Aiming for a chart hit - the Old Oak Lament

Absolutely great song, please buy it. Details here.

Take a Stitch Tuesday

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

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

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

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

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

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....

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

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

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

Just saying...

A new kit

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.