online community

I love the knitting community - the online shops, blogs and sites are fun to use and read. I did think of myself as fairly web savvy (after all I work for a new media agency currently) but I hadn't thought about pod casts! Sadly I am yet to own a generic MP3 player but my latest discovery is hinting I may want to buy this nifty kit.

Thank you to Ellen for pointing me in the direction of Lime and Violet and to Trine for cast on I have been absorbed by them today listening through my laptop. I am also a radio 4 addict and the thought of podcasts when I am commuting makes me feel happier about getting up so early!

I have made it to the 4th repeat on my Tuscany and am thinking that with the seasilk I bought but didn't use I might make an Icarus shawl from Interweave - I lusted after the forest path shawl but I am not sure it wouldn't drive me insane, (entralac lace anyone!) plus I would have to buy different yarn as my seasilk is periwinkle blue - good for feathers I think, but not really for forests - I'm not sure if it is just me being fussy but the yarn colour has to 'go' with the project.

I spent lots of time at the weekend knitting on a Christmas gift only to find that somewhere in my brain I had got the stitch pattern confused (waffle stitch is not hard!!! how could I possibly have ballsed that up!) and half the front of the item looks very odd! I didn't have the mental energy to frog it (I had bound off the front already- why does that make it mentally so much harder) so it is sat in its basket looking accusingly at me :( maybe tonight I will savage it.

I am also still waiting for the Jamiesons that I ordered at Ally Pally - I emailed them two weeks ago and they said it had been dispatched but as yet nothing has arrived and I wait longingly for the postlady. This is for a designed by me one of a kind for a special man and I want to start knitting - COME ON POST! Actually I get so much delivered in the post that Lizzie the postlady thinks I am crazy - maybe some knitted flip top mittens will persuade her that I'm not (actually I may use the left over Jamiesons from the other item - it isn't a large but yet required 16 colours of spindrift! ). It's one of those small village things - Liz remembers my mother when she first came to England as an Au pair - she worked in the garden of the house where my mother was looking after the children - by all accounts the family were not the nicest people you would want to work for. I really can't imagine my mother taking any rubbish from people - she is quite fearsome now, but yet I suppose she was only 17 - I expect that if it had been me I would have gone home, annoying when your mother has more gumption and brains than you do, yet it makes me extraordinarily proud of her

I am drifting off knitting topic but in my head it is all related!

packages in the post

I frequently forget that I have ordered something from the net and get a nice surprise when it arrives - particularly things from America or backorders of books. Today a nice Amazon parcel arrived and I was very happy to see a Best of Interweave, I am resisting the urge to look at it at my desk and will savor it when I get home. I love books - our house is crammed with them, I get really excited about book shops and the like - even the smell ! I saw this one on someone else blog - soooo pretty, I am having book lust!

I am feeling the need to go to the pub this evening - I love it now there is no smoking, I can knit in the pub without my knitting smelling vile. The locals are getting quite used to it and now I am getting requests - however I don't know about anyone else but I won't knit for people who don't know how much effort is required or that I don't completely love. Unfortunately I like lots of people enough to knit for them - and have a long list of things I should make.

I wish I could spend all day knitting but I don't think I would like it to be my job - my experience with cooking has put me off doing something you love as a hobby as a job - I cheffed for a long time in France but found I still loved cooking/food but no longer wanted to cook for pleasure. Maybe I love knitting enough to do it as a job and for fun but it don't want to risk it!

Dee at Posh is very naughty - she talked about to etsy today and it reminded me how much I love it. I got a little bit geeky about the ways of searching for things - it's really fun to use and the interface much more interesting than ordinary online shopping experiences - believe me I have worked on a few online shops and maybe it was the products, but they were not a 'fun' experience. If I am parting with money and I can't touch the product, I need it to be enjoyable in other ways. I didn't purchase anything but enjoyed spending lunch time checking out all the lovely things people make and sell - knitwear coasters get much love.

Must get some WiP pictures on here or this will be entirely about yarn I like an have bought and no actually knitting - need a camera! May borrow my father’s - last time I borrowed my mother’s camera I was 15 and going to France for a school art trip - I was bullied, the camera was stolen and my mother was mightily upset. Hopefully that will be avoided this time!

tired and slow

What is it with the clocks going back? - I got an extra hour in bed and the effect lasted one day! It is now even harder to get out of bed in the morning.

I've been having a horrible couple of weeks at work - I am leaving my job soon and finding it hard to muster up enthusiasm for projects I will never see the end of and being helpful to certain clients is more draining that usual.

After a grim day yesterday my lovely friend Jake cooked me dinner and bought me a bunch of flowers - such a sweet guy. It was thanks for giving him a snowboard - I didn't need it, I have far too many and he would be able to make much more use of it to learn on. Anyway if anybody is single and looking for love, Jake is your man - he is fun, quite handsome and in search of a proper relationship! I hear you ask what is wrong with him - he's actually a little too attractive and all of us suspicious women think that he naturally is a player and will not touch him with a barge pole.

I digress from knitting - Sarah (my new colleague) and I visited the knitting hut today - she is old friends with Sue who runs the shop. I managed to only buy 1 ball of yarn - I really want to make the koolhaas hat, I'd love the yak yarn that the pattern calls and I don't mind the $30 odd the yarn costs but I strongly object to paying more for the postage than the yarn costs and then import tax when it gets here grrrrr!

I bought some lovely pale blue silk/merino type yarn, not sure I have enough, since I had a dim moment a bought the one ball, only to look at the pattern and realise that it should be 100g ball not the 50g that I had bought - oh well can always buy another one! I really love the pattern and want to see if I can convert it into a sock too.

My Amazon habit is bad - I have a wish list that keeps growing and a budget that doesn't, but I did order a book today - Inspired Fair Isle Knits - I love love love colour work, I used to use my Mormor (Danish grandmothers) method of knitting with two strands, continental in one hand using different finger to lift the yarn in use up, but you end up with really long floats - they get caught up on things. Then I took a really good class with Debbie Abrahams last year and now knit with my usual continental in the left hand and English with my right - wrapping the floats makes for much neater knitting. I might teach my Mormor when she visits for Christmas - her knitting never ceases to amaze me, so fast and she can knit a whole Fair Isle jumper or cardie without a pattern in the round, she 'simply' sews it on the machine and steeks it! She has had a lot of practice I suppose.

Knittytastic weekend

Wow - what a great day I had on Saturday. I went to a class at the lovely Loop in Islington with the great Amy Singer of Knitty fame. The class was to help us to work on our lace knitting skills and started the Tuscany shawl from the no sheep for you book. It was also Amy's birthday - so happy birthday Amy and thank you for spending the day teaching!

I had some lush silk yarn that I purchased at Ally Pally - deep royal purple, it was much thicker than everybody else's - they were all using seasilk. I had bought some seasilk in periwinkle but for some reason decided to be different - Amy did liken it to drawing with big crayons, which I thought was rather apt and totally agree with. I really wanted some of the silken that was used in the book, but couldn't get any in time - pretty please someone in the UK, can you stock this! I also asked the wonderful Dee at Posh yarn if she had any of her silk left, but sadly she didn't - so chunky crayons for me. Actually it was great because the shawl grew really quickly and it was really easy to see any cock-ups.

The other people in the class were really fun - it was great to meet so many interesting knitters. Hello to all the lovely people I met! They were all really inspiring in their own way, particularly in giving me a good kick up the arse to get my blog sorted out and to put all my stuff onto Ravely!

I spent Sunday knitting and went to boarders for coffee with friends. I'm making a baby jacket - for my new godson - I can't believe I have been asked to be a godmother - I am really honored and excited. I am now busy sewing it all together, I actually really enjoy the making up process, I know lots of people can't stand it but I love making those neat seams and sewing in the ends (Although I do everything possible to reduce the number of ends!) good finishing can be the difference between homemade and handcrafted.

I'm trying to be good at the moment and not spend too much but I couldn't resist some cashmere yarn at Loop from Knitting Goddess.

Also this from Sunday's yarn at Posh yarn goodies - it's called Victoria and is an aran weight 50% cashmere 50% silk - I am finally going to make a clapotis!

Hmmm

Oh dear - I do't seem to be getting very far with my blog styling, all I seem to be doing is working and occationally trawling ebay for yarn, about which I dream about making into something beautiful.

Stu who is is a design bod is helping me with the techie kind of stuff has been busy designing ninjas for this blog and for my labels.

This one is a bit scary:

But there is also a blue ninja to - who is slightly less intimidating

Excited!

Ooooo my first post - how exciting!