stitches, by accident but it worked out OK

Increased to 70, removing some of the purl stitches from the ribbing to accommodate my skinny feet.

Only knit one pattern repeat on the cuff as I have short legs, ended on row 2 before starting heel.

Adapted the toe pattern to create a V of ribbing when starting the toe.

Things I learnt:

I don't need to dither so much. I understand sock construction and can make stuff up as I go.

I can do tricky cables without a cable needle if I pause for a few minutes and think about where the stitches need to go.

Changing the type of needle I use cuts down on wrist and finger strain. I used a mix of Addi circulars and bamboo DPNs. I find metal a bit slippery for cables so drop my stitches more than I do with wood or bamboo but find metal faster for stocking stitch.

When your parents suggest the stitch pattern would make a lovely jumper, especially one knit in sock yarn, know that they are joking.

Viper Pilots is a great, well written pattern, though it is fiddly and maybe not best suited to a three and a half day sock challenge. Unless you are frakking stupid. :D

My next socks will be plain old stocking stitch socks.

Frakking Socks - Episode V - Larkin around

2011-08-01T23:15:00.004+01:00

I finished the frakking socks on the way to my Uncle's funeral, kitchener stitch and everything!

The funeral went well and on my way back to London I spied this Phillip Larkin statue in Hull Station. I managed to squeeze out one more photo of me with it as I love Larkin's poetry. I tried to persuade my parents to be in the photo so I could quote his most famous work but they weren't having any of it.

I picked up a copy of Caitlin Moran's new book, How to be a Woman, which I started on the train home. It is magnificent and made me guffaw out loud in places, mostly going under the Humber Bridge. You should read it.

Frakking Socks - Episode IV - Abandon all hope

2011-07-31T23:28:00.000+01:00

Deadline day. I had til midnight to knit another fiddly heel, two feet and two toes.

My camera ran out of juice to document progress but I did take a crummy webcam photo on Mr G's laptop.

Luckily the weather wasn't enticing us outside so I had an excuse to sit in my parents dining room and knit. I did have to stop for lunch, and to chat to Max the notmycat, but mostly I knit.

I work well to deadlines and worked out how to do more complicated cables without a cable needle, making the socks grow much faster, though with slightly gappier cables. I need to work on that, though a bit of tweeking at the end will neaten out the gaps.

By 11pm I had finished one sock and had a "Viper V" and the toe to go on another sock. I made it to the toe by midnight but couldn't knit anymore. Plus I had an early start in the morning. So near, and yet so far....

Frakking Socks - Episode III

2011-07-30T00:21:00.004+01:00

As I was visiting my parents I couldn't spend all weekend knitting, especially on a lovely day out to Durham.

I didn't knit when we stopped for a picnic lunch by the River Tees as I was too busy feeding the ducks and taking in the view.

If I'd been knitting plain socks I might have been able to knit and walk. But I wasn't, so I didn't knit as I walked along the Tees, taking in the lovely scenery.

I also didn't knit when we were trying to spot Durham Cathedral through the trees

or when we examined this interesting sculpture

or when we visited the Old Fulling Mill , Museum of Archeology which was a bargain at £1 to visit.

Inside there was an exhibit of Chinese Funeral stuff and also British History, mostly of the surrounding area. I thought you might like these Bronze age spinning whorls.

I didn't knit while over looking the Tees either but did take a photo of sock no. 2.

I also didn't knit (yes there is a theme here) when we went into Durham Cathedral

as there was too much to look at including the final resting place of the Venerable Bead, wonderful carvings and the shafts of light entering the main atrium (sadly no photos allowed).

There was a wedding taking place while we were inside so we were treated to bell ringing and some superb organ playing, the bass went right through me. If I was religious and the marrying type I'd be seriously tempted to get married there just for the organ music. It was thrilling.

I did knit on the park and ride back to the car park, while munching on some rhubarb fudge Mr Gingerknits had discovered in the market place (there are also a few habadashery and yarn stalls in the market place, some had decent acrylic and nice acrylic wool blends), and in the car on the way home. I wasn't driving.

I also knit for most of the evening, watching Kick Ass, which did, ahem, Kick Ass, and had finished both legs (I didn't make the cuffs as long as the ones in the pattern as I have short legs) and one heel, which was tricker than I thought it would be which induced a fit of swearing and cries of "why didn't I knit plain socks!". Though where would the fun have been in that?

We also popped out for a quick stroll round the field behind my parents house, which had sheep in it. Most of them were Texcels, so not of much interest to me, but we also spotted two Blue Faced Leicesters. Sadly they had already been shorn but it was nice seeing where one of my favourite wools comes from.

Next on Frakking socks: Much more swearing and a deadline!

http://www.thisisdurham.com/

Frakking socks - Episode II

2011-07-29T22:44:00.001+01:00

I was up at stupid o'clock on Friday to get the train to Yorkshire to see my parents. I thought I'd sleep for the whole journey but the challenge was too much to resist so I did knit most of the way.

Writing this in retrospect I can't remember how far I got with it but also knit in the car from the train to my parents house and for most of the day at my parents, taking breaks to chat to the cat from next door who sleeps in my parents garden.

Nice tache, eh?

There were some dropped stitches, cables twisting the wrong way and swearing but also some constructive knitting.

Next time on Frakking Socks, a trip to Durham and some swearing.

Frakking Socks - Episode I

2011-07-28T23:23:00.000+01:00

On Thursday evening at 5pm on the dot I eagerly cast on the first of my Viper Pilots socks. I also tried out a Google+ hangout for the first time and could see and chat to knitters in the US also casting on their first socks, which was pretty nifty. Unfortunately we don't have a proper microphone so I have to talk through our skype phone which makes knitting at the same time tricky, so I listened to the other knitters chatting away about cast on techniques and the like. I was storming along, on about my third round of ribbing when I realised I'd cast on 10 stitches less than the pattern. While this wasn't a major disaster, as I usually make my socks narrower as I have thin feet and ankles, it did make me take stock of my occasional cockiness and pay more attention. Much like being back at school.

I worked out how to modify the pattern, adding a couple of increases before starting the leg and removing one stitch from the ribbing sections of the pattern making my socks a nice neat 70 stitches rather than the 78 on the pattern.

The fit was going well, however the other thing I had been cocksure about was the difficulty of the pattern. I really enjoy knitting cables but I hadn't looked at how fiddly the cables were on this pattern. Rib 3, then purl one, with all knit stitches being through the back loop. Yes, I can do this but not at speed. This was going to be a lesson in patience and perseverance....

I knit until bedtime and I think completed the first of the "Viper Vs"

Next time on Frakking socks, trains, swearing and a notmycat which is not my notmycat.

Frakking socks - The pilot

2011-07-28T15:17:00.000+01:00

I'm about to embark on a daft challenge. I first spotted it on Google+ and after a little poking around on Ravelry found the Can't Sock it Challenge.

The aim is to knit a pair of socks over the four days of Sock Summit, a sock extravaganza taking place in Seattle, and the pattern must have been blogged by the YarnHarlot. I think I an knit a plain pair of socks over four days so have added the challenge of choosing a heavily cabled sock, Viper Pilots by GlennaC.

I was an avid watcher of the new Battlestar Galactica so found the perfect yarn to knit the socks in. It's YarnYard Clan which has great stitch definition for cables. The colourway is unnamed so I have christened it Blue Steel. I was tempted to cut the corners off my pattern print out to add to the BSG geekiness, but I couldn't be bothered.

Cast on time is 9am PST or 5pm BST. I'm itching to get going, suppose I better wind the yarn first...

I'll try and update my progress here over the weekend. The deadline is midnight on Sunday. Watch this space...

Knit Nation or Knit Signal?

2011-07-16T08:15:00.002+01:00

Last night, when I got home from taking the p/hop stuff to KnitNation and exploring the marvellous marketplace, I planned to write a blog post about all the fab vendors there.

Then I watched the news, and the report from Somalia made me cry. Not just weep softly but full on snot river tears of anger that small children and their families are still suffering from a lack of the most basic and essential resources.

So instead of writing here I wrote here....

...and I lit the knit signal.

You know what to do.

I appear to have...

2011-05-18T09:00:00.000+01:00

... SECOND SOCK SYNDROME!!!

Lessons learnt from carrot tops

2011-05-17T22:14:00.001+01:00

Last weekend we harvested some carrots from our allotment. We got more carrot tops (330g) than carrot roots (160g) and it seemed a shame to put the tops straight in the compost so I experimented with some dyeing.

After a quick search on Ravelry I found rough instructions on a blog post. I boiled the carrot tops til they started to face, then chopped them up in my blender to make a thick fibrous soup. I let the mix simmer for a while longer then strained the mixture through a sieve. While this was going on I skeined then soaked 100g of blue faced leicester 4ply and 100g superwash merino with 20g of mordant, which at the time I thought was similar to Alum.

Here's the carrot top soup with the soaked yarn.

I simmered the yarn for about 30min until the yarn looked the colour of the soup. I let it cool then rinsed it. Loads of the colour bled out resulting in a yellow superwash yarn which looks a little warmer and brighter than in the photo below and a very pale yellow BFL. It turns out the mordant I had grabbed in haste is not similar to Alum but is used to fix plant fibres. I did rinse the yarn a lot but am dubious as to how colour fast it will be. I will try this again as I've seen some brilliant results on Ravelry and I've learnt my lesson on reading labels.

Egypt - Day 2

2011-05-06T17:01:00.005+01:00

Day 2 was jam packed. We were up at the crack of dawn to visit Saqqara, the oldest stone monument/building on the planet, built around 5,000 years ago. As well as seeing the step pyramid we went inside a Mastaba and inside a tomb, both of which had fantastic carvings. The mastaba had scenes of fishing and hunting life and our guide really brought ancient Egyptian lifestyles to life.

New things are being found all the time at Saqqara and I expected to see Indiana Jones rummaging around the many archaeological digs.

After Saqqara we drove back into Cairo and vistited two mosques. The first mosque, the Mosque of Sultan Hassan, was beautiful, with it's bare walls and open central courtyard.

As our guide explained the prinicples of Islam and the history of the mosque I watched these three woman making their lunch time prayer. After they had finished they spent time chatting and were very friendly, waving and smiling at us. Our guide offered to translate for me but I couldn't think of anything to ask them.

I like Islamic script when used as artwork and admired this carved Qur'anic text running high along the wall.

It is a very tranquil place.

The second mosque, the Mosque of Al Rif'i, had much busier decor though the brilliant shaft of light penetrating the dark interior could be construed as something divine or the brilliance of the natural world.

After another lunch of falefel eaten on the bus we had a brief visit to Coptic Cairo. We went to the Hanging Church, so called as it is buit on the foundations of a Roman temple. The church was busy as it was Easter Monday, with tourists and worshipers sharing the space inside.

The courtyard was lovely, with kids running around and modern mosaics depicting biblical scenes.

We went straight from Coptic Cairo to the airport for our flight to Luxor to begin our Nile cruise.

It was great to finally relax after a day of 5000 year old temples, mosques and Christian churches and take in the classic view of the Nile with a cold beer.

Egypt Day 1

2011-05-05T22:45:00.002+01:00

This was the first time I'd been on an organised tour. While it took me a few days to adjust to being on an itinerary rather than making things up as I go along I had a fantastic time and highly recommend Explore, the tour company we used. We had an excellent guide throughout our trip, as well as several good local guides to take us around the various temples and tombs. Big thank you to Wael Wanas our indefatigable guide. If you want to know more our tour details are here. Egypt is a fantastic country, both the people and the history are great and it deserves all the support it can get on the dawn of what will hopefully be a bright future.

We arrived in Egypt on Easter Saturday evening and went for a wander, trying to find Tahrir Square, the focal point of revolutionary activity in the recent Spring Uprising. We failed to find Tahrir Square as we didn't use our map, not wanting to look like tourists (durr) but the atmosphere was great. We were out at around 11pm and it seemed all of Cairo was out enjoying the evening. All the shops were open, as well as street vendors and food stalls. As we mooched around lots of people said "hello" and "welcome to Egypt" to us. Families were out with kids of all ages, groups of men sat outside coffee shops smoking their sweet smelling sheesha pipes, people queued up outside bakeries waiting to sample sugary baklava and other local delicacies. We didn't stay out long as we had an early start the next day but it was a lovely welcome to Cairo.

The next morning we set of for Giza, a suburb of Cairo to see the Pyramids. It may come as a surprise that town of Giza extends all the way to the pyramids so you get the contrast of modern city against a backdrop of 4,000 year old monuments.

I've put some of my photos of the pyramids on Flickr so I won't bore you with them all here. As well as being astounded by the pyramids and the excitement of being able to go inside them, I also admired the textiles sported by the camels, luring tourists on to their backs.

Of course, I had my knitting with me...

... and realised my Bothered Owl project bag has a mummy on it...

... if only I'd had some spare loo roll with me to recreate Karloff's sterling performance.

After the pyramids and a sphynix we went to a Papyrus shop to see how papyrus is made. It was interesting and seemed more straightforward than wood pulp paper.

We ate our lunch of falafel on the bus on the way to the Egyptian Museum. Cameras are not allowed in the museum so I can't show you the woven garments found in Tutankhamen's tomb. (It seems there is an official website for the museum but it is down at the moment, maybe a little post-revolution upgrade is going on? http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg) I did ask if any spindles or weaving tools were on display but apparently they are in storage at the moment. The museum is awesome (and I don't use that word lightly). It was pretty empty due to the lack of tourists in Egypt at the mo so we were very lucky and had Tutankhamen's treasure room to ourselves. There is so much to see. I found myself idly wandering past the magnificent and famous gold headdress thinking "oh yeah, that thing" and had to mentally slap myself to go back and take it in properly. There was exquisite metal work and seeing the pharonic collars brought back making costumes in junior school out of cardboard. Nice to see the real thing.

After the museum we went to Islamic Cairo (the old quarter) where we wandered with our guide, Wael, taking in the medieval streets...

... and slower pace of life

We had a fortunate opportunity to visit an old shopping centre which allowed women to shop without having to be completely covered, so they could see what they were buying. There was a band practising in the building and we caught sight of our first Whirling Dervish. We had limited time to look round and with the mesmeric music playing felt like we were in some sort of ancient north African episode of Benny Hill (without the scantily clad girls of course)as we dashed up and down narrow spiral staircases.

We stopped in a courtyard cafe for a refreshing mint tea and Turkish coffee...

then went for our first Egyptian dinner where I tried Besera which is like a bean version of hummus, and koshari which you can find a recipe for here. We also had our first taste of hibiscus tea which I am sipping as I write this. It has a dry taste similar to cranberry juice and with a the addition of a little sugar tastes more like Ribena. I've developed a taste for it so will be searching for it in London when my holiday supplies run out.

We walked back to our hotel watching the buildings change from Islamic Cairo to modern Cairo and flopped into bed, tired but exhilarated after a brilliant first day.

In denial?

2011-05-03T15:41:00.001+01:00

There's been a bit of internet silence from me from the last few weeks as I've been on holiday in Egypt. The never ending Royal Wedding build up plus the winning combination of Bank holidays triggered a last minute get away and we booked a tour to Cairo and then from Luxor to Aswan, sailing down the Nile. It's been a fantastic trip and I'm feeling a little lost back in London without the hubbub, the sand, the soaring temperatures and great food.

I'm sorting through my photos which I'll post to flickr and I'll try and write a little about my trip here. I encountered some interesting textiles on our journey so I'll share those with you here.

Right, I'm going to brew a pot of Hibiscus tea, my favourite new beverage while I sort through my pictures in between loads of washing.

Alpine Knits

2011-04-01T00:18:00.003+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend a few days on the ski slopes in the French town of Morzine. I'm still healing after my knee accident two years ago so while I was fit enough to ski I built up slowly gradually increasing my skiing time. This mean I had knitting time and time to take some photos of recent FO's in the unseasonable warm weather.

First up are some plain old socks in self striping yarn (Schoeller&Stahl Fortissima Colori Socka Color) I bought at Iknit a few weeks ago. I've been trying out new technical and have recently mastered another type of short row heel, the Sherman Heel/Japanese short rows which avoids making wraps, making a neater heel. It took me a few goes to get the hang of it but now it's my new favourite technique. I also added in gusset increases by increasing in the lead up to the heel and decreasing after. This works whether you are knitting toe up or toe down.

Next up, unusually for me, is some lace knitting. I treated myself to some 100% cashmere hand dyed yarn from Hedgehog Fibres when I was in Dublin with p/hop last year. I've been keeping an eye out for the perfect pattern for it and found this curved shawl/wrap pattern on Ravelry which was interesting to knit but not too flowery. It's called Liliaceae and is available for free from designer Angelika Luidl (in German and English).

You begin with the lower edge, casting on a whopping 387 stitches. I adapted the pattern with two extra repeats as I went down a needle size from the pattern to accommodate the thinner yarn I was using. The pattern is worked over 39 rows which include some decreases then the curve is added with short row shaping. I slightly adapted the pattern by lengthening the short rows, adding them at 10 stitches rather than 5, on the last 5 pattern repeats to make the ends of the scarf slimmer as I'm planning to wear this as a scarf rather than a wrap.

I found this very enjoyable to knit. I think I really did jump in at the deep end before learning to swim when I tried to knit High Seas by Keiran Foley last year, which involves p2togs on the reverse side rather than plain purling. I will make this, one day. I will. I will!

I took Cookie A's Sock Innovation with me and worked on Milo socks, no photos yet, I've just finished the first sock. I would have taken Knit, Sock, Love with me but it's so much bigger and less portable than Sock Innovation. I still haven't made up my mind about K,S,L, I'm working on a couple of patterns from it so will review it when I've made something from it.

Just to break up the knitting here are some delicious cakes we had. Mr Gingerknits had a birthday just before we went away so I bought these from a lovely patisserie in town to celebrate. Luckily the woman behind the counter was used to dithering tourists as they had so much to choose from. I cut the cakes into quarters so we all had a good taste of each one between the four of us.

Finally, here's another plain pair of socks I've named Hot Toddy. I made these with TheYarnYard Toddy Natalie gave away on a trip to London, she'd been knitting with it and got bored so I have half a sock along with the yarn. The other yarn is a striping German sock yarn I bought in Berlin in 2009.

Check out the two tone heels, again made using Japanese short rows..

While I didn't wear these socks while skiing I did wear them on our last day where we gave up on the slopes as it was so warm and sunny the snow turned to slush, which is a bugger to ski on, and went for a woodland walk up to a defrosting waterfall or should that be icefall? There was still snow and ice on the ground but my feet were toasty!

Mama MillaMia...

2011-03-21T22:10:00.000Z

...here I go again....

Now I've got ABBA going through your mind (no no, don't all thank me at once), I can tell you about Stitch and Craft at Olympia which I worked at on Thursday and Friday last week.

I was helping out the lovely and dynamic Kat who runs the wonderful yarn company MillaMia with her designer sister Helena. They produce a lovely bouncy 5ply/sportweight/halfawaybetweena4plyandaDK yarn which I've worked with before so I was more than happy to help sell their yarn. I'm not just saying this as I was working for them but as a knitter, the yarn is a dream to work with. It's got a high twist which gives it a great bounce, making it a very forgiving yarn and easy on your hands. Lots of visitors thought the samples were machine knit. The yarn also has great stitch definition and feels very smooth, more like a cotton in feel rather than a 100% Merino yarn. I forgot my camera so can't show you their beautiful kids knit samples but you can see most of them on their website.

Image from MillaMia.com

They currently have two pattern books out. Bright Young Things has a very contemporary feel, including the fabulous kids dress above, I'd wear one as a top. The Close Knit Gang which is more vintage and muted, both books have very wearable kids clothes and the yarn is machine washable. There's a new collection coming out in six weeks so keep an eye on their website.

I didn't get much time to look around the show but did meet Mr X Stitch who makes and promotes geektastic cross stitching and embroidery. I've just had a quick look round his site and spotted his link to Fine Cell Work who are well worth another link here. They teach prisoners to cross stitch and embroider, you can read more about their excellent work on their website.

To help fund their work they sell tempting tapestry kits which I always eye up when I'm in Liberty. I love this Dodo. When I was about six someone gave me a kids cross stitch kit of a toucan which I hope is still in my parents attic. This is a more sophisticated version.

Image from FineCellWork.co.uk

I also saw a knitted Royal Wedding at the show which made me laugh out loud. You can tell who everyone is, Camilla is my favourite, she's just missing a GandT and packet of fags. It was superbly made and if you feel inspired to knit your own you can buy the patterns designed by the uber talented Fiona Goble.

Image from IvyPress

Image from Church Times

The current Archbishop of Canterbury (Head of the Church of England), Dr Rowan Willams, often gets accused of being a woolly liberal. Now his is. Boom boom!

Michelin star socks

2011-02-23T21:31:00.000Z

I was up in Yorkshire last weekend celebrating my mum's birthday. We treated ourselves to a wonderful lunch at The Bay Horse in Hurworth. I was expecting pub grub, you know, tasty food which looks home cooked. What arrived was something from Mastchef The Professionals. I don't use the word amazing much, I think it's overused,often on the mediocre, but this was amazing.

This was Alex's starter, eel with horseradish foam (YES, FOAM!!!) and a concentrate of beetroot as well as jelly cubes of something tasty (we can't remember what they were.

I had a butternut risotto which was delicious but not as photogenic as Alex's starter.

The main courses were equally exquisite though we were too busy eating to take any photos. I was surprised how filling I found the food though we had enough room left to try the desert taster menu.

I'm not much of a cake fan (yes, I know that's odd, especially for a knitter, I much prefer savoury foods to sweet) but especially enjoyed the rice pudding in the tiny jar and apple crumble.

The meal was very reasonable, especially considering the quality of the food. I only found out afterwards but the Bay Horse has a Michelin Bib Gourmand. I'm not entirely sure what that means but it's something to do with serving great food at moderate prices.

I made mum a pair of socks for her birthday. The pattern is Eunice by Cookie A from her book Sock Innovation. They were great fun to knit, complex enough to keep my interest though not so complicated that I couldn't watch TV at the same time.

The yarn is Yarn Yard Clan. I only had one skein, most of my socks use around 55-60 grams of sock yarn and Clan comes in 65g skeins. I knew cables used more yarn so thought I would be OK but ran out just before the toes. Luckily my friend LaPurplePenguin had a small amount spare. Clan is lovely to knit with and has superb stitch definition. Despite being made from 8 strands it wasn't splitty unless I had to rip back. The colour is hard to capture, in real life it's a deep bluey purple, similar in depth to the photo above but more purple. I reversed the cables in the pattern as I am a symmetry freak but otherwise stuck to the pattern.

This is mum's first pair of hand knit socks and she was pleased with how warm they are. I think I've converted another person to the joy of hand knit socks.

p/hopping happy!!!

2011-02-11T15:54:00.001Z

p/hop won an award yesterday!

Happy Multicultural Rabbit

2011-02-09T00:11:00.005Z

We went along to Chinatown on Sunday for the Year of the Rabbit celebrations.
Our divvy of a prime minister was recently banging on about how multiculturalism has failed in the UK so I wish he could have been there on Sunday to see how many visitors this "failed multiculturalism" attracted to London.

Politics aside this was such a fun day out. It was heaving but years of living in London have made me much better at dealing with crowds and the majority of people were pretty polite. I just laughed at those who weren't. They were obviously soooo much more important than everyone else.

We managed to catch glimpses of the lion dancers blessing the shops with the drums and cymbals chasing away bad spirits.

One of the sponsors was Kung Fu Panda!

As well as the Panda there were wise old men conferring longevity and other attributes to the crowds and a money tree for prosperity.

There were also things to spot if you looked up

and lots of young Chinese women were sporting bunny ears (in a non playboy fashion)

After mooching around we headed into Covent Garden to Wahaca which does great Mexican food using British ingredients.

Another happy rabbity refried bean Sunday in London! Perfect.

Monochrome

2011-02-08T21:58:00.008Z

I have been knitting over the last month, the problem is the light has been rubbish for taking photos of finished knits. There are signs of spring out there so hopefully in a few weeks time crocuses will be out and so will my camera.

I've been curled up on my crafty futon watching the Danish drama The Killing on BBC4. If you've missed it you can catch up on the six episodes which have already been shown on iplayer. It is excellent though subtitled which means I need to stick with basic stocking stitch while watching or else I miss what's going on, as well as the monocromatic scenery.

The main character is detective Sarah Lund who spends much of her time in a jumper like this.

Photo from gudrundugrun.com where you can buy your own jumper.

There's been a fair amount of chat about her jumper on Ravelry. While I'd love to knit a jumper like that, with traditional Faroese motifs, I don't think I'd wear it much. It would make a great sock pattern....

A trip to the Theatre?

2011-01-30T20:00:00.005Z

Last weekend friends came down from Gateshead for a weekend in London. It's great when people come and stay as we get to be tourists in our own city and visit things we haven't been to before. My sort of new years resolution this year is to see more of London, I've got in to a bit of a rut going to the same galleries and museums, which are great but it's good to try new things. I know South Bank pretty well but am not that familiar with what's east of London Bridge. Our friends had managed to get free tickets to the Design Museum so we started off there on Saturday morning.

The Design Museum is very white and minimal and this white and minimalness was exacerbated by John Pawson exhibition which was on. Alex, Anitha and I are all quite messy so didn't really appreciate the clean white lines and interiors with no personalisation though Stewart is a neat freak and really enjoyed himself. There was a mock up of one of the monastery rooms Pawson had designed (Cistercian Monastery of Our Lady of Nový Dvůr in the Czech Republic). Luckily when I went into it a delightfully rambunctious toddler came careering in, all rosy cheeks, bright stripey clothes and noise and dribble which curbed my urges to make a mess. It was a lovely contemplative space, perfect for a monk, but not how I would like to live.

I did like the flat he renovated on the Belgium coast. I've been to that part of Belgium which is very different to most of the UK coast. It's flat, bleak, washout, beautiful in it's own way with very subtle changes over the course of a day. The apartment made the most of the views and was reflected in the over exposed interiors. I think if I stayed there I would spend the day staring out of the window. It's a shame the photos on his website have the curtains closed as the apartment is a picture frame for the natural world.

Slightly more colourful were the fashion drawings exhibited on the first floor, though I would have enjoyed it more if there had been actual samples on display.

The staircase had an interesting installation of plastic cards with different alphabets and texts, including a Hindi script which had been modified for mobile phone use. A friend of ours works on making numeric pads on mobiles predict text in Chinese and Hindi so we wondered if he'd helped design some of the characters.

The museum is quite small and one of the exhibition spaces was closed when we visited so I was quite pleased we didn't pay to get in. To be honest my favourite part was the shop, though I will bear the museum in mind for future exhibits if they sound interesting.

We stopped off for brunch in a lovely, modern tea shop on Shad Thames called Teapod where I had a healthy pancake with fruit and everyone else tucked into tasty cake.

Feeling energised we strolled along Shad Thames and stumbled across Butler's Warf which used to be warehouses when London was more of a dock city. It's been restored beautifully though is disappointingly full of high street chains. Shad Thames itself is more interesting with independent retailers.

We were heading for the Old Operating Theatre which I hadn't heard of but Anitha was keen to see it. It's just off Borough High Street on St Thomas' Street. It was well worth a visit. From the outside it looks like a church, which it turns out it sort of is.

I admired the iron work sculpture at the entrance.

You squeeze up a tight, narrow spiral staircase and just as you think you can't go round another corner you pop up in a tiny, crowded, mildly chaotic shop and pay your money to go in.

After climbing a short, straight flight of stairs you are transported to the 18th century to a herb garret, where medicinal herbs such as willow bark would have been stored and prepared by St Thomas's Apothecary. It actually smelled quite pleasant. There were lots of display cabinets with pathological specimens, medical instruments and gruesome bits and pieces as well as lots of herb samples to poke and sniff. I like old glass medical bottles which would have been used for storing tinctures.

Not your usual crochet hook! I just tried looking up the item below on google and got lots of horrible and graphic anti abortion sites so let's just say it's an old fashioned tool. If you are interested in old surgical tools, as I am, the museum has a good page about them here which is factual and free from any zealotry. Anitha is a doctor and said many of the obstetric tools haven't changed that much, many of the forceps look the same today.

I used to work in operating theatres monitoring brain blood flow and years ago had a job washing up surgical kit in theatres which was very interesting so it was fascinating to see an actual early theatre. It definitely felt more like a theatre than modern operating rooms and I have to say I am so grateful to be alive in the 21st century with anaesthesia and good clean surgical techniques.

The Old Operating Theatre is well worth a visit if you are interested in surgery and it's development and also the history of medicine. If you are squeamish I'd give it a miss.

Donegal Aran Socks

2011-01-03T16:50:00.003Z

When Bioniclaura came to stay for KnitNation she very kindly gave me some Donegal Aran Tweed Yarn. The yarn is made in Ireland in a mill in Kilcar, County Donegal and I bought a little more of it when I visited the Knitting & Stitching show in Dublin with p/hop in October.

As I'm supposed to be making 52 pairs of socks this year of course I made socks. The yarn is lovely to work with and though it feels a little rough at first after a gentle wash in some soak it softens up beautifully.

I made these socks toe up, using Judy's Magic cast on for the toes. I cast on 18 stitches and increased every other round using YOs knitted through the back loop to 36 stitches on 3.75mm needles. They have a standard heel flap and gusset and were very quick to knit, taking one evening per sock.

I gave this pair to my Mother in Law for Christmas and she is very happy with them. Though she loves all my knitting and often contemplates nicking things I have made for other people like some yarny magpie.

The socks used one skein of grey and one of purple. I think I'll make a pair for myself as they make great house or hiking socks.

Champagne Bubbles

2011-01-01T16:47:00.003Z

We went for a stroll this afternoon along the Seine where my MIL lives to work off the champagne and cheese from New Year celebrations and build up an appetite for our postponed Christmas meal. It was a good opportunity to take some photos of my latest FO, Bubbles hat by Woolly Wormhead.

Compulsory Catalogue Pose

I've met Woolly at several shows over the summer and we sat together at several meal times at the infamous Knit Camp as well as getting tipsy at Knit Nation. She's ace and also a great designer. She leads a pretty interesting life, living in a converted double decker bus in Italy. Take a look at her blog which is a good mixture of her day to day life on the bus with her partner and young son and loads of great knitting tips.

The Bubbles pattern was great fun to knit and worked up pretty quickly, the cables providing just enough interest to make this a great knit while watching Agatha Christie mysteries on TV in between eating festive leftovers. I used Araucania Natural Solid Aran yarn which I bought from Woolly One-Offs at the Masham Sheep Fair in September. It's similar to Cascade 220 but was less expensive and I like the semi solid colour. The stitch definition is pretty good and shows off the cables well, though it's tricky to photograph as it's red, so the over saturation fuzzes the stitch definition. The cables are much crisper in real life.

Looking at other finished Bubbles on Ravelry it seems I'm the only person who has made this as an adult size hat. It is very cute as a kids hat but I like mine and it feels quite grown up.

My MIL has had her beady eye on it so I've had to hang on to it, I think I'll make her one at some point this year, maybe with the square top, rather than the beanie style.

Goodbye 2010, hello 2011

2010-12-31T17:27:00.003Z

I've spent a fair bit of the last week knitting and also mulling over 2010.

I've had a pretty good year. I haven't made as many large items for myself as I'd have liked to but I did do some sample knitting which I enjoyed as it makes me knit things I wouldn't normally knit for myself.

Here's a quick list of my 2010 highlights:

Meeting internet knitters in real life. I met loads of you at shows with p/hop, so many that I got very bad at remembering people's names, which is something I am normally good at. A few knitters came to stay at ours which was great (look at my stash) and I stayed with a few knitters I have known for years on Rav but finally met in real life (I looked at their stashes).

Going to Stitch London meetings. Similar to the above with the added enjoyment of teaching someone to knit for the first time. You can do this too but you'll have to wait for me to be at a better PC to add links.

I learned a fair few new techniques this year, my favorite being the German Twisted cast on which I now use all the time.

Twitter has been awesome this year and I have made new friends and learned more about old ones through it.

I'm typing this under a duvet at my MIL's house in France where we are spending New Year. I have a hot cup of tea and the lovely Mr Gingeknits next to me as well as American Gods by Neil Gaimen which I have been meaning to read all year and finally started it on the train to my MIl's house this afternoon.

One of things I am going to try and do more off in 2011 is read more fiction. It's the one downside to knitting (well that and the fact knitting doesn't burn enough calories for my liking)that it eats into my reading time. Maybe I should learn to read and knit at the same time, though I like giving both things the attention they deserve.

Aside from that I don't really have resolutions, more a list of new things to try. I'd like to learn Brioche stitch, more techniques and improve my lace knitting in 2011 as well as complete the knit 52 pairs of socks in a year challenge which I'm a little way behind on at the moment though that deserves another blog post.

Anyway, I'm rambling on like a woolly Ronnie Corbett when I should be giving my MIL a hand with dinner. Goodbye 2010, you've been a fun year. Wishing you all a happy and peaceful 2011.

Oh yeah, how could I forget, I got two crochet patterns published this year. My first job of 2011 will be to add myself as a designer on Rav. Eeeek!!!

Ho ho ho

2010-12-25T22:03:00.000Z

We sort of postponed Christmas this year as we both have horrible chest infections.

Today we've spent most of the day under duvets in the lounge watching Christmas TV, sleeping and eating what we fancied. It hasn't been that bad and I seem to have perked up a little this evening, so much so that I did some knitting.

Mr Gingerknits gave me this very appropriate card with glittery knitted sprouts...

... and I found this wee bear knitting in a box of old cards.

I've been making socks over the last few days. The blue sock is using some On-line sock yarn (superwash + bamboo)I bought in Berlin last summer. I'm using a simple slip stitch pattern to break the colours up and am pleased with the fake isle effect it is creating.

The orange and khaki sock is using another sock yarn I bought in Berlin (I can't remember the name of it right now) and Yarnyard Toddy which Natalie had started a sock in but abandoned it, luckily for me as I got all the yarn.

I'm going to try and make them with short row heels with a gusset. When I've made short row socks for me before I found they haven't fit too well around my ankle so I'll see if this tutorial, passed on to me by RuthieD works out.

I met RuthieD a few years ago when I went on an Iknit Knit in Public Day treasure hunt. I bumped into her at KnitNation where she helped me sort out some p/hop raffle prizes. We chatted about sock knitting techniques and she messaged me the link about short row gussets a few days later. I love that about knitters, the willingness to share.

I hope you're all having a lovely festive season.

Merry Christmas
Love

Gingerknits

Christmas Ham

2010-12-24T23:54:00.001Z

I don't remember our family having a "Christmas Ham" when I was a kid. I think we did have ham at Christmas but never called it the Christmas Ham so when I came across the phrase a few years ago I was amused by it and it's become a bit of a meme in our house.

We've been trying to lead a very green Christmas and use newspaper to wrap each others presents. I found these pictures of festive ham in a supermarket newsletter and couldn't resist using them to wrap some chocolates for Mr Gingerknits.

Draughty?

2010-12-20T22:08:00.000Z

Got draughty old windows? We do. I normally push crumpled newspaper in the cracks but this year used old scraps of roving and felt I've made. It works brilliantly and I can cram it into the smallest of cracks (using a baking spatula) making my flat that much cosier.

Yet another great reason to love wool.

Snow cat

2010-12-17T15:04:00.002Z

We had quite a downpour of snow this morning. For those of you who live in snowier climates this won't look like much but it is quite unusual for London. The Black Cat didn't quite know what to make of it and oscillated from wanting to be inside...

to dashing outside to chase snowflakes (and eat snow!).

Ha!

2010-12-16T01:02:00.000Z

I just picked up a tinned meat comment on my blog which goes as follows...

"Why have you deleted my post? It was very helpful information and i assure atleast 1 person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this website. I'll post it again. Sick of obtaining low amounts of useless visitors to your website? Well i want to share with you a brand new underground tactic that makes myself $900 each day...." blah blah blah


Picture found at srobadelic blog

Well at least the spammers are getting more creative.

I deleted the comment.

Laceweight & Owls

2010-12-11T00:06:00.000Z

I did a little bit of shopping at The Bothered Owl Christmas Party.

There was lots of beautiful yarn available so considering the circumstances I was very restrained.

The yarn is from Indie Dyer Sweet Clement. I spent most of the evening trying not to succumb to her beautiful colours but I could see her yarn from where I was sitting at the p/hop table.

Sadly all the red sock yarn had been snapped up by the time I decided to treat myself so I bought some laceweight. I don't know why I do this. I am definitely falling into the category of yarn collector rather than knitter when I buy laceweight as I have never knitted anything with laceweight but I now have a few skeins of it in my stash after a year of visiting festivals. I am determined to knit with it so need to overcome my fear of it, I just need to find the right pattern.

I'm a big fan of Kieran Foley's patterns but they are a little too tricky for me at the moment. I've tried making High Seas a few times but need to work on my concentration as I always go wrong.

The green/blue yarn will become socks but for the time being it's just something that I stroke.

The party was great fun and even though I was working I had plenty of time to sit and chat, especially with Sarahabroad, Whitehart and Lapurplepenguin who all kindly helped out on the p/hop stand. I also met knitters who I had chatted to on twitter but not met in real life such as rockpurlgirl and onehandknits who were both just as fab in real life.

A big thank you to The Bothered Owls for such a relaxed and fun evening.

Paul Smithesque

2010-12-08T16:11:00.001Z

I'm currently making myself a pair of socks using some left over Mist Alpaca yarn in 2 colourways. I love the way the colours are working together as I alternate the yarns and the stripes remind me of Paul Smith colours.

While Browsing the Paul Smith website to find something similar to illustrate my point I came across this.

Image from PaulSmith.com

I'm emulating Paul Smith who is imitating granny squares. I think I prefer mine to his. At least when I make granny squares they are real!

Lashing and lashings...

2010-12-02T19:47:00.003Z

As well as talk of Clementine Cake on twitter there has been talk of brewing Ginger Beer. Ginger beer is my drink of choice and I'm always in search of a good one. I find many commercial ones too sweet. Once on holiday in Brasil I had a ginger beer made with freshly squeezed ginger which is the gold standard at the moment and a tough act to live up to.

@eskimimi (who has a lovely blog) linked to this River Cottage recipe last week. I had to hunt around for brewers yeast as the brewer's yeast you can buy in chemists and health food shops is deactivated so won't work for brewing, despite the name. (trade descriptions act anyone?).

I ended up buying my yeast online after consulting my brewing guru Bioniclaura. As well as knitting Laura brews her own beer, which I got sample when I stayed with her and her lovely dog and husband in Dublin when I went over at the end of October. More on that later.

I couldn't wait to get started but had to wait til we returned from Hastings to get going. It only takes 48 hours to brew but I've been VERY impatient and watching it like a kid watches the countdown to Christmas.

My beer was ready tonight. It's fiery, fizzy and fabulous and I am definitely making this again. I altered the recipe slightly by using a lime instead of a lemon as it's what I had in and I added a teaspoon of powdered ginger as well as fresh grated ginger. I think the powdered ginger has added a subtle kick. I used Danstar Windsor Yeast but also bought Safale s-04 following Laura's advice. It will be interesting to see how much difference changing the yeast makes. Uh oh, looks like I have a new hobby!

Windy Snow

2010-12-01T19:43:00.003Z

We spent last weekend in Hastings with a group of friends. It was rather wintry so we didn't make it to the battle site but did stroll along the beach. I'd given a couple of friends Cranford Mitts I'd made as part of the p/hop Mitt-a-long which went down well, though I ended up borrowing one pair which makes me a bad gift giver. Here you are, lovely bespoke mittens, which I will immediately take back and use.

I made these Cranfords using some Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino which I p/hopped last month along with some from my stash. The mittens are slightly different in colour due to different dyelots but I think I'm the only person who has noticed. The brown edging is a wool/silk blend mystery yarn from my friend Montyknits, I suspect it is Blue Sky Alpaca yarn.

A lot of Hastings seemed rather forlorn in a run down British seaside way, like a forgotten favourite teddy bear left on a shelf. The pier had burnt down which added to the post apocalyptic feel.

I did admire the way everything was linked to the Battle of Hastings, the local bus service is called Arrow, and a weather station on the beach had some apt cartoons.

The old town was lovely and we found a brilliant deli and a cheese shop which had lots of local Sussex cheeses to try. There were also many kitsch and cute shops and I spied a fair bit of knitting and crochet in the shop windows.

During the week there had been lots of talk on twitter about baking and this Clementine Cake recipe came up a few times so I decided to make it. It's very easy to make. Boiling the Clementines for two hours is the hardest part. It's also gluten free as it uses ground almonds not flour. It's a brilliant recipe and I will be making it again, though I must warn you, it doesn't last long!

A Weasel for Ouisel

2010-11-29T23:47:00.001Z

There's nothing like a deadline to make me finish a project. My best friend Lou is off travelling round the world next year after finishing her job. Her nickname in our circle of friends is Ouisel (take the first letter of your name and put it at the end), pronounced weasel so when I saw the crochet pattern made by Jennifer Reeve in the LSG group on Ravelry for a weasel I had to make it for her.

Lou coordinated a research study into Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm repairs using stents known as EndoVascular Aneurysm Repair or EVAR for short and we also refer to her as the Queen of EVAR so the weasel had to be holding an aneurysm and have a crown.

I started this project about 2 years ago but other things kept on getting in the way. As Lou was heading off for the year and finishing her EVAR job I had to finish the weasel. It didn't take me long to finish and I enjoyed knitting the aneurysm using i-cord. I can't quite believe I've finished this project. It's been hanging around for so long.

We went away with a group of friends this weekend and it's Lou's birthday this week so the Weasel for Ouisel was finally handed over. It's going to live at Lou's parents place while she's away, just what they want in their farmhouse, a weasel with an aneurysm.

It's actually a very nice feeling knowing it's finished. I keep on spotting the bag I kept it in thinking "Gah, must finish that bloody weasel" then remembering I've done it. You can see the project details on Ravelry.

Happy Birthday p/hop

2010-11-10T17:03:00.000Z

Hello blog

2010-11-01T22:12:00.000Z

This another one of those, whoops, I've not blogged for ages but I will catch up sort of posts.

I've been here, there and almost everywhere with p/hop this month but will hopefully have a bit more me time in November which will mean more blogging.

The p/hop birthday blog along is this week (and maybe next week), which is open to all. It's a great way of raising awareness about the project so if you'd like to take part follow the simple steps here.

My first phopping

2010-10-13T16:48:00.001+01:00

Wordless Wednesday.

Yarn swap & very appropriate card from Nancyflowers in aid of MSF.

Gingerknitsnuts

2010-10-02T20:04:00.005+01:00

The weather is miserable. It's perfect fibre crafting weather. It's also good baking weather so here is the Obligatory October Baking Blog post.

I'm going to Loop's yarn swap for MSF tomorrow and have made some biscuits to take along. Of course they are gingernuts, my signature biscuit. Here's my recipe, adapted from The Cranks Recipe Book.

Gingerknitsnuts

Ingredients

60g Margarine or butter
175g Plain flour
60g brown sugar
100g Golden syrup
2tsp baking powder
1tsp Bicarbonate of soda
2tsp Ground ginger

For the icing
Icing sugar
Ginger cordial

Rub the butter and flour and baking powder together until you have a crumbly mixture. Stir in the sugar. Warm the golden syrup and add the bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger. Add the ginger golden syrup mixture to the flour and butter mix. Knead them together to form a dough. Roll small ball of dough, flatten them slightly and place them on a greased baking sheet leaving a good amount of space between them as the dough will spread.

Bake in the oven at 180C for about 15 min. Leave to cool on a wire tray.

Optional ginger icing

To make the icing measure the icing sugar into a bowl, add a small amount of cordial and stir well. Gradually stir in more cordial, less than a teaspoon full at a time until the icing is your desired consistency. Once the biscuits have cooled ice them.

Variation: Add some chopped crystallised ginger to the biscuit mixture before baking.

Sheep

2010-09-26T20:46:00.000+01:00

I didn't get many photos of the sheep or the sheep judging competition at Masham yesterday but this blog post has loads of excellent photos.

In other news, my knitting mojo is creeping back. I've been tinkering with some chunky yarn I bought yesterday and have done a few rounds on a sock. We'll see what happens.

AT-AT

2010-09-25T21:10:00.001+01:00

We had loads of fun at the Masham Sheep Fair today, my mojo might be creeping back after a lovely day chatting with knitters. I'll need to wait til I'm back down south to blog about it and upload my photos. If you're near Masham do go along to the Sheep Fair tomorrow. It's a fun day out and well worth a visit.

In the meantime here's a crocheted AT-AT from Soggy-Wolfie which my other half found on Deviant Art. Take a look at the other things they have crocheted such as a sea cucumber, sad zinc, and an axolotl. Nifty eh?

Has anyone seen my mojo?

2010-09-24T23:48:00.000+01:00

Do not fear dear reader, I have not turned into the groovy 60s spy, no not that sort of mojo. It's far worse than anything Austin "Danger" Powers had to contend with. I've lost my knitting mojo!

I suppose it's not bad going. It's the first time this has happened to my in the five years since I discovered 15mm needles and Big Wool and churned out a basic yet passable shawl in two evenings, banishing my awful memories of 80's knitting hell as a teenager grappling with acrylic and excessive intarsia.

I have spent a good part of the summer at knitting festivals with the wonderful p/hop and a good other part knitting professionally. Now I have a bit of time to knit for fun and for me I just can't face it. When I was on round 100 and something of the never ending commission project I fantasised about whipping up a pair of socks (ahem, don't mention the 52 sock pick up or knit 52 pairs in a year challenge I so optimistically signed up for back in June), or a woolly hat for my lovely brother in common law.

This ennui has only been going for a few days, although yesterday I truly despised all the wool in my flat and had an urge to bag it all up and put it out for the bin men. Of course the common sense side of my brain dominated the mohair induced hissy fit and I resisted such rash impulses and came up to Yorkshire for the weekend instead.

There is a woolly reason for this trip north and that is the marvellous Masham Sheep Fair. I went last year, partly because my Dad's brass band were playing and partly through my love of fibre.

It's a brilliant day out with sheep, sheep racing, a fleece sale including rare breed fleeces, sheep shearing demonstrations, spinning, rope making, yarn market, knitting and dyeing competition.

If I'm not in the mood for all that jolly good fun tomorrow Masham is home to not one but two breweries so I can take a tour and drown my sorrows. Out of the two breweries which one will I choose? Theakstons or Black Sheep? Ha!

Visitors

2010-09-21T14:53:00.000+01:00

Remember the Black Cat? He sometimes brings his friends round to join in the human staring.

Normal knitting service will be resumed shortly.

20 Books in 20 Minutes

2010-09-05T11:43:00.003+01:00

This is one of those Facebook things that comes around every so often. While I'm not keen on most FB quizzes (inane) I appreciate this one as it can be a good source of inspiration for new books to read.

Here's my list:

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Twenty books you've read that will always stick with you. List the first twenty you can recall in no more than twenty minutes. Tag some friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules i... etc etc.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

2. The Twits - Roald Dahl

3. Regeneration Trilogy - Pat Barker

4. Lord of the Rings - Tolkein

5. Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

6. 1984 - George Orwell

7. Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell

8. Mill on the Floss - George Elliot (Still not finished it but loved it so far)

9. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

10. Cry the Beloved Country - Alan Paton?

11. Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood

12. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency - nice bit of cheerful fluff which shows an African country in a positive light

13. Father Ted - The Complete Scripts - Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews

14. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

15. Monkey - Wu Chen'eng en

16. Ray Bradbury/Azimov/Arthur C Clarke/Philip K Dick - Can't choose one specific book

17. John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids

18. The Book of Dave - Wil Self

19. Last King of Scotland - Giles Foden

20. The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts - Louis De Bernieres

Also Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, Philip Larkin poetry, the War poets, Debbie Stollers learn to knit book, A Primates Memoir by Sapolski...

Seems I like dystopian Sci Fi and depressing books about African countries (Mma Ramotswe being the exception).

It would be interesting to revisit this list in 5 years time.

I'll end this post with an excerpt from my favourite kid's book, The Twits by Roald Dahl.

If you've written a list on your blog please leave a link to it in the comments so I can get ideas for new books to read. Thank you.

Round & round & round

2010-09-04T16:30:00.000+01:00

I've been knitting. A lot. I can't tell you what I'm knitting as it's top secret, just keep an eye on Montyknits blog and all will be revealed in a few weeks/months time.

What I will share with you is the brilliant Bothered Owl stitch markers which bring some light relief to lots of rounds of stocking stitch.

Squids in

2010-08-26T15:48:00.001+01:00

I'm going from my damp flat to The Depths of the ocean on Friday night. I'll be teaching tiny squid knitting along with other Stitch London Stitchettes as well as marvelling at the bizarre creatures that live in the depths of our seas at the Natural History Museum.

I pestered Stitch London to let me knit something for their specimen jars and they said yes. Here is my creation along with other woolly beasties of the deep!

My fishy knit is a coelacanth (far left). You can read more about them on the Stitch London blog.
I'm a natural history geek and have always loved the story of the discovery that a presumed extinct species was living in the depths of the Mozambique channel. If you're interested in enormous old fish with anal fins I can recommend this book.

I'm pretty sure they sell it in the NHM shop. If you're at the museum on Friday night come and say hello. Lets hope the Bone eating snot worms haven't eaten the giant sloth by then.

Putting things in perspective

2010-08-23T23:18:00.002+01:00

We arrived home from Yorkshire today to find half our living room and kitchen were flooded. Our table, futon, PC (I'm writing on our dinky laptop), carpet and ceiling are damaged as well as some minor bits of electronic kit.

This is very annoying but when I see images of the flood in Pakistan it really is nothing. Yes, it smells funky, yes, my favourite old, well travelled address book is damaged but no-one has died, we're not at risk of cholera or malaria and I doubt either of us is going to starve. Even the errant Black Cat wandered in safe and sound as if nothing had happened.

MSF are working their socks off in Pakistan, setting up Cholera stations, proving shelter, clean water and medical care to some of the 14 million people (yes 14 million, hard to imagine isn't it) affected by the floods.

This MSF water distribution truck provides water to victims of the floods who are displaced and in need of clean drinking water. Nowshera, 27th July 2010. Photo by Ton Koene/MSF Photo via www.msf.org.uk

It's easy to make a donation to MSF. You can do it on their website or via the p/hop widgets on my blog.

£5.51 provides a mosquito net which will help prevent a family from getting malaria, dengue fever or other mosquito transmitted diseases. Not bad for the equivalent of one 50g ball of nice yarn or a couple of shop bought sandwiches eh?

On the Road

2010-08-20T22:29:00.001+01:00

I've been here, there and everywhere this month. First was up to Edinburgh, then Stirling taking p/hop to Knit Camp. Then back to Edinburgh to visit friends and enjoy some of the fringe festival. I'm now in North Yorkshire spending a few days with my parents. Blog posts with pictures will be coming when I return to the big city and can upload photos.

I'm having fun but do occasionally wonder if the Black Cat is still yelling outside my back door. I should set up a web cam to see what he's up to.

Knit Nation

2010-08-02T22:09:00.006+01:00

I've been busy over the last week taking p/hop to the Knit Nation festival in London. It was good fun but I'm still a little dazed from 3 full on days of talking to knitters. It was fab and I've met some brilliant people so I will share it in photo form.

Here's our stand, manned by yellowpurplezebra and cybil.

Bad pub photos from Friday night with Stitch London Stitchettes, WoollyWormhead,@julietillyflop (who makes fab knitting tea towels) Babylonglegs, @knitterbird and Bionic Laura (who stayed with me and brought me some gorgeous Aran yarn from Ireland)

There was a grout baby and also some tipsy yelling at Ysolda and Sazknits and Jess and Casey the marvellous people who made Ravelry when we spotted them on the way to the tube.

On Saturday I made sure I had time to shop and bought some sock yarn from Renaisance Dyeing...

... creepily fabulous stitch markers from The Bothered Owl...

As well as a fab needle roll with Mexican Day of the Dead pattern

I also bought some Old Maiden Aunt sock yarn (I love her stuff) and some Artisan Yarns sock yarn in subtle deep blues.

Woolly Wormhead modelled her p/hop pattern. There's a more official photo for the p/hop website but this one really makes me laugh. She's such a star.

In the evening I went to the Ravelry party laid on by the smashing Jess and Casey who I managed to get a photo with. Lovely, lovely people. I made sure I said thank you to them for the wonder that is Rav. they must hear it all the time but I still think it's important to let people know you like what they do.

There was much hamming it up in front of giant Bob....
here's Jen from Fyberpates, Jon from Easy Knits and Jen Tech Editor for The Knitter

and ahem, me

I also met Woolly as well as loads of real people I've only "met" in cyberspace.

There were also great Ravelry goodie bags which had an Ysolda pattern inside and of course a Ravelry badge. Check out the great Bob in London drawing.

You can also see the yarn I bought in the photo above.

I had a go in Ysolda's photo booth. I think these need captions.

Phew, I think that's all. Now on to UK Knit Camp which is only a week away!!!

Too busy!

2010-07-14T16:12:00.001+01:00

I see this advert on the tube quite often and keep on meaning to get a photo of me knitting in front of it. The problem is I'm usually too busy knitting to do so.

Catch up No.2 - Goodbye Mini Me

2010-07-13T00:43:00.006+01:00

A couple of weeks ago all the stitch selves were transported from Stitch London's HQ to the Science Museum. I helped the team set them up which was great fun sorting through all the little people. Some were brilliant, some were downright scary though they were all endearing.

Yet again the brilliant Stitch London folks have blogged about it. See if you can spot me on their blog, as well as enjoying all the other mini mes.

I had a fun night at the Science Museum grown ups only evening. A few friends came along and it was so much fun being able to play on things in the Launch Pad area without having to push kids off things first. (Before you get all hot and bothered I am joking, though if you've ever been to the Science or Natural History Museum during the school holidays you'll understand the frustration)

There were quite a few imaging gadgets so here I am in thermal imaging...

...and on some dot display contraption.

The frozen ice crystals were beautiful, I spent about 10 minutes watching them form through a polarising lens...

and the cat with 7 toes was cool.

The BBC were there with their Bang Science programme demonstrating experiments you can do at home. I love that sort of thing and was fascinated with the super cool water experiment, where water instantly turned into ice. You can try it at home, the instructions are here.

At the end of the evening I took one last look at mini me. It was quite hard leaving "me" behind, though I know "she"'ll be in safe hands at Stitch London.

Prick your Craftacular Finger

2010-07-12T22:35:00.014+01:00

On Saturday, after a swift watering of my allotment, I headed off to the Bust Craftacular Craft Fair with my fibre friend Monty.

Monty has already blogged about our day out and it seems we do have very similar taste in things. We were both taken with the quirky animal prints by Brat and Suzie and I was very tempted by a pair of red knickers with this on the bum.

Sadly I was on a budget so my derrière is not adorned with a rebellious urban creature, for now...

I did splash out on a couple of birdie buttons and a card for my Dad from four and plenty designs.

I'm a birdwatching geek and loved the hoopoe screen print. It turns out the four and plenty designer is a geeky birdwatcher too so we discussed where we'd spotted hoopes (by a roadside in France and in a park in central Madrid). Before I learnt to read I used to love looking through my parents battered Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe. Apparently I used to stop on the hoopoe page and shout "hoopoe, hoopoe" very excitedly so it's a bird I'm very fond of.

I also admired the beautifully sinister prints by Dan Hillier which combine animal elements with gothic Victoriana.

Image of "Collector" from danhillier.com

I resisted buying fabric (you'll see why in later blog posts) though Beyond Fabrics had some tempting vintage pieces on sale.

I also resisted these tempting tarts, how could I bring myself to eat a bird?

We stopped for an iced tea before a final lap of the stalls and a natter with a couple of people from Stitch London, then went for lunch at The Gallery Cafe, a great vegan restaurant just up the road.

One delicious tofu burger later we walked (or should that be waddled, the portions were very generous) to Prick Your Finger. Despite being an avid knitter I still haven't been to all the knitting shops in London. Today I lost my Prick Your Finger virginity. It's a fab place. Rachael the owner was warm and welcoming. While Rachael and Monty chatted I browsed round the shop. While the shop is small there is plenty to look at, especially if you look up.

I loved the crocheted seagull in it's nest of old knitting needles.

Prick Your Finger stock loads of British Yarns.

As well as their own handspun with imaginative names.

I love the juxtaposition of these characters on the rack.

I invested in some Rennie 4ply as the colour spoke to me. Rachel also encouraged me to sniff the yarn which is the sign of someone who understands their craft.

I also got a Prick Your Finger canvas shopping bag which has a great message on the reverse, though some people on the tube yesterday looked like they'd taken it a bit personally when they read it. Ha!

Catch up No.1 - With Tiny Pigeons

2010-07-10T21:53:00.003+01:00

I've had quite a few knitting escapades over the last few weeks. One of them was the Tiny Perching Pigeon Party which was organised by Stitch London in collaboration with Anna Hrachovec who you may know better as Mochimochi Land.

Anna specialises in extremely cute tiny knitted things such as a squirrel on wheels or pigs in wigs, which can be found in her new book. Her website is full of fun patterns to buy too.

It's already been blogged about by Anna and Stitch London so I'll just share a few photos and say if you want to knit a teeny tiny pigeon you can find the pattern here. It's free.

Pigeon navigates the tube. Can't find Canary Warf.

Admires the home of our democracy

Phones home

My Pigeon on my current sock project.

Anna and the pigeons

Pigeons get papped

My pigeon is currently living on my crochet needle pot but I may set him free on my allotment. Someone else has crocheted flowers on their plot and I feel I need to keep up with their yarny decorations. It might also stop the real pigeons from eating my strawberries!

Horribly familiar?

2010-07-09T16:20:00.003+01:00

Someone posted these cartons from sheldoncomics.com on Ravelry. In case you missed them here they are:

Does anyone else find them horribly familiar?

I'm writing this on a gloriously sunny day. Am I out gallivanting in the sunshine? No, I'm browsing Ravelry, half watching the Tour de France and contemplating picking up my drop spindle or one of my many sock projects.

Q. What do I have to say about that?

A. Squee!

I < 3 London

2010-07-07T23:16:00.007+01:00

Five years ago today I witnessed the aftermath of the terrorist attacks by four poor misguided fools on three London Underground tubes and a bus. Fifty-two innocent people died along with the four misguided fools and many people's lives where altered irrevocably. It was the most terrifying day of my life. While I, my friends and my family were unharmed some friends of friends died and the whole thing was very local and was very personal.

While I have mostly come to terms with what I saw that day the anniversary of the bombings unsettles me and occasionally creates flashbacks. I'm aware of this and can handle it but still mark the occasion in some small way.

I decided to mark the five year anniversary by visiting the 7/7 memorial in Hyde Park.

The memorial itself is a calm tribute to those who died on that awful day. After looking at the flowers which had been left by relatives of those who died I sat on the little slope behind the memorial where I could hear the hustle and bustle of London behind me. A few other people came to look at the memorial while the film crews prepared and waited for the 6pm news to begin.

The thing that struck me walking in and around the park is how fun London is. It was 5:30pm. People were coming out of work, enjoying the sunshine or were on holiday taking in the sights. I went past giggling young women, sweaty joggers, sleek cyclists, stuffy business types, happy and bewildered looking tourists and a school trip of teenagers all wearing magnificently fluorescent "I love London" hoodies. Those lurid, acid coloured garments expressed my feelings perfectly.

My bus route took me home past the buzzing theatres of the West End, Soho streets with their hidden secrets - both naughty and nice, delicious Chinatown, green squares, and people. Hundreds and thousands of bloody marvellous people.

Many things calm me when my mind is racing. One of them is that this vibrant city has survived world wars and plagues as well as terrorist attacks, and will no doubt face more in the future. The comfort is that London and her people can cope with it. It may be grim at times but we will cope,survive and go on to bigger and better things.

I always try to remember is life here is good. We have clean water, plenty of food, and most of us have a place to call home. Some of us are even luckier and have a hobby full of soft fibres and like minded people.

Life moves forward yet I will remember.

Doing not blogging

2010-06-28T14:52:00.002+01:00

I've been busy over the last couple of weeks, WWKIPing, making tiny pigeons, taking p/hop to woolfest as well as tending to my allotment and knitting.

I've got a day off today so will try and update the blog but I might just sit in the sun and knit.

Maybe see you later....

I'm ready to go in the post.

2010-06-23T23:35:00.003+01:00

So here she is, my mini me, my stitched self, my knitted id, ego and super-ego.

I really like mini me and don't really want to part with her (I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that) but she must go to the Science Museum.

She looks more like me from the back.

I'll try and get a photo of me with mini me tomorrow before I head off to Woolfest and she heads off to Stitch London, braving the London postal system. Good luck mini me.

Hair

2010-06-20T23:27:00.003+01:00

My mini me is coming along despite my appalling sewing skills. "I" will be dressed even if my fingers become pincushions trying but in the meantime I had lots of fun needle felting "my" hair. The colour is a bit darker than my own and pre hair cut mini me looks annoyingly like the ginger one from Girls Allowed.

That is until I let the hair go wild.

In real life I have short hair so I've had fun styling mini me and for the first time have sympathy for my hairdresser who has to struggle with my thick unruly tresses.

I need to make a top, shoes and accessories, if I have time, then mini moi will be sent to her new home in the Science Museum.

Old Loop, New Loop

2010-06-19T14:25:00.006+01:00

Goodbye old Loop, my very local yarn shop...

... and Hello New Loop which is bigger but luckily a bit further away from my flat which will be good for my bank balance.

I popped along to the opening this morning to find the new shop so heaving with knitters that it was hard to see the yarn downstairs. Upstairs was a lot calmer with a beautiful open room with a vintage sofa to relax on and space to browse and fondle yarn.

I'll go back in a day or two when the knitscrum has died down and will have a good yarny rummage, though I'm at Woolfest with p/hop next weekend so will have to save some money for shopping then as there will be lots of independent yarn companies to add to my stash.

Susan who owns Loop has a great eye for detail and while I couldn't see much today I did admire the carpet on the stairs...

...and the yarn in the shop front window.

If you're not in London Loop have an online shop where you can browse without having to squeeze through other knitters.

I hope Loop does well in it's new location. It's now in Camden Passage near Angel tube which has lots of vintage shops and good eateries making it a nice mooching destination.

....................................................................................
I've just remembered my good friend Montyknits reviewed other independent shops in Islington back in January. It's worth a look if you're visiting the area. Part I and Part II. Sew Fantastic is just a short walk from Loop if you're after fabric, stuffing, cotton thread and the like.

Knotted navel?

2010-06-14T21:52:00.003+01:00

My mini me now has limbs and a belly button. I'm tempted to add more "features" before I dress "me" but I must get on and make clothes, hair and facial features.

It's alive!!!!

2010-06-14T18:52:00.004+01:00

I'm feeling like Dr Frankenstein today as I'm knitting a mini me for the Stitch London and Science Museum collaboration.

It's quite fun watching "me" take shape.

Knitted for Life

2010-06-13T21:57:00.001+01:00

Due to my new upstairs neighbour playing music at 5:30am (why? WHY?) I arrived bleary eyed at the Race/Knit for life. I'm grumpy enough as it is after four hours sleep but seeing a sea of lurid pink t-shirts and hearing overly cheerful pop music didn't help, I'm not good at enforced joviality.

And why pink? I know the Race for Life is a female only event (and I have my own views on that but anything that raises money for cancer research is good) but the mass of pink t-shirts was reminiscent of an enormous tumour. I was pleased to see that the rest of the Stitch London team ignored the pink thing too (unless they chose pink because it suits them - I do not have a problem with that). Anyway, enough of my grumpiness, after some much needed caffeine and an expensive fruit salad I was ready to go.

We were knitting Batternburg cake squares for cushions which will go to Bart's Hospital. We somehow started off in the runners lane but managed to get to the back. I walked most of the course with Jenny, who I've met at various Stitch London events and shares my love of travel. We nattered all the way around the course so I'm not too sure where I went but we did go past St Pauls cathedral.

We waited at the 500m marker for the rest of the team to catch up. I wish I'd raised an extra £10 every time someone said "You making me a jumper?" or "You better be finished by the end". We did get loads of good feedback including a race marshal who stared slack jawed at us and a woman doing the race in a wheelchair who said she couldn't knit and walk at the same time which made me feel awkward.

We stopped for a team photo outside the Lord RAGLAN pub...

.. and knitted together to the finish line.

One of the knitters brought a delicious home made banana cake with her which went down very well

The funniest part was when the race had finished and we'd eaten cake we all carried on knitting.

I did eventually leave and carried on knitting my cushion on the bus home and on the sofa for the rest of the day while watching the World Cup. It was a really fun way to spend a Sunday morning and raise some money to kick cancer up the arse.

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As well as being a good walking project the Cake Makes it Better Cushion is a good mindless TV watching project, the pattern can be found here, just remember to donate to cancer research or a charity of your choice for it.

PS: If you would like to sponsor me click here. Thank you very much.

Hoes and Stitches*

2010-06-13T00:42:00.002+01:00

Over on my allotment blog I mentioned I wanted a hoe. I'm having a lucky week where things I need have materialised. Last night after the Stitch London WWKIP Knit Crawl I headed west to my friend's birthday/football watching party. They mentioned they had an old hoe left by the previous home owner which they didn't use.

The hoe end was wrapped in a plastic bag and I took it home on the tube. It was the last tube of the night so was full of footie fans and tipsy people. I was sober as I knew I had to get up early today so I put the hoe between my knees and got my knitting out (yes,more sock knitting). While the knitting was uneventful two people on two separate occasions grabbed the hoe handle thinking it was the tube pole. I think the World Cup has imbued the nation with a light-heartedness so there were laughs all round added to by drunken blokes singing the choruses from 80's pop hits - badly. I wish I'd taken a photo but even a photo can't sum up how much fun London can be.

*Yes, this blog post is an excuse to use the title Hoes and Stitches as thought up by the clever Jenny Willknits.

A weekend of knitting

2010-06-11T12:21:00.004+01:00

Tomorrow is WWKIP day (World Wide Knit In Public)so I will be heading off to West London with the funny, talented and lovely Stitch London knitting group for their annual knit crawl.

On Sunday I'm taking part in a Race for Life to raise some money for cancer research. I was planning to run the course but when I started training my knee injury from last year flared up and I was advised by my physio not to run til my hamstrings had healed. While they're just about back to normal I had to think of another race strategy. Stitch London came to the rescue as they are knitting their way around the course so I have joined their team.

While I'm a fairly competent knitter and I can walk, combining the two is a little harder and I'm sure knitting for 5km will be a challenge.

If you would like to sponsor me and the Stitch London team please visit my fund-raising page. Thank you very much.

I'll be taking part in the race with the people I know who've had cancer in my thoughts.

Travel, socks & more socks.

2010-06-02T08:22:00.000+01:00

I've been on holiday in Kenya for the last two weeks which is why this blog has been a little quiet. I did spy some fibre crafts while I was there which I'll try and write about once I get my holiday photos sorted but it was nice to come home to the news that socks are in this summer. Not that I particularly give a stuff about what the fashion world dictates but as you know I do love hand knit socks.

This is just as well as before I went on holiday I signed up for a challenge of knitting 52 pairs of socks in one year. I'm trying to think of a way to combine this with raising money for p/hop but I'm also trying to work out a way of doing it while fitting in other knitting and staying sane. The world cup is coming up so that's lots of knitting time during games. I'm tempted to make some England socks. We'll see what happens.

Fuzzy head, fuzzy politics

2010-05-07T22:43:00.008+01:00

I was planning to knit my way through the General Election coverage last night but my friend Emma made election themed vodka jellies which would have made knitting dangerous. We ate them as the first few results came in (after drinking caipirinhas and boozy ginger beer) as well as playing the games in the BBC election party pack. The best one was bingo which involved spotting classic BBC election phrases such as "not since 1974", "technical difficulties" and "bellwether" (only one of us knew what that meant and it wasn't me).

The jellies were strawberry Labour red, Lib Dem pineapple yellow and lime for the Greens and Independents. The Tory blue jellies were made with food colouring and were vile. Enough said.

Myself and Emma had printed out the leader masks but we didn't wear them due to a lack of elastic (I wasn't giving up valuable yarn for that) but I did get a shot of Gordon Brown on the underground.

Today has been a little fuzzy around the edges but we did spend a nice afternoon mooching around Richmond and chatted to a council gardener who gave us loads of tips about gardening and what to see. We saw a great public garden which won gold in London's best gardens and visited a ridiculously expensive nursery full of over priced garden decorations, though I did buy some reasonably priced seeds for our allotment. I also spotted this which made me laugh. For those of you from outside the UK, one of the Tories election promises was to bring back fox hunting, the poster is a spoof of one of the election posters. One of the things I love about the UK is our ability to make fun of just about anything.

Anyone for fox pie?

Face of our future?

2010-05-06T12:04:00.001+01:00

The website http://www.thestraightchoice.org/ catalogues election leaflets and highlights untruths in them such as skewed graphs and imitating ballot papers (which is illegal but all the main parties do it - madness).

I'm showing you it because if you click on the main image of the three party leaders you can see it's made of campaign leaflets. I like it. That is all.

Knitting Election Again

2010-05-04T22:39:00.002+01:00

I was settling down to read through the three main party manifestos for the general election on Thursday but got distracted by the cartoon granny on the Labour party website.

For political balance here are the links to the other key parties.
I'll update this if I find any other knitting references.

Liberal Democrats
The Green Party
Conservatives
UKIP
I'm not linking to the BNP but to the Hope not Hate Campaign website.

Published!

2010-05-04T18:19:00.003+01:00

My work has been published in a knitting magazine. It's not a knitting pattern but an article about the p/hop fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres. It's in the latest edition of Yarn Forward magazine (Issue 25, June 2010) and is a whopping 4 page spread.

Those socks sneaking into shot are a fab p/hop pattern called Socks Without Borders. I'm knitting a sample for p/hop when we visit knitting festivals over the summer. More on those later...

Tie for a Newsreader

2010-05-04T18:07:00.001+01:00

Well here it is, you saw it here first, the knitted tie for a Channel 4 newsreader!
Although this was very easy to knit I've leant a bit from making it and consider it a prototype.

I made it in garter stitch alternating a solid pink sock yarn and a Crazy Zauberball in fuscia colour way. While the colours changed they way I had planned the edges are a tad untidy for my liking despite carefully twisting the yarns up one edge and the tie itself is very stretchy.

Alex my patient and understanding other half tied it in a Windosr knot as a normal tie knot didn't work due to the stretchiness of the fabric. The tail of the tie is overlong so I may do some tinkering with it before dropping it off at the Channel4 office tomorrow.

I think I'll knit another tie and make a few small changes before writing it up as a pattern. I'll use just one yarn to get rid of the untidy edge, make it shorter to allow for stretching and slip stich the edges. Apart from that it was fun to make.

I'll now be avidly watching the news at 7pm, Channel 4 to see if the tie makes an appearance.

Knitting Election 2010

2010-05-03T14:32:00.012+01:00

I have to declare that I am finding the UK 2010 Elections highly entertaining, mainly due to the influence and pithy banter found on social networking sites such as twitter.

I wish I'd thought of a blog-a-long for it as it's as entertaining as the Olympics, what with live leaders debates, microphone gaffs and homophobic Tories. Oh wait, that last one isn't entertaining, just down right scary.

Back to knitting, one twitter knitter friend pointed out that the BBC 2010 Election logo looks like knitting needles. What do you think?

As well as being entertained by fellow knitters and comedians on twitter I've also picked up a knitting assignment. @theyarnyard Natalie, founder of p/hop, got chatting on twitter to Jon Snow, Channel 4 newsreader about knitting him socks as he wears some great brightly coloured socks which can often be seen on the news. I follow another Channel 4 journalist, Krishnan Guru Murthy @krishgm and didn't want him to be left out of the sock fest so asked him if he would like a bespoke pair of socks. He replied that he would like a knitted tie. Once I got over my initial excitement of chatting to someone off the telly I set to work on tie research.

I say tie research, I asked him what colours he liked (pink), rummaged in my stash for a suitable sock yarn, and used one of my partner's ties as a template.

The tie is finished but needs a little tidying up before I show you photos of it. Maybe it will end up on the news?

February stashbusting with extra babies

2010-04-24T17:39:00.002+01:00

Bloody hell, where is this year going? How did it get to be April so quickly? I haven't had proper internet access for the last week, it's a long story, I was supposed to be on holiday but those plans were scuppered by a volcano of all things!

Anyway, it's catch up time. First of all, here's some finished object/stash-busting news, well it's hardly news, from February.

There's been a recent flurry of new people arriving in the world which means new baby knits. I really enjoy making baby things in-between bigger projects. There's the satisfaction of that comes with finishing a pair of socks in an evening.

First up are another pair of booties from my favourite bootie pattern. These used about 60m of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino which was left over from bigger projects.

These wee socks use about 50m of yarn per pair and are again made with Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino from my stash.

As well as baby knits I made my first commissioned knit. Earlier in the year I offered myself (well my knitting skills) as a raffle prize the the MSF office where I volunteer coordinating p/hop. Liz the winner wanted a ski hat so she chose the colours and style she wanted and I designed and made it. I've half written up the pattern but want to knit another hat in a smaller size before I publish it.

The hat used approx 115m of Rowan cashsoft aran weight yarn which I also had in my stash. You can see the details here using Ravelry's clever project sharing feature.

It's a big slouchy hat and is great for keeping your ears warm.

So, this all sounds very good, knitting from stash. Unfortunately I did buy more yarn, 2 skeins of mmmmmMalabrigo aran weight in two charming shades of blue. This was a bit of an impulse buy but it will turn into a hat for me at somepoint in the future.

Meterage out during Feb = 275m.
Meterage in during Feb = 384m

Overall meterage increase of 109m. Oh well.

I have been tinkering with some other projects too but I won't include the meterage here as they are not finished.

Socks 4 Joey

2010-04-04T16:43:00.004+01:00

Remember the Socks 4 B I made for my best friend Jo's daughter? I had lots of my hand-dyed beetroot yarn left over so made Jo a pair for her birthday. She's going through a horrible divorce so hopefully a cheerful pair of socks will remind her that I still love and support her when she's having a bad day.

I went to visit her last week and found her wearing B's socks, insisting that they fit her, despite the heel being in her instep. She said how comfy they were so we have another hand knit sock convert in the world. Yay! I might need to make B another pair though unless they shrink back to size in the wash.

There's some crazy colour pooling in those socks but I quite like it. It reminds me of strawberry shortcake.

I've called the socks "Socks 4 Joey" in my Ravelry projects as throughout our school years I called Jo Joey in homage to Joey Deacon who appeared on Blue Peter throughout the 1980s. In return for my political incorrectness Jo called me Tom, Joey's friend and we spent many hours being irreverent, as kids do. We now both work in health care so maybe Joey did have an influence on our career choices.

Sock geek details:
2.5mm addi circular needle. It's my first time using a metal needle for socks. More on that later.
Yarn: Sirton trekking hand-dyed by me - see link above.
Pattern - Yarmando Evil Sock Genius Pattern. The link appears to be broken at the moment.
Slip stitch heel for extra comfort.

Easter eggy

2010-04-04T10:46:00.003+01:00

I hate eating eggs, I despise them, that weird blobby gelatinous blanched exterior containing a bizarre mushy yellowness. They are just too eggy, but what's not to love about these chirpy little cheep cheeps from crafty food blogger, eyecandy.

Happy Spring Festival to you all!!!

Earth Hour meets Rear Window

2010-03-27T21:30:00.003Z

We've just participated in Earth Hour, the WWF's campaign to highlight the threat of global warming where everyone turns their lights out from 8:30-9:30pm.

I hadn't really planned what I was going to do for my hour of darkness and at 8:25 was scrabbling around for tealights and roasting peanuts for a Thai Salad I was making for tea*. I set up a few candles in the kitchen, made sure I knew where my sharp knives where (didn't fancy ending up in A&E saying "well I was trying to save the planet and inadvertently sliced open my radial artery instead of a tomato") and promptly switched the lights out at 8:30.

The first thing which struck me was the peace and quiet. We'd had some inane Saturday night TV on in the background and it was a relief to switch that off. The gentle hum of my fridge accompanied the preparation of the salad and I found my mind wandering while I grated carrots and mashed chillies. Mr Gingerknits was even less prepared than I was and hid under the duvet on our sofa. Part of the Thai Salad recipe involved bashing the salad, ideally with a mortar and pestle (which is which, I can never remember) so I handed this over to him to keep him busy.

I prepared the veg for the next course, a Thai Green Curry which is cooking as I type this. I didn't want to cook that by candle light and was trying to not use any electricity during Earth Hour. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness I found I noticed different things. I poured some rice into the pan to soak and was startled by the brightness of the rice against the pans dark interior.

I wouldn't want to permanently live like this, the power cut at Christmas was bad enough, however switching everything off every so often really does make me appreciate the basic things we take for granted. After I graduated I volunteered on a development project in Tanzania. Our living conditions were very basic and I still remember the rush to light our hurricane lamps as the sun set. It's a good reminder that this is how most people on the planet still live.

I popped out into our garden to see if anyone else was taking part. As I scanned round the buildings which back onto our street I spied a chap having a shower, silhouetted again the window, furiously washing his man parts. After I stopped laughing and realised that watching him was inappropriate and a bit too Alfred Hitchcock I went to the front of my flat to see if people in my street had turned their lights off and discovered snails munching away on my newly planted lettuce seedlings in my window box. They were transplanted to the back garden so Earth Hour has saved my lettuces, for now.

Maybe I'll go into the garden more often at night, but only to look at snails, not my neighbours.

*I'm from Yorkshire where tea means evening meal as well as the beverage we drink by the bucketful.

Spot the cat.

2010-03-19T18:47:00.003Z

If you follow me on twitter you may have heard me mention the Black Cat. The Black Cat is NOT my cat. The Black Cat is a feline character who likes to watch me while I work, not in an obvious way but in a cunning shadowy manner. See if you can spot him.

He'll sit like that for ages and is frankly unsettling. I'm contemplating revenge by knitting him a 1970s tank top to go home in.

Today you must be Irish...

2010-03-17T15:40:00.008Z

...even if you're a meerkat.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRUMPINESS

Green is one of my favourite colours, I enjoy the occasional pint of the black stuff and I love visiting Ireland, but to be told to celebrate these things on a specific day irks me.

I'm the same about Valentines Day and Parent's day. It's the manipulation of emotion by cynical marketing people that irritates me. For example take Mother's Day, I know I love my mum and I tell her that whenever I feel like it, not on a set calender date. (Don't worry dear reader, I do send her something for Mother's Day, I'm not so cynical that I neglect my mum out of my dislike of corporate induced guilt).

OK, that's my little grumble over. Despite my grumpy countenance I did find find these which put a smile on my face.

Photo borrowed from niftyknits

If you've been watching Harry Hill's TV Burp recently, especially the K-factor, these may be familiar. kniftyknits creates these endearing little creatures for sale in her Etsy shop. Unfortunately the pattern isn't for sale but I admire the attention to detail and character in those little twitchy faces. It's worth having a look at her shop for the sheer range of meerkat activity.

Tonight I won't be trawling the Irish pubs, wearing a daft Guinness hat (there are other brands of stout you know) or claiming any Irish heritage (no, not all redheads are Irish, not all Irish people are redheads - yes, another gripe of mine - stereotypes) but I will be reading Ravelry and maybe watch a few episodes of one of Ireland's finest comedies, Father Ted, which should put me in a better mood.

Knit one, rock on.

2010-03-15T09:53:00.000Z

Last month I went to Tate Britain to see the Chris Ofili exhibition with my fellow knitter and friend Montyknits. While we were there we popped in to see the Knitted Rock which is part of Art Now. Monty has blogged about it here and Stitch'n'BitchLondon have a great interview with the artist Andy Holden which answers the questions I had while looking at it so I won't waffle on about it here. What I will say is do try and see it, it's free and looks much better in real life than in photographs.

Sneaky photo pinched from Montyknits

As for the Chris Ofili exhibtion, well it finally got me drawing, well to be fair Montyknits got me drawing after persuading me to bring my sketchbook and pencil along after reading my 100 days post. While it's nothing grand it is a start. Since then I have found myself doodling a little more which is progress. The 100 days project has finished but I'm going to continue with the things I've started. I definitely procrastinate less which is a good thing. Small steps and all that jazz.

Der der der der de der der de derrr!

2010-03-14T21:00:00.008Z

OK, enough trying to type the Imperial Death March. If like me you're a child of the 70s or just a fan of Star Wars then these amigurumi Star Wars characters by Lucy Ravenscar will bring our your inner Jawa and have you chuckling like that thing* that sits at Jabba's feet**

Even the ewoks aren't annoying (though I actually liked them when I was nine). All that's missing is a Bobba Fett, or should that be Boba FELT?

Its hard to pick a favourite but I think mine is Chewie. Maybe it's his accessories. I'm also wondering if Han Solo frozen in carbonite could be reproduced using fibre arts. All the patterns for the characters are available from Lucy in her Etsy shop.

*Salacious Crumb. No, I didn't google that, I actually know it as it was my nickname for a while at University.
**Hmm, Jabba's feet, not sure they exist. Jabba's mass/corpulence/mound? Please send suggestions for the anatomical nomenclature of a Hutt's underside to the usual address (comments box). Thank you and may the force be with you.