Tuesday, April 29, 2003
 Here's the first sock in Mountain Colors Weavers Quarters in Huckleberry  and a close up of the Ripple pattern. Sorry it's so fuzzy, I think that because the colours are so dark the camera finds it difficult to focus. I'll try and see if we can take a better pic in the daylight. 'Course we'll need to find some daylight first as it's still grey and wet over here. :-(
Rest in peace dear Izzy. It never ceases to amaze me how much the net brings people together. I've never met Wendy or her dear departed cat Izzy and yet I feel so cut up for Wendy over Izzy's loss. Don't really feel in the mood for much knitting talk but I finished the first Ripple sock on Friday and am currently on the fourth ripple pattern - I tend to make ankle socks so have only six repeats of the pattern before starting ribbing - on my second sock. I hope to have it finished by tomorrow night so that I can cast on my next pair! Did a few rows on my Art Fibers silk/wool mix cardi and my Noro Kureyon felted bag over the weekend. Also planted some things in the garden yesterday before the heavens opened. So much for the summer! The grey skies are back. Thursday, April 24, 2003
I've knitted two repeats of the Ripple pattern so far and it looks very nice. I was going to take a picture but it's a bit late so will try and post one tomorrow. It has been slow going since the pattern is a six round multiple repeat of eight stitches if that makes sense. It's not the mindless sock knitting I'm used to! Arrived home to find my Sock of the Month kit from Joslyn's Fiberfarm waiting for me. This month's selection is a skein of Sheep's Gift in the Pinwheels of Easter line. It's very pale and pastely like hen's eggs dyed in vegetable colouring really. I'm not a pastely person at all but it is a sport weight yarn so would be useful for creating a pair of gift socks. I really can't abide the thought of knitting gift socks in fingering weight wool. They would just take too long and with my habit of leaving things until the last minute it wouldn't be practical! Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Just bought a pair of these garden clogs by Town & Country from Birstall Garden Center. Not bad for £12.99. I could have bought a slightly cheaper pair but thought I'd go with these. Yes, I know they won't keep the water out if it rains. I just wanted something that I could stick my feet into quickly if I need to go into the garden to do some work or grab a few herbs. I'm tired of wrecking good shoes by wearing them while gardening and I really didn't fancy wellies. They do carry some nice ankle boots in the same range so I may buy a pair of them in a couple of months time. Socks - I've been knitting these while watching eps of Monk and am just about to turn the heel. The colours of the sock actually look a lot nicer in real life than in the photo I posted yesterday. Just hope I can cope with the pattern. I'm so used to knitting plain socks that it will be strange having to concentrate and learn a pattern.  Well the Weavers Wool in Huckleberry won out. I finished the second Regia 5457 yesterday and began the shortrow heel on the first Regia 5047 sock today while I was burning a CD. At the rate the WW wool is working up I'll be turning the heel on that sock tomorrow night. Once I've turned the heel I'll start the Ripple Socks pattern that came with the wool. This will be the first time that I've knitted socks in anything other than plain stocking stitch. Can't wait until X-Men 2 is out next week! Sunday, April 20, 2003
More Gardening Went to another garden centre yesterday only meaning to buy organic seaweed based plantfood and came away with more plants. This time a new Rosemary to replace an old one that we had to remove, a white Dicentra, Chocolate Mint, a beautiful red Acer, and a tray of Nicotiana flowers - these smell just wonderful when in bloom, check out the Body Shop's Tobacco Flower perfume range to see what I mean. Sewing I've been interested in using my PC's printer to print on fabric for a while now but aside from importing special fabric from the USA or using iron-transfers, which I wasn't too sure about, there didn't seem to be a good option. However I came across this site on one of my email lists and it looks fab! All sorts of ways of being creative with fabric and a printer. I have to get hold of some freezer paper now! Friday, April 18, 2003
 But whatever you call it it's one of my favourite plants. Ever since I bought it as a root from Woolworths about seven years ago it's risen gracefully from the ground every spring. Even a move from underneath the Cherry Tree to in front of the roses nearer the house hasn't deterred it. We were very busy in the garden in the garden today cutting things back and planting new things in. I now have two wonderful lavenders planted near the path. Will pop a new sage and perhaps the variegated one that I planted into a tub last year near them tomorrow. Then perhaps I'll have time to plant some of the summer bedding plants. I had hoped to make a start on them today but the hot weather really slowed me down. I don't handle heat very well and had to take a few breaks. 'Course it would have helped if I gotten up early and started the work before 2pm! Well it was a public holiday! :-) It was so hot that it was almost unbearable to knit my Regia wool sock. I'm starting to think that perhaps my next sock should be a cotton one - have some lovely Sockotta in blue & green shades that was a present from Shobhana - but the weather is going to get a little colder again so perhaps I should stick to knitting with wool until the summer.
It's the start of a wonderful four-day weekend! And since the weather is going to be good for the next couple of days that means more work on our garden. It's starting to look really nice and I'm very pleased with it. I bought some more new plants on Wednesday, mostly perennials again but also summer bedding essentials like Busy Lizzies and Petunias. I just hope I remember to keep up with the watering! Watering the garden every night is a big commitment and I nearly almost slip up. Then there's the deadheading of flowers and, ick!, slug and snail patrol! With my other hobbies and of course working full-time it's not difficult to see why I forget sometimes! Still haven't tried the overlocker yet, I keep meaning to and then get distracted by my knitting. After seeing Theresa's pattern for a circular needle holder I'll have to get sewing again. Theresa is my Knitting Blogs neighbour but at the moment I've been banned from Ringsurf so can't traverse the ring. I think someone who uses my ISP must have done something to Ringsurf and then they've banned everyone with the same IP address. An email to Ringsurf has brought no response so far but I'll let you know of my progress. It's a real pain not being able to use the ring. Sock knitting - I've turned the heel of the second Regia 5457 sock and am now on the cuff. I'm ready to turn the heel on the first Regia 5047 sock too. I wasn't sure what I thought of the colours and patterns of these socks initially but as I knit more I love them! I am of course planning the next pair to cast on after the second Regia 5457 is finished. It's a toss up between the fingering weight CTH yarn in Wild Cherry or the sportweight Weavers Wool in Huckleberry. The Sportweight will be faster to complete so they may win out but I'm still deciding. I'm trying not to think about my stash of self patterning sock yarn! Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Finished the first Regia 5457 sock this evening and have almost finished the toe of the second one. These socks were just supposed to be a travelling and lunchtime project but I can't seem to focus on anything else right now. I don't know what it is but they're so addictive. Packed some more yarn away in my sock yarn stash today. I have a very large plastic tub on wheels which is practically full of the stuff. There's also an almost full box of sock yarn at Martina's waiting to be filled before it can be mailed. The new arrivals were from Needletrax - Cherry Tree Hill Super Sock in Wild Cherry and Schaefer Yarns Anne in Blues. My skein of Anne is more blue green than the current examples on the site. Can't decide which yarn I'm going to knit next. Sunday, April 13, 2003
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
 I love getting parcels! It's a bit like getting presents in the post except that you've had to pay for them! Today I came home to find that my Mountain Colors Weaver's Wool yarn and pattern had arrived from Threadbear Fiber Arts - Thanks Rob & Matt! - as well as some wonderful beads and charms from Sara Creekmore. I'm really pleased with the new sock yarn, it's in the Huckleberry shade and is just gorgeous! All of my favourite purples and blues. It'll make some wonderful socks. Knittingwise I had to rip out my Art Fibers cardi and start again after knitting about two inches of it. Somewhere along the way I'd picked up an extra stitch so I had 189 stitches instead of 188. Plus I found a mysterious hole towards the bottom. Not sure what happened there. I've now started again with a four row seed stitch (Moss stitch in the UK) border and the first two stitches of each row in seed stitch also. I still have two pairs of socks on the go, both Regia and a Noro Kureyon bag to felt. I've been taking the bag to work everyday as my lunchtime project. I hope that it won't take long to finish. My swift has now arrived too! The seller sent me a replacement because the first was lost in the post with my local sorting office saying that they hadn't seen it. I went along yesterday to pick up a parcel that they'd tried to deliver that morning and of course they had two parcels there. Both were swifts. I mailed the replacement back to to the seller in Sweden. I'm still annoyed at the Post Office, I could have been using the damn thing for weeks now. The two skeins above were wound pre-swift and it was difficult. The twinkle toes in particular have a large amount of yardage. Now that the swift is here I've wound several balls using it and the ball winder and it's just so much easier than draping a skein around a chair back and winding the ball in my hands. Less strain on my wrist too. Sunday, April 06, 2003
It's a bit late and I woke up far too early for a Saturday so this will be short-ish. CTH Supersport socks were finished on Wednesday - the almost instant gratification of a thicker sock yarn was great! I cast on a new sock in a Regia Short yarn on the same night. I think the Regia Ringel sock will just be left for a while since I haven't decided if I like it. Since the weather has started to warm up over here - global warming is good for one thing I suppose - I've put the Rowan Big Wool raglan cardi on hold and have instead cast on a new lighter weight cardi from some Art Fibers Sherlock which I bought last year. Started thinking about the Noro Kureyon I bought in London and have cast on yet another project. This time it's a felted bag using this pattern from Julie at Booga J. It's based on the free pattern from KnitKit.com. Went to Swansea today and bought a BabyLock Prestige overlocker (serger). I've been meaning to get one for ages but just hadn't got around to it. I've added Swansea to the City Shopping Guides page in the Space Craft section. Also visited Wales' first branch of Borders. I used to dislike Borders because they put a lot of small independent bookstores out of business like LA's Sisterhood Bookstore. They were a feminist bookstore that I bought quite a few things from until a Borders opened opposite them and forced them to close. Of course nowadays Borders is only place that you can find anything interesting, particularly American magazines - in the UK we have no hand knitting magazines - and craft books. After visiting the Swansea store I hope they move into Cardiff as well. At least our IKEA store is being built and will open in November! Friday, April 04, 2003
I've had the Space Craft link in my navigation bar for a while but the FO gallery section is now up. Only a few photos linked up at the moment but I'll add more as they come. I used to work with this guy years ago. As you'll see from his blog he's been working in Iraq covering the war. Sadly a camera man on his team was killed when he stepped on a landmine. My former colleague was injured in the explosion. As I write this I am aware that it's small potatoes really, many people have been killed or injured on all sides in this war. However if you have a chance do look at Stuart's weblog, it makes for interesting reading whatever your views on the war. Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Damn! I just upgraded my comments code and lost all of my comments! I'm not sure if I'll be able to restore them. Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Happy Blog-day to fellow blogger and queen of sock knitting Wendy! Seeing Wendy's newly completed Regia socks reminded me that I had started the toes on a pair in that shade back in January. They nearly became my project for the Paris trip in February but I chose the Regia Jacquard over them. I've picked them back up and am increasing the toe on one of them but am really not sure about the colours. They remind me of some sweets that you used to get in the '70's when I was growing up. They were made by Trebor and were called Fruit Salad, the toes of the socks look exactly like them! |
