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
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
Cardigan Design
When normal people - whoever they are - want a new cardigan, they probably go to a shop and choose one to buy. I dunno, but I'm guessing that's approximately how it works. Some people knit or hook their own, of course, and those folk will definitely have the upper hand come the apocalypse. I decided to go one step further. (I always decide to go one step further - even if it's over the edge of a cliff.) Having rejected every extant cardigan known to humankind, I decided to write my own Continue Reading
Knitting
Lately, I've been knitting a lot. The only downside to this is that it's left less time for blogging about knitting. I'm working on the prototype of my first cardigan design. You'd think this'd be a quick process since I'm working plain ol' stockinette in a single self-striping yarn, but... no. It's taking forever. I even did a recount to check that I hadn't accidentally made an extra six sleeves because that would at least explain the slowness. It's not as though I'm making it out of Continue Reading
Alpaca Fluff
Warning: this post contains alpaca fleece of an exceptionally fluffsome, gorgeous, nature. In extreme cases, it may trigger the urge to abandon your responsibilities and run off to cuddle the nearest alpaca. Please proceed with caution. I know I've been quiet lately. This past week, my silence has been due to a family holiday in a cottage way down south west, in Cornwall. Actually it wasn't a cottage, it was one wing of a beautiful old manor house, with a garden - nay, grounds - that looked Continue Reading
When Your Knitting/Crochet Just Keeps Getting Smaller
Do you know that feeling when you take your knitting (or crochet) somewhere, only to return later with less of it than you had when you left home? No? Just me, then? Hang on, I know it's not just me because sometimes at knit-night in the pub, a friend∗ is overheard muttering, "Aargh, I'm three stitches short again!" before yanking out her needles and ripping away three hours'-worth of intricate cabling. This definitely, definitely has nothing to do with the wine or gin that we've been Continue Reading
Crocheting In Somerset
I've always been a details-monkey rather than a bigger-picture person.* This is one of the many, many reasons why I'm not the millionaire CEO of some entrepreneurial shebang. I'd be too busy pondering the style of door knobs for the offices to notice that the business was falling over a financial cliff. So when I say that we went away this week for a couple o' nights to a Somerset village so that the Toddler Twinnage could have some bucket-and-spade time, I hope you'll understand that I've Continue Reading