I need a new scarf

I'm making a scarf, using Artesano alpaca, in a natural colour which I think they call camel. It is a pale beige, a colour I like and which suits me. It is soft, and I can feel the warmth as I knit it. I always thought other people were being a bit silly when they said their knitting gave off warmth, but this one really does.

I'm just over halfway through - I know that because I only bought two balls, and I've finished one of them.

I'm using a pattern that was in Simply Knitting a few months ago: I think it is the same stitches as in the "Misty Garden" scarf that lots of people blog about. It has a simple stitch pattern that achieves a complicated look - three rows of either purl or knit, and one row with yarn-overs and knit togethers.

I could have used the pattern that the yarn company are pushing, but I didn't like it when I tried it out in cheap, boring, yucky-coloured acrylic. So instead I chose the Simply Knitting pattern.

(If you look round their website, you'll see a lovely crotchet flower shrug: the pattern for that was in Simply Knitting, and I used it to make a square for the blanket I am making to teach myself crotchet.

Back to the scarf - at the halfway stage:

I need to finish it: I've just got rid of my 'current' scarf, the one I sling round my neck when I go to the shop, or to get the kids from school, or just anywhere. I've had it a few years, and I noticed a couple of days ago it had a small hole. The hole is tiny - was tiny - and the scarf was still perfectly wearable.

However yesterday, I was at my parent's house, helping them empty their attic before their Great Move. The attic is full of neatly stacked boxes, all carefully labelled. Some of the boxes contain carefully labelled rubbish, such as the electric kettle, in its original box which is probably 30 years old. (It isn't necessarily an unused kettle: my parents would store the box even when the kettle was in use.)

I brought down a sackful of worn-out clothes. I don't quite know the thought process that led to them being there (I can guess - "worn out socks have many uses such as dusters and sock puppets, therefore let us keep many, even if we don't use any"). So I loaded them into my car and stopped at the textile bank on the way home. I put in my three bags of unwanted stuff, and looked at my scarf. I thought about the warn out socks, and before I could change my mind, bundled the scarf in as well.

So now I need to get going with this new scarf.

Cheering on the Knitters!

New buttons: this is the team, I'm supporting:


As far as I know team Chilterns consists of Tracy and Yvonne.

This button is incredibly cool as well:



It came from fyberduck
The bits I can translate are "the" and "the" :-).

Knitting and Stitching show - coming to a Birmingham near you

I really only decided to get a blog after seeing what everyone wrote about the knitting and stitching show at Ally Pally last year. I'd gone on my own, and hadn't met anyone I knew there, but I checked the blogs when I got home. It was fascinating seeing what other people had to say about it, but I had the urge to say something myself.

(Actually I was frustrated by seeing lots of beautiful yarn, unable to justify buying it because I had too much dull stuff in my stash.)

Anyway, I got a leaflet through the post from the organisers today, and they will be adding another show to their current set of London/Harrogate/Dublin. There'll be show at the NEC in Birmingham in September. Birmingham is within day-trip distance of me, so I might go three times - Birmingham on a weekday, Ally Pally on a weekday and Ally Pally with my S'n'B group.

See you there!

I was all excited

I'd checked on google to see where in their page ranks my blog came: and it was top of the list for "another dilettante". That must mean someone had linked to me, right?

Unfortunately I was wrong. No links found using their "link:" option - the page ranking is probably some souped-up bit of code, seeing as blogger is owned by google.

Hence I've added my first blog link - to Tracy's blog. She organises the Stitch 'n' Bitch sessions I go to. (I ought to blog about that at some point.) Her blog is quite new, but she has been updating daily. I haven't left a comment there, because you need to put an email address, and well, I don't know whether people get spam from leaving comments on typepad accounts.

That is really one reason why I'm often reluctant to blog. I could blog a lot more often, but I'm concious that I'm using servers controlled by google. I haven't got anything against google per se, but I'm slightly wary of big business owning my data, my ideas. Now, do I join the yahoo group I've been invited on to?

Oh for the days when the web was young, and archives unknown!

Knitting Olympics

It looks fun.

If I do, my challange would be to knit my first two pairs of socks.

Do I or don't I?

OTOH I've got quite a few things on the go at the moment, so I could just do the Eddiealong.

That would be my first sock.

However I've decided: