The Rift

Viewers of Torchwood will know all about The Rift. Basically opening it is a bad thing. Time splinters, terrifying things come through – you know the sort of thing.

Well, there has been evidence of instability in The Rift centred on my bike. You remember the glove incident? Well on Tuesday we had further evidence that there is a glitch in the space-time continuum. As I was cycling to work on there was a sudden clunking noise – I turned and looked behind me and saw my bike lock lying on the ground. My bike lock that had been missing for about 10 days… (Subsequent investigation led to John claiming that he had put my bike lock on the back of my bike that morning – but there is a groundswell of feeling that he is simply in denial – it looks like the work of The Rift to me.) It looked as though The Rift was benign – finding gloves and bike locks is hardly as terrifying as Torchwood would have us believe.

However it turns out that The Rift is tricky.

Today we had a parents’ evening. I was cycling to work to do my bit for this when I lost control of my bike. I landed on my face (really not a pretty picture – no-one’s going to think any the worse of you if you decide not to click… ) As I landed I think I said something profound like “That hurts” and then I thought “If I wait here long enough someone will stop to see if I’m OK” (Drama queen? Moi?). I was right though – a very nice “lady motorist” (how very Milly Molly Mandy!) stopped to check on me, and then a bus pulled up – the driver very nicely insisted on taking me to A&E to get checked over (it’s on his route). I could make this a long a tedious tale, but I won’t – there’s no real damage done, just a very fat lip and odd bruises in interesting places (I also tore my trousers – right at the crotch – and they were my new brown linen trousers that I’d bought for £2.75 from a charity shop, and I loved them. I’m not sure that they are repairable.)

So the malevolent/benign balance has been restored. I’m just hope that the monsters from within The Rift are now satisfied…

What is it about Daisy?

(Daisy – on the right, and me – on the left at KTog last Tues)

So last Tuesday Daisy (and no, Daisy – I really don’t think your teeth look like a vampire’s!) came to dinner and then kindly gave me a lift to KTog. Ruth (being 2 3/4, and of a peculiarly obstinate turn of mind) decided that the fact that her mummy was talking to someone else was not on. So she did her best to get my attention. I continued talking to Daisy. The stakes were being raised. Ruth had a suitable riposte. She removed her socks. Mummy noticed. Mummy said “Why are you taking your socks off Ruth?”, but then went on talking to Daisy. Aha! So this tactic works. But clearly Ruth had not taken things far enough. So she took her trousers off. Mummy obviously registered this, but still continued talking to Daisy. The knickers were the next to go…

Throughout this Daisy didn’t turn a hair. “Oh don’t worry about it, my nephew is always doing things like this” she airily stated through my giggles.

Time passes.

Today I phoned Daisy. While I was on the phone Ruth wandered in – and promptly stripped naked. She has NEVER done anything like this before…

Losing the control-freakery...

Thank you for all the comments on my poll below.

But today I branched out – I did fabric painting. Even better than that I invited Adam’s true-love (well, one of them – he seems to propose marriage about once a week at the moment – each time he swears that he’s never going to change his mind… ) and her brother, her mother, and her mother’s partner. And I let my children have a go. (I find this sort of thing soooooooo stressful – but because there were other adults around, so I had to behave myself, I basically let Ruth get on with it… and she produced this:
– and I absolutely love it.
Adam did this:
(with some more assistance, but he was allowed to do some of it himself)
and he started this:
(and I finished it off, and printed this: on the reverse).

The verdict? Good messy fun. (But next time J’s mother and I intend to do it in an evening, with no children, and maybe there’ll be wine involved… )

Help please...

(And I want to try playing with polls… )

So the end is (getting to be) in sight with the miles and miles and miles of grey ribbing. I know I need to be single-minded. I must not be tempted to start a new project. But I’m allowed to start researching the next one, right?

So what I want to knit is a shawl for “Big Anne” (aka Anne-who-is-not-my-godmother – Quakers don’t have such things, but in many ways she has fulfilled the role anyway). Anne is one my inspirational knitters. I don’t think she has ever actually shown me any techniques, but I have various beautiful hand-knitted items from her (including a fabulous hand-spun, hand-knit, entrelac baby shawl that she gave us when Adam was born – it was almost too good to use). So I want to make something for her.

So, which shawl should I make? I want to make something using lace – I have (so far) found:
Sweep of Easy Wind and Downy Flake from Magknits

Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl (scroll down) by Sivia Harding Update – I can’t spell – it’s Sivia, not Silvia!

Garden Shawl (scroll down) by Dorothy Siemens for Fiddlesticks Knitting

Kiri from All Tangled Up
(you’ll have to follow the link to get the pic)

The Snowdrop Shawl by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
(ditto).

As I said, I want to do something lace. I’m confident that it’s within my abilities – less so that it’s within my concentration span, but if I don’t try I’ll never find out… I already have approx 1200 m of gorgeous purple merino laceweight, so if I choose wisely this can be a stash-busting exercise. Anne has also been a keen gardener – hence the couple of shawls here with a garden theme. I think I know which one I want to go for (so I reserve the right to ignore the poll, but I’m not going to say just yet), but I would appreciate the advice of anyone with experience of these.

So let’s see if this works:

Flashing our snow...

Donni has been asking us to flash our snow shots.

So here you are:

It’s not really much to write home about, but it’s our first (and possibly our only) snow this winter. Enough to look pretty, not enough to keep Adam off school. (Hurray!)

Going missing...

Heh! I keep thinking I should do that “Five things” meme that’s doing the rounds at the moment – you know, the one where you reveal 5 things you’ve never revealed on your blog before. But I’m not going to, because, well, some things haven’t been revealed for a REASON!!!

But we could go with one of them – I used to sing in the church choir. And I still do, very occasionally – usually when John is “on duty” as sidesperson, so we get there early, and the organist nobbles me. This is fine – I love singing with the choir, I’m very grateful that they don’t stress about the fact that I never attend rehearsals and it’s lovely that I get so much thanks for doing something so self-indulgent. EXCEPT that if John is being sidesperson, he’s also doing one of the readings, and “doing” the chalice. Which means that he can’t look after a 2 3/4 year-old girl. (Adam spends most of the time at Godly Play, so doesn’t need having an eye kept on him in the same way.) And it’s difficult enough sight-singing while watching the conductor. Just try keeping an eye on a little girl with very definite ideas of her own at the same time.

This morning I was one of 4 sopranos (another of whom was sight-singing). So there were enough voices there that I wasn’t essential, but equally, had I stopped singing it would have been noticeable. So when Ruth decided to go for a wander during the anthem I let her go. But then when we’d finished I couldn’t see her anywhere. I shrugged at a few members of the congregation (in our church the choir stalls are at the back of the church, so this whole performance went unnoticed by most people). I asked a couple of others if they’d seen my daughter. Nope. Well, the doors are closed, she can’t have got far, she’s not raiding the biscuits, she’s not creating havoc at the altar-rail. She’ll turn up eventually.

She did.

She was hiding in the pulpit.

Hey ho.

A matter of perspective...

Ruth says “My been tidying…”

Mummy says “You’ve been making a mess…”

The compromise:

Oh, and we have an FO – the haiku

(I know I’ve not been posting so much recently, but we have a much cleaner and tidier house )

Delurking week

Oooh – it’s that time again!

Go on, drop me a comment – I know you only found me because you were looking for free patterns, but before you go and click on Bella online or Knitting Pattern Central just stop by and say hello.

It’s been a stupid day today. (I haven’t had one for a while, so I was due one.) We got up late, never a good start to a day when I have a lesson to teach at 9am. Then as I was cycling to work it penetrated the fog of my brain that I was uncomfortable. I discovered that this was because my hands were cold. This in turn could be traced to the fact that I wasn’t wearing gloves. But I had remembered to pick my gloves up. I knew I had because I’d put them down on the back of my bike while I unlocked the side door. Oh. They could hardly still be there this far from home, and there wasn’t time to go back. Ah well. But then… why is the woman driving that car pointing at the road behind me and mouthing something? It was my gloves – they must have fallen off at the precise moment that I thought of them! Spooky!

And I left my mark-book and folder full of (marked) students work at home – but managed to phone John in time for him to bring it into work for me.

After that it’s all gone OK, which is slightly scary as these things usually seem to go in threes…

In other news – I tidied my desk at work on Wednesday. Completely. There is absolutely nothing on it. Now you know me, and you know that this is out of character, but I’m going to see if I can keep it up – I’m hoping that nothing on my desk is easier to maintain than several “neat” piles.

Oh and knitting – yeah, I’ve done some of that. But nothing that’s worth sharing just yet.

Wow!

I’ve just been looking at my site stats. And WOW! If you google perform a google search on the term blog knitting, there I am – the very second item. (OK, so first would be better, but look who comes after me!!!)

(And yes, I know, if you do it right and search for “knitting blog” I’m nowhere, but still!)

Update: And yes, I do know that it’s just because I have ”...blog – knitting…” in my tagline, which bumps me right up.

The alphabet song

To the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (yes it is, it really is – just try it)

“A B C D E F G
H O W X Y and me.”

Long tail cast on methods

Marnie Maclean has a post showing how to speed up a long tail cast-on. I’ve noticed before that when I’ve seen pictures of this in books, they look nothing like what my mother taught me. And seeing it “in motion” on Marnie’s blog confirms that what I do is indeed quite different. So I persuaded the long-suffering John to photograph me doing it my way. (Cue Frank.)

With an appropriate long tail held in the left hand, lay the yarn between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand. Take hold of the yarn as usual to tension it with the right hand.

Wrap yarn round left thumb so that end leading to right hand lies below the other thread. Insert needle under thread closer to tip of thumb.

Throw yarn as you would to knit and pull this stitch through.

Drop yarn round thumb.

Start again.

John also recorded a 30 second movie, but until he also shows me how to upload this so that viewing is practical, the still shots are all I can provide.

UPDATE:
Here it is (thanks to Pixie for her help)

Be kind people – it’s my very first one – I know the quality is pretty awful, but it does at least show what I do. (Although I’m now seriously thinking I need to try it with the yarn in my left hand – this way really does need 3 hands.)

Does anyone else do it this way?

(And for those as nosy as me who like such details – the yarn I’m using is the handdyed yarn I received from Kristen the other day, and I’m wearing my Sockapaloooza socks.)

Catching up

Oooh – this feels odd, I’m in bed, writing this on the laptop, rather than on the “big computer” downstairs that I usually use.

Any road up, we’re back. We had a wonderful very-nearly-week with my parents, but it’s good to be home, although not quite so good to be back at work already, and so suffering from a migraine, and so in bed. (It’s not a bad one, in that it doesn’t hurt, and I can type and read fine, but I can’t really do talking to people right now – just as I find it impossible to read bedtime stories when I feel like this. I’ll bet a neurologist would be able to tell me which bits of my brain are suffering – I just know that it’s a nuisance.)

Anyway, there has been crafty stuff, so lets get on with all the pictures.

Exhibit A: The cushion for Ruth for Christmas:
– click on the image to see the reverse. The fabric on the front matches her curtains. (There is a moderately amusing story connected with these curtains, but this post is going to be way long enough already, and my brain doesn’t feel up to doing it justice. Maybe one day.) The reverse is … an old nappy (diaper). And she’s drawn on it already – clearly it wasn’t pink enough.

(Help, using this laptop is scary – it has buttons in different places – I’m going to press something catastrophic soon, I can tell… )

Exhibit B: Adam’s new mittens

Knitted with leftovers from my FIL’s socks – using Twilley’s Freedom Spirit – still my current yarny love. (Although you know me, I’m fickle, and there’s a competitor – see later.)

Exhibit C: New Trousers for Hamish

We gave Hamish to Adam the Christmas before Ruth was born, so 25 December was not only Christmas Day, but it was also Hamish’s 3rd birthday. Since he’s been trouserless for the last year or so, it was only right that he should have a gift too.

That completes the Christmassy craftiness (there was also a laundry bag for Tilly [Ruth’s dolly], who celebrated her first birthday on 25 December, but the only picture I have so far is hideously blurry.)

Since then I’ve been doing baby knitting. I do love doing baby knitting, and a large number of friends have been considerately fecund recently. So while staying with my parents I made:

Yarn: Wendy Rembrandt (now discontinued)
Pattern:Haiku from Knitty
Needles: 4mm

and I’m on the second sleeve of this:
– also Haiku, but this time using Katia’s Venus – a Spanish yarn I picked up on sale in Voirrey over the holiday. It’s gorgeous and snuggly and chunky, and wonderful to sniff and cuddle…

Now to the sad part of this post. There has been a disaster. (You’ll have to click on the links to see the horror – I realise that there may be knitters of a nervous disposition reading this, who knows – some may even be eating, and I’d hate to cause undue distress) – you remember these socks – you know, the ones that are going to bring me fame and fortune – well, now they look like this. For lovers of knitting horror look at the details here and here

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

The moral of the tale, gentle knitter, is not to be tempted by yarn that is soft and squishy and gentle on the foot if it is 100% wool. Hold out for that 20% nylon for extra strength.

But I promised a happy ending to this post, so see, look at the pretty yarn:

I entered Kristen’s 1000th post contest, and won them. Aren’t they gorgeous. Happy happy Anne

This post is long enough (and that’s after I deleted the tale of the toys-we-forgot-to-take-to-Granny-and-Grandad’s – not to be recommended), so I shall stop now.