Sheepies for Mel

Here are some little sheepie stitch markers for Mel (woolydoodles). Four for her and four for her Secret Pal. Apparently purple and green are her pal's favourite colours. I have to make a batch for the LYS before the weekend too, better get on with those!!

So yesterday we went over to Manchester to Christies. The consultant was very nice and explained all about what was going to happen. The radiotherapy will be 5 days a week for 6 weeks starting on 31st October. There are a couple of appointments before that where they mark out the area they are going to treat and have to make a plastic thingiemajig for the area. The treatments themselves are about 15 minutes, its just a pity it takes an hour each way to get there. It took longer yesterday because it was peak time and the traffic was heavy but hopefully we can arrange more convenient times.

It was hard to imagine that a large number of the people wandering around the corridors had some type of cancer. They all looked so "normal". Of course there were the ones that had lost their hair due to chemo, but it was lovely to see some of these people with smiles, as though they hadn't a care in the world. Good luck to them all.

On the way back we went to Borders (didn't buy anything) and had panini and cappucinos for lunch in Starbucks. Yummy.

3 days to SOCK WARS!!!

Swatching for Sock Wars!, sheep and secret projects

Woohoo, a week and a half to Sock Wars, and I'm in!! The artillery has been posted and the tools of the trade are 3.25mm DPNs and yarn to get a gauge of 25st x 34rows over 10cm. I swatched this this morning and guess what, got gauge first go, brilliant. I have had this yarn for about a year and never got round to using it, so it is perfect. I got it from Natural Dye Studio on ebay. It is their BFL sock yarn if anyone is struggling to find yarn for Sock Wars. I think this was called Sunbeam or Sunrise or something but i think I would call it Fruit Salad (after the chewy sweets) or Shades of Grapefruit. (The darker orange is quite pinky really like in a pink grapefruit.)

I just hope i can part with them when the time comes!

Another woohoo..........only 1876 people ahead of me for ravelry now! I could be on within the week at this rate.

I am working on a secret project too but there are tight time considerations so I'll see how i go, I don't want to overdo it with the hands.

I also have an order for some sheep stitch markers so I'm off to have lunch and get on with those this afternoon.

Hair, parents, dress, footie & a bit of knitty stuff.

Cripes, where did that week go?? Actually I have been pretty busy.

Last Monday I had my twice yearly(!!) haircut. This is what I look like now, much tidier but the more I look at it, the more it looks like a child's haircut. I really can't make my mind up if I like it or not! It was supposed to look a bit like Michelle on Corrie but longer, but obviously she wears a lot of make-up and is very glam, and has stylists doing hers all day so yours never looks like that does it?


The picture was taken while my parents were up here visiting from Southampton. Here they are.................


We went for a bit of a walk along the river and took our sandwiches. While they were here we also went to Cheshire Oaks outlet village, where my step-dad bought a pair of walking shoes, and then we also got him a set of headphones for his laptop. I must say he is doing very well with the computer seeing as 5 months ago he'd never touched one in his life. Both of them had an hour of Reiki, and were very enthusiastic about it.

Before they arrived on Thursday morning, we had Paul from two doors up round for the Champion's League Final on Wednesday evening. He is a season ticket holder at Anfield, and has this thing that we are his lucky mascots for Champions League games because he watched them here when they won 2 years ago. Unfortunately we didn't help this time round.

While we were at Cheshire Oaks I saw some boots that Colin might like, (he wasn't with us cos he had to work), so yesterday the 2 of us went back up to have a look at them. He didn't get them but I ended up coming home with this..................


which I will wear to a "do" I am going to in July. Just have to get some shoes, which I hate cos I have pixie feet (UK 2.5!!!!!!) and can't get any to fit.

I got the new Simply Knitting mag on Thursday, and confirmed that I hadn't won the sock knitting competition. I wasn't that impressed with the winners, but appreciate the effort that went into them. However, on page 69.............


were my sheep!!!

A couple of weeks ago I joined the Crafty Threads n Yarns forum, and I have joined up for the Surprise Summer birthday swap. I have been given a partner to send something to on their birthday, so I just have to put a package together. I have done these things before on the bookcrossing uk group, and it can be quite fun. You never know what you are going to get.

Great news for Chris who I met on the Burton Manor knitting day. She has been offered two slots at the college to run two courses. Hopefully we are meeting up on Friday so she can tell me all about it. At least there will now be a course I want to spend my voucher on.

I'm still suffering with my thumb, and am not promising anyone anything for Christmas, it all depends on if it improves. I am just going to try to finish what I have OTN and see what happens next.

Fame, bag & jimjams.

Well, this morning I took the morning off so I could go into town and do my Excel exam, and afterwards go to WH Smith to get my copy of Simply Knitting (none of my local shops stock it). I went into the learndirect centre and took the exam, and passed with 83%. So on to databases next.

I then went to Smith's and got my mag. I popped upstairs to Costa and got a cappucino and sat to check out the mag. Well, Stash sent off a couple of sets of my markers to Simply Knitting and it seems they picked the non-sheep version to feature!!! These..............


I suppose it is still 15 minutes of fame, and hopefully the sheep will be in the next issue with the bigger feature of Stash as "shop of the month". Of course I had made loads of sheep for them and none of these, so I had to go and get supplies to make more of these. They are a much quicker make though, so they can have them on Saturday. I delivered some coloured sheep in to Stash anyway and while I was there I got this.........


to make a felted bag for M (see link on the left in WIPs and Plans). It's not her birthday until July but if I get it done now, it is out of the way. She will be 6 and LOVES pink. This is called Splash Aran and has coloured flecks in it. They had a felted bag made with it in the shop and it looks lovely.

On the way to the bus stop I popped into the market and had a rummage in their bargain bin, and picked up a few balls of this for £1 each...............


I thought it might do for the pyjamas?

The Missing Postman

My postman has gone awol!! He didn't come today and I have got stuff on its way that I WANT!!! When Colin worked from home, we had loads of post every day, but now he has moved to the offices, his post all goes there so some days, like today, we don't get any.

Apologies for my rant yesterday, but I had to let it out, hee hee.

I am having a day off today and catching up on much neglected things I need to do. This morning I have been sheeping, for Wendy and Chris. Chris also wanted four of "anything else" so I have rustled up these for her. Hope they are okay.


This is the batch I took into Stash on Saturday, need to do a coloured batch next.


And this is the bamboo tape that I swapped with Wendy on Sunday. I think I came off with a pretty good deal there, they are £4.75 a ball in Stash and there's 4 and a bit there.


Then I need to make a birthday card for a friend, do some Excel revision and then tackle the ironing pile while catching up on the things I've recorded on telly and haven't watched yet. Oooo, busy, busy, busy bee!!!

I've added a link to my flickr page where I've put all my finished projects. I'll add to it as I get more things finished.

My day at the Manor

(Sorry, bit long.......)

Yesterday I went off to Burton Manor on the Wirral for a day course called "Designer Fashion Hand Knitting". Ok, so they got 2 out of 4 words of the description correct - hand & knitting - good effort.

Here is the description from the brochure:
"For experienced knitters looking at how to transfer a design idea into knitted reality. Using fashion photographs or your own sketched ideas, we examine adaptations for size and shape, and wool and needle size calculations. After experimenting with different wools, colours and textures you will be able to write up knitting instructions for your own individual garment/s. The emphasis will be on sharing ideas."

What would you expect from that description? I took it to be learning how to design a garment to fit with shaping and fitting, and working out sizing from gauge, stuff like that. It seems most of the others in the group thought similarly. Here's how it went:

There were 8 of us in the group and we all sat in a semicircle with our bags of yarn and needles that we'd been told to bring. The first alarm bells regarding the word "fashion" should have sounded when the teacher arrived wearing what I can only describe as a man's jumper. Mid-thigh length, straight up and down with a huge rib gathered around the bottom and cuffs, in brown horizontal stripes, crew neck, probably an aran weight. This was paired with a pair of Simon Cowell waistline (ie belted under the armpits) polyester navy "slacks" and very sensible shoes. I don't want to be critical, she was a lady of a certain age and we'll all get there at some point, but NOTHING about her screamed "fashion". Moving on..................

Our first task was to knit a swatch - what she called a template. But not a plain swatch. She showed us an example of a "fashionable jumper" with intarsia clouds all over it. and we had to draw a cloud on graph paper and transfer that to our swatch. We all duly did this, and went off for a tea break. When we got back, there was no mention of what to do with the swatch but we then had to move on to something more "advanced" - a swatch with a leaf on it. A few looks passed around the group. Some people did it, I did a leaf in relief in one colour and the girl next to me just did her own thing. The next advanced step was to do another swatch with a flower. At this point there were mutterings, people including myself saying it wasn't really the kind of thing we would knit. One lady had arrived wearing a lovely intarsia cardigan that she had made and obviously didn't need to be doing swatches at all. Another lady hadn't actually knit in more than one colour before so the teacher spent some individual time with her while the rest of us got chatting.

Lunch was lovely. Roast pork or beef, roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy, following by some gorgeous puddings which I won't even start to describe. I had a little bit of fruit salad. I got chatting to the lady with the intarsia cardigan, Wendy, who was very nice, and I told her about my sheep. When we got back to class she asked to see them and then another classmate Christina, had a look, and I ended up with orders from them. As it was, Wendy had some Rowan bamboo tape that she decided wasn't her colour so we did a swap, yarn for sheep.

Well, the afternoon session started with where to find ideas. The teacher showed us some photos of "fashions" which could be adapted, most from magazines she had obviously had since the 70s in some dusty attic room. And some examples of - what can I call them? Pub carpets!! At this point 2 people left, saying that it was not what they thought they were coming for. While the teacher spent some time giving a bit of individual tuition again, the rest of us were chatting again, and it turned out that Christina and I had read a lot of the same books, visited a lot of the same websites, and she also writes a blog. We are also about the same age. Some of the ladies had never used circular needles, knit on the round or made socks so the 2 of us ended up showing them how to do new things. I said to her "you could run a course like this, but much better," and she said "WE could do this, but much better".

The icing on the cake for me, was when a lady was talking about getting the lengths of sleeves right. She asked the teacher if you could knit from the top down instead and she said - wait for it - NO! She said, if you had done all your calculations using your swatch/template, you should get a perfectly sized garment and what would be the point of wanting to knit the other way? I am usually quite shy, and don't speak up for myself but I couldn't help myself. I spoke up!! I said, "actually I have just knit a top-down sweater and its the best fitting sweater I have." I brandished my copy of "Fitted Knits" and told them every jumper in the book was top down. There was no way I was going to let that lady go home thinking that the only way to knit a jumper was in 4 pieces from the bottom up.

Actually I think between the two of us, Christina and I managed to p*** the teacher off with our far superior knowledge. Hee hee. Anyway, it was good to spend the day with other knitters and Christina and I exchanged blog addresses and will hopefully be in touch. I was polite when I left and thanked the teacher for her time, but said what I thought on the feedback sheet. And that was my day out at the Manor.

Last night I finally succumbed to the lure of the Posh Yarn sale, and have ordered 2 skeins of Eva 4ply, cashmere/silk in Dapple. Can't wait to get it. There are a few skeins of things left if you are quick!

It looks like Yarn Forward magazine issue 2 is finally on its way. Looking forward to that. I'm not sure what is happening on the forum side of things at the moment but can't say too much.

Oh, and it is my Wedding anniversary today, 13 years, unlucky for some, but not us!!!

Alpaca socks finished

Here are the finished Natural Dye Studio alpaca/silk toe-up socks. Just before I finished the second one I tried the first one on and found that I had cast off too tightly and it wouldn't go over my heel. So I did 2 less rib rows on the 2nd sock and then frogged back the first sock and re-did the rib cos I couldn't work out how to frog and pick up rib stitches. So I did 2 less rows again so I would have enough ysrn to cast off loosely. And it worked so they are both fine now. I'm really pleased with the gussett and heel, I usually get holes if I do them top down.



I only have 3 projects on the needles now, better cast on something quick!!

I agreed to be an administrator for the SKD forum but things are changing anyway so I'm not sure what the state of play is at the moment.

Countdown - 6 days to sheep in Simply Knitting!!

Forums, jammies & Castaway

I have a decision to make. Bruce from Scandinavian Knitting Design (the UK distributors for garnstudio) has asked me if I would like to be an administrator for their forum. I am thinking about it. I don't really have a clue what an administrator does! But they need help, and he has said I could do it for a month or 2 and see how it goes. Typical that now I am back at work, things are happening that I need time for!!

I have got a batch of sheep ready for Stash. Some pink/white and black/white ones for now. And the order for the USA is ready and on its way. It will be interesting to see how many are sold after the magazine comes out.

I have an idea for a design I would like to try, so I will take it with me on Sunday (albeit in my head!). I was lying in bed and thought that it was the time of the year to put away my winter pyjamas. But I need some lighter ones so I thought about knitting a little set with vest top and shorts. I will need a light yarn which will also be cool. I don't know a lot about the different types of yarn, but am guessing a cotton or linen type yarn might work?

I just turned the heel on my second toe-up silk/alpaca sock so its on up the leg to the end now. I hadn't done much on these for a while but got to a fiddly concentration bit on the FLIC and left that for a bit. I probably won't need these socks until next winter now, but then I'll have a nice new pair ready for me when the weather turns again. Work continues on the grey ones.

I have been dipping in and out of Castaway on BBC1, not knowing whether to watch it or not. On Sunday I did watch it and found it very uncomfortable. In the previous episode which I hadn't seen, 2 of the castaways had been sent off on a mission and something had happened between them, causing them to fall out. When they got back, Jonathan was completely ostracized(sp?) and they all turned on him like a pack of savages, to the extent that they decided to throw him out of the main hut and make him live in a tiny hut which let in all the rain, and not give him any food. Ok, so maybe he didn't pull his weight but I think the "punishment" was rather extreme. I remember celebrity Big Brother when this type of bullying was going on, and it became an international racisism issue. The castaway incident has not even been mentioned anywhere as bullying. Yes, Jonathan does seem to be a confrontational character but come on.

Magazine & buttons

An update on the sheep stitch markers.......... they are going to be featured in Simply Knitting Magazine this month (May issue) which comes out on about the 27th April. That gives me an extra weeks grace to get them done! The following issue, (June issue) has Stash as its Shop of the Month, and Helen the owner has to do a piece for it called "Fun for a fiver". She has chosen the sheep again to be featured in that list. I popped in today to get an idea how many they wanted and they said as many as you can do, so I'm going to do 10 of each to get them started and then keep topping up as and when.

These are some buttons I got from ebay this morning to go on my Fab Lace Cardi. I'm not entirely sure they go but I will use them and see what they are like when they are on it - when it is finished. (BTW, T, I am not a fast knitter by any stretch of the imagination but this cardi knits up really quickly on 8mm needles. You could almost do a front in a sitting if you put your mind to it.)

Nina, I'm not sure about the shape of the toes being rounder by going toe-up on a sock. I wouldn't have thought it would make a difference? I'm doing them this way because I'm not sure how far the yarn will go and don't want to run out before I get to the toe!

Next Sunday I am going on a day course called 'Designer Fashion Hand Knitting' at the little arty college on the Wirral. Its all about adjusting patterns to fit, working out measurements and yarn quantities and creating your own designs. Should be interesting. I have to take a selection of needles and yarn, a work in progress, any patterns I have that I may want to adapt and any design ideas. Well I don't have any ideas, I usually just follow a pattern but I'd love to be able to design something and hopefully by the end of the day I'll have some idea how. I'm not sure which yarn to take. I guess a selection of weights, but how many of each? I'm just going to take all my circs in their folder and leave the straights at home. They should do.

I have decided on a pattern for a present for someone for Christmas. I won't show it because the person reads this!! I may even make two, for two people. I have to choose the yarn yet though.

Well, I guess the sheep won't make themselves, so off to the farmyard I go..........hi ho hi ho!