The Slow Guide to London....................

Last Monday night I was up in town hoping around on tubes having my photo taken with the rest of these knitters to be published in The Slow Guide to London.
Yet another addition to my media appearances or acknowledgements!
Luckily there isn't an actual photo of me here just the others who were along for the ride. I did manage to get a picture of the photographer when he was taking down names.









It was really funny watching peoples reaction to us. There was one girl who actually was about to step into the carriage, took one look, sheer horror seemed to take over her face and she backed off very quickly and jumped on at another door. Poor girl!

I got to meet Gingerknits again after bumping into her at Ally Pally and I met Fingers and toes for the first time and a few others. Craig and Gerard were there representing Iknit - the coolest knitting venue in London.

OK Possum.......................................

Just a little skein I treated myself to when I was up at Iknit on Monday for a yarny photoshoot - more details on that later.



I meant to go back and buy some from the Jamie Possum stand at Ally Pally but some how I never made it back so I was delighted to find that Iknit were stocking it.

I have wanted to knit the Miss Potter mittens from Issue 3 of Yarnforward Magazine and I decided that one skein of Jamie Possum of the hand dyed by Silkwood variety would make a fab pair.









I just love the way that this yarn gets softer and softer the more you work with it. It was also a really quick and easy pattern to knit up and shows off the varigation well.

NOTE: I did paint my nails especially to take the photos and just in case anyone really cares it's Jessica Nail polish - VIP Room!

Totally Innocent................................................

I spent Saturday up in Regents park at the Innocent Village Fete helping out at the Big Knit. Gerard(Iknit) had arranged for a group of knitters to go along and help teach anyone who wanted to learn to knit. You can find free patterns to knit some hats here.

Despite the early rain we all had a fantastic time and as well as teaching loads of people to knit, four at a time in one case. I also managed to knit five hats along the way too.

I was really impressed with the sheer volume of people wanting to have a go at learning to knit and knitters who came by and bought a kit and went off to knit while they listened to the bands.

Anyway here is what we got up to........











If you want to get involved you need to knit up your hats and send them to the nice people at Innocent by 17th October. They would like you to include your name, address and the number of hats that you have knitted and then send them to:

The Big Knit
Fruit Towers
1 the Goldhawk Estate
London
W6 OBA

If you have any questions you can contact them at thebigknit@innocentdrinks.co.uk or call them on 0208 600 3939 and ask for Big Knit Joe or Meera.

They would also love you to upload pictures of your hats to their flickr site or write up your patterns and add them to their blog. So go on whats stopping you!

Every smoothie sold with a hat on when they go on the shelves in Sainsburys in October is a 50p donation to Age concern to help keep the elderly warm this winter and with heating bills going up this year this is going to be even more important this year.

The great big sheep........................

Yesterday was the day of the Alternative Village Fete outside the National Theatre in the Watch this space area on the Southbank. I went along to join the boys from Iknit who were getting everyone to knit for their Great Big Sheep. You can read more about what they are doing and why over on their website.















My contributions..................







I went totally loopy....................
Thank you Gerard for giving me a quick tutorial on this stitc because now I can go ahead and make my sheep tea cosy. Never miss an opportunity to learn something new.

Oh and there were some male knitters spotted and they were very proficient. The one in the yellow stripe was speedier than me and knitting continental style...







I had a really great day sitting out in the sun knitting hailing chants of "Oh your back again Craig" to which I got the reply "Oh your still here!" I finally left just in time to hop on the train and arrive on the sofa for a slightly delayed start to Dr Who care of the V+ box. Thanks boys and I hope it goes really well at Camp Bestival in a couple of weeks. I hope the sheep will eventually come to live in the shop!

WWKIPD...............................

Yes it's that time of the year again. This year I was involved in the Iknit Treasure Hunt. I had such a fantastic time. I was one strand of team 4ply.

As usual I had made the required brownies now needed for any knitting event.



They were quite good even if I do say so myself. Actually they couldn't have been too bad because they were all gone by the time our team returned to Knitty HQ.

The day consisted of galavanting around London for 4 hours solving various clues on a knitty theme as we went along. There were a few anagrams of which I was so proud when I was the one who came up with the answer - Electra House.

There were also a good variety of knitty challenges along the way too to keep us interested and on our toes. We had to get several photographs of us knitting with various people and with various landmarks. We also had to knit as we were going along and this is where I certainly made my contribution towards the team effort. I knitted my backside off.

One of my favourite photo challenges was to get a picture knitting with one of our boys in blue - yes I did manage to find London's tallest policeman, and very nice he was too!



I was also photographed with my very own team celebrities Miss Flip Knits. You can download their podcast here.



We also had to pop into the Royal Festival Hall at one point to find clues and answer some questions and this gave us the opportunity to admire the fantastic Hyperbolic Crochet Reef. And if you aren't doing anything this Saturday That Iknit Guy (sorry G but couldn't resist) will be hosting the Crochet Social Jam there along with Amy Lame. Unfortunately I won't be able to go as I am off on a train to Brighton with the Socktopods.
I did take a few photos though and I think it is fantastic.




This one reminds me of something out of Fraggle rock!








The whole day was such a sucess and despite being pipped to the post on the longest scarf, we managed a mamouth 86", A tension seeker managed 90" by using drop stitches, very clever of them we had a fantastic time because WE WON! There was wine, chocolate, Yarnharlot books and tickets to the National Theatre. Wow.

I just want to say a great big thank you to both Gerard and Craig for all their hard work in setting up the whole thing I had a really fantastic day. (Despite the fact they seemed to think we could all get it done in a couple of hours! umm!) Really looking forward to see what you come up with next year.

Also a huge thank you to my other team mates, Justine, Sally and Dee who allowed me to join them and I am really looking forward to claiming our theatre ticket prize and going out very soon.

Oh and to team POP! We haven't forgotten!

Baby baby...........

OK so I mentioned the earlier baby boom, so the past couple of weeks I have been getting myself fully prepared for the arrivals. This involved earlier knitting of hats and bootees but my next mission was for something more substantial. So while venturing up to Iknit to pick up my umbrella swift I also picked up the two sublime baby books for their baby merino cashmere silk DK. (Thats a bit of a mouthful.)I was only supposed to be getting one but I couldn't make a decision so ended up buying them both.



Don't they just look gorgeous. I was really pleased with the number of totally knittable designs in here although most jumpers / cardigans take 3 balls for the very smallest size. I guess that's why I ended up getting both in the end as I felt that it covered everything I could possibly want for a newborn. (There are a couple of girls tops that only take two 50g balls.)

Anyway baby number one arrived nearly 3 weeks ago now - shade blue and shade pink is on her way as mummy went in for her induction yesterday. So time to finally commit to the first design that I was going to knit


I decided on the Vintage Car Jacket but in blue.



I took the finished article around on Wednesday and it was very gratefully received.





I have also being knitting ahead for my new niece. I chose this design to knit for her so that I could use two balls of the RYC cashsoft that I bought at Getknitted in January.



This has also now been finished and a suitable button selected from one of my LYS.



I am really pleased with the way both the sublime and the Cashsoft knitted up and the fact that I could substitute yarns quite sucessfully on this occaision. This has not always been the case! I still haven't fully committed to swatching and I know I should. I also have to mention how I loved knitting these up on my gorgeous Lantern moon needles which you can just pick out in some of the photos. These were real luxury knits.

I would love to knit something for myself in the Sublime but I think the amount of yarn that I would need for something substantial would be very costly. I am sure it would be fantastic to wear and feel so soft next to the skin.

One interesting point though is that the baby sublime and the adult is exactly the same in yarn content with the merino, silk and cashmere it is just that the labels are different and the baby is in subtle pastel shades. The adult shades are slightly stronger in colour.

It's just a wind up...............................

I am now the very proud owner of a lovely Umbrellas swift. I was so excited when the Iknit newsletter hit my inbox this week as the boys declared that there were swifts in the shop. I have been wanting one of these for a while. In fact I had originally hoped to pick one up at Ally Pally but to no avail. I had a ball winder last week for my birthday but was expecting to have to ask ORK if I could borrow her swift to be able to test it out. Well I managed to contain myself until I could pop up on the train to Vauxhall on Thursday to go and pick one up, I did double check that there were enough. Anyway I spent yesterday having a go. Ummm. I still need a bit of practice. I have already learned a few important lessons.
Anyway here it is.....



Of course I had to adorn it with my beautiful skein of Camelspin, but only after I had practiced on some other yarn first.
Here is the whole caboodle set up for action............



......the coffee table is perfect for fixing the two up. I just pull up a chair and start winding. Well that is the theory and before I managed to get these lovely little yarn cakes there was definately some yarn cake masacre.



They really do look good enough to eat. Going clockwise starting on the left we have Handmaiden Camelspin, Hipknits silk at the back and then Fyberspates laceweight 100% silk. (The laceweight silk is for a secret project - more details next month on that one.)
So what have I learned about skein winding?
1) Get the children out of the way while you are learning
2) Don't let the little lever on the ball winder drop
3) Don't take your eye off the ballwinder (despite doing this I still got tangled up several times and had to remove the bobbin
4) Don't let the skein get too low on the swift otherwise it catches on the string holding the arms together
5) Don't pull the skein too tight
I also decided to look at the instructions for the ball winder after I had finished and discovered I should have pulled the little lever out - that would have stopped it hitting the bobbin.
So there is still much to learn about ball winding.
My next task is to make a bag to store my swift in. I am thinking about some lovely Cath Kidston Fabric I have stashed away in the loft. I will show any progress at a later date. This may be much later as the Yoga mat bag (holdall) is still waiting to be sewn together. It took me 8 months to brave cutting out the fabric.

New Year Knitalutions....................

First of all a Happy New Year to everyone and anyone who stumbles across my blog. I have had a lovely christmas and New Year. I have made quite a few new year knitalutions some of which are a bit of a carryover from the last couple of years.
First of all a round up of last years knitalutions - there was just the one 'to learn to crochet' (you may see a recurrance of this theme). Ok so I wasn't totally sucessful but I did make a start. I managed under the guidance of Robynn (form Purlescence - great sale on her site at the moment, go grab a bargain)to crochet one granny square and a sample of geko rigde. I know what a double and a treble is now I just have problems putting them together. There is also the whole thing of the yarn in the other hand which I still haven't grasped. I need some gloves to wear, one marked yarn and one marked hook (just like you have when teaching children to learn their left from their right). Anyway I intend to persue this further in 2008. Other achievement in knitting in 2007 in no particular order were as follows:

1) to go to a meeting at Iknit London
2) to knit socks which are not plain, I managed a lace pattern and a fancy rib
3) to knit a sweater with cables in (to slow me down - gabrielles idea, to slow me down that is)
4) knitted the river stole from the Rowan magazine in Kidsilk Haze
5) ventured into the land of blog
6) signed up for Ravelry
7) going to the SnB day in London
8) knitting a prosthetic breast (breastcancer awareness)
9) having a go at dyeing my own yarn - with varied amount of sucess and steadily improving
10) I joined a sock club (Socktopus club 2007)
11) knitted 32 hats for the Big Knit with innocent smoothies to support the work of Age Concern
12) I knitted 3 mobieus scarve things, again with the help and tuition of Robynn.
There are many more but I don't want to bore you all

So what to achieve in 2008.......
1) to learn to crochet and make the blanket in Rowan Magazine 41 - I have already made some progress with this in the fact that I have actually made a commitment and ordered the yarn yesterday. I also ordered a range of crochet hooks from Purlescence
2) to further experiment in dyeing yarn - I have ordered an acid dye kit from texere yarn at the same time as ordering my cotton for my throw.
3) to knit all my sock for the Socktopus 2007-08 sock club in the alloted time - looking forward to trying new techniques.
4) to get to Iknit at least once a month
5) to go to a Stitch and Bitch meeting - most likely to be achieved in a school holiday
6) to get more knitters down to Amida for our fortnightly knitting group
7) to blog at least twice a week and not always get hung up on having to have a photo
8) to reduce my stash ( yawn, boring - actually what I wanted to write here really was increase my stash so I have to get a loft conversion to turn into a sewing and knitting workshop - fat chance while the kids still live at home)
9) to find and visit the LYS (local yarn shop) for any new place that I visit. That is going to be a fun one and it is going to drive my family nuts.
10) to read the books for the Kniterati even if I can't make the meeting - umm that may be a hard one as reading time is always short in term time unless I make better use of Eric time (Everyone reading in class - me included).

I guess that sounds rather a lot but there is a whole year to try and achieve and I feel happy that they are take up things rather than give up things which to me always seems a really negative way to approach a new year. Why not change by learning something new. I could have gone for fitness goals but I do like a small chance at least in achieving them so they are out from the start.
So what has everyone out there got as their New Year Resolutions then?

Ravelry 'T' has arrived............................

Finally my Ravely T-shirt has arrived from across the pond.

All I need now is an excuse to wear them. Maybe to the Iknit first knit in of the new year at the Royal Festival Hall from 6pm on 2nd January. Go the the Iknit website for more details.

Two pairs of socks finished today............

Actually not quite as impressive as it first sounds. It should really read to pairs of socks finished off today. I finally got over second sock syndrome with the Lace socks and my yarn arrived to finish my toeless slouch socks.




Emma made an interesting comment to me the other day at Iknit which was how lovely the inside of the lace socks looked and how it showed the pattern in an interesting way, so on that advice Emma I will wear them with roll down tops. I have also taken a few extra pictures of the sole of the foot also on your advice.



There are also a few others of the lovely slouch socks in the Flamingo sunrise which I have waited so long to finish and I am so grateful to Diana who parted with her skeins and Alice of Socktopus who organised her replacements without either of these people my socks would have remained toeless.
First a reminder of that lovely Chameleon Colourworks - Flamingo Sunrise.
How scrummy is that yarn - you see why it was so important to finish.



And now the socks.......................

My only problem now is deciding which pair to wear first. It may have to be one of each! Scary thought!