Tuesday Ten

Ten projects matched with Ten Yarns

When I posted my stash picture, I made the lofty claim that 18 of the pictured yarns were matched with a project. Here, I put my fibre where my mouth is.

1. This Rowan lace jumper with this pink Superkid by Fleece Artist

2. This Hey Teach! lace cardigan with this Lorna's Laces Worsted in the ltd edn Jimmy Beans February 2010 colourway

3. This Myrtle lace cardigan with this Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply

(I sense you're sensing a theme here)

4. A lacy shawl, something like this one by Teva Durham (I am looking for a shawl made from lacy medallions sewn together, a la last year's surprise big hit for me, the pinwheel shawl) with this Lorna's Laces Lion & Lamb in the ltd edn Jimmy Beans colourway from sometime in 2008.

5. This Rowan wrap top with this pink Rowan Damask I got for 69p a ball from Kemp's.

(An aside: When I told my knitting group friends that this year I was embracing pink in an attempt to remove the "Obsessed with blue" label from myself, I obviously was not kidding. It's not really that I don't love blue anymore; I just have a lot of blue things now. That said....)

6. This drawstring cowl (the dark yellow one in the third row down) from Vogue Knitting to use for skiing, out of this Colinette Art.

7. Another Versatility (once I have finished the first one, for me), this time for Mother Hand, in this Fleece Artist Scotian Silk.

8. This lace panelled chemise (although I will mod along the lines of last year's Lelah, I expect; at least I will take out the lace panel at the top, for modesty's sake) in this blue Rowan Calmer.

(Although, it is more likely I'll use Paton's Smoothie for this because it's machine washable; but I didn't take a picture of the blue colourway in my big stash recording exercise last month, so let's just say I'm going to use the Calmer.)

9. A baby dress (Pattern to be decided but probably Crumpets) for Jen's baby Abi...well, she's nearly 1 now but still...from this orange Rowan Calmer.

10. Many pairs of Ugg baby bootees in this GGH Velour (which is a good sub for Berocco Suede).

This has been really hard, trying to make this list. I hope you realise the effort I have gone to. I have had to discard the post and write it in Notepad because Blogger keeps messing with the tags, which annoys me enormously. And to make matters worse they're binning FTP publishing as of May 1st so I have to migrate my blog. I am considering looking at a new provider, tbh. It annoys me so much that when I insert a picture, it automatically inserts it at the top of the post and I have to move it to where I want. JUST INSERT IT WHERE THE CURSOR IS!

Anyway, harder than that is realising that, when I said 18 of those stash yarns were matched with a project, that's obviously not strictly true because otherwise this post would have been a doddle. I think it's fairer to say I have ideas for several of the other yarns, if not concrete patterns; so, the Rowan Silk Aran is going to become some sort of stripy summer top. Others are different again: the Rowan Denim, for example, will become an Indigo Ripples, at some point when I feel my body shape can cope with a knitted skirt.

Neglectful Blogger

My excuse for not doing Tuesday ten is that this week, as last week, I was dry slope skiing with school; and while I should have been home at a reasonable hour this week as I vetoed stopping for chips on the way back, the minibus broke down.....and even though I was driving my car with additional pupils, I kowtowed to pupil pressure and stopped at Maccy D's so we were behind the bus and therefore had to wait with them for breakdown assistance. Karma, I think that is called.

Next Tuesday will be my first free Tuesday night since January, by my reckoning.

I am injured. I did a silly jump'n'slide with other staff on a crash mat last Friday (charity Sport Relief video) except that it was already sliding when I jumped, so I landed on my knee. It is swollen and hurty. I have self-diagnosed it as tissue damage because I can still kneel on it and have full range of motion: it only hurts when I push the swollen bit. But I am terrified it is something worse and I will not be able to go skiing. Please send positive get-well-knee vibes.

I also tripped running across the road to the minibus tonight and turned the ankle of my other leg. It's all going pear shaped.

And my Ravelmypics project was a fail....although it is going OK. I have finished the body of it, bar the ribbing. Just sleeves/neck tie to go. I am hoping it will get done this weekend.

Yarn Marathon

Inspired by a fellow Raveller, I devoted an hour today to photographing my stash.

I'd love to pretend this is all of it. It probably represents about two thirds. Out of interest, I pulled my stash list off Rav into a spreadsheet and was mildly disturbed to discover that my yarn would now stretch for nearly 27 miles. A yarn marathon, indeed.

I am trying to make myself feel better by remembering
a) 18 of those yarns are already matched to a project
b) 15 of them were either in the sale, gifts or free
c) I gave Aliboo 4 balls of yarn (not pictured) yesterday
d) There are 10 single skeins for single-skein projects....well, 11 but one of those if the Nef Lace and it's 1200m or so, so I don't think it counts
e) 5 of them are leftovers from other projects, so .... not technically stash? I think that's a bit of a stretch.

I am loving the winter Olympics, and particularly my knitting for the Ravelympics. The Shirley sweater is now going well, since I got the sleeve stitches on spare cables and joined the sweater in the round today. But, the yarn has dyed my hands blue and I am suffering a bit with claw hand, hence the blogging. I thought if I managed to finish the body of the sweater this weekend I might be OK, but I am not convinced I will manage it, what with The Claw and all.

Really pleased with Amy Williams and her gold in the skeleton bobsleigh! I stayed up til 2am last night to watch her winning run. It's made all the better by the fact that she only lives in Bath so I might one day bump into her. Just like Jonny Depp and Nicholas Cage, two of the cities other famous residents.

Hey, a girl can dream...

Tuesday Ten

Ten Noteworthy Events of the Last 24 Hours

1. Malaysia launch meeting - 43 sets of parents, I thank you. Whittling down the letters of application to a mere 16 is going to be a toughie this year.

2. Wispa Gold. I ate it after dinner last night....and tonight. The love affair continues, even though I feel like boycotting Cadbury since their latest piece of news. I am going to miss seeing that factory twinkling from the ring road when I drive home in the dark.

3. I was deliberately obtuse and bunked a lesson supervising my class in the hall and used it to plan my cover for the next two days. Nobody actually told me I was meant to be there so I used it to my advantage. I have teh guilt, because my friend Caroline is directing the production so it was her who was let down. She didn't seem to mind though, as she got new boots today.

4. I bought a ticket for the production on Tuesday and Caroline asked me to do front of house, so I feel like I am repaying her a bit. This year we're doing We Will Rock You. I love a bit of Queen.

5. My new pink velvet coat shipped. Half price in the sale! Loves it.


Yes, of course it's Boden.

6. I finished the first sleeve of the baby jumper, unpicked and 3NBO'd the shoulder I'd done wrong, seamed the sides and wove in all the ends. Now just one sleeve, seaming the sleeves in and the collar to go. I love fast baby projects.

7. I familiarised myself with the Shirley sweater pattern, ready for swatching. I really should be swatching now, rather than knitting this baby jumper, so I am all ready for casting on on Saturday: Ravelympics, day 1. But I have a lot of marking to do. Which is why I am blogging, and watching Die Hard.

8. I realised part of the Die Hard score is Winter Wonderland rescored to have a menacing, growly sound. I can't tell you how many times I have seen this film, and never noticed.

9. I watched The September Issue. Meh. I can't help but feel Anna Wintour was being disingenuous when she talked about her noble brothers and sister thinking what she did was a joke. Surely she's earning more than them combined, not to mention being easily the most influential of them all: the last laugh, I feel, lies at her door.
And since she talked about fashion being a serious thing at the start, I don't think she can then expect us to feel sorry that her siblings might look down on her: surely that can't make her feel bad, if she believes her own spin?
And, really, Grace Coddington could do with a conditioning treatment and a lesson in how to walk in flats, she looked like Stig of the Dump tramping through those halls.
Good clothes, though. I loved that gigantic knitwear they were photographing for the texture piece. And I love Grace in general. Except I think she'd totally dismiss me for wearing so much Boden.

10. I enjoyed reading this article about the relative merits of Kits Kats and bananas. I liked the bit about the Dangers.

Black Dog

I have been awol. I am not having a very good time of it at work. It's only little things but I am feeling all full of whinge and not in the mood for cheery posting, so I have thrown myself into my knitting and Facebook Scrabble by way of a distraction.

I am knitting a garter stitch pullover (Rav link) for my friend Alison's baby, who is being christened in March but I can't go. And I am preparing for the Ravelympics. I want to knit a laceweight pulloever; my only concern is, I have 100% silk laceweight and mostly this is only used for shawls, from what I can find on Ravelry. So I am going to swatch for the Shirley sweater ('nother Rav link) and see how it goes. It's a Kidsilk Haze pattern, but I am hoping it will work out, even if I have to knit it a size down to keep it clingy.

I REALLY hope it works out, the yarn is absolutely stunning! It is by Knitwitches and is the most amazing shade of blue, called Lapis Nights. Yes, blue, of course! But deep blues like this aren't too common. I will photograph it if I am ever at home in daylight again.

I am in danger of developing a serious Knitwitches habit since discovering them at FibreFest in August. Then, I bought 3 skeins of undyed pure silk and a skein of luscious grey cashmere (which, actually, I had forgotten about blush) and now that I am more amenable to laceweight it's like a whole new yarn wilderness stretching out ahead of me. Heaven forbid, I find I love knitting socks....I think I would have to buy a new house.

(I have decided, it's definitely one of those fundamental knitting truths that the more experienced you get, the thinner the yarn you work with. I still like working with chunky but it's definitely not as comfortable as working with smaller needles.)

I am thinking of setting myself a knitting goal for this year of a sweater a month. This is mainly because I urgently need to see to my stash, as well as knit some things from my queue. So I was thinking - a top a month (not necessarily with sleeves) and an extra, like the baby jumper this month. I don't think it is unachievable. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, ROLL ON HALF TERM. Still no sign of Ofsted but honestly, I don't think their visit could be worse than the endless build up to it. I shouted at a member of the leadership team in the staffroom this week, and I'm normally Little Miss Sunshine. It's not a great time. But, yey, I am out Wednesday at a meeting and Thursday visiting the college in Oxford that will be hosting our conference this year (HOOGE feather in my cap) so it's only really two more days til break, and then I am off to Warrington and then Sheffield so I can just forget everything for a bit....and knit Shirley. I booked train tickets so I have lots of free time!

Tuesday Ten

Ten Reasons to be Cheerful (again)

1. Ebay. Perfume going for more than I paid for it. Result! Which leads to...

2. Chanel sunglasses. I decided they were too frivolous for buying with real money, especially because I am terrible with looking after sunglasses, so I set myself the task of raising enough money on ebay for them. I am currently a scant (!) £70 away with 5 days left on my extremely popular auctions.

3. Fireflies by Owl City. It really reminds me of something but I don't know what.

4. New skirt coming from Boden soon.

I love when Boden release their spring catalogue. How summery is this skirt? I am going to be living in it, especially since the sad demise of my workhorse denim skirt, which finally wore away at a seam this winter.
The new skirt will go with my favoured sunglasses, which have denim arms and red frames but are not nearly as dodgy as they sound (cannot find a picture of them anywhere, though).

5. The functionality of this SuperMacbook which sucks all my time in the evenings now it sits by my chair, with a siren song coming from Facebook, Ravelry etc. It is easy to use, though. I didn't have to go through right click, save etc with that Boden snap - I can just highlight a bit of the page and take a picture of it which goes right to the desktop. Did you know that? I think it is very clever.

6. Tomorrow is Happy Wednesday: I don't have to drive to work or teach until after break, and I've got belly dancing with Parpy Jo in the evening.

7. Glee. Especially this bit of the football team dancing and Kurt making the goal in the episode which aired here yesterday. It may be my favourite bit of TV so far this decade.

8. Travels. I booked tickets to Malaysia for the summer holidays, Caroline from work and I are going to see an ex-colleague, Rhiannon; and I booked train tickets to Manchester for Feb 13th to see Sian, and then I'm going to visit Jen and the mini-Jen (or, more correctly, mini-Ben since she is the absolute spit of her daddy) afterwards.

9. Cadbury Caramel Bunnies. Small, yet perfectly formed.

10. I am having trouble thinking of number 10 because I just remember that fricking Ofsted still have not been in and the whole school is wound tight as a very tightly wound spring that won the Most Tightly Wound ribbon at a tightly wound spring contest. At least I haven't lost my sense of humour....yet.

Weekend FO

And suddenly, all the YOs, fiddly SSPs and knitted joins were forgotten, as a small choir of seraphim seemed to descend on the sunbeams this afternoon to flutter around the scarf of wonder...

Pattern: Myrtle Leaf Shawl, from Victorian Lace Today
Needle: 3.75mm
Yarn: Malabrigo Laceweight, natural, just over a skein...maybe 1.2 skeins
Mods: I cut the number of pattern repeats by 2 because Jo wanted more of a scarf than a shawl.

I cast this on while I was in the US in the summer. I don't know why I thought a my first attempt at lace in a laceweight yarn would make the ideal project for travelling; it really didn't. It took me until the end of October to finish the body of it, by which point I knew the 12-row repeat well enough that I no longer needed the pattern; then it took about a month to pluck up the courage to start the border, I was convinced I would mess up the whole thing with that; then I lost my nerve again as I approached the corner and it was set aside again.

It would have gone a lot quicker, is what I'm saying, if I had had a little more confidence in my abilities!

The yarn is very delicate; it had started to fuzz a little at the cast on end by the time I finished, so one end wouldn't block out as far as the other, but it doesn't notice. In fact, blocking made it look far better. Blocking is truly a form of alchemy. I followed advice given to me on the Malabrigo Rav board, and soaked it for half an hour in luke warm water with Eucalan. Then I ran the blocking wires through the YOs between the border and scarf body, so that the edge stayed wavy. It was dry within 12 hours.

I would be sorry to give it away, were it not for the fact that (a) I got a gorgeous ladybird ring out of it and (b) I would RUIN it within a week.