Pretty in Variegated Purple

Here is the promised post about knitting! First of all is the item mentioned in the title. This is a pattern from Simply Knitting issue 3, called "Pretty in Pink". It's a bolero pattern which Andrea also made a while back. Daft title though, I thought, as as soon as you change the colour the title no longer applies to the garment! Andrea's was in lime, mine's in the variegated purple, Wendy Supreme Luxury 100% cotton that I got from the Designs sale a while ago. The pattern is meant to use Sirdar DK cotton, but the Wendy comes in variegated and also feels a lot softer than the Sirdar (which I used for Fondant back in June/July). I have done the back, both front bits and nearly one sleeve so am nearly there! I'm making the 3/4 length sleeves so will have a lot of Wendy Supreme left over (2 balls?) I think. Anybody either want it, or got any ideas for what to do with it?!



Next up is the KSH wrap, finally blocked. I pinned it out on an old sheet and squirted it with an old handwash bottle filled with water (too lazy to walk to DIY store to get water sprayer). I should admit though that I wore it last week before blocking. I took it to London with me for post dissertation celebrations and it was great - perfect for round my shoulders when it gets a bit colder in the evening. The cast off is a bit botched, as it's tighter than my cast on was so the ends don't match!



Then we have a sock. This is Crusoe which I took to Greenbelt last weekend and got finished on the train on the way back. I've altered the pattern a bit, first of all to make it fit me! Then I decided only to do the stranded pattern on the leg part and not continue it onto the foot as I wanted to see the yarn knitted without the pattern too. I like it again now (I went off it last weekend), partly because it reminds me of some parts of Greenbelt. The wonky bits of the stranding are due to changing trains on the way and I turned the heel during Karen Armstrong's talk! Only one more to go, then I can start knitting Christmas present socks.



I also still have a charity baby jumper on the go, which I must get finished soon. This weekend I've been knitting bananas from a Jean Greenhowe pattern. One is for a good luck present for a friend, the other is for my godmother's Monkey. I can't put a pic of these in production though as they look rather rude. Kind of phallic. They do look like real bananas when finished, it's just the production phase. These will be like the one I made ages ago for my Monkey.

I had a bit of a clear out last week (MA notes in recycling crate. Hee hee!!) and have listed some stuff on ebay. There's some Colinette, Rowan and Anny Blatt in there if anyone's interested. The idea is that I clear some space and raise some money, then I can sort out what I'm making for who for Christmas!

Did anyone hear Weekend Woman's Hour on Saturday afternoon? I think it was a repeat from earlier last week, but there was a debate between two women about the rise in interest in "traditional" things amongst women (no mention of men!) - eg cooking, knitting etc. One woman was going on about how there was no need to do any of this as you can buy clothes and cakes in the shops. She couldn't see the point of making a cake. I wondered if she had ever made one?! Anyway, she seemed to be missing the point that not everyone wants (or is able) to spend the whole time pursuing a career or whatever and that the cool thing now is that we have a choice to be creative. I'm sure I enjoy knitting socks because it's what I want to do, rather than the only way to clothe my children (not that I've got any!). And most shop-bought cakes are a bit synthetic and you miss out on the fun of making and the satisfaction of then eating what you've made. Am having a big think about all of this at the moment as I've just started reading "Zen and the art of knitting" by Bernadette Murphy. It's really really interesting.

Also, I've signed up for Secret Pal 6 and am really looking forward to getting to know & spoiling another knitter! Only problem is, I can't work out how to put a button on my sidebar. Do I need to save the image from the SP6 blog onto my computer, then upload it as an image to the sidebar? Anybody already succeeded?

I'm also thinking about signing up for the year of Living Generously. At the moment I'm lurking on the website, thinking "but I do a lot of this already", but I think it would be good to link it with what other people are doing and to find out more ideas etc this way. And it's easy to get lulled into a false sense of security, thinking, "hey I do my recycling every week, that's doing my bit".

Also, Gary (Penny's husband) has just emailed me a link to a radio show from BBC7 featuring Bill Oddie singing about knitting. It's very very funny, but I don't know whether you'll be able to access it after a week so listen now if you want to! Scroll down until you get to "I'm sorry I'll read that again" 14.30-15.00. The knitting song is about 13 mins into it.

That will probably be it for posts this week as I'm off to Cambridge for a (work) conference. I should be able to check my email fairly regularly (so please leave plenty of comments!) & will take my camera so I can post on my return.