Tagged - no pics today :(

Just a quickie - I was tagged to do stuff on Wiki about my birthday. Well I'm useless and wiki didn't come up with much, so here we go:
My birthday is the 30th November, born in 1985.
The only thing I can think of (but it's big), is St Andrew's Day!
St Andrew, as I'm sure most of you will know, is the patron saint of Scotland.
If I'd been a boy, Mum would have called me Andrew after the saint (how cheesey), but instead I was a girl so she named me Victoria, after Queen Vic (how even more cheesey).
I'm actually Emma Victoria, because she couldn't decide, and wanted to name me after my great Grandma, Emma, so she called me Emma Vic, but I'm known as Vic. Thanks a lot Mum!! It's caused great confusion all my life!!

Ok back to knitting - OTN - yoyo jacket border (ugh), both of the bamboo socks for OH (no second sock syndrome for me!), oddbod bits to make cushion covers (or blanket - not sure yet), and Shoalwater. That's quite a lot of WIPs :s I'm going to go get on.....

The Happy Recipient & More

Well all my projects are still in progress, so there's not much to report. I finished the boring black socks, but there's little point putting up a pic of boring black socks!

I finished my wall hanging "Water", it's perhaps not as 'striking' as I'd hoped for, but I'm happy with it. BUT I can't put it up till I create a wooden frame for it! So no pics yet!

Here's Mum, very, very chuffed with her Forest Canopy :) She's shown it everyone she's met, and takes it everywhere with her. I don't know if she uses it, but I'm just happy she's taking it with her!

Doesn't it suit her!




Here's the 'varied' scarf I did. I'm stashbusting my 'fashion yarns', and couldn't think of anything more original (ha!) than a scarf.
This is in stripes of Wendy Moiselle, Patons Spirit, and Patons Moonglow. They are a lovely combination actually, even though I do say so myself!!


Shame it's the middle of summer, and I don't actually need a scarf.


A couple of weeks ago my OH was working in the Isle of Man, so I got the ferry over and met him there and had a free, four day holiday. On the ferry I got loads of shoalwater done, but also fell ill.
I got chicken pox. GRR! Of course, I was really ill over there, and then as soon as I got home I was fine (just spotty).


Here's a field of cotton :)






And a beautiful flower, which embarassingly, I don't know what it is. (Feel free to enlighten me!)

That's all for this week! WIPs are - Bamboo socks for OH, Shoalwater, Yoyo jacket (which I'm doing the final border for - home run!), and a patchwork leftovers blanket. I'll add pics when I've got something to show for my efforts!

OOH I forgot - I went to my first ever knitting group last night - the Preston Stitch n Bitch. It was brilliant, the girls were lovely and friendly and I felt I fitted right in :)

It's also Woolfest a week today. YEY! I need to find some money for it though. I've got a huge amount of coppers saved so will see how much I have there!

I better go and get on with my uni work anyway (ugh).

Ciao for now, and I need to do the thing I got tagged for - will do it this evening (honestly!).

Forest Canopy, Opal Socks, and dyeing.

Ok, here's the Forest Canopy version Two point O. It's done in Rowan Tapestry, and I'm very, very happy with it! The Tapestry feels like it's going to fall apart as you knit it, but to block it I soaked it in water with a very gently wool wash, and it seems to have made the fibres less loose somehow.
It's for Mum's birthday :D



Closeup draped on Mum's Aisa (sp?).

Even closerup!

I had a dyeing blitz for two days last week while Mum was away. Mostly because it's the yarn I stole off her that I was dyeing and clearly I don't want her to recognise it before it goes in the pan!

It's all 2 ply yumminess, the first one is kind of Teal (it was meant to be more bluey but never mind!). There's 1000 yards over three skeins, and I'm going to use it for Queen of the Waves (when I eventually knit her).

Before and after. You can't even tell I took 1000 yds off that cone, it's so big. It's a tweedy pale blue and I wanted a more rich colour you see.

Next is another 1000 yards, this yarn is a bit more fluffy and I suspect has a bit of manmade fibre in, because the colour was seeping out for ages, despite fixing it. I kept washing til the water ran clear, and this is how it turned out. It's sort of purple and plum. I love it!
Oh I forgot to add - it's going to become Hanami.

Before and after!

And finally, bright red, for the Baltic Sea Stole. Not exactly your traditional lace colour, but I thought I'd do something unusual, plus it'll match my bright red skirt! This is 1000 yards as well. There's a slight variation in colour, but it should be ok I think.

Finally, my Opal socks. I did them on 2.75mm DPNS - oops!

Inca approves...

I'm actually in the Isle of Man right now. I did loads on my shoalwater coming over on the Ferry. My OH's working here, so I get a free stay! It's hot and sunny, but sadly the air conditioning on the ferry made me really ill last night, and so I've been stuck in the hotel all day today. I slept til lunch time, and am up now, but my head still really hurts, but I'm going to have to go out and get some lunch, because I'm ravenous! My OH should be back around 3pm so we'll go sightseeing and exploring (he's also bringing me paracetamol from the pharmacy!).

I still have the "Do not disturb" sign on the door, I bet the cleaner's going to pounce in the room as soon as I go out! (I'm quite embarassed about it but never mind!)

I'm currently knitting my varied scarf, boring black socks - originally for Dad but they're too short so I'll have to buy him a Father's day present, and my shoalwater. Yey!

The hotel has free wireless broadband - it's great cos I'm on dial up at home!

Anyway, ciao for now!

Some serious stash, and not so serious retro patterns!

I have always known my Mum has a stash. But it's only recently interested me. In fact it interested me so much that when she was away last week, I spent a few days in the wardrobe in which she keeps her stash.

It was like a big woolly Narnia. But better. Well until a kilo heavy cone of laceweight bonked me on the noggin.

So of course, being on the stashalong, I was feeling like a child in a very wonderful, special, sweet shop. And of course when you're in a wonderful sweet shop you inevitably come away with something.

Well anyway, here's what I didn't come away with, I fished these out and wet myself. (Not literally of course).

Ick

Fortunately Mum's never knit either of those, or any of the accompanying, offending patterns within the books. (The worst is the front cover, above).

Here's what I fought through to get to the wardrobe of woolly doom (it's the open door on the left):

A wee glimpse:

Slightly bigger glimpse:

And woooooooah I've been sucked in to the wardrobe of woolly ecstasy.

Ok the colours range mostly from brown to .. well.. brown, but there's the odd white and pale blue, and who cares cause these things can be dyed don't you know! (Damn right!)

Below are two of the four rogues that jumped out and made their way into my stash. The other two are orangey brown, and slightly less pale blue.

It's all laceweight, 2 ply, and mostly lambswool, some has some acrylic in though.

This thing fell and bonked me on the noggin! It weighs over a kilo! Owww! Not only that but after a bonking on the noggin it fell to my toes - onto them I mean. Double oww! Obviously that means I was destined to have it though - these things happen for a reason.

£4.68 for all that! Wowww!

Anyway today I had lots of fun dying while mum and my step dad are away, (don't want them getting in the way).

I also finished the opal socks, and FC v2.0, which is blocked and ready for Mum's birthday. I will post the results tomorrow! Promise!

I never know what to name my posts!

Maybe I should name them with random words.. or should they describe what's in them? Maybe if I updated more often, I'd have less to put in each post, then I could name it by what's in the post...

First of all, here's some yummy goodness from my secret santa, MazzaM, from the Angel Yarns forum. It was lots of fun doing the swap and stalking my secret pal!

Look at this lush sock yarn :D

Here's everything I got! Fantastic stuff!

This is the results of my first dyeing attempt. I am very proud of this, as on the first attempt it went day-glo green, you'd need sunglasses to look at it. So here's the second attempt on the same yarn (it's sock yarn). I've called it Lichen, though next time I try for the same colour it'll probably come out pink or something.

Ooooh look where I went at the weekend! We had time away in York, so I spent my spending money on souvenirs of a squishy type. I was on a day off from the stashalong you see!

Fantastic shop. Tiny - you can hardly move with more that about four people in there but their selection and variety of yarns is bloody fantastic!! They have everything I love! All the KidSilk range - spray, night and haze. In all colours. I think all the Noro yarns were there, Twilley's Freedom Spirit, Artesano Alpaca, loads of Rowan yarns - Tapestry, Summer Tweed, etc. It was just wonderful! Oh and Regia sock yarns too!

Anyway enough gabbling, here's my goodies :D

Here's sock yarn for me :D

More for me *looks sheepish*

Regia Bamboo for my OH. (This will be my next sock OTN). It's lush as well!

We went to eht National Railway Museum, and look what my OH bought for me from there (a bit random actually, I mean why they have Shawn the Sheep bags I've no idea).

Isn't he cute!! If you squish his nose he goes "baaaaa baaaaa", so I've been embarassing my OH by making him baa in inappropriate places (think posh restaurant) - it's lots of fun.

I'm on a dyeing thing. I totally love it, except I only have green, blue and yellow food colouring, so I can't get purples or reds, because Somerfield dont' sell red (well ours doesn't).

I've just found my Mum's stash (she's away), and it's HUGE! She has a whole wardrobe FULL of huge, huge cones of yarn. Most of it's laceweight (no idea why - she's never knitted lace), or two ply.

So you can probably see where this is going - I've had a good nosey, have nicked a huge cone of pale blue for Hanami (not that I'm doing it yet but I can prepare!). I've nicked a cone of bright blue too. Most of it's white, or browns and greys, but being mostly 90% wool, I'm going to nick more for dyeing for socks and lace :D Of course I have to hope she doesn't notice, but as this is all about 20-30 years old, from her machine knitting days, I'm sure she won't be able to tell ;)

So next time I'll have photos of my drowning under my stash, my mum's stash, and hundreds of empty bottles of food colouring and vinegar ;) *giggles excitedly*