Back in the real world

Hello again my dears.  I have returned from my holiday, where we all had a lovely time, with the added bonus that we didn't end up either involved in a car crash, or turning the engine off on the M5, both of which happened last year.  I do have the inevitable post-holiday illness, but at least I don't have to go to work, right?

Stash Enhancement

Ahha!  I got you there!  I'm swapping it around a bit this time, because after that rather down-beat intro, I feel I should show you why returning to the real world isn't so bad after all.

Look at all of that yumminess!  It cheers me up just looking at that photo :)  

I genuinely hadn't intended on doing any yarn shopping while on this holiday.  Last year I did my research, and I tracked down every yarn shop in Cornwall, then I dragged Stephen, and sometimes his parents too, to almost every one of them.  So I figured that maybe this year I should give them all a bit of a rest.  Then Stephens mum said she'd like a new scarf that was pretty, and able to keep her warm in a Shetland winter.  Obviously I needed to find the perfect yarn for it!

Now clearly I'm not planning on using all of that yarn to make one scarf, it would be distressingly garish if I did, and longer than Tom Bakers Dr Who scarf.  If you're wondering which is for the scarf, then it's the blue-green in the bottom left.

Here's the list of what's in that pile:

* Manos del Uruguay Lace, variegated purple

* Lotus Tibetan cloud fingering (stop giggling Stephen!), grey, and seems more like a 3-ply to me

* Araucania Botany lace, blue-green, and it's not lace, it's 4-ply

* Touch Yarns possum merino 4-ply, cranberry

* Artesano Definition, crocodile

* West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply, Black Currant Bomb

* Opal 4-ply, self-patterning sock, variegated pink-green

That all came from a gorgeous little yarn shop called Spin a Yarn, in Bovey Tracey, and to be fair, it did constitute pretty much my entire budget for all holiday activities, but I felt it was worth it. We actually had an amazingly good day in Bovey Tracey, which is a small town on the edge of Dartmoor, home to the Devon Guild of Craftsmen, where we had a very nice cream tea on the terrace;

And I fell in love with this sheep:

Ahem, anyway, stash!  I did get one other yarn purchase when on the holiday, and it was totally unplanned.  There was a day when we all wanted to go out, but none of us were really feeling up to a long day of driving and sight-seeing, so we decided just to visit the nearby town of Liskeard, where our map assured us we'd find the Liskeard district museum.  Imagine my surprise when right across the street from the museum there was a wool shop!  A strange wool shop that also sells shoes, and underwear, but none-the-less had a very reasonable supply of commercial yarns.  I couldn't go without buying a little souvenir, so I came out with a couple of balls of Wendy Roam in a lovely marled purple, which will be perfect for some of the beautiful cabled sock patterns I have, but can never knit because I love to choose variegated colourways.

Last, but of course not least, I mentioned in my last update that I'd managed to order a skein from the latest Odyssey Trail update by Countess Ablaze.  So this scrumptious lovely was waiting for me when I got home on Saturday:

The colourway is called 'What man are you and whence', on Lord Kitchener 4-ply, which is silk and blue-faced Leicester.  Amazingly, a few skeins of this and a few other yarns from the latest update were still available last time I checked.  The Countess usually takes down any limited edition colourways that haven't sold out when a new update goes live, although I don't know if she will do that this time with all of the complications around her being so poorly, but just in case, if you're interested, get in quick, the next update goes live on the 29th May!

WIPs

I have finished one large project, and you'll see that in the FOs section, but that means I've cast on something new, of course.  The sharp eyed among you will have spotted it already in one of the photos above.

It's a new pair of what I call Work-a-day socks.  It's a simple cuff-down, heel-flap, ribbed sock pattern that is easy to adjust to fit any size or shape of foot, and it's called A Nice Ribbed Sock.  I'm knitting this pair in King Cole zigzag, and the colourway is called 'gorse'.

Other than these, I've mostly been working on my Ribs to go by Susan Ashcroft, but I've not made enough progress to be worth a photo really.

FOs

I'll show you the exciting project last I think.  

While away I cast on, and finished, 2 baby hats to be donated to a local neonatal ward. I do love to knit for charity from time to time, and I do at least one big charity project each year, but in this case I just wanted an excuse to try knitting with some Peter Pan Cupcake really. The photo is dreadful, I'm sorry about that.  Could not get the lighting right to show the colours in this yarn at all!

Now for the thing I've been dying to show you all day!  Last night I finished the shawl that I've called 'I've never been to Greece'.  It's special to me because I designed it myself, and I spun half of the yarn for it myself, and somehow it's come out as a piece of rustic beauty that I am unbelievably proud of, and totally in love with!

I finished it last night, and managed to pin it out to block just before this damn ear infection hit me (good thing too, as I block in my yarn room, which is in the attic, up windy narrow stairs, I don't like climbing those while feeling this dizzy!) But I was stubborn enough to go up there when the sun came out this afternoon to un-pin it and take it outside for some half decent photos.  Here's another, just because I love it so much it needs to be shown more than once:

I've been wearing it ever since I took it off that fuchsia bush.

Penguins

I'd already packed for my holiday last time I posted, so I couldn't show you this lovely pin that Kelly bought for me:

He now lives on my knitting bag, so I can take him everywhere with me.

Then an obliging motorway service station supplied this next little fellow.  Strange the things you can buy in a motorway service station, I shall never understand why it always includes small cuddly toys.  Food, drinks, reading material for you passengers, those curvy cushions for stopping you from getting a crick in your neck when you fall asleep in a car, phone chargers that plug into the cigarette lighter, these things all make sense, but why do they also always sell comedy fridge magnets, those weird rubber gonk things that feel fascinating, but leave your hands smelling like you've just left a fetish club for the next two days, and cuddly toys?  Baffling.  But since they are so ubiquitous, I had to check for penguins.

Now it is much later than I had intended it to be, so I am going to go to bed.  Sweet dreams my dears.

Designing, and Disturbing.

Hi guys!  I probably sounds like I'm living a life of luxury right now, but I'm off on holiday again tomorrow, so I thought I'd write an update before I go.

FOs

I've only got 1 finished knitting object to show you this time, but there is also a small crochet project, and 2 spinning projects.

First, there's the shawl I was working on for the Countess Ablaze Odyssey KAL.  The pattern is Artemis, byt Valerie Johnson, and the yarn is Viscount of Spark by Countess Ablaze, in the limited edition colourway "The pedestal is waiting".

The second, very small, finished object is a tiny crocheted rose brooch that I made because a friend and I decided to pop into our local craft shop on Love your Yarn Shop Day, just to see if they were celebrating.  It turned out that they were, with lots of yarn on special offer, as well as a free craft session on making knitted or crocheted flowers, with tea and cake.  Since I'm not terribly skilled at crochet, I thought I'd take the opportunity to practice while I had access to the help of girls far more experienced than me.  We had a lovely afternoon :)

Remember that I was working on making a sweater quantity of handspun for myself?  That I'd actually started work on in July last year!  Well, I finally finished that a few weeks ago:

Then I immediately started work on another spinning project, making the yarn for my second Odyssey KAL project:

 I'm really pleased with this, because I'm still a fairly inexperienced spinner, but I was aiming for something between sport, and DK, which is exactly what I achieved, and the yarn is pretty even too.

WIPs

Which brings us straight on to the only project I've done any work on since finishing these, and it's another thing I'm pretty proud of.  I've actually designed this one myself, inspired by a few images of modern day Greece I found online:

Based on these, I've done a bit of pattern designing:

And this is where I'm at with it so far:

Stash Acquisition

Not much of this since the last update, basically only a bit that I bought on Love your Yarn Shop Day, but I am really pleased with it, because I managed to buy a sweater quantity of Shades, by King Cole for myself for only £12!  And just because it was lovely and soft and fluffy, a ball of Cupcake by Peter Pan yarns.

Sadly, my beloved Countess has been poorly for a few weeks, so the Odyssey Trail update was delayed until last night.  I have, of course, ordered a gorgeous skein for myself, but it won't arrive for a few days.

Penguins

I can't show you one of my new penguins, because I already attached it to my knitting bag, and my knitting bag is at Stephens house in preparation for our trip to Cornwall tomorrow.

I can show you the other 2 though.  One was a gift from a friend who recently visited Norway, where he met a glass worker making glass penguins.  This chap was hard to photograph, because you can see right through him, but I think he looks a little like Private, from The Penguins of Madagascar :)

Then this rather disturbing fellow was brought home for me by Kelly:

We think he's vaguely reminiscent of the even more disturbing owl from the 1981 version of Clash of the Titans, and we've decided that he is our mechanical Guard Penguin, who comes to life at night to protect the house :D

So, on that rather terrifying note, TTFN my dears!

I'm stocking up for the future, ok?!

I promised that this post would actually be about knitting, and so it is!  

FOs

I thought for a moment that I didn't have anything finished to show you, then I realised just how long it had been since I last did a proper update!

So I do have a couple:

Socks that fit me perfectly!  Finished just in time for the warm weather to start, and the need for proper woolen socks to significantly decrease.

The very beautiful Rosie did not seem to be overly impressed with her Easter Bunny Ears, but I'm told that the look was very popular with many humans.

WIPs

I've got 3 active projects right now, 2 of them are KALs, and the third is a test knit of sorts.

Remember the knitted cupcake from the last update?  That was part of the current Shef Knit KAL, and the theme for this is pointless items.  That is, items that lack a purpose, rather than items that aren't pointy, although I did suggest that a doily might fit both descriptions!  I've always been baffled by the idea of knitted food.  If you're going to make food, then make it from something edible!  So my pointless knitted item is a small batch of cupcakes.  However, in order to motivate myself to actually make them, I've had to give them a purpose (I'm not very good at this pointless thing, am I?) anyway, I'm going to give them to my niece, because she serves me imaginary tea every time I see her, and usually a plastic boiled egg too.  This gives her something else to feed me :)

The problem I have is that the cast off day for this KAL is the 30th of April, so I've not got long to knit the remaining 2 cakes and 3 bun cases (all of the toy tea sets seem to have 4 cups and 4 plates, so there has to be 4 cakes!)

The second KAL I'm working on is with the Countess Ablaze group on Ravelry.  This year the Countess is taking her inspiration for a series of one of a kind colourways from Homers Odyssey, so this KAL has a similar, but broader theme - Greece.  The only condition is that you use Countess Ablaze yarn in your project, and that you explain how your project relates to the theme.  I believe some of the girls are having a private competition to see who can come up with the most tenuous, and yet still acceptable link to the theme!

I'm hoping to complete 2 projects for this KAL, as we have until the 1st of June to cast off.  This is where I'm currently at with my first entry.  The pattern is called Artemis, goddess of the hunt, and the design is supposed to represent her arrows.  I'm knitting it in Viscount of Spark, and the colourway is called The pedestal is waiting, a one of a kind colourway from last years Twelve Caesars collection.

My second entry, if I can manage it, will involve me first finishing the sweater quantity spin that is currently occupying all of the bobbins on my wheel, so that I can spin this smooshy beauty, and hope that I've acquired sufficient skill at spinning to produce something around a sport weight.

I'm really excited about this one, and I hope to be able to tell you more in about a month :)

Finally, there's the test knit.  Well, actually, it's not a true test knit, as the pattern has been finalised and released, but a request was made for people to knit a few versions using Countess Ablaze yarns.  The pattern is Ribs to go, by Susan Ashcroft, and there are 3 slightly different versions.  I really want to knit the lace rib version, so I did try that one first, but as you know I am a really big fan of variegated colourways, and lace often doesn't work so well when there are lots of colour changes in the fabric, the details of the pattern can become lost.  This turned out to be the case with this pattern.

This is the first few rows of the lace version worked in my chosen yarn.  It is very pretty, but I don't feel that it really does justice to the pattern at all.  So I ripped it out and started again following the moss rib instructions, and this is allowing the yarn to shine, as it should.

I've not got very far with this, as I've been spending most of my time working on Artemis, or spinning, but it is a great 'lazy' knit, you can more-or-less switch your brain off and get on with it while you watch tv, or sit and chat. 

I'm still determined to knit the lace rib version at some point, because I think it's beautiful, but I'll have to choose one of my semi-solid colourways for that.

*cough*Stash Acquisitions*cough*

You remember how I was recently made redundant?  You know how if I was a sensible person then I'd be carefully budgeting and saving right now?  Uhm, well, I'm not a sensible person.  I comfort-shop.  

I went on holiday last weekend.  Kelly has somehow managed to put up with me for 12 whole years, and we thought that the occasion deserved to be commemorated with a romantic weekend away together, a whole evening in the spa, lots of relaxing, apparently riding bicycles seemed a good idea at the time, although my bottom begged to differ for a few days afterwards, and there was a giant cookie too:

I'm procrastinating about the yarn hoarding, aren't I?

I also hired a car for the weekend, rather than steal Stephens again, and leave him stranded for 3 days.  This meant I had full control of a car, and I was just a few miles away from Nottingham, and Kelly wanted to go for a distressingly long bike ride... clearly all of this was telling me that I needed to let Kelly explore the world of bruised bottoms and aching thighs on his own, while I went to visit Eleanor at Knit Nottingham!  It's obvious, isn't it?

Well I had a lovely chat with Eleanor, and found some not-quite-white Masham yarn to go with my handspun for my second OdysseyKAL project (I'd love to think I could spin both yarns in time, but I know I'm not up to that just yet!), and maybe a couple of other things too.

Then, a few days ago, I was suffering particularly badly with my wrists, and realised that some sort of light support probably wouldn't go amiss from time to time, just when they're really bad.  I was at Stephens at the time, and the nearest pharmacy that would have tubigrip just happens to be right opposite The Haberdashery.  So I just popped in to grab a knitting magazine, and as I walked in, I spotted a gorgeous colourway of Zig Zag.  Having bought one of the new colourways in Nottingham, I knew that they've changed the fibre content of this yarn from 50:50 wool:nylon, to 75:25 wool:nylon, and in doing so they've discontinued the colourways in the older version.  The colourway I'd spotted was one of the older versions, so I had to snap it up while I could.

And of course, no stash update for me is complete without a big, gushing, girl-crush mention of Countess Ablaze.  This time it's even better though, as today (technically yesterday I guess, since it's nearly 2am) I went over to Manchester to a fascinating place called Ziferblat.  It's sort of like going over to your mates house for the afternoon, if your mate happens to live in a converted warehouse, and has invited a fascinating selection of Manchesters hippest young things to hang out there.  There's a kitchen area where you can stick the kettle on, and grab a biscuit, or a slice of toast, there's dining tables with chairs around them, and grown men and women playing Kerplunk, there's bijoux tables for 2 in quiet corners with people playing chess, there's coffee tables with comfy sofas around them (we claimed one of these for the greater good of the city state of Knitters), and today there was a sort of artisan marketplace going on in a side room.  The Countess was there, gorgeous as always, and she'd brought a huge pile of yarn and fibre to sell, including a few rare and precious skeins left over from previous updates or sock clubs, and some new repeatable colourways, never before seen.

I claimed 3 skeins of Lady Persephone sock yarn, and one Lord Kitchener lace.  Two of the sock yarn skeins were ones that I had coveted from previous sock clubs, that for once I'd been too sensible to sign up for.  These were called Masquerade, and Spirit of resistance.  The remaining sock yarn is one of the brand new colourways, called I like what you've done with the place.  The lace weight is another of my favourite Nerds prefer their rainbows darker, but I particularly like this one for how it demonstrates the different ways that the same colours can appear on different yarn bases.  This particular skein is really light, parts of it are like silver and gold, it's gorgeous!  The very first skein of Nerds that I bought was so dark it almost appeared black until it caught the light, and shone like an iridescent oil slick.  So different from this, and yet recognisably the same set of colours.

Here's a better look at those skeins, just because we love the yarn porn!

Oh, errm, there *might* be some fibre on its way to me too, because the Countess had a surprise one day fibre sale, so I took advantage and grabbed a couple that I loved the look of.  I'll show you those next time...

Not forgetting the Penguins!

Because of course, we've just missed international Penguin Awareness Day, on the 25th April!  Like anyone might not be aware of penguins, and their general awesomeness, and how humans need to stop messing with the climate so that penguins can keep Antarctica.  There, that was me being almost political!

I have 2 new penguins too :)  The first was my leaving present from Kiss Me Deadly, because our boss there was lovely, and took us all out for a goodbye dinner (OMG!  The BEST cheesecake I've EVER had!!!) and gave us all thoughtful little gifts.  Here is mine:

Then in the Ziferblat market place today there was a chap selling terribly geeky jewelry, including pin badges like the one that is now attached to my knitting bag:

So as you can see, I've mostly managed to keep myself happy and positive through intensive use of retail therapy this month.  Obviously I can't keep this up for much longer, but I'm hoping that it will see me through until I work out what's happening next.

In the mean time, just keep knitting!

ttfn my dears :)

Off Topic - On the subject of being a fat girl who likes to exercise.

Sorry guys, I'm all wound up about something that has nothing at all to do with knitting, or penguins.  So I'm going to commandeer my own blog to have a bit of a rant.

This is my angry face!

Apparently Kelly doesn't like my angry face.

So here's why I'm angry - I'm a fat girl.  There's no getting around it, I'm somewhere around a UK size 20 (depending on which bit you measure).  If you're also somewhat above your ideal weight, then you've probably encountered that trip to the doctors where you tell them about some pain you're suffering from, and they get THAT LOOK.  You know the one, the one that says "you know what I'm going to tell you, but you need to know it's all your own fault for being so lazy."  Then they tell you that all they can do is advise you take some ibuprofen, and lose some weight.

You probably already know this, but it's a daunting prospect.  Every step hurts even when you're just walking, imagine how much worse it will be when running?  You're already carrying around an extra 75lbs (40kg) plus or minus some, on what you'd be carrying if you were your ideal weight (for a spherical human in a vacuum), you're painfully aware of how those extra pounds are going to wobble, and jiggle, and chafe.  You're self-conscious, you dread going to the gym and having the Beautiful People watch you struggle, and gasp, and sweat.  

But you decide you're going to go for it.  You take the next step, thinking this may be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life...

Here's how that decision began for me: As you already know, I like to run, regardless of what my joints and tendons may have to say on the advisability of such activity.  I didn't think I would like running.  I stopped anything that resembled a track event when I developed breasts and hips.  Then a few years ago Kelly really got into the running thing and said I should do it too.  I laughed and told him I'd run if he could find me a sports bra that actually worked!

Eventually, to my utter amazement, he found me this.  It's the Panache Sport bra, and it is not only available up to an H-cup, it actually gives comfort and support to those of us who are somewhat over-generously endowed.

I thought the bra would be the hard bit, and I blithely assumed that once I'd found that the rest would be easy.  I was wrong.

Running shoes were fairly easy to find.  The guy in Up and Running was really nice, and although he couldn't do anything to stop me feeling self-conscious, and out of place, he at least didn't do or say anything to make that feeling worse.  He helped me choose some very expensive, but very comfortable trainers.  So far, so good.

So now we get to the rest of the running outfit, and here the problems start.  

I searched the fat girl shops for running trousers, and I couldn't find any.  Because fat girls don't run, right? 

I tried the proper sports shops.  Here I was either studiously ignored as I wandered through aisles of climbing harnesses, GPS devices, and barefoot trainers, looking lost.  Or I was immediately approached by a tanned, bleach-blonde beauty who asks me "Can I help you?" in a tone of voice that clearly states "Nobody can help you, go back to your sofa and eat your cake." When I ask for running trousers in a size 20-22 she looks thoughtful for a while then tells me that there's some relaxed fit yoga pants that she thinks might go up to a size 18.

I end up with some generic jersey 'active wear' trousers from a big department store, Debenhams I think.  They cost me more than the high-tech moisture wicking, hard-wearing, designed for purpose trousers would have, but have none of these properties.

A few weeks later I'm noticing thinning and bobbling of the fabric on the inner thigh region, and by a month or 2 later my expensive jogging bottoms have developed gaping holes, and my inner thighs have developed massive friction burns.

I repeat this cycle over, and over, and over again.  This rant is brought to you courtesy of a search for plus-size sports wear that produced a couple of links to ranges available up to a size 16! Wow! And a whole raft of links to forums posts on running sites where people are asking "where can I buy running clothes that will fit my big bottom?"

So tell me, if it's so important that we all "Be Inspired", that we all "Get Active", that we all "Push ourselves that little bit harder", then why is the equipment necessary to do this only readily available in sizes 8-14?

Just don't even mention Swimming!

Every time I talk about the fact that I run, and how difficult I find it, how much it hurts, how hard it is finding running trousers, someone brings up the 'S' word.

If you think finding affordable running trousers in a size 20 is hard, then just try finding a swimsuit in a 36GG!  And yes, it does need to be sized by cup-size, because no size 20 swimsuit has adequate accommodation for these puppies!

Add to that the fact that it costs to enter a swimming pool, you can only do it when the pool is open, and isn't hosting some sort of gala event.  You have to strip naked in a room full of other people, and regardless of how much you tell yourself they're all more worried about their own appearance than yours, you still can't stop yourself from believing that every teenage giggle is about the wobbly pile of cottage cheese with the weird scars that you're watching yourself squeeze into an ill-fitting scrap of lycra.  Then you have to take off your glasses and enter a slippery, humid, and cloying environment, smelling horrifically of chlorine, and you can't even see where you're going!

No.  I won't go swimming.

Sorry about that guys!

I promise there will be some knitting bloggage soon!

In the mean time, here is a knitted cupcake:

Underwear and Etsy

Oh my, I'm not even sure where to start with this update!  So much has happened in the last few weeks.

Underwear

OK, I'll start with the real life bits.  As you may know, up until now my day job has been working for the vintage inspired lingerie brand Kiss Me Deadly.  Sadly, due to a restructure that sees the warehouse being moved away from Sheffield, I have been made redundant.  I've loved working there, not least because the warehouse manager was another knitter, so we could spend our breaks discussing yarn, and patterns, and wondering if we could get away with knitting stockings and calling it work.  All good things must come to an end though I suppose.

What concerns me now is that my health is such that I may struggle to find new employment.  Don't you worry about that though, I've got some ideas about where to go from here.  More on one of those later!

FOs

Despite all of the excitement, I have managed to finish some things:

This is my Mostly Green March KAL from the Stitchnerds Ravelry group.  The pattern is Sand Ripples by Susan Ashcroft, and the yarn is Viscount of Spark, in the colouway Pond Scum, by Countess Ablaze.  I think this is the first KAL I've actually finished on time since September.

This is crochet!  I'm not very good at crochet, but sometimes it's the best way to create the effect you want.  In this case, I wanted to make a new flower to fit on the empty stem left over from a chocolate rose I was given for Valentines day.  Even better, I made the yarn myself too, spun on the turkish spindle that my dad made for me, from a small sample of Countess Ablaze fibre.

This has to do with something I'm going to talk about later, but for now it's just a simple knitted herb pouch.  It contains a selection of herbs known for their moth repellent properties, and I'm going to make a few of them.  Some of them will then live amongst my yarn and fibre stash to keep the evil beasties away.  I've been told that the pouch is witchcraft, as it has no seams at all, but that's just a cosmetic thing that I'm actually quite proud of.

Sadly, I haven't managed to finish my socks, nearly though!  Mostly I've been working on a sort of Easter bunny snood thing for a greyhound over the last few days.  I'm not going to post photos until I have some of it being modeled by the lovely lady herself, although I do feel a little guilty at my participation in her humiliation!

Stash Enhancement

Uhm, yeah, so this is two updates in a row that I've felt the need to make this a section of its own.  There have even been a few acquisitions that didn't come from the studio of Countess Ablaze believe it or not!

See!  The James C. Brett Aztec in grey and pink was bought specifically for the doggie snood, the Rico baby DK is just in case I run out of the leftovers I'm planning on using for a new KAL that starts today, and the King Cole Tinsel chunky is because I saw a pattern in my local craft store that I couldn't resist.  You'll see that later too.

This one is super special.  After a very long day that involved driving far enough north to get a decent view of the solar eclipse, afternoon tea with my dad and Trish (my step-mum), a trip into Newcastle city centre to buy dog snood yarn, an evening of more chatting and dinner with dad and Trish, then driving home, it was about 20 to one in the morning, I was exhausted, and just filling in the parking slip that allows me to park on my own front street when Stephen came through with a familiar looking parcel to announce that my "crack" had arrived.  I pulled a confused face, because I wasn't expecting any deliveries, them opened the parcel to find this Viscount of spark sock blank in "on my merry way" gradient, and a note from the Countess herself saying "Just because."  I nearly cried!  As if I didn't love that woman enough already!

This is from the latest Odyssey Trail update.  Viscount of spark, colourway "A good full portion of trouble".  Purple, green, and sparkly, impossible for me not to buy it, even though this is the last month that I'll have a guaranteed pay-check coming in.

Another from the latest Odyssey update, and it's Viscount of spark again (can you tell that this is my favorite yarn base in the world?)  The colourway is "Their graceless speech I shrink from".  It's another one that I just couldn't get the colours to show true on, but the deep red and bright blue look amazing together.

Etsy

As well as knitting, I love making pretty things with beads.  The difference is that there's a limit to how much jewelry one person can wear, but you can never have too many pairs of socks, or shawls, or sweaters.  After my first experiments with lace knitting though, I learned just how useful stitch markers can be, so I made some for myself.  I was then asked to make some for friends too, and they asked why I didn't sell them. 

At the time I felt that I didn't want the pressure of making for other people, but as I no longer have a day job, I now have plenty of time to make things to sell.  So I've set up an Etsy stall, and I've called it Knitting and Penguins!  It doesn't have much in it just yet, and I'm afraid the quality of the photographs is dreadful, but I'm working on finding a way around the terrible lighting in my house.  I'm planning on adding more of the herb pouches to the Etsy shop too, as soon as I've finished making them.

Penguins

Because there has to be penguins!

Cuddly, sparkly penguins!  I still have a pattern to knit a sparkly hedgehog for my sister out of this stuff, but when I do, I shall also be making myself a penguin.

At the same time as my Odyssey Trail yarn arrived, another mystery parcel with my name on it came though the door.  Kelly had sent me this bit of cuteness!

You know, I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten to say, but I can't think what right now, so that's all for now my dears.

Frustration

Hello my darlings, you find me in a somewhat melancholy mood today.

Today is Mother's Day here in the UK, and my facebook feed has been filled with the joyous moments of my friends as they celebrate time with their own mums, and receive gifts from their children.  As I have no children of my own to take my mind off the subject (please don't pity me for this, I am childless by choice!), I am simply reminded that my mam is no longer here (you can pity me for that bit).

I am alone at home, Kelly is out, I'm not sure what he's up to, and Stephen is at work.  I should be going for a run today, Sundays are a training day in my Great North Run preparation schedule, but I have had a bad couple of weeks with my joints, and I made the mistake of trying to go to watch a band on Friday.  It turns out that standing for several hours while being elbowed in the back by people wanting past is even more tiring and painful than running for half an hour.  Anyway, it means that running is currently out of the question.

"But this is a blog about knitting!" you say, surely I should be knitting?  Sadly no, my wrists and fingers are also especially sore right now, and I'm finding that I can't knit for more than a few minutes without being in agony.

Look at this:

This is the Stitchnerds Mostly Green March KAL that I've been working on.  It's staring at me, it wants me to be knitting it.  I want to be knitting it.  I can't, because it's a 12 row pattern repeat, and the little bit of obsessive in me can't bear to stop unless it's at the end of a pattern repeat (also makes it easier to know where I'm at when I pick it back up again later).  But I'm also getting onto much longer rows now, and 12 rows is way too much for my wrists to handle.

On the plus side, I have managed to finish a sock:

Just one, I've only knit the cuff of the second so far, but I'm quite proud of this sock.  I've heavily modified the pattern to make this sock specifically fit me.  The leg is shorted and wider, to accommodate my permanently swollen ankles without having to make decreases while knitting ribbing.  The heel is shallower, and the foot narrower, to account for my freakishly small feet, and the toes are more rounded, because I don't have pointy toes.

Stash Love

I generally just gush a bit about new stuff that I've acquired, but I don't give it all its own section.  This time I may have gone a little over-board, and yeah, my stash acquisitions require their own section.  It almost goes without saying that everything in this section has come from the marvelous and wonderful Countess Ablaze.

Remember I said that my sister had ordered my absolute favourites from the February Odyssey Trail update, due to us being on our way to see Queen and Adam Lambert play at Sheffield Arena?  Well, I've now picked that parcel up from my sister, and it contained these:

The yarn is called "A child endures many griefs", and is on the Lord Kitchener base, which is a 4-ply Blue faced Leicester and silk combo.  The fibre is "Drawn dark water", on Mulberry silk, kid mohair, and nylon.

Then I was going to be good, and not buy anything else until the next Odyssey update, but the Countess did a mid-month update that included these:

The top one is "Nerds prefer their rainbows darker" on The English Gentleman, which is a DK mix of Blue faced Leicester, and Masham, and is entirely UK sourced.  The bottom one is a one of a kind colourway that everyone thinks resembles a nebula, on a 4-ply Viscount of spark sock blank.

Sock Blanks

When the sock blanks first appeared on the Countess Ablaze website, a few people asked what they actually are.  It does seem a bit strange to buy yarn that has already been knitted up, but there is a purpose to it for the dyer.  It makes the creation of certain types of colourway much easier, in particular gradients.

This is a photo of a sock blank that I really wanted from the latest update, but I wasn't fast enough, so they sold out before I got there, it shows how gradients work on these:

You also get to enjoy the far superior camera skills of the Countess in that photo!  But you can see how knitting the yarn into a simple rectangle makes it easier to dye long colour changes, or wide stripes, or deliberate pooling effects.  Then when you knit with it, you can unravel the entire blank, and wind it into a ball as normal, or you can even just unravel as you go, and knit straight from the blank.

If you don't like that wibbly, frogged effect when you're working with the yarn, then you can unravel it, re-skein it, and wash it, then ball it up in the usual way, but that seems like an awful lot of faff to me!

Penguins and colour-therapy

I have acquired only one new penguin since my last update:

What you can't see in this photo is that you can stick a pencil up his bum, and he'll sharpen it for you.  This is useful, because I've recently discovered a new craze - adult colouring books.

Apparently colouring is therapeutic, calming, and relaxing.  I can't really comment on that, but it certainly is addictive!

Don't worry though, I'm not going to let it interfere with my knitting time, at least not once my own body has stopped interfering anyway!

Goodbye for now my dears.