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
Autumning
Round here, nature is at last doing autumn properly, instead of lazily slinging a cloudful of water our way and calling it a season. Suddenly, it's cold. Whatever time of day or evening you venture out, you can smell the wood-smoke from people’s log fires, and see ambitiously-stacked spider sanctuaries log-piles leaning against the walls of thatched cottages. In the evening, I pour a glass of red wine and sit down beside our own fire. Then, – more often than not – I immediately shriek and Continue Reading
And Then We Were Eight
Eight years ago today, I put on an asymmetric, teal-coloured, gown and walked down the aisle in order to promise lifelong, grudgingly-unswerving tolerance of the Stoic Spouse's* quirks. And vice versa of course, though naturally my own quirks are charming and endearing rather than FLIPPIN' ANNOYING.** Fast-forward getting-on-for-a-decade and we're still here, and neither of us has yet eviscerated the other with the antique brass fire tongs. Pretty good, huh? But on the anniversary of our Continue Reading
On Running
I've taken some better pictures of progress on the big crochet project. But before I show them to you, do you mind if I go off-piste, subject-wise? Because some things in life interfere with knitting and crochet time, and I want to grumble, if you'd be so generous as to indulge me. Here goes... I don't like running. I do it, on and off, because it's a cheap and outdoorsy way of keeping fit. And because, for as long as I occupy what would otherwise be useful space on this planet, I will Continue Reading
Story Of My Life
So shall we get back to discussing knitting and crochet? That said, I do have lots more 'musical' (I use that word very loosely) tales to tell you about The Purlz, if you'd like to hear them? Anyway, in other yarn-related news... A while ago, the Knitting And Crochet Guild (KCG) ran a competition with lovely Yarn Stories yarn to design knitted/crocheted squares inspired by the KCG historical collection. These squares were for a blanket. This was my entry: a crazy messy knitted hybrid of Continue Reading
In The Yarn Garden
Evenin'. I've been busy in the garden. Not the real garden, you understand, where overgrown shrubs fight vicious battles for legroom, and where convolvulus sneaks across the lawn when it thinks nobody's looking, although if we're talking about the real garden, I'm quite partial to this quiet corner:- No, I'm talking about the garden of the crochet house-related project. It's going to be detailed, with paths and a pond, and lots of flowers and general garden stuff, but you have to begin Continue Reading
254 Roses.
Well if I can ever persuade our wibbly-wobbly internet connection to upload the photo, I'll show you the 254 red roses (yes, I counted them, which was an awful lot quicker than embroidering them was) that I made on the front of the big-house-crochet-secret-project. I'm sorry, I assume you're sick of me being coy about what this project is, but I really do want the finished, installed thing to be a surprise, even if you've seen elements of it along the way. Ah, here we are. The little hamsters Continue Reading
Socks. And Mint Tea.
Oh, happy feet! Just look at this colourful sockage! (Let's just gloss over what the Stoic Spouse said about my sanity when he found me lying on my back on the hard tiled floor, crunched upwards in order to photograph my own feet.) Yes, these chaps are the Noro Kureyon socks, and I won't mention again the prima donna-ish proclivities of this yarn. The colours are stunningly intense, and the way they slowly shift makes for knitted fabric that's reminiscent of a painted landscape. Happy feet. 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
Notes From A Crime Scene
Woe, 'tis a dark day, here at the 'Yarn. A heinous crime has been committed. I've been working on the crochet house-bag (doing the boring stuff; weaving in dozens of ends - an ideal job for when you've got a stinking head-cold.) I have to say, it's going extremely well and I'm rather excited about the finished product. It's gone from this:- ...to a proper 3-d house-bag with shoulder strap, but I'm hanging back from showing you until I can ta-da it properly. Thank you to commenters who Continue Reading