I FOUND A KNITTING GROUP!!!

Yes, finally, after only TEN MONTHS of living in this desert-of-knitterly-activity I found a local(ish) group!! After making good use of the Buckinghamshire knitters forum on Ravelry (I don't technically live in Buckinghamshire, but I'm only just over the border, and it's closer than any of the Berkshire groups, which is where I technically do live). So off I drove to Marlow on Monday evening. Marlow is supposed to be really nice, but as I only saw it in the dark and mostly just a pub (plus a petrol station that had petrol 5p a litre CHEAPER than in Slough!!!!!) I can't really comment on the niceness of Marlow. But it was a very nice knitting group. Sue, who I "met" on Ravelry looked out for me (very scary walking into an unknown pub in an unknown place to meet an unknown group of knitters at the time of year when your glasses steam up as you walk into places) and there were six other knitters, whose names I mostly can't remember (not good with names, even when I haven't got steamed up glasses) but one of them was Wendy who came and found me on Ravelry the next day. Everyone was nice and friendly, and it was SO nice to be with some normal knitterly people for a change. And now I can't wait until next month for the next meeting!!

Then, the next day I had to go into London for a meeting at probably my least favourite place (not giving much away, but it's got a big dome on top) and then wrestle with the British Library to get my reader's pass renewed (more ID needed than to open a bank account...) before I headed over to the Royal Horticultural Halls (yes, the Iknit day venue!) to meet a friend for coffee and have a look at the Autumn Harvest Show.

OK. So the apples aren't a patch on the Yarn Harlot, but they're still pretty cool?! The pears are pretty cool too.

And these are the biggest onions I've ever seen. In a moment of extreme madness I volunteered to cook the Harvest Lunch at church at the weekend (80+ people...) and I'm thinking with an onion this size you'd probably only need one to feed everyone?

And then I walked back to Waterloo station via Iknit and bumped into Liz! Yay, lots of nice knitterly people!!

We have news from over the Pond! Big Monkey, who came to stay a couple of weeks ago, has arrived safely in his new home and is making friends already:

And Michele sent me some fab honey and yarn in exchange:

Wildfoote sock yarn. Yum. Which currently seems to be unobtainable in the UK as Get Knitted don't seem to sell it any more?

And this gorgeous skein, which is from Ranch of the Oaks and is called "zoo" yarn as it's a mixture of alpaca, llama and silk. And it's sooooooooo lovely.

And finally, these are the socks I knitted over the summer:

They're Cross-over Rib from Sensational Knitted socks, using naturally dyed yarn from Indigo Knits. I'm a bit sad as I knitted them for the Secret Prayer Sock Swop, and, although I know they've arrived (the swop organiser let me know) the recipient never got in touch to say thank you, which seems a bit off really. I'm trying to be charitable and think that something probably came up to stop her emailing, and, hey, the important thing is praying, not knowing what happened about it, but I can't help being a bit annoyed. I sent them off six weeks ago, so decided it was high time they got a picture on here anyway!

And I think that's all for now. The tank top for Noah is steaming ahead so I might even have a finished pic next time!

Greenbelt

I just rediscovered my Greenbelt post! Bit out of date now (it was the August bank holiday weekend) but, hey, at least it'll prove to Anne that I was there really! ;-)

Greenbelt was a bit muddy.

Fortunately it mainly only rained during the night when I was safely tucked up in my sleeping bag. And we did civilised camping involving fruit bowls, cafetieres...

and porridge.


I was volunteering in the Angels Lounge, but only for two hours a day. And the Lounge was conveniently situated right next to the Divine Chocolate Fountain:

And Prue's cafe, with their cream-smothered-hot-chocolate.

I got loads of knitting done, this was started two days before Greenbelt, and I finished the first sock not long after I got home from it!

The pattern is Welt Fantastic, from Sensational Knitted Socks, on 2.5mm needles. The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit 100 Cotton Festa, from the sale section at Get Knitted. The DPNs ended up in the mud a few times, but it's machine washable yarn so I'm not too worried...


The Greenbelt knitting group "Purls and Wisdom" met twice (although I missed the first one due to some slightly convoluted car driving which I'm going to blame on Monkey) and it was great to meet some more knitters, including Mandy (*wave*), who's in the photo below. They were knitting hats for sailors, more info here.

And I got some more bootees finished for another ex boss' baby.

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.