¡Hola! ¡Bueñas días!

My Spanish class started again today, and my brain was very rusty. Thankfully everyone else's was too. M, our teacher, knows what we are like, and does revision for the first couple of weeks to get us going again (she's so kind! and pragmatic too!).

I'm in a different class now, on a Tues a.m. rather than Friday, as the Friday class was no longer viable. The Tues group is very lively and I'm sure I'll fit in fine.

Then off to the orthodontist with J1 , and it looks like his brace will be removed in November ( yay!). I took my Burundi blankie with me, as I knew I would have to wait outside school to pick him up, and then I'd be waiting at the orthodontists too (and this time I made sure that I had both needles with me and didn't leave one needle on the sofa at home!). But things were moving a bit quicker today and I only got about 8 rows done.

The orthodontist and her assistant were very interested in what I was doing and while J1 had his mouth open with various suction-y things in I told them about his Burundi trip and they are very impressed with him, especially as he is going to shave his head to raise sponsorship money. They cheered when they heard that! His orthodontist is a lovely Palestinian lady, very modest & traditional in many ways, and prefers short hair on boys/men rather than J1's long flowing locks (I think his hair is fab. Poor kid, how can he rebel against his parents ?). They will get a shock when they see him bald though (& hopefully will divvy up some cash too!).

I'll stick with knitting the blankie for the rest of the day as my brain is exhausted from trying to remember Spanish grammar, and garter stitch will be very soothing.

knit & natter 4

off to Port Seton again tonight and a bit more progress on the Burundi blankie.

D1 (there are 2 Dot's) had me in fits tonight talking about strange surnames, and hers takes a lot of courage to say or write down. I can only say that she must really love her hubby!

We were also planning a fundraiser for Oct 31st when we will be bagpacking at ASDA. That will be hard work, but should raise a lot for the trip next year. The ladies have such energy & commitment, they amaze me.


I cast on my first Fetching yesterday and I'm loving doing the cabling. I've amended the pattern slightly by doing a few more of the shorter cables before going onto the second batch of cables (amended? nah, I miscounted, then thought, hmmm that's OK it fits my hand fine..... sigh).

I listened to a podcast which mixed sport & crochet yesterday : Getting Loopy was at the Stitch'n'pitch event which had hordes of knitters, crocheters, spinners and even weavers crafting while attending a NY Mets baseball match. What fun! I'm not sure I could take my pins or hook to a footy match I would be hopping around too much- it might work at cricket though.

phew!

J2's Knucks are done- she asked for LOVE to be tattooed across the knuckles and I put hearts on the thumbs too.

These will keep her hands toasty & warm when she's playing her trumpet in the Carol concerts at Christmas when the village lights are switched on.

I was embroidering the tattoos while listening to the Sunderland- Wolves match. The scoreline 5-2 suggests that the Black Cats massively overpowered Wolves, but that wouldn't be fair on Wolves. We were gifted two soft penalties, then gave away an own goal and before we knew it Wolves were back on level terms at 2-2.

Both Wolves and Sunderland have shocking defences, but we were a bit more energetic up front and I was delighted to see that Kenwyne Jones scored twice.

So, I think we were relieved to win and it could have so easily gone the other way.

I've cast on my Fetchings now, as I'll need warm hands too when I'm taxi-ing the kids round their many & varied performances in December.

knucks-ling down

I knuckled down to knitting on J2 's gloves today while listening to the football, and they are done (yay!) - except for the tattoos- I need her to choose the colour of the letters and I'll be able to finish them tomorrow.

I thought I was going to run out of the Lana Grossa baby alpaca for these so I'd bought another ball of it on Thurs (and 4 balls of the same in pink to make Fetchings for me and a Meret hat.)

But there's nearly a ball of the green left so I'm making her a neckwarmer using the same pattern (Esther by Knits By Mama)that I used for the bookmark swap, only making it twice as wide.

The Itsy-bitsy swap group (on Ravelry) makes small swap items- a bookmark, washcloth, mug cosy etc. The idea is to use up bits from your stash and make something small so that the postage - even overseas- is minimal. Some of us have felt that swaps have become too costly and this is a good way of having fun without starving our kids.

A few others used the same pattern and just changing the yarn has such an impact on the design. I used a sock wool by Rico (a German company) called Superba and I might have used 10m in total, leaving plenty on the ball to make a pair of socks.

I enjoyed knitting the lacy pattern which looks a bit like horseshoes so this might get used quite a lot.

The football was quite exciting today: Chelsea were beaten by Wigan (o_O! what were the odds on that??), Villa were beaten by Blackburn (which is good as Sunderland have been drawn against Villa in the League cup, so we might stand a chance after all) and Newcastle beat Ipswich 4-0. The tie was extra special as the late Sir Bobby Robson had managed both clubs and it was the first time that they had met since his death. The whole match was shown live on BBC2- including the music played/sung in his honour, and all the Magpies are happy that their team is top of the Championship and played really well. The Tractor boys were a bit fed up though!

Sunderland play Wolves tomorrow and I hope we do as well.

sweet 16

I've enjoyed two nights of listening to the 3rd round of the League Cup, obviously made better by Sunderland beating Birmingham 2-0, and getting the team into the last 16.

It was a comfortable win, partly because Birmingham are crippled by injuries, but you can only play against the team in front of you.

Hopefully the next tie will not be against Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd, or Spurs but maybe against Barnsley, Bolton, Blackburn, Peterborough, Scunthorpe, Stoke or Portsmouth (a good win for Portsmouth, it might revitalise their season).

(Newcastle were beaten 2-0 by Peterborough which was to be expected as the team included 6 teenagers, suggesting that they didn't want to progress in the competition but focus on the league table. Gah)

I was so engrossed that I just knit on the Burundi baby blanket thinking that rows and rows of garter stitch were the thing to do- I still managed to drop a stitch (sigh).

It was quite chilly today when I was walking the dog so I wore my Cecily moebius cowl. I must make myself gloves and a hat too. Neck warmers/cowls are great when you need something but not a big scarf- I must make myself some more neck warmers too.

girl power & flower power

the kids had a day off school yesterday (I'm not sure what the holiday is, Victoria day perhaps? but D had the day off too, so it must be important).

J1 was on an away-day with the rest of the 6th form to Alton Towers (7 hours each way on the coach o_O !! mad teenagers or what?) so J2 took advantage of the quiet house to snag a computer desk at IKEA (I have to say, she's pretty good at self assembly stuff, D just supervises now...) and have some fun with the allen keys.

Then she set to with my old sewing machine Lucia.

She sewed some covers for the seat pads on our kitchen chairs and they look amazingly bright and cheerful.

I couldn't do this stuff when I was 12, I was just starting to get a little of confidence in the kitchen never mind refurbishing it!

What a girl! (better crack on with her Knucks before I get into trouble)

knit & natter #3

off to Port Seton again to meet up with the ladies, armed with some shortcake and knitting magazines to swap around.
(I'm making good progress on the baby blankie for Burundi.)

This week I was chatting to C who embellishes handtowels with the prettiest crochet, for sale at the November coffee morning/sale of work. She is a very gentle lady who nursed her mother through a long illness until she passed away; I imagine she would be a wonderful nurse as she is always patient and kind, cheerful and gentle. She is a lovely soul and a delight to talk to.

She found some lovely slipper patterns in one of the mags (it might have been Knitting) and wondered if she should make some for the sale- & everyone immediately asked for a pair! Her work is so lovely I'm sure that she would make the toastiest slippers.

J2' first Knucks glove is almost finished (except for the tattoos). Lining up the finger tubes was very complicated the first time- three tubes have to lie side by side on two parallel needles then the index finger is joined in . I'm not sure what the advantage is in doing it this way, and I probably would have found it less frustrating if I didn't have a glass of wine beside me at the time! Ahem!

However the glove does feel very smooshy & soft (I lurve this baby alpaca!) and the second glove will no doubt be easier than the first.

green fingers x2

green fingers 1

I had my first apple from the garden today- this is a variety called James Grieve which has the classic British apple taste of sweet & sharp (although not as sharp as a Cox's orange pippin). Freshly picked apples are amazingly juicy so I think I'll really enjoy this years crop (last year's apples weren't very sweet due to lack of sun and had to be cooked).

It's been mixed success in the garden this years- the raspberries potatoes, beans & lettuce have been great, but the tomatoes and courgettes (zucchini) failed to fruit despite having plenty of flowers. Still, at least the apples are sweet & juicy.

green fingers 2

Latest on the needles are a pair of Knucks fingerless gloves for J2 from Knitty.com summer 2006. The idea is to embroider letters onto the knuckles to look like tattoos- I think J2 wants LOVE LOVE on hers ( if it were mine it would be LOVE CHOC!).

I'm using some gorgeous baby alpaca from lana grossa for these to keep her hands toasty when she goes to school as the mornings definitely have an autumn chill in them now. It's weird knitting the finger tubes first and then joining them together- I've never done anything like this before. There's another pattern called Fetching in the same issue of Knitty which I think I'll make for myself.

At least knitting lots of little tubes took my mind off the football today- Sunderland lost miserably at Burnley (3-1). It was a bit of a "boys own" story though- David Nugent who had been having a miserable time at Portsmouth (after being successful at Preston and getting into the England u21's and then the senior squad) is on loan at Burnley and scored twice and looked delighted to get his career back on track. Which was great for him, but not for my team. It's tough to be gracious in defeat (got to try though!).

Newcastle won 3-1 at home to Plymouth (the Argyle fans had a round trip of 840 miles to get to St James', they must be mad), and went second as West Brom thumped Boro 5-0 (ouch!)

back (on track)

I've been engrossed in War & Peace vol 2 for the last couple of days and it's helped me to storm through the back of Crazy Waves.

I've made a couple adjustments to the design to suit my shape, slightly pulling in the waistline and narrowing the back.

I now feel like I need to rest my hook and pick up the needles for a bit (and listen to something a little more lightweight too!)- thank goodness it's Friday and I can download the Radio 4 comedy podcast.

knit & natter #2

I went off to Port Seton again tonight to meet up with the lively ladies and to crack on with the knitting for the Burundi orphanage.

There's a lot of giggling with the ladies and chat about holidays too- A is heading to Lake Garda later this year, a holiday which was postponed when she was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, but now she's fit and raring to go and looking forward to the sun. To look at her, you wouldn't know she had gone through such a harrowing time, she looks great and she will look even better after her jaunt.

I admire the ladies' upbeat attitudes, many are in their 70's or 80's and have had tough times in their lives but they are so positive about life and live it to the full.

My blankie is coming along nicely, it's going to be very simple strips of squares with a decorative edging and I'm enjoying knitting it in Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino. It's a very easy knit which gives me a break from concentrating on Crazy Waves.

everyone's a winner

this has been a great weekend for North East teams- Sunderland won at home beating Hull 4-1.

My big bro F was there with one of his sons (D)and was ecstatic after the match, texting me that our new signings are brilliant- especially Darren Bent.

Last season this match was a relegation dog fight but we seem to be doing much better this season, and it so enjoyable to watch and listen to , and we are 7th in the table ( 7th?? it's amazing!!)

Newcastle are leading the top of the Championship table, unbeaten so far, crushing promotion contenders Cardiff 1-0 at Ninian Park today.
Boro are playing out of their skins and beat Ipswich 3-1 at the Riverside yesterday and now lie 3rd. (West Brom are 2nd, so last year's 3 relegated teams are fighting hard to get back up, and I hope that they do ) .

I feel for Portsmouth fans though, as they are rooted at the bottom of the Premier league. They scored twice yesterday and still have no points. As a Sunderland fan I can remember that sort of pain all too well.


Over to cricket now (over??geddit ??) and Durham are League champions for the second year and this is wonderful news as my Dad spends most of his waking hours at Chester-Le-Street enjoying the cricket (much to my Mam's relief! He's 79 and he gets fidgety if he hasn't got something to do!).

And then, more locally J1 plays rugby for Ross High Colts and yesterday they notched up their first win of the season 44-5 against Portobello . I have no piccies of this, let's face I'm not allowed to go to the matches, but I was so pleased for him.

All this is great for churning out the knitting!!

from Russia, with love

I finished listening to Anna Karenina this week , and while I have little sympathy for Anna, finding her too shallow and self obsessed, I loved Tolstoy's writing, and his description of her mental collapse as she heads to the railway station to find Vronsky is compelling.

The comparison between her and Kitty is drawn very well- Anna claims to love her son Seretse (and at times her daughter by Vronsky) but has little to do with their daily lives, whereas Kitty feeds & bathes her baby Mitya herself (unusual for a well born lady of the time). Tolstoy doesn't pull any punches with his characters he lets their actions speak louder than their words.

So I had to download part 2 of War and Peace to listen to more of Tolstoy's fabulous prose.
I studied the Napoleonic wars in detail for A level history 30 some years ago and I'm sure our teacher at the time read some extracts from this book detailing the horror of battle at Borodino .

I like Tolstoy's honesty in his writing, on the other hand he was proud that his country stood up to Napoleon, but on the other hand horrified & dismayed at the waste of life on both sides. There are no easy answers.

goal-fest!

it's a bit of shocker really to have the England football team play so well and win so convincingly (5-1).
I was listening to the footy and couldn't knit for excitement last night.

Two years ago we couldn't beat Croatia to save our lives and failed to qualify for Euro 08.

Steve MacLaren was sacked (he's a decent enough bloke but was out of his depth & too in awe of the players to get the best out of them). Fabio Capello was appointed and he is awe of no-one, and what a difference that makes! We've qualified for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa with 2 games to spare.

Thankfully, I've been able to pick up the needles today and not drop any stitches or poke myself in the eyes with the needles.

Sadly Scotland failed to qualify, the campaign has been marred by players getting drunk before important matches (Ferguson & MacGregor) and other players having hissy fits and refusing to play (Boyd). It's enough to make anyone weep, and most England fans want to see Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in South Africa too.

Only Norn Iron still have a chance, I hope they make it too.

knit & natter #1

I went off to Port Seton last night to the knit & natter group which make blankets & clothes for the Burundi refugees .

The first garment that I had made (about 18 months ago) was a baby's cardi and I had started a blanket to go with it. But of course it had gone to the bottom of the list as I had developed my passion for sock knitting .

However, it resurfaced last night and I took it with me to join in the nattering, cake eating (C makes a wonderful Dukes cake, a recipe which was new to me) and yarn manipulation.

The ladies are so industrious using all kinds of donated yarn/ material to make items to take to Burundi and items to sell to raise funds for medicines etc.

Last night I was chatting to B, who hails from the North East of England like me, but has kept her accent despite being in Scotland for 60 years. B doesn't knit but is a wonderful seamstress and she makes dresses for girls (and women) of all sizes. The dresses are beautifully finished, and generally made from printed cotton . I asked her where she got the materials from- and because she grew up during WW2 the answer was "everywhere"- she will recycle duvet covers, pillow cases, table cloths, anything that she can get hold off and that she can patiently and carefully turn into a beautiful dress. I'm going to keep my eyes open for any bolt ends which she can use, whether from charity shops or fabric shops.

Although she doesn't knit or crochet, her hubby J does, but he doesn't join in on Monday nights (or maybe he's not allowed to join in?). I suggested that the men have their own get together and get their hooks out- we'll see if that suggestion bears fruit!

return of suse-the-stampa!

before I got into yarn in a big way I used to devote a lot of time and creative energy into rubber stamping & paper crafts.

I made hundreds of cards , participated on various forums and in dozens swaps and generally had a lot of fun under the guise of Suse-the-stampa.

I've fished out a box of rubber stamps and I'm going to make hundreds of stamps to raise funds for the Burundi trip next year (separately to the money that J1 is raising).

I bought some card blanks and card stock from Paperlace yesterday and today I set to with the heat gun, inks and embossing powder. I had a lot of fun, but there are no completed cards as yet; I'm doing the work in stages as I'm trying to make good sized batches (in the past I would make only 4 of one design as they were for family & friends ).

I'm still making good progress with Crazy Waves, with about 34 cm done on the back. There's a lot more work in a long tunic but it will be worth it when it's done.

all sorts of wonderful!

Annie Modesitt was using an unusual darning needle in her class (a chibi) which has a slight curve at the end making it easier to slip under the backs of stitches and weave in ends.

One of the class mentioned that these were available at K1 yarns so this was just the excuse that I needed to call in to the shop on the way back to Waverley station.

It's a gorgeous shop, full of fabulous luxury yarns, so of course I treated myself to some fybrespates laceweight and the latest Interweave knits .

I would have bought some chibis but the only ones available were straight. The lovely assistant fished one out of her own knitting bag and gave me hers. Excellent customer service or what?

In the post this week I received a delightful bookmark from the ItsyBitsy swaps on Ravelry. Lisa made this beauty and it is exquisite. The crochet is so fine and the angel bead is wonderfully cute.

Lisa is wonderfully talented, people keep trying to get her to set up an etsy shop and sell stuff, but I don't know if that would take the joy out of it for her.

Anyway, I'm very impressed with this. However, I now feel that the one that I was going to post is not up to scratch , so version 1 will stay with me, and I will make another to pass down the line.

More wonderful podcasts to check out:

Electric Sheep is one of the few UK 'casts and is very funny & quirky. Not many knitting podcasts make me laugh out loud but this one does.

Here's to Ewe is from MaddieHatter & RedQueen who are sharing their knowledge of knitting as one trains to be a knitting teacher and the other is studying advanced knitting.

Faerknitters is from three fibre obsessed teens who are funny & charming.

Grandma's Sewing Cabinet (not knitting, obviously) is teaching me a lot and is like having a friendly sewing teacher beside me . I'm having to imagine what a friendly sewing teacher is like because my teacher at school drove me nuts. I got on with all my teachers except her. It has taken me 35 years to get over the trauma and to think about sewing again.

a tale of two swatches

*warning! small amount of adult language used*

yesterday's class with Annie Modesitt was very hands on & practical, as you would expect, and we were told to bring two swatches in a light coloured yarn with a contrasting yarn to learn seaming techniques.

I booked the class in August thinking I had plenty of time to make these and there was a reminder email from Annie (she's awesome, have I said that?) last week so I had no excuse- but somehow September snuck up on me.

So, Sept 1st arrives , and while I'm cooking the dinner I decide to update the kitchen calendar with all the events that the kids have lined for the month (our calendar has 5 columns for 4 people so that I can keep track of everything). As I'm doing this I think- wait a minute I've got that knitting class to go to- is that Tues or Wed next week? so I check my email and shriek "bloody hell! it's tomorrow !! I haven't done my swatches!"

The dog runs out of the room, (she's easily startled) and I calm down thinking- you numpty- do them tonight- two swatches?- easy.
I dig out some mustardy yellow merino (Rooster almerino aran, 50% alpaca , 50% merino) and after dinner, I cast on.

As I am knitting away the phone rings and I overhear my son talking away quite seriously "Tonight? when? 7.30? Port Seton, yeah she knows where it is, um I've got a violin lesson but I'll see if my kid sis will swap lessons around.....pause.... yeah she will, awesome, see you then"

The phone goes down , then he says "Mum can you take me to Port Seton tonight for the Burundi talk thing".
I gasp! I've got my homework to do and D isn't back from work yet, so I make several phone calls get a lift for J1 arranged at 7.15 , calm myself down and knit frantically. D arrives back from Glasgow at 7.10. Relief!

He gets a quick update about lesson swapping, Burundi, my knitting homework, then Jenni's car pulls up and she sees me looking unusually harassed and tells me not to drive but to hop in too. So, armed with my knitting bag, I do.

The meeting is an update about Mission International's trip to Burundi in July, how the funds raised by the people in Port Seton had helped the orphanage by taking clothes, toys, money (for building work, books for the school, goats to provide food & an income for the orphanage) and medicines (two doctors and a dentist were on the trip, and they ran clinics for the refugees).

There is also a group which meets on Monday evenings to knit blankets and children's clothes to be taken across in the volunteer's bags, so everyone assumed that while I was knitting away that it was for the next trip! Oops! But they thought it was funny that I was doing my homework for a class the next day and I promised that I would join the group and knit/crochet blankets too.

I cast on the second swatch when the lights were dimmed for the slide show so it turned out a bit wider than the first one. Never mind, they were both very useful when I was following Annie's clear instructions on how to make perfect mattress stitch for seaming- the plum yarn is not visible through the yellow and the reverse looks very neat, and she showed us how to hide the ends neatly too. Fab! She gave me a A and I was pretty chuffed!

J1 is hoping to go to help Burundi next year too (it is recovering from the same brutal civil war which devastated neighbouring Rwanda) and he has to raise £1500 for his travel & living costs and as much as he can on top of that to assist the orphanage. I'll be knitting stuff to fill his case, making Christmas & greetings cards to raise money, the kids are selling toys in a car boot sale and my lovely son is planning lots of crazy stunts to raise funds. He has lovely long curly hair which hasn't been cut for 3 years and he's considering shaving it all off for charity.

He's wonderful, I'm so proud of him.

The swatches are pretty good too.

à la Mode

with Annie Modesitt

I went to my first proper knitting workshop today, taken by the wonderful Annie Modesitt.

She is incredibly funny and should be part of the Edinburgh Fringe next year as a stand up comedian (well, Annie would sit down for her show I think). She was so witty and warm and I learnt an absolute ton about different cast on techniques, cast offs and professional seaming.

I thought it would be interesting but I didn't realise it would be so much fun! She truly is a teacher par excellence! I wish I could have got booked into more than one class- sigh.... maybe next year....