Me, right now

Sitting in front of the laptop eating my tea (roasted squash risotto) and reading blogs at the same time. Not only do I have wonky shoulders, but one eye is bigger than the other. The hair can be blamed on my cycle helmet as I'd cycled 6 miles a couple of hours earlier. The doorhanger behind me says "Wild unpredictable female inside". Which I think describes my appearance perfectly...

Sunday 28th September 2008. 19.23

This is what you do:

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.
5. Add it to the Pool

You don't have to do the following bit, but this is my first attempt which involved waving the camera in one hand and the forkful of risotto with the other.

Thank you!!

First of all to Bianca, who was my Secret Prayer sock swop partner. I received my parcel a couple of weeks ago but various things got in the way of me blogging (chartership portfolio, trip to Lincoln/Newark to rent house out, my laptop refusing to talk to the internet for a week...) about it, until now! Thank you so much Bianca! The idea of the swop was to pray for your partner at the same time as knitting them a pair of socks, and meanwhile someone else would be praying and knitting for you.

Aren't they cool?!

The yarn is Opal Rodeo and the pattern is one Bianca designed herself - and they fit perfectly!

Close up of the stitch pattern:

Her children helped her choose the yarn - the purple is because it's my favourite colour, blue for water (a blessing), yellow for the sun, green for the apple tree in her yard, white for the clouds and peach, her children's favourite fruit!

She also included a copy of the pattern, a notebook and pen and a ball of Opal so I can have a go myself:


I haven't heard back from the person I was praying/knitting for yet so I'd better not post a pic of what I knitted for her yet!

Also, thank you to everyone who left comments on my last post when I asked for advice about my wobbly cables. I tried knitting the last knit stitch TBL for a few rows, continuing on, and it made a dramatic difference:

So I frogged all of it and started again, knitting the last knit stitch TBL all the way along. It looks SO much better:

The back is now finished!! Thank you for all the advice everyone! I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to reply individually - my broadband went even wobblier than the ribbing...

I've also been up to other exciting things. I'm loving my veg box and having lots of fun cooking the contents. It included stripy aubergines one week...

We also had a guest staying for a while. Big Monkey was delivered to work, and proved very good at cataloguing (until the IT manager saw him and said he didn't think the Elf and Safety people would be impressed with the distance from the keyboard for him as it wasn't ergonomically sound and he'd have backache before too much longer).


So he came home to the flat to spend some quality time with his brother, Monkey, and nephews (I think the other nephew must have taken this photo, as he isn't in it).

Big Monkey is now en route to his new friend, Michele, who lives in the US and was desperate to get a Monkey but nowhere was prepared to ship overseas. Which is where I came in...

Fortunately we'd just got some new bookrests at work and the boxes were going for recycling so I said I could use them instead. One was just the right size for Big Monkey, and the rest will be perfect for stash Sorting Out!

Hopefully he'll have a safe journey.

Knitting advice needed please!

I've just started a tank top for Noah's birthday (yarn and pattern bought from Sew In in Buxton, but I know I haven't blogged about Greenbelt and going away yet!) but I'm not pleased with how it's going.

The pattern is a Sirdar one, and I'm using Rico Baby cotton soft DK.

but on my ribbing the last knit stitch before each purl looks kind of wobbly. You can sort of see it here.

and see how it's a lot worse here.

and here.



and then I saw Abrazo in the latest Knitty, and it appears to have the same thing going on, although not quite as wobbly as mine. So, any ideas about what to do about it?!?! On the ribbing at the bottom it doesn't appear to be happening...

Iknit Day

My posts are now going to be out of order. There is a half written Greenbelt one, but I thought I'd post the Iknit day stuff first, as that's what I've just returned from!

It was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London and featured lots of stalls (which I forgot to take photos of as I was too busy running round squeaking with excitement), giant knitting

workshops and the Stitch in Time fashion show.

I bumped into Heather and Rosie as soon as I arrived and saw Yvonne on the Knitting & Crochet Guild stand who I waved to in passing. Then I fell over Anne in the loos and tagged along with the Cambridge knitters to the Lindley Hall where the Yarn Harlot was speaking and where we queued in very British fashion in the pouring rain to get in!


She was a fab speaker - read her post here about walking round London and you'll get the idea of the things she notices and the humour. And maybe it made me appreciate London a bit more, I don't usually think too much about it, it's just a big place I live close to now and lived in for a couple of years. I actually loathed London whilst I was growing up and declared I would never go there for more than a quick visit, then somehow ended up with two University of London degrees and living in the centre of it, in zone 1 right behind Waterloo station...

And it was so amazing being in a room full of knitters - virtually everyone was knitting:

This was the row behind me, everyone knitting away and listening. I wish I could have done that through an Extremely Boring Meeting in a Big Hall I had to go to at work on Tuesday. I hardly took in a word there... It would have helped if they'd been talking about knitting rather than the Financial Situation.

I queued up for the Yarn Harlot's book signing with Anne (who was finishing off a wash cloth with this country on to give to her. She finished it just before we got to the top of the queue)

and Liz, who somehow managed to graft the toe of her sock whilst standing in the queue. As I'd missed lunch I wasn't capable of much more than standing in the queue by this point.

The Yarn Harlot signed a copy of the Secret Life of a Knitter for me.

I can't believe I didn't get more photos of stalls. Exercising supreme amounts of restraint I only bought a skein of Dazzle - Blue Faced Leicester 4ply sock yarn from the Natural Dye Studio. And that was for a present. This is a small flat so I'm on a book AND yarn diet at the moment...

I also bumped into Diane, on the Socktopus stall (VERY yummy) and Gemma and Sue in various places. I think that's everyone I met? Although some other people wandering around seemed vaguely familiar. I could have spent large amounts of money at Socktopus, Natural Dye Studio, Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Shop, Loop, Bowmont Wool and Fyberspates, amongst others. And I loved the Herdy stall too, after seeing the shop in Grasmere back in April.

So, am I the first person today to blog about Iknit?!