a good yarn

just got back from the library knitting group. Well, just got back, had a mug of tea, whined about how irritating the new Jamie Oliver programme is and posted on Ravelry. (Aside: just play-yelled at daughter to 'get to bed!' and was told quite calmly 'shut up'. I love being a mum)

The group was big tonight - 21 people, I think and they are a great bunch. Didn't get half as long to chat as I wanted to, though. There need to be other knitting nights where I'm not worried about how many people turn up and how many books they borrow.

It's still a big 'told you so' to those in the library service who suspected the group would fail miserably, though. Not that I'm gloating. Because that would be petty. But so, so satisfying all the same :)

Don't care if I'm repeating myself here. I do love being a mum - especially the part where I wake her in the morning and get to sneak lots of kisses while she's still only half-awake.

bed now. tired.
C.

ishbell

Ishbell shawl by Ysolda Teague (www.ysolda.com/wordpress)

Finished in a weekend and love it - as you can see from the photo. Tennis elbow seems to be abating. Hooray!!

slowly, slowly

not been knitting up a storm as I usually am, recently. The tennis elbow has really slowed me down. It's annoying, but it's meant I've taken up a bit of sewing in the meantime while it heals. In fact, I think I may have developed a bit of a fabric as well as a fibre addiction.

We have enough Christmas fabric to make all the holiday ornaments, napkins and placemats we'll ever need, so that's good!

I'll post pictures of Christmas in progress soon.

It's also meant that I can finally display all the vintage hankies my Mum gave me. I have 12 so far - and might buy more from Ebay, but I'd really like the quilt to be made with only family hankies. That's right, I'm making hankies into a quilt. Look at http://www.ehow.com/how_2077800_make-handkerchief-quilt.html if you want to see how to make one. There's one hankie in the collection from when I went to Sunday school as a tot which is a bit mad and seventies, but that's only to be expected - since it WAS the seventies :)

I'm going to try to make this quilt a long term project so I don't rush to get it finished for a deadline and screw it up somehow. It will be lovely to put something on my bed which has so much sentimental meaning and history. Much better than the pile of hankies lingering in a drawer somewhere.

C.

KIP day in Dunfermline

Prizewinners from Dunfermline Carnegie Knit in Public Day event. Don't quite know how it happened, but the winning ladies were sitting beside one another - must have been lucky seats!

On the left, we have one of our best customers, Mrs Betty Healy and on the right is Ravelry's very own, MrsJollyJackTar. I want to see the socks when they're done!

So, we launched our new library knitting group for members of the public on Worldwide KIP day. Great success with a good mix of ages and knitting tastes. We had a complete newbie learn to knit at the event and evaluation from the morning has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks to all the lovely knitters who turned up to support us on the day! Remember, the knitting group will be starting June 25th in Dunfermline Carnegie Library from 6-8pm and we'd love to see you there.

dyeing to meet you

For the second easter holidays in a row, my daughter and I have been dyeing like women possessed with Koolaid. Smells nice - except when you add cider vinegar to the dye, in which case it reeks like an especially rank pair of socks. It's easy to use and gives colours that are bright without being BRIGHT and looks homemade without looking too homespun, if you see what I mean. At least, I hope they don't look too homemade - let me know what you think!

We used at least 4 packets of Koolaid for each 100g of yarn - a nice undyed merino 4ply I bought from Texere mills online.

The yarn colourways are, from the top - where the wild socks are, spring, Irn-Bru on a summer day and below that, cherry blossom. The last picture is when the skeins were just dry and waiting to be re-skeined and buttoned - badly! Can anyone point me in the direction of a toot on how to skein and button yarn????

e.t.a. I've just noticed, when you embiggen the last photo of 'hand with yarn' you can see how wrinkly and pruned my fingertips are from all that dyeing.

reasons to be cheerful, 1,2,3...

No posts lately, down to the job being kerazy busy, but will try to do better. Maybe I can start by listing all the things I've knitted in the past while and then wait for the smack on the back of the head when I tell you that I have no pictures of any of them. Not the Charlie Brown jumper I've just finished for my niece's baby or the cardigan and Wicked jumper I knit with my Christmas wool. Pathetic.


I mean, how hard is it to walk the ten steps to pick up the camera after I've finished something and then take a few snaps? It's not like I'm having to fight my way through rampaging hordes to get to the camera or anything. No, the worst we're talking about negotiating is a flight of stairs. And yet, still there are no photos. I'm thinking of just passing all photographing duties over to either the daughter or the husband.

It's not always pure laziness, though. Although I can't imagine feeling completely at home in any other country and I love living in Scotland, our days are not always filled with the type of light that lets you take effortlessly lovely photos - like the ones on brooklyntweed's blog for example. His photos are amazing. Just beautiful. He captures everything in one go; the fibre, the stitch pattern - everything. If I could put one photo up on this blog that is one tenth of his standard, I would be so delighted.


Maybe I should aim lower and plan to have one photo per post this year. And with that in mind - here you go. One photo. My pattern - albeit heavily influenced by the very warm hat by EZ. And I am entitled to look like that. I've been in a service plan meeting all day with the 'high heid yins'. You'd look like this too if you'd been there! And I clearly have the attention span of a cheese sandwich 'cos I see from the title of this post it was meant to be something entirely different.

"I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you anyhow."

Any guesses for this lyric??