Turtle #1

Normally, I don't blog knitting which is about to be a present for someone. This time, I just can't help myself; this turtle is just delightful.

Other personal rules I've broken here:

• I don't make toys. Most of them are just too incredibly cutesy; and those that aren't are a bit disturbing...; this one just compelled me to knit him.
• I don't involve myself in any more sewing-up than can be helped and this tendency is increasing. There are 15 pieces to this thing, not including those little triangles you pick up and knit to finish the shell, once you've sewn the 7 hexagons together; and all the limbs need stuffing separately; and it's still delightful.
• I don't take finished knitting to KTog purely to wave it around; although sometimes I wear it so I can wave it around if anyone notices; this little chap was passed around the circle a couple of times tonight.

But the taking-to-KTog thing did have an ulterior motive. I didn't really want to be posing a turtle on Palace Green in front of the world's media, and that's the nearest stretch of grass I generally see while it's light; so I went to the Mill Pond to take a picture of this Pond Turtle. (Needless to say, nobody turned a hair.)

The shell for Turtle #2 is 6/7ths complete...

The pattern, by Carol Wood, can be found at her Etsy shop and provides far more enjoyment than anyone deserves for $6. You need 1 ball of Noro Kureyon, and 1 skein of Cascade 220 (I took a chance and bought 2 skeins for 3 turtles and I should be OK - each turtle takes about 60 grammes).

Fat Charlie is still on the needles, although he's getting there, and the Mystery Fair Isle just needs a button band making. I'm teaching a freeform knitting weekend at White House Arts on the weekend of October 18/19 though and really need to be concentrating my efforts on making more samples for it...

Fat Charlie

No turtles today - sorry. I've got the head done now, and the little eyes look good; and have come to grief on the long moss-stitch band. Not that there's any problem with it - it's just a 9st strip of moss-stitch which needs to go round the edge of the bottom bit, and it's just the right texture - and moss stitch is sometimes exactly what I need to knit, and sometimes it drives me berserk. (Other things driving me berserk today are Virgin Media and the US Presidential debates, but we won't go there.)

The stealth Christmas Fair-Isle is still on the go. I've had an idea of blogging Christmas projects as I do them and then fiddling with the dates to release the posts after Christmas... It's the major knitting-event of the year and by the time it's over I can barely remember what I made for whom let alone what the yarn was and whether I changed anything...

But there's something else on the needles; so - Fat Charlie.

A couple of weeks ago, just after I Knit Day, Yvonne and I were in I Knit (as we often are), and they had (and unless it's all gone this week, still have) this wonderful array of Malabrigo Sock Yarn. The story of the colour I chose (2 skeins' worth, all they had), along with one version (the pinker one) of the colour, is here. This is as good a picture as I can get of mine, although it's definitely pinker than here. Imagine all the pinks, oranges and terracotta colours you'd get in a Burne-Jones angel, and then imagine it in silky-soft merino...

I'm using the Strangling Vines pattern by Nicole Hindes, but over 81 sts rather than the suggested 45 for a more stole-like scarf.

So, apart from the width, why Fat Charlie? Well, these days, whenever the word Archangel comes into my head, the Paul Simon Song Crazy Love Vol II comes with it. The line "Fat Charlie the archangel slopes into the room" has to be my favourite first line ever; closely followed the Mountain Goats' Oceanographer's Choice "Guy in a skeleton costume/Steps up to the guy in a Superman suit/Runs through him with a broadsword" (unfortunately, in this clip the first line stops him in his tracks so that's just about all you get!)...

Oddly enough, when I googled Fat-Charlie-the-Archangel, I was taken to a Neil Gaiman page where people were wondering whether there was any relation with Fat Charlie in Anansi Boys. And I remembered that this came through on Mr Gaiman's blog today and I thought it was rather cool... And we're back to the US elections. So I'll stop now.

Turtleshell

After the third felting today, I think the top shell is about the right size. I'm hoping so, anyway - it's about an inch bigger all round than the bottom shell... I'll check that with the pattern writer though as she's both helpful and sympathetic to the tribulations of felting in a front-loader...

There are also feet. You can sort of see them here, but we're back to darker nights, and the glory of their little bobbly toes is hidden. Knitting with aran-weight yarn on 3.25mm needles isn't as bad as I thought it might be and you certainly get a fabric dense enough that the white British-Standard-Conformant toy stuffing isn't going to show through (if this were for me, I'd use any old fleece I had around, but these are probably going to tiny relatives who will stuff them straight into their mouths...).

Also managed to find some small-size safety toy eyes, too - I'm never totally confident of my ability to embroider on faces even after all that City and Guilds stuff...

Turtle-thwarted

Sometimes, these newfangled household appliances are just TOO good.

I found this brilliant pattern for a turtle on Ravelry, and because the author's in the US she has access to a top-loader washing machine with the options for looking-at-the-thing-while-it's-felting. We had a bit of correspondence back and forth, as you do on Etsy, because everyone's so friendly there; and I thought that This Time, I'd try the Delicates programme on my washing machine, but put the temperature up to 40 degrees. And I've been sitting here for the last hour trying to keep myself awake until it finishes... Here's what the half-shell looked like before it went in...



And it came out - and it looks exactly the same as it did before it went in. Damn, my Delicates programme is good. Next time I have a sweater which says Handwash, I will definitely put it in there...


But now, I'm so completely taken by this pattern that I need to wait until it comes out on the normal wash... which takes an hour and a half... gah.

P.S.

We reached an accommodation of sorts, the cat, the chart and I...

(Yes, that's the rest of the pattern underneath her. You need to choose your battles wisely with the Bug...)

Helping...

For those not fond of cat pictures on knitting blogs, move away now, nothing to see, etc.; but this is the view from my knitting today:

Also known as "oh, was you trying to read that little chart thingie? Never mind... I is prettier..."

Gah. Can't blog the project as it's Christmas knitting...

Safari

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... Rosie and I went to Norwich to hunt baby elephants ... And photos were taken, and it was seriously good fun.

This is Intricate Izzy, decorated by the students of Hellesdon High School,

There was then a shed of even more baby elephants, decorated by primary schools. Some of these were earnest, some of them just great fun...

... here's the Hundertwasser one. I have no idea how primary school children know about Hundertwasser; I have no memory of Art History lessons; but kudos to whichever teacher did this...

This is the Rime of the Ancient Mariner Elephant in the Mall... [no, I didn't understand the connection either but it was beautifully done...]

And look - a Shiny Thing!

That one was called "The Angel" and was in the rather fabulous Royal Arcade...

This one is "Hefty-Lump" and was in Chapelfield Gardens, near the bandstand... and then we went into the foyer of the Theatre Royal to look at "An Afternoon with Stephen Fry". A man sitting on a hippotamus on the side of an elephant... I really hope he saw it.

There were loads of others; we saw over 20 on the day... Here's Rosie taking pictures of another...

and here's a sticker you wouldn't normally expect to see in Norwich; the conjunction of stuff on that door was interesting!

And the last one we saw, the Welsh Elephant (Ellifant Cymraeg)

It was one of the rare warm days this summer and occasionally there was sun; and so many people were out clutching elephant-locator maps, and laughing self-consciously with each other about being there, and taking pictures of their tiny children clutching the elephants' legs... It was lovely.

We also took in a very nice lunch and some decadent afternoon wine-drinking at The Belgian Monk, and (prepare to be shocked here) neither of us bought any yarn. I know. But knitting and crochet were done on trains...

Home...

I was away last weekend, until Tuesday, catching up with family including my delightful nephew, watching a small and also delightful cousin-type relative being christened and partying about this fact, and so on. (And I went to IKEA and know what my replacement dining chairs will look like...)

Then reality hit, and I got up at 5 am three days running in order to do some work and complete a management assignment for a qualification; which was delivered a whole 50 MINUTES before the deadline.

But now I'm home, with some more of my favourite things...



I'm hoping for a continuation of the glorious weather which had me in a meeting on a 6th floor roof terrace in Millbank today, sitting out in a garden for only the second time this "summer" (and a continuation of the lovely people like my colleague Janice who has a gently wicked sense of humour, is incredibly good at her job, and is a software engineer who works out exactly where you are on the techie-competence-scale really very quickly and paces it all accordingly); so, if you're around in the next week or so and fancy a trip to Cambridge, or Waterbeach, or meeting up somewhere else around here, please feel free. I tried to book a few things, but people weren't available, and I suggested another thing and then it turns out that I didn't invite anyone, so I'm going to be lounging around enjoying yarn, cats, spinning, music and anything else which occurs to me...

A purple patch

After all that talk about how my basic colour choices are changing; I've reverted to type...

I finished these on my week off at the end of August; on the way back from hunting elephants in Norwich with Rosie, actually. And I still haven't blogged that. But I finished these socks just before the train got into Ely, and had half an hour to wait, so I dug the other one out of the bag, put them on, photographed them, took them off again, put my shoes back on... and the woman on the bench next to me didn't turn a hair. The Yarn Harlot talked about this phenomenon on Saturday, but my most extreme experience with it is represented by this photo and this post. Two women and a small child lying on a blanket on the Backs, waving their sock-clad feet at King's College Chapel and being photographed; and not one single person of the many who passed asked what we were doing. OK, Cambridge is quite a strange place at the best of times, but you'd think basic curiosity would have motivated someone... Follow the link to the post for Anne's free pattern. (Actually, Anne, I've just realised that your socks were rightfully mine - they match the sweater I was wearing there terrifically well...)

Back to these socks though.

Pattern is Firestarter, from Yarnissima (a free pattern, worked toe-up like Yarnissima's others).

Yarn is Socks that Rock lightweight, May's club yarn from the Rockin' Sock Club

Needles 2.25mm

On Sunday, I intended to spend the whole day writing my management assignment - I've been doing a course at work which has been 12 full-day courses over the last 7 months, and finishes off with a 3,200 word assessment; which is due in on the 19th. I sat there, and sat there, and couldn't think of a thing to write for hours. So I thought maybe some theta brainwaves were called for (you had to be there on Saturday, you really did), and I couldn't even concentrate to knit, which was just weird, frankly; so I got the spinning wheel out, and picked up some purple roving I dyed in August with the odds and ends from Jan's birthday present, and followed Samuraiknitter's brilliant instructions for dealing with roving, and made something which looks more like actual yarn than anything I've made on this wheel so far. Pics follow:

Not perfect, as you can see... about chunky weight, 133g and 100m; but I'm ridiculously proud of it. So proud that it deserves a tryout on the Tranquil Face, despite his current marjoram haircut.

I have the impression that if he could talk, he'd be saying "Duuuuude"...

And I woke up at about 4am on Monday morning with three of the eight answers to the questions in draft in my head; which just proves this theta business works. (And has no sense of timing - today I finally managed to write these ones up...)

I Knit Day, part 2

More photos.

But first - Anne and I appeared on the Yarn Harlot's blog!! Scroll down for the "washcloth" part of the parade - thanks, Anne, for letting me accompany you and your washcloth...

And here's a photo taken by the lovely E-J of us meeting Stephanie - this is possibly the best one as neither of us look too actively deranged or stalkerish at the time...

Also, note Stephanie's co-ordinated Manon and waterproof jacket. That's classy and shows forethought. E-J's also managed to capture Gerard checking in at the bookstall, illustrating how much both of the I Knit guys were darting around on the day making sure everything stayed organised, and it really did, so much so that you didn't really notice (except for noticing how fast they were moving around the place)...

The rest of the photos (of shopping) are less good - we're getting into the time of year where I don't get much natural light at the best of times either side of the working day, and the weather yesterday (all weekend, really) was atrocious. So imagine these yarns and then please think of the colours as 2000% nicer. The only as-yet-unphotographed item (I'd cast on socks onto them by the time I got home) was a set of Quills 3.5mm DPNs from Gill at Woolly Workshop which was the second thing I bought. The first thing I bought was this, which has photographed almost spectacularly badly; a skein of Fleece Artist Somoko - no idea what the colourway is (anyone who's bought this - is it always a one-skein-0f-a-kind yarn?), but it's much more autumn-leaves in dark woods than this somewhat... turdish... photo shows.

I have another skein of this, bought at The Naked Sheep in the Beaches in Toronto (appropriately enough) in May, which is in less neutral but (my spidey-colour-sense tells me) toning colours (the other skein's in the sock-yarn-bin in the attic) - so I'm thinking some sort of ripply long scarf. These days, I have to wear suits for work, and as my suits are, like the rest of my wardrobe, mainly black, making nice long scarves in atypical colours is fun...

I was then Good for a long while; until about 6pm, actually. Then I made my way among the leavings of the Serious Shoppers, and found this:

Yes, the name sold it to me as much as the colours

Haven't encountered this one before. In fact, the basic yarn has a real resemblance to the Blackberry Ridge yarn I bought for E-J's baby's shawl, baby now being newly 2 and having opinions of her own (the yarn's definitely a heavy laceweight, very slightly slubby in places. Not my usual colours, but I seem to be starting to branch out...) I'm likely to make one of these out of it.

[I'm also realising that at the time I bought the yarn for Baby M's shawl, Woolly Workshop was the only place I knew in the UK which had any sort of laceweight, and Gill hadn't then started carrying Zephyr as a plain lace yarn. How times have changed... it's stunning, really, both in terms of what's available and in terms of the knowledge of what's available.]

I'd been quite moderate, really, until then. But then right at the end of the day I saw these in a bucket under the table at Loop, which had been concealed by shoppers and queuers until then;

these are for a Jeanie and I was actively looking for 3 skeins of sock for that.... It seems to be my Misti Alpaca Year. The last skein I acquired passed through the hands of Laura Chau who was at the till on my visit to Lettuce Knit (she was apparently at I Knit Day too but I didn't spot her); the ones before that were bought in Montreal...

I'm not going to Ally Pally this year. Saturday was such fun, and I felt I was walking among friends every minute of the day. And nobody raised the classic Ally Pally Art-Versus-Craft Debate ONCE. Knitters knit (and of course, crocheters crochet). That's what we do. Some people, when you say "what are you making" will haul out the pattern; some people will say "well, it's basically [name of pattern] but I'm making it shorter"; some people will say "well, it's sort of [name of pattern] but I'm working it from the top down, making it scoop-necked, and I don't think I'll be doing the ribbing; I'll see how much yarn I've got left for the length of the sleeves; some will say "well, I think the pattern I made and charted myself is going to work in this laceweight" (diviknitty raise a hand); some will say "I'm making it up as I go along"; and some will simply say "I don't know yet" (caughtknitting is my personal fave in this category)...

And most knitting and crochet groups have everyone all together, stick-wielders and hookers, obsessionists and occasionalists, and nobody cares whether we're making art or craft.

The Art-Versus-Craft Debate always raises its head at Ally Pally, and just for once, I'm tired of fighting that battle, and even watching that battle being fought from the sidelines... Saturday was just about perfect (the bits which weren't are the responsibility of the train company and whoever you choose to blame for the weather); that'll do me.

I Knit Day, part 1

Well, the day was amazing. The Royal Horticultural Halls are spectacular (and I'm slightly outraged with myself that I didn't take more pictures of the architecture of this one which was pure 1930s); and there were knitters everywhere... There were people from all over the country, some of which I hadn't seen for a couple of years (since SkipNorth 2007 in several cases), and a lot of people I'd been at I Knit nights with last week, and about a dozen of us from Cambridge all told. We were delayed on the train (although thankfully they were still running - people coming down from Yorkshire and points north had less luck because of the flooding) so by the time we arrived the place was heaving; shopping was done a little later in the day because the crowds round the stands were several eager shoppers thick! The pic above was taken during the fashion show for Jane Waller's A Stitch in Time, which was wonderfully and humorously presented...

The Lindley Hall was also very beautiful when we all filed into it for the Yarn Harlot's talk; I didn't realise when I took this general photo of people arriving that I know virtually everyone in this particular shot, from several different places!

Two more of the Cambridge contingent, blogless Sue [bigrainbow] and E-J [roseanglaise], waiting in eager expectation...

Gerard did the introductions...

Stephanie took the customary photos - I've seen so many of these on her blog in the past, and it was very funny a) watching it being done b) watching half the audience photographing Stephanie and the sock photographing half the audience. (Annie Mole had a great rant on her blog last week about the stereotypical image of bloggers and their sad and lonely lives, which came back to me while all this was happening).

The talk was wonderful - funny, witty, observational - which I'd sort of expected; and also packed with scientific fact, which for some reason I hadn't expected quite as much, despite the amount of care and research which goes into Stephanie's books... Cambridge didn't come out very well in the talk, due to an MRC study (I think probably this one) which used people tapping keyboards as their repetitive activity rather than actually knitting... Anyway; I came out feeling very happy (and healthy) to be a knitter...

Afterwards, Anne (MrsNiddyNoddy) and I went and queued with Katie [daisydaisydaisy], to get books signed and meet Stephanie in person... Anne had made a Great Britain washcloth, and we felt obliged to confirm the existence of Cambridge knitters!

We had a little chat, aware of the hundreds of people queuing behind us; I handed over some yarn I'd dyed as a 'thanks-for-the-blog' present - I've been reading since this post and in my old job, often reading the blog was the brightest point of the day; Stephanie signed and chatted and we moved on... it was really lovely to meet her.

At that point my camera batteries died, but Anne got this great picture on her phone

and I got batteries back into it in time to take one of Katie's book being signed...

Shopping was then done. I haven't photographed the shopping yet, so that'll be part 2. Fashion shows were watched (Gerard was the first model on the Erika Knight catwalk).

Socks were finished (more on these later), and wine was drunk in the downstairs bar.

Getting to King's Cross and finding nothing was moving due to a problem at Finsbury Park was a bit of a dent to the good mood; but E-J and I picked up gin and tonic at Cambridge station and consumed it in contravention of many railway by-laws while waiting for the next train.... Where I met Susie [susieknits] again, also on her way back from the day!

The last time we met was also on a train, in April, with Susie's friend, also called Susie, who kinneared me... One of these days we'll actually get to meet in ways not engineered by First Capital Connect!

A wonderful day

I Knit Day was utterly lovely. It took a Very Long Time to get home; something burning under a bridge near Finsbury Park, allegedly.. So more tomorrow.... but thanks to Gerard and Craig at IKnit for providing a fantastic day; and to Stephanie for exceeding (already ridiculously high) expectations...

7, and medals...

Happy 7th Birthday, Bug (AKA Jarrahkatt Aimee, AKA Jarrahkatt Amelia Peabody, AKA Mealy-bug, AKA Bug...).





This is an old photo but a good one... (the book is here....) I'd have taken one tonight, but she gobbled down her birthday-treat tuna and sauntered out of the cat-flap while I was still hunting for replacement camera batteries and is now out prowling the world and seeking things she may devour...


Another lovely night at I Knit. Including Wye Sue, in town for the I Knit Day. I hadn't seen her since... well, we never really quite worked this out but we thought it was probably best part of 2 years...




And a pic of Hypoteneuse. I was cursed by two separate people on the same evening for setting them off on this track....! One of them can be named; I don't know the name of the other person I infected with this stole/shawl; but she's not enjoying it and she definitely knows me now! That's it folded in two - worn over a shirt and jeans, it comes to mid-calf on me without looking too much like a horse-blanket, but I'll doubtless need to wrap it round myself more times in the autumn...


And because I'm ridiculously proud of having done both things in the period of the Olympics, here are my medals...