Transformations

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

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

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


At last I have :-

1. a working internet connection
2. my photocard reader for uploading pictures

Unfortunately I do not have

3. time to post

right now.

Three Hours

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

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

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

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.)

That was fun

I'm just back from the bloggery picnic organised by Lucy Locket.

It was fun to meet such a lovely group of people. The saying "a stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet" seemed so true. Photos and more details later.

Tomorrow...

I'm busy looking for the green stripy bag in my profile picture - it has been honourably retired for some time, and may be sunning itself on the Riveria or something.

(You really thought I looked like that? Oh.)

PS Ferret, if you haven't got an email from me, its 'cos I haven't sent one - but I can't do Thursday.

Lanarius - person who does stuff with wool

lanarius - wool-worker

One of last week's Latin words was lanarius. It may not surprise you, but I wanted to find out exactly what a "wool-worker" was supposed to do, and so I've spent far too long on the 'net trying to find out exactly what a lanarius did.

The typical translation seems to be "you know, the person who does stuff with wool". An alternative - in an old English-Latin dictionary - was "wool-draper", probably using "draper" in the sense of "fabric seller". Eventually it turned out that the suffix "-arius" did in fact signify "person who does stuff with...".

The English-Latin dictionary also had a translation for woosted: woosted being the old form of "worsted", the spinning term. The Latin it suggested was "lana subtilior contexta", which when translated back into English is "wool finely/simply woven/connected". Not being a spinner, I don't know whether that is a reasonable description of worsted - perhaps some of my readers know?

My investigations also led me to a phrase from Pliny - "lanae et per se coactae vestem faciunt"

If you search out where it came from (Pliny's Natural History, Book LXXII, a copy here,) the whole sentance reads:
"lanae et per se coactae vestem faciunt et, si addatur acetum, etiam ferro resistunt, immo vero etiam ignibus novissimo sui purgamento"

I'm inclined to translate this:
"Wools and forces-it-against-itself makes clothing and, if bound with vinegar, they even resist iron-swords, but truly as well, the newest way of cleaning them is by fires."

If you are an RPGer, you will recognise cloth armour in that description, and if you are into knitting, you will recognise the burn-test for checking whether something is wool or not.

Pliny has more about sheep, but translating that will wait until I know more Latin words.

By the way, day's blog post is brought to you by my Latin TMA - the tutor called it "an excellent start", and I'm generally feeling smug.

Waistcoat worries

Do you remember this? That's the waistcoat I'm knitting from a charity shop kit. It's been my watching TV knitting, and has been chugging along nicely. I've made some changes: for instance there is more ribbing at the bottom, and the body is a bit longer.

I'd long been aware there probably won't be enough of the main colour to do the pattern as shown.

So I'd been hopping around a bit: the back up to the top stripes, then each of the fronts to the top stripes. Above the stripes, I'd planned to continue with the very pale colour to the shoulders.

On my second front, with two rows to go to the start of the stripe pattern, I had this much main colour left:


And then I looked lower down, matching the stripes earlier in the pattern:



And I looked higher up:



There was a definite difference in length! Only two rows, but when each row is about 0.6 cm, two rows difference is a lot.

So I frogged - lots - and knitted it again, and forgot to take any photos. I just had enough of the main colour to finish that side, with about 30cm to spare. All is well with the world.