Small shopkeeper

I kept thinking of Reg Ingley, the original small shopkeeper in On the Town with the League of Gentlemen, while finally setting up my Etsy shop this weekend. I've got some DK and some sock yarn, and a skein of laceweight for sale... and it all fits in two baskets.





I'm at http://knittingonthegreen.etsy.com/ - do go and have a look and tell me what you think (and what I'm missing)! A very nice lady in Texas has already bought some DK from me...

Going over to the dark side...

Not my phrase - one of Jan's...

Look - crochet!!



The pattern's one of Jan's too, from her Encyclopedia of Crochet - the lace scarf has always fascinated me, and I managed to order Shepherd's Sport rather than Shepherd's Sock in an Internet order, so this seemed like the opportunity. I'm not sure the yarn's right for the lacy pattern, but it's gorgeous to work with, and I'm almost incomprehensibly actually having the right number of stitches in the rows so far...

I have various other things to show, but am completely shattered at the moment - something to do with this cold, grey weather probably, along with a weekend away - so I'll catch up at the weekend. After the Peterborough beer festival on Saturday, anyway...

A plea...

It's National Moth Night.

All week, there have been the usual radio news reports about moths as these pesky beasts which just gnaw on your stuff. Woman's Hour has done it; the Today Programme did it this morning... (although Carolyn Quinn did say moths just gave her the creeps, rather than that she'd beat them to death for the sake of her cashmere sweaters, which is, frankly, one better than Woman's Hour).

As the nice entomologist on Today this morning said, there are 2, or maybe 3, species of moth in the UK which chew yarn/clothes; and we have 2-3,ooo species of moths harmlessly flying around, day and night, minding their own business; some of them will come in to see what we're doing if we leave the windows open and the lights on... Strangely, so will local teenagers, but we don't instinctively try to slaughter them with a rolled-up newspaper...


Let's have a look at a few I've seen flying round the village this summer (not my photos)...

A Hummingbird Hawkmoth [seen feeding on the trumpet vine on the guesthouse opposite]

A Silver Y - dozens in the garden any fine night. No prizes for how they got their name.

A cinnabar moth; another day-flier and seen at the station yesterday morning.

Let's hear it for the other 99.9% which give us colour, and beauty, and biodiversity...

Here endeth the lesson.

The kindness of (relative) strangers

So, I taught a course last week, and in the main it went very well... If I'd had the energy over the weekend to unpack my bags, I'd have some samples to show you; another time... Here - look - pretty cat!

I had to advertise for lifts to and from the college at short notice, but thankfully I'm a member of CamLETS; and Judith and Anna stepped up and were wonderful about not only driving me around but also helping with boxes and bags... And my neighbour Ian was on a drawing course and gave me a lift back on the Thursday; and completely beyond the call of duty, drove me there on the Friday despite his course having finished...

Meanwhile Sue has good news on her prospective new flat/house (Sue needs a blog; she's crocheting up a storm these days...) and I went to London and ticked another box in my Unbloggable Non-Knitting Project...

(This is the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament - there's something of the Snape about him...)

And these arrived from Art Van Go

in the usual good time, for this Saturday's second KTog dyeing session.