Baby knitting

I've been doing a lot of baby knitting recently. So far this has been for friends and relatives (I have a niece due in September), but, as is probably obvious in the photo below, I'm expecting a baby too, so it looks like there will be a lot more baby knitting in my future.

I haven't really started knitting for my baby yet, as it's not due until December, but this is what I've been making for the impending niece:

Ella Funt cardigan by Pamela Wynn. This is a really cute pattern, which I loved as soon as I saw it. It's a bit of a pain to get hold of, as due to the whole VAT mess thing, it isn't available as a download in the UK, and you actually have to go to a shop that supports Ravelry pattern selling and buy it from them, who will then put it into your Ravelry library. Fortunately it turned out that Iknit at Waterloo could do this, and I visited there whilst on the Fashion on the Ration outing so got my hands on it then, plus some balls of Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino with which to make it. It's a fun little pattern to knit, and I love the elephants! The patterning uses some leftover bits and bobs of thinnish DK that I had lying around.

My brother and SIL really aren't ones for the whole pink/blue thing (well, neither am I for that matter!), but I thought they really should get something that was pink and sparkly, tee hee, so I found this pattern and yarn whilst on holiday. You can't really see the sparkle on it, but I promise it is... I'd forgotten what a pain it is knitting all the bits separately and sewing them all together at the end. So much easier to knit it all in one from the top down or bottom up. Don't think I'll be using this pattern again!

I haven't yet made up the little dress I'm going to make for the niece too, but that should get finished in the next week or so.

And, what am I planning to knit for my baby? Well, I've got a baby blanket half-finished so far, a really cute sheep tank top which I've already bought the yarn for and a puerperium to make too!

And my totals for July are looking pretty good, as I didn't buy any yarn that month, but I used up 728.5 metres. So, the running total for the year so far is 1355.9 metres more yarn used up than stashed!

Fashion on the Ration

Last weekend I went off into London for the day, to meet up with some fellow knitting Archers Listeners for some knitting, lunch and a trip to the Fashion on the Ration exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. I have a rather low opinion of the Imperial War Museum at the moment, due to their plans to close their research library (very bad idea), and then to keep it open but with limited hours and charging for use (bad idea) but the exhibition sounded interesting, and I wanted to meet up with the others again.

I wasn't very good at taking photographs during the day, but there are a lot more, including of the exhibition itself, on Whitehart's blog. We initially met up at Iknit, near Waterloo, for some browsing, shopping and knitting.

Before moving onto the Four Corners Cafe for some lunch, then heading to the exhibition. I thought the exhibition was a good size. It took about 45 minutes to go round, so there was enough to see, without being overwhelming. There was a nice mixture of dresses, men's clothing and uniforms on display, supported by archival sources (including letters, posters and ephemera), film and sound clips. I really enjoyed it, I just wish I'd thought to take some photos inside! I really liked the Utility dresses, and thought it was very sensible way of ensuring good quality clothing that would last, but without using vast amounts of scarce materials.

Of course, a trip to a yarn shop meant that I did some yarn shopping. I'd spotted this cute elephant cardigan on Ravelry, but it was unavailable to buy online due to the VAT mess, and was a yarn shop only purchase. Fortunately Iknit does those, so I could buy it there. I'm intending to make this for the niece that's on the way later this year, so I purchased some Baby Cashmerino that will go with some that's already in my stash so that I could get started on it.

Last week I also acquired another skein of Madeline Tosh Sock, in a colourway that will go with the existing Sugar Plum colourway I have in my stash. This one came via ebay, where I'd got a search set up looking for this in particular. I'm intending to use these for a Byatt shawl.
The new colourway is called "Midnight Rendezvous"

And as you can see, it should look nice with the other skein!

I'll do an update on stash enhancement amounts at the end of the month! Oh dear, Iknit Fandango this coming week... But at least my purchases so far have been for definite projects which will mostly be started asap.

Ravellenic games

Back in 2006 I "competed" in what was then known as the Knitting Olympics. I found this old post about it whilst hunting around on my blog for something else. And how things have changed in eight years. Not only did Ravelry not exist then, but it was three jobs and an awful lot of house moves ago. In that post, I list all the things I need to do in the Olympic timeframe:

10th - 26th February. I calculate that I have two Knit Lincs meetings, four nights away for work, nine days at work, two days in London, 300 miles of train travel and 600 miles of car travel (but with me driving) to get done in that time too.

 How things change. This time around, for the 2014 Ravellenic Games (7th - 23rd February), I'll have:
Eight days at work
 249 miles of car travel
No train travel
No days in London
No nights away
4 knitting group meetings

However, according to my across the finishing line post, in 2006 I also had all the catering provided by Mum, plus a cat to cheer me on. Back in 2006 I managed to complete two baby jumpers for Feed the Children in the time. I know my knitting has speeded up since then, but that I also have much less time available now - all those nights away for work consisted of having an early meal in a pub, then spending the entire evening sitting in a B & B knitting away. Plus the trips into London each involved about 3 hours of knitting time.

So, I've joined Team GB for the Ravellenic games. And I'm trying to decide what to knit. I am stash-busting so I don't want to buy any more yarn for it, although I was very tempted to join in with the rainbow project idea to raise awareness and protest about the appalling way LGBT people are treated in Russia.

The idea is that it should be a personal challenge for you, so I have various different ideas:

• Age 9-10 cabled hoodie for nephew's birthday. I have to knit this anyway, and it's a pattern I know well (this will be the fourth). The challenge will be completing it in the time. It might be a good opportunity to do some more practice with continental knitting, which I haven't done for ages.
• A secret project. Needs doing, but I won't be able to blog about it or put it on Ravelry so probably not the greatest idea.
• A shawl in 4 ply - there won't be enough time to do one in laceweight. Not sure how feasible this is, as a lot of my knitting time recently has been whilst watching foreign language sub-titled TV, which really isn't compatible with knitting lace. I really like the Ashton shawlette, but would want to customise it up to a bigger shawl, and I don't have enough of one kind of 4ply yarn to do that, unless I use the Drops alpaca (actually a sport weight) and do stripes. I do have some Schaefer Yarn Anne which is a light fingering weight, although still not quite enough to do the bigger shawl suggested. Or there's the Misty Scarf, for which I actually already possess both yarn and pattern. Or the Juno Regina stole/wrap which looks more straightforward even if it is in laceweight.
• I also really like the Zuzu's Petals cowl/shawlette, which the Yarn Harlot recently blogged about, but it sounds like this pattern is quite quick, so perhaps won't be challenging enough. Or I could combine it with another project too? And I don't have the right quantity of yarn again for it, unless I use the aforementioned Drops alpaca. And I'm not sure I want a stripy one. Variegated would be fine, but not stripy.
• Then there are the sock possibilities. A simple pair of socks would only take me about 10 days, so I need something more challenging. It will have to be the stitch pattern, as I've given up with short-row heels as they just don't fit my ridiculously bony skinny heels. A few patterns are in my queue that I want to try. Aquaphobia socks: lovely pattern, but it's slip stitches so not particularly challenging? The Wraptor socks are quite exciting, but I don't think the heel will work with my feet. The Bigger on the Inside socks are quite cool, and have cables, which I haven't done on a sock before. Hermione's Everyday Socks are a definite possibility. As are the Baroque socks, which have twisted stitches/cables and a heel flap. Or the Sapient Pearwood socks, or Having Hope socks (which also has the advantage of all the pattern proceeds going to Cancer Research). I've wanted to knit the Monkey socks for ages too. And Chimaera.
• Or Fair Isle. I'd love to knit the Sheep Carousel tea cosy, Peerie Flooers hat or Rams and yowes blanket, but I don't have the yarn necessary, so those aren't an option, and definitely the blanket isn't feasible in the time frame!
• Or the adult size garments, although I'm really not sure how realistic that is. Possibilities here include Hey Teach, which is a cardigan involving lace. This has the disadvantage of being worked flat and needing seaming though. Liesl, which is top-down. Or the Lotus Blossom Tank, although there seems to be some negative comments about the pattern on Ravelry and I don't really want to be knitting with cotton in February.

But, after much much cogitation, the problem was solved by the arrival of this skein, as reported in my last post. And I really really really want to knit with it NOW, so I went searching around, and found the Canyonlands shawl, which looked like a good match. It's for fingering weight yarn, and can be tweaked relatively easily to get the most shawl out of the yarn. Plus, I've started wearing scarves/small shawls to work and this looked like the sort of thing I could wear with my work outfits. So, that's one event (Short Track Shawls) sorted. This one also qualifies for the Lace Luge and Single Skein Speed Skate events.

I had a look at my hibernating projects list, which isn't that long, and decided to have a go at finishing this wrapover cardigan. Started in January 2008, last knitted in June 2008. It appears to have two fronts, a back, one sleeve and a bit of a sleeve, so it just needs one sleeve finishing, the border knitting, blocking and then seaming. So, I have an entry in WIPs Dancing too.

No idea if all this is feasible in the time I've got available, but we shall see...
Are you competing in the Ravellenic Games this time too?

Accolading

Yesterday I left the OH reading his paper and headed off into London.

to meet several people from the Archers Listeners forum on Ravelry at a pub for knitting/crochet and some lunch.

 followed by a trip to the Finborough theatre nearby, to see a play called "Accolade". The reason for all this? Well, way back in January, there was supposed to be an event that would Shake Ambridge To The Core (it became known as SATTC on Twitter, which confused some non-Archers people who got it mixed up with Sex and the City). It turned out to be Nigel Pargetter falling off the roof of Lower Loxley and being killed. Thus removing probably the best loved member of the cast from the programme (for people who are already  totally lost, the Archers is an incredibly long-running radio soap on BBC radio 4. You should listen to it.).

Anyway, Archers fans all over the world (yes, you can hear it on iplayer) couldn't believe that the Evil BBC and particularly the Spectacularly Evil Vanessa Whitburn, the Editor, had killed off Nigel. Much grumbling ensued on the forum, and some people even gave up listening. But then someone discovered that Graham Seed, who played Nigel, was appearing in a play called Accolade, at a tiny little theatre near Earls Court. One thing led to another, and several of us from the forum ended up buying tickets and greensideknits organised for us to meet up for lunch beforehand.

The play was great, incredibly contemporary, we could hardly believe it hadn't been put on since the 50s! At one point the female lead does some knitting and I'm glad she can't have been aware that about a fifth of the audience were knitters, as she really wasn't very good(!).

And the best bit of all, we lay in wait in the wine bar downstairs after the play, and met Nigel Graham Seed himself!

We were slightly gobsmacked, I think, to get a chance to speak to him and hand over a card, but he was very charming (despite us taking his time away from meeting his friends and insisting on having a photo!).

It was a lovely day, and I really enjoyed meeting up with some more knitters, who all felt like friends straight away!
I also really enjoyed the theatre, it was a tiny, very intimate venue, only seating about 50 and the furthest back people were only about 3 metres from the actors. I'm already thinking about a trip back to see something else.

Totally overwhelmed

Last Tuesday I had one of the more overwhelming evenings of my life. I already knew I'd got a special parcel on its way to me (it got as far as our front door on Monday and was retrieved from Staines post office on Saturday. No pics or further details yet as it is Something For Wearing At The Wedding and therefore cannot be revealed as the OH reads this blog). The others at knitting group had requested that I brought the OH along to last week's meeting, which I duly did, thinking that maybe they had a wedding card for us or something.

The "something" was right - look at this. A whole knitted wedding cake!! Isn't it cool?! The detail is absolutely amazing, right down to my hairdo and our wedding rings. And the flowers are in our wedding colour scheme. An enormous amount of work has gone into it as there are loads of little bits that had to be sewn together. So the OH makes his debut appearance on my blog in knitted format!

The pattern is apparently the Alan Dart wedding cake, but heavily adapted - look, ours has two tiers!

Then, just when I was getting totally overwhelmed and little over-emotional Wannaknit handed us a parcel passed on from Greensideknits in London.

Some members of the Archers Listeners group on Ravelry, had got in touch with each other and decided to form the "Ambridge Knitting Circle" (complete with its own secret Ravelry group!) and make us a wedding blanket! Each of the squares is something to do with the Archers, or related to us, and they have come from all over the place, been assembled by Greensideknits, who also knitted the borders using her own hand-dyed yarn (which, it turns out, is in the same colour as the bridesmaids dresses!), everyone supplied a postcard from where they live and there's also a little book with all the postcards in and an explanation of all the squares! Isn't it cool?!

So, again, totally overwhelming. I am planning to blog about all the squares properly and explain what they are, but I think that's going to have to wait until after the wedding now...

Thank you to everyone for the amazing gifts!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the Archers is a totally addictive soap on radio 4. I've only been listening to it for five or so years, but it quickly became addictive.

Iknit Weekender

Yesterday the Iknit Weekender beckoned. I was worried that all the yarn would have already disappeared as it started on the Friday, but I needn't have been anxious. The Royal Horticultural Lawrence Hall had plenty of stalls with plenty of yarn left, plus plenty of room for plenty of knitters to sit and knit. I may be wrong, but it felt like there was more space to sit and knit this year, although it might be that there weren't as many people around as it was spread over two days?

I'd wanted to get a proper Ravelry badge to wear, but they were all sold out, so I recycled the badge from the Immensely Dull Conference with Horrible Food and Uncomfy Beds (the one redeeming feature was bumping into Rosie as I wandered through Cambridge avoiding going to an evening reception) that I went to last week:

and the OH drew a sheep on it for me. Apparently it's a Lincolnshire Long Wool that's recently been shorn.

I met up with several people, including Littlemy, who I met for the first time after several years of being in touch online! Also, Faeroes from my fledgling knitting group here in Staines, Quitecontrary from back up in Nottinghamshire, Babylonglegs on the Fyberspates stall and Greensideknits who I had a cup of tea with. And I did see Woolly Wormhead in the distance but not close enough to say hello!

I bought two gorgeous skeins from Fyberspates. These are Faery Lace in colourway "Regal", it's 90% merino and 10% nylon and feels gorgeous.

I was fairly restrained with my purchases this time, but I couldn't resist two balls of Zauberball as I've wanted some for ages. On the left is the original Zauberball and the one on the right is the Crazy Zauberball. I got these on the Knitting4fun stand.

And I also couldn't resist a Herdy mug. In fact, I'm drinking tea out of it as I blog!

My OH met me outside and we trotted off to do some shopping, went for a cup of tea in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square, wandered across the Thames and along the South Bank (wondering where all the people came from, turns out it was the Thames Festival, not just people from Iknit) and then went for a meal before heading home.

I arranged the yarn on the train seat, partly because I wanted to admire it and take a photo of it, and partly to stop anyone else sitting there (!!) but the OH seemed to think this was embarrassing behaviour. Can't think why.

Flying visit

I'm off to Get Knitted at the end of this week to do a course with Farli and Penny.

On the day I'll get 10% off anything I buy in the shop, so it seems a bit silly for the yarn diet to be in operation that day, doesn't it?

I need to decide what I'm looking for. I've wanted to make Maude - from the Inside Loop for ages, so I think I'll go with yarn for that (her?). So I need either 1890 yards of laceweight or 945 yards of fingering weight. There are some really gorgeous ones already made on the Ravelry project page. I've seen the original at Diane's flat, and it's really really nice.

But I also want to make these sometime:
Hey Teach - from Knitty.
February Lady Sweater - from Ravelry.
Amelia - from Knitty.
Henley Perfected - from Interweave Knits.

Decisions, decisions...

But before I do the course I'm off to Tuscany on a work trip. Yes, I did say a work trip to Tuscany. It will be a bit of a flying visit, and unfortunately it looks like my attempt to arrange to meet up with some other knitters in Pisa isn't going to happen (typically, a work meeting got in the way, and much as I would prefer to prioritise knitting, sometimes that really can't happen). I'm still pondering whether British Airways are likely to let me anywhere near a plane whilst armed with my knitting needles.

But there are a few things I'm hoping to see whilst I'm out there. If I'm awake. My flight from Gatwick is horribly early and I'm having some doubts about even being awake during the work part of the trip...

I'll be off email and blogging most of this week. But hopefully I'll be back soon, armed with lots of pictures!

Happiness Swop

I recently took part in the Happiness Swop on one of the boards on Ravelry. The idea was to send a small present to one of the others. Kate sent me a parcel containing these:

A groovy tin containing a row counter (She says you put your needle through the hole with one bead for row 1 of the pattern repeat, and move it for each row. For row 11 you put a safety pin in the bead's space, and the needle through 1. So, for 25 you'd have the pin in "2" and the needle in "5".) Clever, isn't it?!

And:

Daisy stitch markers!! Very cool (and very cheerful!). Thank you Kate. It's taken me a while to blog about it as I was waiting for some daylight to take photographs in...

I can't decide what to do about the No-purl Monkey sock. It's already had 3 attempts at being a Herringbone sock, and now I think I'm going off the No-purl Monkey pattern for this:

I've turned the heel on them, but they're working out quite big, and I think I've made the leg too long so will be in danger of running out of yarn. Now I'm thinking about frogging them (again) and making some Leyburns instead. Or am I just being even more indecisive than ever?

Lent

After much cogitation I decided to "do" Love Life Live Lent this year. I considered giving up chocolate, but decided (charitably) that this would be unfair on my work colleagues, who would have to work alongside me in a chocolate-deprived state for several weeks. Last year's carbon fast attempt was fairly disastrous - I ended up having so many accommodation problems in Windsor that I went away every weekend and drove between 200 and 500 miles every weekend for the whole of Lent! Oops.

So Love Life Live Lent seems much more do-able. I've also signed up for the daily updates on Twitter, which are a good reminder...

So far, I've successfully accomplished:

• Give up your place in a queue to someone else. (I let cars in ahead of me at various Slough junctions. This is causing pandemonium - Slough drivers aren't used to people being nice).
• Say something nice about someone behind their back. (This was quite easy as everyone is so flipping nice at work that we don't go in for being bitchy).
• Say a prayer for someone who is unwell or is in need. (In theory easy, but I did try to spend a bit more time actually doing it).
• Give a homemade gift to a loved one. Easy peasy for a knitter. I posted off a dishcloth for the Happiness Swop on a Ravelry forum for Christians with depression.

but have had a few problems with:

• Skip a meal and give the money to a charity working overseas. a. I'm skinny. I don't DO skipping meals b. My daily food budget is £4, which is going to make a massive difference to some charity, hmm. I decided to eat the meal as normal but donate a bit more than normal to charity this week .
• Take things to a charity shop, recycle or Freecycle. I have piles of stuff waiting to be sorted (a large wodge of clothing, and there are currently 3 computers sitting in my living room waiting for files to be transferred before I recycle/Freecycle 2 of them), I just haven't had time to sort them yet...
• Have a TV-free evening and do something with your household instead. TV-free evening = easy. Spend evening with my household? Less easy. My household is me. So I thought I'd write this blog post instead and then read my book ("The Road Home" by Rose Tremain).