snow day

disappointment

2010-08-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

**warning -this post contains swearing.....much, much swearing******

****consider yourself warned!*****

I was supposed to be attending the Jared Flood seamless sweater design workshop yesterday as part of the Knit Camp 2010 festivities. Yeah, well that didn't happen. I've been pretty neutral on the Ravelry boards since I dislike how it makes us look as a knitting community if we all indulge in a bit of 'let's pile on and trash the bitch'. Well, I say neutral, but what I really mean is I've been trying to make my point in a firm way without resorting to saying what I really wanted to which was:

"What the fuck! How can you get away with treating people like this, you clueless cow?"

When I called at 9:30 on Monday evening to see if the event was going ahead the next day, the lady I spoke to was pretty calm, sounded a bit stressed I suppose and she told me my Tuesday class was being put forward one day to Wednesday 'would that cause me a problem?'. Yes, when you work full time and have specifically arranged one fucking day to attend a workshop with a freaking knitting hero of yours, moving the agreed date is a bit of an inconvenience, actually! I have meetings and commitments today, Thursday and Friday, so I was screwed. I hope everyone who goes has a fantastic time. I'll be there on Saturday with my mad knitting crew, but I'm gutted to be missing Jared and I'm just so fucking angry at the way we have been treated.

Lady needs to learn the art of communication....and fast.

busy doesn't cover it!

2010-07-25T12:50:00.001-07:00

since we've been back (a whole 2 days now) I've been crafting like a demon in our sweatshop - sorry dining room. I've made a little collection of felted leaf and flower brooches and I've just listed a new item on Folksy.com - a cute cream felted bowl. Life is busy, busy. I still have the order for Texere to finish up and I need to check whether anything from the little collection I put into another shop has sold yet. Nervous about that, but still excited! Things seem to have really taken off in a small but exciting way for me with the shop and I'm hoping when the mention in next months's Yarn Forward is taken into account, sales might just start to creep up and up. I can hope anyway!

It's not that I don't like my job, it's just that doing what I'm doing with MY company and MY time and using MY skills is just so satisfying, I can't help but wish I could spend more time on it.

Here's hoping you all get to spend more time doing what you really love in the next little while :o)

In the meantime, here's a little taste of what I've been up to.......

cakes and knitting

2010-07-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Cambridge yesterday where we were camping at a lovely spot. Lovely weather - so much so that I actually sport a colour other than 'peely-wally'. Saw some beautiful sights, ate some lovely cake, was in danger of lamping students in Cambridge itself if they had asked me one more time whether I wanted to punt down the river. Good clean cake-filled fun.

I knitted, too - the Pi Shawl above is from EZ's lexicon in single ply icelandic. Love that stuff. You have to be a little bit 'ginger' with it while you're knitting, but it seems to make your brain send signals to your fingers to be gentle and relax. I strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn't already tried it out. And it's cheap as chips! The other pics are from Ely Cathedral. Amazing place - we loved it so much, we went twice.

Glad to be home now, but not glad at the size of the pile of washing awaiting me :o(

just the one

2010-07-07T05:24:00.003-07:00

Forgot I had this one of my mum in her Christmas present. I'll upload it to Ravelry when I'm feeling better, but here it is for now - Mum in her Opal sock yarn Ishbel

and here's the other bit of Christmas knitting, Dad's feet in his Christmas socks (I can't believe it's taken me to July to upload these!!!!)

stinking cold

2010-07-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

I'm at home off work with the aforementioned stinking cold. I can't even knit to cheer myself up since I can't put my glasses on, my eyes and nose are running so much. TMI, I know, but I have to give you the full picture so you sympathise! I'm sneaking five minutes online before I go for a nap. Don't have any knitting photos to show off, but thought I'd show another garden photo, just to prove I'm still alive and blogging :o)

As soon as this stinky cold has gone, I'm going to be putting some of my knitted and beaded stuff on sale in a local library - Duloch library, if any of my followers are in Fife and fancy a look. I might see if I can get a snap of the little cabinet once it's all loaded up with my brooches and baby shoes and button brooches and felted bowls......now you're curious!

see you all on the other side of the sniffles.....

Folksy birthday!

2010-06-29T08:15:00.001-07:00

As promised over on Ravelry, here are some pics of the lovely things I chose for my daughter's birthday today:

Lovely mini handbound book in moroccan leather from Oscar Cat Designs on Folksy

THE cutest owl in the whole world courtesy of entanglewood on Folksy

A set of beautiful sleepy owl cards from gooseberrymoon on Folksy

fantastic camera badges from Mighty Thrifty on Folksy

lovely, delicate turquoise rose earrings from Realicoul on Folksy

Quirky camera earrings - really detailed and unusual from Purple Schmurple on Folksy

sweet, sweet polka dot hairgrips from Concept Design Form on Folksy

the sweetest westie badge from Forever Foxed on Folksy

and the most delicious ginger lip balm from ameliorate on Folksy

and finally, the most original little painted mirror from Superfumi on Folksy

all I need to say is - who needs chainstores????

this and that

2010-06-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

The 'this' in this post, if you see what I mean is another baby thing (or two). Hope you're not getting bored looking at them, because I'm aiming to knit right through my stash this year and there'll be a lot more baby stuff coming!! This is a baby skirt I designed (if you can call it that, it was so simple). I think I'll knit up another one and write out the pattern to post on Ravelry. I've used enough free patterns in my time that it's probably about time I gave a couple back to the knitting community :o)

This is my 5th tomten jacket. If there's anyone reading this who knits and who doesn't know Elizabeth Zimmermann, do yourself a favour and buy a copy of the Knitter's Almanac. You can pick it up easily for only a few pounds and if you're anything like me, it'll change the way you think about knitting for good. The jacket is so simple but so satisfying to knit and I never get bored of making it. The hood is so cute when you see it actually on the small person you made it for!

The 'that' is another load of photos, but this time of the gorgeous flowers out in my garden at this time of year. Scott (the husband) is a mad keen, fantastic gardener and these are just some of the beauties he's grown. I like the photo of the clematis especially since it's the first time I've ever taken a picture of a bee. I wanted to get it just as it emerged but then it flew towards me and I got scared. I am a wuss and I am not ashamed :o)

All the roses in our garden (6 varieties) are heavily scented. A rose without a perfume is such a disappointment. The big pink one in the photo is my daughter's rose and smells of baby powder!

Speaking of the daughter, I'm just about to go put pizza in the over for her and her friends since they're all coming over for dinner to celebrate her 14th birthday. My girl is 14. How did that happen??

Happy Birthday Rhia!!

baby, baby, baby

2010-06-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

A workmate is having a baby boy later this year and the sister of another workmate has just had a baby girl. Combine these facts with a stash that includes many, many single balls of yarn, not to mention scraps of yarn and I can see that there are going to be loads of baby things coming in my summer knitting. I'm going to knit another dress and write up the pattern for Ravelry. You like??

Look Ma - I've actually been knitting!

2010-06-20T07:59:00.001-07:00

Just to prove that I know where the camera is and how it works :o)

This is one completely calorie-free cupcake. Damn, that doesn't sound appealing, does it? Pretty cute, if a bit fiddly. Can't complain about the pattern since it was a very well-put-together freebie from Ravelry. It's just that I'm fingers and thumbs when it comes to assembling small stuffed things!

These are a few of the stitch markers I've been wearing away my fingers making lately. It's a very addictive craft and people so far seem to like them, so that's good! I'm selling them through a couple of yarn shops - K1 in Edinburgh and Three Bags Full down in Halifax and also through my little Folksy shop. They are such fun to make - especially the Fimo cakes. It's like being a kid in a candy store!

If you're interested, nip over to my Folksy shop for a browse - there's loads of amazing stuff on offer there from makers all over the UK. Most of my daughter's birthday presents seem to have come from Folksy this year. So, the link is...
http://www.folksy.com/shops/snowday

I also had a bit of good luck a little while back when I won the Telegraph's travel writing competition. Not quite as grand as it sounds when you realise that they run the comp every week, but still. The prize was £200 and I'm going to enjoy spending every penny when we're down in Cambridge later next month - there are three yarn shops in Cambridge...I'm just saying ;o) If you're interested, the link for the travel piece is:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-writing-competition/7770807/Just-back-unearthing-a-Scottish-secret.html

a good yarn

2009-09-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-17T01:55:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-27T02:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-09T05:41:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-02-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

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??

laugh 'til you puke

2008-10-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

Had a little photoshoot at work today during my coffee break. Wanted a not-too-horrific photo for my Ravelry avatar - nearly ended up with a laughter induced hernia.

and they say librarians are sane.

Lots of knitting on the cards - and the needles. We're talking Wicked, Branching Out, Malabrigo collars, christmas decorations.......Photo-rich posts to follow. Yeah, I know. It's been an empty promise before, but this time will be different.

Probably.

red

2008-08-20T00:49:00.000-07:00

I'll explain the title of this post in a minute. meanwhile, here's a quick shot of a bundle of random squares - can you guess what it is yet? kind of self-explanatory, this one. still, he's cute isn't he? and this is the only time he's sat still for more than ten seconds at a time in his entire life, so the occasion needed to be marked.
new socks. and these ones will not be felted. are you listening, Scott? ankle sock pattern from socks, socks, socks. I swear I will insert something sharp in my husband if he felts another pair of handknitted socks.
another pic. of the mystery squares, looking less mysterious and more baby-blankety. for a lovely girl in the library who's expecting her first baby and knit by around ten of us at work. EZ's heart elbow patch pattern, so you know it must be good!

Now I've finally given you eye-candy, I can tell you about how I've lived up to the unexpected part of this blog's name this week.

Thursday, I got my hair cut at a recently re-modelled salon in town - I only mention this 'cos it means I can tell you they now have chairs with magic fingers that massage you as you get your hair washed. Good idea, but it kind of reminded me of all the irritating buggers who sit behind you in the cinema, rolling their knees down your back through your chair. Anyhow, I hated the way the girl 'styled' my hair into a nice, neat, turned-under brown helmet, so I went straight to the chemist and an hour later I was the proud owner of a crop of bright red hair.

Bright red. Not copper, or titian or rust. Bright red. Yay!

Must have been something in the air that day since I also bought and wore a bright yellow cardigan in the Monsoon sale. I've never to my knowledge worn yellow. Ever.

I like being unexpected. It's one of my favourite words and favourite things to be.

I'll post a pic. of the hair once I've re-done the dye-job, since it's fading already!

It's a disgustingly rainy day and I'm off work since Rhia's school is striking so I'll have to go and force myself to knit all day and watch the Olympics. Shame. Don't you feel sorry for me?

Alive

2008-07-25T12:14:00.001-07:00

It's what I officially am.

Working hard - the contract as a service development librarian has been extended to next March so that's good. That's very good so far as Christmas and the putting of presents into stockings is concerned. The folk I share an office with are really cool and I'm having a great time as part of this team, so no worries there - or not until early March next year, anyhow.

Knitting not so hard - my mojo's all out of sorts. I lift and lay... lift and lay.... start and rip..... start and rip. At one point last weekend I actually thought it was a do-able reasonable plan to start threading outsized rainbow-coloured sequins onto a ball of bright pink mohair yarn and make a scarf with zany panels of sequins at either end. Yeah, that would have been fun; scraping sequins along yard after yard of hairy, shedding yarn knitting a scarf that nobody with half a fashion-recognising brain would ever wear.

If I'm knitting less than normal, I've still got multiple things on the go. Maybe that's the problem; as soon as I take up the ankle sock, the mitered squares start calling me and then there's the two balls of laceweight mohair I bought in Oban a few weeks ago - what the hell are they going to be, exactly? The internet must be browsed - the truth (in the form of the perfect pattern for whatever) is out there!

I need a good kick. And a glass of wine. A big one.

What exactly do you knit when your head is up your arse? I'm open to suggestions.

"I'm like a coo with a gun."
(Expression used by workmate to describe how uneasy she feels when handed a newborn.)

shaking the margarine tub of life

2008-04-09T04:22:00.000-07:00

I should probably explain.

When I was little, we had a fridge (yes I came from a priveledged background, what of it?) and inside this fridge at any one time would be on average five or six identical margarine tubs. My mum would use them to store leftovers, so any time you wanted to spread some delicious margarine on a piece of toast say, you had to pick up and shake a few tubs before you hit paydirt. A heavy slosh meant tinned peaches, a slow slump meant tinned beans and as for a dry rattly shake, take my word for it and don't open this one - it'll only be maggots for your brother's weekend fishing trip. Yeah, that one still haunts me.

I'm realising as I age how much like my mother I am. Now I'm the one who won't throw away leftovers and won't mark freezer boxes so that what you think is tomato soup you're defrosting for lunch? Yeah, that'll be the strawberry/rhubarb puree I froze months ago.

I'm like this with my stash too. Half or quarter balls are kept - hell, balls that a dealer would give out as freebies are still kept for that rainy day project where they'll be indispensable.

But I've found a project to use up all of those micro balls of sock yarn at least. The Sock Yarn Blanket by Shelley Kang. Have a look at www.shellykang.com or search for sock yarn blanket on Ravelry. I promise it's worth a look.

"It's like fighting a battle of wills with an unarmed man."
overheard this week at work.

wwf knitting

2008-03-17T02:32:00.001-07:00

Don't deny it - I know you're trying to work out if wwf is code for something obscene! No, I didn't mean to post wtf, although I have had a few of those kind of moments in the past wee while - the past 34 years or so being the worst. I'm referring to the knitting I did this weekend. You see, my requested copy of Mason Dixon Knitting came in to work on Thursday, so this weekend was spent raiding drawers and charity shop bags for t-shirts to cut up and slipknot together to make one ginormous rag ball. It's not nearly as big as the 8lb one in the book, but my butt was numb from sitting on the floor cutting t-shirts into calamari loops for so long and I was impatient to get going with it.

We ended up with a ball of mixed blues, reds, greys, reds and black which weighed in at 2 1/2 lbs. Only thing is, while the t-shirt cotton is nice and soft, you're knitting with a doubled thickness and at some points we might have strayed away from the guideling of 1" thickness, so some of the strips have to be wrestled onto and off the needles. My wrists are a bit achey this morning from all that hard work and I think it'll be a project where you can physically only manage a couple of rows at a time. You know, before your hands actually fall off. Marines couldn't knit fast with this stuff. But, I have to say, putting the yarn together was completely absorbing - even for my 11yr old who has the attention span of a cheese sandwich.

Need longer number 10 circulars, though. At the moment, it's so squashed up on the needles and so stiff you could wear it as a native American head dress. Actually, there's an idea.........

Mason Dixon Knitting is a great book, though. I'm already picturing a purply/pink lace curtain at the daughter's window and cream linen ones at our bedroom window. There are 6 dining chairs crying out for a padded knitted cushion and I have some single ply pure wool left over from a cardigan that would make a killer felted box.

If only work and eating and sleeping didn't clutter up and waste so much time.

new job, new me, new knitting

2008-01-30T01:35:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to apologise for my absence. No-one comes here but me anyway so I'd just be talking to myself and I try to keep that to a minimum.

Lots to report since last post. Firstly, I've got a secondment as a Service Development Librarian (and yes, I do need the capitals) until the end of August this year. It's a fantastic opportunity and I'm really enjoying getting stuck in and making the most of it. It's made me appreciate that I absolutely did made the right decision to do Librarianship in the first place and also made me determined to drag every last bloody person in Fife into their local library if I have to go into their homes, make their breakfast, tuck their feet into their shoes and hustle them out the door myself!

Thought I'd have no time for knitting once I was working full-time but I clearly underestimated the scale of my obsession there! I've finished more things than you could shake a stick at recently and I'll post pics of each and every one of them asap. I'm going to try to make use of Ravelry's fantasticness in this respect. I've been bowled over by how logical and organised that site is! The librarian in me approves.

hope wednesday is good to you.
christine

sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it to graw through the leather straps.....
Emo Phillips

whirlwind

2007-08-24T02:49:00.000-07:00

At least, that's how life has felt these last few weeks.

I started a new job at the local public library which I am LOVING. It just reminded me of all the reasons I became a librarian in the first place. All the little puzzles you get to solve all day long. Makes me wonder why I'm so abysmal at crosswords but relish the problems I get to solve at work. It's probably because somehow I link crosswords with maths. I know, I know - weird and inexplicable. Anyhow, work is good - better than good, really but BUSY and with long hours I'm not quite used to yet. A couple of ladies there seem to have got it in for me, but I think any antagonism stems from their own insecurities rather than anything I've done, so I'm doing my best to ignore the cattiness. How is that last sentence for blog-discretion! So much I want to say but I won't. I've already vented to my husband so most of the steam has dissipated by now. And there's a knitting group at work too, so it can't be all bad, can it?

I've been knitting like a demon, too. The lack of a real summer has really helped in that respect - apart from knitting a few cotton projects there hasn't been any real change in my knitting schedule to accomodate hot, hot weather 'cos there hasn't been any bloody hot, hot weather or if there has I've been working and closeted in a library while it's been going on.

I'm still trying to piece together a good synopsis for the book to send it off to the first of what I'm sure will be a long line of rejections. How's that for Scottish optimism? It WILL be published, it WILL.

The black Debbie Bliss cardie is finished and has been worn lots. The log cabin blanket is still on the needles - hopefully to be finished sometime soon. A pair of little anklets for lazy Sundays in some of the handyed yarn Rhia and I made at Easter have been pinched by my lovely daughter but I'll take pic's of a few things for next post. I've been getting lots of knitting books brought in as requests from all over Fife since I can do it for free so I'm kind of overloaded with the thought of what I could make when this elastic first paycheck finally arrives. I did do a little cream shrug for Rhia to wear to my niece's wedding up in Inverness a couple of weekends ago. It was in Sirdar Bamboo which was lovely to work with and made up into a fabric with a lovely softness and sheen. Only thing was the beautiful dress she wore had little crystals on it which caught and shredded the shrug to pieces. Never mind, she liked it and wore it the whole wedding day so I can't really complain. She'll be a teenager soon enough and probably won't wear anything I knit so I'll make the most of it for now. I'm going to make up a pattern for a little knitted waistcoat for her to wear this Autumn to school. I'm thinking quite tailored with a little bar on the back with great vintage buttons. We have an enormous stash of those thanks to a lovely lady who passed on kilos of buttons and other assorted 'things' to us. Actually, that's another thing I'll take pic's of for next time.

Oh, and I've been reading and re-reading lots lately, too. Here's a few recommendations for you.

Louise Welsh - Tambourlaine Must Die and The Cutting Room. Both utterly compelling just in completely different ways. I think I'd read her reworking of the phone book, she's just that good. And I don't ever read female authors.

M. Y. Alam - Kilo. This was a re-read for me and I'm going to buy it for my birthday but it was just as fanatastic third-time round. Moving and gripping and funny and just plain well-written.

Joseph Roth - Job. The quality of prose in this book is just mind-blowing. Simple and graceful and haunting.

Anyhow. Back soon. Next time with pictures.

this thing I do when I'm not knitting

2007-06-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

I'm just tinkering with the last few missing pieces of this thing I've been writing. I wrote the last chapter the other week and it's just the middle that needs planting and pruning. Very difficult to explain how wildly exiting this is. I'm almost ready to make the big push and send it off to try to get myself an agent. Bloody hell!

Actually, even if no-one ever wants to publish it, I happen to have a printing press in my airing cupboard and an enormous box of type under my bed, so it could still happen!

So, I thought I'd let slip a little taster of the book to you. Please feel free to ignore it. The basic premise of the story is four guys who were in a band together when they were young, getting the band back together even though they broke up in horrible, horrible circumstances and never wanted to see one another again. A strange logic, but it makes for some funny scenes. Or I think so, anyway. This little snippet takes place after they've agreed to get back together for a one week trial - at the end of which they're going to be the wedding band for an unfortunate couple, but that's a whole 'nother chapter.

This is just meant to be a little taster of the book. It may seem a little disjointed, but to explain those involved - Eric is one of the four in the band and may well be the biggest pain in the arse in the world. Bic and Innes are two of the other three band members and they've just rolled out of a bus and slogged up a mile-long driveway to get to this huge country house where they're going to be practicing for the next week and entertaining 150 wedding guests the following weekend.

After about fifteen minutes – long enough to irritate Eric we reasoned but not long enough to let the chill all the way in - we picked up the bags and ambled towards the white stone steps that led up to the grand entrance of this country pile. I was aware that Innes was humming something beside me, but I couldn’t make out just what it was – something gloomy at any rate.
“Funeral march,” he said gravely when I turned to ask him, humming a few more bars for clarification.
I listened carefully and realised his mistake. “Innes,” I said solemnly. “You’re an arse. That’s not the funeral march, it’s the theme from Starwars.”
He did a quick mental listen and decided I was right. He immediately dropped the battered case and swept an imaginary light saber from the equally imaginary light saber belt at his waist. He had to drop the case, since he needed one hand for the light saber and one to hold in front of his face to do the consumptive breathing bit. “You will embrace the dark side, Bic,” he said, sweeping his light saber in what could only be described as a vaguely menacing manner. “It is only a matter of time. Eventually, all will worship the Dark Lord.”
I dropped my own bag, since I needed both hands to be on my hips as I faced my enemy. “Never,” I cried. “I will resist the call of the dark side as long as there is breath in my body.” My light saber was now extended and in my right hand. We circled one another around the abandoned luggage, lunging and parrying with all the accompanying noises you’d expect from an imaginary light saber fight. And it was brilliant. Utterly, amazingly brilliant. I felt lighter than I’d done for ages, certainly lighter than I had at any point since I found that bloody letter on my windscreen. Things couldn’t be that bad when I was having this much fun. They. Just. Couldn’t.

I got in a few imaginary thrusts and slashes with the imaginary light saber and it began to look like I was winning the fight. As I should be, since we all know the dark side cannot be allowed to flourish. Heads other than Eric’s began to appear at windows all over the place, but I couldn’t bring myself to care and judging from the size of the grin on Innes’ face, neither could he.
“Die, Jedi scum,” Innes wheezed out from behind his hand and lunged at me, but I caught him with a spectacular imaginary light saber thrust to the chest and he fell dramatically to the ground, to lie there twitching.
I extinguished my pretend light saber and knelt before my bested foe. “You fought well, O-Wheezy-Wan,” I said, “but I could not let your evil live.”
“Ach, well,” Innes said grinning up at me from the gravel. “Win some, lose some.”

I'm at my voluntary job tomorrow all day so I know I won't have any spare energy for posting and that's why two posts today. Spending the day with groups of five-year-olds who think that if they say 'excuse me' they can then all magically talk at once tends to make for a fantastic, but tiring day.

Let me know what you think of the wee snippet, won't you?

the librarian's library

2007-06-26T01:26:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad I married someone who's more of a bibliophile than I am. Maybe it's because the evidence of his obsession has to be displayed out on a shelf for everyone to see, whereas my obsession can be ziplocked and stuffed into baskets and drawers, out of sight. Anyway, yarn isn't an obsession of mine. A keen interest at most. A keen interest that currently fills 6 big baskets and a tall chest of drawers, but that's all it is. I could stop anytime I wanted to. I just don't want to right now.

Since purse strings were yanked tight - and then tighter - in the last year or so, I've been knitting purely from stash. Nearly. When I think about it there are one, two, three exceptions to this. But one was a mother's day present to me and I made a lovely jumper for £14! And another was only £10 to buy black cotton to make a work cardie so that's hardly throwing money away for nothing, is it? Is it? Stop judging me! The third was to buy the 400g of merino sock yarn to dye at Eastertime. It was only about £12 from Texere Mills online - and it kept Rhia entertained for a good couple of hours over the holidays. So, even if it did break the yarn diet £36 over a whole year is pretty good going, I think.

B.T.W. Texere Mills is a killer site for anyone in the U.K. looking for yarn to dye. Really clear site and lots of choice and I've never been disappointed with anything I've bought in the past.

So, knitting from stash. Firstly this was just 'cos I had no more room. The baskets were groaning at the seams with good and bad stuff. So I purged and tearfully got rid of stuff I knew I'd never knit with. I also broke my yarn diet by swapping a book on Knitty for a whole boxload of lovely stuff from a lovely swapper in lovely America. Can you tell I loved everything she sent? O.K. so I had to swap an Alice Starmore book for it all, but it was sooooo worth it. And yes, it was that Alice Starmore book.

Only problem with knitting from stash is eventually you're down to the dregs. I've used up everything I had enough of to make actual garments and now I'm looking at random balls scratching my head. Actually, that didn't come out quite how I meant it to.

The problem is, I only need so many afghans and handwarmers and hats. And anyway, a fair bit of what I have left over is laceweight lambswool on cones since I thought I was going to be able to run up a whole load of Shibori scarves on a knitting machine a friend's mother gave me. Only it broke. And now I have cones and cones filling up half of the shelf I set aside in the dining room for booze. And I need the room, people.

Well, I started this post talking about books and now I'm onto booze. Two of my favourite subjects. A cold jd and coke, lots of ice. A pernod and water. A whisky and water. A margarita - 4 tequila, 3 lime juice, 1.5 cointreau, please. I've joked I should have that tattooe'd somewhere. 4,3,1.5. I wonder if anyone would know what it meant? Ah, but if they did know, I'd have found a friend for life.

Anyway, books, books. Stay on subject, woman! Since I've been taking pic's like a man with no arms (a Scottish sayin, just go with it), I thought I'd include a few of my pathetically small, but well-used selection of knitting books. The old looking one with the lamb on the front is actually one that my mum got for her mum as a christmas present in the forties. It's full of women who need to knit gloves so they can go riding and socks so they can play tennis and have neat children who wear knitted underwear with happy smiles. The E.Z. book hardly needs an explanation as to why it's on the shelf. I have every E.Z. I could get my hands on and someday I will have the DVD's too. The Knitting Fair Isle Gloves and Mitts is a fantastic book I'd recommend to anyone interested in fair isle at all. I've knit a few pairs from here, following the patterns but substituting colours and it is completely absorbing. I even had to buy my own colouring pencils and graph paper so I could colour in neatly. The Cat Bordhi book is the only one I'm still struggling to get to grips with. It could be that I just really like using d.p.'s. It could also be that I'm completely corrie-fisted.

So, what Knitting books, with a capital 'K', could you not contemplate being without?

new camera!

2007-06-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Well, not so much new as new to me. It's the husband's camera and I've been playing around with it this afternoon. The skeins are ones I dyed in the Easter holidays with the help of Rhia and some Koolaid. She called the purple one Hippy Dippy, the green/yellow one is Kermit's Sunday Best, I can't remember what we called the pink one I began to knit a sock with (before I realised that my sock size is not 'toddler' and took it off the needles) and the pink/orange one with a hint of green is named in tribute to my favourite chocolate bar of long ago - Fry's Five Centres. It was a thin dark chocolate bar with a fondant centre that began with raspberry and merged into orange and them lemon and then lime and ........I can't actually remember what the fifth flavour was. Strawberry? Blackcurrant? Anyway, it was delicious and the flash of green in the skein along with the pink and orange just reminded me of it straightaway. And no, I will not be keeping with the theme and dipping the socks in melted dark chocolate when they are done.

The stripy thing the skeins are resting on is my half-finished - or actually, more than half-finished, I hope - log-cabin blanket. It is a completely addictive knit, especially when you are on a strict yarn diet like me and need a way to use up scraps of nice yarn. Although, as this thing is getting bigger and bigger, the scraps are turning into bigger and bigger balls. Whatever, I'm just waiting for the go-ahead to start a job in the local library so at least I'll have cash soon to buy more, won't I?

I've started making a little pile of small log-cabin squares - just the centre panel with one set of stripes around to use up the smaller balls of yarn. Can you tell I'm Scottish and thrifty? I've just worked out a way to seam them together today too, and I'm quite chuffed with it. I'm going to use a 3 stitch i-cord taking stitches from two panels alternately with finer yarn and needles and bind them together that way. Or that's the plan anyway. I think it'll be a November project somehow. We're going away in November up to Oban to a big house with two other families so I'll probably need small sanity projects round about then.

Anyway, I'm off to take more pic's with this camera while I still have a loan of it.

Hope Monday was kind to you.

jammy day

2007-06-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

It's too rainy a day to worry about clothes today. No, I'm not wandering around Dunfermline in the buff - I'm just having an official jammy day. And since the cough - crappy - cough yarn shop in town didn't carry the cotton yarn I need to finish the bolero I'm working on I don't have a current project that's calling me. So blogging it is, then.

I've almost finished the bolero, which is good, but it's felt like a loooong process even though it hasn't taken me any longer than any other similar garment has. I think it's knitting with cotton. Black cotton. Miles of stockinette in black cotton. Yaaaaawn. The pattern's good, though. It's the Debbie Bliss Fiery Bolero in the Spring '05 issue of Interweave Knits (I think). It's well-written and nice and clear. Just booooooring. It's the sort of knitting I've always shied away from and looking at how nicely it's turned out so far I don't know why. Maybe it's because I know the knitted things I'll always wear most are in dark colours and involve huge portions of blank stockinette and I know I'll be out of my basket at the end of it.

Anyway, here are a couple of recent f.o.'s and a few gardeny things. The pink jumper is an ice-cream coloured version of the Jemima jumper from the My Fashionable Life site. It's well worth having. I've knit 4 so far this year and I see more in my future. Really, really good pattern. Just excuse the black vest top underneath mine, will you? The knitting was photographed in a a bit of a rush by my lovely 10 yr old. The red cardie is a version of the Leaf cardie from the Spring Knitty. It's a Stephanie Japel pattern and also really well written. The bag is just a mini version of the Booga bag with the addition of a spare button pinched from Rhia's new green jacket.

The pink rose is a Gertrude Jekyll we have at the bottom of our garden next to the chickens and is looking good right about now. The huge lilyish flowers are Cardiocrinum and took 7 years to get to 8 feet tall. They throw out huge spikes of flowers and then promptly die. The little rhododendron is in the nursery bed at the bottom of the garden.

Happy Sunday!

that time of year again

2007-06-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

What I can't figure out is how I'm convinced this is my daughter's birthday cake from last year when there are only 9 candles and she was ten. She'll be 11 on the 29th of June. Only 6 more sleeps, Rhia!

I'm actually a really good baker, btw, this was a special request from the spawn after we so enjoyed decorating our homemade gingerbread house at Christmas that I thought the poor thing was going to collapse under the weight of cheap sweets and royal icing. Fantastic fun, doing this kind of thing together - we have the same outrageous lack of taste and inability to stop once we start gluing sweets to things.

The other gorgeous lady in the pic. is my mum. She helped us decorate the last gingerbread house and was worse than Rhia and I combined. She kept pasting sweets to the house and then ripping them all off again, complaining that they didn't look quite right. Of course she had to eat the ones she'd taken off. I think we can blame the three or four large sherries we'd had for this kind of behaviour. It wasn't the kind of thing we ever did together when I was small and she was busy, but now, I think it'll become a new Christmas tradition for the three of us. Sitting round our dining table listening to Christmas songs, me ordering my mum to stop hogging the royal icing and eating all the bloody pink sweets already! And her completely ignoring me. Oh how she must have enjoyed that one!

Photos of actual knitting tomorrow now I've figured out how to add them. What a luddite.

new start - again

2007-06-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

I've finally joined ranks with the blogging community, then. I tried this a while ago but didn't find the energy to post regularly. I must do better, try harder and knit faster this time round!

The plan here is for me to just yap on about all the irrelevant things that clutter my brain and if anyone reads it - fine. If not, well at least my brain will have less dust bunnies and I might be able to remember just what it was I went upstairs to look for a few times a week. Less time spent head scratching would be good.

Actually I don't mind the senior moments when you open the fridge and can't remember what you needed or you have to check that the door is locked three times before you can get in the car - the one that really gets me is when I'm sitting on the loo and can't recall if I've pee'd or not. I'm only 33. At this rate I'll be wearing purple and talking to myself by the time I reach 40. There's an old lady who lives nearby who paints her rose bushes white and sticks bunches of artificial flowers in her front garden. Maybe I'll be a bit like that. I could felt hundreds of flowers and staple them everywhere. At least I'd be stashbusting, right?

I've a few photos of F.O's to post a little later - including a red version of Stefanie Japel's leaf cardie from the Summer Knitty that I'm really happy with, but for now I need to go make homemade spring rolls with my daughter.

Hope you're having as good a Saturday as I am.