The Devil on your shoulder

Do you have a friend who is an occasional bad influence?  The one who persuades you that 'just one more glass' won't make a difference in the morning, or that you don't really need all those hours sleep tonight ?  Well, in the case of yarn, my bad influence is my friend Goo.

It started when Karen from Didyoumakethat.com wrote a post which included some socks knit in self striping yarn.  Of course, I followed the link to the Etsy shop and found not one, but two yarns that I liked the look of.

Now, I'm trying not to buy more yarn (please can we ignore the souvenir yarn from Sweden), until I've destashed a little bit - so there's no reason to be buying more.  However, Goo pointed out that anything I buy from Etsy would raise money for my Brownie unit (via Easfundraising) and that I should buy it as an 'end of horrible job' present.

Sold.

So, when I got a note through the door from Royal Mail, saying that there was a package for me to pick up, I wasn't surprised to see this on the side:

Having paid for the yarn in Canadian dollars, I was surprised to hear that the yarn had come from New Zealand - as in, Southern hemisphere. 

I love the internet for letting me buy from people the other side of the world.  I also loved the cute cats, which decorated the packaging....

And, oh my, do I love the yarn which was inside!  Each yarn was in its own box, which was as pretty and clever as anything:

See the yarn peeping through the kitten paw?

I ordered two colourways.  Jaffa and Jumping Jenny.

Jaffa colourway - orange and purple

Jumping Jenny colourway - green and purple

The yarn is 75% washable merino and 25% nylon (natch) and feels and looks as gorgeous in real life as it does on the screen.  In fact, it only seems kind to leave you with one more picture to gaze at.....

Thank you Goo for being my bad influence! 

Snakes on a plane!

Alright, not snakes on a plane, more knitting needles on a plane. Although, if it’s a circular needle, I can see it being confused for a snake – by the easily confused non knitter. Have you ever tried to fly with knitting needles? It’s not as easy as people make out.

We were flying from London Heathrow (one of the busiest airports in the world or something) with Scandinavian Airlines. According to both SAS policy and UK government, knitting needles are permissible in the cabin. I know, I checked.  (And I've now found that the Heathrow website explicitly says that knitting needles are allowed.  I've bookmarked that for when I next travel from Heathrow)

The conversation at the gate went along these lines:

 - Do you have anything sharp in your hand luggage ?
 - Knitting needles ?
 - Ooh, I don’t know about those. (Consults with colleagues, who also doesn’t know) I don’t think they are
- The Civil Aviation Authority say they're allowed  (I may have made this bit up)
- Yeah, but it depends if security will allow it.  They’re sharp.
 - No, they’re not. (I wanted  to point out that they’re 3.75mm more likely to bruise somebody than pierce their skin, although far more dangerous as a garrotte. After the time I told Easyjet check in staff all the ways that bras could be used for nefarious purposes, I’ve learned to keep thoughts like this to myself)
 - No, security are sharp. They’ll be on it. I’d suggest putting it in your hold luggage. You don’t want to lose your needles, do you ?

This did very little, but annoy me at the thought of security guards confiscating items which are allowed, and made my husband more jumpy at me having knitting needles in my hand luggage for the journey home.

We then went through security – where I set off the scanner thing, was put in the tube thing for a body scan, had to take my shoes off to be scanned and was then asked to swap my shoes for my phone – so that the phone could be swabbed for drugs. I suspect that the presence of knitting needles 
would have stopped me from leaving the country entirely.

Thank goodness, the Swedish are more relaxed and sensible about these things…..

When Graduating....

Remember the important things.  Y'know - like safety pins for the gown, spare make-up, comb for the photos, putting your pattern in the knitting bag......

Prepping for Sweden

We're off to Stockholm soon, to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary.  Although every time I think of ten years marriage, my immediate thought is, 'how the hell did we manage that?!'

Anyway, I have no idea what we're going to be doing.  Thanks to a hiccup with the hotel not being able to fulfil the booking after all, we didn't know where we'd be staying until last night.  (As an aside, we're not going to be using Expedia to book any more trips.  We've used them twice and both times the husband's card has been stopped on suspicion of fraud).

I do however know what knitting I'm taking with me.  And which knitting shops I want to visit.  After going to York , I realised the joy of having a travelling project; every time you wear the finished article, you remember the trip.  This time I really, really want to master socks.  I've got yarn, I've got a pattern (although cannot find the link) and I've ordered some bamboo circulars for the plane, to minimise suspicion from security.

A quick internet search brought up this blog post about yarn shops in Stockholm, mentioning Sticka & Virka (Knit and Crochet), Anntorps Vav and Litet Nystan (Little Ball), so they're all going to get a visit.  Thanks to the Planet Purl website, I've got a mini knitting dictionary in Swedish.  (I know, isn't the internet great!)

I've also got the telephone number for my mother's childhood au pair, who was known for her knitting.  I learnt her long tail cast on from my mother, and it's still my favourite.  I just don't know if it's strange to phone somebody I've never met and say 'hey, I hear you're into knitting. Fancy meeting for coffee?'.

Have a good weekend. 

Shaun-ing Around

So, how was your Easter break?

In between knitting, thinking about knitting, washing up and more knitting, the husband and I were following the Shaun in the City trail.  There is a certain skill to taking photos of decorated sheep on a Bank Holiday weekend, without getting other people's children in the picture!

Some of our favourites of the 33 we saw:


Because I love the Union Flag pattern:

Rule Britannia

Mossy Bottom

Look at the close-up, with pictures of Shaun and his friends:

Not necessarily a fan of Cath Kidston floral designs, but this was just so delicate:

Paradise Bunch

Me Llamo Shaun 

The Guardian

This one, I just love the perturbed look at two angels landing on his head:

Baa-roque

Out of This World

Happy and Glorious

Attempt at a Shaun Selfie.  (I actually hit my chin on his ear, which may explain the odd expression)

This I loved for the colours:

Lambmark Larry

Of course, it couldn't be a flock of sheep without some reference to knitting:

Nelson

Did you miss it ?

And of course, the obligatory sheep related puns! 

Another One Rides The Bus

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The Sick Day Pi Shawl

So, you may remember this from last December... 

The Sick Day Pi Shawl – so-called, as it is simple enough to be knitted when you're feeling flu-ey and are dosed up to the nines on cold medicine.

Since I knitted it in Yorkshire, of course, it made perfect sense to take it back to Yorkshire to finish off (i.e. weave in the ends) and block.  I'd started off on the ends, but hadn't quite completed them.  The pattern says that it's very forgiving of the wrong number of stitches, which is a good thing.  After the last increase, I was supposed to have 295 stitches; I ended up with 302 with a couple more possible increases when trying to catch a runaway stitch.  I loved the project; clear pattern, very simple to knit, and the seven row repeat was quite easy to memorise, which surprised me.

I used Rowan Summerspun, (which knits to a double knit thickness), on 4mm needles.  The pattern calls for an Aran weight yarn, so my sick day pi was less of a shawl, more a frothy little shoulderlette.  The yarn itself is made up of two thinner strands, loosely twisted together.  There were a couple of occasions where I managed to knit just one of the two strands, instead of both.  (The first time I assumed I’d just caught a thread in the wrong place and dropped it off the needle and with it went the stitch.  Do not try this at home).  I reckon it'd be possible to unravel a ball and use the two strands for a four ply-ish project.  As I don't know what to do with the yarn I have left over, I'm tempted to do just that.  There was one occasion of fraying/near fraying (I forget now), meaning I had to start a new bit of yarn in the middle of the row.

Annoyingly, I also cocked up on the cast off, by not making sure I had enough yarn for the Russian Lace bind off.  Not that I think it would make a difference which bind off I used.  As the yarn is only 50% wool, I couldn't do the clever trick of felting the ends to a new ball.  I did try unravelling the old end and the new end, twisting old strand A with new strand A and old strand B with new strand B and then twist the As and the Bs back together to make a seamless length of yarn.   If it sounds like a faff, it was and it didn't work properly either.  I ended up knitting and casting off three stitches with both yarns and hoping! 

Why yes, I was knitting over breakfast in Weatherspoon's

The plan for completing was to take the shawl to Sheffield, finish the final ends and then block in the hotel room between the matinee and evening performances.  I even packed the pins!

Should anyone wish to use this yarn, the water after wetting the shawl looked like this:

Goodness only knows what the staff made of the towel afterwards, but this is a hotel.  They must have had worse things on their towels than Rowan yarn dye, right?


The shawl in the process of being blocked, 

And the eyelet pattern:

And finally, a shawl selfie:

Would I knit this again ?

Yes.

Why did I like it ?
Easy to follow, easy to remember, simple and pretty quick to knit.  Also learned the Russian Lace bind off.

Why didn't I like it ? 
Nothing I didn't like. 

What would I change ?
To start - use the proper weight of yarn.  After the final increase, the five row pattern can be repeated up to fifteen times.  This time, I did three repeats; next time I would like to do more.

Things which made me smile this weekend

This week, I was in Sheffield.  Things which made me smile were...

• Seeing sunlight through stained glass.  That shade of blue and yellow is perfect.

• Going to the theatre.

• Buying a new knitting knitting book between the matinee and evening performances.

• Swatching for a new project.

• Finding colours and patterns which excite me.

• The poem near Sheffield Station

How to score stash....

...whilst still on a yarn diet.

Well, there's this thing with Guiding and with knitting, that it brings communities of people together.  On Friday last week, I went for coffee with G and K, as K had stash to pass on to G so that her Brownies could make pom-poms.  One of those yarns was two and a half balls of Rowan Big Wool.  Yes, seriously.  Now, I can understand that K didn't want it if it had been sitting in the stash doing nothing, but Rowan Big Wool is, we decided, far too nice for Brownies.  

I also inherited some sock yarn scraps, so that I can do a sock yarn scrap blanket.  The fact that I've not yet learned how to knit socks feels like the knitting equivalent of running before I can walk.

Then, last Saturday I gave G a bag of my spare stash (some pink, some sparkly) for the Brownies to play with, plus some 100% wool 3 ply in case she wants to start playing with fulling - two good turns for the price of one and it's given me more space for the yarn I do want. She also got an old Brownie handbook for good measure, so there's room on the bookshelf too.

The Guiding community can be so giving and supportive, as can the knitting community - so when the two combine everything is just that little bit stronger.  I love that this is the way my world goes round.

You know you're a knitting geek, when ....

• You see a poster for Night at the Museum 2 and recognise one of the characters from Stitch and Bitch:

(If you were wondering, I'm referring to the Native American lady on the right hand side) 

• You see an advert for Candy Crush Soda Saga and wonder how the jumper was knitted:

• You see a music video and are too busy admiring the cable work on the sweater to pay any attention to the song

• You see an exhibition of medical equipment and automatically assume that these are mini blocking wires:

(They're not, they're suture needles - so not a million miles unrelated to knitting) 

OK - so what geekery did I miss out on ? 

Mojo no show

Have you ever had one of those times when the bounce has gone out of your bungee?  When things don't work out the way you want or need them to ?  Because I've been a bit like that.

Firstly there was theatre.  Since finishing my MA in September last year, the last thing I've wanted to do is anything related to the theatre.  The new season at The National Theatre was released; I was only excited by one show.  Admittedly I've seen two of them elsewhere; Waste at The Almeida in London (too long) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at The Royal Exchange  in Manchester (would watch again).  But still, for a new season of a well established theatre, two is not a great hit rate. 

Then, there's the knitting.  It was sort of chuntering along, sometimes going right - often going wrong.  I think the number of times I ripped it back and started again was somewhere in double figures.  It was almost as if the yarn didn't want to be knitted into that particular pattern.  I don't know how many times I'd ripped back to start again, but it was somewhere in the double figures.  It always seemed to be somewhere between 100 and 200 stitches, which is a lot to start again.  Yes, I did try tinking it back, but have you ever tried to tink back a YO k2tog?  It's not something you do to keep you sane!

So I made a silent agreement with the yarn.  I'd find something else to knit it into, if it didn't mind me finding another yarn to do the current project with, and we seem to have come to an agreement.  So what started off as this:

Has now ended up as this...

(scraps for a scrap sock yarn blanket) 

...and has now been re-started as this:

I'm now somewhere well over 200 stitches which is the best indication that this yarn wants to be knitted into this project, which makes me indescribably happy.  

Last weekend, I went back to Sheffield, to see Blasted at Sheffield Theatres.  As I was walking in to the auditorium there was a moment when I got that tingle down my spine, when I remembered why I loved theatre and gave up two years of my life to study it.  At the end of the play, I remembered what amazing theatre feels like.  It gave me sparks of joy, which is what I'm going to call the neon project, which I want to wear when I go back next month.

A Guide is Thrifty

I may, or may not have mentioned the ten Guide laws which existed when I was a Guide.  (I think it was in a post which didn't quite get published).

Anyway - one of the ten Guide laws when I was a Guide was, 'A Guide is Thrifty', which probably came from the 1940s austerity. It's not there now, although it probably should be. 

This is the dress which I bought and wore for my grandfather's funeral, about 18 months ago.  It's got a lot of wear since, which explains the rather grey colour.  A new dress would be upwards of £20.00; a bag of dye from the local supermarket costs £5.00.

Now this bag of dye can just get shoved in to the washing machine with dry fabric and run on a normal 40 degree wash cycle.  I'm used to the boxes of dye where you have to wash the fabric first.  There are no before and after photos, as a wet and faded black dress looks pretty similar to a wet and dyed dress....

Have a picture of a black dress; I'll leave you to guess whether it's the before or after: