of shoes and ships and sealing wax

and cabbages and kings..

Today was the Spring Fair! What a glorious sunny day after the rain and cold of this week, it was lovely to sit and eat fruit kebabs, strawberry& cream scones & listen to the Boroughmuir Big Band in the sunshine.

Part of our haul is here, books, plant pots, cakes, ballons, a tombola prize and a butterfly that's floated by. And I caught up with friends and chatted about all manner of things ( shoes were mentioned, not sure about the cabbages though). I wanted to have a shot of the sumo wrestling , but the suits were only kid sized ( shame!)

Great fun had by all, and lots of money raised by the PTA!

girls who wear glasses

will make fewer mistakes in their knitting !*

It wasn't Obadiah after all, it was not wearing my reading glasses that was causing the problems.
I've been wearing reading glasses for a year now, but I still forget them, mislay them, wonder why I can't see words, wonder why I get headaches , and now wonder why my knitting is not up to spec ( to coin a phrase).


* it doesn't matter about men making passes, it hasn't stopped OH in the last year, so that's good enough for me!

chronic knitting in Barchester

cast on Mimi left front yesterday while listening to The Barchester Chronicles and got so engrossed I managed to make a mistake on the garter stitch edging ( good grief woman!!), tried to correct it, couldn't, ripped it out, rewound the wool, went to bed.

Today, after dropped J2 off for surfing class went home, sat down with Mimi and Obadiah Slope, continued knitting, got to 6pm, stopped to make dinner and realised I'd made the same mistake again! Grrr!

Who would have thought that the machinations of the English clergy could have such an impact on my knitting!? So to ease the process, I'm going to have a glass of Madeira while I knit and listen to the odious Obadiah. Alcohol and yarn always go so well together!

Also downloaded Pongwiffy, so if the Bishop & the Archdeacon get too much I'll turn to inept witches and goblins instead.

bouncing!!!

diddle diddle dumpling

my son John,

went to bed with his trousers on,

one sock off and one sock on,

diddle diddle dumpling my son John.

and here is the sock, finished yesterday, when I felt too dozy to cast on Mimi. I love the way the Regia sock wool changes colours, and it feels great on my foot.

I promptly cast on the next sock, to avoid SSS ( second sock syndrome). I think I might even follow a pattern on the next pair!

18, with a bouquet

D came home with a bouquet for me today, for our 18 th anniversary on Monday. He's knows he'll be pushed for time on Mon ( final accounts time, bah!) and he likes to go into the florists and choose the flowers himself, so he had bought me lilies, antirrhinums, delphiniums and something I'd not seen before, lizianthus. Its the colours I love to wear ( blue, purple, pink and white) and is my own cottage garden. He chooses me such gorgeous things. One year he got me a huge bunch of sunflowers and they were such a happy , uplifting arrangement.
Wonderful man!
We went to listen to the Kevock choir last night at the Rosslyn chapel. I've never been inside the chapel before and its an amazing place. the choir were fantastic, as ever. Interestingly they sang " The Battle Hymn of the Republic", "My eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord"
which ties in beautifully with listening to"Little Women" by L.M. Alcott on CraftLit. They also sang "Valiant -For-Truth" by Vaughan Williams, which is based on one of the characters in "A Pilgrim's Progress", again linking to Little Women.

J2 would be delighted ( I think) to have heard them sing "The British Grenadier" as she has been practising this on the trumpet for weeks. I will never complain about the cold in our church again, as it was freezing in the chapel. We were warned on the tickets to wrap up warm, and I did, but I didn't take hat and gloves ( I will next time!!).

This is the right front of Mimi, which I'm delighted with. I haven't had chance to cast on the left side yet, as I had to get J2 ready to go away on her trip. But as my fingers were itching to knit yesterday I did do a few rows on the baby blanket to go with the cardi.
I never realised how addictive this hobby could be. If I'd taken it with me to the chapel last night I might have caused a riot as everyone would have wanted the blanket! Even the choir!
I was very proud of C for the singing.

to be or not be

ser or estar? Soy ingles pero mi casa esta enfrente del parque. After 3 years of studying ( trying to study!!) Spanish, I still struggle when trying to decide whether to use ser or estar in a sentence. bah!
Perhaps if I did more practise during the week it would be easier? Didn't I spend my birthday money on Pratchett in Spanish?
All very reasonable and sensible, but , but , but..

from Russia with love..

if you support Man Utd anyway.

It was a reasonable match, but turned into a Greek tragedy with the penalty kicks. Ronaldo missed his, John Terry missed his and then burst into tears when Anelka missed the last one. So, Man Utd won it by a hair's breadth, and I managed to finish the right front of Mimi.

I have to now make the left then put the left and right onto the same needle with the neck cast on and stitch the back from there. It will feel enormous, so I bought some longer needles from Woolybacks. to make sure I get the stitches on one needle. I was admiring the Colinette which is hanging from the ceiling, it's such beautiful coloured alpaca, I'd love to find a pattern to use it.

I've bought a book by the Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, its very funny. I love the story of the squirrel stealing her yarn from the garden. The mad descriptions of her stash are hilarious. I can't imagine stuffing a half-knitted sock plus dpns into a sleeve of D's sweater for him to find when he put the it on. The woman is possessed.

tonight's the night

and will it be an amazing match, or a bore-fest? Hope the fans behave , the players stay upright, and there's some good football to watch.

music to my ears!

wow this is fun!, thank you Mr Jackson, and thanks to Nicola J of enjaycrafts for the link! I'm going to enjoy adding loads of music as the weeks go by!!

Check out my Slide Show!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-

A Tale of Two cities, by Charles Dickens.

I have so enjoyed listening to this book through CraftLit, it has been engrossing, moving and horrifying by turns. I think I appreciate Dickens more the older I get, and can understand the characters motivations more. Heather on CraftLit has done a great job with this one, and even had cafepress make some "What would Mme Defarge knit?" tshirts.

http://www.cafepress.com/craftlit.122387084

It was only as I started listening that I realised that I had not read this one, so I was listening to it like a Dickens' follower 150 years ago, doing my knitting as someone in the family circle read it to me. I was horrified by the descriptions of the mob in Paris and the mob in London, and know that it doesn't take a lot for a group of tired, hungry , angry people to become a mob, even now, especially now.

I filled up with tears listening to Carton remembering the words said at his father's graveside,

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die", as Carton resolves to do the one good thing in his life, to say Darnay for his beloved Lucie.

I loved the scene when the redoubtable Miss Pross fights with Mme Defarge so that she will not find out that the Dr and Lucie have fled. The love of one overcoming the hatred of the other. Even though Mme Defarge's bitterness is understandable: her sister was ravished by Evremonde, and her brother died by his sword. The dying pair were tended to by Dr. Manette and for his pains he was imprisoned without trial. But her bitterness and hatred extends to Dr Manette and his family, her vengeance cannot, will not be sated. It is horrifying to see how such bitterness can wreak such cruelty.

Its tremendous getting back into literature again, and now I can't decide what the next in the back catalogue will be. "The Turn of the Screw"? or "Pride and Prejudice?". After all, I've got a lot of knitting to do so I must listen to something!

2 years!

we've lived in this wonderful house for two years now, so I celebrated by planting up a tomato plant, an aubergine plant and a capsicum plant into my totsy wee greenhouse. The apple trees against the fence are coated in blossom, and a lot of the plants have survived the predations of our nutty labrador.
This is such a great house to live in, enough space for us all, light and airy, no nutty neighbours and the pleasant sound of "thock" coming from the bowling green. I'm so glad I managed to persuade D to buy it.
I'm sure that when the kids leave home we'll rethink what we need , but for now this is just great.
I want to develop the garden at the side of the house, if D and J2 can make me some raised beds that would be great, and I want to grow more veg in giant pots ( soon be time to plant out the broad beans!), so I'll have to crack on and knit some more nets.
In the meantime, happy anniversary to our lovely house!

what would Mme deFarge knit?

probably not an amigurumi apple!

He is red though, and there's a lot of red imagery in "A Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens, so I might have to call him Jacques.
I enjoy the downloads from CraftLit so much that I'm trawling my way through the back catalogue, listening to 2 or 3 episodes per day.
I'm feeling so knackered today ( I had to have a nap after church, haven't done that in a while), so I haven't done any more knitting on my jacket, I've just finished the apple and I've listened to a lot.

The description of the storming of the Bastille is horrific ( July 14 th, 1789), and its difficult to think there was so much bloodshed for a handful of prisoners. Not that I have any sympathy for the Aristos.

When we were on holiday in the Pays de Basque in 2005, we saw a wonderful firework display over the bay at St Jean de Luz. So much like our own Guy Fawkes night , celebrating the execution of a leader of a group who would have blown up Parliament. The fireworks are lovely, the executions that they remember were not.

Dickens does a wonderful job of comparing and contrasting the angry mobs in London with the angry mobs in Paris... both flowed like a tide, but the Parisian Jacques' were more organised and more hungry. the podcasts are great, and Heather Ordover does a great job of drawing out the themes, and giving background information. You can tell she was once a Eng Lit teacher at High School!


Its only by listening to this have I realised that its one of the few Dickens that I've not read, although I probably have seen parts of the film version(s). There's other stuff in CraftLit's back catalogue that I want to check "the Turn of the Screw" as I never could get into Henry James, even though my flat mate at Uni, Polly, tried to persuade me, and "Tristan and Isolde", again on Polly's hit list.

So this is the progress so far on the jacket, just starting the sleeve, and maybe if I'm more awake tomorrow I might get a bit more done.

Play up Pompey!

and Portsmouth win the FA cup.

The first half was pretty good, lots of free flowing football, Kanu scored on 37 min, but 2nd half slower, as neither side could get another goal. The atmosphere was brilliant, and the Cardiff fans stayed to the end to cheer the Bluebirds on and to appreciate Pompey. No handbags on the pitch, no swearing at the ref, no falling over to get freekicks, a good football match.
Good to knit along to as well. Got to the sleeve on the Mimi jacket.
Then I couldn't remember how to cast on extra stitches, and took me four attempts to get it right.
The beautifully soft soya yarn turned up today and it looks gorgeous. J2 wore her Candy sweater to AS's party today ( a trip to the Edinburgh Dungeons), and she looked great in it. The designer , Tina Barrett, contacted me on Ravelry yesterday to congratulate me on the sweater. How cool is that?! J2 was impressed, and thought it must be cool for Tina to know that people love her design and that it has been knitted and worn! She's probably right. Another benefit of Ravelry, designers can get specific feedback from the notebooks.

bamboo to wear not to eat..

so off to Woolybacks yesterday and choose some dark purple bamboo to mix with the cotton to make Mimi . The bamboo is so soft, I might be persuaded to use it quite often.

The conversation in the LYS covered various subjects: the Rangers football match, the sad early death of Tommy Burns, a legend at Celtic, children's health, overeating, the difficulty of getting a job when your kids go to school... and I got a bit of praise for Candy too!.

The swatches are (top) the cotton glace and the cotton and bamboo mixed (bottom)

false start

I bought some Rowan cotton glace to make this top (originally done in Sublime soya) and I'm not happy with the swatch, it feels a bit crispy to me. Maybe its supposed to, I don't know, so I've put that to one side and ordered some Sublime soya.

Not sure what to do with the cotton glace though. I've seen all sorts of uses on Ravelry and maybe it washes softer, but I'm not convinced as yet. I might take it to Woolybacks to see if I can blend it with another cotton and knit double strand to make a jacket.

I think I got carried away with my own enthusiasm in Jenners and assumed that one type of cotton was much like another, but this is not the case. Damn!

finished!!

finally!
I hope J2 likes Candy and it fits her. I was amazed at how long it took to sew up yesterday, ( nearly 5 hours, but then I'm very slow), and then another 90 mins today to sew on the 23 buttons. It looks groovy though.

fruity amigurumi

I had a shot at making some cute little amigurumi guys when I was feeling too weedy to do anything else yesterday. It was fun doing a bit of crochet and I was inspired by the patterns on this lovely site.

http://www.amigurumigirl.blogspot.com/

My pear is not so chubby, perhaps more of a conference pear than a williams pear?

I think I might make a whole fruitbowl of these fun guys ( even make some fungi perhaps?)

all over now..

.. bar the shouting and claims that the ref played for Man Utd. Anyway Man U beat wigan 2-0 and won the league, Chelski only drew 1-1 with Bolton, Fulham won at Pompey and stayed up, Birmingham and Reading both won and were relegated with Derby.

Sunderland were 15th, the Toon were 12th. Boro went mad and beat Man city 8-1 , yes, EIGHT - 1.

A nail-biting season all round. I was starting to worry in Feb that we would go down with Derby, but Keane kept us up through sheer willpower.

dozy daisy..

..I am absolutely shattered after helping out at J2's pal's party yesterday. The girls were at Alien Rock at Newhaven, a rock climbing centre. D gave me the camera and I was going up and down stairs taking photos and chatting to C's parents. It was great fun, and good to see everyone, but my muscles were twitching all night and now I feel knackered.
Doing stuff two days in a row has floored me, and I really wanted to get some stuff planted in the garden. Thankfully there's no premierleague footy today, I couldn't stand the excitement, and it means no MOTD so I can have an early night too.
My arms are aching too, so no knitting or crochet either, I'll just have to rest, bah!

Risky business..

.. I went on a school trip with the P7's today at the Risk Factory in Edinburgh.
It involves the children being put into difficult or dangerous scenarios and finding out how they will react to them.
In one case the kids are in a house and the curtains catch fire from a nearby candle, they have to leave the building, taking granny with them and call the Fire Service. Of course the nearby payphone isn't working, they have to go further down the street, then they realise someone is in the house next door. Do they try to rescue the person or not? Of course they should get out and stay out.
In the course of the morning we had 3 kids go back into a burning building, one stabbed by a burglar, one kidnapped, three run over by trains, two knocked unconscious by flying bricks, one stood on a jelly fish and most of them fell in the river and had to be rescued. I don't think anyone got electrocuted though. It was a very good morning!
In the afternoon I sat in the sun in the garden and crocheted some bunting while reading the latest LK! There's some gorgeous stuff to make, how on earth will I get it all done??

the fog on the Tyne...

... well more of a sea fret really, took the heat out of the day when we all had a jaunt to Newcastle on Monday ( bank holiday).
It was the last match of the season for D and J1 and J and I went shopping to get a birthday present for her pal. I got some lovely Mirasol wool and a pattern book from John Lewis's too. part of the profits go to funding a school for the Peruvian children
http://www.mirasolperu.com/

I had taken my sock knitting with me to try out knitting in the car. This wasn't successful for two reasons:
1, as soon as looked down I felt car sick,

2, I hadn't brought the fifth needle to knit with. Doh!

Instead we sang along to various songs, giving a rousing rendition to "24 Hours from Tulsa" , by Gene Pitney which has appalling lyrics when you think about it, but is a cracking song to sing.

Sadly the Toon were beaten by Chelski, 0-2, even though they'd matched them in the first half, so the title goes down to the last day. D and J1 are really looking forward to next season, especially when they get to choose rock music to bellow to in the car rather than pop classics!

The weather is so warm at the moment, the beans are now outside and I need to plant some more seeds, broad beans and sweet peas this time, as well as the Gardeners World seed trial "girasole" sunflowers.

nearly there...

...just the sewing up to do ....( and the neck, of course). J is bemused when I hold sleeves against her to check sizes, however, Candy is nearly nearly done. I must be patient ( not my forte at all) and take my time when sewing up and get it right .

It was great listening to the last day of the Championship today, West Brom are champions, Stoke also promoted, Hull, Palace, Watford and Bristol City in play-offs. My moneys on Palace, but I think they'll go back down again next year with Stoke.
Leicester got relegated and I really felt for the fans, it's awful when your team goes down.

We were riveted watching Dr Who last night, but I was knitting at the time and I missed Rose's fleeting appearance, so had to watch it again with J tonight.
Great stuff! Must get round to knitting a dalek!

bean there..

.. done that, got the tshirt...

... and got a mass of bean plants to put in the garden in my mega pots. I'm not sure that all threat of frost has passed, but when will that happen in Escocia?

I might have to cover the little darlings with fleece at nights and tuck them

in!

I think I might have to knit some more covers too, which is a bit of a pain really, as there's other stuff I want to do, like knit a summer top for me and make some socks and have have a go at felting and crochet...

I'm delighted with the daffs that have come up from the bag of cheap mixed bulbs that I bought last year. There's some quite amazing ones . I love this double/multi whatever it is.

I was browsing round my fave blogs and saw this amazing daffodil shawl made by wyesueknits on display at Wonderwool Wales, its a stunning piece. http://wyesueknits.blogspot.com/

look at the entry on april 29th. Its fabulous, I hope she wears it!

Wear staying up...

and its such a relief! Last Saturday I was riveted listening to the football as Sunderland took on the Boro at home. They took an early lead & we promptly equalised, then we went ahead and they equalised, and finally in injury time we got the winning goal. What a relief, we are now safe from relegation. Big Bro F went to the match and enjoyed it, but I bet his heart was racing at the end.

Its a funny season as not much has been settled yet: Man Utd and Chelsea are still battling at the top, and Fulham refuse to go down quietly with Derby. Of course with my new found knitting skills I made phone socks for J1 and me.

I know my onions

and sadly so do the pigeons and the collared doves so I have knitted some pot covers out of jute twine to protect the young plants from those thieving birds. I wouldn't mind so much but I'm really good at keeping the bird feeders stocked up . Hopefully the onions will survive!

I had a bit of a laugh about this on the Lets Knit forum, giving people clues as to the odd thing I was knitting. It took a while, but then opurple guessed it.

I hope these work , as knitting with twine was not the most pleasant thing on my skin, and J wants me to hurry up with her Candy sweater!