And the Heavens Opened

Ok so I should have guessed the weather wouldn't hold, last night after watching Last Orders with Nizlopi and Cathy Burton we decided to grab a cup of tea in the 24hr cafe, looking back this may have been a mistake as we started the journey back up to the tent it started to drizzle, by the time we were half way back the heavens had opened and it was driving rain at that by the time we were back to the tent we were freezing and soaked to the skin. Now any of you who camp will know how difficult it is to get warm in the early hours of the morning in a tent when you are wet especially as we had used our one and only towel for a tea and coffee catastrophe.
So on went the fleece the socks the shawl another shawl and the hat and the sleeping bag and still frozen but did manage to get some sleep even with the deafening noise from the rain.
Of course an early morning visit to the porta loo was called for, now I have to say they do a really great job with them here they are cleaned every day and the toilet paper and hand stuff is replenished but it is still a porta loo and unfortunately for some unknown reason it seemed to have been placed in a ditch so now sits in a bog which of course is great for flip flops but managed , the sky was amazing though and the site amazingly peaceful and dry. It didn't last by the time I had managed the contortionist act of getting dressed in the tent it started again. I think the upshot of all of this is that maybe unless one of us learns to drive so we can bring a few more luxuries like tables and chairs my kingsize duvet that maybe next year we are looking at the halls of residence.
Now I know that you are thinking why am I sitting here at a computer when I could be out there watching live music, two reasons, well maybe three or four, firstly it is raining again and this is one place I can come and get a good mug of tea in a proper mug without my feet being six inches in mud, secondly the talk I had planned to go to has been cancelled and at the music on the main stage isn't so good that I will go and stand in the rain to watch it:)
Can't wait to get home to share alll my pictures and more stories, of course the pictures will be of nothing important but hopefully I'll be able to link you to a few good pics.

Hello Greenbelt

Just dropped in to say hi, we made it to the festival in one piece just, definitely having a rethink about next year as the journey was a little stressful and far too many stairs.
We arrived though to beautiful sunshine unfortunately we of course have packed for full winter weather and by the time we actually found our pre pitched tent we were sweating and slightly sun burnt. We managed to find Julia though and got our priorities right and put the kettle on. The tent itself has two bedrooms unfortunately slightly smaller than the one I am used to and me and Andy being on the more ample side its a bit of a tight squeeze.
We have decided to take it easy over the weekend and do a few things that we really want to do rather than try and rush around and do everything so I have managed to see John Bell in action yesterday and we saw Daniel Bedingfield last night and am about to go and join the big sing. Check out the Greenbelt site for up to the minute pictures and you never know you might spot us.
Better go my time is nearly up, plenty more with pics when we get home

Close Up

This is a slightly more infocus shot of the shawl and the colour is a better representation.

So we are all packed (well just about) for Greenbelt and ready to go if I could just find the train tickets, all I have really left to do is sort out my knitting, I am thinking probably a sock after some advice from Daisy Chains.

It even looks like the weather is on our side as it looks like the only wet night will be Friday.


All I can hope is that I can sleep tonight because of the excitement, I am trying so hard not to get too excited as I know from previous experience that I am setting myself up for a fall.

I might get a chance to blog whilst Im there but probably no pics though so will save those for my return. That reminds me have to pack a crochet hook as Julia wants to learn how whilst we are away.

I hope everyone has a wonderful bank holiday weekend 

Look at me

I am a Daffodil What Flower Are You?

I found this on Anne's blog, not sure I agree with it at all but hey I like daffodils

Pickles

Ok so feeling a lot better now, even after seeing the weather report.

I do have some knitting news though, I finished my lace shawl, its not blocked yet, only due to having no pins here at the moment, I am absolutely thrilled with it and can't wait to start my next lace project. I will post pictures when it is pinned out.

I have also signed up for sock wars, now I am more than sure that I will be out in the first round but at least I will have a nice pair of socks to wear. Check it out it is such a great idea.

Finally Joan L. left me a comment about the shardigan that I started knitting at the beginning of last year unfortunately she doesn't seem to have left an e-mail for me to respond but the information is that the pattern is available here, I struggled a bit with the copy I got but it may have been revised since, I also realised that it was going to be far to small for me so frogged it. 

Hello

I know I've not blogged for a bit but haven't felt that inspired to do so, so many things going on around here at the moment sometimes it is difficult for me to keep up with myself.
As you can see from the picture I have been at Silkwood for a couple of days, aren't these two cute when I was there last time they were only just out of their nest but now they seem huge in comparison and very very lively, had a great time trying to keep them from jumping from the cage when I opened it to feed them.
One of the things that is going on at the moment is that we have been given notice to vacate the flat that we rent, not because of anything we've done I hasten to add but the owners just want to sell the property. They have been really good about it and have given us more than the required notice but it just means that we have to find somewhere and move out before the beginning of November, which isn't so bad but we had just started to feel settled. admittedly not all of my stuff is here yet but we had just started to get vaguely organised.
The other thing that is on my mind is that we are due to go to greenbelt this weekend which I was so excited about had the train tickets booked, a pre erected tent all booked and then things start to go wrong, to start with I went back to Barnes to pick up to the tickets from Silkwood yesterday it took three and a half hours due to some prats seen wandering around on the train lines so all the electricity to the local network was cut so we just sat there a while and then there was a problem on the tube so finally arrived to find no tickets. A little frustrating to say the least as all I wanted to do was come home. So when I finally got home, another terrible journey (about three hours) I e-mailed them to enquire as to what was going on and ask if they could be left at the gate for us to pick up, no reply so at mid day today I tried again to a different e-mail address asking the same thing. This time I got a very quick reply by someone who is obviously really busy and hadn't read the message properly and had very kindly promised to send me them first class.
Good News they just called and apparently I just caught her and she is sending them here hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now if only the weather would suddenly transform into something nice. The other good bit is going to be is meeting up with fellow knitters at 5:30pm at the little tea tent, so any of you lurkers who are also turning up at Greenbelt bring your knitting and introduce yourself:)
 

Temptation

I also managed to get to Liberty last week and after almost leaving
thinking that no one was going to be there I had a wonderful
evening catching up with old friends. Unfortunately I was tempted in the wool department especially as I had a Liberty voucher burning a hole in my pocket and ended up purchasing some of the new tapestry yarn (which I am feeling a bit guilty about now as I have just read about how unethical it may be) and some lovely cashsoft to match, the original plan was to make a ripple afghan from a pattern in Jan Eatons book but I very naughtley did a swatch yesterday, I had promised myself I wouldn't start anything new until the shawl is finished, and the tapestry yarn didn't like it at all so instaed I did one of her lovely crochet blocks and it seems a lot happier so I think that is the way to go but I must, I must finish my shawl first.

I was also influenced by Lixie this week as she introduced my to Swapbot and have signed up for the Magic Yarn Ball Swap which seems like it could be fun, check out some previous results from this swap here. Skein also let me know about the international scarf exchange which could be fun to.

I also worked the last Saturday at Stash before the two week break which was great fun there were one or two bloggers around including Flossie Knits who I haven't met before as normal it was good fun if a little wearing on the feet. 

Edging

After being inspired by Fred I dug out my unfinished
shawl, as you will remember all I had to do was the edging
and have made a start, as of yesterday I had turned the corner at the bottem and have started up the final side another ten repeats to go and then all that is left is the top edge. I am working on having it complete for Greenbelt so I can squash it up into the corner of a rucksack for those chilly evenings. Although in retrospect this wasn't the best choice of yarn for this pattetrn as it is too highly coloured and you loose the detail I have loved working with it is so soft for a cotton, I picked it uip in New York but I know that Woolly Workshop has started to stock it, The company is Blue Heron which I know is a Mother and son Company, she is a weaver and he started dyeing up yarns for her use and it has sort of expanded, I will definitely be knitting with this stuff again as I love it.

This week I also finished another face cloth for Andy's Mother in Laws birthday whose party we were invited to on Sunday, it was really nice everybody made me feel really welcome although I was a complete outsider, and we left bearing more gifts than we arrived, lots of wonderful leftovers and even better another wonderful collection of thier fresh vegtables. 

Lucky Girl

Recently I have been lucky enough to get hold of a couple of things that I have been wanting for a while firstly this, I have been wanting a copy of this book forever and just missed out at the KCG on Skip North but I was lucky and Michelle brought me a copy back from the states last week and am trying really hard not to cast another thing on.

The second thing were these needles from spinning on the edge, she has had them in her store for a while but I had the same problem as I had with the book I don't have a credit card, for good reasons I know what I would be like if I did. They have this beautiful batik pattern, she also included some american sweets into my parcel, she has really good shipping rates and only charges what it costs to ship.

Now to answer a couple of questions about the blue sweetcorn, yes it was just like sweetcorn with not quite as much taste, I think it kept its colour because I microwaved it in its outer leaves.

The dish cloth pattern is from this group who has a great resource of patterns available and are a really friendly group.

Sorry had a slight problem with the link all fixed now (thank you Fred)

Art anyone

Dishcloth

I have just joined a dishcloth KAL and although it sounds a bit strange it is really nice to belong to a group knitting the same thing but getting quick results,

They di two cloths a month and they are released over five/six days at 10 rows at a time, I have just finished my first one and it turned out to be this lovely lighthouse.

I ended up knitting this in Mission Falls cotton as this was the only aran weight yarn I could get hold of at the time and used slightly bigger needles but the arn was os lovely to knit with and the finished square is so soft and drapey I am considering making them all in this yarn and sewing them altogether for a throw for the sofa, 

Vegtables

Look what Andy's father-in-law sent us from his allotment
this week, well this plus some red skin potatoes, courgetees, green beans, spring onions, tomatoes and cucumber, yes its blue sweetcorn. I have never seen anything like it and took great pleasure in cooking it and eating it straight off the cob this afternoon, it really did look like steel. 

Cake

Look what I did, I actually made a cake which people will eat, this was using Wye Sue's recipe and made a banana and choclate chiploaf cake, it was a little heavy as I think I put to much banana in but seems nice. 

Books

Ok so after a discussion with Mary at Stash on Saturday about Grafting Garter stitch on the bottem of Noblin Knits Booties she recommended this book.

Buy This




Well I have seen this book a few times and have dismissed with out even opening it because I have quite a few knitting hand books as you can imagine all I can say is that I was wrong this is the ultimate reference book and if you are new to knitting this is the one I would recommend from no on (not to expensive either) It has great clear instructions on any cast on you can imagine and much more.

This book on the other hand was a major disappointment,


Don't Buy This


When I found about it I thought great finally I will manage to get buttons on to my blog successfully maybe even create a new template rather than the set ones, I was so wrong, from the description I thought this book would give me all this information and more but no not a chance this is basically for beginners and goes through the basics for your first entry and posting pics.

Other good news though is that Skip North Dates all confirmed and keep an eye on the website for more details, you can also see what we got up to last time.

Ok I know

I know I wasn't supposed to be casting on anything new but I couldn't help myself this is the right frnt of the Flyaway Free jacket by Jill Vosburg (apparently Yvonne informs me you can also get her patterns at Taj crafts), and no that isn't wool from my stash, I made a slight detour to my LYS yesterdat KNITSEW in Dagenham Heathway now they don't hold any high end yarn but stock sirdar and patterns and crochet cotton and patterns going back years, they are very friendly and do try and buy something in there every month or so just to support them. I am using Sirdar Medici and a cheap chunky as I wanted to make a mock up almost of this jacket before splashing out on more expensive yarn just to see where I need to extend the arms and so on and so forth, but it is growing really quick and I think I am going to need less yarn than I have brought.

The other great news is that we have booked our greenbelt tickets and tent and I am already getting over excited not only about the whole festival as I love the chilled out atmosphere this place has but I finally get to meet some of the other knitters there and then of course there is John Bell my all time hero.

Knitting wise I also managed another couple of inches on bruised ego and Pixeldivas pattern with my yarn made it onto Whip Up. I also found several links to this on peoples blogs can't wait for the first issue in October. I also found this link on Blue Adt be warned these games are highly addictive.

Ok I am off to spin some yarn. 

Happy Day

As yet unnamed but this is the latest hand spun skein, the more I look at it the more it reminds me of the West Ham strip (my now local team) obviousley all those flags that were flying around here have snuck into my subconcious. 

Thisis what happens on a bad day, yes I go shopping, I
have been so good but couldn't resist finally buying these
JIll Vosburg patterns from the Knitting Zone now that I
found out that they take Paypal. 

This is my the start of Knucks from Knitty I have finished
the body of one glove and done the crab stitch border at
the bottem but have yet to do the decoration, I think I am
going to leave that for when I have knitted the second glove
so I can make them balanced. They are knitted in Rooster yarns which is wonderful and warm as it is 50% baby alpaca and 50% merino. I love the combination of the charcoal grey and the hot pink, originally I had also brought some of the ocean colourway but decided against stripes. 

As promised here is the picture of the booties I
knitted using what I think is cotton angora but
wouldn't swear to it as was from the wool
mountain at the KCG on Skip North last year.
The pattern is the free one from Noblin knits and are really cute and really quick to knit

Talking of Skip North the dates for 2007 trip are up and they are March the 9th to the 11th many more details to follow. 

Wow

Just a quick note just to say check this out, thats my hand spun wool in Magknits (thank you Kerrie). I think Pixeldiva has done an amazing job and the wrist warmers look fantastic.