People, I bring you good news. The sort of news that could result in you receiving an enormous and colourful parcel of yarn on your doorstep some day soonish, no matter where in the world you live. Seriously, if you live on Planet Earth, you're in. A few days ago I posted about a competition by Stylecraft yarns to find a scrumptious new shade for their Special DK range. (As I'm co-judging this competition, I'm even more excited about it than I would be anyway.) At the time, the terms and Continue Reading
Archives for February 2015
Heaven Is Purple Qiviut. Trust Me On This.
Somewhere amidst the frosty tundra of northern Canada, a musk ox (yes one of those vast and curmudgeonly beasts) is missing a little of its tummy fluff. Not very much of its tummy-fluff you understand, not enough to leave it with a shivery abdomen, for the musk ox is extremely well-insulated and tends to moult its excess in spring. But just a few grams, sufficient to make... oh I don't know... maybe a cowl for someone in the frosty - er - "tundra" of south Oxfordshire. All I can say is Continue Reading
Look! A Competition!
whispers Would you like to win lots (and lots) of yarn? In all sorts of near-edible colours? Yes? Well I have to declare an interest in publicising the Stylecraft competition below, because look who is one of the judges, along with Lucy from Attic24 and the editor of Let's Knit magazine! How much fun is it going to be to look through everyone's colourful suggestions and work out what would work best in fibrous form? I'm sitting here willing everyone to let their colourful imaginations run riot. Continue Reading
The Only Arctic Musk Ox In Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a pretty, muddy, green English county snuggled up against the edge of Wales, its lush hills gazing at the neighbouring Welsh mountains. My parents live there in peace, tidyness, and rural tranquility, or at least they do until my battered old car screeches to a halt in their driveway, instantly wiping £10 000 off local house prices until we leave again. The car engine is switched off or possibly stalls, and out stagger the Toddler Twinnage, hungry and over-tired after the Continue Reading
Confession Time
A confession. (Steel y'selves knitters, this is a B-I-G one.) I have never knitted socks. Sometimes, this makes me feel like a not-proper-knitter, because real knitters have 204 sock patterns committed to memory and neat, colourful sock drawers that look like those displays of rolled neck-ties you get in the menswear sections of upmarket department stores... Don't they? A non-knitting friend of mine once remarked on a knitter he'd observed who always knitted socks. This knitter was, in Continue Reading
Channelling Escher
This post is entirely the fault of one Jack Of All Craft, who spotted this picture in my last post:- ...and mentioned that famous Escher drawing:- Well she had a point, didn't she? So of course I had to recreate this artwork just a little more closely. And because this plan had difficult-to-do and a-bit-bonkers-and-creative written all over it, I was powerless to resist. For anyone who hasn't been watching, the purple sleeve above is from the resurrected jumper-of-doom. And in Continue Reading
In Which The Toddler Twinnage Is Warehoused And The Knitting Is Knitted
I'm getting a bit shameless about knitting/crocheting anywhere and everywhere (except at work: my patients would be disconcerted to find their psychologist muttering over stitch-counts as they entered the consulting room. Unless they're knitters, of course.) Oh, and I'd best gloss over my recent attempt to knit secretly under the table at the pub whilst having a rare lunch date with the Stoic Spouse. I know he reads this blog, and I'm not sure his disapproval of that incident has worn off yet. Continue Reading
“That” Project
Let's talk about that project. That half-finished, half-loved-half-hated one you shoved in a bag somewhere, that only occasionally shows its face to remind you that you still haven't figured out where you went wrong in the pattern repeats, or been able to face another nine inches of seed stitch in lace-weight silk. Every knitter/crocheter, I'll wager, has a project like this. If you can't think of one, it's probably because your version of this project has tortured you so badly that you've Continue Reading
GUEST POST: Selma Brings Her T-Shirt Yarn
You will not believe what happened this morning when I opened the door to my blog. It's quite an old, creaky, woodwormy door, as you can see from the photo below:- ...and when I opened it, I gasped because there was someone in there! I was scared, I can tell you. I almost slammed the door shut and ran away. But then I realized that there was nowt to worry about because the visitor was the lovely Selma from the EclecticHomeLife blog, and she had kindly come to share some of her clever, Continue Reading
Failing At Adulting, Winning At Knitting
I was raised by the Twisted Seniors, parents so virtuous that they always completed the paperwork-of-duty before permitting themselves to indulge in the biscuits-of-liberty, even when nobody was watching. (EDITED TO ADD: But see their response in the comments thread below. :-) ) Their lawn is tidy and their cutlery is arranged alphabetically*. Correspondence is dealt with in a timely manner. They are really very good at adulting; experts, in fact. To my knowledge, they have never once incurred a Continue Reading