(I drafted this post before anti-racist protests in the USA and then here in the UK unfolded. But see bottom of the page for my position on the matter.) I have knitting, and the twinnage have running-around-pretending-to-be-gazelles-space. Both of these things are good. What you can't see in this picture is that it's just beginning to chuck it down with rain and none of us has thought to bring a coat. If I ever become a grandmother, one day way ahead in the future, I shall tell my Continue Reading
A Token Effort
To continue where the previous post left off, I'm now grafting chunks of skirt back together using the kitchener stitch because hey, I like to laugh in the face of potential knitpocalyse. It's not a quick process, partly because of frequent interruptions by Robyn-the-robin tapping on the window for more mealworms... or a passing twin asking, "Mummy, do birds have tongues?" or "Can you hear electricity?" or "When's lunch?" At least Robyn is able to answer one of those Continue Reading
More Pondlife
When the world finally sees sense and appoints me President For Life, there are going to be some big changes around here. Obviously high on the list will be the introduction of paid knitting/crochet leave for all workers, and free access to yarn for the under-paid. But there'll also be some wildlife-friendly initiatives introduced within the first nanosecond or two of my iron-fisted forever-tenure. First of all, every garden will be mandated by law to include at least one wildlife pond. Continue Reading
A Tiny Love Story
Happy new year, my friends. In 2020, may your yarn never tangle and may nobody interrupt you when you're counting stitches. How's your new year going so far? Here at Twisted Towers, I've knitted a few rounds of sock, cleaned out the water-butt (yuckety-yuck), and taken the twinnage to the dentist. And a few days ago, something magical happened, involving this beauty:- Robyn-the-robin. Look, you can even see her tiny eyelashes! You'll know the basics already if you follow me on Continue Reading
Fun With Power Tools
Never, ever, in the history of everything, has a woman waited with such excitement for a mountain of well-rotted compost to be plonked on her doorstep. Oh hang on, perhaps I need to rewind this a teensy bit. Shall we knit/crochet a little whilst I explain? If it’s OK, I’ll finish sewing the buttons on to the Trip To Town cardigan that I’m making for my friend Alice. (Pattern by Drops here.) If you’re reading this, Alice, please pretend not to have noticed that last sentence, or the photo Continue Reading
France
Ah, home. Home is where the yarn is. Also, the third set of 4mm circular knitting needles, just in case a freak tidal wave washes away the other two sets. (We're 50 miles from the sea, but it's not a risk that I'm willing to take.) Home is also the last known location of the Stoic Spouse's secret chocolate stash, but he keeps moving it and I'm struggling to figure out its latest hiding place. I mention home because we've just returned there after a week's holiday in the champagne region Continue Reading
Juniper And Friends
Proof that the universe has a fine sense of humour: just as my yarnthusiasm returns, I damage my hand by over-eager wool-tugging between DPNs. Yeah thanks, universe - feel free to stop chuckling now. It's quite ouchy, but I've switched to knitting continental-style in order to give my right hand a break. I've been working on this new design for way too many weeks. When this thing is done, it'll be... I dunno, maybe twenty thousand stitches or so? But m-a-n-y times that number have gone Continue Reading
Here Be Dragons
Every time, EVERY TIME I go outdoors to take a yarn-related picture, some bit of the natural world shows up and diverts my attention. Hello, beautiful. This is M. Dragonfly, who was loitering in the reeds beside the pond, hoping to find a mate... M. Dragonfly WLTM a fellow Common Darter Dragonfly, GSOH and own pond preferred. Please no timewasters or damselflies. Yeeks, is this what this blog has become? A dating site for arthropods? Did you know that (giant) dragonflies were Continue Reading
Waterside
Please (cough) excuse this (cough, cough) ridiculous, hacking cough (cough), but I've had (c... you get the idea) a chest infection for the past week, and I sound like I got lost in a cigarette factory as it caught fire. There's quite a bit of water in this post, but I'll get to that in a minute. Here's the view from a small rowing boat, under a bridge in Oxford. The second-worst thing about this has been not being able to go running, and the worst thing has been not being able to do much Continue Reading
May
Despite appearances, this is still a knitting/crochet/running blog. But following your reactions to the last post, I thought that some of you might want to know that this happened with Robyn-the-robin. Repeatedly:- Hello, beautiful. She ate from my hand, too, but I didn't manage to get a picture of that. Sometimes one of the twinnage joins me on the bench waiting quietly for her to arrive, but Robyn is wary of my boys - she stares from the fence as though to say, "Look mate, I've got a Continue Reading