Twitter

So, there I was, reading blogs, when I stumbled over the Yarn Harlot talking about Twitter. Now I'd read about Twitter, but mainly in incredibly dull librarian things that don't inspire me to go and investigate further. But if the Yarn Harlot's doing it it's got to be cool, right? So I investigated and discovered exciting things like several other online friends using it, plus Stephen Fry, plus the Today programme and Greenpeace. Then I joined in myself.

I don't think my updates have changed the world. Was anyone actually interested in my desperate hunt for paracetamol in the event of Extreme On The Blobness Galloping Gut Rot? Or the headache-that-turned-into-a-migraine? Or the fact that I'd arrived at work and it was raining? Probably not. But I like other people's updates!

In other news. I've just started reading "Everyman" by Philip Roth, for reading group, although I'll miss the meeting for this one as I'll be on holiday. Ironically the only copy left was the large print one, which caused great hilarity among the other members, almost all of whom are a good 40 years older than me! When do you read books? I'm trying to keep the time I get to bed for reading books, and to keep reading newspapers and magazines to other times, but I always seem to end up with a backlog at the end of each week!

Most of my files are now on Claudius, although a few remain on Caligula, and I haven't tackled Nero yet... I haven't worked out how I want the file structure to look yet, so things are in weird places. Knitting pics seem to have ended up in a variety of folders, so I'm having trouble finding things!

I've unearthed the pics of White Lightning (but in green):


finished for a swop before Christmas. A quick and also fun knit! I used 2 skeins of Debbie Bliss Cathay, which feels lovely.
Just before Christmas I discovered Folksy (thanks to Nic!) which is like Etsy but in the UK. I bought a bag like this as a Christmas present from Nic's shop and have since been stalking various other exciting items!

Lift Off!

And I now have lift off with the new laptop (Claudius). To Dots&Yarn, who asked about the name, yes, my previous laptop was Caligula, the PC before that was Nero, and the one before that was Augustus. And I can't remember why I started naming computers after Roman emperors, but obviously it seemed like a good idea at the time.

After the trauma of installing my mobile phone/camera software (an hour of turning the flat upside down left me with the conclusion that the disc was actually in Lincoln, rather than Slough, another two hours of faffing around on the SonyEricsson website then followed before I got anything onto the laptop), I can now download pics!! So here are some:

Just before Christmas I took part in a swop on the Big Issues Debate board (BID) on Ravelry. My parcel arrived at work the day I left for the Christmas holidays so I didn't get to open it until January! But here it is, in all its glory:

First of all, a beautiful handmade bag, just the right size for my sock knitting stuff, some smellies, a candle and a very groovy pair of scissors.


And this wonderful sheep! She has been christened Agnes and now sits on my filing tray at work, chairing meetings and generally helping out. Thank you to Amanda, for such a lovely parcel. And I'm sorry it's taken so long to blog about it!

I sent a parcel to Jessica, the contents included a White Lightning scarf that I made with some Debbie Bliss Cathay. You'll have to click on the link to see a pic - I haven't transferred any pics from Caligula yet!

Yummy yarn I got for Christmas from Mum (who took Noah with her to Yarn to help choose my present, I must say he has excellent taste in yarn).

This is a ball of Opal Planete, which I'd never even heard of before!

and some Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett. Very yum! Very bad pictures, but I only said I could download now, not improve the light situation as well!

And I was an angel for the long-finished Secret Prayer Sock Swop on the Christian Knitters & Crocheters Forum. Leah's partner had bailed on her, so she hadn't got any socks, and had no idea if someone had been praying for her or not. I decided to make her a pair of Shur'tagal socks from The Inside Loop, using some Fyberspates sock yarn. And prayed for her whilst knitting them.

This colour is totally inaccurate, but there's a better one of the sock in progress on Ravelry!

New laptop!

I haven't disappeared. I've been trying to buy a new laptop and finally succeeded on the third attempt, after spending a week with a fraud alert on my bank account (as the Man at the Bank said on the phone, "you don't normally spend several hundred pounds with Dell computers, so it looked like suspicious activity"!!) Presumably if I bought a new laptop every month it would have been fine...

Then there were a few problems with my bank address (home) not matching my delivery address (work) but finally Claudius (the new laptop) arrived on Friday! I am half swopped over from Caligula (the old laptop), as I haven't had time yet to sit down and sort out which files are going where, or install the software for my printer, phone and scanner, but soon I will be embarking on a wonderful new world of being able to access my email and Flickr at home, able to post pics onto Ravelry without everything crashing and other similar exciting activities.

I'm waiting for a swop parcel to make its way across the Atlantic to its recipient before I post pics of the finished item(s) so I'll leave you with pics of the two wash mitts I made as Christmas presents:

Slow stashing

I just read the article on "Slow stashing" on Knitters' Review. Excellent plan! I don't want to stop buying yarn completely, and I don't want to *just* knit from my stash, even though I'm aiming to do a lot of that this year.

Has anyone else read "Lark Rise to Candleford"? I've almost finished it and have really enjoyed it (it's January's book at my reading group). I didn't see the first series of it due to the people I was lodging with and their monopoly on the TV.

This Christmas I learnt...

... that garlic crushers and Play-Doh make fantastic "hair". And purple and yellow Play-Doh mushed together make a muddy colour.

How much I've missed having a cat around. Sweep arrived from the rescue place to keep my Mum company a week before Christmas and is settling in well (apart from being terrified by my nephews). All attempts to convince him that he'd love to live in a small flat in Slough rather than a large house with garden in Lincoln have so far failed...


There were baby monkeys present at the birth of Christ. (I'm not convinced about this one, but Monkey said it was true).

And the frost on the top of my car looks very pretty. And I might not have been late for work if I'd got on with scraping it off the windscreen rather than taking photos of it.

I haven't read any blogs for over a fortnight - I had very limited internet access over the Christmas holiday and my laptop is really on its last legs now! However, a new one should be en route to me as I type!