Knitonlybutalso

slip-sliding

The start of a new year should mean a fresh start and everything going splendidly until it gradually starts to go pear-shaped (emphasis on gradually) however for some reason the comments from lovely people taking time to comment have disappeared from my email inbox and I only recently figured they now reside in my spam box, all without me changing any settings. Humph. The other pear-shaped potential problem is Adele.

I'm not sure about this project (Adele - a nice clean and simple Debbie Bliss pattern), she is soaking up some much loved and discontinued Rowan and I think she could be lovely... if only she would stop twisting. The back skews off in one direction, the fronts skew off at an angle and the sleeves - well I expect they will be leaning away from "true" as well. Just as well she isn't stripey I could look spectacular when I wear it - like a candy cane. The other worry is the buttons, I have a lot of button worries in my life - but then my general button issues are probably too boring to post and best shared in some sort of therapy, however the photos of Adele show BIG buttons, this not only worries me - it scares me. Buttons make or break a project and the idea of BIG buttons is perturbing to say the least.  And just how big is too big? or what if I then veer off in the direction of too small? How small is too small?  Oooh worry.

Work (which is what finances the knitting after all), is not going well either at the moment - we have a new system and one of the projects I am working on is the guinea pig, so when things have gone bad (which they have this week) then instead of wondering why things have gone wrong and trying to sort them - staff go on witch hunts, for such a small organisation it is amazing to watch how certain people clump together and then hunt in packs and I suspect it is my turn, nobody wants to know the glitches of this system they only want some blip to launch themselves at and therefore hurtle off on yet another crisis-generating round. This is sucky, but it gives some other poor sods a break. So at the moment I am feeling a bit low and a bit miserable as the fingerpointing and leaping from crisis to crisis feels draining, roll on Spring (and a sneaky-peak at the new Rowan did give me a wee lunch-time pep - it is VERY pretty).

Back to the beginning

Well, 2009, hmmmmm. We are safely back from Seville for the start of the new year (our Christmas present to ourselves and the offspring) so I am back to the cold and the damp and the local village piss-heads and their smashing bottles and 2.00am obscenities, and the teen-age attempts to breed in the hedge by the bus-stop sigh..... Seville, in case you ask was gorgeous - 10 days was not enough and I took 837 photos with the new camera (that's after deleting the cruddy ones). Now there is not a lot of knitting to be had in that fair city (I did spy 9 balls of very average acrylic-y looking yarn in a Merceraria on one of our forays) but in terms of colour and texture and sense of design the place is a dream. I totally loved it. Just look at these by the way - aren't they adorable and don't they just scream for some really funky handknitted socks?  Every time I went past this shop I took more photos of these shoes (from other angles and with other colours).

Did I ever mention I am a sucker for bright colours? Therefore the Alcazar is just like a little spot of heaven... (and the birds are very tame - even allowing a clutz like me up pretty close to photograph them - in fact they seemed to like, and almost expect a photo - that dove kinda guy - now that was a particularly posy kinda chook)

 

  

 

 

In fact - how about this as a perfect, secluded spot for an afternoon tea and a spot of knitting...

 

actually now I think about it - this would be THE perfect spot for a little uninterupted knitting (if there is such a thing)

I have also shelved for the time being (again) the shawl with the yarn I originally bought in Barcelona, finally cast on in Singapore, frogged and re-cast on in New Zealand and managed a few more rows whilst away over Chrismas, Miss Lamberts Shetland thingummy is going to have an awful lot of air miles and the carbon foot print the size of a small village - it doesn't seem right to be knitting it here. So in the mean time I am back to knitting Adele which is a Debbie Bliss pattern and I have decided it is the time and project for some much clung-to Rowan that was buried deep in the stash and considered too precious for just any project. Adele, is I must say a very nice looking knit - I saw (and fondled) it knitted up in the display in the John Lewis Glasgow store, but - and it is quite a but - it feels like I am wrestling with the yarn, there is a lot of winding it here and there around needles and I am a bit concerned the result may look and feel like I am wearing a cardboard jacket.  Still, onwards, the yarn is a lovely tweedy blue and the effect of the fabric is quite nice if you squint.

In more depressing news, Nr.1 child is having a growth spurt, I wouldn't mind (much) if he would grow within the normal (ie normal for UK clothing sizes) range, but difficult little sod, he has to have a 26 inch waist and 34 inch legs, as he is only 15 I suspect it can only get worse (longer) before it gets better (ie he takes responsibility and buys his own clothing), Nr.3 is also growing - she insists she is taller than me and now takes my shoe size. I think I will trim her feet when she sleeps, she however has pointed out my taste sucks so I may remain fully clothed - this is her about to go to her school formal (whatever next - formals for 13 yr olds??? In my day we were frog marched to our form years country dancing and wore thick sensible shoes for clumping, along with our first wonky Home-Ec attempts at making pinafores).

feeling cosy

Two cosies done and sent off to mum - I figured if I sent 2, the chances are increased that she will like at least one, but I'll get told off for being superfluous and making two, never mind - done and dusted. The scarf is next to get completed (unless I get distracted - yes I am aware I have the attention span of a gnat). Then it is the Rowan kildsilk haze cardigan and the James Brett cardigan which have been languishing in a pile by the sofa, maybe. At the moment I seem to have days on end when I come home and just blob rather than knit (as in knit AND blob - whatever happened to the days of multi-tasking?)

I have had a chaotic week - tuesday I was down in York (5:00 to the train station to catch the 6:00 and back at 9:45pm) in black ice and blizzard conditions. Getting up the small footpath from our house was the most hazardous part of the trip, for every two steps forward I slithered one back (truly, it was like climbing the north face of the Eiger - well done me) whilst clinging to the stone wall that runs for approx 2/3 of the length - and then it changed to holly hedge (not so good for clinging too). Still, the study day on diagnostic filters and what-not was well worth it - very interesting and very useful.

Thursday and Friday I was in London to teach critical apprasial skills (fabluous - what a lovely bunch of people, really friendly and full of questions and just made the two days go so well), I meant to meet up with Yvonne but was so tired I fell asleep rather than go out in the evening, never mind - I'll just have to find another excuse to go down there again......

ain't nothing going on but the rent...

Not a lot of productive knitting lately, although I am in a blur of knitting on lots of projects and none seem to be progressing, partly as I am knitting for others - these projects should be a whizz but the mere thought of knitting (even something as simple as a stripey Noro scarf as in Brooklyn Tweeds') has me fizzing with worry - what if the recipient doesn't like it, what if he hates the colour, what if he is offended that I thought he couldn't get himself a scarf of his own choosing, what if he hates the yarn, what if he thinks the colours are totally girly (and that thought would never do for such a totally kiwi bloke) or thinks I have done a crap job or - WHAT IF HE HATES SCARVES ALTOGETHER?  I guess if this guy wasn't so special it wouldn't matter so much , but he is adorable and I love him to bits, well OK not totally to bits - that's my sisters department (he is her main sqeeze, apart from her offspring) and anyone that is so good to her (because she is the most precious sister in the world and if she wasn't my only sister she would still be my favourite sister) and makes her so happy has to be the best not-actually-brother-in-law ever. Normally, I would hang back on the knitting (it is kind of known as my little oddity and people are very good - I mean they cope admirably, usually) but Garry is such a fab guy and I am so happy he is there for my sister after some really harrowing experiences (when we nearly lost her over some stuff a few years ago, to do with her general health) I just thought to hell with it - I want to make something and just celebrate he is around with every stitch....

So anyway, if anyone has any qualms about girly colours or objections that they can think of please let me know as I am knitting myself into knots and that means when I start my sisters' one (in colours still to be decided - but she has the most adorable baby blue eyes and light golden/brown hair - very pretty colouring if you ask me, so any opinions for her again are very welcome).

The other project that I am doing for someone is my mum - she is a fiesty old chook of most decided opinions - but she has allowed me to knit her a tea-cosy.  Pah, you think what a big deal.... well, actually it is - Nancy is not the type to have ever allowed something into her house unless it met her exacting standards (even if it was only to go straight in a drawer, thats just the way she is) and she has said I may knit her a tea cosy and she hasn't laid out any conditions to be met (except nothing wacky - but hey, that's standard for my mother), therefore as this is such a rare event and there may never be an opportunity to knit for her depending on the experience of the tea cosy to be knitted I am in knots again.  I know she will like something elegant and simple and classy - but Jeez-Lousie (as the daughter would say) I don't do any of those.

The responsibility is overwhelming. So far I have Noro Silk Garden shade 211 (she'll like those colours and it will suit the little brown teapot) and Butterfly stitch.... now I am worried, but my rule is three full repeats of a pattern and then frog.

 

Now, if only I could think of a project that combined Silk Garden Light and Kidsilk Haze.

In the mean time work is swamping me - we are overloaded and drowning in great piles of stuff to be done and idiot people are asking us to do dumb things (like organising a paper in the Edinburgh filing cabinets - 6 feet away from them to be photocopied and sent out when we are miles away in Glasgow), think people! think dammit!(and then get up, drag those knuckles of yours across the floor and open the drawer and ...climb in shutting the drawer behind you). We are also having organisational "team days" and just so many meetings and general right-on-officey nonsense to cut our silo mentalities - I say Silos = Good, Bunkers = Better (in other words leave me alone and I'll join in when I have dug through my piles of work and regained a sense of humour). We just can't seem to get on with our work for all the doodle polls and team angst.

Our happy little bolt hole in Glasgow has also been giving us gip - Monday/Tuesday the heating was broke (they must have fixed something) and on the 8th floor we were all sitting at the desks swaddled up in coats and scarves and clutching Cafe Nero coffees to warm our frozen paws - we looked like a herd of Moomintrolls grazing amidst the open plan desks. Not good.  Thursday - the lifts were broken - some poor soul was removed as a semi-catatonic heap at 8:00am after spending the night there sobbing unheard, it also meant the specatacle of people arriving at the 8th floor gasping like freshly landed fish, I can say it is not an attractive look and not an experience I wish to repeat anytime soon.

Still monday tomorrow - a whole fresh week that can only go horribly wrong, oh joy.

Shock! Horror!! - the weekend in which I finished two (2!) projects, but it's ok - I've started a new one....

Well, end of summer - what summer? It has been resoundingly wet, soggy and totally crapacious - summer has sucked basically. And guess what - Bank Holiday Monday - showery again (in Scotland that means between the light rain, we get downpours - cool).  Still, the good thing about a three day wet weekend is that being cooped up indoors means I have finished something - not just one thing but two. Two big knit-monsters - yes, I know, call me irresponsible, it is enough to make the world tilt on its axis and have a wee bit of a wobble - me finish something, anything, let alone two beasts of the knitting world, namely Daphne and Glade - unreal huh?

I even put some beads on Glade - and I am pathetically happy they match the colours in the knitting, then once I had completed the mother of all sewing-ups I had the task of finding buttons for Daphne. Let me tell you - the background colour ("peat") is a horrific to find buttons to work with - I have flooded our house with small brown buttons of slightly different hues - finding small and brown in Glasgow has been an undertaking almost on par with knitting the darn thing - in the end I went for brown dyed shell buttons but turned them over to have the duller back side facing forward (a little trick I have used in the past) as the front was too shiny and bright.

Sorry for the crappy photos of the two projects - my camera battery is dying and I am trying to use natural light - which in our part of Scotland is but a brief window of opportunity, little Miss-13 is also hovering - she wants to play some sort of irritating game on the PC that goes "ping" a lot, she is currently fretting a great deal about "droop" - in other words she is quite sure she needs "support", but you try finding a trainer bra of 25 inches round-the-ways - not easy (I was contemplating a tubi-grip bandage but her sour looks have suggested that is not an appropriate option).... She has also just told me my musical taste sucks (like a 13 year old girl would know - but she thinks the lovely and oh so sublime Sia is "wierd" and the Corsican Chant which is very calming and therefore necessary for parents of 13 yr old girls is "abnormal" - well, she can listen to it all afternoon...)

So, now I have looked over the pile of yet-to-befinished, but nothing appeals so I have a new project which I think is just darling (or as my daughter descibes it - "When, WHEN? will you knit anything normal").  Despite her, I adore this - although I wish the model used in the book (Rowan Studio Twelve) would shut her mouth in at least one of the photos - that gormless slack-jawed expression is the preserve of old ladies - and why do I know this?  Because in the last couple of months I have started finding myself doing it, dammit I am geting old.

Show and tell

Ok, let me tell you - I hate housework - it seems so thankless, kind of the like the Red Sea rolling closed behind me as I vacuum, so in order to avoid house tidying, I am sort of blog tidying...

Wonderful Roxy tagged me for this yonks ago (thank you I am totally chuffed!)

As to who inspires me? Roxy of course - she is so funny and just plain endearing, Yvonne as she is like the patron saint to knitters at the knit and knatter stand in Glasgow, Nancy as she is just wonderfully creative and writes fantastic emails that make me squeal with laughter, Debs as she is so warm and human, Jeanne and Jessie for the same reasons, and Ellen for being just a lovely human being with great style too.

Speaking of Jeanne, she tagged me for this ages ago as well (I'm sorry Jeanne I have a mind like a sieve - only as Gravel-Guy would point out, a sieve retains stuff for longer, I must live in some sort of time warp where I am a few weeks/months etc behind everyone else ...)

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was at home with three little chicks and I hated it.  People say that the early years are the best years for family - pah! I disagree vehemently, I remember some truly vile yummy mummies running the playgroup from hell, small kids coming to play that had either green crusty snot or the long swingy yellow ribbons of it, and a local girl that could scream like it was an olympic event. Right now - right now is the best, they are funny, opinionated and frequenty very sweet. I reckon now they are teenagers you can see more who they really are, so 10 years ago was not a good place, and yes I am a hideous mother.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today- not in any particular order?

Send the kids to bed
Make a cup of tea
Iron something (anything) to wear tomorrow
Knit some more Daphne
Read the instructions to Daphne and make clear notes on the alterations I'm intending

3. Snacks I enjoy.

Cheese, cheese and more cheese and corn thins with hummus (not good for knitting), chocolate fish when I get my paws on them. Endless cups of tea or I like tomato juice or some fruit juice with tonic water or maybe the now-and-then class of a good kiwi white wine

4. Places I’ve lived:

St Martins, Opawa and Merivale (all in Christchurch, New Zealand), Wellington (New Zealand), Birley Carr in (Sheffield, UK), Balfron (Central Scotland).

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Probably pretend it wasn't happening - or if I could face the sudden amount of money - pay off my house, create a charity for knitters down on their luck or maybe use the money to bring about world peace through knitting (any power-crazy despot could be pressed into service holding skeins whilst it was wound - that would keep their itchy fingers occupied and away from any buttons).

6. What are some jobs you’ve had:

Gardener, soil testing, bank note sorting, research assistant, trainee accountant (6 weeks of unbearable hell - what was I thinking?  a job less appropriate is hard to imagine), medical librarian, information officer

which brings me to some questions of my own on if anyone wants to play along...

Knitting Heaven

absolute favourite yarn to work with (above all others, choose one - just one!)?

Jamiesons (4 ply shetland - so many colours to play with and so adaptable)

favourite technique (lace, aran, intarsia, fair isle, plain for speed freaks etc etc)?

fair isle

favourite kind of project?

jersey/sweater or at a push, cardigan

when to knit?

late night with Bob  Harris whispering in my ear or some good music - and everyone else gone to bed

where to knit?

sofa facing the t.v, in easy reach of my knitting books/yarns etc, right-side cushion not the left

favourite knitting nibble?

oatcakes with good local cheeses or some crisps - either Kettle Chips or the Tyrrels vegetables ones with beetroot and stuff (bliss)

favourite knitting tipple?

tea with skimmed milk and lots of it

5 Knitting Angels?

plenty but - Pam Allen, Solveig Hisdal, Jane Sowerby, Jo Sharp, Eliabeth Zimmerman

Unsung knitting heros/heroines?

Yvonne, Roxy, Nancy, Jeanne, Jessie, Ellen, Debs and Bluestocking, Bryony, Daisy and Aunty Wendy

Finally, some photos of my kiwi stash - if I upload them small, maybe it doesn't look so bad and splurge-like, shhhhh don't tell Gravel-Guy...

 

 

 

Back (at least I think I might be) or, how I went to look at the "ugly" gallery and found yarn heaven instead

Well, I'm back - but so tired I can't actually get my mouth open wide enough for the size of yawns I am trying to make, I need my head to go all flip-top. The trip to Singapore for work was fab and the trip home to NZ, well that was good too. I am now returned to work and totally shattered. I am so tired that I would be non-functional without the joys of some good old New Zealand lollies, now you may not know this, but Kiwis health freaks that we normally are, we take our lollies very seriously - so I am here - but tanked up on combinations of Minties, K-bars, Pineapple Lumps, Tamarillos and most importantly of all Chocolate Fish (and please pronounce them correctly if you will - chocolate fUUUsh) and Black Knight, it is a wierd feeling and I suspect that is partially why every now and then my brain thinks I am still strapped into my airline seat and experiencing slight turbulence.

Naively I assumed that I would have loads of time on my hands so I took my Helens Lace in the Devon colourway that I bought in Barcelona end of last year with the intentions of working on the half-square in trinity stitch shawl in the Jane Sowerby book - and have hardly knitted a stitch. But then, our hosts in Singapore were just amazing - we were taken to some wonderful places - Botannic Gardens at dusk has to have been a highlight as well as the Museum of Asian Civilisations and the art gallery of the brother of one of our hosts for some East-West fusion art (totally cool and with a sparky touch of humour to the exhibition), Little India, Chinatown etc and some fantastic restuarants with divine food that easily catered for a seafood allergy (me), gluten free and vegetarian. So no knitting - no knitting at all, if this is as far as I've got between Barcelona, Scotland, Singapore and New Zealand. then this might take a few air miles to complete.

Christchurch is as ugly as ever - but even ugly has its good bits - for example the new Art Gallery, or as my mother described it to me when I was allowed out on day release - "Go, look at the ugly building and tell me how ugly it is" - actually I thought it fairly innocuous but if my mother tells me to think it ugly then who am I to disagree, and it meant that I was free to explore Chch for a day. If you toddle on a few paces from the bland "Ugly Building" and go into the Arts Centre then there is yarn bliss (x2 at least) - this is a small photo to indicate the yarn filled delight of Artisan Fibres on the Worcester Street side and then on the other side (towards Hereford Street) there is the guild of spinners/weavers and Creative Fibre. I love the Arts Centre - and even during the weekdays it is all good - and I never even made it into the Dux-de-Lux (a favourite vegetarian haunt of my student days). So if the Ugly Building points the way to good yarn then I'm happy and not about to complain.

My mother is as unique and independent as ever - this is her idea of letting the garden go to wrack  and ruin - you could swear the lawn was hoovered (this is in the middle of a really unseasonably soggy winter), and behind her fence she has a good supply of veges in the garden. What can I say, she is 80 and and I love all her quirky, bloody minded loopy ways - if she wasn't my mum but someone elses then I would be so damn jealous. Although I am still recovering from 3 course dinners and being sent to bed at 10.30 with a hot water bottle every night.

And she wasn't pleased I wanted to take photos of the garden - "but there's nothing in it" she cried, but I thought these were pretty... 

 

Still it was good to be home - and to see old childhood haunts where we played in the creek and caves aand built dens and took our picnic lunches up Rapaki track- to the Witches Hat rock on the Summit Road

 

I would of course show you photos of the Yarn purchased at the Arts Centre and also at Hands Ashford in Wairakei Road and Ashford Handcrafts down in Ashburton, but I only bought a small amount home with me - yes absolutely hand-on-heart true, but thats because the rest I have sent to myself in the post.

Up and away (for 3 weeks)

I'm off to Singapore for a few days (work) and then onto New Zealand for a couple of weeks to see family and maybe scatter Dads' ashes.  I am not packed (I hate packing), but I have my knitting project sorted (well thats all the necessaries sorted then). Back in 3....

Darling Boy...

Isn't he just a sweet little chap?

He is at least 60 years old and belongs to a friend of a work colleague, the work colleague after admiring him noted he had no socks and the owner said sock provision was beyond her. I was volunteered and now he has toasty little toes made from Jamiesons finest Shetland yarn in crimson in keeping with his uniform. From what I gather he is in the uniform of some posh Edinburgh public school and they wore crimson socks so I hope a Sundays knitting is acceptable to him (and his owner). Apart from that I have knitted up my five balls of Noro Kochoran that I got on sale at John Lewis (£5.95 each, tee hee) - I never do well at sales normally, they usually just make me exceptionally cross - I often see things I bought full price marked down to half price or less, that suggests to me my "taste/style barometer" is way off, and makes me wince at how much I originally paid. Still, Noro is lovely at any price.
 

Holidays blue...

It's school holidays and I hate school holidays. You can tell it is, as the weather is totally crapacious - on the Friday at noon as soon as school finished the heavens opened and it just bucketed, these weren't just sweet little angel tears from above - this was malign angels cackling and pee-ing, great torrential downpourings sluicing the streets...  Monday, the hamster dropped dead from old age (mid-hamster cage perspex tube which is as inconvenient as you can imagine - it is apparently not ethical to shake or poke dead hamsters out and coaxing really doesn't work - not that this worked when hamster was alive, gravity does eventually).  Now we are in the holiday doldrums - becalmed in a morass of total boredom and disturbed sleep patterns and looking after others peoples pets, my sleep patterns are almost disturbed as much as the offspring - last night Nr.2 was "camping" - in next doors garden, which meant that at 12:45, 2:15, 3:45 I was woken by our smoke detector downstairs beeping to the smell of burnt milk as they set about trashing the kitchen and creating the definitive hot chocolate.  With all the saucepans soaking, I suspect it is salad for dinner tonight. This means very little knitting is being done - work is busy and I am tired and grouchy and can't find anywhere to settle in our tiny grotty house that isn't already infested with children (not necessarily ours either), although I did get to the John Lewis sale (5 balls of Noro Kochoran at half price - which is enough for a small cardigan) and have finished a shrug thing in Phildar "Partner" (note to self, the green obsession is taking hold again - must make a conscious effort to knit other colours) - this was a quick knit (5.5mm needles). However, a very flattering on and a nice yarn to work with.

Have a photo of next doors chooks - we have looked after them for a week and they have rewarded us with the prettiest pale blue shelled eggs, they may need therapy as Nr.3 (officially 13years old and a total smart-arse pain in the neck) and her friend have taken on most of the chook duties in the evening (getting them back into their little house) which has involved a lot of frightened clucking on both sides. I love chooks - but gravel-guy says "no".