bluey-green glory

My Haruni, in all its bluey-green glory.

I should probably mention that it looks much richer/has a lot more jewel tones about it than I've managed to capture in these photographs. 

There's been a lot more sewing than there has been knitting this week. Following JennyO's lead, I'm making little drawstring project bags with what's leftover from my market bag fabric. 

In an attempt to get a handle on things, I took stock of the baking cupboard and discovered there's such a thing as too sweet...

"Oh noes, what do I do?" Why, bake something, of course!

I began with chelli-tinkerbelli's cake (moist dark choc cake) for Wednesday's daytime knitting which was at Mel's owing to this week being half term. 

Wednesday was good all around cos after knitting at Mel's, Sarah, B and I went on a lightning quick trip to the U.S. of A.! Honest, we did. I'll leave you working on that one :-)

Thursday was a day for success. I finally succeeded at the perfect shortbread round. That's right folks! After years of tweaking I've arrived at perfection and it's simply...perfect. Or will be once I sort my silicon bakeware vs. oven temps issues. 

I took one round over to knit night at Nicola's and between us, S and I are determined to get through t'other. 

And now it's Friday which means more sewing (with Debs) and a little knitting; if I'm lucky. Don't yet know what we're doing this weekend - I'm waiting for a quote from the mover who was here to give an estimate at 8:17 this morning - but have a sneaking suspicion it'll involve packing. 

market bag

Talk in these quarters has turned to the year's knitting markets. Plans are already being drawn for Woolfest and Knit Nation, both I've attended in the past and plan to attend again this year. My memories of Woolfest are that it was very smelly, not packed with stalls nor people but worthwhile nonetheless; comparable to how I remember Knit Nation except for the smelly bit; Knit Nation was not smelly. 

I don't plan on taking any classes - strictly marketplace. And in preparation I've (already) made myself a market bag. On looking back, I seem inadequately prepared for yarn buying at knitting markets. For the longest time I used a cotton mesh bag that caused the yarn within to begin pilling due to the bag rubbing against the yarn. I always think to myself, "I really should make a simple tote for next time." But next time usually has me ashamedly reaching for the pink mesh bag yet again. But not anymore. 

Yesterday, I whipped up the tote below. 

I bought this fabric in Toronto ages ago and don't know what it's called, who it's by or how to get more. I've seen variations of it but as yet, no joy. I would love to upholster a chair in this fabric. I'm trying to sew my way through all my favourite fabrics, I think it's unhealthy to hoard fabric (and yarn) - a rotating door approach is much better. 

Of course all this could be to do with being faced with all my fabric and yarn stash at once. Nothing brings one's things into harsh perspective like moving house. But on the upside there will be more space for proper storage; just as soon as I figure out where the little things will go. And I've just 16 days in which to do this!

a shawl for nina

The weekend was good. On Sunday, JennyO and I spent the day knitting, sewing, eating and drinking lots of tea - I'm a tea lover but Jenny will drink me under the table ANYDAY. I finally got to use my sewing machine to make button holes. I've never had a need for buttonholes but I'm sure that's about to change.

And today is lovely already. The postman has been to deliver something from someone far, far away. Michigan to be exact. 

This is a part skein of the Pfefferminz Prinz I was desperate for a week ago. It was mailed on the same day I asked for it and took just a week to get to me. Huge thanks to funtooknit and everyone else that offered a helping hand - it means so much. I can now sign off on my Haruni and carry on working on 

a shawl for Nina. 

Nina is my great aunt whom I call grandma and love very dearly. She is an elderly lady who was recently involved in a car accident. Fortunately, she is alright but has been restricted to bed rest to enable her leg heal properly with the aid of the metal rods keeping things in place. This must be very difficult for her as I don't remember a time when she wasn't buzzing about. 

When asked how she passes the time she told me she reads and watches more TV than she's ever watched in her life. I then asked whether she'd ever done any handicrafts and she sounded a little wistful as she told me she hadn't. She told me her grandmother had tried to teach her to no avail. I offered to teach her to knit or crochet and her reply was, "Wouldn't it be nice to be taught how to crochet by my granddaughter?". I promised her that when I see her in a fortnight, we would crochet. 

We're both looking forward to it.

Snowy day

Have a good weekend.

my other valentine

I've been in a tizzy all week. There's so much to organise for the move. Starting with handing in notice on our present apartment which turned out to be a bittersweet experience. Though I've often moaned of how cold the place is, it has been our home these past 2.25 years. Earlier in the week our letting agent popped in to carry out a final inspection. On both her previous visits, the place was a tip*, so this time I was determined that she'd see our home in the best light. And she did. 

But why am I telling you this? Well, I'm telling you this because in my tidying frenzy I hid (and temporarily forgot about) my other valentine. 

from greendaygal! On re-discovering my goodies, I ripped open the eucalan and put it to good use. This is my swap gift from the British Banter group's "quick and dirty" swap, aka the £3 swap. not really the name but hey, it is what it is. I still haven't opened the yellow packet yet; I'm prolonging the surprise and don't want the smell to diminish over time. The label says "frog prince" so I'm looking forward to froggy kisses in my bath, can't wait to be swept off my feet :-)

And just because, I got me a little pick-me-up too.

A 5-hole pencil sharpener from Present & Correct. I knew Pinterest would be dangerous for me, too many pretties! 

* relatively speaking

varying shades of white

I'm enjoying blogging. My blog is evolving in ways I didn't foresee at its nascence (a good GRE word that). Just this morning I happened upon a Ravelry thread, a rant about the pitiful state of clothes on the British high street. which I feel is dire unless you're willing/able to fork out wads of cash. As I was replying to this thread, I realised that I was headed down a road I'd already trodden. It didn't take long to recall that I'd written a blog post on the matter. I really like that aspect of blogging; a written record (any)one can refer to for years to come. 

I appreciate this may not always be a good thing. 

Paper cutting takes longer than I remember. I've moved on from mentally arranging furniture in the new house to scaled down paper 'models'. 

This is something S and I do when moving house - our house-moving ritual. I find it makes the transition smoother and helps us settle in quicker. actually I do it because it gives me many hours of pleasure :-). The furniture is colour coded; we don't own purple furniture though, all but one of those are things we're yet to buy. And our beloved 'angler fish light' (hey, Tina!) isn't green, but I like that shade of green so there.

And I know I said we won't change anything for a while, and yet (in my mind) I see rooms that are varying shades of white. I've spent an inordinate amount of time poring through my collection of home decor magazine clippings (how my tastes have changed. thankfully!), notes I made from TV makeover shows - I found these invaluable in passing on useful tips on: choosing workmen; what to avoid when buying a house; which codes and regs to insist on; a clue about costs, prioritising jobs, what a flying freehold is and so much more! I suppose this is as good a time as any to warn that there will be LOTS of house talk in the coming weeks/months/years. Surely not years.

And yes, we did get the house and will be moving in next month. 

and i don't mean tacky

Yesterday was alright in the end. In fact, my happiness scale would look like this:

Owing to forces beyond my control, it was yet another day I experienced my own powerlessness, gawd! i hate those days. But it was also a day I was overwhelmed with love. and i don't mean tacky, commercialised valentine love. 

As I settled down to knit late Sunday afternoon, I realised that I don't possess enough yarn to finish my shawl. Panic set in. WTF do I do?! 

The way I saw it I had two options: wait to get lucky in a shop update - one could be waiting ages, OR beg, borrow or steal it off someone on Ravelry. I chose the latter. So on Sunday night, I posted on the 'in search of' thread on the Wollmeiseaholics Anonymous group that I needed about a ¼ skein of Pfefferminz Prinz. And would you believe that within a couple of hours of waking up on Monday morning I was sorted? Well, it's true. 

I was offered what yarn I needed from all corners of the globe. The best bit being that all but one was offered at absolutely no cost to me - they wouldn't even let me pay for the shipping! I was truly touched by this and will definitely pay it forward.

As if that wasn't enough love, S spent the day with me. This deserved something special so I made him this card

 i really should get back into making cards

and he bought me: cheap and cheerful flowers; a big bar of dairy milk wholenut (my second favourite, galaxy hazelnut was out of stock); dinner out, which I've postponed until restaurant prices return to normal; oh, and my lime green winter coat. bought back in the December sales. 

Today I'm cutting paper to scale. and knitting.

walked beside the River

Today was a lovely winter's day. So this afternoon, S and I went walking in the Yorkshire Dales having first called by Bizzie Lizzie's in Skipton. 

We walked beside the River Wharfe and here are some images from my beautiful day.

{Bolton Abbey}

{the "money tree" revisited}

{moss on a dry stone wall}

{old Barden Bridge}

{River Wharfe}

{the Strid}

I hope you're having a good weekend.

my knit kit

My haruni shawl is coming along nicely (I'm about to start the border) but to tide us over to the "ta da!" stage, I thought I'd explore my knit kit.

The purse is the 24/7 from leo rising; one of many talented artisans I met at the One of A Kind Show in Toronto years ago. This show is an awe-inspiring, mind-blowingly amazing exhibition that's bursting at the seams with clever, original and inventive individuals selling their high quality creations. These creations vary from furniture to edibles through soaps and lotions as well as make-up, fashion, stationery, leather goods, fibre & textile arts, visual art, pottery and tonnes of other tastefully handcrafted items. gawd! i miss it. 

Aaand we're back to my knit kit.

{my knit kit}

 1 - 3 : needle gauges:- 1 is great for checking knitting gauge over 10cm/4"; 2 is good for 'old money' i.e. old British & US needle sizes; 3 tidily attaches to zippers.

      4 : a nail file:- conveniently nip those annoying nail nicks in the bud

      5 : metal and wooden crochet hooks:- invaluable for picking up dropped stitches

      6 : thread cutters by Clover:- i don't think much of these, they probably work for thread but not yarn

      7 : fancy embroidery scissors

      8 : yarn snippers:- these are so tiny and sharp, i luv 'em!

      9 : Nancy's Knit Knacks wraps per inch tool:- not much (if any) use for this thus far

     10: bent and notched cable needles

     11: yarn guides:- for stranded knitting

     12: pattern tamer:- very useful when working from charts. Thanks TravelKnitter.

     13: tape measure

     14: katcha katcha by Clover:- noisy but most serviceable.

     15: hand moisturiser:- handy when halfway through knitting I notice my ashen hands, shock horror!

     16: my Ravelry name tag:- vital at any convention of knitters.

     17: Clover needle holders:- as well as keeping sets of DPNs together these stop my knitting falling off the needles when in transit.

     18: straight tapestry needles

     19: bent tip tapestry needles:- my most recent acquisition.

     20: yarn bobbins

     21: flexible ring stitch markers by Clover

22-23: lockable stitch markers:- great for marking a particular stitch.

     24: split ring markers by Clover:- great for marking a particular stitch.

     25: metal ring stitch markers:- non-flexible.

26-27: stitch holders:- will hold stitches in place until you're ready to knit 'em.

     28: kilt pin:- this was how I stored my stitch markers before the TravelKnitter happened to me.

And there you have it, my knit kit.
What's in yours? What notions can't you do without? Mine would be 8, 14, 22-25, 7, 13, 3...everything but 9 and 20 I suppose.

isn't quite the show-stopper

This was a good week. Though Monday kicked my butt hard, on Tuesday I got to hang out with Sarah and SciGal and their cute little munchkins. SciGal is another friend that calms and I always feel great after spending time with her and hers - I should do this more often. On Wednesday S brought home prawns which turned out to be the perfect jumping off point for an impromptu dinner with B & J before we all went to see Black Swan - dark with just enough to titillate. Yesterday, I met a couple of new Nutty Knitters at daytime knitting and hung out with old favourites (and blue corn chips!) at night time knitting. 

This was a week of laughing with friends, kissing & tickling their kids, catching up, making plans to meet again, knitting...oh yeah, my knit mojo is back with a vengeance. My haruni shawl is moving apace minor modifications notwithstanding. You see, my petit poison nr. 5 had a strop; on seeing the shawl pictured in the sidebar of the previous post she flat out refused to be anything else. In the past I would have been tempted to drag it out until I got the upper hand but I've learnt that sometimes the yarn really does know best and this is why my shawl now looks like this:

{haruni in pfefferminz prinz by wollmeise}

Granted, the prinz isn't quite the show-stopper that the stroppy one is but there is a lot to be said for good behaviour. I finally see what all the fuss over wollmeise is about, I'm luvin' it! The yarn fund has been put to good use, with some going on 

yarn for my next stranded project and a bit going on a skein of  purple wollmeise just this morning. I still have enough left for one skein but not the postage. 

It's very windy in these parts (has been since Wednesday) so I haven't been walking for a couple of days.  I plan to swim this weekend and as we are having friends over for Sunday lunch, there's a menu to plan too. I do enjoy planning meals, cooking for people is the perfect excuse to try one's hand at those more 'exotic' ingredients. I long to give this a go but fear I'm not quite up to it yet.
Whatever you have planned this weekend, have a good one.

haruni time

The Haruni knit-a-long (kal) is a go! 

And from my selection of wollmeise, I've chosen...

petit poison nr. 5 (light).

I don't yet have a shawl in this colourway 

{click for details}

but that's about to change. 

Shawls are my ultimate favourite things to knit and absolute bestest handknits to wear! not entirely sure I have enough superlatives in that sentence. And I would knit nothing but shawls if I wasn't so keen on variety. Unfortunately, my yarn stash includes a number of very colourful yarns that would be unsuitable for anything but socks on a fully grown woman. 

While hanging out with SciGal yesterday, I mentioned that my knit mojo had gone AWOL and the clever girl pointed out that I probably wasn't inspired by my WIPs. Why can't I reason my own way out of a funk? And because the plan was to get these off the needles ASAP, it never occurred to me to frog my current WIPs and repurpose the yarn for something more enjoyable to knit. 

Instead, over and over I told myself, "Life isn't always rosy. To get the prettiest roses you have to endure some thorns" WTF?!?! IT'S KNITTING! If it isn't pleasure-inducing, it isn't worth it! Simples.

I hereby announce that I will henceforth immediately frog anything that is a drag to knit!