A whirlwind of activity

This weekend has gone by in a whirlwind of activity, pretty much as anticipated really.

Dave departed early on Saturday morning and after doing some household chores, I drove down to Warwick for the Ravelry day at Crafty Cottage. The drive to Warwick was made more interesting than usual by the high winds which kept trying to blow the car off the road. I later learnt that I wasn't the only one having scary moments due to the wind, with a couple of freight trains loosing their containers!

I arrived in Warwick, just as Jo was getting her children to cut the ribbon to start the day's festivities. Then, ribbon cut and scissors stowed, knitters began to file into the shop, at first just a handful or so and then in a steady trickle that just didn't seem to stop. I've never seen so many people in the Crafty Cottage and what is normally a spacious shop, became crowded very quickly... So I did the only sensible thing and retreated upstairs out of the way, where it was slightly quieter.

Upstairs, Steelbreeze was knitting away on her knitting machine and a local textiles artist, Emma Price from Charkha Yarns, was giving a first taste of spinning. This was popular with the other attendee's so it took me a while to work up to speaking to Emma and eventually having a go, first with a tickler and then spinning at the wheel itself.

A tickler is essentially just a piece of wood which has been whittled at both ends so it's got a point. You wrap some spun yarn around it and then use that to lead your unspun fleece onto the tickler, turning the piece of wood which puts a twist in and hence spins it. It did seem incredibly complicated to do, but once I'd had a go on the spinning wheel, the theory suddenly made sense. Using the tickler, I managed to spin up a few yards or so of wool and was pleasantly surprised to find that I picked up the essence of how to use a wheel in less than ten minutes.

If I only had room for one, I'd now be sorely tempted to start looking for a spinning wheel because it was very satisfying to see the fluffy fleece turning into yarn right in front of my eyes... And even more satisfying to know I was responsible for that transformation!

Eventually, I had to go home because I was running out of time on my parking ticket, but I did thoroughly enjoy myself.

However, I didn't manage to slip away before buying some yarn. During one of my forays downstairs in search of cake and tea, I spotted some Shades of Cashmere merino and some locally spun heavy wool. I've PM'd Jo because I can't remember the details of the local spun stuff, but it was in a gorgeous raspberry shade which I think would felt well.

Having spent money at the Crafty Cottage, I was far more restrained at the Living History Fair on Sunday. So restrained that other than some jerky and teas, I didn't buy anything at all! I did have fun looking around though and I think this fair is getting better each time I go. My one request would be that they have more craft traders, who'll supply you with the raw materials, tools and instructions to make your own things rather than just presenting us with the finished item.

After a good while, Richardxl5 and I managed to drag Dave out of the fair and we headed to a local pub for a spot of lunch before going home.

Searching for inspiration

I spent this weekend at work, applying an application upgrade to a rather important system, which is why it couldn't be done during normal working hours. Today I can feel the start of the descent into the braindead state that normally follows on from one of these stints and I suspect it will get worse. If things go to form, I'll be having problems distinguishing which day it is by midweek.

Sadly, there hasn't been much time for crafting over the weekend as I've worked full days, leaving Dave in charge of the cats at home. I'm not sure what he did to them though, since they were both very quiet when I did get home! Although it was very sweet to watch Charlie lying beside me on the sofa, twitching and squeaking in his sleep as he chased an imaginary paper bag through his dreams.

In lieu of actually doing any knitting, crochet or sewing, I've become very click happy in Ravelry, adding things to my queue which now contains more items than I could possibly knit in five years! Mostly scarves, which I still focus on, some lace thrown in and of course some washcloths. I've even remembered that I've got some patterns for toys at home, which may come in handy for Christmas presents!

And yes, it is the sad truth that I am thinking about Christmas presents already. Buoyed by the reported success of those items I gifted last year (is it really less than two months ago?) I need to get cracking on this years presents if I'm to get them done in time.

I've also been looking at my fabric stash with a speculative eye. It's comprised of mostly natural fibres, cotton, wool, a little linen and a few cotton/silk mixes. Some are good lengths, originally bought with costume in mind, while others are odd meters left over from some project or other. I've decided they need a good sort through, so I can see them properly and be inspired...

Bubbles

The focus of this weekend was household chores and errands, which seemed to take forever as they all had to be done on my lonesome. Friday night I arrived home to a strongly worded letter from my optician telling me my contact lens supply had been stopped as I apparently hadn't attended for a check up. As someone who remembers going to the optician at least three times last year and even has new specs, this came a bit out of the blue.

Since being without contact lenses is a real pain (and I do wonder if they'd have stopped deducting monies from my account) I phoned and made an appointment there and then, which pretty much put paid to Saturday morning. I complained about the letter, but didn't seem to make any impact - apparently there should have been warning letters (which I haven't recieved) and traffic light stickers on my lenses, which are delivered by mail.

The reason for the letter and the apparent need for frequent visits, is the previous optician to see me had put me down for a six month recall, rather than the usual twelve months one. Absolutely no idea why. But of course, that doesn't explain the jump straight to threatening letters and stopping my lenses completely.

Saturday afternoon, I returned to the house to tackle chores before escaping for a couple of hours by popping over for a chat with Esther and to drop off a pressie.

This is a Bubble's Baby Blanket, which I've been working on for the past month. I downloaded it directly from Ravelry, but it can also be found in the Crochet Pattern Central download area. It's crocheted in two strands, one of a superwash wool and the other a standard baby acrylic. Both yarns are from a local spinner, labelled as Mercia Wools and sold out of the spinner's shop, Busy Fingers in Coventry.
I started this blanket while working on Dave's scarf and it served as a bit of light relief from all that moss stitch. The Bubble stitch was easy to do and working with two strands and a 9mm hook, meant it grew relatively quickly. So much so, that I had no problem working it to a decent cot size in a month, with just a few hours each week spent on it. The resulting fabric is thick and soft, so hopefully will be put to good use.

Sunday was spent doing more household chores, with the usual couple of hours of decluttering thrown in. I did however make a start on the lace and learnt a new cast on - the 'crochet cast on' which is like crocheting a chain but sticking a knitting needle in the way. I'm working on 4.5mm needles and coming straight from sock knitting these past few weeks, the needles seem huge!

Not much to see so far, as I've cast on, knitted two repeats, decided the first repeat was too loose, ripped it out..... Cast on again and knitted two more repeats and that was all I had time for. At the moment, it doesn't look very impressive but as it's lace I'm kind of expecting that... I shall persevere and see where it gets me.

Sock news - the heel is turned on the second sock and I've picked up the stitches for the gusset, so it's coming along. Slowly.

As always, click on the images to see bigger versions.

Quiet week in Coventry

It's been a quiet week on the crafting front, although things have been moving steadily in the right direction. I've nearly reached the toe on the first of Dave's socks and I'm bracing myself for the bit of sock knitting I don't like. For some reason, the toe is where it goes wrong for me, possibly to do with the fiddliness of juggling so few stitches on tiny needles. However, since I believe Dave does want socks equipped with toes I shall have to take a deep breath and push on...

Dave reports the scarf is exactly what he wanted. It is apparently long enough to wrap around his neck twice with enough left over to tuck into his coat. He says it is wide enough that he can pull it up over his face which is the way he likes to wear scarves, it is soft and warm and the colour is perfect. I don't think I've heard him enthuse about a scarf before and he may well be humouring me, but I think I can infer from his comments that he likes the scarf - which is a good thing.

I also had the picture of my first socks selected as a featured photograph in Ravelry this week, which made me smile all day. It's not only an endorsement of my first socks but of my picture taking ability. Knitting is not one of the easiest things to photograph, so these little compliments do wonders for improving my mood.

In other news, I'm racking my brain trying to come up with ways to gradually increase my exercise levels. I've been forced to cut exercise for the past eighteen months or so, due to my knee injury, but with the physio's instructions to gradually increase exercise so I build stamina but no overdoing it, I'm left in a quandry as to what to do to achieve this. At the moment, I considering Tai Chi, Swimming, Yoga and whether I should buy a bicycle.

All have their problems, mostly to do with long working hours and how to fit exercise sessions in; while the thought of cycling to work is worrisome because of the state of the roads, congestion and the insane people who make up a fair percentage of road users. Whatever I do decide on in the way of exercise, it has to be low impact (the knee is still there after all), not too expensive and accessible to someone who works very long days...

I'm on Ravelry at last!

I arrived at late to work yesterday after the usual grueling visit with my physio and a nightmare parking situation at work (there are many reasons why I hate this time of year) to find my long awaited Ravelry invite sitting in my mailbox. It cheered me up no end, the only downside being that I had to wait a while before accepting it.

Needless to say, yesterday's lunch hour was spent poking around the site, discovering how to upload an avatar, exploring the forums, joining a couple of groups and adding a few things to my project list. The fact that I managed to get all that done in such a short time shows just how intuitive the site is to use.

I've not had much time to look at the site but what I have seen I like. In particular, I like the pattern to project integration, which allows me to see examples of the pattern I'm either considering or I'm currently working on, knitted up by other members. Since I substitute yarns other than those listed in the patterns, that could be very helpful.

My one gripe has to be Flickr (which is horribly primitive compared to PhotoBucket or PicasaWeb) which has been integrated in as the preferred photo host, but it looks like there are plans afoot to allow other photo hosts in the future so I can live with it... Besides, in the intervening time perhaps Flickr will grow on me?

Generally though, a big thumbs up and hurrah!