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.

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!)