For those who've never tried it, I have to tell you: blogging is mostly fun. The very best thing about it is that you get to chatter online with likeminded folk. A smaller benefit is that sometimes, you're offered free things to review. Mostly this is stuff that's relevant to your readership but you do occasionally have to write emails saying, "Thank you, but I'm not sure your drain clearance products would be of very much interest to readers of my knitting and crochet blog". (It irks the Stoic Continue Reading
A Finished Thing
This week, I finished a thing. Is it just me, or does everyone have a Guilt Project languishing in a basket somewhere? I'm talking about the mega-project that seemed like a r-e-a-l-l-y good idea several years ago when you bought/inherited/spun-from-raw-antelope-fibre the 80 balls of yarn that it requires. The Guilt Project is always three quarters complete - you've come too far to frog it - and it nudges you into a flicker of shame every time you trip over it on your way to the wine-rack Continue Reading
Standing Up.
My father-in-law is not a man to idle away his retirement years alphabetising his sock drawer or polishing the cat. In fact, he spent the first part of his 'retirement' (I use the word loosely) teaching part-time at the roughest school in his area, where one's ability to teach was secondary to one's skill in crowd-control. As a result, he became master of the withering one-liner, for when those nine-foot-tall, hormonal, teens tried giving him jip. The meanest class bully soon learned not to push Continue Reading
Yeah, Just Some Pictures Of Oxfordshire That I Knitted.
Want to see some knitted pictures of the Oxfordshire landscape? Those of you who've been here for so long that the seat of your chair has moulded itself to the shape of your perfectly-proportioned posterior may remember this post. Executive summary: I set off around south Oxfordshire in search of the perfect view to photograph for a yarn-related project, and ended up finding a door that may - or may not - have been the portal to another dimension. Anyway. The project in question was this: I Continue Reading
Blogstars Weekend, Part Two.
PREVIOUSLY, ON THE TWISTED YARN... the Stylecraft Blogstars began their twice-yearly meetup in West Yorkshire with a visit to the textiles department at Huddersfield University. Afterwards, we headed to our hotel. Everyone else was probably thinking terribly sensible, grown-up thoughts, but my mind was full of SNOW! SNOW! SQUEEE! Granted, it wasn't much, but the following morning it snowed a little more, and the needle on my over-excitement dial spun so far out of control that centrifugal Continue Reading
Meeting The Knitwear Designers Of Tomorrow
The latest Blogstars meetup at Stylecraft's Yorkshire mill happened last weekend. In my hazardously overactive imagination, you were all there with me because frankly, you'd've loved it. It was a weekend filled with yarn, and laughter, and creativity, with a side order of snowy hills, and a few glasses of wine. This pretty much achieves 'bingo' on my list of favourite things. Let's take it from the top. On Friday morning, I waved goodbye to the twinnage and the stoic spouse, loaded up the car Continue Reading
Out Of My Comfort Zone And Into A Studio
Can you hear that? Listen! Silence... complete and blissful silence. Ah, bliss. I'm sitting in a hotel room in West Yorkshire, overlooking this view:- There's even a little bit of snow! Yup, it's the beginning of another Stylecraft Blogstars weekend (previous shenanigans here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). I have much to share with you about the weekend already, but that will have to come in a separate post. For now, let's catch up on the last few days. Let's begin with some Continue Reading
Many, Many, Names
Wow, you're a creatively generous lot! When I asked for name suggestions for my spinning wheel, I imagined there'd be two or three ideas, and we could have a little poll. I was very, very, wrong. You came up with 103 different names. One hundred and three! Some of them were posted here, some arrived via the blog's Instagram page. (Not subscribed yet? You so should. I can't quite promise that it'll change your life, but I'm working on it.) I loved the thoughts and explanations that came with the Continue Reading
Meet… Um… Well, Therein Lies The Problem.
One evening recently, a good friend of mine popped over. When I say 'popped over', you need to understand that both she and I are knitters/crocheters, so there is no version of 'popping over' that ends quickly or without a drink, a gossip, and a spot of knitting. It was good to see her. (I'm sure you two would like each other if you met.) Amongst several reasons for her visit, she wanted to meet the new addition to our household. Look! This beauty was a joint birthday-Christmas gift from Continue Reading
Ahem.
For better or worse, it's fair to say that I am very British. I queue like a pro, I'm sometimes jolly in the face of adversity, I would rather gnaw my own arm off than discuss money, and if I murmur that I'm 'slightly dismayed' by something then what I really mean is that 'THE SHEER AWFULNESS OF THIS THING FILLS ME WITH BURNING RAGE!' In the hope of uncovering some more interesting heritage, I did one of those ethnicity DNA tests recently, wondering whether I'd uncover roots in Senegal, or Continue Reading