Hello, my Fine Fibrous Friends. As so often happens on this page, the story told by the words will likely weave in and out of the story told by the pictures, because different bits of life are best told via different media. At long last, it's done. After several postponements I've had the surgery to even things up bosom-wise post-cancer. (I've always been left-leaning politically, but wasn't keen to match that anatomically.) The surgeon who rocked up super-enthusiastically with his marker Continue Reading
A ‘Proper’ Holiday
My operation* has been postponed again. Of course I'm disappointed, but I'm a patient patient, so it'll be OK. This was going to be a post about knitting. But then my brain went galloping off on a tangent, so here we are. Photos show the actual experience we had, whereas the words are about My Very Strong Opinions On The Matter Of How Things Should Have Been. Just after surgery was delayed the previous time, the Stoic Spouse, twinnage, and I last-minute-booked a week's stay in an old Continue Reading
Craft With Style(craft)
Hello again, my Fine Fibrous Friends. Speaking of fibrous, it's been a blissfully yarny time of late. For the first time since covid trampled on everyone's plans with all the malevolent energy of an overtired toddler, we've had a proper face-to-face meet-up of the Stylecraft Blogstars. Stylecraft did their utmost to keep things Zooming along during the pandemic, but... it wasn't the same. Absolutely not Stylecraft's fault at all. They did their very best. Stoopid covid. Anyway, the weekend Continue Reading
Pride Comes Before A Fall: Here’s The Pride.
Hello, my Fine Fibrous Friends. First, may I apologize for accidentally giving the false impression last post that I was injured or ill. The knitting-in-bed-with-a-view photo was purely to show off the self-indulgent bliss of our brief jaunt to the Brecon Beacons. And the throwaway comment about the universe's capacity for dumping excrement on one's world was because I'm a cynical old aardvark. At the time of typing, all was well on the distant and weird Planet Twisted, even though we've got Continue Reading
The Wrong Ystradowen
We all make mistakes, right? Errors such as thinking, "I can finish knitting this jumper before my friend's birthday." Or deciding that of course you'll remember what size hook you were using to crochet that half-done afghan. The Stoic Spouse has a foolproof method for avoiding knitting and crochet mistakes... which is to never once in his life attempt either knitting or crochet. He has thus maintained a laudable 0% failure rate in all things yarny, unlike the rest of us fallible mortals. Continue Reading
Snail Porridge
A hundred hearty hellos to you, my Fine Fibrous Friends. I've chattered here lately about the cardigan design commissioned by Novita yarns. At the risk of triggering yarny catastrophe via sheer hubris, I'm pleased with the result. It's a combination of stranded colourwork, gentle-shaping-without-messing-up-the-motifs, and four (four! FOUR!) steeks. For those of you who were asking about an English-language version of the pattern, I've been told that three months after it's published in Finnish Continue Reading
In Which The Universe Laughs Heartily At My Expense
Hello my Fine Fibrous Friends, and thank you for your kindness in response to my last post. Your words have been a comfort. Seriously. Meanwhile, this week's life lesson has been, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. Also, WHEN YOU'RE IN A HOLE, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY RECONSIDER YOUR URGE TO DIG. With a side order of, TRUST THE DILIGENT WORK YOU'VE PUT INTO DESIGNING AND DON'T MAKE STUPID IMPULSIVE DECISIONS LATE AT NIGHT. Would you like to see details of my humiliation? Of course you would. This blog Continue Reading
Eulogy
I wasn’t going to mention this on here, but then blogging collided a little with "real" life, so I changed my mind. The other day, I got home from a trip north to Cheshire. It was a bittersweet experience. My very dear aunt Dot died suddenly, and it was with a heavy heart that the Twisted Seniors and I made the long journey north to attend her funeral. Dot was Father Twisted's little sister, and underneath a certain amount of teasing and banter, their mutual affection ran deep, though Continue Reading
Blue And Yellow
Hello, my Fine, Fibrous Friends. Please note that this post is illustrated with photos of all sorts of things that just happened to float to the forefront of my mind as I wrote. Many of them are a bit out-of-season right now, but you'll forgive that I hope? We are not living in funny times, but it's OK to seek solace in humour (and art, and nature, and literature, and sport) on even the darkest of days. Laughter was my coping strategy when I had cancer, for example... that and growing Continue Reading
Farmhouse Socks
It's been a while since we had a book review, so let's rectify that right this minute. (I suppose it's also been a while - an infinite span of time in fact - since we had a squirrel review, but that might have to wait for another day.) Under the literary magnifying glass this time is Rachel Boulahanis' Farmhouse Socks, a self-published hardback bursting with 15 sock patterns inspired by the author's time on her grandparents' farms. I like to knit something from books when I review them... but Continue Reading