KnitterRooney

C-C-C-Changes,.....

2010-12-01T04:32:00.000-08:00

I've moved,... am very happy in my new home! This is a recent refurbishment but I have included some old unpublished posts.

Knitterrooney @ wordpress

Please change your links & say 'hello' by leaving a comment!

Espace Killy - you kill me!

2009-02-19T11:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a week since Gruff & I got back from Tignes/Val D'Isere (collectively known as Espace Killy) and the gloom of city life is beginning to encroach. It's a measure of how fabulous the holiday was that I could still feel happy and chilled for that long despite leaving it all behind. The Espace Killy region is just awesome, so much to ride and explore that we really burned our leg muscles trying to cover as much as we could. Gruff and I were almost thinking of foregoing our trip this year due to the crappy Pound to Euro exchange and the 'Credit Crunch' but our love of snow prevailed.

It dumped every single day, what we lacked in sunshine was more than made up for with fresh powder each morning. Two of the days were far too windy which meant that a third of the lifts were shut but having a full Espace Killy pass meant that it wasn't too much of an issue. I preferred the runs overs in Val D'Isere but hated the town itself - in all fairness, it was the World Ski championships so the place was especially busy.

I've waxed lyrical about previous holidays here and here but I really relished every minute of this one. Hovering above the tree-tops in your chair-lift, it's as if the passage of time is somehow suspended when you're in the mountains amidst the frozen landscape. The pristine whiteness of the scenery like a blank canvas waiting for a burst of color. There's something really pure about the environment that makes you feel somehow cleansed and the world looks somehow simpler without the messy chaos of colors vying for your attention.

On our last night which also happened to be the chalet staff's evening off, Gruff and I went off in search of our calorie-rich, artery clogging raclette (Lucy, you may wish to look away now).

Good thing we piled on the extra protein too because the next day, we decided to get another day's boarding in before catching our night train back to Paris. It turned out to be our best day yet.

The chair up to one of our favourite runs was shut that morning but I spied some preparations to reopen so we made a quick dash over to stand first in line. The minutes ticked by, a long queue started forming behind us and we were all chomping at the bit - all I could think about however were the fresh powder lines awaiting us. When the chairs finally started operating 45 minutes later, it was a complete bun fight at the top as everyone struggled to quickly strap onto their boards, each man for themselves. It was pretty windy too and you could hear some people losing their way but it was one of the best, most exhilarating runs I've ever done, even the sun made a brief appearance. It was so worth the wait, I love the feeling of riding on powder, it almost feels like you're floating. We bombed down that 850m whooping and cheering, I tumbled twice and it didn't matter - I was buzzing on such a high when we got to the bottom, it had us beaming like idiots for the rest of the day.

What a perfect way to end an already fabulous week - Gruff and I barely managed to stay awake to pack our stuff and make our train needless to say, I was out like a light when my head touched the pillow.

Hello 2009!

2009-01-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

I am crawling out of hibernation to say a quick 'Hello' - have tired unsuccessfully to ward off the nasty flu that's been going around but given that it's been the coldest winter for 30 years it was some what inevitable. So 2009 has started in a spate of sniffles and a mountain of soggy tissues - nice eh? But it's been great to have had such a peaceful break where all anxieties and worries were banished over the yule-tide and for once there was no need to fret about the phone not ringing. Will post a review of 2008 soon but I'm happy to report that amidst the frantic csstingons thus far (4 on the last count!) we already have our first FO for the year.

A heavenly collar knitted in double-seed stitch using 2 beautiful yarns - Shilasdair Luxury DK (Lambswool, Cashmere, Angora) & Windy Valley Muskox (Extrafine Merino, Qiviut, Silk). Despite my cold, it's a lovely kick-off to the New Year with such a beautiful item. Roll-on 2009!!

??!!

2008-10-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

Couldn't think of an apt title to convey how I feel. It's been a very strange week and my thoughts keep returning to 2 people who are no longer with us. Both were taken before their time and both deaths have launched me into the throes of introspection, a mixture of sadness, loss and such affection.

I found out on Tuesday that my old boss had been killed over the weekend. He was out in Norwich, saw a gang of youths pick on a young couple and went over to intervene. The gang turned on him and basically kicked his head in. His injuries were so severe he had to be taken to a specialist hospital in Cambridge where he later died leaving behind a devoted wife and 2 daughters aged 7 and 4. I saw the headlines, clicked on the story and was shocked to see his photograph. Frank was a Brixton boy made good who did a Law degree and worked his way up the ranks forging a glittering career in the city. He was extremely well-respected amongst his peers and a charismatic leader who inspired loyalty amongst his staff. We were willing to work our socks off for him because we knew at the end of the day that he would always stand behind us and support us if needed. He gave me a 10 grand payrise after my first 6 months in recognition of my hard work, he could be intimidating and brusque at times but at the end of the day, he was always fair. I'm somehow not surprised by his actions that night, he could persuade the most pig-headed city traders to see sense and he must have thought he could use his powers of reasoning to defuse the situation. And he had a a great sense of humor too - when yours truly here got far too blottoed at a team dinner (in her 3rd week of joining the firm) and called both her bosses 'losers', Frank took it in his stride and laughed it off the next day. At the time though, I was completely mortified and thought I'd be given my marching papers pretty pronto for showing an MD such blatant disrespect. I've been trying to process it all and it's just horrifying that someone who was trying to do the decent thing and protect some strangers could meet with such an undeserved end.

Which brings me onto Tash - on Wednesday, in lieu of our usual Wednesday night knitting we all went over to Helen's to take care of Tash's stash. We managed to rehouse most of it but surveying her yarn collection and choices made me feel closer and yet so separated from her at the same time. Tash, you've left such a huge gaping hole in our hearts that all the yarn in Christendom could not fill.

At university, one of my favourite classes was one called 'Women & Poetry'. I had to write a paper on the thematic treatment of death and one of the poems I chose to analyse was this one by Christina Rossetti - I like to think it's some kind of message from the other side.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Happy Blogday to me......

2008-09-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hurray,.... it's been 2 years and so much has happened. I haven't been great at documenting the passing of time but I'm going to make more of an effort going forward. To celebrate, I made yet another cake from this book which was given to me by a vegetarian friend hoping to turn me over to the 'green' side. Most of the cakes I've made from this book have turned out fab which has made me more open to their savory stuff and that's been pretty good too. It's a good thing I'm working on my fitness given all the cake I've been making and eating!

Friday Fabrications

2008-09-26T03:15:00.001-07:00

I stumbled upon this book whilst surfing through blogsphere and bought it specifically to make the alphabet sorter - it's for a dear friend's little boy who is turning 3. She and I were housemates at university and I have been meaning to make him something for quite some time. (He has inspired the start of many projects but none of which have actually reached completion - oops!). We don't see each other very often but I have many fond memories of the late night chats we used to have in each other's rooms.

I have given up on garments as my projects for him tend to languish for too long in relation to his rate of growth. Hence the sorter - this book by the way is full of lovely things with pretty simple instructions.

My mastery of the sewing machine is still an on-going battle and I disliked the way the applique stitches came out. So I decided to go down the labour-intensive route of handsewing all the letters which has been fun but SLOW. My friend is the crafty type though so she will appreciate the effort.

I tried different types of edgings to give it some variety.

At least he won't grow out of it and will be able to use it for a good many years to come.

My typing is a little slow today due to an achey right arm which makes blogging a bit painful. It's not from excessive knitting but from yesterday's tennis session. I used to play loads when I was young but have not picked up a racket for a very long time. I walked the 3 miles to the tennis center, played 90 minutes of tennis and then walked back again. It's part of my new fitness regime to combat the inertia of too much crafting on my couch. But yesterday's spurt of exercise wiped me out so much I was in bed by 10!

When the membership lady at the leisure center asked me if I was working or a student, I said I was unemployed and she must have seen my crestfallen face because she gave me a huge concession without asking for proof. Hurray!! Right, I'm heading off to the pool now - I may blog-in on Sunday with a spinning update but in the meantime, have a great weekend everyone!

Twist in the Tale

2008-09-23T15:17:00.001-07:00

The slow creeping darkness into our days has sparked off a severe case of startitis in me. Perhaps it's the realisation that winter will soon be upon us that's made me want to rush into knitting overdrive. I started 3 new projects in the last week but can't say that I feel guilty about this one (given that it will go towards finishing a UFO) - do you remember it?

Yes, the infamous boob tube! I started this last year and had a few problems with the pattern. When I was next at Liberty's I asked the lovely Rowan lady about the decreases, she was also confused and remarked that I was the first person she knew who was knitting it. Although it is essentially a boob tube, I was seduced by the cables and the model made it look so chic. Hmmm, we shall see! It's coming along nicely and I've forgotten how addictive cables can be. Ended up having to frog the first 18 rows because I discovered that one cable was twisting the wrong way and my anal self was unwilling to let it rest.

There has also been some sock knitting, my 7th pair this summer but what's there not to like about socks? The gratification's quite instant and best of all there's no finishing involved or nasty sleeves which is 10 times worse than second sock syndrome in my book.

I had also made a vow to use up something from last year's Ally Pally haul before going to this years. Started out doing the Monkey pattern which is quite easy once you get over the initial fear factor but it was a little too busy for this yarn. Opted for the straight-forward Crusoe instead which is quite a fast knit. Apologies for the upside-down shot...

Before I go though, I thought I'd give you a quick update on how my orchids are doing...

Haaaannnng on.... WTF is that??

My little plant seems to have attracted a massive butterfly, is it some science experiment gone wrong, an alien insect from outer space or are my windows just very dirty?

It is in fact made from denim and a very clever, crafty ad from a well-known jeans company. I love living opposite a billboard but this one really took me by surprise - I guess it could serve as inspiration for my sewing tomorrow.

BakerRooney on the West End

2008-09-20T14:51:00.001-07:00

What excuse can I give for being such a slack blogger? Absolutely none. My new thespian life has led to large swathes of unstructured time disappearing into some black hole. These days, just getting the washing up done counts as a major accomplishment. Strange to think that a couple of months back, I was busy dealing with banking issues, stressed-out analysts and monitoring reviews. It hasn't helped that I put Radio 4 on the minute I wake up - it is pretty hard to listen and write at the same time! There's almost always some excellent programme on that I get passively absorbed in.

But I really must blog more, in fact I need blogging even more now that I've lost the daily human interactions the office brings, no matter how trite the office talk was it still meant you were communicating regularly with people other than your partner.

Aside from intermittently sedate moments this month, I had quite possibly THE most exciting week of my life. You see, when I was growing up in the far east, my sister and I along with our circle of friends were obsessed with musicals. Cats, Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera... we lapped them all up with a passion that only pre-pubescents can demonstrate. Our favourite musical though, the one we dreamed about staging was Les Miserables, we got our sweaty, tropical hands on the full libretto, practised playing them (very badly I might add) on our piano and sang the songs with vigor tearing round the garden. Yes, I know - we were SO uncool! And we had just discovered pop music too.

Last week though, my dormant, inner musical-geek finally got the chance to step out of the shadows when I got an audition for a musical and got to sing one of my favourite Les Mis songs on an actual West End stage. I was so excited to just be there that I belted out my song to the last row of the balcony and promptly got a croakey voice for quite some days after. It turned out to be a crazy week as I had 3 other auditions which meant that I was running around town like a headless chicken. Given that it's been such a looooooong time since i've sung properly, I had to go for singing boot camp which meant missing the iknit day. But my little return to singing has made me want to put in more practise and work as I would bloody love to be in a West End musical some day. My poor long-suffering neighbour and Gruff have tolerated hours of my singing exercises with unconditional grace so I may have to thank them with cake.

Yes, I have been baking on a weekly basis and scoffing the results so quickly that there have not been any photo opportunities. No evidence therefore remains of the 2 carrot cakes I made for various birthdays, the walnut sandwich cake for our spinning afternoon at Lucy's, the lemon drizzle for Helen's sewing workshop, the ginger treacle or Gruff's birthday banana cake. I have only just learnt to keep my gluttony in check and can proudly show you the last of the mascarpone mango cake I made for Tuesday's sewing day with Pauline and Gail.

My next post will be a knitting update I promise! I have also been sewing, oh yes!

And so our summer ends...

2008-08-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Despite knitting furiously over the last few days, it is highly unlikely that Gruff's birthday socks will be ready. Boooo.... I managed to finish one last night but when we had a fitting, the sock turned out far too tight and small. Damn you Jaywalkers!! As chopping and filing Gruff's feet down to size ugly step-sister styley is out of the question, I had to grit my teeth and rip it back down to the ankle where I went up 2 needle sizes up. Grrrrr...

So to ensure that Gruff had at least one handmade present, I whipped this up after modifying instructions from this fab site.

It's a bag for a vintage microphone that Gruff carries around to recordings. I hope it bloody fits - I haven't been able to check as said mic is at Gruff's work. Pauline had this fabric in her stash and I was compelled to track it down.

Found it on Kittycraft where I've been spending far too much money.

Have also found some great sewing blogs and Cassie introduced me to Burdastyle which is the sewing equivalent of Ravelry and facebook - I have already 'queued' several projects - so many projects, far too little time!

My Trafalgar square street performance turned out to be an amazing experience.

I felt especially smug and virtuous in a 'look-how-committed-i-am-to-my-art" way when the heavens decided to piss down on us during rehearsals and various performances. The fact that our dressing room was an undisguised shipping container for over 20 of us didn't help matters either. What did redeem it all was watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic games on the massive screen they had in the square, it completely blew us away - we were just so in awe and speechless for the first hour before the tedious segment when the teams came out. It felt good to be part of it all in our own little way. You can see more photos here - mostly of the awesome East-West circus troupe that came after us.

Sweat shops & Castles

2008-08-02T07:21:00.001-07:00

Gruff and I went to a lovely wedding yesterday. The ceremony was held here which lent a medieval, fairy-tale touch to the special occasion. This was followed by a superb hog roast, a massive piss-up in a barn and dancing to an 18 piece big band.

Otherwise, I have been setting out my Babette in various configurations these last few weeks in an attempt to find the perfect combination.

The mind boggles with endless permutations and my eyes feel over-exposed to all these retina-burning mosaics.

As a pleasant distraction, Pauline and I went over to Helen's for a sewing class. We managed to transform her lovely home into a sweat shop for the afternoon given that we were blessed with particularly scorchio weather that day. Helen kindly lent me this

Who needs a dining table when both Gruff and I have laps?

More photos of our lovely afternoon can be found here here.

This is what I managed to make for Gruff's niece.

I still need to find material in the right color for the bias binding on the arm-holes. A part of me is sorely tempted to make one for myself in that same, lovely material.

Thanks to a directory of free sewing patterns, I found this simple pattern.

This is my test piece which only took me an evening to knock up - amazing!

But otherwise, remember this?. Well, this year's blossoms have been even more abundant.

It was given to me as a house-warming present when I first moved into this flat and it never fails to surprise me when like a stealth bomber, its buds explode with color. Looking at it always cheers me up - it's my little tropical memento of growing up in South East Asia.

"What's up on the acting front?" I hear you ask. Well, a project I auditioned for and got has sadly fallen through. Perhaps it was karma for the send-up I did of my Japanese ex-housemate, who knows? But I happily landed myself another gig due to someone pulling out. Rehearsals this weekend meant that I had to give the girly knitting trip to Copenhagen a miss. I will instead be preparing for my 'West-End' debut next week wearing an orange jumpsuit and flapping bits of fabric about to play 'Earth' at Trafalgar Square, glamorous eh?

40 down,.. 86 to go!

2008-07-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

The squares have been multiplying and I have enough for a small baby babette if I stopped now.

But I have become somewhat addicted to producing these little critters and will soldier on until I become utterly sick with these. It's a bit daunting that the next 86 are mostly the larger 3 sizes which will take me a lot longer to produce. I'm not stressing about this despite the fact that it's a such a huge project requiring stamina but will just aim to take it square by square - I'll be happy as long as it's done by October. In fact, I'm already thinking about making my next blanket. (You can tell that I'm still in a honeymoon state with my babette, can't you?) I'd choose less diverse colours for a start - perhaps different hues of one dominant shade.

Trying to mix and match various combinations for these colours is proving to be a little bit of a nightmare especially when you have the tendency to over-analyse things as I do. Being indecisive and slightly anal about things being perfect doesn't help the matter either. There are some squares which seemed a great idea in theory but have turned out looking quite lame. I haven't decided whether to give them a make-over or let the rest of the blanket swallow them up. But I do know that I'm going to sew up the different panels as I go along because I'd lose the will to live if I had to sew them all up at the end. Of course, there are advantages to the latter method because you can swap and place the squares together to ensure an even spread.

I'm off to Loop now to buy a more ergonomic hook before starting on the rest of the squares - don't want to end up with a claw-like hand!

Busy resting...

2008-06-25T08:41:00.001-07:00

Can you guess what this is??

I've been meaning to crochet this blanket for the longest time - I went for my first lesson over a year ago, promptly forgot my skills through lack of practise which meant that I had to have a refresher at Flib's's hooker party. Now that I have an infinite amount of time on my hands... waiting to hear about auditions and the results of castings I have attended, the best way to temper the idleness, boredom and anxiety is to keep my hands busy. It's been tough learning to read the patterns and I started out with a few practise squares...

The middle one is particularly 'special' but given that ALL the squares in this pattern start with that tricky first round, I thought it best to get it right. It's been slightly easier thanks to Ravelry but it is still hard to understand these instructions without the help of someone to physically show you. I even tried drawing a diagram to visually map out the stitches but it was still confusing

I think I'm getting there though,.. have a look at these. (Note to self - do not use variegated yarn when you are trying to figure out unfamiliar crochet stitches!)

Another result of being unemployed is that it affords you the luxury of gratuitous yarn buying... especially irresponsible as I ended up going to Liberty's three times during this last summer sale week.

Guess I'd better crank up the de-stashing!!

Curtain-up & curtain-down...

2008-06-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

You pooter along in disenchantment and then life suddenly takes a dramatic turn. The curtain goes down on one life and comes up on another one with the promise of new beginnings.

Back at the end of April, I was asked to audition for a small, fringe play. It did not initially take my fancy as I assumed it was just another profit-share (i.e. unpaid) production. This turned out to be unfounded and when I was offered the part, I traded in my soul-destroying albeit well-paying city job with a mixture of glee & trepidation to join the ranks of terminally under-employed actors.

Rehearsals started pretty much the same evening as my last day in the office and it has been a complete roller-coaster of a ride. In the midst of my elation, the news of Tash's death plunged me into the depths of grief.

It's been almost a month now and I still feel acute stabs of sorrow at the loss of such a beautiful light. It felt as if we had all become part of some crappy chick-lit story with the C-word providing some kind of lousy plot device. Tash we miss you so much!! You always loved it when I gave you a shout-out on this blog of all the good times you'd been able to facilitate and been part of.

If you hare able to get wi-fi signal up there in the great yarn-shop in the sky Tash - I want you to know that despite your physical demise, you are still very much alive in our hearts and minds. I was so chuffed when the knitting possy came to my show last Wednesday, yet your presence was so sorely missed. In any case, you'll be glad to know that I was mentioned in our Time-Out review and duly got pissed last night to celebrate.

P.S. We...

Lucy in the ply with diamonds....

2008-04-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

The dreadful pun is in honor of Ginger Lucy's birthday... who was born in the 80's. Nuff said! Happy Birthday Sweetie!!! xxx

I presented her with 50g of the Brown Falkland I spun and plied last week but also soaked it in some orange and ginger scented shower gel for maximum sniffing pleasure.

100g of Blue-Faced Leicester was spun up in a week.

This time round I watched a clip on correct plying off Youtube. I erred on the side of caution and overplied but may have overdone it slightly. Tried whacking the curly bits out but my yarn was still pretty uneven. Boo,... another lesson I learnt was that you should wind the yarn off your makeshift lazy kate from the same direction, otherwise one single will get unplied. Although I'm quite chuffed with how it turned out, I may still ply the 2-plys together to create a cabled yarn.

In the interest of experimenting, I also plied 3-singles together as it apparently creates more 'rounded yarn'. I liked it too but I have no idea what on earth I'm going to do with my 2 new skeins... hmmm,...

The Flutter-bys are also completed and on the road to further adventures. It only took me 2 weeks to zip these up - Wowzer! Similarly mind-blowing, was the Norwegian Continental purl stitch class at Iknit - it makes ribbing a complete joy.

Yin & Yarn

2008-04-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

So after a long hiatus away from Ewan, I dusted him off and gave him a good work-out this weekend. It was evident from his creaking on Sunday evening that he was a little out of shape. But what a productive weekend we had getting reacquainted with our beloved Radio 4 murmuring in the background.

A better student spinner would read all her books thoroughly, take careful notes and remember general guidelines. Yours truly here however, in her impatience to get on with it flicked through her manuals with a desultory glance at diagrams. This disregard for proper preparation thereby resulted in unnecessary mistakes and learning the hard way. Oh well, it was ever thus and ever will be - it's far too late for me to change.

So; lesson 1- move the yarn from one hook to the other gradually so that you get an even spread. I was building it up on each section of the bobbin which caused a whole heap of trouble when it came to plying. This is when it all collapsed into each other making a bit of a tangled mess on the bobbin... and far too much stopping and starting…and some weird protrusions from said yarn causing it to look like insects' feelers.

You are not supposed to leave singles on the bobbins for 6 weeks either as it releases the twists. I'm not entirely sure how long twists can keep but I'm sure someone on Ravelry will be able to tell me.

It had been quite a long time since our lesson with Nancy and I couldn't really remember the lesson on plying. Nonetheless, I rushed on paying scant attention to my spinning manual or online tutorials of which there are plenty. I managed to ply it all somehow, transferred it onto the swift to make skeins and soaked it in cold water to remove the sheepy aroma of the Brown Falkland. It now appears that one should soak it in warm water so that the fiber 'relaxes' - would scented candles and soothing music add ambience to the cause? I didn't 'whack' it or hang it up with weights to 'set the twist' but rather, had it 'sunbathing' by the window on our radiator…

Measured my 2 skeins and it's a total of 218 yards for 100g - didn't really bother counting the wpi as the twists weren't evenly spread out. It looks as if it has fluffed out a little and all my worries about over twisting seem to be a little unfounded. It will therefore be a miracle if my yarn attains any semblance of 'balance', the desired nirvarna of yin and yang.

Undeterred in the face of sloppy yarn, our eager student pushed on and has started spinning with the white Blue-faced Leicester which is currently producing pretty thin yarn.

Great stuff but I have no intention of knitting with size 0 needles so this may involve quite a bit of plying… oh dear. I initially started on the 6.7 ratio but the fast take-up meant my fingers almost got sucked into the orifice (hee hee). So I moved it up a ratio and pedaled slower which is somehow doing the trick. I'm sure it goes against every spinning rule so we shall have to see what transpires.

The one lesson I did learn was the coin thing for photos so people can see how thick or thin your yarn is...

and also that you should keep away from Merino until you're a tad more experienced.

On top of all my spinning, I actually got off my arse this weekend to go to Knitflicks , sherman heeled the second Flutter-by sock and got some reading done. So I haven't been glued to Ewan the whole time,.. Honest!

Wan Sok

2008-04-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in Singapore, there was a Korean girl called Buyong who was in our little gang. We were an odd bunch -unsporty, different and slightly shunned by the rest of the class. I thought of her this weekend when I was finishing up my Flutter-by. I'd decided to use the Jaywalker pattern for my Cherry Tree Hill 'Cabin Fever' but changed my mind. The zig-zag-ness of the pattern would suit a yarn with less colours. Whilst browsing on Ravelry, I found the Flutter-by pattern and it was perfect.

Knitting this pattern allowed me to enjoy the colours of this yarn, making this an exquisite experience.

Each strand twisting between my fingers was a joyful riot of colour. I'd look back on each little 'butterfly' scrutinising the rainbow like combinations and thinking they were all little unique creatures.

Little wonder then, that it only took me a week to finish creating it.

When you step back, the whole sock is a kaleidoscope of colours, a real messy affair... much like life I suppose. Socrates would say in this instance that the unexamined sock is the sock not worth wearing...

So why did all this remind me of my little 9-year old friend? Because she had a brother called Wan Sok which amused us to no end. Every now and then, we'd ask her how Wan Sok was and if he'd become two socks yet. I know, the childish mind can sometimes conjure up such idiocy. The thought did cross my mind that Buyong's mother was perhaps a knitter. Nonetheless, who knew that one sock could be so beautiful and bring such pleasure.

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Unchartered Territory

2008-04-06T03:33:00.000-07:00

Lace is one of those things I've aimed to try this year. My new knitting skill last year was learning cables. I get engrossed looking at lace charts which are supposed to help you navigate through complex instructions. Yet the charts themselves are a hieroglyphic mystery, a new and foreign language for knitting. The framework for something that will look nothing like these squiggly signs.

Went to the new Iknit shop to pick up some addi lace needles and rushed home to try my hand at the Luscious Lace pattern.

Was gutted when I had to rip out the fifth row - this lace stuff takes a different level of concentration. No listening to the Radio or conversation for me.

On a happier note, I have finished a pair of socks for me. Hurray!!

This is my third pair but the other two made their way to other feet. The yarn is Posh Yarn's Lucia in Virtue. They certainly kept my poor little feet very warm in the chilly run up to today's snow!

My sock needles have not been left naked for long either as I have already cast on for another sock.

These are Cherry Tree Hill Merino supersock in 'Cabin Fever'. Love these colours!

* yup, I celebrate the completion of one project by casting-on for 2... and I wonder why I have so many UFOs scattered round the flat...

Easter Sunday

2008-03-23T02:02:00.001-07:00

Could not think of anything vaguely witty for the title of this post because I am completely astounded, amazed and semi-speechless that it is snowing!! In Central London!!! as I type !!!!.... Now, if it would only settle and land on a convenient mountain near Brick Lane... hmmmm,... we can but dream. Gruff suggested that I take my snowboard up to Parliament Hill. I think he was trying to be helpful as he saw how my excitement needed to be channeled into some kind of action as opposed to running around the living-room, shouting 'It's snowing...' and peering out of all the windows to grasp the full extent of our mighty snow-storm. It would be a great plan except for the gale force winds which would make getting to the top of Parliament Hill somewhat tricky... now if we lived in Scotland however...instead I am here, blogging.
As promised in my previous post - here's my knitting update. I managed to finish 2 hats - my first Woolly Wormhead Ribba hat
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and this

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Tried to persuade Gruff that his hat needed a bobble as a finishing touch but he would have none of it. In any case, I must admit it looks a little strange because I decided to free-style it... and it turns out looking like an inverted blue turnip! I also made significant progress on Courtenay...

According to my blog archives, I started this last May. So that's just one month shy of a year. Oh dear, I fear the color may be so last-last season but I don't really care. Must try to remember where I've put the completed sleeves, don't want to have to knit those AGAIN. Cannot wait to finish it so that it gets at least one outing before summer arrives. Although given the current climate, that may still be a long way off. (goes off to do a little jig)

Where every street ends with a mountain

2008-03-17T09:24:00.001-07:00

I'm not entirely sure where this phrase stems from but it's a pretty fitting description for Grenoble also called the 'Capital of the Alps'. Here are some shots taken from our hotel window. Whilst strolling through the city, I'd look up and see a majestic mountain presiding in the horizon promising much goodness and lifting my spirits.

With wide boulevards flanked with ornate buildings and slim, elegant french windows - I was quite charmed by Grenoble. Although much larger in size, it reminded me of Canterbury in Kent where I spent my formative, university days.

Home of Godard and Rousseau, I was eager to discover the yarn merchants and stumbled upon one within the first 30 minutes. Great!... except that it was shut for their 2 hour lunch break. I later found this place which stocked some Amy Blatt and was thrilled with their window decoration for easter.

Gruff was extremely impressed though not entirely surprised that I could sniff out the yarn so quickly.

We took off early to catch the bus to Chamrousse the next day - a 70 minutes bus journey away, Bliss! In fact, 11 other ski fields are readily accessible from Grenoble so the good people of the city are entirely spoilt for choice in terms of snow which is some compensation for the lack of yarn shops.

Chamrousse was the site of the 1968 Winter Olympics which is reflected in much of its architecture, many of the modernist buildings had a certain retro chic to them. Day 1 was sunny which was slightly unnerving but at least better than Day 2 where we were beset with gale force winds closing off most of the chair-lifts. On Day 3 though, the heavens opened and we had a generous dumping of the white stuff. I was squealing with delight and trying to persuade poor Gruff to come off-piste with me. Later in the afternoon, amidst the bad light of a blizzard, I stacked it big time and apparently turned a funny colour. That'll teach me to go too fast! After that, we had a day of rain then 2 further days of sunshine. Sweeeeeeeet!

When I told Flib where we were going, she made a passing comment that Chamrousse sounded like a place that would have lots of cheese. She was almost right. On our last night back in Grenoble, Gruff and I shared a raclette.

there was a river of melted fromage oozing over the bowl of potatoes they give you. It was a complete galore and sinfully delicious. We had hysterics half-way through when we couldn't stop giggling at the whole situation. It was the cheese that kept on giving and I think my arse has doubled in size because of it. Gruff had to concede defeat after a while whereas I just could not leave it be and tried gainfully to get through more. We had to leave a quarter of it unfinished which seemed like such a terrible waste of gorgeousness. The dreams I had later that night were certainly vivid and surreal!

Before leaving, I found another yarn shop tucked at the back of a boutique. The nasty proprietor wouldn't let me take a photograph when I asked him for permission, instead he muttered some grumpy (maybe it's just a language thing who knows) unintelligible words and shrugged so I had to sneak in this furtive shot.

It was a very nice display but I don't know why he was being so bloody snotty when most of it was acrylic! Tosser... anyway, will put in all the details of the 3 shops on knitmap

On the Eurostar back, whilst the posh couple sitting across the aisle was quaffing wine and delicately eating strawberries, Gruff and I had pikey cobbled together cheese baguettes and beer. Our journey was devoid of stimulating conversation except to bicker about whose turn it was to go to the refreshment carriage. Gruff did lots of napping...

and I got lots of knitting done. But this has been a long enough post so i'll save the knitting to when I next check back in. Have a great Easter hols in the meantime!

Whirly Gig

2008-03-06T10:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm still alive and kicking.... and spinning as you can see

My second slightly more palatable skein of handspun but only because I chose better colors. Other than that, I've been experimenting with different tensions and fibers producing this....

I have already filled one spool with 25g of this which is Brown Falkland. Great fun and extremely addictive!

Janice did her Edinburgh show for a small invited audience. I wasn't organised enough to spread the word properly but I'm sure she'll do it again. Hopefully somewhere a bit more central than Stokey which is an arse to get to if you don't live around there. Anyhoo, Ginger Lucy has an excellent account of the evening here.

But otherwise, February has completely flown by - I'd like to blame it on the shortness of the month rather than a surreal warping of time. Big thank you to Helen for voting me a YMMD-blog. The funny thing about blogs is that it was my first contact with fellow knitters before i actually hung out with them. When I met Acechick in person, it was like a re-acquaintance. It took me a while to start blogging and I guess it was mainly because I was sick of loitering along the periphery feeling like a stalker or voyeur... it only felt right that I should contribute to the great sea of blog posts. I definitely want to blog more, at least once a week... so let's see if I can keep it up.

The most exciting bit about this month has been planning our white holiday. Gruff and I are off snowboarding tomorrow and going to the French Alps by train - which not only gives us heaps of green brownie points that we can be smug about but also gives me loads of knitting time... HURRAH! I completely loathe airports for a whole host of reasons I won't go into now.

Will be back with a full report - let's hope I finish at least one of my UFOs during my time away and that I don't end up damaging my hands in any way.

Have wheel, will travel

2008-02-03T05:14:00.000-08:00

My blogging has fallen by the wayside due to the obsession I've developed with my new beautiful wheel,.. you can see the pure delight in my face no?

The Prelude and Minstrel were pretty tempting but due to severe space limitations in Chez Rooney, it was only practical to get one that I could fold away when not in use. It's also handy that it's light and portable in case I ever need to take it with me down to the pub,... or to a gig... on perhaps on holidays? Gruff has been extremely understanding about my spinning and even had a go on it.

This is my first spun spawn - the colour combination of navy and mustard makes it look twice as bad. The ladies were very kind about it on Wednesday but it looks like something that fell off the back of a lorry onto the M25.

The Greeks would call this hubris - you win an award for your knitting but the fiber gods decide to humble you with your human failings. Oh well - I was so ashamed that I couldn't do anything else but laugh.

As Lucy said, 'Don't worry hon - it can only get better'. Must. Spin. More.

The Bobbys

2008-02-03T05:13:00.000-08:00

Wow!! I don't think i've ever won an award by public voting. At Junior College, I ran for the Student Council elections but there was no real reward for that. Unlike the Bobbys which was voting held on a much bigger and global scale. I was so chuffed that the yarngina got so many votes - thank you everyone! I'm still on a bit of a high. It was fantastic that so many Ravelers voted for stuff and I got send so many nice messages from people,.... wow again!

I must say that there were nominations in my category that were so brilliantly funny - the competition was really hotting up at certain points. Anyhoo, here's a money shot of Janice in the yarngina. Enjoy!

So who's the black sheep now?

2008-02-03T04:41:00.000-08:00

Finally made my mind up about which wheel to get which means that I can now concentrate on work instead of trawling Ravelry for information about ratios, bobbins and jumbo flyers… it's like learning a new bloody language. But I am very excited and have ordered some books from Amazon about handspinning which means that until they arrive - I'll be trawling Ravelry for tips on yarn, twists and something called drafting - how am I going to meet my knitting targets for the year? There just aren't enough hours in the day I tell you….

To add to my excitement as I left work yesterday, I was meeting a friend to go watch Othello at the Donmar. In what was a pretty jammy week - I'd managed to get my mitts on some tickets without having to pay ridiculous prices on ebay and also won a bottle of wine at the office raffle. I probably should have bought some scratch cards whilst fortune was smiling on me but I digress… back to Othello, I'll write a critical review with my theatre studies student hat on later but here's my knitterly perspective first;

I have a theory that old Shakey was a bit of a fiber man as a lot of his plays are littered with references to knitting - think of this sonnet or Macbeth's line about conscience and rest. In Othello, his fascination with fiber (and who can blame him) is evident from Iago's first speech where he compares the spinster to….. Given that it was Ewan McGregor who was playing Iago, all I could think about was how fine a name he had and how it would be a great name for my first sheep. After that, it was impossible to ignore all the other animal motifs of inter-breeding and the perversity of a black ram (Othello) mating with a beautitful soft white ewe (Desdemona) -line 93. It didn't help that Chiwetel Ejifor who was a wonderful Othello had lovely little dreads that would make beautiful fluffy spun yarn. To say that I could imagine the characters as sheep in a field is not exactly far from the truth. Perhaps Shakey heard about some shenanigans amongst a shepherd's flock and was inspired to adapt it into this tragedy. Who knows? It is a well known fact that old Shakey wasn't exactly very original in his plotlines so maybe he blended in different strands of source material for the play. In any case, a black sheep amongst a herd of white sheep would definitely arouse the hostility and aggression of Venetian society that Othello encounters. In the end however, it of course transpires that it is 'good, honest' Iago who has pulled the proverbial wool over everyone's eyes and is in fact the evil, black sheep not Othello. There is a lot of talk about sacrificial lambs, which is of course a heavily used motif in Christianity which figures significantly in this play - both Othello and Desdemona are good religious beings, getting down to their knees and praying lots. Again, it was hard not to imagine Iago (Ewan) as a naughty sheep as he was being taken away perhaps to the slaughter house for being so naughty…

Spin, Spin sugar

2008-01-13T13:15:00.000-08:00

I am this close to buying a spinning wheel which means I could become an official, card-carrying spinster! I think the word needs to be reclaimed so that it looses all its negative connotations in any case. We went on a one day course which was taught by an amazing lady at the Handweaver's Studio who had years of wisdom to impart and an infinite capacity for patience to boot. My fellow Spinderellas Gail and Lucy give great accounts of the afternoon whereas I had promptly forgotten my camera. My head is still swimming from an overload of information and the anecdotes that Nancy shared with us. It feels as if I've turned a new corner in my little fiberous life.

I now have new found respect for handspun yarn because I appreciate how fine and difficult a craft it is. The whole process was so astoundingly magical or perhaps it was just the satisfaction of doing the twirly thing and watching things spin. But it got me thinking about wheels and circles and how it has been so integral to the advancement of humanity and become such a potent metaphor - think 'Revolutions', Shakespeare's 'wheel of fire', the 'circle of life'. How the phrase 'spinning a yarn' has come to mean the literal act of telling stories. All food for thought which means that I have been much more distracted these last few days. Will post photos of my roving and spindle when I get some proper shots of them this weekend.

On an entirely different note - the Yarngina has been nominated for the 'Most Unusual Project' on Ravelry! Very exciting indeed. It's up against some tough competition so please do send your votes this way if you can.

As long promised, You tube footage of the Yarngina can be found here & here. for you to see it in action. Some bits are a little untidy but I ran out of time and so had to do a hasty crochet job at the end... enjoy!

Happy New Year....

2008-01-02T03:24:00.000-08:00

Saw in 2008 with Gail & Lucy at a party in Mile End.

Gruff, Steve and I then ended up trudging for miles to get to a party at Stokey full of similarly drunk people. Yours truly crashed out on the sofa and then got moved to the spare room at nine in the morning. My eyes were stinging when I woke up because I'd slept with my contacts in,... bad....

Finally made it home at 4 p.m as I was in desperate need of a shower and change of clothes. Then went onto watch Tintin which was amazing, I loved the comics when I was little and the production managed to stage it really well. Saw the original production 2 years ago when it was playing at the Barbican so I knew it was going to be worth it. I've got 2 friends who are in the current cast and they sorted out some comps for us. We had great seats and the millions of kiddies there were pretty well behaved and riveted by the production so they were fairly tolerable. Had lots of drinks at the aftershow party, then went for some dinner and ended up at another party because we were too drunk to be sensible. The thing is that everyone else is still lying in bed and I am the only chump who had to get up to go to work today....

So I think I might crawl home early to get some much needed beauty sleep. Feel and look like a total hag today.... it's hardly a great way to usher in 2008 frankly and at my age I SHOULD know better!

I go, I go...swifter than an arrow from Tartar's bow.

2007-12-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

Tash's Bloc Party - Rewind (which incidentally did not involve any blocking whatsoever) inspired Lucy, Gail and I to go on a monumental mission to Walthamstow via Bethnal Green one windy November afternoon to get sets of our own. Lucy's traffic-stopping skirt (think Marilyn Monroe) provided much hilarity and the Handweaver's studio was a veritable Aladdin's cave of fiberous goodness.

Unfortunately, half the living room/kitchen at Chez Roonies is cordoned off when the swift is unfurled in all its glory....

This is the aftermath of a boozey Friday night when I returned home alcohol addled and thought it was a fantastic idea to wind up yarn at half-one in the morning,... which ended up entertaining me until 3 in the morning. If Gruff had been home that evening, he probably would have called the men in white coats to come take me away... and who could have blamed him?

Where have all the years gone...?

2007-11-20T16:19:00.000-08:00

Have bought a new computer recently which has meant that I'm going through all my old CD's and storing them on itunes,.. which has prompted a complete trip down memory lane. Strange how your music collection becomes a form of recording your history... your shifting tastes... the songs or albums that cause a time-warp to forgotten moments, phases of your life that you'd relegated to the deep recesses of your mind...

Had a pre-birthday party with P & W,.. which was lovely. Just as I was bemoaning the fact that I felt much older than my 33 years some hip, trendy-ish grime artists came on stage at the Vibe Bar. Now it's not normally my kind of music but it blew away the cob-webs from our ears and injected us with the adrenaline rush of 'yoof',... just so that we could delude ourselves for a while that we were still young with our fingers temporarily on the pulse.

Woke up the next morning, hungover to be greeted with fresh vietnamese coffee and crumpets,.. yum! We then went to my favorite dim sum restaurant and then it was off to the V&A. Lovely, fascinating place full of gorgeous stuff AND you got to take photos. Then, it was off to Neal's Yard for a massage

and then dinner on the Rootmaster. A vegan restaurant in an old Rouemaster bus. Now I'm not vegetarian let alone vegan in the slightest but I thought i'd try it out for the novelty value. My friends who know me well found it hilarious that a confirmed carnivore like me would chose to go to a vegan place but hey, life's about new experiences right? If you're looking for a lovely, unique venue for a special night then I cannot recommend Rootmaster highly enough, we had the loveliest waiter who looked after a drunken group of rowdy diners so well.

You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby, right round...

2007-11-20T16:11:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday was one of the most sublime days of my life. Got to spend the morning shopping with a bright, 16-year old wandering around Topshop and H&M re-capturing my youth. Found myself inspired to move away from my usual sombre colors of blues and greys and try on vibrant hues like lime purple AND LIME GREEN... QUITE a departure indeed. It was exhilarating and sobering to realise that I was some kind of role model in her innocent 16-year old eyes. Had lunch on Carnaby sreet and then....

Went to Tash's for "Bloc Party - Re-Rewind" - honest to god, I don't know when I'd ever had so much fun winding yarn and getting pissed AND eating yummy home-baked stuff. It was sheer childish exuberance. Look at the fruits of our labour,....

and I wound up some lovely silk I bought at SnB to add to my manos scarf..

She's lost control...

2007-11-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the slack posting... will try to account for my absence. Hmm,.. firstly,
SnB day - almost didn't go but someone had a spare ticket and I instantly broke my yarn diet. Bought some lovely Manos yarn in bright red and some fyberspates stuff and lovely, yummy, sexy silk from knitwitches..

The male fashion show was the funniest thing i'd seen in a while. Craig and Gerald who organised the whole shebang did a magnificent job. Would have lost even more control but wise Tash whispered in my ear that it was time to go, that i'd spend more money if I stayed and she was so right.

Was in desperate need of a drink as Gruff and I had had a major fight. Now I don't get angry very often but when I do - it's horrible. I end my pursing my lips so that words of bile don't spill out of my mouth. And when I'm angry - I get ex-trem-ly ex-act a-bout-what-i'm-say-ing because you want ev-e-ry-sing-gle-word to be heard... and each phrase is designed to be a stab and cause the most hurt... sigh. ..Can't help it... it's my Achilles heel, if you're my friend and survived my angry tirades then our friendship has reached the next level... far too many people are so astounded by the sudden passion and rage that they shy away afterwards... I was born in the year of the tiger if that offers up any explanation.

Flip side of all this is that I'm always mortified the next day and thoroughly repentent... anyhoos, I needed a drink after SnB and Tash took us to the loveliest gastropub with steak sandwiches to die for... nothing like a good meal to temper you raging your emotions, the company of some calm knitters to detangle your thoughts and glasses of fine wine to reflect on your own shortcomings...

Tit-a-tete

2007-10-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

Spent Saturday knitting a breast in aid of cancer research. I am getting slightly worried that a trend is developing here,.. yes, private bodily parts, what next?! A knitted penis in aid of Fathers for Justice?? Dearest doctor Sigmund would have a field day with me. But it was a pretty civilised afternoon all in all and I felt like an honorary antipodean for an afternoon. Tash and Pauline came to pick me up in the yarnmobile and we found our way to SW as directed by surfer dude Ken. Met a lady who was wearing an awesome felted pea necklace. and my good knittery deed for the day was showing a newbie the intricacies of dpns.

I was trying really hard not to buy any more yarn after going crazy at Ally Pally but they had some silk Habu in a lovely blue color and I just could not resist. In my defence, I managed not to crack for 4 hours whilst surrounded by temping, yummy goodness so I did try to exercise some restraint. Although, I was running around the shop stroking and groping yarn like some demented and depraved person. Hee hee!

It's a Wool-derful life!

2007-10-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have been floating on a cloud of bliss after last week's yarn orgy at Ally Pally which was a citadel of craftiness. The stuff on offer was mind-boggling, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! I'd missed last year's event because I was young and naive and thought that my stash of 50 odd balls of yarn was excessive. Hah!! This time round I just could not bear to abstain. A full report by one of my fellow yarn com padres can be found here To be fair, Lucy and Caroline were a lot stronger and were at least an aisle ahead of Tash and i who stopped to gawp at everything... we fell in love with some Qivuit (yarn from woolly-mammoth-like musk ox in Greenland). But honestly, we could have been told about some super yarn made specially from a three-legged yak crossed with a double-headed llama and we would have been sold.

After our intense frenzy of yarn-shopping and happily weighed down with booty, we proceeded over to Lucy's for some delicious cake and tea... and much stroking of new our stash additions.

What a perfect day in so many ways! Roll on next year....

Sea and Sardinia

2007-10-10T14:34:00.001-07:00

Gruff and I spent a lot of time bumming around on beaches

I played with my camera and tried to take arty shots like these.

But most of the holiday was spent knitting, drinking and eating good food.

Also managed to get through a couple of books but despite hunting high & low, I could not find a copy of Lawrence's 'Sea & Sardinia'. Would have been interesting to compare the 2 disparate experiences as our trip was also 9 days long. Oh well, never mind. The next time I feel the need to return to Sardinia, I shall try to hunt down the book again (One of the courses I did at university was 'Travel Literature' which meant that we had Paul Theroux, Basho and Jack Kerouac all on the same reading list - wicked eh? I shall go into all that some other time.)

Tonight though, I shall go to sleep dreaming of diving through crystal blue waters and the heavy scent of sweet pine.

Happy (Belated) Blogday to me,.... happy BLOG DAY to meeeee...

2007-09-27T02:02:00.000-07:00

(meant to post this on the 27th.. oops! Will also post some photos of Sardinia in my next installment)

Well, it's been a whole year of sporadic blogging and I think I've slowly got the hang of it. It took me a while to learn the whole business of posting pictures and adjusting my template. Although I did forgot how to add links momentarily. I would love to blog more often but knitting, facebbok and ravelry all combine to demand my precious free time.

Some of my friends are very amused that I have a blog and think it a strange, furtive activity, tantamount to hanging out in on-line sex chat rooms or engaging in a virtual second-life. I do have an unhealthy and insatiable lust for reading people's blogs especially if it's about knitting and a lot of them inspired me to start my own. As my day to day job involves reading financial research, procedure manuals and regulatory rulebooks (yawn,.. i know) it is such a treat to be riveted by these windows of creativity, especially if they have luscious fibre related photos.

If it had not been for blogging and the internet in general I suppose, I would never have heard about the Wednesday knitting group or of Acechick. It was through reading her blog that I found my kindred knitters, friends that I have faithfully ensured I meet up with weekly.

Holiday... Celebrate...

2007-09-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

Gruff and I are going on a much needed break to Sardinia - it'll be a little adventure as we explore an unknown place. The most agonising decision was what knitting to take along as I have so many UFOs lying about the place. The practical need to travel light (I went travelling around the world with only a 40l backback) means that I am just taking 2 balls of yarn to finish some knucks and a pair of socks.

Here are my essentials;

and some holiday reading - was drawn to the re-released vintage penguin cover and although I have no real desire to read Freud, I feel in love with the font on the cover so that's coming too - it's the aesthetics that matter after all, no?

Scarf Ace...

2007-09-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

One of the weird things you can find out on the net, is what was Number 1 in the charts when you were born. In the 3rd week of November many, many years ago, it was David Essex's 'Gonna make you a Star'... hmmm,... the only correlation that has on my life is that I always say to people "I'm Gonna make you a scarf" whenever I blow them out for whatever reason. But lately, I've been keeping them all,.. yes, the last 3 I've made have not made it to their intended receipients. (if I have promised you one and you are reading this now, they're just not the right length, color, width for you, trust me...). Like some over-protective mother, I just cannot bear to unleash them into the big bad world. I just want them clinging on to my neck and staying by my side forever. And let's face it, I can't give them away as presents after they've been wrapped around my greasy neck - that would just be pikey...

Look at this little fluffy one,

How could anyone bear to let it go? I'd sooner bury my face in its soft, mohairy Cocooness... aaaahhhhhhh..... oh look, there's another one perched patiently waiting for some strokeys and attention... this one's an Alpaca and silk hybrid for more formal occasions.

I'd better start organising a grand event for this one to make its debut.

Cakes, pirates, crumpets & socks

2007-09-13T14:24:00.001-07:00

The fearsome pirate has come back this year to grace a home-made chocolate cake... made at half-10 at night. It's hard juggling a full-on city job with the domestic indulgences of baking. Good fun though and well worth the effort. I had to let Gruff into the secret as there was no way of baking in secret in our tiny flat. Gruff just had to pretend he couldn't see any cake-making in progress... much like how we suspend our disbelief at the theatre
Gruff's birthday socks - my very first pair so they're extra special and must only be worn once a year on birthdays and x'mases...

Also, the lovely Sara's knucks. Was going to make them say 'Snow' 'Babe' but i got the hands mixed up and ended up with I luv snow'... ah well - they'll do! I already have some brilliant and original ideas for more pairs

Our revels now are ended...

2007-09-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

Work have blocked access to Ravelry! Not that I've got my own account as yet, I'm still 7056th down the list but have been using P's account so far. It's just as well I guess, looking at projects and yarn just makes me even more frustrated that I'm at work and cannot knit.

I have started a new project and finished off a couple of other little ones and picked up the blue courtenay again. It was also Gruff's birthday so I was busy trying to finish off his stripey socks,... just in time for the delayed summer weather. Photos will follow soon.

Hello to Jox, Esoteric Knitter and Alice - thanks for stopping by and leaving your lovely comments. Jan has promised to put on a special show for us knitters when she returns from her holiday... much needed after the hectic-ness that is Edinburgh. I'll post details of when and where once I have them and do come along if you fancy seeing the yarngina live.

Knit-torious...

2007-08-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the lovely comments everyone.... I will respond with more answers and details on the construction of the yarngina soon. For all those lurkers out there, thanks for popping by... I hope it made you chuckle/choke. Here's one review of Jan's show so far -

http://www.thegroggysquirrel.com/articles/2007/08/07/2007-edinburgh-fringe/janice-phayre-with-occassional-showers/

too great for her but at least it wasn't a complete write-off, looks like the yarngina's causing a bit of a stir so hurrah!!

The Yarngina Monologue

2007-08-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

I guess I should tell the full tale of the yarngina since many people have been bemused, shocked and simply intrigued by my last project which took up ALL of what little precious knitting time I had after working 11 hour days and neglecting poor, long-suffering Gruff. It's the Yarngina for my dear friend Janice's one woman show for this year's Edinburgh fringe festival. Janice was one of the first friends I made when I came to London to do my Masters more than 10 years ago. We studied here and together with some others friends on the course, have been through thick and thin together in the intervening decade.

Janice has been going up to Edinburgh for the last 10 years in shows of various descriptions, comedy double-acts, 10-minute stand-up slots, children's shows and one of her earliest sketch shows 'Sparkling' was directed by yours truely @ the Gilded Balloon where we got 4 stars in the The Scotsman for our efforts. Anyway, Janice has been working hard on the comedy circuit for the last 3 years and was runner-up in the Funny Women competition in 2004 and a finalist in the Hackney New Comedy Act competition in 2005. In all these years, I have always thought that I could write some material for her to use which was a safe way for me to come up with looney ideas without having to actually test them out myself.

For her first solo show, Janice decided to ask all her friends back in January to write a little character specially for her… except that almost everyone misinterpreted her request. Someone wrote a poem about Janice, another wrote a fictional monologue of a character she thought Janice could play and someone else wrote a little monologue all about herself (and not Janice)… anyway, I think the whole intention was to give Janice some ideas to work off.

But you see, Janice has enough looney ideas of her own and her stand-up set through the years has quickly became centred around her dysfunctional sex life and embarassing moments of discovering tissue stuck in intimate areas during the throes of passion… you get the idea I hope. So when faced with this request, I thought I would find a way for Janice to use her own ideas and material if she could tell her life story through her genital's perspective - an exercise for student pyschiatrists examining sexuality I am told. This would thereby negate the need for me to come up with ideas for her and therefore cunningly deflect her whole request. I should also mention that it is extremely hard to write comedy material that is any good as I have discovered through years of trying. When I told a friend about my cunning idea, he casually and slightly mockingly suggested that I could knit Janice a costume thereby combining helping a friend with something I loved. Said friend has also been somewhat exasperated that I have less time for hanging out and partying since I have become such a compulsive and obsessed knitter devoid of a social life. I thought this was a brilliant idea although I knew it would be frought with potential hiccups (what yarn would I use? Where would I find a pattern for a knitted yarngina? How would I create something that an audience would recognise in a instant without the need for dry explanations? What about all the million other projects I had lined up?) Needless to say, it was a bit of a challenge but one that I thought would provide some laughs along the way.

Once I'd made that promise to a delighted Janice, it was hard to extricate myself from my pledge - she also decided that it would be a great way for her to close the show, so no pressure there! One Wednesday evening at Ks & Ps, I blurted it out when I no longer cared if the group would think I was odd, deranged and perhaps frankly a little perverse. Thankfully, everyone thought it was hilarious as I kind of suspected they would, seeing as they are all unflappably cool ladies - P our unelected ringleader & Loba our technical genius offered up various suggestions for construction, Lucy very kindly offered to donate some fun brown eyelash yarn for the cause and Helen just could not stop giggling.

As the deadline drew close, the risk of failure was increasing - what if it didn't turn out 'right', what if I had to make numerous attempts, frog and re-frog and re-knit the project, what if, what if, what if - my thoughts became a tangled up mess. I became convinced that it would all be alright as long as I thought it through properly before execution - so I would draw little doodles at work, at the back of receipts trying to imagine how it should look and randomly start a thoughtful discussion with an amused Gruff about various possibilities. Time was running out and deadlines went whizzing by, in a desperate attempt to buy myself more time, I tried to persuade Janice to postpone her show to next year, but she had paid up at the venue and the flyers had been printed so there was no going back - the only other option (which I briefly entertained) was me leaving the country for a while. There was no doubt in anyone's minds that a yarngina could somehow be made but I was working towards such a tight deadline that at one point, Gail could see all of us working on it at Wednesday's Ks & Ps. There was even talk of me bringing the 'Lovebox' to the Lovebox festival at Victoria Park for some emergency group knitting but as it had rained the previous day, I did not want to run the risk of lugging a wet, soggy and heavy yarngina around in cramped music tents.

With a lot of frantic and speed knitting in the final week, the yarngina was finally completed last Wednesday with some added assistance from another good friend Martina - tasked with stuffing an old pair of tights whilst pouring out her woes about her disasterous romantic weekend in Paris. When the yarngina was unveiled however, we all fell about laughing with tears streaming down our faces - Janice is also the only person I know who can even remotely carry off wearing a knitted yarngina. It was a priceless moment and Janice was completely amazed, touched and grateful - I was just relieved that it came out as expected. Another friend who saw it a few days later was laughing so hard she had to leave the room and has sworn that she will never ever tease me about my knitting again.

I like to think that I might have shown that knitting is not a fuddy-duddy pursuit confined to elderly ladies and that the possibilities are endless with the use of just some sticks and string. Best of all, I think that Janice is going to have an exceptional show which she richly and truly deserves. If you're up in Edinburgh at all this year - please do go and see it here.

Adventures in Tavistock

2007-07-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

Spent a chilled, food centred weekend down in Devon with Gruff's folks. Tavistock is a very pretty market town with an excellent yarn shop which had a healthy stock of Rowan, DB, Noro AND Colinette yarn. I can definitely see myself visiting again. We went for a walk on Sunday and saw some Dartmoor ponies and some demented sheep but I have no photographic evidence because I didn't take my camera with me after I'd made a specific point to pack it amongst our stuff...
I thought i'd had the knitting agenda covered when I brought 2 projects with me but I RAN OUT OF YARN!! Yes, this is a SHOCKING state of play for someone who has over 300 balls of yarn.

So on the train back, bored with the picturesque scenery whzzing by and with my fingers itching, I took gratuitous shots of my Tavistock souveniors...

I was snapping happily away on the crowded train like some yarn pervert and found it a good opportunity to test out my camera. Gruff very wisely pretended to be asleep so that he could disassociate himself from the loon sitting opposite him.

This is my cabley project from Rowan Studio,... I'd like to think I captured the undulating and rolling landscape of Devon in these shots...

25% off @ Loop

2007-07-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

Popped along t Loop and there happened to be 25% off everything... hmmmm -it was too good an opportunity to miss. Along with lots of DB Cashmerino Aran, I bought some Manos Del Urugray (?)

some Noro Cash Iro...

AND some Blue Sky Alpaca.... hmmmm,......

Sheep & Wool day @ Spitalfields Farm

2007-07-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Simply Irresistible

2007-07-08T09:53:00.001-07:00

The stripey stuff is for a bag that I want to make... inspired by Lisa from U-Handblog. The knitting material was just far too cute to resist. Thanks flib!

Rowan yarn,.... hmmmm

2007-07-08T09:49:00.001-07:00

The Jaeger Aqua just because it was £1 a ball, the cotton rope was probably a mistake boo,... the Rowan Holiday's for a stripey jumper and it was all just because I haven't been buying any ayrn lately and thought I should treat myself for working so hard at my high-pressured job.... ermm,.. can I think of any other reasons.... because it was a thursday? Because I got a little lost and accidentally wandered into the yarn department?.... sigh, Gruff's eyes almost popped out. My arms were aching a little the day after from lugging all my spoils home on the Number 8 bus... yarn therapy is so much cheaper than a day at the spa.

More fabrics... I don't even own a sewing machine!

2007-07-08T09:43:00.001-07:00

Catching up

2007-06-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Work has consumed my life and left me little time for blogging, knitting and generally taking life easy. Have managed to squeeze in little intense pockets of fun stuff but it's not really me or my style. I'm shattered come the weekend and find myself in slumberland at 10 on a Friday evening. Not very rock n roll in the slightest. But just a quick recap of what i've been up to (going backwards), Went to Regent's park yesterday for the Green fair and did a little bit of knitting in between scoffing yummy brownies made by Lucy and drinking organic beer. Saturday was spent with relatives as my sister is in town. We hooked up with my cousin who has 2 adorasble munchkins. They are the most gorgeous little people on this earth and I'm being truely objective here. Yay - more knittees for me to subject my little woolly creations. It was nice to hang out with my sister who looks tiny and hence delicate but she is tough as old boots, plays rugby and has climbed up to the base camp of Everest - not once but twice! We are also vastly different in that my sister is uber-straight but I love her to bits and I know that i'm the little sister she always wanted despite my (occasional) naughtiness and grumpyness. Heh heh...

Mates & Blogs

2007-05-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading a book about a friendship between 2 girls that disintegrates when they travel through India and it really got me thinking.

Part of my disenchantment with London (and the brief Hong Kong idea) was to do with how fragmented and dislocated I feel about my group of friends, some of whom I've known for practically a decade. We hardly see each other anymore and when we do it's normally to celebrate someone's birthday which means you have loads of catching up to do with what's been going on in your life. When there are about 5 of you it takes ages for us all to go into detail about our lives with any meaningful depth. We normally skim over the last couple of months by summarising it because there's just too much to cover. So after having this blog for months, I recently finally told them about this because I thought it'd be a good way for them to see what I've been up to and also find out more about me. I think I've revealed some stuff here that even old friends have been surprised with. Admittedly, a lot of it IS knitting related and might just as well be written in Greek but that's not the point. This way they can read about my life in their own time when they're not too busy. Yes, I know I can always pick up the phone to them but when you're knackered with work, the last thing you want to do is chat away on the phone. I'm not a phone person either, I'm brusque and leave long silences - I'm more comfortable writing, it just feels more 'me'. A friend protested that she didn't want to have a 'virtual' mate but I gently reminded her that it was better than having a no mate, someone distant that you've become estranged with. Yes, we're all busy people with a lot going on in our lives but sometimes I think we don't make enough time for each other. Or our schedules become too important to forsake - one excuse for not meeting up that I was given was that she had to go to the gym. Hmmmm, i'd rather see my old mate than pound away on the treadmill, wouldn't you? In fact, any paltry reason NOT to go to the gym would be fantastic let alone dinner with a friend I haven't seen in a while. Okay, I probably shouldn't be too harsh and I am delighted that some far-flung and dear friends are reading my little blog/diary/letter. (hello!! love you!!) I think this option is far better than blasting out a mass email intruding into people's inboxes no? So I think somewhat sadly that some friendships are getting weaker through the lack of maintenance but I guess that's life. Then there are friends that you see every week and yet you still take enormous delight in reading their blogs and looking at their photos. I guess with old friends you've drifted away from you'll always have the memories to treasure and that's all that you can be grateful for.

Whaoow.. heavy I know but I'm in a somewhat pensive mood today. Or maybe it's just the hangover from yesterday kicking in... hmmmm...

p.s. loved the footie yesterday especially when some yobs were chanting 'Rooney... rooney' - I felt strangely acknowledged.

Wateraid and Knit-A-River

2007-05-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

Amazing photos from Yvonne - http://www.flickr.com/photos/61477100@N00/sets/72157600208240606/show/

all the squares were so different and beautiful. For a full story of the project and demo, read this - http://www.iknit.org.uk/2007/01/knitted-river-is-very-long-indeed.html. As I marched, thinking about the autonomy we take for granted for even being able to go on a march, it was doubly depressing and really sobering to think of the poverty that the lack of clean water causes. I can't imagine having to trek for miles just to get clean water for your daily necessities. Hmmm... so even though it was a Saturday morning and I could have really done with a lie-in, I'm glad I went on the demo. Apathy is a modern curse.

He's stalking me!

2007-05-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

Too many adventures to tell - went for the Knit-A -River demo on Saturday and it felt good to be a knitting activista. The last march I went on was the Anti-Iraq war on the 15th of Feb 2003 and a fat lot of good that did. Shame on you Tony Blair and good f**king riddance! Great time knitting at the Dove then went for coffee and cake at Martina's followed by a yummy vietnamese meal rounded off by a Flamenco night in Hackney. But Kevin Rowland was at the restaurant so i reckon he's stalking me. Work is tough - sigh .... 11 hours days and waking up at half-6 is a bit much for my idle system. Yawn, too tired to have my dinner,.. might fall zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Encounters with Icons

2007-05-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

We have been without broadband for a while - it's been an ongoing battle which I won't go into simply because i'll just get angry and turn green. This has meant that Gruff and I have had to resort to buying over-priced drinks at our local coffe shop in exchange for "free" wifi - bah! When I was posting the other evening about the chaos of the flat - a crusty looking bloke sitting next to me asked for help, or rather demanded it. The encounter went something like this;

Shifty bloke: (tetchily) Excuse me! Why is my internet not working? Subtext: you look like geeky technophile seeing as it's a Saturday evening and you're on the internet which obviously means you're devoid of a social life

Me: You need the IP address (trying my best to be helpful but taken aback by this man's brusqueness)

SB: I have it here (expectantly waving a scrap of paper in my face)

Me: Sorry, I'm not a Mac user - I wouldn't know what to do. Subtext: It's your bloody computer, how the hell should I know why it's not working? Don't own a computer if you can't operate it Bozo!

SB: (stares at me aghast at my lack of co-operation)

Me: You could ask the guys behind the counter - they're quite helpful. Leave me be to get on with my blogging, loser!

Shifty bloke saunters off and Gruff whispers in my ear that he thinks the bloke's 'someone famous'. Gruff has a quick look on wikipedia and it's only Kevin Rowland who sang 'Come on Eileen' which was an anthem in my teenage years. Holy moly!!! My teenage self would never have thought I'd ever in a million years ever get to be sitting NEXT TO him let alone refuse to help him out with his little computer issue. Imagine!! If it'd been co-operative and sorted him out, he'd be forever grateful and I would have made a little difference in an icon's life!! Sigh.... I really should work on my celebrity spotting so that I can coolly ignore them instead of being rudely oblivious. Have spotted Tracey Emin and Gilbert & George whilst mooching about this hood but have always been too polite to stare. Except for Pete Docherty whom I usually scowl at as he's often just in my way.

Sleeve-o-matic

2007-05-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

I have a thing about sleeves, once I've raced through knitting up the backs and fronts of garments as per the order suggested by patterns I'm normally jaded and the thought of knitting two sleeves turns me off. I have such an aversion that I'm thinking of just sticking to sleeveless garments (it is summer after all). But even so, the Courtney dress from Rowan Studio 1 would look pretty ridiculous without sleeves I reckon - so I've resigned myself to my fate. Then I remebered a conversation with Loba at K's & P's where she helpfully suggested that perhaps I should start the projects with the sleeves and get the difficult stage over and done with. Loba's great, I am going to miss her muchos when she returns to Denmark although she is trying to persuade us to go over for a knitting symposium in September. Aside from the small fact that all of us apart from Loba can't understand a single word of Danish, it's a top idea. How would we contribute to the symposium when they are discussing the merits of toe-up socks or the state of the yarn industry is just by-the-by. Hmmm,... I have a feeling pointing and gesticulating wildly just won't lend our contingent any credit. We could always go for the scenery I guess as the symposium is apparently held on a very pretty island. I guess we could always go and nod politely at whatever's said to us and attempt the universal language of the K's & P's. I can just see us 'oohing' and 'ahhhing' as we stroke luscious yarns or gaze in awe at great knitted pieces of art.

Yorkshire Tweed DK - Blessed

2007-05-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

Little beret I made that's in desperate need of felting. Far, far too large! Made one a while back in red for my lovely friend Martina and have always wanted to make one for myself. A suggestion was made at Foyles that I should find someone with a big head to give it to,.. hmmmm.

Weekend of Kidsilk Haze.. hmmmmmm!

2007-05-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Yes , you're not mistaken Juliette Binoche is using some lovely electric blue kidsilk haze as pom poms. Heh heh, who needs photoshop eh? She mirrors how exuberant I feel about my new acquisitions. Thanks again Jenny!Was having a conversation with Cassie last night about the ksh after a fantastic meal at The Baltic and she reckons that electric blue is very this season so I guess i'll have to get a move on. I've been playing with the cherry reds I got at my capitulation during lent and the swatch above is the result.

Chaos @ Chez Rooney

2007-05-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Gruff started his DIY mission with the fine purchase of a new cordless drill. He was beaming from ear to ear as he stroked his new toy and I tried to look interested. I guess I'm getting a taste of what he must go through when I rattle on about new yarn. In any case, the photos above and below capture the chaos of my little flat in the last week. Gruff's stuff seems to have mushroomed - I looked around with increasing despondency about where all this stuff would go and what more stuff I'd have to chuck out to make space. Thankfully we are getting there and it'll all be sorted out by this weekend because I got the JOB!! Found out yesterday and I start next week! My blissful little existence consisting of fun stuff like hanging out with flib eating ice-cream in her beautiful garden and knitting at Foyles is coming to an abrupt end.Boo... and just as I was beginning to think that I could get used to loafing about. I had to go through 3 interviews with about 5 different people just to get this job which is a temporary one! Seems pretty excessive to me but at least they're thorough. Oh well, at least it'll fund my yarn obsession

I ditto what the Clanger's thinking

2007-05-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

Sick of this stupid cold

2007-04-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

Spent the whole weekend sneezing and filling the flat with soggy tissues. Nice eh? It started on Thursday evening completely out of the blue which meant that I had to miss Knitflicks on Saturday - most annoying as I was really looking forward to watching the film and I haven't been to a screening in ages. Was all hyped up to go to the flower market on Sunday as well but the thought of all that pollen cuaisng me to sneeze on unsuspecting punters put me off.

Haven't been able to do much tidying or purging in the flat which means that poor Gruff will only have a little corner for his stuff when he moves in this weekend!! Oh dear, should get my skates on really. But what's offered some consolation is a little dusky pink, picot-edged beret that I started on Thursday (hmmm,.... love the tweedy colours although I think it'll go down in my memory as The-beret-I-made-when-I-had-that-nasty-cold-that-didn't-want-to-go-away).

This cold has meant that I can't enjoy my new status as unemployed bum although I have a telephone interview later on which is just as well - don't think I'm likely to impress anyone with my red nose and blotchy, watery eyes. This is my second interview with a big, prestigious, slave-driver, bumper profit making American-Jewish bank - yes, THAT one. I'm already pretty chuffed that my CV made it through to the interview stage. Har, har.... when I told Gruff he was completely oblivious and therefore unimpressed about what a big deal it is that they took the time to see me - it's what I adore about Gruff. IfI get the hands free thingy to work, I could even continue knitting my beret as they grill me about important banking stuff. Hee hee!

Clyde bag and crocheted flower

2007-04-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Not sure what kind of flower I was trying to recreate but it took several attempts and in the end I ran out of time. Man, I can be so anal sometimes about getting it perfect.

Little Clyde bag served me well except I tried to stuff it with too many things and the bottom just barely held out. First felted item though and it's mildly addictive. Instead of using a taffeta ribbon as instructed - I cut up the sleeve of an old silk shirt that I had ruined in the wash which coincidentally matched my dress - happy days!

Little red hat gets glammed up for the ball

2007-04-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

I had problems with the finishing of this little red delight - a whole raft of questions flooded my mind, ribbon or no? what type? what colour? and then Gruff suggested a flower which prompted some frenzied crocheting. It ended up being placed on the Clyde bag and substituted with a leather hair thing which made it look slightly more contemporary. A bit of a cobbled-together hat but I love it.

Hooking & Felting

2007-04-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

To all you non-crafters out there - this is nothing seedy. Gail & I went to a crotchet workshop at Fabrications which was run by the talented Rachel Matthews who has written some great books about twisting fibres.

Concentrating & absorbing information was hard with a hangover and I felt a little disabled. Just using one tool and one main hand felt strange and abnormal. It's a bit like going from skiing to snowboarding, the terrain's (yarn's) the same but you have less equipment and more liberty to 'free-form'. Knitting is more regimented, technical and perhaps austere whereas crotcheting feels more wanton. Hmmm,... haven't really got a preference and I did wonder whilst I was struggling why I was putting myself through this when I've already got an knitting obsession. Seems slightly sadistic! I am a little smitten with being able to create alien-like, oddly-shaped items of woolly blobs see my jellyfish like thing above.

In preparation for the wedding this Saturday, I have also been felting with the much loved Yorkshire Aran Tweed.... not sure how it's supposed to look but I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Other more mundane news - I have handed in my notice! Har har!!!.... Will miss my 14th floor office and the lovely view of the London Eye that twinkles in the sun. But I feel relieved so that's definitely a sign that it's the right decision. It's a bit of a shame as I'm getting along with the girl I previously posted about. We have been getting along recently i.e. she gave me an easter egg - and yes, chocolate is the surest way into my affections.

Also got offered a job in Hong Kong which meant a lot of agonising navel-gazing and thinking about whether to leave this smelly old town and future life-directions. I've been free-forming too much without any coherent overall vision. It might be nice to be back in Asia and the post-holiday blues inducing a bit of london fatigue has kicked in. Guess I have to sit down and write out a proper life-pattern to follow. Hmmmm,....

Crucial yarn maintenance

2007-04-03T03:35:00.000-07:00

Some lovely Debbie Bliss Maya yarn that needs to be wound up. I think this will be used for Mong's Acorn hat which I'll use Woolly Wormheads hat pattern for.

The flat's been in dire need of a good clean and I have been distracted with planning for the holiday, hats and other good and far more interesting things. So yesterday evening, Gruff and I decided to tackle our ever-increasing muck together in a joint effort of mutual support. Gruff had the pretigious task of cleaning the bathroom (doesn't it look sparkly?) whilst I was in charge of tidying up - fair enough since most of the mess is knitting related and most of the toilet's mess is erm, Gruff related. In the midst of all this, Gruff came up to the bedroom and caught me off guard.

Gruff: Where did you put the....(suspiciously) what are you doing?

Me: (guilty look on my face) Erm,.... nothing, I mean erm.... (brightly) I'm organising.... (Trying to look busy & occupied)

Gruff: (resignation in his voice) You're playing with your yarn aren't you?!!

Me: Nooooooo.........., (unconvincingly) I'm organising it.

Sigh,... sorry Gruff! But it urgently needed doing. There was a pressing requirement to stash my stash so that I can erm, take stock. Kind of... have decided to monitor my yarn addiction and I'm setting aside a strict monthly yarn budget since I know that strict abstinence is impossible.

More (blue) stuff on the go.

2007-04-03T03:23:00.000-07:00

The nobbly mess on the left will be transformed into a hoodie this weekend for my baby nephew Alex. Long overdue - this was supposed to be his x'mas present - oops!

The blue stuff above is my Sidar sea cushion that's been my telly/movie project as it's just a straight st st. The yarn's got such nice hues in it that anything complicated and cabley would just detract from it.

Le slouch hat - hmmmmm.....

2007-04-03T03:20:00.000-07:00

Love this hat - am slightly anxious though that it's not formal enough for a wedding and I'll end up looking like a complete berk (i.e. the strange wedding guest).

Will seek the advice of the wise ladies at K's & P's tomorrow. Not even sure if it needs beads etc as the seed stitch gives it a nice texture which suits the tweedy flecks. Am glad that the weather's confounded expectations and turned chilly for April as it means that i'll be able to wear this for another few weeks.

Le Slouch is replacing the space in my heart that's been left by the 'Duck' glove of my knucks that was lost on the number 8 bus. (sniff, sniff). I've even been tempted to call the 'Lost & Found' department of London Transport in a vain effort to retrieve it.

Jaeger yarn

2007-04-03T03:12:00.000-07:00

This is the yarn for my ripple along blanket. All that remains is for me to learn how to crotchet! Bought this at the X'mas Liberty's sale where they were reduced to £2 a ball... which of course meant I had to buy loads of it. Love the colours though, earthy and natural. Will have a play on the random stripe generator this afternoon to see what it offers up.

Oh what fun awaits!

Fun with wild plums

2007-04-02T04:02:00.000-07:00

Bought the yarn below so that I could make the bag on the left. This has now been used for Le Slouch which I started on Thursday evening and finished on Sunday. One of the fastest projects I've ever completed. Plus I had enough left over to make one side of the bag which will compliment the hat nicely. I am truely IN LOVE with this yarn - the first thing I did this morning was to knit a couple of rows with this. How sad am I? But what's even more tragic is that this yarn has been discontinued!!! (Maybe that's one of the reasons I love it so - it's an endangered, extinct species?) Why do yarn companies do this? Have been scouring the tinternet this whole weekend to search for more in this and other shades. Will let you know how the mission ends.

Weddings and Hats!

2007-03-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

My dear friend P is getting married in a couple of weeks and this has prompted a flurry of creative activity and ideas. I like to use these special events to create something memorable and unique for the occasion. Besides, the idea of paying good money for something you only wear once seems to be a flagrant waste of funds which could be channelled towards increasing one's stash (because you're worth it! Read this!).

One of the first things I made in my young knitting career was for my good friend Jon's wedding last May. It was based on this in the first Rowan magazine I bought.

But this is what I ended up creating:

Let me first explain that it was a cold, windly May afternoon and the photo captures a strong gust of wind almost blowing off my satin pashmina - hence the gormless, dorky expression. I did look the picture of composed elegance (see left) for most of the lovely ceremony - honest!

For P's wedding, I'm thinking of making a plum red beret based on Knitandtonic's Le Slouch jazzed up with some beads and sequins, perhaps with an eyelet row at the bottom of the ribbing to thread some ribbon or velvet for a flapper look. Hmmm,.... might have to check out the Bead Shop on Beak street as yesterday's hunt at Liberty's was slightly disappointing.

Rooneys on Snow!

2007-03-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Nothing clears your head better than a mountain holiday. It must be the combination of fresh air and the demented act of hurling yourself down steep slopes that makes you feel so darn good to be alive. We were fortunate enough to have 4 days of heavenly snow followed by 2 final days of glorious sunshine. I'm also happy to report that Gruff's caught the snowboarding bug and got the hang of the whole turning thing really quickly. By day 5, he was looney enough to be doing little jumps with me.... It's one of the things I love about snowboarding, you just have to throw caution to the wind and go for it. You feel exhilarated, thrilled and you get wrapped up for days in those delicious feelings. Maybe it's the purity of the white snow or the sugar-coated green conifers that gives you that high. I always come back from these holidays feeling changed, transformed, empowered and elevated with a mysterious & quiet force.

Did almost have a VERY bad injury though, was tightening up my bindings and dislocated my thumb! Yes, it snapped back in a truely hideous manner but cool as anything, taking it all in my stride despite the unspeakable pain - I just popped my thumb back and wriggled it about. I was that determined to board that not even a broken thumb was going to stop me. It was blue for a couple of days but contrary to my worries, I could still knit which meant that it wasn't a debilitating injury. Phew, I say!

The naming of colors

2007-03-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

Today's post is prompted by some magnificent collisions of colour that I witnessed on the tube this morning. A bright fruschia wrap casually drapped on a lady was lodged next to a brilliant turquoise on another fellow commuter. One rarely sees such vibrant splashes of colour in the dull, grey expanse of city workers in the morning rush. There was an inspired combination of maroon on beige, vermillion and grey and orange on brown (damn, where's my bloody camera when you need one!)

I then remembered a young temp at a previous firm who was amassing booze money over the summer holidays for his next term at Cambridge. Young boffin had a habit of sending emails in Latin (??!!) and endeared himself to no one by constantly correcting their grammar and punctuation which only served to make us feel like naughty schoolchildren. (How cheeky, honestly young people these days have no tact!). But young boffin was clearly quite intelligent and would someday join the legion of crusty academics coccooned off another planet. He told me that he wanted to do a Phd on Modern Languages and went on to explain his idea for his dissertation which would examine how different cultures with their different languages develope their own terms of reference to describe colour. Of course, whilst boffin was going off in a mini-lecture, I drifted off hardly listening much like most of my time at college.

But today, I was struck by how young boffin had an interesting point. The word 'blue' doesn't just describe a visual shade of pigment but also a state of being low. Black is synonymous with evil, white with purity and good, green with envy... and I remember one of my most heated arguements with Gruff was over colour. I insisted something was blue and he was convinced it was green... i kid you not, this debate went on for hours and even spilled over into the next day.

Me: 'It's so blue, it can't be anything else!'

Gruff: 'That's not blue, it's definitely green!'

Me: 'You must be blind then because it's blue'

Gruff: 'It's green, anyone can see that...!' (you get the picture and yes, perhaps Gruff & I should get out a bit more)

I also remember my grandfather's funeral when an aunt who was already disliked by the whole clan had the gumption to wear red - a colour symbolising celebration and joy. More howls of weeping and consternation followed and said aunt became further ostracised. Funny how colour can evoke such strong passions.

Don't know about you, but I'm off to study the colour wheel now!

My fluffy contribution to high couture

2007-03-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Those of you at K's & P's will know that I was busy knitting some fluffy mohair hats for my friend Sara's final year project. She did knitwear for her MA in Fashion at Saint Martin's. Much to everyone's dismay, she wasn't selected for the cat-walk show despite having worked so hard these last 9 stressful months. Anyway, I saw the ones that were selected and they were pretty insipid and unimaginative. Ludicrously sculptured outfits that a Guardian journalist called the 'Zoolander' look. Whilst I'm not into bling myself, I thought Sara's idea of studding knitwear was ingenious and a bold way of updating the dowdy image that knitwear generally has.

These terrible photos were taken at her exhibition recently and what they fail to capture is the hours of painstaking, finger-aching work that went into placing each and every stud in those intricate patterns resembling intarsia.

Sara got a pretty good spot in the exhibition compared to some poor students who were stuck in a grotty corner but it was sad to see these beautiful garments just hanging limply when they deserved to be displayed in all their gorgeous dimensions.

Don't those fluffy hats look sweet? (Ahem!) Some of them got studded too which made them look pretty gangsta. Now THAT's something you don't usually find in the woolly world of knitwear.

p.s. speaking of 'gangsta' and opposites, I saw Pete Docherty this morning on my way to work and he looked like a right old pasty, weedy, indie-boy.

15% off - Bah!

2007-03-08T04:12:00.000-08:00

One bloody week - my stupid, dumbass attempt to be pious and refrain from indulgent, sinful, yarn buying lasted 7 days. All because it was 15% off and I was weak.

I've managed to go into Liberty's and not buy any yarn for the last few weeks before our K's & P's at Leon. But it must have been the free wine coupled with the combined efforts of Flibbertygibbet & Caroline sitting on my shoulder and whispering encouragement that pushed me over the edge. Once the beast was unleashed, I splurged and gave my card a good spanking. So to atone, I hereby confess that yesterday at Liberty's I, Knitterrooney bought;

- some tiny sock dpns
- the Rowan Studio 1 book (which was the Delilah that emasculated me) because I then had to buy
- 5 balls of Kidsilk Haze and 2 balls of Felted Tweed for 2 of the patterns.

and once those were in my basket, I found myself picking up 4 balls of RYC Cashsoft Baby Alapaca for some cabley socks I have in mind. In my defence, I did actually put some yarn back in order to limit the financial freefall, the damage could have been a LOT worse.

I feel quite relieved & relaxed now - I was getting hot and flustered, my heart was palpitating wildly, my palms were getting damp and I could feel the beads of sweat forming on my forehead as I stood in Liberty's battling my yarn demon. Okay, so in this instance I succumbed to my darker desires but if there are lessons to be learnt from this whole debacle - it is that you must embrace the inner you and not embark on flighting worthless battles,... I feel humbled and enlightened by the experience (although my stash has got heavier - heh heh!) and next year, I'll stay clear of any knitting related abstinences which has proved impossible and just vow to be nicer to pensioners, let them have my hard-fought seat on the tube or something similarly challenging. Hee hee ...

(I'm chuffed to bits now just thinking about the knitting goodness to come! I'm so glad I listened to Fibbertygibbert and Caroline's wise words of support. Oh, how I've suffered this past week!)

Lent and Cats

2007-03-01T04:32:00.000-08:00

The Big Blanket project which I blogged about here was initially going to be this - i loved the geometric squares and all the countless colour permutations. What dampened my enthusaism somewhat was the prospect of sewing up all those darn squares of which there would be many. And THEN, I saw this and the happy, cheery colours convinced me that it'd be a lot simpler and stress-free as no sewing up is involved. The only small, snag in my grand masterplan is that I can't actually crotchet. Yes, yet another one of my loony ideas - i think I live in denial that I have a proper, grown-up job and that I need sleep to function properly in life. At yesterday's K's and P's, I discovered that there is a whole rippled crotchet blanket craze going on in blogsphere. It is really comforting to know that there are others out there who are similarly obsessed and preoccupied with the project. It also bodes well that it's a guaranteed stashbuster project which ties in nicely with me giving up yarn buying for Lent. My last purchase yesterday was for this project which got delivered here at work a few hours ago. Hoorah! I was just sitting here at my desk, lost in thought about my knitting and yarn fixation and then by magic it materialised before my very eyes. (Great, speedy service online shop! - I'm very impressed). If I wasn't caught up in my woolly thoughts almost all of the time, I'd be half inclined to believe I possess special yarn-summoning powers. (Hah! Jedis eat your heart out). Gruff has learnt to recognise the glazed, thoughtful expression that comes over when I'm listening to him talking about work, music, sockets. He knows that in secret I'm dreaming about yarn, patterns, books, projects and that I could happily spend hours unravelling these delightful thoughts. When he confronts me in exasperation - 'you're thinking about your knitting!' I just have to sheepishly concur. I think Gruff should start a victim's support group perhaps called 'Partners of Yarn Addicts Anonymous' - they could all sit around drinking tea and sharing biscuits whilst wiping away the odd tear saying sadly to each other; 'She used to be normal - what's happened to us? The floor is strewn with needles and I found some bags of yarn stashed in the car boot/under the bed/in the garage.' They'll then all discuss these alarming tendencies and come to the conclusion that their partners are slowly turning into cats. Meow.

Midweek blues

2007-02-28T06:54:00.000-08:00

Finished my pair of Fetching over the weekend - my fastest ever knitted item yet and one that wasn't driven by a dead-line. I normally throw myself into knitting overdrive to finish a project because i'm meeting the person in 5/3/1 hours time and it MUST be ready otherwise it'll be summer when they finally get their woolly gloves/scarf/hat.

Fetching was such a joy to make as the exhilaration of doing the 'cabley thing' just got me on a roll. I'm trying my best to temper this new obsession because it might just wear me out and I'll quickly reach saturation point. It's happened with the Knucks - having now made 4 (2 of which were back to back), I must confess that the prospect of making yet another pair fills me with a little dread. I was so thrilled with the pattern that yarn for 2 more Knucks have already been bought,... oh dear, perhaps I should find some other use for the felted tweed. Hmmmm,.... in the meantime, I've given myself a bit of a break from gloves with a baby beret hat as a surprise 'Thank you' present. I'm making it with DB Pure Cotton in pink which is a welcome change from the blue, blokey coloured stuff I've been making of late.

But speaking of the blues, I was saddened to read about this. So much of it seems driven by simple economics yet the long term reprecussions of gender demographics and the intrinsic devaluing of a person's life just makes me feel so angry and impotent. What makes it aggravating is that there are a whole host of contributing factors and no easy solution is in sight when it's a result of a firmly entrenched, pernicious cultural belief. Midweek blues indeed.

Goodness Cables Me...

2007-02-23T04:20:00.000-08:00

Have been struck by the cable virus - my thoughts have been twisting and spiraling around a pair of grey fingerless gloves I'm knitting. Started on my first cable with some trepidation at this Wednesday's K's & P's and it is so addictive! Will try to post some photos soon although I still haven't really got the hang of my new digital camera which continues to produce fuzzy photos - the fact that I've got shakey hands reminiscent of an ex-junkie has obviously got nothing to do with it. Hmmm, maybe I should cut down on my tea and sugar intake.

The other exciting event this week has been rediscovering the joys of cinnamon (the word istelf sounds so yummy, cinnammmmmmmmmmon). It's a crucial component of my morning porridge but last night, my obssesion with it went one stage further. I sprinkled a little bit in some fried onions and potatoes and I kid you not, it was yummy-licious.

Funny how my 2 favourite things this week both start with C - there's also the double whammy of the Chocolate Cake we had at Wood's birthday on Saturday - yum, yum! Unfortunately, all this goodness invariably brings me unto the nastiness in my life which also start with C. Yup, it's the CA-LOR-IES and Cross-trainer,... booooo, hissss!!

But back to cables (see how the subject keeps coiling back?), I can't wait to finish the gloves so that I can perhaps start on this or this! My cabley ambition clearly knows no bounds.

Kicking back!

2007-02-15T01:16:00.001-08:00

The movie was fantastic plus it featured some kick-ass knitting to boot. As Pip's declaring his love and pouring his heart out to Estella - she is calmly knitting a sock next to the evil, wretched Miss Havesham, her needles flashing as she tells him she's marrying someone else. The small tiny gestures signalling how she's pierced and wounded his heart repetitively through the years. Must go back to the book to check if it was Dicken's idea (Knitting features in 'A Tale of 2 cities' that I know). What does that say about us knitters I wonder - we're femme fatales moulded to break men's hearts? Cool ice queens with the potential for good and light? In the 'Happily ever after' between Pip and Estella, I imagine her knitting and churning out socks and jumpers for Pip, the good old Joe Gargery and kind Biddy in contented marital bliss. (My eagle eyes also spotted the scarf that young Pip wears later reappearing around Herbet Pocket's neck... hmmmm, looked like a double-ribbed, worsted yarn CO 25 perhaps?)

But I can finally breathe now that all the tat is off the shop shelves and obscenely expensive dead roses aren't being sold on street corners. Funnily enough, there was one V. Day that actually did involve continuous projectile vomitting on my part. I'd long suppressed the memory just simply because it was so embarassing. (There's a great blog on Valentine's Day disasters).

My traumatic experience occured some years back when I should have known better - went with my shady boyfriend to a top-notch restaurant owned by a celebrity chef (all the alarm bells should have been ringing by then). We'd left it a bit late and therefore could only get an early table which meant we had to be done by half-9. The meal was so-so, far too over-priced for what it was and packed with couples trying to be intimate in what was esstially a canteen. Pretentious, urban chic trying to be coolly romantic - that description befitted the eatery and our relationship.

What ensued when we got back to my flat was the ultimate barf-o-rama, an orgy of puke - I chundered as I had never chundered before or thought humanly possible. At one point I thought my entire being was going to get flsuhed away - I was staring death in the face as I clung to the rim of my toilet bowl, peering down its watery, smelly depths with my glazed eyes. Each time my 'lover' tried to look at me to tell me how special he thought I was, I had to run to the toilet to empty my guts. It happened about 20 times the whole evening.... I think my body was wholeheartedly rejecting the whole tackiness of the evening's proceedings and was nauseated to the core.

Needless to say, that 'relationship' did not last - I'd always thought there was something insincere and shifty about the guy anyway but I'd been thrown off track with his oily charms. The moral of the story is to stick to nice and simple and ignore all the pressures to declare your love - it ain't no one else's business!

Amazing Grace

2007-02-13T02:28:00.000-08:00

Had a cultural binge which started on Friday all the way through to Saturday evening. Even managed to squeeze in a visit to a gallery and Bikram yoga in between. As I was walking from Bikram to the gallery, all I could think about was the grace of the previous night's dancers and how my name means Graceful, my full name being 'Graceful one of the family'. I'd always thought it was pretty naff and never bothered to invest it with much thought. But this weekend, I really pondered its significance (or lack of) in my life, how my parents must have agonised about the choice of name and how perhaps I should redirected my life towards living gracefully - specifically not pigging out so much, pulling so many childish & silly faces and generally being more disciplined. How I'd like to have more grace and poise and how giving grace and being thankful would make me less dissatisfied with life.

I thought about an aunt of mine who was also called Grace and how that word is so linked with the 'Hail Mary' (ies) that people recite verbatim. (Learnt once in poetry class that the last word in a line of a poem is always the most magnified).

Then, eerily enough at the exhibition, as if to cement this recurring thought in my mind - one of the rooms contained footage of a little old biddy singing 'Amazing Grace' on loop in a wispy voice. It was just far too much, every time the song played, I seemed to hear the words afresh discovering a new emphasis each time. It's one of those songs you've always known all your life but it was almost as if I was actually listening to it for the first time- 'Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound (??) that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see. A pretty simple ditty with an obvious choice of sensory words to rhyme with each other but it also made it very human and visceral - the song is also of course loaded with significance as a paen to slavery and suffering that promises redemption, enlightenment. Hmm, definitely food (chocolate) for thought.

On a another note, i've been sickened by all the crass, distasteful displays in shops cashing in for V. day. - it's enough to induce projectile vomitting. Do these marketing men actually think that heart-shaped bears in vermillion red somehow reflects the state of romance or is an appropriate token and sign of one's affections?? Do they all think that the combined waft of gorgonzola cheese encapsulated in their stupid teddys will elevate us to a higher state of ecstacy? Any alien descending upon earth right now would think that all humans were infantile retards with purile fantasies. I know it shouldn't make me so angry but it just smacks of how people have such limited imaginations and how they're high-jacked emotionally.

And before you wonder, no - i'm not single but if I were, i'd hope that sheer tackiness of the whole affair would make me choose a lifetime of celibacy rather than such obvious and contrived gestures. In fact, if I get a Huggy Bear from Gruff, I will tear it apart from seam to seam and yank out the stuffing to shove it up his jaxxy.

Ok - tirade over,.... one day I will learn how to rant gracefully. I'm honestly not a bunny boiler ... hee hee. (Man, that just makes me sound even more deranged!)

First photos - hooray!

2007-02-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

Made this little Kimono Top from a 'Quicknits' book bought off Amazon. A bit of an impulse buy but it was a case of yarn greed - and my eyes being too big for my.. err.. stash? Also has some yarn that I bought from Loop on a whim when I had delusion about making a big blanket. Notice a trend here? Anyway, I know the top looks a bit like a small straightjacket but my nephew Alex is very little with long ape-like arms so this will definitely fit. Plus, the straightjacket functionality might come in handy when he's being particularly naughty - which is more often than not! Made a few adjustments to the fastenings because I couldn't be arsed to make 6 Icords plus naughty Alex squirms and wiggles whenever you try to dress him so tying up 3 cord-like things will be next to impossible. Not sure what the consensus is with toggles and babies but I thought they'd be much more practical and easy to fasten.

The 2-coloured scarf was inspired by one I saw at The National. Kept staring at this lady's neck and was itching to ask her if she could take it off so that I could examine its construction more closely. Thankfully, restraint was exercised on my part but this is the result - a present for my friend Kartini. I like the fact that she can choose to change the way she wears it from day to day and according to the whims of how she feels that day - optimistic and looking forward to spring (limey) or warm and flushed with life (pinky)?. I know that it if it were me, I'd be racked with indecision every single day so it's good that I haven't got one of these (must confess though that I was sorely tempted to make one for myself!).

Now that I can load on photos - i'll have much more to share - bring on the Ks and Ps I say!!

p.s. also found a long lost friend - Lisa who runs the divine U-Handbag! I met Alan and her on a idyllic, remote, diving island in Indonesia when I was on my year out. Bumped into her last year then promptly lost touch again. But I was looking at some comments on a crafting blog last week and chanced upon her again - I love the little moments of serendipity that Life throws up.

Stringfellows

2007-02-01T01:38:00.000-08:00

Haven't been blogging much about my knitting lately so here goes;

My 'Beer & Duck' Knucks were finally completed - all I needed to do was sew the lettering on but I had too many UFOs on the go. Plus I had to frog Gruff's hat as it was too fluffy for his liking although I still think that it made him look ultra sweet and adorable, anyhoo the point was to make something he would actually wear so it was reworked over the weekend and now has a grey stripe on it - Gruff has a thing for stripes, add in that and he'll wear it. The fluff in his first hat was caused by the mixture of kidsilk haze with the RYC soft tweed - that's now been used in my fluffy legwarmers which were inspired by Sarah hats.

Lost my big darning needle over the weekend whilst finishing Alex's kimono top - it's in the bed somewhere as I had a very lazy, lie-in blissfully reading and knitting in bed. So I HAD to pop into Liberty's to get a replacement and picked up some striped sock yarn inspired by Gail and some more Felted Tweed to start on another pair of Knucks. I looove Felted Tweed, it's so nice and soft to knit with plus I've promised Sara a woolly gift, hers are going to say 'Snow Babe' on them. (Thanks to Gail, I've learnt how to put links in - hooray!)

I have also joined a gym!!! Having ranted and raved in the past about how they're for sad-masochists, I've finally relented due to a growing necessity. Although it's not actually near the flat or work it is kind of on my way home if I take a detour. The main thing that swung it for me was the 'no joining fee or mandatory 12 month contract' promise. What it lacks in convenience it more than makes up for with the great view of the Houses of Parliament - a deciding factor obviously besides the state of the changing rooms or equipment. Have a look!

On the entertainment front - it was Nigel's birthday so we went to the Bavarian Beerhouse and THEN ended up in a strip joint! My first ever time, it was also one of the seediest, according to our guide. It was Gruff's first time too but ladies get in free - (special discount - i like it) here's an email account to P about the night;

'went to my first strip-joint yesterday (it was Nigel's birthday and we all got very drunk - I'm still a little bit hungover). Anyway, I take it that you've never been to one so this is what happens (in a nutshell) - nice ladies old and young go round with a collection - they're obviously a little poor because their undies have gotten quite tatty and skimpy. They then show you how cold they'd get if they were naked and how they'd need to rub themselves warm with the help of some poles. You then donate some more money so that they can buy some decent coverings. Gruff got told off by some ladies because the only loose change (har, har) he had on him were coppers, it obviously goes against Strip-joint etiquette. Useful information to know when you go there for your stag-do!'

P doesn't fancy ladies so I doubt he will ever have to experience the poles. I told Gruff that if I ever had a hen-do, it'll be guys in various types of jumpers, maybe some woolly Y-fronts with exotic yarn wrapped around their bodies, they'd have to twirl around to unravel it and perhaps cavort around huge giant knitting needles - maypole dancing styley.... I think it would go down well just on the novelty factor, I could call it 'Tingsters Stringfellows'? Genius!

6 weird facts about me

2007-01-26T09:43:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged by Helen – (thanks!) – now my devoted readers will realise what a complete loon I am. I did actually think of a couple more than 6 but had to cancel out some that should just remain confidential. So, here goes;

1. When I was little, I’d watch old black & white movies on our tv and somehow came to the private conclusion that colour didn’t exist in the world before the 1950’s. I clung to this belief for many years and finally shared my theory with Kim, my sister when I was 9. She promptly laughed in my face and told everyone we knew which made me look like a complete idiot – thanks sis, love you too.

2. I was born with a little hump-like thing on my back. My poor mother, she must have thought she’d given birth to Satan’s child. I can’t in my wildest dreams imagine the pain she must have been through. What must she have thought at the end of a hell-ish 23 hour ordeal when she looked down at this deformed, bloody crying mess of a creature. The hump-like thing went quite quickly and my parents have managed to get over their suspicions, I think.

3. At the grand old age of 10, I decided that all I wanted from life was to have a never ending supply of my 2 all-time favourite things - books and Tropicana Orange juice. Nothing else was necessary for me to be happy and content – I was a simple child.

4. I sometimes sleep with my eyes half-open – I’ve never seen it myself (obviously) but I know it has freaked some people out. They either think I’m awake and try to have conversations with me or according to some others, I look like a corpse.

5. I went to a convent school, was dragged off to temples by relatives when I was little, briefly went to a Methodist Church on Sundays and even joined the youth fellowship. Luckily, I’ve managed to escape the clutches of organised religion relatively unscathed although I reckon a little of the Catholic guilt thing has rubbed off on me.

6. I would secretly like to live inside a man’s body for 24 hours. Before my feminist sisters out there chastise me, I want to make it clear that it is purely out of curiosity – to experience urinating standing up and having a tumescent penis, I do actually enjoy being a woman.

I have no one to tag unless I can somehow re-tag other people??? Is that allowed in tagging universe?

1 down - 33 to go

2007-01-23T07:18:00.000-08:00

Hurrah, Sarah was pleased with her fluffy hats and these were delivered on saturday. It was such a relief that I managed to meet this deadline even though it meant a lot of intense knitting whilst hanging out with the girls on Friday and being teetotal. I've got my fingers crossed for her assesment today, I really hope she makes the show - plus my hats will get a little strutting on the catwalk which would be wicked. It was actually really fun being involved in her little crafting club - there were about 6 people in different parts of her flat busy with either sewing, studding or painting. I also got to watch the first 2 episodes of the new 24 and Gruff got to watch the Simpsons which made him very happy.

So, that's now done and dusted which means that I can get on with finishing off some projects that have been loitering around like Asbo-ed hoodies.

Except for the fact that I've started a fixation with 2 new projects - a pair of fluffy greyish-blue legwarmers inspired by the grey January clouds and a sea cushion that I've decided to make out of some Sidar yarn I picked up from John Lewis. It's a lovely shade of blue and turquoise and reminds me of the sea and diving... ahhhhh..... will post some photos soon I hope.

I feel quite smug today if a little achey because I managed to make it to Bikram yoga yesterday. In fact, I feel even more virtuous (if that's possible) because yesterday was supposed to be the most depressing day in the year according to The Guardian and I for one was more than ready to slob out on the futon. I actually got quite a lot done because I had to organise my time properly. The dude Joachim taking the yoga class was the tallest guy I'd even seen who purred out instructions with a slight German accent. 'Fill ze strech, allaw yur baady to rich out. Bee patient, empty out yur mind as you foll in two ze pazicion.' I'm now working out a little timetable for my Extra-Curricular activities and am close to the big decision regarding the torture chambers.. urm, I mean gyms.

Confessions & Contrition

2007-01-19T06:42:00.000-08:00

I have been very bad. I think I need professional help.

Whilst surfing the net yesterday, I ended up buying some patterns off the Rowan website then wandered into Liberty's as it was late might Thursday shopping and ended up buying some bargain yarn. So I went into John Lewis during lunch today to find a pattern book for yesterday's yarn and ended up picking up another 10 balls of yarn just because they were on sale. Plus I bought more off the internet after I came back from lunch. I need to seriously stop this insane habit before I bankrupt myself and end up being an homeless bum on the streets because I've been fired from my job as I'm always on the internet blogging, reading other people's blogs, searching for knitting patterns and buying yarn.

I can just see it now, I'll be wheeling my mountain of stash in a Tesco's trolley with bits of colourful yarn twisted in my greasy, unwashed hair. I'll accost random strangers to tell them tales of how I used to be a city professional with a lovely flat in one of the trendiest parts of London. They'll wrinkle their noses and pull their children away from this deranged woolly witch of a woman. Being addicted to recreational drugs has at least some modicum of glamour, I feel so depraved with this yarn habit, can crack be any less addictive??

Sigh,... I need to exercise some self-control in all aspects of my life. I have been eating like there's no tomorrow so much so that my clothes no longer fit me. I don't know if it's a sign of abject misery that I have to console and satiate myself with food or happiness since there's also the theory that being miserable makes you loose your appetite and there is clearly no sign of that in my life. I find these angry, red gashes right across my tummy every evening which cry out, 'Loose the weight, you fat biffer!' It's getting to a point that I find it difficult breathing and it's seriously uncomfortable. I'm also incredibly nervous and paranoid about ripping the seams of my clothes whenever I sit down.

I need to confront this, bite the bullet and either buy an entire new wardrobe or just eat a lot, lot less i.e. no constant snacking on biscuits and chocolate throughout the day. Since the first option is clearly out of order (what? spend money on clothes instead of knitting books/pattern/tools/yarn/books??!!) - I just need to eat less,... and buy less yarn.... and skiv off less,... less, less less.... hmmmm,... I guess I could make a start by getting on with some work! Okay, I'll go make myself a cup of coffee now to perk myself up... and maybe have some chocolate biscuits with it, and THEN I'll get to work....

The Ks & Peas

2007-01-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

Frantic flags cling to their poles
and
Clouds rush by into the Grey
horizon.
Gale force winds have slowed our strides
and
Pressing work due last, last week
Glares out at me with hands on hips
and pursed up lips.

Instead,
I read page after page of
screen-based blogs about
Knitting (hurrah for the Phoenix
and Wasabi peas)
and
Books
and other fun mindless things.
Inner discoveries thanks to Myer's Brigs.
(I'm an INFJ for those in the know.)

This latest entry was inspired by
a man who vowed to learn
100 poems off by heart.

The morning's distraction
has therefore been reading
Poems that people like and know.
I like reading poetry,
I like writing poems
I like words that never reach the edge of the page
but hang suspended, kept up by the wind.

It's not my fault my inertia can't be moved
though gale force winds prevail.

Word dreams

2007-01-16T04:30:00.000-08:00

I have been on a huge reading over-drive and thereby making a small gnat-strengthed dent on my pile of 'unreads' which currently equates to about 97.67% of the books in my little flat.

(Come to think of it, I'm currently only utilising the same percentage of my stash. I might actually analyse the figures as part of my drive to be more organised - that way, i'll be able to keep track of yarn/book supplies, keep them low like inflation and hence ensure that should the flat ever catch fire, at least the firemen won't have to wrestle through a mountain of burning yarn and books to reach me)

I think I desperately need more sleep - was wide awake after washing my hair and read a few chapters of my Jilly Cooper book, indulgent I know but i need some fun to balance out the woolly grey blanket that is the January skies. This resulted in the most bizarre dreams involving horses, children, the payment of public-school fees and rich, lascivious property developers. Hmmm, I guess they make your dreams so much more interesting. Having (only) a day away from the book, I found myself struggling to remember who was who and how they inter-related. I much prefer getting stuck into a book at long, chunky sittings - finished most of 'Perfume' on the train to Exeter which made all the signal failures and delays vaguely tolerable.

With this influx of literary images and people embedded in my mind, I now find it next to impossible to get my mind switched onto more pressing things at work, issues that I have been sitting on. Important work stuff that I need to sort out! But it's hard to concentrate when my mind drifts off into the land of 'ks' n ps' and I think about what I need to knit next, for whom, in what order, by when etc.

Then flipping over to thinking about what book I want to read next and then what ECA I should do in the coming week, how to fit some swimming practise in and the time-tabling required. Honestly, I just wish real-life wouldn't get in the way of all the fun stuff!!

p.s. watched a programme on growing your own vegetables hosted by a wrinkled and over- enthusiastic witch-like lady and I so long for a garden - life's SO unfair (mentally thumps table)

Dancing fish

2007-01-10T05:08:00.000-08:00

Went on a Total Immersion weekend down in Hampton to learn how to swim freestyle - it has changed my life. It focusses on swimming as an artform as opposed to sport and I can't wait to dip into a pool to practise the drills I've learnt. Who would have thought that balance and rotation goes into swimming, that it should be pared down to its bare essentials. We think that thrashing and pullling our way through down to the end of the lane in the fastest, spashiest manner is doing it right but it's about keeping swimming (and life) simple and gliding through with effortless grace and elegance. It's not a competition and learning patience was one of the major points constantly repeated to us. What a revelation and so applicable to everyday life. There was something zen-like about learning to love every stroke you take and embracing the water instead of fighting it. I realise that I need a lot of practise but being able to achieve more fishlike swimming would be just perfect.

Also went to my first ballet class last night and what a joy! The graceful stretches in time to the music was so calming and relaxing. I always knew that i'd enjoy it and Teresa our teacher was the archetypal, strict ballet mistress. I love learning new things and ballet has been one of those things I've thought about doing for the past few years and just never got round to for some crappy reason or another. Ah well, better late than never I guess. I'm secretly hoping that both swimming and ballet will help me with my Quasimodo-esque posture!

This Other Life

2007-01-04T04:52:00.000-08:00

Like most of the UK's 30-something, telly-watching populace the prospect of This Life + 10 was simply too intriguing. A symptom of the Friends Reunited syndrome. Yes, the characters still hadn't chaned much and could swear and bitch for England but surely that's the deep-seated fear that we all have within. That life and life lessns have taught us nothing, that we repeat the same mistake unable to escape our own demons and weaknesses. This Life was simply groundbreaking in terms of content and stylistically. I was a little too young to completely identify with the characters then but I suspected that this is how we were headed that we'd be a disaffected, unhappy, navel-gazing lot caught up in the trite minutaie of trivial anxieties. It was never 'real' or edgy (for that 'Shameless' pushes more buttons), you never believed that they were really lawyers, just young people in LA Law style pretending and blagging their way through their jobs much like what we all do. In any case, my post-uni life was more 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' than anything esle!

What followed was 'The Thick of it' - what a sublime show, the blinking politician on Paxman was hilarious. This and Radio 4 makes me happy to pay my license fee if only there was more.

Very excited - have joined the Bookcrossing thing and released 2 books this morning. Am planning on dropping a couple more off and hope this will make me read all the books I've amassed so that I can pass them on. Want to be better at reading the books on my list this year.

Also have to get on with the knitting of mohair hats which will mean all other projects taking a back seat for now.

Full moon over Marble Arch - Hello 2007!!

2007-01-02T09:37:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe it is 2007... it's so terrifying that we're 3 years away from 2010 yet numbers become meaningless after a while. It's just that it's so difficult to comprehend that the years flash by in minutes. What happened to 2001? 2003? My mind is completely blank.

Spent yesterday bursing a hangober from hell thanks to Harry at The Macbeth who was more than generous with his drinks. But at least I didn't shlep all the way to Shepherd's Bush and got to spend this New Year's hanging out in my hood. Everyone wanted to do seperate things and compromise wasn't really an option as people (myself included) dug in their heels.

Watched loads of telly yesterday under the duvet, shows that I hadn't watched in almost 20 years. 'Superman' - how tacky and cheesy? Couldn't help but be reminded of Christopher Reeves mortality and untimely death. It was again unfanthomable that Superman was fallible. 'The Great Escape' ( have never watched that from beginning to end but what a totty fest! Steve MacQueen... yum!). Then 'Top 10 wild dives with Tanya Streeter which was pure nirvana to me, I was deeply envious of her free-diving abilities but also that she got to dive in such cool and exotic places AND she swam with manta rays - something I want to do before I die! But her eyes lit up whenever she talked about dives and you could see in her aqua-marine eyes that she's got such a passion for the underwater world and a lot fo respect for its marine inhabitants. Then we got Melvyn Bragg interviewing Damien Hirst in 'The South Bank Show' which was brilliant as usual. Thought DH came across as really bright and unpretentious which was a revelation - Brit Art has never seemed cooler. Plus there were interviews with other artists who ranted against these youngsters at Art school who were more concerned with getting their hair gelled and sculptured than delving into art history. Sigh - we were all young and foolish once and we possessed such arrogance. So much time was wasted and we thought that youth was everlasting... and 2007 has crept up on us.

Then one foggy Christmas eve,...

2006-12-22T02:50:00.000-08:00

So after saying in my last blog entry that i'd rather stay in London for X'mas, my wish might actually come true what with the delays at Heathrow caused by the dense fog. From the view in my office on the 14th Floor, the whole of London looks eerie, like it's just shrunk and the fog's closing in - wasn't there some ghastly Stephen King novel once about an evil fog that was made into a movie? Before I spook myself silly, I'll just try to pretend that the whole town's become a giant sauna (ok, it's freezing in London at the moment I know but the whole object of the exercise is to pretend.....)

Am suffering a hangover from hell today as I got smashed up with P last night and then rolled up to the Alaska X'mas party where highlights of the night were these rappers and musicians jamming,.... something about 'South West Connection', my memory of the party is slightly hazy (or should I say foggy?) I think I might have embarassed Gruff a little by being the drunk, stumbling, shuffling girlfriend who's trying to dance (cringe factor 10). P and I went to a number of fine Soho establishments and tried unsuccessfully to look like discerning 30-somethings and drunk ourselves silly because we felt old amongst the trendy, nubile youngsters but it was good - P and I once used to stagger around Soho most nights of the week when we were also young and firm. I like to think that we'll still be carousing around in Soho when we're saggier and have surrendered to gravity.

But I was in Liberty's picking up yarn for Gruff's Knuck gloves and the yarn sale started before my very eyes! I couldn't believe it when the nice Rowan ladies started dragging out bags of discounted yarn and unpacking them in front of me. My eyes must have been popping out as I tried to peer through to see what goodies were in store and whether the full-price yarn I was holding in my arms would be in the discount bin. One of the Rowan ladies must have seen the naked greed in my eyes because she shoved a bag under the table away from me and gave me a sharp look before hurrying off to attend to a customer at the till. She was probably afraid of tempting the woolly animal inside of me that would have pounced on the bags, tearing through the plastic with my teeth and wildly delving through balls of yarn. It was pure serendipity, a magic moment- 40% off lovely yarn and no other shoppers to wrestle with - I'm sure my bank balance agrees. I was so spoilt for choice and trying to contain my urge to buy everything in sight and conscious at the same time that every ticking moment was making me even later for my appointment with P. It was 15 minutes of pure and agonising bliss - will try to post photos of my spoils soon.

It's a quiet day in the office and someone has just brought me the loveliest chocolate brownie cake I have ever tasted - it's from Borough Market and it feels as though I've just died and gone to heaven,... hmmmm,..... that maybe explains the fog.... and the Liberty's yarn sale..... ah, well - life despite the stupid delays is still pretty much good - I will try not to worry too much about the folks being disappointed should I not make it back for X'mas, it's all a bit much for my tender head at the moment.

Bedales, Cakes and Yarn

2006-12-21T02:07:00.000-08:00

Met up with the lovely ladies of the Pat Val knitting group after the longest time. Was really good to have a catch up and get pissed although I discovered that Alex's hoodie has now got a very strange row. Ah well, he's little and probably won't notice or mind. Am panicking slightly about getting the X'mas woolly presents completed in time. Have culled my list so drastically to realistically reflect that only Alex's and Mama's presents will be delivered - everyone else's including B's fingerles knucks gloves and grey scarf will have to wait. Next year, I'll start knitting Xmas presents in August! Managed to finish Freddy's aran jumper and Susan's scarf in time though, plus Martina's red beret and Diane's birthday bag were finally completed and delivered last Saturday. Phew,... I hate it when projects hang around for ages - way past their completion dates - I will try to be more organised next year and maybe less ambitious!

Since my last blog entry, I've had some lovely knitting adventures. Watched 'Casino Royale' at Knitflicks with Sofia who came down for my birthday, then I brought her to the lovely and cosy I Knit shop in Vauxhall so that she could buy me my present - poor Sofia was dragged along in my mad knitting obsession. Then when I brought B to the National to watch 'The Seafarer' I met Craig who owns the I Knit shop with Gerrard and he got us fantastic seats which was really very kind of him. It was B's first time in the theatre and I was so glad it was a good experience. Have also been asked to help out with a friend's final year fashion show at Saint Martin's. Her final project is going to be knitwear and I've been making little mohair, lace hats which has thankfully gone down really well.

Will be flying home for X'mas this Saturday, i'm slightly worried that there will be massive delays due to fog etc and kind of wished I was staying in London for X'mas this year, will miss the telly too much. How sad am I? Booo....

Day-dreamy days

2006-11-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

It’s been another day of constant distractions – my brain feels like a chaotic jumble of separate strands of thoughts all weaved together in a multi-coloured mess. I’m thinking about; my new knitting projects,

Cushions for Diane as a house-warming present
‘TBBP’ - i.e The Big Blanket Project - the Afghan I’ve decided to embark upon

The big spring-clean this weekend, the impending BIRTHDAY celebratory weekend… sigh. I think I’m prone to getting pensive and solemn around this time of year, I’ve been gazing out of windows far too much and staring at the office workers in the building across the road. They look so ‘occupied’ and busy and I find myself making up stories about the little dramas I see in front of me – much like James Stewart in ‘Rear Window’. My office chair doubles up as a wheelchair of some sorts I guess - I feel similarly confined and debilitated.

What did I use to spend my energies musing on in my former pre-knitting life??! I need to focus on having a knitting plan especially sticking to it and perhaps just get on with it instead of thinking too much and agonizing about making the right decisions about projects, colours, yarns etc etc.. (The story of my life!!) I drove Gruff to distraction last weekend as all I could talk about throughout dinner and after was TBBP. Drew endless diagrams and tried to come up with mathematical formulas about how many squares I should make, how many I should knit in x colour and how I’d stitch them together in a nice artistic way so that no 2 squares in the same colour wound up being next to each other . It’s going to be a woolly masterpiece that will occupy and demand a whole lot of my patience and energy – maybe this will prove to be my downfall, although I probably shouldn’t jinx it before I’ve even started.

I’ve been watching Simon Schama’s ‘Power of Art’ and last week’s programme was about Rembrandt painting his masterpiece in Amsterdam’s Town Hall which he ended up cutting to bits . The programme’s had a bit of flak for being patronising but I think he’s great, such enthusiasm and verve animating his eyebrows! I do concede that some of the dramatisations were a little naff especially in the inaugural episode on Caravaggio.

I have to remind myself of the things that have made me giggle recently, maybe set up a separate topic list – Gruff had me in peals of laughter when he attempted to knit after a hiatus of 20 years. The look on his little face, brows furrowed in concentration – it was adorable! I can see him getting addicted then dipping into my stash and us fighting over needles…. Hmmm, must stop being so fatalistic!!

Babies are like towels

2006-10-27T03:29:00.000-07:00

Right, hope to make writing this blog a bit more of a regular exercise. Read an article in The Guardian soon after starting my blog about the rise of the female blogger which has become a bit of a phenomenon and it kind of put me off writing for a while.

I don’t intend to make it a diary as such because that’s verging too close to the personal although you could argue that articulating your thoughts and feelings is in way revealing your inner workings. But I digress,…

Was at The Garrick yesterday evening to watch 2 comedians I know well and love Stephen K Amos & Phil Nichol. Phil won this year’s Perrier and deservedly so as he is extremely funny and one of the most-respected and hard-working comedians on the circuit. But the main thing that gets me and is hence the subject of todays blog-rant is that 2 punters IN THE FRONT ROW walked out of his set. They completely took offence and missed the point of what he was trying to say which is that we should all put our differences aside because at the end of the day we’re all made of the same stuff underneath all the material trappings, we are intrinsically flesh and blood. If they’d stayed till the end and seen him make his point then they would have learned a little or at least been shown a different point of view. But no, they decided to stalk off in a huff just because he was gyrating his crotch in her face, she was just too small-minded to take it or perhaps she thought she had to appear coy. Hah! When she’s old, withered and grey - she will pay good money to have that experience and will come to regret her priggish behaviour. He probably thought it’d be a chivalrous gesture to defend his lady’s honour by escorting her out of the audience but it was such a futile act because a) she didn’t have any and b) she didn’t just storm off, she milked her exit by bowing and holding her finger up to her mouth in that infantile pose that says ‘I’m-so-hurt-look-at-me-poor-me’. Anyway, they looked pretty dumb and I’m perhaps giving them far too much exposure than they deserve by even writing about them on my little blog. Phil’s comedy does often cross the line, in fact it’s probably more accurate to say that he zig-zags along the zig-zag of good taste and some dumb people will always try to ruin it for the others.

Wow- haven’t even got to my new knitting news and I have already waffled on – har har!
Went to Knitflicks which was brilliant, will have to spread the word as it wasn’t as well-attended as I thought it’d be. So soothing to hear the quiet clicking of knitting needles. Had a bit of a chat afterwards in the café with some other knitters and one of them told me about a knitting karaoke event and Wool Fest held up in the Lake District every May. It sounds great – very excited and intrigued.

I have been looking and refining my knitting spreadsheet and am suffering from severe indecision about what to make next and for whom. By the time I finish the jumper for a friend’s little boy, it’ll be summer and he won’t be in need of one! I have to factor in when I think I’ll complete the projects and how old these munchkins will be then. I also HATE knitting sleeves although making them simultaneously on one needle has eased the tedium somewhat. I detest going into the West End these days especially on a weekend but I need to pick up supplies and I’ll therefore use this opportunity to check out a new yarn shop in Vauxhall. I think I shall start the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Astrakhan ribbon-tied jacket thing for my little nephew Alex - have wanted to make it for him for the longest time but got distracted by great summer weather and the World Cup. Am slightly anxious that things won’t fit as babies seem to grow so quickly, almost like those towel things that expand 5 times bigger when you dunk them in water….. babies are like towels, that’s my end thought and message for today’s blog.

Ironing board on London tube

2006-09-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

Oh dear - feel like a right old plonker. How does one post pictures onto this - I have a feeling this is going to become a new obsession (as if I haven't got enough of them!!).

I'll start by listing all my knitting projects and I'll post some work-in-progress photos at a later stage.

- a raspberry beret (!) for my friend Martina who lost hers at the 'Children of Men' wrap party
- fingerless gloves for my sister who's coming to visit (it's the Knucks pattern off Knitty)
- a vest top for Sophia and Yasmin
- a raglan jumper for my baby nephew Alex
- a kitty bed for Honey Bunny

This is just a list of current projects - I have a whole Excel spreadsheet of ideas for projects many of which are Knucks gloves etc.... this X'mas, I'm going to make everyone gloves as opposed to scarves . I know it seems a little anal having a 12 columed excel spreadsheet but it's all part of my drive to lead a more organised life. e.g. I live opposite a great DVD shop, it's 6 paces away from my front door and I STILL return rentals late,... how crap is that?? Luckily for me, the owner is very nice and never charges me late fees (perhaps he feels sorry for me, the fact that my lack of organisation has instilled pity is not a good thing really). My good friend T has also offered to give up a weekend and come round to help me tidy up the flat,... I feel like some sort of charity case, maybe people will run the London marathon on my behalf next year to raise money for my cause....

But I am truely ashamed of my crapness that I am going to make a concerted effort to return my dvds on time,.. watched 'Election' last night and I was unexpectedly impressed. Reese Wtiherspoon reminded me so much of a girl I knew at school who was just as perky, pesky and annoying. I generally never watch movies like 'Election' but the nice lady at the dvd shop recommended it to me on Monday evening when I'd had a shitty day enduring the miserable London weather. After the lovely sunshine we enjoyed over the weekend, it was just so depressing to confront the fact that winter's drawing close. I don't generally mind it that much if I'm strapped on my snowboard and playing about on the slopes but there is no snow in London.... which reminds me.

When I went to Milton Keynes to pick up my Nitro snowboard I had to lug it back on the bus, train, tube and walk from Old Street station back to the flat. It felt so incongruous and I got lots of funny stares from people. The normal commuters didn't bat an eye-lid, as Londoners they're used to seeing strange things but I could hear some out-of-towners muttering something about a ski show... it was in March and London was enjoying a particularly sunny day,.. I felt like a right old idiot. Don't get me wrong, I was really stoked and pleased with the purchase of my new board I was trying my best not to look too smug or pleased with myself but I was also aware of people staring which in turn just made me twist up my face which probably made people stare even more.... I can just imagine their thoughts 'Look at that little freak with a deranged expression and what is she doing with an ironing board?'

2006-09-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

Hurrah!! At last, I have my blogspace. I have been threatening to do this for a while much to the bf's amusement. This will not help me much with my attempts to concentrate on work... booo, hiss hiss