Flibbertygibbet

Rant

Everything has stalled. RSI means I shouldn't be clicking, mousing, typing, writing, knitting, or doing anything vaguely interesting. The daily dose of ibuprofen (400mg x 3 times daily with food) is dissolving my stomach lining without much other demonstrable benefit. Waiting to hear about a job interview process that's now in its eighth week. Bored rigid at work, about to read a book. In an utterly despicable mood. Desperate to start certain crafty projects but everything seems to aggravate my wrists at the moment. Apart from reading, what else do you suggest to keep me amused???

They came, they saw...

...they conquered crochet.

A group of lovely ladies, including Abi,(showing off her handknits below) Lucy, Tash and Ting.  It's lucky I was busy in the kitchen or I would have had crocheter's claw by the end of the day and  it seems that there was lots of progress.  Emma is a pretty good teacher if anyone out there wants to learn. By the end of the day I heard rumours of plans for blankets and throws...in at the deep end, that's us!

Excitement!

Denise is one of my most favourite people in the whole wide world.  Unfailingly generous (as recipients of her parcelly goodness will testify), wildly intelligent (Dr Denise as she is) and an excellent partner in retail crime to boot.

Now the good folks at Amazon have also noticed this. Well, ok, she probably hasn't been sending them presents but what they have figured out that she is talented, clever, witty and a great writer.  That is why her  story 'Tony's Wee Girl' is in the semi-finals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition - all links here. The most insightful reviews win some great prizes so go and tell them how wonderful her work is.  Get this girl into the final, folks...

PS wrist issues mean I probably won't be posting as much for a while - better behave myself!

Fibre tales

It turns out that I'll never be Cinderella, or Spinderella.  Mind you, I wasn't Sleeping Beauty either... Nancy of the Handweavers' Studio and Gallery in Walthamstow said thanks to us all at the end of the Introduction to Spinning class for not falling asleep which was somewhat bemusing.  She's a complete character and also a patient teacher, even if most of her considered wisdom didn't sink in for me. But lots of fun nevertheless.  No need to think about adding spinning to this craft ho's repertoire though I did come away with some roving for a project I've been thinking about for a while...

The raw material.  Soft, smelly and full of potential.

Nancy making things look very easy.

Tying plied yarn on the niddy-noddy.

Stinky fleece.  Slightly less smelly and noticeably brighter yarn. 

Kaleidoscopic shop.

Brighter still.

 

Haute expectations

At the very last minute, Ting pulled a stroke of genius in getting us into the Golden Age of Couture exhibition - she knew that if you become a member of the V&A you are immediately granted access to all exhibitions, including those which are sold out...and she opted for the membership that allows you to bring a friend - moi!

It was fab. Not only do I want to get the sewing machine out, but I want to make dresses like this.  And wear them all the time. 

Tripping down in Tesco's in a Balenciaga ballgown.  Photocopying the board minutes in a Jacques Fath crepe de chine cocktail dress. All dressed up with nowhere to go.  I raided the Monsoon sale last week and it seemed that I mostly bought silk - silk dresses, silk tops.  On the face of it, this seems a teensy-weensy bit impractical as my typical day is spent in either just-about-qualifies-as-corporate wear, or today's chav uniform of yoga pants and a big old A&F sweatshirt that could fit two people in it.  But I think that it's entirely possible that I am meant to only wear silk (see earlier post about repeatedly adding the same thing to the stash - it's all silk, so maybe I better start wearing some of it. Preferably made up into garments, not just draped and pinned). Plus I have lots of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk yarn which is crying to me saying 'Knit me, knit meeeeee' loudly from the 'Preciousest Yarn' stash bag.

So while there are a number of possible patterns already in the stash, I'd also quite like to try this one... so I'll be printing this off tommorrow at work, while standing there in my not-very-Dior office attire to grab it all off the printer before people wonder just what the hell it is...

Knitting is not just for Christmas

It's for January birthdays too.

Three very good friends (friends of mine, they haven't all met each other yet) share a birthday.  Good enough friends to be worth knitting for.  These are Lucy's handwarmers knitted with Skein Queen silk/cashmere in Partridge Pear, for S.  Technically, her birthday is first, in that her party is on Saturday.  I will be seeing H on Tuesday and B hopefully on Friday.  Because not only do they share a birthday, but it's on the 8th.  No rest for the wicked.

If I can bear to knit four pairs on the trot, mine will be in Posh Yarn's cashmere/silk in Preen, using my new Lantern Moon rosewood needles.  If handpainted yarns are Lucy's addiction, (not that we call it that, of course) it's very possible that Lantern Moon needles could become mine and I'm having to sit on my hands to avoid click-click-clicking on everything in Purlescence's winter sale. 

Though I'm not affiliated with any of these retailers in any way, I've had excellent customer service from Debbie, Dee and Robynn in the past couple of weeks, for various reasons including me being stupid enough to lose a rosewood dpn, and I'd encourage you to support them.  I'm all in favour of having more and more UK-based crafty retailers like these ladies!

Sent home from school

My boss told me to leave the office at 3:00pm today because it was so quiet, hardly anyone back at work and dead phones.  Cue internal "Hurrah - I can go to the Liberty sale!"  Followed by internal "Doh.  Being a temp sucks sometimes",  because I don't get paid for shopping time.  But I decided to look on it as a gift from the universe, or something equally cosmic, and also time to do the freelancing I have been sidelining for the past few weeks.  Therefore I didn't get to go out knitting this evening, as I headed home after being remarkably restrained in Liberty, but I did get almost half of the proofreading done, and some tidying too.  Being productive makes me calm, I realise.

On New Year's Eve I freecycled a futon that was just taking up room. Last night I schlepped furniture.  And today I have a playroom... Imagine it in daylight!

It comes complete with oversized beachball.

When Ikea say the trestles can be used for storage this probably isn't what they are thinking, but still.  I put this together on my own and remain mystified as to how you connect the trestles to the table top (I couldn't see any appropriate holes in the underside of the table) so it's not as stable as it might be. (BTW Denise, can you see Hello Kitty?)

I was made green-eyed encouraged by Susan's enormous craft room which houses two of these sets of shelves, lucky girl (though I am too, I know).  The eagle-eyed will spot that there are a couple of cardboard boxes still sitting there - have to find suitable storage for the letterpress's moveable type.  A few things still need homes.  BTW, with a couple of exceptions, most of these storage boxes contain fabric.

There's also some progress in the sitting room.  The red cupboard made it too.

What you probably can't see behind the table is the yarn stash.  Yes, that's right.  The fabric takes up the whole of the other room and the yarn had to come out here.  That's because I do things like I buy silk at Liberty (mmmm, silk....) which is pretty much the same colour as previously stashed silk. So when do you think we'll be getting a fabric version of Ravelry?  I'll be a beta tester, gladly.

Om... Um... Happy 2008!

Usually I anticipate NYE with a slight sense of dread and I've learned that the best thing is not to have too great a sense of expectation.  As long as you know the company will be good, then everything else falls into place.  Lucy finagled us (moi and the Knitteroonies et al)  invitations to a house party, which involved giggling, bubbles, much hugging and kissing of lovely people at midnight, stroking of silk dresses, laughter, exhibition ballroom dancing, and the issuing and acceptance of a somewhat ridiculous challenge. Um...

You see, if I had any sense at all, I would keep my trap shut in the cold light of day.  Right, here we go then...It started when Paul, Lucy's boyfriend, accused me of having refused to go climbing with him and the rest of the boys, as it turns out that he'd heard about me doing various silly things in Australia many years ago.  I said that I'd love to learn to climb, indeed Lucy has already offered to teach me, but I'm just a bit, well, girly-terrified about it.  Not of the heights, as they thought, but more of the potential falling part. Somehow the escalated into me being goaded into giving it a go.  As long as Paul learned to knit. 

There was much discussion of which system climbing to use to adjudicate the level I'll have to achieve. French, apparently.  There was a similar amount of thought given to what Paul would have to knit.  Lucy suggested a 12ft scarf, muah-ha-ha-ha, and my contributions were "in rib, on 2.5mm needles in laceweight yarn"... This was revised to 5mm and aran weight.  The rib and the length stand.

Now from what I hear, Paul is too fragile today to emerge from bed today, so he may not have been entirely serious about this. However, I am. A bit worried, but serious nonetheless. The proposed completion date is August...

I've spent far too much time today watching silly old movies on tv when I should be working on a freelance job and moving furniture.  I'm determined that the studio, as it will be, should be set up by the end of the day today. 1st of January, and all that. I've also been spending far too much time on Ravelry where I found this.  Because I guess it's time to start untwisting my mangled back if I'm going to be hanging off climbing walls.  Om....

PS for a woman with a new camera - shocking lack of photos.  Will remedy that soon...

Oh my dear...

**Edited to add - these are all gone apparently, according to the nice man at Paperchase's mail order department**

Further to yesterday's rampant consumerism (today was even better, actually, lots of pretty clothes) I have a favour to ask...

I am trying to track down some Paperchase decorations. I've tried Tottenham Court Road (the flagship store) and Covent Garden to no avail.

Not the best pic, sorry, the tag says '"22.5 cm Reindeer Head Ornament" and they come in black or white, with a smooth finish (not part of the flock range they had been doing)  I'm looking for two more in any colour/s - if you spot any in a Paperchase near you, would you let me know and I'll get right on the phone?  Thanks!!

Making a list, checking it twice

So how was your Christmas?  Mine was the most subdued ever, which wasn't a bad thing and was the way that I planned it.  Just family and food, thoughtful presents which were mostly very grown up - posh moisturiser,  some requested knitting stuff, and some cash towards a 'big' pressie - which was procured today in a very good deal...looking forward to working out all the fun stuff that it does.  All the knitted presents went down well though my Dad's socks were clearly 2 inches too long, just as I had expected, and my mother was frankly bewildered - I'd asked her to measure the socks I made Dad for his 60th in July, and she told me, with the immortal words "A foot is a foot" that they were twelve inches from toe to heel. So I made him things that looked like they should have been dangling from the mantelpiece waiting to be filled by Santa rather adorning my father's feet. The surreal thing was that when we measured his old socks, depending on how you folded them, they measured either 10 or 12 inches... so I ripped them back on Boxing Day and fixed them.  I wrapped up my mum's cashmere scarf still on the needles and with the yarn attached so that I could check the length with her, and it did need another few rounds.  Then it was washed and blocked on the pulley clothes drier in the kitchen which worked a treat.

Back to my second home on Friday. On Saturday I went to Helen's to collect the furry monsters. Helen and Steve deserve much kudos for looking after the mogs as they were mostly antisocial (hiding under the floorboards, in the bathroom wall - gnurrgh, I do despair of them most of the time) apart from the 4am - 8am shift when they were ready to play... In hindsight - oh dear Lord, only in hindsight - it was funny trying to get Shrimpton in the cat cage, with Helen and I crawling under opposite sides of the bed to try to grab her, though I couldn't actually hold her for long enough to get her in the carrier before she starfished herself and craned back out.  Yes, I have the scars to prove it.  A grown woman is no match for an ornery cat, I have learned my lesson.  Luckily Steve suggested the pillowcase trick (Put cat in bag/pillowcase; resist temptation to tell cat that she's lucky she's not going to the river; put cat-in-bag in box; retrieve pillowcase later on once it's safe to put your hand back in there) which worked like a charm.  They seem to have forgiven me for two bouts of incarceration in the cat cages by now.  Well, almost.  Thank you again Helen for picking us up, minding the mogs and dropping us back - you're a star!

Today I went sale shopping, with a list and a friend to keep me sane in the sales madness.  I found everything I wanted, which was all housey stuff like a coffee pot, a colander, a calendar (but no coriander, which my shopping companion thought sounded like it should be the next thing on the list) and a camera.  Tomorrow I'll be looking for plates, a plant, and a plantain...

So what else has been going on?  Well, a little bit of mental stock taking and there's still a lot to be done.  2007 sort of passed in a blur, looking back.  I am much more excited about the thought of the new year, and 2008, than I was about Christmas this year.  Though it's normally Santa's speciality, I did decide that there are some lists to be made. Wishes, goals, things to do.  When I'm finished the lists I might mention some of them on here - just so people can chide harrass encourage me to complete them.  Mainly I'm going for the traditional favourites of happiness, health and wealth.  So what are you wishing for in 2008? Whatever it is, hope it comes to you in the very near future.  Have fun seeing in the new year, however the spirit takes you xxx