Meandering Vines

I was getting a bit agitated by the fact that I had so many UFOs on my needles, so I decided to finish these socks that were sent to me by my assassin in Day of the Dead. It turned out I only needed to do 8 pattern rows and the toe on each sock, so I did them last evening while the footie was on the telly.


Pattern : Meandering Vines
Yarn: Tofutsies
Needles: 2.5mm circs - magic loop.

A mini break

We had a couple of days away in Gloucester this weekend. We went down for a 40th birthday party of someone I knew at university. I hadn't seen her since our wedding over 14 years ago, but she looked exactly the same. Her husband used to play in a band at uni and they did a bit of a mini reunion which was good fun. A bit ropey but considering they hadn't played together for 20 years and only had a quick rehearsal that afternoon it wasn't too bad.

While we were in the area we also met up with some friends who live in Stroud and had a wander around the town, which is very pretty and has lots of little unique shops. Different to the usual big brand high street shops that seem to be in every town now.

Of course when you stay in a hotel you have to get your money's worth from the cooked breakfast, but that meant I had 3 cooked breakfasts in a week, if you include last Sunday too. I'd better lay off them for a while I think!

I did take the laptop with me but to be honest I wanted a break from the writing. I managed 600 words on Saturday, but this meant that by yesterday I was 4200 words behind schedule for Nano! I worked out that with 8 days and 16000 words to go, I need to do 2000 words a day to meet the target. When we got back yesterday I managed 2000 words and the same again today. I'm still behind obviously but should catch up just at the right time ie on the last day! It's going to be a race to the finish. It funny how an extra 333 words a day doesn't sound much but is a huge psychological barrier.

While we were away both my new target in Sock Wars Day of the Dead and I received our socks so we think we have a draw. The organiser doesn't seem to think this can happen but it obviously has. And to top it all she isn't prepared to sort it out until after Thanksgiving, which doesn't even register on the consciousness of most people in the UK. So I'm declaring myself dead and my partner can carry on and hopefully win. The socks I got do have purple in them so I'm happy to keep them.

I will fill in with photos soon, at the moment all my spare time is spent either writing, or thinking about writing. I'll be glad when its over. I haven't thought about Christmas, it still seems to early but its basically only 4 weeks away, aaarrggghhhh!!!!

Good Luck

I managed to finish something for a change. Not a great picture, (it's obvious I haven't been on a course to learn about my new camera yet!) but this is my finished Good Luck Cowl in Noro Kureyon sock yarn.


I was going to keep going until the yarn ran out but this is about half a ball so it would have been twice the size, far too long. At least I can get another one out of the same ball.

I'm thinking I should maybe put it on now and not take it off for the next 15 days. I've managed to get to halfway in NaNoWriMo but I'm now going to need all the luck I can get to find another 25,000 words to finish it!!!

I am waiting to find out if I have killed my victim in the Day of the Dead sock wars prequel. I sent them off on Monday and she sent hers to me on Wednesday so it's a race to see which postal system is the fastest. I'm safe until Monday now at least. In the meantime I have cast on for a pair of Nine to Five socks using the Wild Fire Fibres merino/tencel. I had started a pair of the Teak Fingerless Mitts from the Boutique Knits book but the yarn really wanted to be socks so I frogged that. It is much happier paying homage to Dolly Parton! There is a free ravelry download if you want the pattern.

We are off to have a yummy cooked brekkie at the Blue Moon cafe in the morning with Becca & Mark,

Boutique knits

Aaarrgghhh!! It is already 2.30pm and I haven't written a word yet today. I will though, and by the end of today I will be over a third done!

I get an email every day from Knitting Daily which is associated with Interweave Press. Last week they were advertising this new book. Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin. There were a couple of pictures of the projects inside and I was taken with a pair of fingerless gloves. I checked on amazon uk and they said it would take 9-12 days. So I went with my old faithful Book Depository and it came this morning, 5 days later.



There are some cute projects in it, even some full size garments, but I liked these 3 best.

A head and shoulders hood,


a cute hat,


and these are the little gloves I liked in the first place. It is hard to tell, but in the detail on the back of the hand there are two different colours, both pink. You could use any two colours I suppose. There is not much of the second colour so you could use up left overs. They are made with sockweight/fingering weight yarn, so I think I have a little bit of that somewhere in the stash (ahem!!).

And these are the Day Of The Dead socks that I sent off to New York today. Feels a bit mean sending off half made socks but those were the rules. My partner hasn't finished hers yet so I may win this round and get to knit on, depending on the speed of the post of course.

Not going on about it

It's going to get a bit tedious for me to keep posting my NaNoWriMo total each day in a new post so I've added it to the sidebar and I'll update it there instead. As you can see I'm still up to speed. I managed to get finished by 11.30 this morning so if I'm feeling inspired I may add some more later.

I am a couple of rows off the end of the Day of the Dead sock 1. In the new rules you don't actually finish the sock because your original target is not necessarily the person who will receive them so you have to stop when the foot is 5inches long and send them like that for the recipient to finish themselves. Seems a bit disappointing to receive an unfinished pair really. I wonder how the winner will be determined. Will it be when their final target receives their unfinished sock or when that person finishes them? Maybe at that stage the socks will need to be finished by the assassin because the final recipient will be known. Have to wait and see won't we?

I had a text earlier to say that my Mighty Boosh tickets will be delivered tomorrow. If anyone is interested I will have a spare one which I'll be wanting to sell, so if you fancy going to the Manchester Apollo on Tuesday Dec 2nd, email me or leave a comment and we'll work something out.

I've just realised all my latest entries have been photo free! I'll have to do something about that, I much prefer blogs with photos. I'll take a pic of sock 1 and post it tomorrow. Until then I'd better do some work for a change!

Day One

Target - 1667 words
Actual - 2110 words

Halfway down the leg on sock 1.

Just in case anyone was curious!

Now I really need an idea!

Whoosh! There goes another week! Which is a bit worrying as it is now only 3 and a bit days to NaNoWriMo.

In fact I'm going to have to be very organised on Saturday or I'll come unstuck. I have to write at least 1667 words, get a flu jab and knit like a crazy woman on a pair of socks. I think the flu jab is about 9.30am, so I'll do that first, then get the words done and the socks will be the least of my priorities. I'm not overly bothered about being the fastest knitter, it is just testing out the new Sock Wars system anyway, the real thing doesn't happen until next year.

But before that I need to get the final Mystery sock clue (tomorrow) and finish them. Hopefully it will just be a normal simple toe so I can work on them tomorrow night at knitting club. I have also started a cowl in Noro sock yarn. It is a Good Luck Cowl and I am doing it in the rainbow colourway. I felt that the Noro sock yarn was too rough and scratchy for a pair of socks.

Something quite interesting happened over the weekend. I had a message from a woman on Facebook who claimed to remember me from school. She said she had been in the year above me. I didn't recognise the name at all but messaged back to ask what her name had been back then (in case it was a married name). Well, turns out when she was at school she had a totally different name because................she used to be a boy!!! I'm afraid I still didn't recognise her previous name but did remember a couple of the friends she mentioned. Anyway, how brave to make the decision to change her life completely. She's had the complete op and everything.

Well, on that bombshell, I'll sign off. If I go quiet over the next few weeks it's probably because I'm locked in a darkened room, smoking cheroots and drinking bourbon and trying to be a novelist! Hmmm, we shall see what crawls out at the end of November!

I am liking this....

.......the Gathered Pullover. This is halfway through the cable panel on the front.


The alpaca is lovely and soft as a fabric, slightly rougher as you are knitting it. I am just praying that the thing will fit when it is finished. Once this panel is finished, I have to separate for the fronts and back so I'll be putting stitches on stitch holders and can try it on.

But, I had a little diversion over the weekend. I got some 2.5mm DPNs from Scandinavian Knitting Design (along with some yarn which I can't show yet!), and using the leftover TOFUtsies that my Sock Wars assassin sent me, I made this little fellow for Becca.




And here he is with big brother Ellie. I still didn't manage to do crochet ears, but somehow I managed to knit a pair in a decent shape this time.

Going a bit posh

Thanks for the comments about Ellie, it was a quick fun knit - 2 days - and I may make another at some point, possibly a smaller one. Ellie is about 5 inches tall and is knit from this pattern, using two strands of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn held together, and 3.75mm DPNs. The DPNs were the purple ones which were free with an issue of Let's Knit magazine and I was pleasantly surprised at how good they were for a freebie.

Still OTN - Joma, Clapotis and Nutkin.

My Sock Wars assassin sent me some more gifts this week. The leftover Tofutsies from my socks, some jams, and some Socks That Rock sock yarn!!!!!!!!!!! It's fab, and a great colour. And the colourway is called Backstabber, hahahaha!!!


I got through quite a few episodes of another podcast last week. Sticks & String is from "an Australian bloke who knits". It's only half an hour long and easy to listen to, and gives a male perspective of knitting. I also found Stash & Burn a couple of days ago. A bit similar to Lime & Violet but not quite so manic!!

Yesterday we were wondering what to do with ourselves so we went into town to see what was going on. There was a home & garden show on at the racecourse but we didn't fancy that so we walked along the river for a bit and up through Grosvenor Park. Had lunch in The Gallery cafe and after Colin had bought some new sandals, headed back towards the car. There just happened to be some Polo going on at the Racecourse too so we wandered in and ended up finding some chairs right beside the pitch. The match turned out to be the final of the Coutts International Polo Tournament. There were quite a few posh people there whereas we were in shorts and t-shirts!! We watched 2 "chukkas" and took part in the treading in, where the crowd goes onto the pitch and treads in all the divots that have been thrown up by the hooves. I think traditionally it is supposed to be the ladies who do this while carrying a drink in a posh glass but there were men and kids and dogs doing it yesterday. The weather was fabulous dahling!! I came home with a bit of sun. When we looked it up later we should have paid £10 each for the priviledge but there was nowhere that we could see that said we had to pay. We just wandered in off the street!

This morning we went for a walk along the river but this time at The Meadows. Very pleasant. And this afternoon I finally finished reading Grave Doubts. It has taken me quite a while to get through this, it is about 600 pages long and I kept having long gaps between readings, but when i did get down to it I read a chunk at a time and the pages turned very quickly. It was pretty good for an English murder story, I've never been able to get into Ruth Rendell etc, but there were rather a lot of very annoying typos throughout the book. (she says, quickly checking this post for errors!!). I have now decided to have a go at A Metropolitan Murder by Lee Jackson. It is a much thinner book so I should get through it quicker.

On Tuesday night we went to see Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I thought Harrison Ford was really good in it and completely forgot the age issue. It was a good old romp but the ending was a bit daft, reminding me of the X-flies movie. Talking of which......the new one is out soon. Woohoo.

Today I died!

These little beauties went off to Arkansas, USA on Monday lunchtime. They couldn't have gone any sooner because of the weekend post and that I had to spend some time with the family. No it was good actually, they didn't mind me knitting and I did quite a bit while they went out to the pub, (I don't drink so I don't tend to get much out of going to the pub!) or were sleeping in in the mornings.


Unfortunately the doorbell went this morning and I was given a package containing these

from Lauri in Arizona. I love the colours. She has done the increases differently to mine, producing a lacy stitch, but they are absolutely fine. I'm certainly not going to complain like some of the pains in the arse on the discussion boards. God, they take it all so seriously, but then again I would have been disappointed if I had got a pair of crappy socks. I was very lucky with my assassin, she knew what she was doing. So that's me out of the game for this time around, roll on SW4!! My target should "die" tomorrow so maybe Lauri will get to finish off another pair before she meets her demise.

On Monday lunchtime we went out to the Red Lion in Dodleston for a pub lunch. The weather was gorgeous and we sat outside. This is me with Colin and his dad.


Colin & Sean


And me & Fiona (Colin's sister)


So they flew back to Ireland yesterday afternoon, and I have been into the office this morning to make sense of the post that has come in over the last week. Theoretically we are both off for the whole week but Colin had a meeting so I thought I might as well go in too. We are off tomorrow though.

Then on Saturday morning my parents will arrive bright and early and the entertaining starts all over again!!

Tuesday evening I went out to knitting group at Borders. We had another 4 new people this time and some who didn't come from last time. So we had 18 again. As usual I was last to leave!! I found out that Stash is moving to new premises and that the shop is going to be 3 times the size. The one they have now is tiny so there will be much more display space. Unfortunately they are not having a sale before they move, so no bargains to be had! There are some online offers though.

Halfway there!!

I have one Sock Wars sock finished and the other cast on. Hoping to get them in the post tomorrow or Tuesday at the very latest. They are off to my victim in Arkansas, USA. I am trying my best not to be too antisocial with regards to Colin's dad and sister visiting, but this is WAR!!!!!

Amazing S.E.X. (Stash Enhancement eXpedition!!!)

Ok..........yarn, check.........needles, check..........gauge, check..............row counter, check........fingers & thumbs, check...................target, on the way!! Woohoo, 3 hours till Sock Wars 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I went up to Liverpool for a chat with the dietitian, which was a complete waste of time. It was a four and a half hour round trip for less than 10 minutes in the appointment, for something which could have been done over the phone!!! BUT.................seeing as I was out so quick I wandered back down the hill and instead of getting back on the train, I thought I'd just "pop" to John Lewis.

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was mooching along the huge wall of Rowan yarn, when I noticed some of it was marked down. HALF PRICE. And the Debbie Bliss, and the Mirasol! I picked up about 6 balls of various things, working out that I had about £15 worth of yarn. Then one of the staff said "Oh I'm just about to mark that down by half again, give it here" so I did and she marked it down which meant I only had £7.50 worth and could buy more. She told me to bring anything else to her and she would half it before I got to the till. This is what I ended up with.



3 balls of Rowan Scottish Tweed 4 ply for 80p each

2 skeins of Rowan Summer Tweed for £1.15 each

2 balls of Rowan Tapestry for £1 each

2 balls of Natural Silk Aran for £1 each

2 skeins of Mirasol Hacho for £1.25 each

2 skeins of Mirasol miski for £1.25 each

2 skeins of Mirasol Sulka for £1.25 each

2 balls of Rowan Felted Tweed for £1.25 each


A total of about £80 worth of yarn for a grand total of £18.70 The reason is that they are moving at the end of the month and are getting rid of all the display yarn to start off fresh in the new store. So you won't get large packs of yarn, only the odd balls on the shelf. But still, I'm going back before they move!! Hopefully Becca will come with me and we can help each other carry home our haul!!! Hahahaha!!!

Well better go and tidy the house, we have visitors this weekend, so I'd better get my jobs done before Sock Wars battle commences!! Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!!

Sock crisis!!

I have been having a major sock crisis!! I need to have a sock in progress, it's just one of those things. I finish a pair of socks and I have to cast on another pair straight away. Is that an addiction? From my last post you can see I cast on the Zokni socks in the Fauveline Yarn. This is the second time I have attempted these socks, the first time was with garnstudio fabel in the 672 colourway. This was far too busy to show the stitch pattern, so they got ripped out and the yarn became a Dragon Scales scarf. This time the Fauveline yarn was too fiddly and also too busy, so the little I had done (one and a bit repeats) got ripped out and that yarn put back in the stash for a later date. I really want to use this yarn because it is so interesting and very soft when knitted up which is a bit surprising. I have now cast on for a third time using a plain(-ish) light coloured yarn (the bottom one in this pic).

I am only on the rib so no opinions on its success yet but fingers crossed.

I have also whipped up a little project that I saw in the latest issue of Let's Knit magazine. I can't show it yet as it will be a gift. (If you are on ravelry you can see here). It took me an evening and about another hour to complete and I used up the single ball of Wendy Fusion from my stash.

I only have 2 other WIPs, one is the Drops 88-4 cardigan (link on left sidebar) which I really want to finish this month, and the other is a lacy scarf that has been hibernating for about 12 months. I picked it up the other day and it is actually quite pretty, so I may go back to that too.

Well I've gone and let myself in for another round of sock-related bloodshed and signed up for Sock Wars III. It all kicks off on 9th May. This time it is sponsored by South West Trading Company Tofutsies Yarn but I don't think you have to use that yarn. It seems that that would suggest that this time it will be sock yarn weight rather than DK weight as used in the last two rounds. Well we shall wait and see. Go on over and sign up, the more warriors the better, but be warned there is a $2 charge this time too, but what's that? A pound? Nothing really.

There is growing interest in the knitting group at Borders. They have even put it in the events page on the website (click the link and scroll down). I was up there on Sunday afternoon and there was a poster on the notice board just inside the door and one on the end of the knitting books section, so it is well publicised. There has been interest from customers of Stash too, so I wonder how many people will turn up. 'Citin'!! I was listening to the podcast "Lixie Knits It" and she mentioned she was on ravelry so I messaged her to say I liked her podcast. We "chatted" a bit and I mentioned the group and she said she will try to remember to mention it on the next podcast which she is doing at the weekend!

Have a look at this pattern, Cherie Amour from knitty.com. I managed to miss this one and only happened to click on a link from another blog. It is definitely going on my to-do list!

Finally on knitting news, I bought a ringbinder and some clear pockets and sorted out all my printed off knitting patterns. They were all over the place but are now filed by type - socks, scarves, jumpers etc. I had more than I thought in the end, I just kept finding them in my various knitting bags and piles of magazines. Oh there's a thought, I could go through the magazines and tear out the patterns I want to keep and chuck the rest in the recycling, hmm, may do that this evening.

Update on The Gorgeous One - he started getting very defiant and ignoring our attempts to stop him doing things he shouldn't so we rang up Amanda at BarkBusters for advice. She said to not give him any praise or cuddles etc for 48 hours!! It was agony. When he realised what was going on he started becoming extra cute and desperate for attention, bringing us all his toys and rolling around the floor as if to say "look at me, aren't I wonderful?" His behaviour did improve though when he worked out he wasn't getting attention. This morning he got lots of cuddles and seemed none the worse for his experience.

I hate to even think about it, but the big birthday is coming up later in the year. I have decided I would like to take better photos and learn how to do it properly. I like taking "snaps" but I'd like to be able to take arty type photos. I know you need to be a bit artistic to recognise an arty subject in the first place, and I'm not really that way inclined, but surely you can learn that to some extent. Anyway, Colin suggested that he gets me a digital SLR camera for the big birthday, so I'm going to take my time and get advice on what would be a good one to get for "an enthusiastic beginner"! I want to learn about lighting and f-stops and all that technical stuff that the compact point-and-shoot camera that I now have does for me. And then there's all the imaging software stuff these days instead of developing. Could be a huge learning curve.

Lavender Scars, Miss Potter and Drops 88-4

I am officially out of Sock Wars. These arrived on Saturday morning, lovely pale lavender Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. They were knitted by Rooknits (three quarters) and wendyswoolies (finished off). My Yarn Forward magazine came last week. It is much glossier and magazine-like now with some good length articles. As I didn't know if I would be knitting more on Sock Wars I decided to start the Miss Potter Mitts from the front cover. Unfortunately the pattern was not well written and I had to work out a couple of bits myself. But this is what they came out like....
They are knitted in Rowan Tapestry which is lovely and soft, using size 4mm DPNs. I think if I made another pair I would go down a needle size as they are quite roomy. I used one ball of the Tapestry and literally had 4 inches of yarn left over!! More pics on flickr (see link on the left).

Also on Saturday I had a delivery from Bruce at Scandinavian Knitting Design. Six balls of Drops Alpaca to make the Drops Cardigan 88-4. The yarn is wonderfully soft, but is very fine (thinner than sock yarn) and the pattern is knitted on 3.5mm needles. It is going to be a longer term project I think. Here is my progress so far........
After doing a couple of rows of cables with a cable needle I decided there had to be a better way, so googled cabling without a needle. I found this method and it is great apart from the scary bit of dropping stitches off the needle. You need to hold them tight so you don't lose them. Mine is only a four stitch twist so only two stitches to drop and pick up.
The bamboo needle I was using however, is rather blunt so I have ordered one of the Addi Lace needles which are more pointy.

While waiting for the Addi I have started a secret project for my mum for Christmas. I was going to do her a cardigan of some sort but as I don't want to over stretch my hands I have scaled down to something smaller. Can't say what because she reads this. All I'll say is that it is in a colour she likes.

Clapotis finished

I finished my Clapotis scarf last night. I'm not sure about the colour pooling but I'm not worrying enough to frog and do it again. It is Natural Dye Studio hand dyed yarn so there are colour variations between skeins. I used 3 and a quarter skeins (170ish grams) of sock yarn.


I liked getting near the end because you are decreasing at both ends so each row is getting shorter and therefore quicker to knit.

Somehow I am still alive in Sock Wars. Mel declared herself 'dead' yesterday so hopefully I will get her victim's partly made socks to finish in a couple of days. Unless I'm 'killed' first, but I have had no word from my 'assassin' at all. Perhaps they are in stealth mode.

On the TV front, I watched Sunday's Top Gear last night. I can't believe that they managed to sail the English Channel in a pickup truck!! Surely not! Very funny though.

Since I have managed to pick up the needles again recently, my reading has started to suffer. I have started Memnoch the Devil, which is no. 5 of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I did pop into the second hand bookshop on Saturday and got Priestess of the White by Trudi Canavan, and Night Rise by Anthony Horowitz for the grand total of £7, and the Canavan was a hardback. I enjoyed the Black Magician trilogy so I hope I'll like this one too. I'm not usually a big fantasy fiction fan but there you go.

Yay for Russell Brand having Noel Fielding as co-host on his Radio 2 show last week. If you are quick you can listen again or download the podcast here. The show was very funny, but I don't know how he gets away with some of the stuff he talks about, what with it being the BBC n'all. There was a bonkers chap on who wants Russell to stand for mayor of London. You can sign the petition here. Noel & Russell did say that they will be defending their title on The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, which I'm guessing will be on around Christmas/New Year. Not long now then, where is this year going?

WMDs lauched!!!

(Weapons of Mel's Destruction!!!)

Coincidentally it turned out that Mel was my victim for Sock Wars!! I finished the socks and mailed them off this morning so she will probably be dead (Royal Mail willing) by the morning.

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!!!

belated thanks, ravelling in it, and foodie friends.

I just wanted to say a belated thanks to my step-dad Bill, who came up to visit with my mum last weekend and washed both our cars and cut the grass. I am ashamed to say that mine hadn't been done since he did it last visit in May. Gulp!

I am having fun on ravelry. I now have 17 "friends" and have uploaded several of my finished projects, books, stashed yarns and queued some patterns I would like to make. AND, a friend and I have started a group called The Coconut Lodge, for all things Booshy, and we have 7 members! One thing I have noticed from putting up pics of my stash is that there is a lot of blue/green there. I need to add some colour desperately.

Less than a week until Sock Wars now. I have 3 possible yarns now. If my victim is female I'm sticking with the Natural Dye Studio BFL sock yarn

If my victim is male, I'm going with garnstudio Fabel
And if either of them are allergic to wool, I have some Rowan Bamboo Soft.
I have 3.25cm DPNs AND Addi circulars, so I'm all set. Let battle commence!!!

I have given up on The Angel Makers. When I bought it I thought it was going to be witchy and a bit supernatural but it has turned into a saga of a woman who gets beaten up by her fiance. No thanks! So I have abandoned it and gone for something I know I will like, Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice. Its the 5th in the Vampire Chronicles.

Last night we had a couple of friends round for dinner. We hadn't seen them since January. A very nice evening was had by all and my tuna fish pie went down very well. Heather brought some runner beans picked from her garden that day, and they were lovely with it. Colin bought some Stinking Bishop cheese, and I'm afraid it tasted to me like a cowpat, (not that I've ever tasted a cowpat! I came close once but that's another story) so I had some of the goat's cheese and the smoked Lancashire. Colin did a fancy starter of Ciabatta with Asparagus and Poached Egg, mmmm, delish!

On Tuesday we go to Manchester to see the radiotherapy team at Christie's. We should find out when Colin's treatment starts and for how long. Wish us luck.

Can you tell what it is yet?

This is (was) my secret project. (Click to enlarge) I have confessed to the "victim" what i was doing and that it won't be in time for her birthday. (And that is despite the postal strike). It is going to take me a lot longer than I thought, and will be interrupted by Sock Wars anyway. So I'm going to send an alternative gift, and keep hold of this myself for now. Phew, I didn't realise you needed 18 stitch markers either. Luckily, thanks to Blossom who sent me 6 in my birthday surprise package, I did have enough in the right size. They are a bit of a mixture though. (BTW if anyone is still trying to figure it out, it is a Clapotis.)

I have just got gauge for Sock Wars in Garnstudio Fabel too, so if my victim is a man I will use that because it is blues/greens and greys. Not sure a man would want Shades of Grapefruit to be honest!

519 ahead of me for ravelry, I reckon I might just get on this evening!!! Now I just have to think of a cool name. A friend is going to start a Mighty Boosh group on there, so if you are interested leave me a comment, we need a couple more people to be able to set it up.

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.