Fun with Paint

As you may have noticed, it was rather wet over the weekend. It was the perfect sort of weekend for staying in and pottering about. I did some knitting, I read my book, I ate lots of biscuits, I watched some films - one of which was Rocky 3 (the one with Mr T) which I have to say is one of the best films I have seen in ages. When people say 'it's so bad it's good' it should usually be taken with a pinch of salt, but in this case it is true! I don't know if it is intentionally trying to be funny, but it is probably one of the funniest films I have seen in years. Forget Pirates, watch this instead!

And I also finished painting my needles in cheerful colours. Ta da!

Flower power

Some Random Things About Me

I have been tagged by Kath and Kai for some random things about me. So here goes...

1. I cannot wink. People seem to think this is amusing.

2. I have a lot of coats. I just counted up to 16 and there are probably more hiding under these and some others lurking in the loft. And this isn't including fleeces either, of which I have four, no, five, possibly more. Is this too many? erm, don't answer that.

3. I love rock music and I've seen loads of bands. The first concert I saw was INXS and I went to Donington Monsters of Rock Festival four times. Someone told me once when I was about 16 that it was 'just a phase' and there was no way I would still be listening to stuff like Anthrax when I was ten years older. Well, I am 34 now and I still do. So ha!

4. The first single that I bought was Land Of Make Believe by Bucks Fizz. Rock on.

5. I used to have a crush on Emlyn Hughes and I had his football sticker on my lunch box. I was very sad when he died.

6. My first car was a white Citroen BX. It would stop for no apparent reason a few minutes into each journey and then be fine for the rest of the way. That was a lot of fun on the bypass.

7. I decided when I was about 12 that when I was older I would get a degree in physics and I did.

8. I used to be able to play the piano pretty well (grade 6) before I went to university and couldn't take it with me so I bought an electric guitar, but I never learned to play it. It's an Epiphone SG (with the cute pointy ends) in red and it lives in it's box, in the loft. Under some coats.

If you want to, consider yourself tagged ;)

Pinkness Revealed...

Tempting though it is to just leave people guessing - it has been very entertaining and thank you to everyone who commented :) there has been a correct guess. Lin is the expert Clanger spotter!

Clue III

Sewing up

Clue II

A 'Stuff On My Cat' moment

Pink clue

The pink pattern is not anything relating to babies.
It is also not the foetus bag from The Anticraft site :)

Colouring

Today's yarn and felt purchases to make a new project that I have just got a pattern for. I seem to have a bit of a pink theme going on here at the moment. And this is no bad thing. All will be revealed soon!










I also decided to brighten up my bamboo knitting needles. I have seen some really pretty needles for sale with flowers painted on them, and in a way that is probably typical with knitters, I thought, "I could do that" so I did.

These are the 6mm ones, which are the biggest in my set. I started on some of the other smaller ones, but it got a bit dark and I began squinting in a most unseemly manner so I'll have to finish them off some other time.

Learning Curve

I've seen a meme thingie on a few people's blogs where they have sorted some knitting projects and techniques into those that they have done, that they want to do and those they are not interested in. The list is quite long, encompassing stocking stitch and scarves to steeks and entrelac. I’m not going to copy it all out, but I did make a note of those I’ve not done yet but am keen to try. It’s surprisingly short:

Slippers
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colours
Dying yarn
Steeks
Textured knitting
Knitting with beads
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Hair accessories

The main thing is entrelac, which is the final chapter in the Debbie Bliss How To Knit book that started me off when I got back into knitting three and a half years ago. I decided to learn to knit when searching for crochet patterns for baby clothes (my nephew had just been born and I wanted to be a proper Auntie!) failed to turn up anything inspirational. It was only once the knitting bug had truly bitten that I discovered that both crochet and knitting have a huge presence on the t'internet. But my ignorance was definitely a blessing because although I have always enjoyed crochet it never grabbed me in quite the same way that knitting has and for that I am grateful to my (then!) crappy little local yarn shop and it's pants selection of crochet patterns.

The Forest Canopy shawl is continuing apace. I have two balls of the Jojoland (which was my birthday pressie from Bronte - thanks, m'dear!) and have decided to just carry on making it as big as I possibly can until I run out. I've just finished one ball and it's not far off the pattern-stated size, so I'm hoping it'll turn out a fair size.

In other news, our green garden waste recycling bins were delivered today and I have already filled mine. I have just finished moving all the shrubby branches and cuttings from where they'd been abandoned stored down the back of the house, strimmed the weeds grass and swept the paths. Now I'm going to have a sit down with my knitting :)

I feel this post is lacking something. It needs something to brighten it up. Like pigs. Yes. Pigs!

Holiday pigs

Brecons

I am now back from holiday in the Brecon Beacons. We stayed in a delightful cottage out in the hills on a smallholding with lots of chickens, pigs and alpaca. Yes! Alpaca! Some of them were away (at stud, but we won't dwell on that) but we had these three for company.

At the start of the week

At the end of the week. Notice the difference? Nothing to do with me.

We're watching you.

The weather was a little damp most of the week, but between the weather and Rob's back still not being 100%, we did manage to do a bit of walking and lots of rain does make for some very impressive waterfalls.

Afon Mellte River

We also visited the bookshops in Hay-On-Wye, some caves and dinosaurs at Dan-yr-Ogof and saw The Levellers playing live at Brecon Theatre which was excellent and an unexpected highlight of the holiday.

There was also plenty of time for knitting and reading while on holiday (also drinking wine, eating flapjack and listening to the Test Match).






Booties from Knit Simple magazine Spring/Summer 2007
Yarn: King Cole Merino Blend Superwash












Forest Canopy Shawl by Susan Pierce Lawrence
Yarn: Jojoland Melody Dust Red Light Brown













And finally, a note on the Bayerische socks. Thank you to everyone for all the lovely comments and I have to say that I LOVE THESE SOCKS! I have worn, washed and worn them again (they are in the wash now, otherwise they'd be on my feet) and they are so comfy. I don't think I can go back to Opal sock yarn after this...

Bayerische

And then there were two! My Bayerische socks are now done and I have them on my feet. I did think about having them framed, they are so pretty, but I couldn't help but put them on.


As I have considerably larger feet than a US Size 6, I used larger 2,5mm needles and made the cuff shorter and the foot longer, so stopped mid way through the D1/D2 charts and then had to change the toe decreases to suit. I used two skeins of Lornas Laces Shepherd Sock and have a bit left over from each, but probably not enough to do anything useful with. These were incredibly time consuming socks and required much attention. But, if you like that sort of thing, they are a lot of fun.

Spirit Tank

Sort of.

It has a different style collar and it is not made from Twilley's Freedom Spirit, but here is my Spirit Tank in birthday bargain cashmere/merino DK completed. I think I would have prefered something in a 4-ply rather than DK as it has quite a chunky feel to it, but it will do very well for work where our air-con is unpredictable and draughty.

Sad Day

It is a sad day when people that you had respect for turn out to be idiots. I grew up with Patrick Moore's Sky At Night programs, as I am sure many children did, and he brought the wonders of the sky and space to our homes and for many years I had dreams of becoming an astronomer. Now today I see him quoted as saying things like "I used to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek, but they went PC - making women commanders, that kind of thing. I stopped watching" and realised that it was actually only the boys that he was talking to and not me at all.

I wonder what Heather Couper makes of this.

V for victory?

I finished my Spirit Tank Top today. It is blocking as I type. I am fairly pleased with it, I think, although I am hoping that the miracle of blocking will even out the stitches and make it look a little less, erm, homemade. I don't normally have a problem with unstraight stitches so I am blaming the yarn. We'll see. Anyhoo, one of the reasons that I am quite pleased with this tank is that I deviated from the pattern. I did my own thing. I designed something. All by myself (well, with a little help from Debbie Stoller.)

The original pattern was for a round neck but thought I would rather have a V.

So I did some scribbling:















Made up the decreases on the neck:















The neckband sits flat, there doesn't appear to be any stretching or excess baggage and I can still get it over my head ;)

We left it soaking















and went outside in the sunshine to play

Fug

This post is dedicated to Kirsty, who has recently inherited the pattern collection of her late aunt.

Among them was this gem.

Hopefully the beach towel/bagpuss-pelt/sack of spuds look will never come back into fashion. If indeed it ever was in.