Flibbertygibbet

What's happening

Haven't had a chance to do photos, so didn't get back on here.  Whoops. 

The corset is pinned and ready to sew.  Busk insertion will follow, as will photographs.

The first of the eleven babies has arrived - baby James, hello!  Working on his bootees (pretty sure his mum won't see this)

Bikram yoga, baby showers, watching documentaries, meeting Vashti, rashly and gleefully accepting invitations to parties in Cardiff, having fun backstage here [sound!] until silly o'clock.  Actually that was all yesterday. The extra hour in bed only helped a little.

Receiving the last no for the breast cancer fundraising places for the marathon.  Boo.  Other tentative plans are whirling away in the background.

Making knickers at the Make Lounge.
 

For me it was probably not the best idea to do an evening course as I was a bit wiped out when I got there, and it was three hours. I don't think I was tuning into everything that the tutor was saying - she was very sweet, not sure how much teaching she has done - and some elements such as measuring elastic, made more sense afterwards when I thought 'Oh, so that's where I went wrong.' I opted to use a silky fabric to practise wrangling it through the overlocker but it makes for kind of tarty pants.  Still, I will adapt the patterns that we got and will probably have another go - I have hoarded all kind of fabric scraps, including Liberty silk from various dresses.  There is potential there.

Looking forward to meeting an online friend IRL this week.  Not saying who yet!

Only a week to go until Nano.  Panicking.  Mnurgh.

Would this be a better idea?

I've had two polite rejection letters so far in response to my marathon applications.  One of the charities said they had 57 places... and 9,500 applicants.  Gulp.  Imagine reading 9,500 forms? 

There's one more to go.  I'll hear at the end of the month.

Perhaps another alternative should be sought.  I was wondering about this*, which I think is a little bit of genius - with the sponsorship for breast cancer research.

And then in the same spirit as promising to cover up my toenails, I could swear to not let anyone read it.

*did I mention I've got two weeks of holidays in November?  Is this a coincidence?  I think not.

An institution that might need to change

The old joke goes, marriage is an institution, and who wants to be in an institution.  Gah, hold my sides for me. It's not that I have anything against marriage, but I'm not so sure about the Knitting and Stitching Show, aka Ally Pally any more. If I hadn't been generally having a giggle with lovely Lucy, I think I might not have lasted so long - and we did manage to get around all of the halls.  We chose to take a day off work and head there on the Friday - and it was still relatively busy.  Were Saturday and Sunday mental?  I read some posts on Ravelry from vendors who said that they would be discounting on Sunday which makes me think that footfall was down. But at least we could get to stalls to browse.

After spending £12 to get in, I was a little disappointed  with the range of vendors.  Yes, there were some bargains to be had, such as grab bags of Jitterbug from Colinette and Koigu for a fiver from Get Knitted.  You know, yarn.  Stuff you use for knitting. Alongside it there was to be a preponderance of - well, complete crap, basically.  Nasty clothing.  Handbags that embodied the antithesis of 'handmade'.  I was utterly underwhelmed by the fabric offerings and didn't buy anything.

You could still find the odd gem, such as the Interior Anarchist cross stitch from Random Monkey Designs.  We'd been to an event he [Phil?] ran at 93 Feet East in Brick Lane a couple of Sundays ago, which was an afternoon of cupcakes, cross-stitch and cocktails.  Bless them, when we found the stall at Ally Pally, it was being manned by his lovely parents who had come over for the event (sidebar: I shudder to think how much it must be for a stall at AP) and they also reported that Phil had made all the cupcakes for the Sunday himself too.  Now that's talent.

Apparently they are hoping that Cross-stitch, Cupcakes and Cocktails will become a regular event on the first Sunday of the month. It was packed and such fun.  I have my eye on one of his kits that is about to be released - featuring a flight of ducks with one in a sniper's sight.  As we didn't fancy any of the other kits, we decided to ape his 'Bollocks' design and either go for mild profanities or epithets such as 'I'd rather be knitting'.  That was Lotta's contribution and she  had almost finished it in the time it took me to stitch out C-R-A (you can see where I was going with that) and Lucy went for a multicoloured BITCH.  There was a photographer there and when we got to AP, they had framed some of the coverage... can you see in the corner?

Lucy's work is famous! 

So it was worth it for that alone.  Plus Lucy got the perfect yarn for a very special project so that was a success.

In other news I'm trying to sort out stuff at work, get promoted and a payrise. Easy to type, slightly more to it IRL. The corsetry class continues apace and the next decision is whether to use steel boning or just Rigilene  - I think I'll probably try the former even though it's just a sample.  It's a sample because everyone in the class is making the same size, learning the techniques and I may as well learn to insert steel boning. The tutor alledges that it fitted women from sizes 8 to 14 last year but I can't see it adorning anything other than my dress form.  But it's fun.

I finished the Debonnaire beret in Posh Yarns cashmere which is fabulously elusive stuff. It's slouchy to the extreme but I'm actually really pleased with it. I'm also wearing the wrong side out because I like the pattern better.  Real knitters may shudder.  Don't look too closely.

It's all coming along nicely...

I need to get some photos to show you all - but there are a couple of little Innocent Hats ready to go off, and after week 3 of the corset class, I have my all my fabric pieces cut and next week we sew.  Scary stuff.  On Friday I'm off to Ally Pally with Lucy, then the weekend is going to be spent freelancing and quilt-making - I got a reprieve on next Saturday as the organiser kindly moved me to the later course - I knew I wouldn't have the quilt top done. I'm looking forward to three days of crafting, and trying the new toy. Hoping to get to Origin to see Ruth soon too.  Lots of projects to finish, especially knitting though quite a bit of frogging to do too.  The cashmere beret is seven shades of wrong because it's more like a helmet.  Not the slouchy thing I'd envisaged.

Finally, thank you very much to all you lovelies who have been so encouraging about the running lunacy.  The forms have gone off.  It's just fingers crossed and start the training now...