Possibly the world's most opinionated cat; keener on men than women, but friend to knitters; seeker-out of comfortable spots; constant commentator and big, friendly presence. Rest in peace, Tild.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Matilda
Sunday, April 29, 2007
40 not out
Brown Sheep Handpaint Originals in a colour called Stormy Skies. (Additional white fur by Amelia, who objects to photos being taken of anything when it's dinner-time and insists on monitoring and expediting the process).
And a skein of Socks That Rock Mediumweight in Chapman Springs. (I tried to find out about Chapman Springs as a place, because that sort of thing's always interesting - but it seems there's a road in Atlanta, and a Chapman's Springs near Salem, Mass. which is now called Eggleston... The funniest thing was that the first 6 pages of Google results are people raving about sock yarn...). This has already been wound into a ball for the River Rapids socks - my current travelling project is a scarf which is now nearly my height, so it's stopped fitting into a bag...
There are a couple of other knitty things from Jan I'd like to show, but the photos came out really badly with flash - I'll try again on Tuesday.
On Thursday I picked up a parcel from Gill - who is, as anyone who's visited her shop knows, a serious yarn fanatic with access to The Good Stuff. I spent a day in anticipation (I had time to collect, but not actually open, the parcel before work and birthday drinks, so it was 11pm by the time I tore into it!) and this was not disappointed...
Two skeins of Abby's Yarns handspun in a colour called Blue Blazes. The beads are some I already have, and go perfectly. I'm thinking a very beautiful pair of handwarmers for next winter, possibly with some lace...
And a skein of Jitterbug (and Bug's feet again; she really was Very Cross about dinner). I've raved about this yarn before, and now I get to play with a new colourway - Florentina.
Obviously, I don't have a purple thing going on. Nooo... not at all...
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Just for a change
I've finished one of the Secret Projects and nearly finished another... Meanwhile, those Mason-Dixon ladies really weren't kidding when they said the baby kimono was a quick knit. Just over an hour's worth of knitting after casting on, I was making the back neckline... (The flower is meant to be a distraction from the mess on the table. I know, it doesn't work; but I try, and it's pretty...)
I actually took my camera to the KTog yesterday, too. Photos are on the Knit Cambridge blog here. After KTog EJ and I went out for a drink, and then Sue and I saw Fracture, which was unexpectedly excellent; highly recommended as a classy, classic psychological/legal thriller if that's what you like, and we do... Rounded off the evening with an early birthday dinner at CB2 (thanks, Sue!).
Tonight, friends coming over for dinner. Better go and try to remember where I put the kitchen, then...
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Fluffiness
It's a fluffy time of year though - the blossom is particularly fine on the trees around the office building
and the first of this year's bumper crop of babies is due next week, all being well; a Mason Dixon baby kimono in this stuff is likely...
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A few fair days
Here it is reskeined and in a basket - waiting for me to list it on Etsy ...
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A grand day out...
After several days' fighting with buses (I will not rant here about the new timetable; everyone I've had the misfortune to run into over the last few days has already had the benefit of my opinion on that one, as have the Appropriate Authorities), I decided I wanted to go Somewhere Nice, Somewhere Cheap to Get To, and Somewhere Which Did Not, Under Any Circumstances, Involve Buses.
As my bike is still out of commission (combination of mechanical failure [the bike]) and procrastination [me]) that left the train; and as one of the reliable harbingers of spring round here is that they start pulling up bits of the track around between here and London, I went North, to King's Lynn. Not quite the seaside, but near enough for a 40 minute train journey! Just over an hour after leaving home I was here.
The other classy thing in Lynn is the charity shops. I actually went looking for some odd drinking glasses (I've had a clumsy couple of months...) - the sort of thing charity shops are usually full of; not in Lynn where they're all nicely sorted into sets. But I did get some Treasures.
From the front - Plato's Symposium, Folio edition, the main selling point of which was Tom Phillips's illustrations; Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top and a Threads compilation which has a combination of features providing brilliant information and features which leave me in blank incomprehension of why the editors found them worthy of inclusion... Cost of the three, £7.40.
In the late afternoon I did this. You need to read this for the full story... old skein below, new skein above. Let's hope that does it! (It's on its way, Gill...)
Friday, April 06, 2007
Jitterbugging and gardening
First Jitterbug sock (part according to the pattern on the ball-band, part altered by 3 x 1 rib and short row heel), seriously-out-of-control flowering currant (to be left untamed until it stops making my heart glad with its flowers), and beautiful Good Friday Sky.
Have been cutting down rampant shrubs all morning in one of my random and infrequent moments of garden enthusiasm, combined with some superb Easter weather. The guy next door is a nice, friendly, bin-taking-out-and-bringing-in neighbour, but Not A Gardener (not claiming any form of competence for myself, but I at least like the idea of growing things...), and a previous lot of neighbours, who employed a gardening service once a month or so, planted a variety of rather nice but totally overachieving climbers along the dividing fence, many of the more fragile of which have now died and left their skellingtons for the more voracious and unattractive to scale... Trying to disentangle myself from all the dead whitery as I hauled it up towards the recycling bin reminded me of the 1963 film of Jason and the Argonauts they used to play most Easters, with the sword-wielding undead warriors... That's probably just me, though.
I've now filled my green wheelie-bin with the remnants - I suspect I could incinerate the Very Dead Stuff of the next plant down using the barbecue, given the clearness of the sky and lack of visible doing-of-laundry by my neighbours... but the next step is really the Buddleia That Came From Elsewhere... (And quite possibly, my filling the guy next door's green bin with his own dead creepers...)
Sunday, April 01, 2007
More NE pictures
And a graphic from a long wall-painting outside the Sage. The political subtleties escaped me (actually, I think the political subtleties were largely absent, to be fair), but wow, the fabrics were pretty...