Saturday, June 16, 2007

Ye Olde Wilde Hangover

Well it turned into a Wilde night after all. I am sooooo hungover today however I had so much fun that yes, I will do it all over again. Did Janis Joplin for a change and even managed to sing in key.

Met more new and interesting people which is always nice and got rained on big time. We had more thunder and lightning storms again. I know I'm scottish and that I'm used to a lot of rain but this was BIG rain. When I was a kid we went to the states for rather a long holiday. It was to see if maybe we wanted to live there etc. Anyway we were in Florida and I remember it raining so hard. This torrent of rain and then within 5 minutes the streets were dry again and too hot to walk on with your bare feet. Well the rain last night was a bit like that but there was no hot sunshine to dry it up again and no insy winsy spider.

In my hungover state I have not dared to pick up the needles but now that I'm feeling slightly human again, I just might. I need more food though too so I think I'll sort that out first.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Bad Bunny


Look what my wee darling bunny did! She is very lucky that I couldn't catch her until I calmed down otherwise she would have been on her way to being a very pretty pair of grey furry gloves. I was in the middle of posting a comment on Rachael's blog about the gorgeous Wolmeise sock yarn which she bought and how jealous I was again when things started to go wrong (mental note, still have to post that comment) First I thought it was something to do with the internet provider etc etc however it was the bunny. Bunnies aren't too clever and don't tend to know if they're being punnished let alone what they're being punnished for so there was no point in shutting her up in her cage or witholding snoepjes (bunny sweeties) She just wouldn't have a clue. I also think my wee knabbleartist is a bit blonde even by bunny standards. Ach well the new cable cost €8 and I'm back on line and the bunny is still chewing cardboard which is better than cables I suppose.
I'm now almost finished the right front of my cardi. This is after frogging it twice. For some reason I got mixed up with the increase and decrease count and managed to screw things up but I'm back on track and now doing the neck edge decreases. Just 2 sleeves to go and then I can press and sew it. I was thinking of buying one of those mat things where one can pin out the knitted item then press it when I realized that I have about 40 of those folded up in my towel section of the cupboard. Duh!
Saw the most wonderful kitchen unit in a live auction which I might just bid on. Its about 4 meters long, over 2 meters tall and has 75 drawers in it. Yep you read correctly 75. Imagine how much of my stash I can get in that. Actually all of it and I'd still have drawers left over so I would have to increase my stash so that I could fill the drawers.
Off out for dinner now and then onto 'Ye Olde Wilde Karaoke' at the Oscar Wilde's Irish Pub round the corner.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Small Whinge

While browsing through my new book, I decided that I also wanted to knit the 'Clovelly' jumper and went to the LYS to pick up some silk aran for the job. Or so I thought. Seemingly out of all the Rowan suppliers in Berlin, not one of them stock this yarn and not one of them can/will order it in for me. So I'm either stuck with getting a replacement yarn at €5.90 per 50g or ordering it on-line. Never mind, I came back with a silver frog brooch and a pair of addi's in 4.5mm so at least I got something from my shopping trip. Back to the cardi now.

About time too

Feels like ages since I've been on-line. Well that's because it has been. Part of the reason is that I was staying with my lovely Mum who doesn't have a computer. She reckons that she's too old for it. She's in her 60's which I really don't think is too old to be playing with the pc. I mean there are plenty of 'mature' ladies and gents on the socknitters group who surf the net, blog, play games and work on-line. I'm trying to talk her into it but I think it will take time as she's a bit of a technophobe. Mind you telling her that she could do her shopping on-line seemed to appeal to her. I think the thought of not having to pick up huge tins of cat food and carry them herself was quite reassuring. She only has 2 cats but they eat a lot.

While the disadvantage of not being on-line is that I can't update my blog. The advantage is that I get lots of time to shop and knit. Or go on stash enhancing expeditions which are otherwise known as 'SEX' Anyway on one such sex excursion I manged to get this lot well some of it anyway. The sock yarn I bought here in Berlin but ther rowan classic 'Coast' book and the blue yarn for the 'Lynton' cardi is what I bought in Scotland. I had great fun in the shop and even met one of the rowan designers. Jane Galbraith. She even let me try on the cardi which on the front cover. Very nice but I decided to go for some mindless knitting and do something a bit plain. The colour of the cardi has come out pretty well in the photo .


Scotland was great fun and just hanging around with my Mum and sometimes my Sister was very relaxing for a change. Normally my time is so short and I try to cram far too much in. So much so that I barely get a chance to knit. This time was different. We went straight from the airport to Helensburgh to meet up with friends of mine and see Sofia's exhibition at Hill House. Wow is all I can say. She's a very talented girl and I get so jealous ever time I see her work. I have a few of her originals here at home but the new work she's done is fantastic. She's updating her website but as soon as its finished I'll attatch a permanent link so that folks can have a look at their leisure.


Before I dissappeared from the cyber world I did manage to cram a few things in around work. One of them being the Berlin Sternfahrt for bikes. It was a huge cycle tour with 18 starting points in various parts of Berlin and surrounding areas with over 250000 participants. Needless to say, we stopped the traffic and we even got to cycle on the motorway. We started out from Wedding U-Bahn and did a circular route through Berlin. There was a bit of a bike jam trying to get onto and off of the motorway but it was great fun and I really enjoyed it. There is also a campaign for going to work on your bike which I do every day anyway but I think its a good thing. Events like this and more cyclists on the road will mean that the local council or whoever it is who is responsible for putting in bike lanes will maybe take note. On my whole way to work, there is not one single bike lane. Occassionally there are little dotted lines with a bike symbol at the traffic lights however these are generally ignored by cars and I've been knocked off my bike a few times by drivers who just don't care or don't look. One of them was a police car which I was very annoyed about. Ah such is life. In the mean time I'm off to finish the right side of the cardi and then start on the sleeves.