POTW: 27 May 2012

It's been summer for the last few days! Definitely a favourite.


Knitting
Well, there's been some sock-knitting, but that's really boring in progress.  I am, however, test-knitting a Hat for one friend using yarn from another.  This doesn't reflect the real colour balance of the yarn, but here it is in progress.  With any luck I'll be able to tell you exactly what this is soonish!



Spinning
I finished the yarn I was making last week...  Love it.  176 grammes; 245 metres.







I've started spinning up some Colinette stuff...

Weaving
I made a thing!  Actually, I finished it a couple of weeks ago, but I made it for Jackie's 50th.  And ridiculously, I didn't manage to photograph it in all the time between finishing it and handing it over; but here's an idea; this is what it looked like in the weaving...  Jackie seemed to love it, anyway!



Parties
It's been a really sociable week.  I've had a work party, had a lovely time at après-civil-partnership drinks on Friday night,



and a relaxing and friendly 50th birthday party where I handed over the stole pictured above...

Media etc.
The Bridge - wow.  I didn't expect that particular ending at all.  I'm almost disappointed that I already knew there was a second series before the final episode started.

I have been loving this advert.  Regardless of your attitude to the monarchy, this is a great campaign.


EUROVISION!!!
I voted for Moldova.

Honestly, how couldn't I - Improbable Trousers always get double points and it was a cheery enough song.  I couldn't believe that the UK, as a man/woman, voted for Jedward.  Please - people - get a grip! The Swedish song which won was actually pretty good.  The Spanish singer was superb - but I'm glad Eurovision didn't finally extinguish the flame of their economy...  I was wandering over to Eurovision TV on the PC in between listening to Radio 2, which was about 30 seconds ahead.  Ken Bruce has obviously been taking sarcasm lessons from Terry Wogan... "So, no points from Malta.... can we have our George Cross back?"  As ever, we got next to nul points for reasons which had very little to do with the quality of our song or performance; but that's pretty predictable...

Sport
There's been cricket all weekend.  It's been lovely.  (It's even been good cricket)...  We've had the beautiful voices of Viv Richards (60 this week) and Tony Cozier from the tourists, we've had a cheery Michael Vaughan, we've had Tuffers, and best of all Geoffrey Boycott knocked off early to go to his wife's 60th birthday party.  And Blowers and Aggers.  And it's been summer.  God's in his heaven, and all that.

POTW: 20 May 2012

This is a new idea I've been kicking around - I like Pick of the Week on Radio 4 on a Sunday evening, and for the next few weeks life's going to be pretty busy, but I do like blogging.  So let's try this.  Some of the things I've liked this week...

Spinning
I've been spinning up some lovely Shetland I bought at Fibre-East last year, from Sara's Texture Crafts.  The colour's called Bohemian.  I think it must have been quite a dark colour before it was dyed but the intensity of colour is lovely.  I haven't spun Shetland before, and found I couldn't do the stripping-down thing I usually do with top, so was spinning it up in much thicker chunks, which means I have longer runs of colour than usual.



Really glad I bought two packages of this... here's the other 100g...



 I think I have another plait of Shetland somewhere - it's quite addictive because it's sticky enough that I don't keep breaking the fibre as I normally do...

Knitting
I have various secret-ish projects on the needles, in a variety of weights of yarn...  One I can show a bit of is a sideways knit jacket for Coral-from-IKnit's new baby.  I love the colours in this one...  For some reason I thought I could make this jacket seamless - I got to the end of the first sleeve and realised my mistake!  Anyway, all it needs is a bit of a press, a couple of buttons and a matching hat...



I also have a finished object I can now share - Katie White's lovely Willow River pattern has come out and is available for download.  I knitted it in Sparkleduck's Genie yarn, which is what it was written for...  It's really cleverly constructed with a shaped border, picked up along the selvedge and then ribbed with short-rowing and a cabled edging which makes it easy to block along the long edge...





Sport
The cricket is on.  The weather's no better at Lord's than it is here, so the poor West Indies side are shivering away in the cold, but play is happening...  and the voices of Test Match Special (well, other than Geoffrey Boycott's, anyway) make me smile.  Blowers has located his first pigeon and first crane of the season; all's right with the world.

In other sporting-and-knitting-crossover news, the Woolsack project, part of the Cultural Olympiad, has been having no end of difficulty with LOCOG and its corporate sponsors.  There was actually an article in Private Eye this week about their travails, and this great blog post which summarises the difficulties.  The Woolsack organisers are made of sterner stuff though, and have found alternative distribution channels.  And I've just seen a post that Usain Bolt has been alerted to the project on Twitter by another Jamaican athlete...  let's hope the momentum builds...

Other media
Loved the cover of Private Eye this week.   As soon as I saw the dress, that was exactly what occurred to me, too.  And yes, they do use the line "I saw Goody Cameron with the devil..." in the accompanying article.

Great interview with Rhod Gilbert in this week's Standard  magazine.  Including:
"I was in my dressing room before the Teenage Cancer Trust gig recently when there was a knock at the door.  For a laugh, I just shouted 'Whoever that is can f*** right off... and bring me some red M&Ms and a good-looking sheep.'  Then I opened the door to a rather sheepish Roger Daltrey.  He said 'I'm really sorry to bother you but I just wanted to say thanks for being part of the show tonight.'  That was awkward."

Still catching up with The Bridge on the iPlayer; I really like the Danish detective...

If you're reading this on Sunday 20th, the Observer food monthly has some lovely British recipes for the Jubilee from famous chefs.

File under misc.
I did an Excel course this week at work - I'm not sure how relevant it's going to be at work just at the moment, but it's going to revolutionise my slightly obsessive stash-cataloguing and count of yarn knitted up...