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!