Thursday, January 17, 2008

Jules and the Beaniestalk

Once Upon a Time in a land far, far away lived a young (no comments on my choice of adjective here please) knitter named Julie. She loved to knit and had many, many projects on the go at one time. Some might say that she was a project butterfly as she would flit from one to the other.
One fine winter's day while cycling to work, she realised that her ears were frozen solid and decided that she would knit herself some sort of device for keeping her ears toastie warm so that they wouldn't fall off. After finishing her work for the day, she cycled home and looked up patterns on the internet and to her delight she found the pattern for Calometry.
Immediately she cast on the stitches with some very precious yarn and knitted the whole thing in one go, sewed on a button and Bob's your Auntie, she had a headthing that would keep her ears toastie warm throughout the winter. What she didn't realise is that this wonderful yarn was magic and that each time she wore the headthing, it would grow and grow and grow.
After wearing it a couple of times and having her ears kept toastie warm she noticed that she had to use the next button hole along, and then the next and the next until after StrickMittwoch at the Aurum, even though she had her head thing on, her ears were no longer toastie and there was a force 10 hurricane blowing along between the head thing and her ears. This would not do at all and she struggled home on her bike regardless of the cold wind biting at her ears.
Once home and warm she grabbed the magic headthing and wrestled with it untill it started to unravel. She wrestled and wrestled until it was neatly wound into a ball then set about designing a beanie hat with holes in it for her pigtails. That done, she cast on with the magic yarn once again but this time with only 80 stitches in a 2x2 rib in the round and once 2.5 inches (6cm) was knitted, she made 2, 1 row button holes exactly where her pigtails should go. She's now nearly finished the Beaniestalk and is looking forward to wearing it all through the winter, having toastie ears again and living happily ever after with the rest of her projects

Thursday, January 10, 2008

TADAAAAA!!!!!

I did it, I got the head thingie done in a one sit knit and it fits and its warm and I've fallen in lurv with Noro Silk Garden.

I bought that skien a looooooong time ago and its been waiting for the right project to grab its attention. I think I bought the skien about 3 years ago and I just bought one for petting purposes as its kind of expensive. Anyway my ears will be toastie on the way to work. I can fit my headphones under the calorimetry thing and I can keep the pigtails. I've got a really nice baker's boy hat but I have to put my piggintails lower than usual and I don't like to. Either that I have to wear my hair down and I don't like that either. I feel already that me and my headthing are going to be very good friends this winter.

Oh and I've made a strange discovery. Well bunny has made the discovery, I just witnessed it. She likes apple and ginger tea. I had a cup of it sitting next to me on the floor which had gone cold. She stuck her head in the cup and started drinking. Strange bunny. Anyway I put some in a wee bowl for her so that she doesn't get her head stuck in the mug. It was bad enough of her doing the superman impression with the paper shopping bag, having to take her to the vet with a mug on her head would not be good.

Shopping around

It really does pay off. I know that you may wonder at the title of the book I just ordered (see photo to the left) but its one of my knitting things so don't wonder too much about it but you can guess what everyone is getting next year for christmas.

Anyway, this little piece of advice covers books and other items which you may want to purchase online. I ordered this from Amazon.com and got it including shipping for €23.35 which in comparison with what I can get it for on the Amazon.uk or .de is a complete bargin. UK want £27 (approx €34) and DE want €35 for it and that's not including shipping fees so I've managed to save myself.....think....think....think....10 beers if buying at the rugby club on a training night, 6 small beers if buying at the Village Voice and 4 large beers if buying at the Oscars.

Its stricktreff on Saturday at the Opern Café and since its like knitting at the cinema (loud and dark) I'll take along some mindless knitting. That way, when I get back home and discover all of the mistakes, I can easily correct them. I'm making it sound like torture which isn't true. The company is good, the cakes are yummy and its a lot of fun.

I've just printed out the pattern to Calorimetry which would make a good one skien wonder project for me. I'll add it to my ravelry thing and tonight I'm gonig to break my 'finish one thing before I start another' rule coz I reckon that I can knit that quite quickly and use it before my ears freeze off.

Right I'm off home to cast on.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Out of the Dumps

As opposed to down in the dumps.

Apologies to those who actually read my blog and have been getting a bit fed up with October's post. I've been a bit off colour lately but I'm now back to being freckle faced and rosie cheeked so that means more blogging.

I was going to post some piccies from France and Scotland when we were there on our delayed honeymoon but........I managed to lose all of the honeymoon photies so absolutely no piccies of Sean Lamont's bum. I will try to get a couple more close ups of it though in February when I go to see Scotland play France in the 6 nations. My camera/computer decided not to be very compatable and unformated the picture files before they could be saved. Unfortunatley nothing or no-one could re-format them and they got deleted. I was a bit upset to say the least but it was photos mostly of France and Sean Lamont's bum and he's already posed for the stad de france calander for this year and anyone can get piccies of France.

What I did manage to download onto the computer was our piccies of New Year in the middle of nowhere or Fort Augustus to be a bit more accurate. Its the southern most tip of Loch Ness and lies nestled between Fort William and Inverness. Its very picturesque and the way up is pretty spectactular too. I've got some more photies of that which I will post in a bit. The good thing about being in the middle of nowhere is that you have to chill out which I very much needed to do. We did manage to drag our lazy bones to a ceilidh (pronounced Kaylay) which is a proper scottish party on hogmanay (scottish word for new year's eve) and did a bit of hooching and chooching. Joris and Bernie had never been to or seen anything like it in their lives and were mesmerized by the traditional dancing. I even manged to drag Frank up onto the dancefloor a total of 3 times. 2 times for the Gay Gordon's and once for Strip the Willows. Oh and before I get another spam blogger ban, those are the names of 2 of the dances.

I also got some knitting done and my new year's resolution is to stick to projects and get them finished before starting new ones. Actually that resolution was already made before the new year and I've been sticking to it. So far I've finished 1.75 pairs of socks and I'm knitting a jumper for myself in the round as it's a raglan sleeve so easier to do without seams. I like it that way. I'll get round to posting photo's of them soon. My camera doesn't take very good piccies with the flash on. Yet another reason to get a new one.

Anyway here's some of the photo's from Glen Coe and the hills surrounding Loch Ness. The last one is especially for those of you who can read dutch.