Month: May 2005

BUT, everyone has to have some quiet ‘me’ time. This is mine 🙂 I’ve cut down my word count on one assignment quite a lot, and that’s what I planned to do today, so that’s ok 😀
I played this very short quiz (hope the HTML works), and this pretty much describes me!

You are bamboo.
Warm, cozy, and thoughtful, you take your time and
enjoy how things feel, smell, and taste. You
love the craft and beauty of traditional
things, and you value the comfort and
experience of knitting as much as the results.
But while you are reveling in your warm cozies,
don’t get stuck. Warm is wonderful, but so is
the whole wide world!

What kind of knitting needles are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
I do love to be at home, but only because I have so much to do at the moment, that quiet time at home is the best way for me to relax. Besides, you can mess around with your stash when you are away from it 😀 I like rummaging through the stash box to remind myself what I have to play with and thinking up stuff to make, leafing through the pattern books and magazines I have, and surfing for freebie patterns. Of course this often makes me want to buy more stuff anyway, but most of the time I restrain myself. Most of the time. (That reminds me of Cartman copying the kid out of Aliens – “They mostly come at night. Mostly” :D)
I’m pogged on burritos too (but low fat may I add! Refried beans are ace). How can I use my brain when I am stuffed and craving Pilsner Urquell? And wishing we could buy a flat in Prague too… So many wants, so little time. But all realistic may I add. That at least is important to me.
I’ve meandered too much now and diverted myself enough. Be gone foul internet connection!

Well, I was planning on putting up a pic of the finished Wow cushion today, but the digital camera doesn’t like the first picture I took of it, and the laptop wants to format the memory card in the camera when I try to pick up the second photo or any of the others 🙁 But I have finished it, and something else as well, which I might keep secret for now… Shhhhhh!
Last night we watched the film version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I’ve read all the books, played the game, listened to the radio series, watched the TV series and loved every minute of it. The reviews I’ve read of the film have been extremely mixed though, and with it hanging around in limbo for so long I didn’t hold out much hope for it. When we watched the film, I was really saddened that all the work Douglas Adams had put into getting it to the big screen was ripped apart by Disney. We only laughed about 4 times through the whole thing, and they weren’t the belly laughs that we get so persistently from the other formats. There were some very nice moments – I loved the book animatics, and, naturally, the knitted bit 😀 But, I’m afraid, the best jokes were cut out, and even the in joke with the Marvin from the tv series left me feeling cold, and with a yearning to go back to the older versions. Poor Douglas. I’m kind of glad he didn’t get to see it now. The mice were nicely done though too 🙂
And as compensation for not getting any pics of knitting stuff today, here is the story of a picture sent to me by a friend. She mailed me it when she spotted something amiss in the photo for an article in a paper. The article is about IDs and fingerprinting for them or something else equally debated during the pre-election campaigns. Unfortunately, they missed something on the photo… See if you can spot anything that shouldn’t be there on the PC with her data on it – be warned, it is a bit rude…

It feels like an age since I posted, and it probably is. I have my reasons though. The usual assignments have taken over, but at least they will be done by the 20th. I also had some bad news about someone’s health, and that has taken over quite a bit of time, and probably will do for quite a while, due to the nature of the illness.
But I won’t go into all that. No one really wants to know that stuff.
What you might want to know about is that I have been on a big SEX session 🙂 That’s the yarn talk SEX incidentally (stash enrichment excursion/exercise), which will no doubt disappoint a few googlers…
A friend got her boyfriend to drive us to Warrington to the Black Sheep warehouse for their sale. I think it was probably the best sale I have ever had the fortune to shop at 😀 People were filling plastic sacks that I could happily live inside with yarns and sewing stuff. I already have a ridiculous stash that Sue has very kindly reduced slightly (I gave her some stuff from a failed felting attempt which wouldn’t felt, and I frogged the Sirdar jumper as the yarn was just too plasticy when I went back to it. I’ll make it for next winter with something a bit nicer), but I have more than made up for it for the time being 😀 We also went to Hobbycraft (and Ikea too, but we won’t talk about that…!), and I found a rather lovely bargain there too!
Here are some pics! Firstly, the stash has been expanded by lots of Jaeger. Here we have some lovely Mohair Art. I might use it for Ash in Rowan 36, or something else entirely 🙂 I’ll use one ball for Bloom’s flower, and the rest I feel like I want to play with and mess around a bit with. I’m sure it will tell me what to make out of it soon – I have far too many ideas at the moment!

Next up, some Aqua, a lovely mercenised cotton. The colours were too tempting to just take one pack, and I would happily wear either of them with most of the clothes in the wardrobe. I think I’ll make a cardi with one pack using the Ann Budd sweater pattern book (more on that later :D), and have a hunt through the pattern books for something to match the gauge to. I really don’t have any preference at the mo for these…

Next some more Jaeger – Como. This stuff is a fab bulky yarn that is 90% wool with some strange stuff thrown in that makes it very soft and light for such a thick yarn. I got 7 balls in a greeny yellow, and 4 in a cream colour. Some of these will go to my mum as a gift, while I’m planning to make the lace leaf jumper from Loop-d-loop with the greeny yellow stuff. It doesn’t quite swatch up right so I’ll make the largest size to account for it. There are also a couple of balls of kid silk haze in there for Bloom which were bought at Up Country in a yummy choccy brown and a soft lilac.

Nearly there! 😀 This is the stuff from Hobbycraft. I bought 3 balls of Sirdar Wow for a cushion pattern (with said pattern also falling into the shopping basket – oops!). I’ve knitted up one side, and it is really nice stuff to knit with – very quick, soft and warm, so it will make a good comfort cushion. Having said that, later in the knitting it seemed to start getting sticky. It isn’t really surprising with it not being a natural fibre thing, but I was a bit cheesed off as it isn’t particularly cheap, and not on sale. But, it is only a cushion and won’t take long to finish 🙂 The light blue stuff is Kid Classic, which was the bargain of the day. Normally 4 quid a ball, it was 49p 😀 And a fluke of a find, as the label said Biggy Print at 99p. I took it to check at the till, and had the lovely price surprise, so nabbed the last 4 balls 😀 And rather conveniently, when I was browsing a book I borrowed from work, I found another cushion pattern for 4 balls of Kid Classic 😀 The blues go together much better in real life than on my crappy photo techniques (I won’t blame the camera at all as I am totally guilty!), and very well with the colour of the couch. Yay!

And I have actually kind of finished knitting something. That poor little sock that has been on the needles for ages is finally done! I had a blitz thinking that I couldn’t start anything new till I finished an older project (though if one is frogged, then that might help a bit!). Before I blitzed it, it only had the ribbing and a few rows of stocking stitch, and that was 3 days ago. It is a bit baggy and big, but I think that is partly due to the pattern – it was a free one with the yarn (Opal, incidentally), and doesn’t really tell you how to tell where to start the toe decreases if you are small footed, so the heel is a bit baggy too. It is lovely and warm though, even if wearing the purl side feels a bit odd on the foot – I won’t be able to wear it to work as the purl side will rub too much. But overall, I feel pleased for my first ever sock 🙂

Ok, so on to the books. I had a visit from Amazon on Tuesday, and they very kindly brought me Ann Budd’s two handy pattern books (one general work and one for sweaters). I’m hoping they will help me understand patterns a bit more, but they will certainly be useful for when I get stuck on what to use yarn for that I impulse buy (see 99% of the above post!). I also got the love Teva Durham’s Loop-d-Loop book. There is some really silly stuff on there, but some luscious stuff too – the lace leaf jumper is one fave, but I like the cabled jumper, and quite a few other bits and pieces too. The silly stuff really is silly! But I think the writing, photography, and the good patterns justify the cover price. Go buy it 😀
Anyway, I’d like to get some knitting in tonight, and it is getting late. I’ve babbled enough for now! Who knows, I might finish something else soon…