Oooooo, that was a bad miss!

Yes, that time has come again to misquote some fabulous BBC comedy stuff in relation to some knitting. In actual fact it was a near miss in relation to a certain Jaywalker sock and 2, yes 2! dpns falling out of said sock, followed rapidly by a 3rd when I pulled the sock out of my bag 🙁 I was all set to frog when I saw the big loose threads of yarn from the last row mixing with more big loose threads from a couple of other rows too. Luckily, in spite of the shock, I managed to remember that if I was good I could frog less than I’d worked that day and save it with some very very careful, non-booze assisted manoevering of dpns into those tiny mohair tinged loops. Phew.
Similarly, the day after, I went to try on Sylvie’s Plumetis so far, and in the excitement of carefully fitting myself into the sleeves, lost a ton of sts off one end of the circ. And it was a big circ too :S Again, saved rapidly with some non-choccy influenced rescue work.
Today I’ve had half a pint of pear cider and some butterscotch Green and Blacks and have lost no sts whatsoever in any kind of dangerous knitting accident, and thus have not needed any careful non-consumption related rescue operations. Just goes to show, doesn’t it?
Pictures of an unfinished Plumetis very very soon. By the end of the weekend, I promise 🙂

Out of hiding

Ok, ok, so I am still here 😉 But barely, admittedly. Last week at work was horrendous, as we are having a complete refurb of the floor I work on, and we had to spend the week moving the services up to the next floor in a relatively tiny workspace. The layout in the temp area is great, but working and keeping the service open while moving has been an absolute pain and has kept us absolutely shattered (which was not helped by the fact that the weather and a drunk disturbed my sleep for 3 nights, each one being the night before a big moving stage with lots of physical labour) 🙁
BUT, to make up for the absence, I have piccies 😀
First up, a purchase that until I received it, I’d forgotten all about it. Here we have some gorgeous White Willow sock yarn (from Etsy), in the very very me colourway of Medicine Woman, a lovely blend of pinks and purples. Yummy and very pretty. These will need a supergirly pattern…
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And here are the pics of the finished sockapaloooza socks 😀
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Just to remind you, these are made from The Knittery Merino Cashmere sock yarn in the Orchid colourway. Quite a few people have expressed an interest in a pattern, and I can confirm that there will be one available a) when I’ve written it up and b) had someone (i.e. Rebecca ;D) check it. It will be on Facebook on the ‘Sock Knitters Anonymous’ group, and will be limited to group members, so if you are interested contact me and I’ll tell you how to find and join the group. There are lots of cool sock knitters there with lovely piccies all over the place so go looksie!
In other news, I’ve been doing a TON of knitting, catching up with the Ram’s Horn cardi, pattern testing for Sylvie on the Plumetis cardi (pics to follow when it doens’t look like a big scrunched up mess on my Denise circs), and Ravelry has played a teeny tiny part on the amount of time I’ve had. I’m STILL debating whether to add any of the older projects seeing as they aren’t on Flickr, and would take a huge amount of time to upload. And socks naturally 🙂
Ok, I’m knackered (I have a lot of sleep to catch up on still), and have the sock and stash pics to add to Ravelry, and blogs to read and a message to send (I owe millions of emails 🙁 Sorry guys 🙁 ) so I’m going while I can still see!

Half a pair :)

What better way to ease a mixture of hangover (a third night out for birthday celebrations!), a dodgy tum from eating the wrong foods (they were very very good though), hayfever and a poor night’s sleep by knitting socks with a snoring kitty by your side and the first season of X-Files on tv? Yup, my first Sockapaloooza sock is finished 😀
Here is the token patio door shot:
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And here is a better shot of the detail.
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Today was the perfect day to take these pictures – the sun is out and where our patio doors are is a sun trap and wonderful place to get photos mid-afternoon when the sun has just sneaked past the window. The weather has meant that not only were photos possible, the colour is about as accurate as I can get it without fiddling with the pics 😀 The pooling is obvious in that striping, but it looks so pretty it is totally forgivable, with the stripes within the stripes, and the lucious pink and purple blending with the gold, sand and almost a taupe wonderfully. The yarn is fab to knit with, so I can only imagine what it might be like to wear! And yes I know that is my foot filling the sock, but that was for picture taking only – the sock has yet to be blocked, so the foot method of demonstrating a pattern is still currently the best.
Oooo, I hope they fit my pal… Oh, and thank you for all the lovely comments on the sock in progress! I haven’t had much time at home this week (hence the hangover and funny tum etc etc), so I’ve not had chance to email any of you, but rest assured your compliments are appreciated and I will contact you all personally 🙂

Tagged! 4 things

I think I’ve done this before, but I’ll do it again anyway 😉
4 Jobs I have had in my life
– Sales assistant for Cadburys on a little stand in Leeds city centre. Mmmmmmm
– Making those stick on signs for the inside of cars. Not the baby on board one, but really trashy tacky nasty ones. I didn’t work there long 🙂
– I spent one day when I was 14 working in a cafe that my mum later informed me was owned by a suspected paedophile, but only after I was sacked for not doing what they wanted me to (i.e. looking at the counter through the corner of my eye rather than right at it like they asked). It was shit money too.
– I was hoping to think of a 3rd really scummy job, but I can’t. I can tell you I volunteered to build a badger set once, and it was knackering but good fun 🙂
4 films I can watch again and again
-Breakfast at Tiffany’s
-My Neighbour Totoro
-Goodfellas
-Goldfinger
4 places I have lived
– Wakefield – I was born there and lived there till I was 18
– Manchester – I studied there for a year
– Huddersfield, where I live now
– There is NO 4th place (I couldn’t help think of Monty Python and the Australian lecturers sketch there :D)
4 TV series I watch
-Heroes – it is rapidly overtaking my love of Lost
-The Simpsons – though less so now. I’m waiting eagerly for the film…
-Family Guy – still hasn’t quite jumped the shark 😀
-The IT Crowd – can’t wait to see series 2, even though it took a while to warm to this one.
4 places I have been on holiday
This list looks much healthier this time round :D.
-Rome – beautiful but smelly
-Minneapolis – very cool and full of crafty and shopping excitement 😀
-Barcelona – well, we all know about that trip…
-Prague – where I have left a little piece of my heart.
4 things I do every time I go on the Net
-check my email
-check Bloglines for new posts
-check the weather
-have a quick nosy on Facebook for exciting things
4 things I would NOT eat for anything in the world
-Lemon Meringue – vile stuff that we were fed at school and made me gip
-Rice pudding – see above
-Poo – kind of obvious that one but I was starting to get stuck 😉
-A tub of Mayo – gack
4 places I would love to be right now
-With my mates in Burghley, with none of us worrying about work
-In the pub with my local mates
-Expecting fully paid leave for the next 6 months to develop my knitting skills and nurturing myself
-Eating something – it is nearly half 4 in the afternoon and I only just realised that I haven’t had lunch today.
4 people to tag
I tag:
Cath, seeing as she has only just started on her blog again and needs extra motivation ;D
Tara, because she is still young and new in the blogworld and hasn’t answered these yet
Another knitting Ruth (the world can’t ever have too many knitting Ruths), as I don’t remember seeing it on her blog.
I can’t think of anyone else right now 🙂
Look out for a mildly interesting PS2.0 post next weekend. This next two months, as I’ve mentioned before, will be finishing with a small amount of colour themed knitting, which means I’ll post eye-candy from the stash. Just to, you know, justify my membership and make you drool.

A little delayed

Oops! I got a bit held back there on posting, thanks to a 3 day week which involved the installing of a multifuel stove in our lounge (and it is FAB), and the arrival of a long term guest (if not very very long term, but time will tell).
Anyway, what you really want to know about is knitting isn’t it?
Here are a couple of socks I have on the go at the mo. The first is the wonderful Jaywalker in Schaeffer Anne leftover from Cherry’s dragon scale socks. It still pools, but it also still feel lush and silky soft and lovely, and I’m hoping I’ve gauged the leg right for length so that I a) have enough yarn and b) don’t have too much left.
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I also have these:
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These are for my Sockapaloooza pal 😀 The yarn, in case you hadn’t guessed/noticed/read any of my older posts, is from the Knittery and is Orchid Merino Cashmere sock yarn, and it is sooo buttery and smooth to knit with. The pattern is of my own design based on a stitch pattern from good old Barbara Walker, and is supereasy to memorise and knit in front of the tv with a cat snuggled up to me.
I’ve also done a load of knitting on the Ram’s Horn cardi, and have a 3rd pair of socks just started, but given that I’ve had issues finding a good pattern for them, I’m holding back on pics in case I jinx them 🙂