Stash #2

Another of the amazing things about last Tuesday was being handed three large plastic bags containing these

... the original blocks from this book. E-J has blogged this much more successfully than I will (although she sells her own blocks short!) I've been getting ready for a family visit this weekend, but am hoping to lay them out somewhere this weekend and get a look at all of them (and, of course, take pictures!). We had them out on the pub table for much of the evening (although in the photo below most had been put away and Frances (on the back at the right) is looking at the last ones. Also pictured are Kate, Bekki and Rosie - E-J and Jackie were talking to the barman about scarves at the time...

Bekki's finishing of her top-down sweater was incredibly cool - have to investigate that! She just worked down the sleeve, cast off the cuff, sewed in an end et voilà... However, I found out last night that the knitting course I'm teaching at Cottenham in August is going ahead - so I'll be spending the next month knitting and hunting down samples and making class notes. It's a three-day class, so quite a major undertaking...

Stash #1

Very knitty day today, after a somewhat shaky start. This was Not The Day to attempt to go to London from Waterbeach. The train terminated unexpectedly at Cambridge and decanted us onto the platform with 1.5 minutes to get from platform 4 to platform 3 for the 9:15 (which was only going as far as Finsbury Park due to this). On your average station, this would be next door. On Cambridge station, where platform 1 runs into platform 4, and platform 3 is down past two branches of AMT coffee, one branch of Smiths, the entrance hall, the loos, sundry offices and several dozen people waiting for the Stansted Express with, seemingly, 200 suitcases each, you have to be moving at a fair clip to make it. I did - just. The halt, the slightly older, and those accompanied by small children, luggage etc. were trampled underfoot... The 9:15 pulled into Finsbury Park at 11:05, ten minutes before I was due in East Putney. Somehow I didn't think I was going to make it on time...

Thankfully Jan had her knitting and iPod on hand so was gainfully employed when I staggered cursing into the daylight...

We then went to Stash. Which is a wonderful place. Their blog has more pictures, and links to still others... They were fantastically hospitable and let us lounge around knitting, staring, cooing and fondling stuff in the shop for an hour and a half, and even gave us yarn to play with... Here's the damage:

One Lamb's Pride Worsted - I've heard so much about this yarn and its felting properties - and one Colinette Graffiti. Despite appearances these two are both meant to knit at the same gauge and I'm hoping they'll become a pair of knitted slippers. One Koigu; just because. A Susan Bates knitting gauge/measure/swatching tool, because it's pretty and cheap and lovely. A pack of Bryspun stitch markers because I haven't seen the simple ones that small before...

I was relatively restrained because a) Nathalie assured us they weren't going anywhere b) I'm still gobsmacked by a an incredibly generous delivery of gift yarn I received last week, which I'll blog next and c) I was unable to forget the huge vet's bill I paid last Wednesday at the critical moment! But if I won the lottery I'd open a yarn shop, and the stock would overlap more-or-less-precisely with what Stash stock at the moment...

As I can't upload more than one photo to a post tonight, I'll stop there; rest of the day to follow...

Lacy

It's been a scorcher of a weekend, and humid, undermining my Great Plans to have a tidy house and some design work by the end of the weekend. I did get one item finished and blocked though, a scarf:

This is some Blackberry Ridge wool and silk laceweight which is really beautiful to knit with - feels more like a cotton blend - came from Wisconsin and took less than four days to get here! It was the natural cream colour until it came into contact with some grape and strawberry Kool-Aid. There was still too much variegation in it, when I came to knitting it up, so I gave it another bath of grape Kool-Aid once I'd finished the knitting. I'm still astounded you're meant to drink this stuff... The pattern is the Trellis-Framed Leaf pattern from the first Barbara Walker treasury which is a nice one to memorise but not too boring in the knitting of it.

I also re-started the Diamond Fantasy Shawl for the KAL at Sivia Harding's Yahoo group - this will be the third yarn choice, but I think I've found a winner in the Kaalund mohair in Tropical Berries I got for Christmas. Here's the beginning of it:

Purple lace, what a surprise...

The timing of the third attempt isn't coincidental - yesterday morning, a sheep arrived. (No, not that sheep, actually a Folkmanis lamb puppet). I won him in the draw attached to the KAL, which was both exciting and mortifying - exciting because I don't win things in prize draws, and mortifying because I still had the previous unsuccessful swatch on the needles... Anyway, here's the lamb - Blogger won't let me upload the image for some reason... He looks a stubborn little chap (I'm calling him Stackhouse), and has made a home for himself on the flyer of my spinning wheel. Thanks very much to Melissa, who donated him. And, to even things up slightly on the scales of cosmic postal justice, he arrived from the US in five days despite the package being clearly marked SURFACE. It's good to know it happens the other way round occasionally...

Mamluke #1

Enough said, really; I love this sock...

A good couple of days

Suzanne (mum to Lorna of the rainbow cardigan among many other things) came over for dinner last night and it was lovely. Then went over to E-J's at Ely today - we had lunch at the Lamb and then sat in her garden. In deference to photo-phobia, here's a picture of E-J's hands and her crochet...


On the way there, finished the Jaywalkers

and started making the Mamluke Socks from Folk Socks, using the Lorna's Laces Rainbow from Leah, and some black Cygnet. I think they're looking good so far...

According to the directions you need a 245yd skein of each yarn - I have 215yds of the Rainbow so I reckon that'll work - if not I'll do plain toes. Was going to spend a long time thinking of something suitably Washington-like to do with them - and then was flicking through this book again this morning, and fell for the pattern all over again. It was only the 3rd time I looked through the directions that I realised the original sock is from the collection of the Textile Museum in DC so it's just about perfect.