wot a weekend

It hasn't been my best weekend ever. On Friday I went down to Ro's, the M1 was bloody awful as everyone else seemed to have had the same idea, so a journey that usually takes about two hours actually took me nearer three.

The reason for my journey was that we were off down to Twickenham the following day to watch the Tigers play Sale in the premiership finals. Don't actually approve of this particular game as it's to chose the league champions and in my opinion the team that top the league over the season should be the champions (this was Sale this season bye the way, we came second). Added to that I don't like Twickenham which is a nasty soulless edifice and a royal pain in the behind to get to but we can't miss the chance to watch the Tigers.


I actually wrote a poem about this some years back when we went down with my other sister to watch Northampton Saints play London Irish in the cup final. It goes like this:

We won't go to Twickenham ever again
not even if Tigers are playing a game.
The stands are too steep and the atmosphere loud,
the roar of the liniment, the smell of the crowd.

The crush in the carpark behind the west stand was more Guiness than Pimms
more "Wild Rover" than "Land ....".
We needed our field glasses so we could see,
We waited an hour in a queue just to wee,
The traffic was dreadful and made us quite late,
We almost got squashed in the crush at the gate.

So we won't go to Twickers, well not for some time;
If Leicester go through, and the weather is fine.
And there'll be no more rugby to watch till the fall,
And we're already feeling the pangs of withdrawal.

So the first day of June we'll be traveling up
To watch as the lads pick up just one more cup.
But then Twickers NEVER will see us again,
Not even if Tigers are playing a game.

Needless to say on Saturday the traffic was bad, it pissed down with rain and we were comprehensively stuffed (by the better team I hasten to add). So we've agreed that we DEFINITELY won't be going again next year. (hollow laugh).

On the knitting front I had to frog my Pomatomus because they were turning out miles too big. I restarted them on 2.5mm needles but made a mistake in the ribbing and frogged again (that's a total of four froggings!) I get the feeling that god doesn't want me to knit Pomatomus. I'm gonna give it one more shot and if that goes wrong I'm giving up and burning the wool.

It was nice going to Ro's though, it always is and I sleep much better at her house than I do at mine. Must be 'cos I don't have to think about my ordinary day to day worries down there. I also saw my Auntie Sheila who was the recipient of the Hedera socks that I made. She received them earlier in the week and is jolly pleased with them She's wearing them as bed socks which is okay with me as long as she's happy with them.

Finally gratuitous sheep shot

Busy little bee

Or a bit of a saddo depending on your point of view.

Today (and part of yesterday) I have been mostly re-organising (or maybe that should just be organising) my stash.

I found a spreadsheet on someone's blog (I'm VERY sorry, but I'm not sure whose it was or I would give credit where it is due). So I downloaded it, made a few minor adaptations and now my stash is catalogued on computer, packed into boxes and up in the (newly decorated and carpeted) spare bedroom.

As a result of that I've not had much time to knit today but I'll show the progress I made on Pomatomus last night. Had to frog twice, once when I tried to transfer it onto the new needles, and once 'cos I wasn't paying attention to the pattern when it changed direction. GRRRRRRRR!

Seem to have the hang of it now though (famous last words) and I'm just about to pick up stitches for the gusset but I can't find my crochet hook. I've looked in my accessories box as well as down the side of the settee (I even had the vacuum cleaner out for that) but no luck. I'll have to go for it with a bigger hook than I usually use.

Fingers crossed!

Oh bye the way, if you've already read my last post but haven't seen the socks Ro knitted with her hand dyed yarn do go and have a look. I've added the picture to the end of the post today.

Dying to try it.....

...or trying to dye it?

Well so went down to Ro's last weekend and did a spot of Kool Aid Dying. I'd seen undyed sock wool on special offer at Get Knitted so rather foolishly decided that I'd go for the 10x100g skeins, and while I was about it I'd score some Kool Aid from Kool Aid UK. The deed was done in no time at all on bank holiday Monday and so I just had to wait until I found a sucker with a microwave. Sorry that should be a "kind and willing accomplice".

I'd decided that I wanted to do a greeny bluey colour so I could use it to knit Pomatomus which I can't really imagine in any other colour. Ro decided on oranges and reds (mainly I suspect 'cos I'd already blagged the other colours.

I started off and had decided to do a random dye so just splashed it around over the skein as and where seemed appropriate. Quite quickly discovered that it worked better if it was more dilute; I'd started off with a sachet dissolved in a couple of tablespoons of water. We found that it didn't go far enough this way and that the dye could take being dissolved in a whole plastic cupful without being too dilute.

Ro did her skein in sections, starting with yellow at one end shading through orange in the middle to red at the far end. The red is Strawberry flavour and is the most amazingly saturated colour. God only knows what it does to the insides and brains of small children!!!!

Here are the skeins hanging up to dry after rinsing off. I say we rinsed them off but absolutely NO pigment came out of the wool in the rinse. (nor smell, the smell of the Kool Aid seems to be as persistent as the colour!).

I wasn't too thrilled with mine to start off with, seemed a bit wishy washy, but it's growing on me now, I've called the colour "Mermaid's Hair". Here it is wound into a ball along with the top of my first Pomatomus.

The needles I'm knitting it on are awful, the ends are so blunt it's really difficult to knit with them. I'm contemplating a trip over to Bradford to Texere to buy me some nice pointy bamboo needles in various sock suitable sizes. may take a look at their dye kits while I'm there, after all I've still got a bit of undyed sock wool left!!!!

Finally I'd like to introduce you to a new friend of mine. I met him a fortnight ago in a charity shop in Huddersfield and I really liked him. He had such a nice face I wanted to take him home with me, but I'm not really much of a soft toy kinda girl. If he'd been a Tiger it would have been a different matter, but he's not a Tiger so I regretfully left him in the shop.

Anyhoo, I felt bad about leaving him behind and later in the week it came to me that I COULD buy him and give him a home. You see I'd mistaken him for a Leopard, and he's not a Leopard at all, he must be a Cheetah. Well the fans of the other teams in the premiership don't call us the Leicester Tigers they call us the Leicester Cheetah's (only because we're better at cheating than they are, they're just jealous!) So last Friday i went back to Age Concern and he was still there waiting for me.
So here's Leo, at first I thought his name was Martin, but I must have mis-heard, he's definitely a Leo!

I'll post another picture of him when I've knitted him his rugby shirt.

Edited Sunday 21st
Here's a picture of the socks that Ro has knitted from her hand dyed yarn. It's called "Strawberry sunrise" cool no?

Where to start?

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.

Haven't posted for a week now and I have lots of pictures to post so I hope that Blogger is feeling robust today or it could be "monitor through the window" time!!!

Last weekend I went down to see the Tigers play Bristol at home. Needless to say we won (hurrah!) so we have another "last home game of the season" this weekend. I decided whilst I was down there that I'd stop over with Ro and as a result I found myself on Sunday morning at the Pony Club Mounted Games watching my niece and her friends racing round on ponies with flags and bending poles and such.
Here's Em and the rest of her team (she's the one at the far end on the gray pony, Maddy). It was a bit of a manky day weatherwise, but we had fun. I took my knitting so I didn't get bored.

I'm knitting a presentfor a friend's leaving do. She's actually leaving the place where I used to work, not the place I work now, but I'm going to cheer her on her way into retirement later today.
This is the finished item. It's the Teeny Tiny Felted Tote from Sarah's Craft Closet.

I love it. It was so quick to knit and it's soooo teeny and tiny and cute that I don't want to give it away. I used a skein of Noro Kureyon as recommended but made the handles from felted i-cord rather than embroidery thread as suggested in the pattern. I bought the button from the charity shop for 5p, it's hard to see in the picture but it's very dark with a purple crescent round one edge. Perfect!

This isn't my main project at the moment. That's my Haagebutte Clapotis . It's coming along nicely if a little slowly, it's definitely TV watching knitting but I don't seem to have been watching too much TV recently. Still there's no rush and I'm quite happy pootling along with it. Took this picture in slightly dodgy light and it's made the colours look a bit harsh. They show to better advantage in this picture.

Last, but by no means least; I took my teeny tiny tote and my Clapotis to the Knit & Natter last night. Fewer people than usual (it was a particularly delightful evening weatherwise if you're into that sort of thing). But we had a good time anyway.

Here's a picture of the group .

sock it to me

Hedera completed.

I know the one at the front looks smaller than the one at the back, but they are the same size. Think I tried the other one on and it may have stretched a wee bit.

I quite like them but they are definitely for a gift, they won't fit me anyhow, too long in the foot.

I collected the two skeins of handpainted Opal that I had ordered when I went down to Bristol this week so am continuing with the Clapotis that I started about a month ago. No problem with the colour on the new batch, seems to blend in fine.