Phew, and gah, and ooh....

Phew...

The baby sweater is done. And is very pretty.

The dyed yarn for the sleeves works pretty well, and there was just enough to make the neckband and seam up... I've attached the sleeves using my favourite waste-yarn finish (like a machine knit finish), and found some buttons which were just right, from an old dress of my mam's... so I'm enjoying the famous-knitwear-designer-meets-make-do-and-mend combination...

Here's another picture of the pretty that is Mr F's colour combination:

I love the way he works with such unlikely combinations....

Gah...

I was hoping to cast on my Flutter scarf in the pub at the KTog this evening - unfortunately my formerly delightful 3.25mm Brittany needles had a bit of an accident on the way home, and one of them snapped about 3" from the top... They were already the short size - I'll probably try chopping them off and doing a thing with a pencil sharpener and some sandpaper at the weekend, but they were very beautiful...

Ooh...

There were lots of new people at knitting this evening, and some welcome returners, and it was all very lovely. The experience was enhanced still further by the Blue's adoption of Gwatkin's Foxwhelp as their dry cider of choice (no URL, can't find it on draught anywhere else!) - blimey, that stuff's strong; but very nice... And people were knitting beautiful things...

When I got home, I found my consignment of these had arrived, a calendar week after I ordered them from Texas...

I'd been ordering from Ana's Etsy store, but then found (via Ravelry) that she had a bigger store of her own. I've raved about these before, but there's just something about the combination of the beauty and the completely functional which is incredibly attractive.

See?

Mother of invention...

So having planned out today (trip to Peter Jones, morning meeting, productive rest of day) I then spent the first half of the night throwing up... No work for me today... Gah!

Which also meant no emergency yarn trip to Peter Jones - I work earlier on Tuesdays so I can get to one of the KTogs a month, and have a lunchtime meeting...

Once I'd woken up again around lunchtime, I had a rummage and found two-thirds of a ball of 4-ply Matchmaker in a leaf green which, while still Clearly Wrong in colour,

didn't look as if it was going to be impossible to tweak to being a right colour. Into the dyepan with a smidge of dark brown it went; then into the tumble-dryer after its rinse (wrapped in tulle and tied several times... Et voilà. I was quite pleased...

Being around and still feeling generally crappy meant I got quite a lot of knitting done. I'll have to pull out about 3" on the sleeve I've done most on because of the way the self-patterning yarn was wound - if I'd realised I'd be using a solid colour for the tops of the sleeves, I'd have waited until the front and back were both done - but it's getting there. And I have lots of odds and ends for the neckband...

While I was winding this yarn and yarn for an Etsy order (thanks, Heather!) I thought I might as well see how much cashmere was left on the cone of denim blue "heavy laceweight" I used for my Hanging Garden stole. Turns out there was about 540m before washing - so that went into the dyepot too. I think it's going to be a Flutter - but I'll be adding some matte raku beads to it too as I bought two tubes for another project which didn't in the end need them...

Another possibly lunatic project...

... Feeling liberated from the demands of knitting for a stand at a show, or for samples for a class, I suddenly realised that I'm meeting a friend's 10 month old daughter for the first time on Wednesday evening, and that I was such a bad keeper-in-touch that I didn't know baby K existed until a few weeks ago... So of course, she needs a sweater... I went back to Tadpoles and Tiddlers, because it's great for a good basic sweater pattern... And found a 4-ply pattern which was crying out for Kaffe Fassett sock yarn. (The Landscape one, in Fire)...

So I have been sitting, knitting, reading a couple of superb books - Stuart Maconie's utterly wonderful Cider with Roadies which has had me crying with laughter and recognition, even when he's adulating bands I really couldn't stand at the time, and another I'll blog when I've finished it - and doing way too little of the enormous amount of tidying up around here... And catching up on sleep... Anyway, the back and three-quarters of one sleeve has been done - and I am definitely going to run out of yarn - I was hoping the extra yardage on sock yarn, as opposed to the Rowan 4-ply botany in the original pattern, would help me out, but I'm going to be about 10 grammes short. Despite the size of the Stash, there's nothing machine-washable in 4-ply which will do for the top half of both sleeves - none of these are colours I usually go for, apart from the dark pink, but as ever with Mr Fassett's combinations, together they're fabulous...

I'll be the one standing impatiently on the pavement in front of Peter Jones when they open at 9:30 tomorrow morning then - please keep out of my way - I'll be a woman on a deadline; my first meeting's at 10:15...

And as a PS - I do have one photo of last weekend - Caroline, who runs the really excellent White House Arts, wearing a drop-stitch scarf I was very pleased with; made of Patons Baroque (thanks, Jan!) and Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon. Not a good photo - but the one with flash was far, far worse...

Cheap music...

So; I got up unfeasibly early this morning to do some work before my training course. Put it this way, I was already fully awake (for me) by the time David Cameron was saying nice things about my local MP on Farming Today...

Anyway. It did mean that I got a leisurely stroll down to the course, and despite having no camera, I thought I'd go round the outside. Which meant I walked past the somewhat distracting spectacle of someone who, from the back, looked exactly like Josh Lyman (in Tuesday-suit, bouncing-on-the-balls-of-the-feet-and-full-gesticulation mode) leading a bunch of students. As I got within ranting range, it transpired the guy was Italian; which gave me full licence to listen.

[Warning: if you speak a foreign language I understand and love, and are within my hearing, I'll be listening to everything. Even the details of your sister-in-law's mother's Doberman's gynae operation, frankly... ]

This was Civil War stuff. But they were just by this statue; and the guy threw out both arms in expositionary mode and said "Olllllliverrrrrr Crrrrrromwelllll". [Photo of Citizen C taken on previous occasion...]

So - conjunction of this (favourite/famous actor), that (statue) and the other (italiano)... I've spent the entire day at my training course with the phrase "Oliver Cromwell's Waiting (Talking Italian)" going round in my head... Thankyou, Bananarama, and goodnight...

Keep meaning to say...

I'm greensideknits on Ravelry. (Knittingonthegreen was just too long for their name limit!) A few people have asked recently...

Textiles in Focus 08

I'm tired, but nowhere near as tired as I usually am, at the end of this weekend.

I'm sure this is due to Sue, Rosie and Jackie who were amazing over the weekend; helping set up, helping break down, bringing lunch, titivating the stand, and sitting knitting/crocheting... You were amazing, ladies. Thanks. And due to not having a lot to do with the competition, which I've done the admin for over the last few years... Thanks to Pauline for that!

And it was, as usual, a total pleasure to spend 3 days talking to Gill; and obviously a serious hardship to be sitting next to a selection of the stock from Woolly Workshop... Purchases were made.

I was a Bad Blogger (again) though - no photos... Sorry!

Town and country, and a party for a book

Last weekend, I went to Brighton on Friday night, and failed yet again to get any pictures of Jan, her flat or the views therefrom, or the Brighton ICHF Show. I started off well, with a nice photo of sunset over Chelsea Bridge [please correct me; I'm an ignoramus; from the map we thought that was the most likely candidate];

and then left my camera in the bag which was propping up a basket of yarn all day... But it was lovely, and Jan and Yvonne and Annie and Fred were there , and although I wasn't in the main drag of the teaching, I showed a few people a few techniquey-type things, and purchases were made. One has already been gifted, the other will be handed over tomorrow; and then There Was Yarn. Most of it has been dyed for the weekend. But I'll blog the rest as I knit it up...

Since then, I've tried to pack a five-day week into a three-day one, mainly by avoiding unhealthy things like sleep; but as far as I'm concerned, it's Friday night now...

Now going back to the title of this, and not wanting to get all Beatrix Potter on anyone (I'm not sure I was ever that keen, although Jemima Puddleduck and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle spring to mind, mainly because of pretty bonnets and sprigged gowns; the only one I really loved was the Tailor of Gloucester with its illustrations - cats, needles, cherry-coloured yarn, utterly unrealistic Christmas deadlines, nope, no idea why I liked that one...) , until I got this job, I'd have counted myself as a country-mouse; happy to go up to town every now and then but basically content to be provincial. On mornings like today's, travelling from this (village station, 8:03 am)

to this (corner of Westminster Bridge and Parliament Street looking over Westminster Abbey, 9:37 am)

is really very pleasant. (I've no idea whether it cleared up in the village during the day - the fog had re-descended by the time I got home 11 hours later...) I'm doing the village a disservice, but the Fens in February are not, and have never been, my favourite place to be. And there is something slightly unnervingly Ruritanian about those propane cylinders right next to the track, firing off semi-controlled pop-pop-pop-pop noises in little explosions under the tracks to keep the points ice-free...

Another thing about being a daily town-mouse is that you can get to events like this

even if you can't stay very long when you get there! That's Woolly Wormhead, signing my copy of her book. There were hats galore, a full array of the glamorous models from the book (I was leaving as the last arrived fashionably late), presents flying around, and lots of knitters. MLQ was also there, but we just sort of waved at each other in the distance... This blogging business is sometimes really odd - I think I'd met MLQ before at Ally Pally; but I'm not entirely sure...

The photo above is really unflattering; sorry, Woolly - you were looking very fine when not exposed to a horribly harsh flash!! So I'm also going to post this one, which probably qualifies as a Heroically Bad Photo, but actually conveys the essence better - I tried several without flash, but there was some Serious Explaining (and therefore general animation) going on... But once I cropped this, I really liked it...

Pioneers

I was at a long meeting this morning; and had lunch there and walked back through Tower Gardens as I had my camera in my pocket. I'd seen London Daily Photo's post about the Emmeline Pankhurst statue so I thought I'd get a photo of it in the sunlight because it was really clear, pretty weather.

When I got there, there was a Photo Opportunity happening - the camera over at the left is taking a picture of Some Guy in a Dark Overcoat Wittering to Camera. The person mainly hidden behind the cameraman - you can just see her red coat - was holding a certificate - I think it may relate to this. And of course, the Lady in the black is Baroness Boothroyd; the first woman Speaker. And of course the conjunction of the statue and the reality was just... astonishing is the closest I can come to it...

I wished I'd got Madam Speaker's ankles in; she was a Tiller Girl, and you can tell... Then I realised I'd taken another photo before BB turned round because I was interested in the certificate...

I had a variety of slightly unnerving meetings today - but I love my job.

Poetry for St. Brigid

Part of the annual Silent Poetry Reading

This poem's been rattling around in my head for a few months now, maybe because my family's been blessed with two beautiful children this year... Warning : it's not exactly cheerful...

Limbo

Fishermen at Ballyshannon

Netted an infant last night

Along with the salmon.

An illegitimate spawning,

A small one thrown back

To the waters. But I'm sure

As she stood in the shallows

Ducking him tenderly

Till the frozen knobs of her wrists

Were dead as the gravel,

He was a minnow with hooks

Tearing her open.

She waded in under

The sign of her cross.

He was hauled in with the fish.

Now limbo will be

A cold glitter of souls

Through some far briny zone.

Even Christ's palms, unhealed,

Smart and cannot fish there.

Seamus Heaney, from Wintering Out (1972)