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
Yarn. Oxford. Also, Sarah The Killer Whale.
Whoa, it's cold today. (Alternative blog text for southern hemisphere readers: Gosh, isn't it warm?) We're not at ice-on-the-inside-of-the-windows levels of chill quite yet, but we can't be far off. Here at Twisted Towers, the twinnage are abed (if only to keep warm), and the Stoic Spouse and I are both choosing pastimes that don't require straying very far from the fire:- That's the Stoic Spouse on guitar, there, with me accompanying on knitting needles. It's a rare privilege to be allowed Continue Reading
On The Run
Once upon a time, there was a woman who'd never shown the slightest interest in anything sporty (except knitting - that's a sport, right?) And that would have been the end of this story, except that she married a runner. On one of their very first dates, the two of them went for a run in a nature reserve in dense fog and got hopelessly lost. There was probably a metaphor for something in that escapade, but the woman was too tired after her run to bother thinking about it. Fast forward several Continue Reading
Weekending, With Added Yarn
Well it's been a hunkering-down-for-winter sort of weekend. Saturday was Bonfire Night, of course*:- (*For the benefit of non-UK readers, this is when we commemorate the attempt in 1605 by an enterprising but treasonous chap called Guy Fawkes and several of his bezzies to blow up the Houses Of Parliament using barrel-loads of gunpowder. The plot was foiled, and poor Guy Fawkes got a proper telling-off (and executed). We mark this occasion annually by lighting fireworks and by setting fire to Continue Reading
Thank You
This post is mostly a 'thank you' to all of you who sponsored, encouraged, or at the very least grudgingly tolerated me as I prepared to run the Oxford Half Marathon in aid of the Nasio Trust. The big race was yesterday. Nine thousand of us lined up in the centre of Oxford under a beautiful blue sky, to await the starting klaxon. Guess what: I didn't win. (But my friend Chris did come 15th out of the 9000, which just boggles the brain: he's fast.) Still, I ran all 13.1 miles (21km), for which I Continue Reading
What? Another Blogiversary Already?
...But just before I publish the bag pattern at last, another post has rudely sneaked in front. Because today is TheTwistedYarn's second blogiversary! Also, this is my 200th post. OK I confess, this photo is of the cake that the Stoic Spouse secretly commissioned last year, but it was so wonderful that I thought its picture deserved dusting off and airing again, one year on. Man, that cake tasted good. And as surprises go, this was an above-averagely wonderful one. It was made by some folks Continue Reading
How To De-Pill Your Knits
Do your knits ever pill? Would you like a quick tip for getting rid of those annoying, tiny balls of yuck? Yes I know you can buy de-pilling gadgets, but you really don't need to. Just fetch a razor and give 'em a shave. Seriously. And be a little brutal about it, too. I wish I'd thought to take a 'before' picture to show you how pilly my camera strap had become, but here's some of the fluff that I shaved from its surface:- I also gave it a wash in Eucalan, and it's now once again a much Continue Reading
This Isn’t Going To Work, Is it?
A quick one, my fine friends, because I'm knitting against a deadline. And for now, the deadline seems to be winning. :-( I haven't even drafted this post on paper; just opened the little flap in my brain behind which all the crazy lives, and let it all dribble out uncensored onto the keyboard. Consider y'self warned. And maybe fetch a stiff drink. So Tuesday is Stylecraft judging day with Lucy from Attic24, and having self-imposed this ridiculous deadline of designing/knitting a new skirt to Continue Reading
In Which Life Conspires Against Knitting
My first thought when I woke up this morning was... "Ow." My second thought was, "Owwwwwwwwww. Ow." The over-ambitious design-and-knit-a-stranded-skirt-in-10-days insanity plan just got even more unfeasible. Lately I've been having problems with the knuckles of my right hand two littlest fingers hurting if I, (i) knit/crochet too much, and (ii) surf the net on the iPad continuously and insomniacly from 2am to 5am, and (iii) spend too many nocturnal hours indulging the Toddler Twinnage's wish Continue Reading
To Oxford, For Extravagant Yarn And A Haircut
Though I live in rural Oxfordshire, I rarely go into the city of Oxford these days, except for my twice-yearly haircut. But a chunk of my shrivelled old heart is forever in that city where I lived, partied, loved, worked, and studied for my first degree and doctorate. I bought my first home there too, in which I spent seven happy years living alone but socialising manically, before I met the Stoic Spouse and morphed into a Semi-Sensible Grown-Up. Ah, those were the days. Anyway, today was Continue Reading