Random thoughts from another dilettante

Your taste is still killer...

2012-01-30T19:43:00.002Z

Found this on a new-to-me blog and had to share.

It reminds me of something Ferret said to me ages ago, which was along the lines of do what you can now do so that you learn to do the more adventurous bits.

TAST - started, sort of

2012-01-06T23:21:00.002Z

The TAST stitch this week is the Fly Stitch, and so I have been practising the Fly stitch. I even managed to write "Fly" in Fly stitch.

But what with one thing and another - including doing a live TV interview, on a national TV channel - last week was a very busy week, and a photo remains untaken. This weekend we are away, so it won't get posted very soon.

Aiming for a chart hit - the Old Oak Lament

2011-12-20T19:49:00.002Z

Absolutely great song, please buy it. Details here.

Take a Stitch Tuesday

2011-12-07T13:17:00.002Z

One of the few craft blogs I get time to read these days is Pintangle.

A while ago, the author, Sharon B, ran a weekly study, called "Take a Stitch Tuesday". She's show a stitch on the website, and people would work a sample, and post a picture of the results. She's running it again next year. So, I'm signing up.

I think I'll probably do a band sampler type thing, although that means finding the right fabric. But I've got a month, surely that's long enough...

Knitting: the next gen

2011-11-29T21:27:00.002Z

There has been knitting going on. There has been lots of knitting going on. There has been much buying of wool and even the odd bit of buying of knitting needles.

For Dear Daughter has discovered knitting.

It started with a scarf. She knitted it for herself, and discovered the joy of knitting. Then she decided to knit Christmas presents, scarves and fingerless mittens. This all involved her mother taking her to John Lewis, and letting her choose some nice yarn, Rowan even, and buying ball after ball.

Tricky thing for DD was her mother's Christmas present. But I gather that is in hand, and will involve beautiful wool.

After the Christmas knitting, DD has plans. They might involve a jumper. A hand knitted jumper. They may involve a handknitted blanket. Or they may involve crochet.

Who knows?

Watch this space....

My hand dyed scarf on TV

2011-11-08T22:08:00.003Z

I wore a scarf I hand-dyed to do a TV interview today.

The scarf was dyed perhaps twelve years ago, at a craft open day at a hall near where I lived at the time. The organisers changed a nominal fee for doing it. We started with a white silk scarf. The dyes - in this case pink and blue - were dripped onto the scarf, and then it was microwaved to set the dye. I did two, one with lighter colours, the other darker ones.

The interview went incredibly badly - luckily it was pre-recorded, but I got asked the same question about five times, before it had a passable take. In the end, they used a very short section, about two or three sentences, but I made the important points. (It was about this. I was ~~scarfing~~, ~~scafthing~~, critical.)

Not at all relevant to the scarf, I thought this article about creative tribes was interesting. In particular the part where the writer says that her quilt guild was subtly influencing her fabric choices, being lukewarm about the ones she choose. Nobody was to blame, but it still had effects she didn't like.

A dearth of creativity

2011-10-06T21:49:00.002Z

Can you write a craft blog if you aren't doing anything crafty?

Weeks have passed with almost no activity on the craft front: unless you count packing an ambroidery kit when I went away for a week (I was so busy I didn't even take the kit out of my suitcase).

Luckily, I have now done something creative, a "Dyeing for Shibori" course at Threads and Patches, in Milton Keynes. It was the second part of the course, I failed to get to back in March.

I'm really pleased with some of the pieces, but until I install the software for my new camera, they will remain for viewing in real life only.

Supernova, seen

2011-09-08T21:45:00.002Z

With respect to yesterday's post, I've now looked at the right star in the right place with binoculars. Of course, I might be deluding myself, when I say I saw it....

Supernova 'brightens up' 7-8 September - University of Oxford

2011-09-07T21:47:00.000Z

It's a once in a lifetime chance to see a supernova. If it was earlier, and I was less tired, and had less writing to do, I'd tell you some examples of other supernova which change the course of history.

Supernova 'brightens up' 7-8 September - University of Oxford

Even Yarnstorm has comment problems....

2011-09-05T22:53:00.001Z

I don't have problems on this blog with malicious comments (although another site I run does). But you'd never expect that Yarnstorm, of the pretty pictures and domesticality would?

From her post, loose ends:

:: Yesterday, I put up then took down a post about discovering that someone who had been leaving long, long comments which have caused a kerfuffle (as they say on Little Britain) had done so under three different anonymous/pseudonymous names. The penny dropped when I looked up an IP number and I decided that I was going to play host no longer. I have deleted all his/her comments, and will now be less willing to leave suspect contributions where they can be read. Multiple-identity commenters make a mockery of blog discussions and keeping on top of the incoming comments could turn into a game of Splat the Rat - not something I want to play.

Lost in France

2011-08-29T19:28:00.000Z

We spent the first two weeks of August staying in a recently converted watermill (with working wheel), overlooking a local beauty spot. It was lovely: but a bit like living in a fishbowl, with large number of locals coming to the beauty spot and looking at the working waterwheel etc. If we'd set up a tea and cakes stall, we could have made a fortune.

Then there was the day I opened the door in my nightie, to see people in a tent on the other side of the river. After quickly slamming the door shut, I realised I might be in my nightie, but they were still in bed…

There was a little bit of going to the beach (cloudless blue skies, and fierce Atlantic ocean), going to chateaux (Tiffauges, and Saumir and Puy de Fuy), good food, meandering through little towns, and some big ones, plenty of good food and wine.

We saw several little embroidery and yarn shops, but they were all closed for lunch/early closing day/while their owners went on holiday.

Instead, my French supermarket scarf:

and my reduced to €5 scarf:

watermill

2011-08-08T18:46:00.001Z

A watermill sounds a bit like a certain point in a washing machine's cycle.

Just saying...

A new kit

2011-07-17T13:27:00.002Z

I really hadn't meant to buy a new embroidery kit yesterday, but it was so pretty I couldn't resist.

The price - £1.50, reduced from £2.25 - suggested it had been in the shop for some years, especially is it also has the slightly gritty feeling which secondhand books sometimes have. I haven't been able to find any reference to the kit on line, or even the range, which confirms my suspicion that is pretty old.

A bit of progress last night.

Wordless Wednesday - 15th June

2011-06-15T21:13:00.002Z

Nearly finished - just some crosses to put in round the centre.

That Dress

2011-05-13T22:36:00.003Z

I wasn't overly impressed with that dress when I saw it on television.

But then I saw some pictures in Hello (in the dentist waiting room): close up seeing the details of the lace it is stunning.

Fascinating article about it on the BBC. They had to wash their hands every 30 minutes (I suppose it made sure they had a break to move around), and changed needles every three hours.

Altough I do find this commentary rather amusing...

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T10:19:00.002Z

Happy Easter: enjoy your Easter eggs, church services, local festivals, craft fairs, picnics or lounging in the garden (delete as appropriate).

Dying died

2011-03-18T21:38:00.002Z

I was really looking forward to this afternoon: the second part of the shibori course I hadn't blogged about.

I'd attended the first part of the course, I'd done the sewing and now I was ready for the new experience bit, the part where I dyed the things I had sewn. Because I have never ever, not even at school, dyed anything ever.

I'd got the material, and the rubber gloves, and the dye, and the jug, and the teaspoon, and the string, and all the other bits and pieces. And carried the bags to the car, and my eye was drawn to the wheel.

Or rather the tyre. And the tyre was flat: there was no way I was going out to do some dying (my first dying ever, I was so looking forward to it).

So I came inside, and I rang up the AA, and was a bit surprised to be told the mechanic would be with me sometime between now and 45 minutes time. And then he turned up and he changed the wheel. And he showed me the cause: a pointy bit of gravel that had got stuck in the nearly new tyre and punctured it. But he also said he thought it could be repaired, so after he went, I rang up the nearest tyre place and they thought they could repair it, so I drove it slowly in on the temporary spare, and they said yes they could repair it.

So the nasty sharp bit of gravel (which for some reason I want to keep) cost me 'only' £14.20, when a new tyre would have been lots more.

But I still didn't go dying.

Very lovelorn Lovelace

2011-03-05T21:48:00.002Z

And having frogged sleeve one of Lovelace and reknitted it, I discovered that I'd missed an increase in sleeve two, and had to frog that back as well.

Lovelorn Lovelace

2011-02-24T21:29:00.002Z

I think the problem with my Lovelace sleeve is self evident...

Next time, use stitchmarkers as suggested by the pattern...

Lovelace

2011-02-10T22:00:00.002Z

Imagine Lovelace knitted with Rowan felted Tweed Chunky, in a colour which is probably described as cranberry. With 14 rows to 10cm it is not surprising that I have knitted most of the body in just over a week. (Wool bought Monday a week ago, needles bought Tuesday a week ago etc.)

I finally got round to taking some photos of Lovelace, but then today turned into a very long day and I'm too worn out to find the camera and upload them.

Cool, in a nerdy sort of way

2011-01-13T21:08:00.002Z

A minor bit of excitement, that makes me feel cool in a nerdy sort of way. Or is it nerdy, in a cool sort of way

This afternoon, I was rung up by someone from the BBC, asking me (yes, me!) about ushahidi, because I'd mentioned it here.

That's it really. But it is a bit cool.

(Ushahidi is a geographical data mapping tool used by some websites.)

11.1.11

2011-01-11T21:59:00.003Z

Who could resist posting, with a date like today's. Especially as I haven't posted all year.

Post New Year crafting is concentrating on Pax Vobiscum.

However, bad blogger (or bad photographer) that I am, I am haven't taken before and after pictures. In words, I have finished the round bit of the 'P' of Pax, done the purple of the 'x' and legs of the hunting dog.

With no pictures, I might as well have used usenet, not a blog.

I also signed up for a dying workshop at Threads and Patches in Fenny Stratford. It's split into two sessions, two weeks apart. I just need to buy some white cotton to use. In an amazing feat of self-restraint while I was there, I just bought one skein of DMC and the TIAG "Blackberry Jam" chart.

As a postscript, best wishes to the people in Queensland. In my childhood, we had an Australian game called Squatter, about sheep stations. Your sheep station could face draught for several turns: being flooded would not break the draught. But now it is real people, real lives.

Leaf Quilt Leaves Quilted

2010-12-28T18:33:00.004Z

At long last, I have reached a major milestone in the leaf quilt.

I have hand-quilted the very last leaf.

The gaps were machine quilted some time ago, by Ferret.

It took a long time for me to handquilt each of the 33 leaves.

Actually, it wasn't too bad - 33 leaves, 36 months, slightly less then one a month. That's quite respectable progress. (Although the making of it started before I started the blog.) The advantage of having a blog, I suppose, a way to measure my progress against myself.

The next step will be to work out how to do the borders, and cut out the material and bind it (hand or machine?) and then photograph it, and post it. Hopefully before we redecorate the sitting room, which it is supposed to grace when it is finished.

The other big story of Christmas 2010 is the slight lack of heating.

Our oil boiler ceased to function on Christmas Eve morning, and although we managed - by dint of ringing every number in the phone book - to get someone out to see it in the afternoon, the news was not good. A major part had failed, the kind of part that costs hundreds to fix. However as the boiler itself is about 30 years old, and needed to be replaced soon anyway, we have decided that we won't bother with a repair. Of course, with bank holidays and the like, we haven't even had a chance to talk to possible installers yet (I'm hoping they don't shut up shop for the entire Christmas/New Year break).

On the other hand, we have budgeted for a new boiler, we don't have to worry about the cost of emergency purchase of electric heaters, we are not hungry, or thirsty, or oppressed, or afraid, or any of the other problems that afflict people this year.

And when I left the Church after going to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, the snow in the churchyard made it look like a Christmas card picture. It's sad to see it melting today.

I have much to be grateful for, as 2010 draws to a close.

Winter Solstice to come

2010-12-20T11:44:00.004Z

And having got the Tree we bought last year out of the garage, I am reminded that it is one of these new-fangled affairs with integrated lights, and a transformer at the base which can't be covered. Hmmm, no tree skirts this year then.

However, someone tweeted earlier: sgwarnog Tomorrow is an auspicious day: Full Moon (08:13) Total Lunar Eclipse (08:16) Sunrise (08:23) Sunset (15:47) December Solstice (23:38) (GMT)

Coming up to Christmas

2010-12-12T21:06:00.002Z

It's taken a while to start thinking about Christmas in anything but a vague "at the end of December, something usually happens" way.

But now it's nearly that time. Preparations started late this year, but on Friday, I recognised the junction I was driving past as being near the Bramble Patch quilt shop. So I parked and had a look round the shop. And I decided I liked the look of the hexagonal tree skirt, but the material from the square tree skirt, and they agreed to let me swop the patterns round, and I came home with a very nice set of material to make a tree skirt. Of course, the whole idea behind buying a kit was so I could just come home and make it, without thought, so why did I then search through my fabric looking for my other Christmas fabric? And then work out the trigonometry of exactly how long each of the strips needed to be. Material is now gathered, but uncut...

Today, our sitting room was tidied. And dusted. And hoovered. (Just like we do every day (hahaha).) And then the Christmas Tree was found in the garage, and the tinsel and the decorations, and the sitting room was decorated, and I am starting to feel like the Yuletide celebrations will soon be starting.

And after supper, I got out my little tin of needlework kits, and started on Bethlehem, from County Needlecraft.

Reflections - five years of blogging

2010-11-14T20:45:00.003Z

This blog has been going for five years today, sometimes with frequent posting, sometimes with infrequent.

At times, the blog has been a refuge, at others an obligation.

It has also been a practise run for the news blog which is now my job.

Five years ago - even one year ago - I certainly did not expect to be running a frequently updated website, which was read by hundreds, even thousands of people a day, including journalists from the national press, but it happened.

The life I have now, is the life I want. An exercise for the Open University's T160 course involved writing about your ideal life. Mine involved doing bits of research, bits of writing, bits of talking to people/giving speeches and possibly even going to meetings. And a month ago I realised that's the life I had.

In the last five years I have a new interest in the history of maths, although that is sadly neglected at the moment.

I'm also doing more craft then I was. I've learned that it is the number of things you finish that matters, not the number of things you start. I'm braver about trying new things - designing embroidery for instance.

I've met lots of interesting people, some only virtually, some in real life as well. The separate strands of my on-line life now merge, whereas I always kept them separate before.

There are many lessons I have learnt over the years. But the idea that really transformed my life most was a question: "looking at your life over the last week what would someone else say was your priority?"

The idea that you have a goal, a one-true-purpose in life is a straighjacket. Find something that interests you, that makes you alive, do it, head in that direction for a while. Don't expect to arrive whereever it is the signposts list, just follow the signs for a while.

When you find the purpose that matters, it will be almost impossible not to do it. If you haven't found it yet, head into the unknown, fearfully or fearlessly. The value in working out what your ideal life will look like is not so you can craft it, but so you can recognise it when you have it.

Finally, I succombed.

2010-11-09T21:30:00.001Z

Yes, I have joined the 13,000+ other people on Ravelry and started making a Baby Surprise Jacket.

I even bought yarn specially: the project needed easy-care yarn with long stripes, and I had nothing suitable. So I bought some James C Brett Bliss in a yellow/green/white combination, and cast on.

No pictures yet, not even the yarn.

FWIW, I will be coming up to my fifth blogaversary in a few days. Scary thought!

Tile 2

2010-10-26T21:15:00.003Z

Yes, I went to Ally Pally, and I even came back. No photos of my purchases, which were almost entirely sewing related.

Every time I've been, the West End Embroidery stall has drawn me in, to study carefully the fantastic embroidery kits. I've loved them every time, but they always looked too far beyond my ability...

Until this year, that is. I overheard someone commenting on them: it was obvious she'd done several. So I asked her whether they were really tricky - not at all, she said, much easier then they looked.

Buoyed on with her confidence, I bought Tile 2, almost the smallest and the simplest in the range.

But it lacked one thing: those lovely circular star like stitches, whose name I didn't know. I wanted to do them in the corners, and halfway along the side, in different threads to match, the rest of the pattern.

The corner stitch looked lovely. However the shiny rayon thread simply did not work at all. So I unpicked it and carried on and have now done all the squares around the edge.

Loden Progress

2010-10-06T21:16:00.002Z

When I met the Secretary of State last week....

I've been a bit busy, doing things like meeting the Speaker of the House of Commons and government ministers. Of course, it helps if one of them is your MP, but it still sounds impressive.

However, one thing I've found is that when I'm doing intensive brain work, knitting lace helps to rest my brain. It's not that it is relaxing, but somehow it uses a different set of brain cells to analytical thinking and provides a more thorough break then most other options.

However, Loden went wrong. Just like the other side of the front went wrong, I had to frog Kidsilk Haze. (The lace was not as even as I wanted it.) Now I'm slowly knitting back to where I was.

FWIW, I'm going to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandria Palace on Saturday. Anyone else?

Very, very, busy

2010-09-21T20:54:00.003Z

My children think they are neglected, my husband thinks he's ignored, no wonder I haven't posted.

But I have crafted, a bit.

A few rows of Loden to rest my brain between complex spreadsheet tasks. A little bit of embroidery when dealing with emails gets too much. A section of Moss on the Summit in the evenings, when my brain has had enough of writing.

Ta Da

2010-09-01T22:50:00.001Z

Well, that was fast. Started Monday, finished Wednesday, a cot quilt for a new baby.

Lindisfarne to Iona

2010-08-30T15:59:00.006Z

The wool I blogged earlier this month was bought while on holiday in Scotland. And then I bought some more, also 'local', also undyed.

On the first full day of our stay in Scotland, we went to Lindisfarne, and on the last full day we went to Iona. We didn't go to the abbey in either place (to be saved for another trip): and although the two islands are on the opposite coasts of the UK, the monastery at Lindisfarne was founded by St. Aidan from Iona.

Lindisfarne is cut off by the tide for a few hours at the time, and we thought we'd have time to walk round the entire island. We didn't: the walking guide said allow three hours for a three mile walk and this was surprisingly accurate, but it didn't tell us about the nasty spiky seed heads that caught onto trousers (jeans were OK) and spiked through onto the unhappy teenager. I made my first crafty purchase, a small cross stitch kit of a celtic cross. It came from a shop called Celtic Crafts, which was mainly a gift shop with a few small cross-stitch kits. It was small, but also covered with backstitch. I completed it during the holiday, and took photos at the nunnery on Iona.

We weren't staying at Lindesfarne, but in Coldstream, within a mile of the border with England. However, we went from there to Edinburgh a couple of times, and saw several shows at the Fringe. I went to K1 Yarns, a nice little yarn shop, but nothing tempted me there. Another shop which might interest craft-bloggers was the Grassmarket Embroidery Shop, a few minutes walk from K1, at the far end of the Grassmarket. It had a somewhat intimidating display of work in the window, and when I went in, there were racks of embroidery threads and other materials. The shop keeper was friendly and in the back room were some kits. However if you wanted to design your own work, this was the place to go.

Halfway through our trip, we drove to Loch Awe. We actually went through Stirling on the Saturday of UK Knit Camp and Ravelry Weekend 2010, but we didn't stop. We had a long drive to the banks of Loch Awe and the remote holiday cottage we were staying in.

We did various touristy things: a day in Oban, where I bought my First Yarn in Ages. It came from a croft (I think) a little way north of Oban.

On the last day we had a coach trip to Iona. We went from Oban by ferry, then a coach took us across the Isle of Mull, before another ferry took us the short distance to Iona. We walked to the end of the Island, and stared at the Atlantic.

Then back to the village, where I photographed my completed cross-stitch in the nunnery. We looked in the little gift shops, and I was unable to resist it: more new wool, a beautiful, soft, snowy-white ball of shetland, spun on Mull - we had passed the mill on the coach.

Having missed the Ravelry day in Stirling, I also missed the Festival of Quilts - even though we drove through Birmingham on the appropriate day.

I bought wool today

2010-08-16T19:15:00.002Z

The last time I bought yarn of any sort was January 2nd 2009.

It wasn't even for me: a ball of blue yarn in the sale, to make a phone case for my daughter, and a ball of red Debbie Bliss something-expensive to make an iPod case for the same daughter.

Then in an effort to use up some of my stash, I stopped buying yarn. (Only yarn, not material, not embroidery stuff, not patterns.) It was a challange to myself to avoid buying yarn for a year.

It was hard to begin with, the aching desire to buy something, anything just to own something new. (A whole year - how could I do it?) But I struggled through.

By the time, a year had passed, I'd got used to not buying any yarn. It annoyed me as well, that I'd bought wool at the start of January, so my year of not buying was oddly offset. I continued to not-buy-yarn until it became so long since I had bought something that the next thing I bought would be The First Yarn in Ages. It would have to be something worthy, something special, and nothing was quite that good enough, until today.

A single skein of Hebridean aran-weight undyed wool, slightly scratchy, but it will be warm, and comforting, and will be an accent in something, as yet unthought of. A souvenir, a special skein. Newly bought wool.

Crafting in August

2010-08-06T20:55:00.002Z

Progress made on Pax Vobiscum and Concentric Oblongs.

Summit had a bit of a hitch. I got to the end of the first ball and discovered that my other ball wasn't the same. Where the first had all been fairly muted changes, the second had darker darks and lighter lights. After some thought, I realised there was nothing much I could do about, and got knitting.

Unfortunately, a dark stripe appeared at the boundary between the two balls: the repeat in the yarn colours was just the same frequency as each little segment. I carried on for a while, but this bugged me more and more, until I could stand it no more and ripped back to where the new ball started. So now I am doing something complex, involving restarting the knitting using yarn from partway into the ball, and knitting towards the end, and then hopefully being able to continue at the partway point. It's too complicated to explain in words, but I'm just hoping it works, or it will be frogpool time again.

Craft a bit further in July

2010-07-18T19:28:00.002Z

Your wishes on my last post seems to have done it. I'm back crafting. Not a lot, enough to get over the "done nothing" hump.

I've done a bit of knitting on Summit, but not quite enough to finish the first ball.

I've done a bit of needlework on Pax Vobiscum, but lets face it, this one will take a very long time.

I've even done a bit of the handquilting on my leaf quilt.

School holidays in three days.

Craft mid way through July.

2010-07-13T11:57:00.002Z

July stitches knitted: 0
July stitches sewed: 22

So far a fairly pathetic month in the craft front. No especial reason, except I've got out of the habit.

I'm about to go onto my second ball of yarn on the Summit shawl, and the variation is much greater then on the first ball. What do I do? Do I take lots of photographs and blog it in excrutiating detail, or do I just get on and knit?

Craft in June

2010-06-30T21:01:00.002Z

Summit: nearly halfway, but the next ball of yarn has much more contrast between the different colours in it.

Concentric Oblongs: some, but not very much at all.

Words: many words carefully crafted together to form ideas that sound smooth and comfortable, but definitely do not stab like a stiletto into the heart of the enemy.

Hot peach slices

2010-06-16T10:47:00.005Z

At a family restaurent on Milton Keynes a while ago, I had a delicious dessert of what might best be called "fried fruit".

Yesterday, looking at the rather ripe peaches we had, I wondered about re-creating it. "There must be a recipe on google" I thought, but google didn't really seem to help. The nearest was a recipe on a site which included "gingered chicken", but that recipe had no ginger in the list of ingredients, or in the cooking instructions. Maybe they meant "gingered chickened surprise" where the surprise was that there was no ginger.

However, as it was the best I could find, I had to use it.

1) Cut fresh peaches into slices.
2) Melt some butter in a frying pan. (I used about an ounce, which was too much).
3) Add peach slices.
4) After a minute, sprinkle with soft brown sugar. Then sprinkle on some more (or not).
5) When you think it must be done by now, serve with creme fraiche.

And that was it, and it was very, very nice.

Left in the pan is a delicious looking combination of brown sugar, butter and peach juice: it looks like the butterscotch sauce my aunt used to make for ice cream.

Craft in May

2010-05-31T21:41:00.002Z

In May, I sewed on Pax Vobiscum, and I knitted on Summit. I didn't finish either - I'm not even halfway on either. On Pax Vobiscum, I'm still on the P.

And that is about it on the crafty front.

Pax for the politicians

2010-05-15T16:02:00.004Z

The Whig interpretation of history is that events unfold from an uncivilised past to the glorious present, in a smooth and fairly steady form of progress. This is especially true of the history of science, in which there are clear heroes and villans.

As we know, things are not quite so smooth: sometimes progress is lumpy and full of dead-ends, sometimes things even regress. The hero can be wrong. The theory can be discredited.

It was interesting to watch political history unfold this week. We had a crisis in Britain, the kind which will be written about in the history books. In a hundred years time, this last week will be an event to be written about in student essays, discussed in history programs and the subject of many a university thesis. If the coalition works, this week might be presented in a Whiggish manner, as the obvious stage in the evolution of British Parliamentary democracy.

I really hope it works.

In that light I offer a glimpse of the back of my Pax Vobiscum - pax vobiscum means "peace with you".

It shows the "a" and part of the "P".

FWIW, I did feel a bit sorry for Dr Brown, who, long before he became Prime Minister, was a lecturer in history. If his party had mananged a few more seats, then "Brown and Clegg" might have been the heroes of future history lessons. But I'm a lot more hopeful for the future with "Cameron and Clegg".

I'll get back to blogging when the election is over...

2010-05-10T13:21:00.001Z

Wanted:

Fat lady to go to 10 Downing Street and sing

Immediate start

Hello Blog

2010-04-25T15:34:00.003Z

Hello blog, do you remember me? I used to post here, about knitting and sewing and stuff.

So what have I been doing? I've been knitting Summit, but mostly when watching television. I've been sewing Pax Vobiscum, but I'm still doing the "a".

A bird built it's nest in the bush right next to our porch window, turning the porch into an observation box. We think some of the eggs have been broken, but there might be one left.

Two Green Beginnings

2010-04-06T21:05:00.004Z

The start of a green oblong and also the start of the fourth column:

My sister saw my knitting: she said the colours and the pattern reminded her of moss, not realising that Moss was the name of the yarn's colourway. It is Summit, photographed next to one of the little heathers we planted over the last few days.

Two New Projects

2010-03-31T15:45:00.002Z

Summit, from Knitty

hs2action

Radio Silence

2010-03-20T12:51:00.003Z

This week has been taken up by an unexpected, non-craft project, leaving precious little time to do any sewing or knitting, and nothing to blog about. The project will continue for some time, but I expect there will be more crafting time later.

My next oblong is dark green outside, with a pink inner rectangle.

Concentric Oblongs progress

2010-03-12T16:52:00.002Z

The second column (or row in the photo) of oblongs is nearly finished.

When I realised how long each colour block takes - between one and two hours - I stopped spending as long sewing on it. Even two hours is not very long, but it is significantly longer then 30 minutes each, which was my first estimate. OTOH, my first estimate for the number of oblongs was forty, and there will be only thirty.

I still love seeing the colour combinitions that my dice throws up, and it is a good study in colour values. In real life, the two greens are quite contrasting, whereas the orange and yellow blend. Similarly, by pairing a specific colour with two different colours you get a different feeling of dominance. More pictures to follow!

Origins of a design

2010-03-02T20:31:00.003Z

Fired with enthusiasm, I am designing a cross-stitch picture. Yes designing it - no kit, no chart, and only an image in my mind to follow.

It started with the colours, and a discussion on a forum of decorating schemes. Browsing blogs like Attic24 and moogsmum, there is an abundunce of crisp bright colours. Although we have those colours in my house, but they don't stand out, because they are tucked away among the wooden boxes and other neutral colour ornaments we have. So my plan is to pull them all together in one place and have a bright cheerful spot. Along with a cross-stitch picture in similar colours.

So on Thursday, I went to Threads and Patches' new shop in Fenny Stratford (much bigger then their old one) and had fun choosing the colours and the fabric. I came home with seven floss colours and some white Aida. (And some other stuff. And a desire to visit their car park with a camera.)

Having chosen the colours, I needed the design. I thought I knew some of the design, so I sketched it out on squared paper and added some bits and rearranged bits and finally thought I had the arrangement right. Then I got out the Aida, and counted squares to find out how big it was going to be, and it was tiny. Because 14count Aida has 14 squares to the inch, and 5mm squared paper only has about 5 squares to the inch. Whoops.

That was Friday lunchtime.

So I thought about adding bits to the design but that would not be true to the layout I wanted. So I wengt back to my design inspiration, which was "modern quilt", and I googled and followed up the links - I'd already come across the modern quilt guild, but there were lots of others.

And one style of design stood out: the one that encapsulated my idea is in this link. The colours were wrong, but the shapes were right. So I came up with a few ideas for the blocks, and I measured them out on the Aida, and I nearly started to sew.
I wanted to randomise the layout, and came up with the idea of rolling dice to set some paramaters. But the first set of options were way too complicated, and it took thought to simplify them to fewer options.

And now it was 4pm and I hadn't done anything else all day, so I stopped to do some of that anything else.

On Saturday morning I was at last ready to sew. But maybe I ought to check I was on the right lines, and I tacked (With sewing cotton) a few lines to ensure the layout was right.

But it wasn't. So I thought some more, and retacked the lines, and finally I was happy with the layout.

After lunch I made the first stitches, at last. But although I'd worked out I might even be able to do two blocks an hour, by the end of the afternoon, I had one block done, and I still hadn't been doing anything much else.

On Sunday, I started sewing again, and I seemed to spend most of the day sewing, so I should have made lots of progress.

Ho hum. I calculated I had done 275 stitches in the entire day. I've since worked out that a row of 11 stitches in a single colour takes over five minutes, so of course it is taking me longer then I expected.

But there is another reason - which I will reveal later, and I'm very pleased with at the moment.

Needlework not Knitting

2010-02-24T22:00:00.003Z

My knitting mojo must be somewhere, but it certainly isn't anywhere near me. For the last two weeks or so, I've only knitted at the knitting group. I tried picking up my current project today, but 20 minutes later, it was put down again.

What I have been doing is lots of sewing. Or to be precise, embroidery. All from other people's designs, in the form of kits. And the problem with that - from a blogging POV - is that the photos are not the most scintillating of blog candy.

Just look at these photos:
All of last year

28th January

21st February

24th February

If it was four photos of knitting or quilting or dressmaking, I could display them differntly: draped or folded, neatly piled or strewn. But embroidary is basically flat, the size if the piece is the same (even if the area covered by stitches changes). Even changing the backgound doesn't actually make a great deal of difference to the photo.

I am enjoying it, and I'm enjoying the needlework blogs I've been exploring. But my photos are a bit dull.

Celtic Knot or Not

2010-02-21T21:38:00.000Z

If one uses the dining room table for one's sewing machine, the machine has to be put away at frequent intervals. And then sometimes when it is put away, the machine stays put away for days... and weeks ... and months.

Which explains why nothing happened to my Celtic Knot (from Ferret's book) between about September (when I last posted about it) and a week ago. But the sewing machine stayed put away, and I got sidetracked with other things.

Then one of the kids needed the machine, so it got dragged out and crucially, not put away afterwards.

The following morning, the day before half term, it called to me, it's siren call keeping me from all the other possibilities. It was impossible to resist, especially knowing it was my last chance for over a week. I threaded the red thread into place, smoothed out my quilt sandwich and started to sew.

(I should make it clear that I am a novice at machine quilting, so what happened next is entirely my fault. And it was full of pins.)

I sewed a few inches of bias tape in place, and from the top it looked fine.
But because I was stopping and starting lots anyway, I used one of the stops to check the back. The back was not fine, the back had lots of skipped stitches.

I cut the thread, and started again in a different place. Soon I checked the back again, and there were still lots of skipped threads. So I rethreaded the machine, and started for a third time - and there were still lots of skipped threads.

Normally, I would stop at this point and do something else.

But I thought back to last summer, and helping Ferret at the Festival of Quilts, an event I still haven't properly blogged.

People visiting the gallery tended to open the conversation with one of several 'standard' comments (although the ways it would diverge after a standard response were endlessly fascinating). One standard conversation started with the visitor saying "it looks so difficult, I don't think I could do that" (or something similar). My answer was a variation on "what Ferret says is that if you start with the bit you can do, your skills will increase and then you'll be able to do things you can't do now."

"Hmmm", I thought to myself, "if I was saying that, then I'd better actually put it into practise".

So I had a cup of coffee and a biscuit, and started again. This time, I just continued, all the way round the knot, slowly and carefully, making sure that what I could see looked fine. It took about 45 minutes to go all the way round, but finally it was done. And I took it out of the machine and looked at the back. And I realised what the problem had been, because there were areas where there was no skipping. The skipping problem happened in the areas with lots of pins! The last bits of sewing were problem free because I had been taking the pins out as I sewed.

I finished off by sewing the other side of the bias tape in place, and declared it done (for the moment). I am actually very pleased with the result: the bias tape does not show up much, because it was cut from the same material as the background, but that was the effect I wanted. The red stitching shows up well on the blue backing material (although not in the photos) and again that was the effect I wanted. It isn't good enough for a reversable wallhanging, but I am pleased with it as a practise piece.

Oh yeah, what is it meant to be? It's the convection currents inside a star, and the blue is the night sky. I might use yellow instead of red for my next try, but it's sort of what I wanted.

Poor neglected blog

2010-02-17T18:22:00.003Z

It may appear neglected, but my poor blog is not forgotten. The next post will have Photos, for the first time in ages (assuming I can get it all together).

Instead a link: to Freelance Fabrics, an independant fabric shop with a good range of fabric, including printed vinyl. There is free parking as well. I came across it, because 'our' orthodontist is in the same shopping mall: the owner said he got a lot of trade from them. We've been past several times but at long last got to actually go in and look round, rather then racing back to school.

There address is Freelance Fabrics, 4 Kidlington Centre, High Street, Kidlington, Oxfordshire, OX5 2DL. It's to the north of Oxford, not far from the A34.

Right now I need to finish making soup, and then go to knitting.

Getting nowhere

2010-02-08T21:10:00.003Z

I sometimes feel like I seem to spend a long time making stuff, but never get anything done. It was with that sentiment I listed the projects I worked on in the sidebar.

The things I worked on in January were:

Wristwarmers for me
No 5 Crib (backstitch)
Knucks for J
Leaf quilt
Loden jacket
Knitted Christmas Tree
Knitted holly leaf
Elephant silhouettes
TT Scissor Keep
Limbo jumper
Elphine Socks

Eleven different things! Only three of them were finished, and two of those - the Holly Leaf and the Christmas Tree - were afternoon projects and hence forgotten about almost as soon as they were made. Seven of them were started a while ago, where "a while" does not mean last year. The other one was started after Christmas, and is still ongoing, but it has had several iterations.

The finishes were good, but what would have happened if I had concentrated on one other thing, rather then doing bits of eight? Some of them are very big, but others are just little fast things. I like varying what I am doing, but should I concentrate on just a couple? Or should I make sure I work on these other things more frequently? Added complication, in that there are a number of different crafts in that list - knitting (stocking stitch and lace), crochet, needlework, sewing. Complex, simple, big, small, designed myself or pattern. Different things to suit different moods, but is it too much?

Last Week...

2010-01-26T23:47:00.003Z

Last week was a week of restless crafting. Pick up project, do a few stitches, put down project, pick up other project, do a few stitches, put down project, repeat while more projects undone.

(Alas, no pictures today, sorry)

Between Monday morning and Wednesday teatime last week, I had done the following (in spite of spending a major amount of time out of the house each day):

1) stitched some of the elephant silhouette embroidery kit
2) Cast on right front of Kidsilk Haze jacket
3) added a few stitches to my travellers tales scissor keep
4) cast on the two sleeves for my Limbo jumper

Most of them had been languishing at the bottom of the projects heap for a minimum of two years, UFOs waiting to become WIPs again. Only the Loden jumper was at all current, and even that had it's Ravelry profile set to "hibernating".

But this wasn't some kind of impulse to get going on old projects. I had really wanted to start the following:

1) "Pax Vobiscum" cross stitch from Country Stitches, but I couldn't because I didn't have the right threads or background
2) Beret from a 1960s pattern, but none of my yarn was quite right
3) Something, anything new.

It was only the lack of supplies and time to buy something new that prevented me from starting a dozen new projects. The UFOs were sufficiently old that they seemed almost new.

However, without new supplies, I continued on with what I had. The elephant silouhettes has been worked on every day, and is nearly finished. The sleeves, aided by time at Knitting Group have grown well. The front of the scissor keep is finished. Only Loden has been ignored.

Beginnings of toolbox - or of clutter?

2010-01-21T20:19:00.000Z

Just recently, the BBC and the British Museum have started a radio series called "A history of the world in 100 objects". Episode 3 was on last night, but all the ones broadcast so far are available as podcasts here.

They are each 15 minutes long, so ideal to listen to if you want a crafting break from whatever useful stuff you should be doing. The second episode talks about an "Olduvai stone chopping tool", described as the oldest human object in the British museum.

And then the presenter said:

Lots of animals use objects, particularly of course apes, but what sets us apart from them at this moment in our evolution is that, unlike them, we make tools before we need them. And once we have used them we keep them to use again. It's the beginning of the tool box.

"No" I thought, "it is the beginnings of clutter. Humans have been collecting tools since before we were humans."

And then I thought of the prehistoric person making tools in advance, like some of us wander round the various craft shows buying shiny new tools just because one day we might want to make our own bias tape, or do whatever else it is that the manufacturers of the gizmos think we might want to do. We might not live in the veldt of the African plains, but the similarities are there.

From the Imperial War Museum Trip

2010-01-19T21:24:00.004Z

I bought a postcard of a poster urging people to knit socks from the Imperial War Museum.

If you search their image library with the keywords "knit", the images are mainly of people knitting during breaks. The images found by a keyword "sew" shows people sewing as work.

I thought it was of interest.

PS Thank you for the comments on my last post - much appreciated.

Not ready

2010-01-16T12:14:00.003Z

This morning I was not ready to open the curtains, and discover that the garden was green: but I did. It was still covered in white when I went to bed. Now there are a few tiny patches of snow, but most of the garden is just very, very wet.

Yesterday I was not ready to settle my remaining parent into a care home: but I did. It is clearly the right place, but I feel this is the kind of thing I should be doing in my 50s, not now. I felt a bit like I was letting my baby start at playgroup, with all the worries of whether they would look after them.

On the way home, I bought a magazine (not a craft one, a general woman's magazine) and a packet of ginger biscuits (it seemed more indulgant then chocolates) and did nothing useful all evening.

Data - retrieved

2010-01-13T16:42:00.002Z

Remember this post?

My tech support guy (aka husband) has retrieved all the data, including one set of specific photos I really didn't want to loose. I am, as you can imagine, very pleased.

I need to reset access to the website where I keep my photos, so although blogging can continue, it will be without pictures for a while. I also need to convert a bunch of files from one format to another, but at least I have them.

Starving Birds

2010-01-12T08:58:00.003Z

Like lots of the rest of England last week we had snow: 7 inches deep in the garden. This is a lot for our part of the UK, and it still covers the garden in a thick layer.

I came across a plea last week for people to put out food for the birds. With the ground covered or frozen, they can't get at their normal sources of food.

For the crafty among us, feeding birds does not have to be just a case of chucking out a few birdseeds: we can cook some bird cakes. These are definitely not "people cakes", but a mix of nuts (not salted), dried fruit, and biscuit crumbs held together by melted lard. There are lots of recipes on the web (and another one below).

We don't normally get many birds in our garden: there are too many local cats who cross through it, and anyway the countryside is over the fence. But in the last week there have been lots of birds: the crab apples which I felt guilty about leaving on the tree are all eaten now, and this means that probably there is very little food for them.

This morning, we had four pheasants come into our garden. We sometimes get one or two, but I have never seen more then that. But today, there were four.

As a craft-blogger, I know you will have fun making bird cakes. You may have the ingredients already - lard left over from making pastry for mince pies, the open pack of dried fruit that looked a bit too iffy for Christmas baking and maybe a pack of out-of-date walnuts. (Or is that just my cupboard?) Melt the lard and mix in the other ingredients. (I soaked the chopped apricot in boiling water for a few minutes first, because they were completely dried out.) Meanwhile prepare some yoghurt pots by making a hole in the bottom and threading string/wool through them: as I didn't have any yoghurt pots availble I lined a ramekin with greaseproof paper through which I'd threaded my string. Tip in the mix and leave to harden. When ready, tie to a tree.

Ideally, you will keep doing this til spring: the birds' reserves are spent, and they need to keep going until the breeding season. But even just a few times will help.

PS Please consider publicising this if you have a blog. Thank you.

What not to do with coffee

2010-01-09T16:26:00.002Z

My waking-up drink of choice is coffee. Few things are nicer then a cup of coffee drunk sitting up in bed while I slowly wake up.

Alas, a cup of coffee in the morning is not what my laptop likes. This morning's cup was not drunk, but dropped and spilled in equal parts between my laptop and the duvet.

The laptop is drying in the airing cupboard: DH is hopeful that the data might be retrivable...

It's a bit snowy...

2010-01-06T22:24:00.002Z

It might only be a few days into the new year. However I've already started four new bits of knitting since Christmas, finished two of them (admittedly they were tiny), and finished an 'old' project as well. Pictures to follow...

Woohoo! Squee!

2009-12-24T11:23:00.003Z

I was waiting for written confirmation, but the post van containing the letter seems to be stuck behind Father Christmas's sleigh, so here goes;

The result for my A297 Latin course with the Open University was a very good Level 1 pass with a Distinction!

As you can imagine, I am very pleased.

Now back to wrapping presents and making mince pies.

Waistcoat - done

2009-12-15T22:12:00.003Z

At last my waistcoat is finished and I am extremely pleased with it.

The kit was bought from a charity shop some time ago: at the time, it looked very dated, but I loved the colours. So into a cupboard it went, waiting for the perfect project.

And then, about this time last year, I went into Next (a UK clothing retailer) and was surrounded by garments in the colours and styles of the waistcoat from the kit. The perfect project was for it to be itself.

Yes, it needed a little bit of work to be the self it ought to be. The dark brown was wrong for the twenty-first century: when I piled some other yarns near it the red Rowan felted tweed livened up the other colours, and made it more modern. The kit waistcoat was too short, so I lengthened the ribbing (8 rows instead of 4) and made the body a lot longer. This had the effect of using up a lot of the main yarn, so I changed the colours above the yoke, and also the armhole.

There were lots and lots of ends to sew in, but I finished on Sunday. It was looking good.

On Monday I put it on, and it was instant love. I was hoping to like it, but instead it is gorgeous. Modern and retro and rustic, in colours I love.

Return of the Advent Candle

2009-12-10T22:02:00.002Z

A year ago, I was commenting on the silent ending of a family tradition.

I'm happy to say that about a month ago, Middle Kiddo and I bought an advent candle from a pre-Christmas fair in Milton Keynes shopping centre, and it lights up our evening meals.

There is a change to the tradition though - I don't light it any more. The kiddos take turns. Young Kiddo uses extra-long matches and blows them out immediately but Old Kiddo uses normal length ones and sees how long they will stay burn.

Craft of the Week: crochet

2009-12-02T10:09:00.000Z

Last week was crochet week.

I designed the following flowers - the colours come from the use of variegated yarn:

Then I went onto another block in my never ending Learn-to-Crochet Blanket. The stitch pattern was based on one I half remember from Magknits, a now defunct knitting magazine that used to be run by the owner of Yarn Forward.

It's currently about twice the size of this now: however we have started watching the DVD of the TV series 24 - we missed it when it was first broadcast, so are finding it compelling viewing. But it is also not the kind of program you can crochet through, too many things going on.

The closure of a bookshop is a sad event, but it does enable a reader to buy a now of books at reduced price. Borders bookshop was extremely busy on Monday lunchtime, but I managed to get Amigurumi and 201 crochet motifs, as well as a selection of other books. Plenty to keep me going for a while!

Flooding in Kendal

2009-11-19T22:32:00.003Z

It's a bit wet up there. The cottage where we stayed is not actually in the flood warning area, but it is very, very close to it ....

ETA: It's not our cottage: we stayed there for two weeks in the summer (and took the photo, which is my current blog-header).

Plans - fourth blogaversary

2009-11-14T20:10:00.003Z

I'd planned to post that my new header is a photo of the baktus scarf: I hung it on the drystone wall where we stayed. However this is not that that post.

I'd planned to show photos of the finished collar on my waistcoat, except it is just waiting for the final grafting together. So this is not that post.

I'd planned to find something particularly nice to make as a blogavarsary giveaway, but I haven't. So this is not that post.

However, it is four years since my first post on this blog. I've met people in cyberspace that I wouldn't have without it. I've met people in peoplespace. I've made things because of it. I've enjoyed it. And driving to work yesterday I thought about stuff and decided my life is good, and I am happy.

This is the post that says those things.

PS Thanks for the nice comments about the new header.

Waistcoat update

2009-11-06T14:46:00.002Z

The Latin exam has been and gone, but it has taken a while to get back into blogging. Even crafting was neglected: no knitting, no sewing, no crochet. Possibly I might have extended the break for longer, if it hadn't been for my forthcoming blogaversary coming up in mid-November.

Yesterday however I got out the waistcoat again to see what I was doing. There had been a difficult decision to make about the collar - I'd got up to the place where the collar needed to bend round the neck.

Now that it had been left to ruminate, the decision was quick to make and easy to put into action. The collar is seven stitches wide and instead of knitting back and forth, I added some short-rows.

It is hard to find instructions on the web, so this is a simplified version of what I did: the collar is seven stitches wide. In reality, the inside stitch also picks up one of the waistcoat edge stitches, thereby joining them together, and the outside two stitches are garter stitch

*Row 1: K7
Row 2: P4 W&T
Row 3: K4
Row 4: P7*
Repeat two more times.
Two rows stocking stitch
Two more short row sections.
Continue in stocking stitch.

Abilities of a fictional eight year old

2009-10-20T12:47:00.001Z

Young Esk has been discovered after stowing away on a barge. The owner is deciding whether to let her stay with them.

Esk ... said " 'I don't mind sleeping in the fleeces. And I can pay my way. I can do - ' She hesitated; ... discretion made a successful bid for control of her tongue ' - helpful things'.
...
' What sort of helpful things?' he asked. 'Washing and sweeping, yesno?'
' If you like,' said Esk, 'or distillilation...; I can spin, card, rett, flallow, and weave on the hand, frame, harp and Noble looms and I can knit if people start the wool on for me...'
'And can you play a musical instrument?'
Esk returned his steady gaze, not batting an eyelid. 'Probably.'"

From "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett

I loved the way that Esk knows her limits: she is extremely confident about her ability to do almost anything, but the one thing she can't do is to cast on.

This is from the third book of the Disc World series, a humorous fantasy series. Knitting crops up on a number of occasions in the books.

Submerged

2009-10-05T15:46:00.001Z

sub - takes the ablative, under
mergo - meaning to sink or cover over, 3rd conjugation

submerged - from the Latin: what happens when one studies hard for an exam (next week!) and has no spare brain power for blogging.

iSo iPod case

2009-09-29T10:54:00.000Z

Just a quickie, the iPod case I made for Kiddo. It is from Debbie Bliss Rialto, and is all (UK) double crochet. The body was done with the yarn doubled, on a 4.5mm crochet hook, and the flap was a single strand with a 4mm crochet hook. According to my Ravelry notes, I started in March: OTOH, I did frog it and restart, because it was too snug.

Thame show

2009-09-27T20:50:00.004Z

When last seen, our heroine (that'll be me) was debating whether to go to the new quilt shop in Buckingham the following day.

I didn't - I went to the Thame show instead.

Several members of our knitting group had entered the domestic items competition - here is the display.

The shawl at the back won first prize and was made by Sue. Yvonne won second place, with the dark purple tank top at the front. Also made by members of our group was the red hat and the multi-coloured sweater at the back. (Picture is clicky, if you want more details).

I took a number of other photos of various animals, but you've seen pictures of cows and alpaca and sheep before, so just mentally insert them here:

My favourite sight was the queue through a small wood to the entrance:

Red square again

2009-09-16T15:36:00.003Z

The red square of fabric now looks like this:

Not a lot different I'll admit, until you compare the positioning of the bias binding today:

with yesterday (the green lines show yesterday's positions, the black line as it today):

At the moment, however, not all the binding goes over-under-over. I might leave it like that, I'll decide tomorrow. I am also debating whether to go to Buckingham and see if I can find the new quilt shop there. There is no street address on their website.

A morning's work

2009-09-15T17:12:00.003Z

Producing this took me most of the morning:

It is far more complex then just a red square of fabric with a few pins in it.

I took two pieces of red material - the same fabric range, but different dyelots. Following the instructions in Ferreting Around, I made one piece into bias tape. Next I searched through my other books for the right celtic knot for what I had in mind, and marked some of the intersections using pins. Then without marking the whole of the knot, I pinned the bias tape onto the material:

The knot shape is a bit lopsided and uneven - due no doubt to not marking the material first. Here, I used the Gimp to draw a line following the lines of the pinned bias tape. I'm still thinking how best to alter the shape so it looks more even.

Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Festival of Quilts Photos

2009-09-09T21:28:00.004Z

A small selection somewhat delayed:

I love these two landscape quilts by Jenny Bowker. I'd seen them in pictures, and it was marvellous to see them in real life.

The colour on this quilt was entirely done by embroidery: it was made by Veronika Chambers.
I love the bursts of colour in this panel

A miniature quilt by Kristien van Schalkwyk: the smallest squares had sides of 1/4 inch.

My own creativity is taken up with my last bit of Latin coursework, and my crafting by the vast numbers of nametapes associated with a new school.

Home Again!

2009-09-01T20:11:00.001Z

At last, I'm home!

Yeah, we've come back from our trip to Kendal, near the Lake District.

OK, I didn't tell you about it in advance: posting to the entire internet that the house is empty for a week or two does not seem a wise thing to do. So I go to the other extreme, although I did let the people I met at the Festival of Quilts know. (That is why DH was such a star - he was incredibly supportive of my decision to abandon him with the children when we were supposed to be on holiday.)

It's also why I could only blog by email: we have a mobile broadband dongle, but our settings were incredibly strict parental, which allowed me to log on to my spare email provider, but not blogger's dashboard.

Over the next few posts, I'll put up some more details of the Festival of Quilts (with photos!), pictures of the house where we stayed and details of our walks.

More Later

2009-08-24T21:53:00.001Z

Right now, I'm not able to get onto the Internet normally, but can post via email. So no pictures of the Festival of Quilts yet. I didn't realise how tired I was, until I was on the train from Birmingham. Then I collapsed. I was so pleased to see DH waiting for me at the station - he was a real star.

It was fun to meet some of Ferret's friends - Sally, Tet, Cy and Nic. I also enjoyed helping her on her gallery. My viewpoint was different from Ferret's: it wasn't my work, so there wasn't any personal pride/worry about people's reactions to it. Funnily, it wasn't until Friday afternoon that anyone asked about me, and then several people did. My answer, "I'm not a professional quilter, just a slow amateur one". They liked that: they could relate to it.

Anyway, I'll post properly later, with a fuller description of what I've been up to.

Festival of Quilts - quick review

2009-08-21T21:13:00.001Z

I've had a good two days at the Festival of Quilts. I did spend a lot of time at Ferret's stall - pictures on her blog (http://ferfab.blogspot.com/2009/08/festival-of-quilts-day-1.html It was fun to help out. I ended up wearing a quiltart t-shirt, so I wasn't mistaken for a random stranger, and then added a badge which said "I'm not Ferret", so I wasn't mistaken for her. For some reason, if people assumed I was Ferret, they were much less embarrassed when I could point to the badge to correct them. I felt a bit like Slartibartfast - "my name is not important".

If you go, do have a good time.

On turning heels

2009-08-19T18:15:00.003Z

"I kicked off my shoes and flopped on the sofa next to Gran, who had fallen asleep over a sock she was knitting. It was already a good twelve feet long, because, she said 'she had yet to build up enough courage to turn the heel'."

From "The Well of Lost Plots" by Jasper Fforde.

A very good book from a very enjoyable series. They are impossible to describe, without spoiling the plot, beyond perhaps saying they are to literature what Douglas Adams is to science fiction.

PS Festival of Quilts tomorrow and Friday. Yay! I should have my stripy bag and I'll spend some time at Ferret's stall - E29.

Festival of Quilts - all booked

2009-08-11T09:12:00.003Z

At long last, I've booked a hotel for the Festival of Quilts and ordered the tickets. I'll be there Thursday and Friday, not sure when I'll get there on Thursday but probably be around for most of Friday.

I'm hoping I got the last room at the Novotel. After I rang them and reserved a room on the phone, I checked their website and there were no (more) rooms available on the Thursday. This was the third hotel I tried, so if you are thinking about staying overnight, you probably want to book soon.

I'm planning to hang around Ferret's stall (E29) for some of the time, I'm sure she won't mind if you want to meet me there.

One, two, three, four

2009-08-07T12:34:00.002Z

Due to the magic of scheduled posting, there is a chance that this post appeared at 12:34:56 on 07/08/09. But it probably didn't.

In-laws staying...

2009-08-04T17:02:00.001Z

'nuff said.

New Ruler

2009-07-31T12:58:00.000Z

Today I bought a new ruler.

Not just any ruler, but a special ruler.

It's not special because it is green.

It's special, because one side is completely plain and unmarked.

Just what I need for talking to youngsters about ancient Greek maths.

(75p from Tescos. Bargain)

Scarf Progress

2009-07-29T20:37:00.002Z

Thanks for the comments on the last post. I'm not the only slow-crafting Latin-reading blogger out there then.

When knitting a garter stitch scarf, progress should be smooth shouldn't it, and not require frogging much? The only complex bit of the Baktus scarf was that during the first half of the scarf, you increase on occasion, and for the second half, you decrease. However progress was in fact slow, and involved three lots of frogging.

It went like this

Tuesday: cast on a swatch to choose the right needle size
Wednesday: frog swatch, start knitting
Thursday: realise that yarn-over increases create holes, and there is no easy decrease which will make holes at the other end: frog knitting completely
Friday: realise that the scarf is coming out quite triangular, rather then a crooked rectangle. Decide to change the increase frequency, hence frog half progress to date.
Saturday: knit lots
Sunday: knit a bit
Monday: don't knit
Tuesday: knit a bit
Wednesday: knit a teeny bit, blog

Unfortunately, I haven't got a good photo of the scarf at the moment. This picture was taken when I was trying to work out whether to change the rate of increases:

Confessions and Comparisons

2009-07-22T22:28:00.002Z

I have a confession to make.

I am not a prolific crafter. I knit slowly, I sew slowly, I have too many WISPs. When I compare myself to other people on the 'net, they are all finishing stuff far faster then I do.

It's not even as if I have numerous commitments: other prolific crafters have far more the I do.

That's why I've been a bit quiet recently.

But comparisons are pointless, aren't they?

I haven't posted about all my successes, like the marks I got in my Latin TMAs - the first two were so high that I have passed the coursework component even before I submit the last two TMAs.

I haven't boasted about DH, or Kiddo's SATS results. I haven't talked much about the KS2 Ancient Greek maths sessions I've run.

So what if someone makes three quilts in a week, or churns out jumpers at a rate of knots! Let them be prolific, and I'll draw circles and knit direct from the hank. If I'm enjoying what I do, does it matter how long it takes? They might be about to spin a fleece fast, but I can say "I sheared a sheep today" in Latin.

However, in the light of this post, just why did I start knitting a laceweight scarf at the knitting group tonight?

--------------------------------

WISP == Work in Slow Progress
hodie ouem totondi == "I sheared a sheep today"

Ferret's Book - preorder now

2009-07-13T22:33:00.002Z

Just a quick note to say that Ferret's book will be launched at the Festival of Quilts, but you can pre-order it now, via her website. She'll even sign it for you!

I've seen some of her student's quilts, made using the pattern, and they are really good. It is a world away from the sampler quilt I started as a beginner's project.

Ancient Greek Day - the Next Gen

2009-07-04T21:33:00.002Z

I've got some news! But first you have to read the rest of the post :-).

The children seemed to enjoy the ancient Greek maths I talked about in the last post. I was a bit thrown by the boy whose dad had already shown him how to draw equilateral triangles. However, my book about maths showed you the next proposition from the Elements - how to copy the length of a line from one place to another, and the two of us worked through that together. He seemed to enjoy it.

What really impressed the children at the end was showing them how to draw a hexagon, using only ruler and compass.

There were several people helping and teacher organising the day mentioned that her mother (she is a young teacher) would be having a similar day at her school. So I muttered something about being willing to be run a similar session if the mother was interested.

And here is the news:

I had phone calls from people at two different schools.

One was from the aunt of one of the pupils. She was wondering if I'd be willing to a similar session for her school. (I was willing, but there has been no follow-up from there).

However the teacher's mother got in touch as well. It's all arranged: I will now be doing a similar session for a completely different age group at a completely different school.

This could be the start of something!

Koine Greek

2009-06-21T20:39:00.002Z

One idea I've toyed with for a while is the idea of learning Koine Greek so I can read the New Testament in the original. This is slightly (very slightly!) less daunting for someone with a maths/physics background, because so many of the letters are used to stand in for various parameters - lambda (λ) for wavelength, pi for 3.14, etc. Alpha, beta and gamma particles come in to nuclear physics (needed in astronomy), delta is a variable in calculus and so on.

However, I'd put that aside because it is more necessary to learn the seventeenth century language of Science: Latin.

This weekend I'd gone back to Greek, for tomorrow I will be teaching a session on ancient Greek mathematics for Year 5 (9 - 10 year olds). I couldn't find all the notes I'd made last year, so I was checking up Greek maths words still in use today. I stil get a small kick out of the fact that the modern words for parable and for parabola are the same in Greek (which came first? I wish I knew).

The topic I will teach is the Elements, the famous Greek geometry book used for 2000 years as the basis of geometry. And in my surfing, I came across this website, about learning Greek to be able to read the Elements. The text of the Elements that we have is written in the literary koinh/ typical of the 1st century AD it said.

So now comparing the Elements (second most published book) and the Bible has another strand: it uses the same language.

Translucent in the sun

2009-06-18T14:35:00.002Z

Now that it is nearly used up, the ball of Kid Silk Spray glows translucent in the morning sun.

But will there be enough to finish the sleeve?

As I get closer to the end, with six rows to go (and the casting off), it is looking uncertain...

My new purse

2009-06-15T22:17:00.006Z

Having shown you some of the material, I ought to show you the resulting purse (that's purse in the UK sense of coin purse):

Opening it up, you can see several of the pockets. The front pocket and the one behind are from the material shown here - the back of that fabric is completely plain.

The pattern was the Lazy Girl Designs Wonder Wallet:

(I didn't use all the material in the background)

Firstly it is simple to make: it took me less then two hours, and I was going quite slowly, admiring it at intervals. Secondly, the pattern is well-written. You have to read it through first, but there are no places where the instructions are unclear. I think if I made it again I might make the opening for the change pocket narrower (you'd see what I mean if you had the pattern in front of you). Also I'd consider a popper to keep the back pocket shut.

So over all, a thumbs-up from me.

Mystery of the Missing Knitting Needle, Part II

2009-06-12T21:48:00.002Z

I found my missing knitting needle. It was in the door pocket on the driver's side.

I have not yet worked out how it could have got there - if I'd put it somewhere in the car, I'd have put it on the passenger seat. But I'm just glad I found it.

Woe is me

2009-06-11T06:45:00.003Z

This will be me this morning: there is a planned electricity outage in the village this morning

see more Funny Graphs

Secondly, I thought I'd nearly finished my waistcoat. That was until I tried putting it together and it became obvious the armholes were much to big. However because I'd changed the stripe pattern on the back, I needed to frog back to that and change it back. Lots of knitting, but it was also the s'n'b night. By this point, there was one needle upstairs with my knitting, where I had been trying it on, and one downstairs: I took everything downstairs and made sure I put the downstairs needle in my bag.

I got to the knitting group, did my frogging, and went to start my knitting. But I only had one needle. They are an unusual size, between 8mm and 9mm, so no-one else had one I could borrow. I had no alternative project, and no-one had brought along any spare magazines. It was this project or nothing. Luckily the wool was quite 'sticky': so I did a rather convoluted thing of putting the stitches on a (borrowed) smaller needle, knitting onto my needle, pulling the needle out and putting the stitches onto a small needle again.

When I got home, I looked in all the places where my needle might be, it wasn't there. I think I must have taken it to knitting, and while I was frogging, it dropped silently to the floor and rolled off. Normally when it is time to go home, I stay and help tidy up the hall, but last night there was someone going early and my car was blocking her in. Seeing as I had to move my car, I drove home anyway (the space is constricted, and parking again would have been a complex process). Hopefully someone spotted it and picked it up, and will return it next time. In the meantime, I'll just have to continue with the removing stitches marlarky.

It makes me happy

2009-06-07T19:46:00.002Z

This picture makes me very happy for two reasons.

1) Firstly, I am making the purse pattern bought on Friday. The intent was to make it using oddments different stash fabrics, so I selected some stash to make it with, photographed the fabric and ironed it. But when I unfolded this L-shaped piece, I realised that the fat leg was exactly 6.5 inches wide: I have a long-term project that involves squares of fabric that have sides 6 to 7 inches long.

Reviewing the sizes needed for the purse, I could cut out two pieces (marked 1 and 2 in the picture), the 6.5 inch square (marked 3) and that would leave me a selvage piece (marked 5) and a single other piece which was approximately 14 inches by 2.5 inches (marked 4). Having such neat pieces left over makes me feel happy.

2) Secondly I now know more about using the GIMP graphics program then I did this morning. (Noted here for future reference.)

To draw the straight lines, you go to the Tools menu on the image pane and select "Paths". Click on the original image for the first end, and then again at the other end. This effectively shows the ruler you are about to draw along.

Then go to the edit menu, and select "Stroke Path". This gives a pop up window, allowing you a variety of options for the line. I selected "Sroke with a paint tool" and my tool was pencil.

The numbers were added using the text tool.

More pansies

2009-06-05T22:57:00.003Z

Remember the pansy fabric I bought on the shop hop?

Well I bought some more.

At the shop hop, they were handing out 10% off voucher for June as the shop is moving at the end of the month. So I had a day out today, taking in the nearby garden centre and Ikea as well.

I bought to the end of the bolt of the small pansy fabric - 1.45m, so not too extreme. I got 1.5 m of the large pansy fabric. There was also a fabric with just purple pansies, so I got a metre of that as well.

The other purchase was a pattern for making a purse, and the velcro necessary to finish it. The pattern isn't on their website.

Unfortunately the weather today was not conducive to washing and drying it rapidly. And tomorrow I have my Latin tutoral.

Gardens, and buttercups

2009-05-31T20:47:00.002Z

Whenever I try and take photos of our front garden from our front door, we get a wonderful view of a neighbour's car. It's not their fault, it is just the way our houses and garages are laid out. From other different angles, the photos have our other neighbour's garden providing a beautiful backdrop, but fooling casual viewers into thinking they must be part of our garden. So, much as I love our front garden, I've never put up pictures.

Today, however, the neighbours opened their garden in the National Garden Scheme. Of course, I went to have a look, and I got a quite reasonable view of our front bed.

The wall is the boundary between our garden and the shared driveway. The roses are in our neighbour's garden: the two little beds you can see clearly make up half our front garden: the other half is very similar, but hidden by the rose bush. The paths with the wide paving slabs go round our house, although you can just see where the path changes to gravel. You can't see our lovely statues: two Easter Island style heads (bought ten years ago, when they were unusual) and a rock with a Celtic Cross carved into it.

We didn't just visit one garden but walked through the village and utilised a sneaky footpath. This led us through a field completely full of buttercups.
It put me in mind of Wordsworth's host of daffodils.

Transformations

2009-05-25T23:19:00.006Z

During the weekend, the whole family painted the summerhouse. It had been plain wood, both outside and inside: now the outside is "wild thyme" and the inside "country cream", like the colours of the arbour in the link here. Suddenly it has become a place for the children to hide away in, to flop on the chair in there, to read, to chat, even to take the laptop.

There are on-line transformations as well.

I might over-think things, but I feel that my avatars and blogger profile pictures must be personal and unique. This can be tricky: I can't use a picture made by anyone else and I can't use a picture of an object made by someone else. Hence no balls of wool, or knick-knacks of any type. No matter how lovely a photo I could take of my favourite material, it's a no goer as far as avatars are concerned.

My blogger picture features a bag I made some time ago, but by the time I needed avatars for Ravelry, the bag was worn out and no longer in regular use. So I used the photo I had taken of the fabric pieces which Kate sent me a while ago and cropped the background out. I've been using it every since.

However, I've been wondering whether it is time for a change of picture. Not any old picture but a specific one. This specific photo has many meanings for me. It is of a place that is specifically connected with the future I want to create, it is the actual place where an exciting future will be forged.

However, it is also a symbolic picture. It reminds me that when you look ahead at an apparent dead-end, it might just be that you can't see the way out. It reminds me that sometimes the path is all you can see. It reminds me that the other possibilities and the destination are unknown and unexpected. It also reminds me that just because the path looks constricted, there can be choices at the end.

But to change it all at once, I feel, would make me unrecognisable. So yesterday evening, I experimented and played and finally came up with a series of images which enable me to slowly change my old avatar for my new one. The new look is only slightly different, just like dying your hair is only a slight change in appearance:

PS I did want to have this picture as my blog header, but the one I took is fuzzy and out-of-focus on the large scale. It looks fine in the small scale, such as a 100 pixel square (or the screen on a camera), but not on the large scale. Well, I took two, the fuzzy one, and the badly composed one.

Destashed

2009-05-21T16:44:00.002Z

I've done quite a bit of wooly destashing recently.

First to go was a pack of 10 balls of Sirdar denim tweed. I bought them years ago. However, nothing happened with them, and they became the Stash I Must Use Soon, slightly guilt inducing but with no obvious project. I put them on my Ravelry trade page, but never got as far as advertising them.

And then out of the blue, someone contacted me to buy them. So now they are gone.

The second lot went at a tabletop sale held in the village hall. The children had grown out of several bags-worth of children's clothes. As they get older, clothing gets harder to pass on to friends, so I usually take small quantities to charity shops. However, this collection included the Brownie jacket which had been worn for the first time on the evening when Brown Owl suggested Kiddo could go up to Guides. Kiddo was the youngest of the eight Brownies due to go up "soon", so I'd been expecting her to get a little bit more wear out of it.

Anyway, the sale started with a table full of children's clothes in good condition, and a few balls of wool and other odds and ends underneath. Unfortunately very few clothes went: the Brownie uniform did. Also a new Dalek sweatshirt (present, never worn) was bought by a boy who put it on immediately - seeing someone who loved it so much really made my day.

At the end of the sale, one of the other stallholders asked about the wool: she got an absolute bargain, especially as I had forgotten there were two balls of Louisa Harding Kimono Angora at the bottom.

The last destash was a novelty yarn scarf kit: a present with sentimental value, but I couldn't see myself using it.

So that was over 21 full balls out of the house, plus some partial balls.

But this is the part which is best: earlier this week, a website was having a one-day only sale, with 18% off everything. They sell Hanne Falkenberg kits, and I would love to make one at some point. Probably Mermaid. Or Ballerina. So with all my destashing, I had a good excuse to buy one.

But I didn't.

I can get one another time, and my stash is so nicely contained at the moment.

Twenty-one full balls gone, no new ones.

Two out of Three Aint Bad

2009-05-17T08:13:00.002Z

(If you have come from the school reunion, hello and welcome to my blog.)

At last I have :-

a working internet connection
my photocard reader for uploading pictures

Unfortunately I do not have

time to post

right now.

Three Hours

2009-05-01T21:19:00.002Z

I don't wash fabric in advance. I'll wash it before I use it, but usually only a day or so in advance.

Today was an exception.

At 2.30 I was debating whether to get any of this fabric, and if so how much of it to get. It is gorgeous (if you like purple and yellow pansies), a riot of glorious colour. But I didn't know what I would do with it, I just really wanted to own it.

By 5.30pm, I had bought it, driven home, started to make soup, washed it, hung it in the garden to dry and ironed it. A total of three hours from bolt to ironing board.

What I hadn't done then, (and still haven't) is decided what I will do with it - I have 1.25 m of the small pansy fabric and 1m of the large pansy fabric.

It came from Threads and Patches, one of the shops in the Shop Hop. This shop seemed to have a fairly whimsical style, and a range of interesting kits. They also had a reasonable amount of fabric, as well as embroidery stuff. The shop itself is moving soon, although not very far.

Patchwork Corner, the other shop I visited, has mainly quilt stuff, lots of kits, and a new machine for cutting out fabric. This machine was being demonstrated (as well as lots of other things).

What was really interesting to see were the quilts made by Ferret's quilt class. They were mostly made by beginners, but they look much more complex then you would expect (quite different from the sampler quilt that was taught at my beginners quilt class). Seeing the same quilt in different colours is always interesting, and these were no exception.

Oh, and did I just buy the pansy fabric? Don't be silly :-).

Shop Hop on Friday

2009-04-27T20:29:00.002Z

Craft blog? I've heard of those, I'm sure I left one lying around somewhere. All my crafting is rather dull at the moment, it all seems to be mostly acres of stocking stitch.

OTOH, there is a shop hop on Friday/Saturday. Patchwork Corner in Hemel Hempstead, Threads and Patches in Fenny Stratford and Art van Go in Knebworth are taking part.

I have plans to go on Friday. I'll be going to Patchwork Corner and I expect to go to Threads and Patches as well. Maybe I'll see you there??? (Maybe I'll wear my ravelry badge, that would be a good way of spotting me.)

Picnic Photos

2009-04-16T22:46:00.003Z

At last, the bloggery picnic photos. All pictures clickable, but they download slowly.

Some of the people who came. Also, note the pockets in the chair - balls of yarn and knitted rabbits.

Kate's quilt, and a lovely insulated picnic bag.

Moogsmum's quilt

Detail of quilting - isn't it cute?

Kitty's quilt

Before the Egg swop

Child in tree

PS Sorry for the uninspiring prose, but I wanted to get these up.

The bloggery picnic report

2009-04-09T20:53:00.002Z

Full marks to Lucy Locket for organising the bloggery picnic. It was fabulous.

Even though I'd never met anyone there, I felt like I knew them all. We arrived at Millet's Farm early (it was closer then the route planner implied), so the kids and I spent 15 minutes looking round. At the alloted hour of 11am, we approached the swings, hoping to find the right group. And we did - Jane and her daughter. I think we were both relieved not to be alone, but we soon spotted more bloggers. Introductions were made, people swopping name, blog-name and craft.

Then we found a spot on the grass. Picnic mats - including some home-made ones - were unfolded, and we settled in for hours of chatting, eating, watching kids play, more chatting, cups of tea from the restaurant and even more chatting. Children played together, teenagers chatted or ignored each other.

After lunch, the Easter Egg swop happened: a pile of Easter Eggs on the ground, and the youngest got to pick first. Eve (a lovely person) had brought some little packets of mini-eggs as well. Then the grown-up swop. I got a pretty fish picture from Emma (no blog as far as I know), and the bag I'd made went to Julia.

(The pattern came from Village Fabrics: it was part of a kit, but I used different fabric.) And there was more chatting. And some people got out sock-knitting, and the people who hadn't brought any sighed, and wished they had got theirs. Did I mention, we all chatted?

I'm not going to do a roll-call, because I always worry I'll miss someone out. But Lesley and Lucy were just like their blogs. Ali (big sister) is less bossy then might be supposed. Julia (little cotton rabbits) is a lovely person, Kate makes gorgeous bags. I didn't spend nearly long enough talking to Kitty or Jane. And Ali and Trash were there too.

(Pictures are waiting for DH to find the memory card reader: he had it at the weekend.)