McNastie Knits

Hobbs

2012-01-09T01:12:00.000-08:00

Hobbs

This is our new addition to the family. He's very wee, very cute and absolutely gorgeous.
Our older bunny, Minoes, has been very naughtly lately and we've discovered that when bunnies are very naughty and destructive (you should see the state of our new skirting boards and some plaster work) it usually means that they are bored and lonely and since humans don't speak bunny very well, it was better to get her her own wee friend. I think moving to the new place which is bigger than the last place, has made her realise that she was the only bunny in the house. Poor wee Minoes.

Anyway, back to Hobbs. He's called Hobbs after the philosopher and also because its sounds a wee bit like hops which is what bunnies do a lot of. It so far so good with him and Minoes. She seems fine with him and hasn't attacked nearly so many evil boards of skirting or him. She did do the dominance dance but unfortunately she has started spraying bunny pee all over the place.This is a territory thing so we've moved Hobbs into his own cage now. They can decide when and if they want to move in together themselves. At the moment, Hobbs is only 12 weeks old and has the biggest back paws ever. I think that means, he might be a big bunny but I'm not sure. The woman in the shop was a bit vague. Anyway, he's landed in a house full of nutters and is very quickly getting used to everyone and everything.

On to a bit of knitting now. I made Frank's latest Fuzzy Feet and they fit me. So I've got yet another pair of slippers. They felted a bit too much in the wash. Now on pair 2 which are going a lot slower as I have to knit them even bigger but should be okay when I've finished. If they are too big then I'm cutting a bit of and stitching them up (after felting) and if they're too wee, then I'll start again with different yarn. Maybe go and visit the new yarn shop round the corner from my work today. Might be fun :o)

New Year new Beginings

2012-01-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

Each time I post here, I promise to be more consistent about writing. Well this time I'm not because I obviously can't keep this particular promise. Its not that I don't like writing; I do. I just prefer doing other things, like knitting, baking, drinking beer, watching rugby etc etc. There seems to be plenty to do and in the rare moments of boredom, I never seem to think about updating the blog.

Well here we go again but first a wee look at 2011

Jan - never did get those Bettie's finished. Frogged them and did something else completely
Feb - Himself's big birthday. Party - booze - presents - fun
March - Himself's best friend's big birthday bash in A'dam - got insulted by Himself's BFF's Missus and still not exactly forgiven her.
April - moved into the still unfinished new place.
May - missed the A'dam 7's, first time in 12 years because of double back to back work travel.
June - went to Estonia for work and pleasure - Estonia is a knitters paradise. Came back with a suitcase full of yarn
July - Mum came over - hired her a wheelchair and saved us both some pain. Her ankle and my ears from the whining.
August - flat still not finished but getting ready for going to New Zealand. Has been the wettest summer ever so hoping that NZ has a warm spring.
September - New Zealand for the RWC2011 - Feckin Freezing, glad I brought the thermals - lovely place though, will need to go back. the natives are really really friendly and lovely and its just gorgeous. Excellent time had by all.
October. - back from NZ - my big birthday - party, booze, food, presents - RWC2011 final - NZ win against France which makes me very happy (don't like the French rugby team)
November - loads of business travel and a visit from Mess. Rush knitting for Chickie's Wedding. Yes my Aussie mate got married to a gorgeous Canadian in NYC.
December - NYC for chickie's wedding- shawl for me finished in time. elbow length gloves for chickie finished 1 hour before landing. Mum came for a visit (another wheelchair but she gets fixed this month) Orphan's Christmas and then Trisa and Pete over for New Year.

Breath in :o)

2012 so far......

Finished gloves for Evgenia's Christmas. She's Russian so gets her presents on the 6th. Lucky that isn't it considering I forgot to put her on my Christmas knit list?

Started Frank's fuzzy feet since one of his boats has a hole in it and the other is missing in action (probably still in a box somewhere) Anyway the floor is cold in the new place which is good in summer but a bit chilly in winter. The new place is on the ground floor, it has wooden floors and they forgot to install one of the windows in the cellar. To spinkle a bit of insult on injury here, they haven't even ordered the fecking window, as a result, the back part of the cellar is very damp and we have a nice bit of mould growing up our wall next to the window. Oh and back part of the cellar is now a hibernation camp for the biggest swarm of mosquitoes I have ever seen or want to see again in my life. At least they are hibernating. Occasionally one wakes up and goes fly about upstairs but they are that slow, its almost no fun at all killing them. I say almost no fun but there is a certain amount of satisfaction to be had squashing the buggers.

Actually there is a list of things that are not yet right with the new place and I'm pig sick of it. I love the flat, I'm just sick of the last minute things which annoy me but which are not getting done. The builder trys to pacify me by sending the workmen to do bits at time. This was supposed to be finished in 2010. Its now 2012 and I still can't use my cellar.

The list :

Damp in the garden room - reported in October when we noticed it.
Damp in the bedroom - no known cause, reported also in Ocotber to builder - no report from him on what action is to be taken
Damp in kitchen - not reported yet. Saving that for tomorrows e-mail to him
Skirting board sticking out. great for bunny to snack on but dangerous for toes. Reported in December
door frames too far out for the wall in bathroom and toilet. Builder Snr says that its because of the tiles. My answer was, I don't care, it looks like shit so fix it. Still nothing - reported 2 days after doors were installed in April
Damp in Cellar and missing window. - lastest report is that we're waiting on an industrial drying machine which will be installed in the cellar. to me that's pointless unless they install a window. Window isn't even ordered yet.
Upstairs balcony takes away too much light. Underside supposed to be painted white. Still waiting on the painter to do that. Think that's from round about June or July
Front door squeaking. Been doing that since we moved in. Reported day 1
Crack between door frame and wall because of the door in the spare room not fitting properly due to 20 layers of paint on it. that's getting sorted on Wednesday next week.
Draft coming through windows in Garden room. both sets. No idea what will happen with that but its there.
Garden not nearly finished that the so-called gardener is rubbish. You tell him where you want a plant/tree and he'll plant it about 1 meter away from where you wanted it or somewhere entirely different for some stupid reason which has got nothing to do with logic or reason or even where the sun is.
Was sort of lied to about the size of the Garden but not a lot I can do about that since the builder is actually a lawyer too and never wrote anything down. Clever monkey
Shower tray has sunk towards the back corner where no-one stands and water has been pissing down the back wall into the cellar making things a bit wetter if that is at all possible. its got nothing to do with weight which builder Junior tried to blame it on to his dad but luckily builder senior (his dad) said that weight shouldn't have anything to do with it, its just been installed incorrectly. They came out and made a temporary repair. Still waiting on it being repaired properly. have now sent 2 e-mails and still no reply. The painter however did knock the door last night and asked if he could sort out the door next week. Not sure if that is a result of the e-mail but Im still a bit annoyed by the whole thing.

Decided that if things don't improve or get fixed very shortly, I'll consider legal action but all I want really is for him to do the work that needs done and finish the fecking job.

Ahhhhh. next time I'm posting pictures of what needs to be done along with the company's name and address. See if that gets the work done or me slapped with a liable suit.

I'm Huntin HAAAAGIS

2011-01-26T05:10:00.001-08:00

DSCF0084
Originally uploaded by MissMcNastie

The weather outside is frightful, there's no fire to be delightful and I do have places to go, so turn off the snow RIGHT NOW or I'll have a hissy fit.
Last night was Burns night so I had a nice wee Glen Garioch but no haggis. We're doing a belated Burns night on Sunday instead with Haggis, neeps, tatties, the works. This does pose a slight problem though.
Where does one hunt haggis in Germany?
I've been up die Bergen and through die Wälder and no haggis to be seen, not even a sniff of one. They're much happier in their natural habitat (see photo) and trying to find nice mountains like this in the Berlin area is slightly problematic. You see, other than the slight incline into Prenzl'berg, Berlin is as flat as a pancake. Anyway to cut a long story short, we're resorting to a raiding the freezer of one of my Scottish friends who managed to bag one last time she was home.

Now you may think that these wee beasties are really cute and cuddly but they're not. They're very ferocious and when startled, can do some serious damage. I once had a very nasty finger wound from one. It stopped me knitting for at least 30 minutes.
Talking of knitting. Harriet's Betties got frogged. Yes its the pattern is stretchy, its lovely, its lacy etc but I realized that I really would need to measure her legs etc and I had to decide that approximately 3 cm before I started the ribbing on sock 1. So forgged they got and I did something completely unorthadox. I went out and bought a present. I got her a very good book and I also managed to rattle off a bandana/scarf/shawl thingumie with some left over lace yarn. I managed to get it done and blocked with2 hours to spare before I met up with everyone. Not bad at all really.
My 3 projects (yes I'm trying my best to keep to the no more than 3 on the go resolution) at the moment are Gloria which has been retrieved from the naughty corner, partially frogged and re-knitted. A jumper (sweater) for Frank and a wee pair of Neefje Steefje socks. I did find 3/4 of a 'squew' sock on the couch but I think that's desined for the frog pond. I don't really like it and it looks strange. Maybe just some plain vanilla socks with that yarn instead. Hmm dunno really. I'll think about it.
I've also been to London (work thing) and while there I managed to go visit Liberty's again. I should just forget that shop is there but I love it and something drags me past it every time I'm in the area.
It smells nice, the staff are friendly and they have fantastic sales twice per year. They also do mail order now. Anyway I stopped in there not intending to buy anything and I nearly managed. I put down the orangy kidsilk aura which was on sale for less than half the price because it was too orange, I put back the Kim Hargreaves book that was screaming for me to buy it AND the other Rowan book which had some scrummy things in it. I was walking past the table with piles of bargins on it and on my way back to the lift to the exit when I spied it. There sitting on the bargin table like a siren calling to me were some white boxes with half price written on them. Of course I had to look and that was it, I'd made a fatal mistake, I'd opened the box and fell in love with the lovely half price pure cashmere dk which was nesting in there and looking all soft and cuddly. Well in for a penny, in for a pound. I bought the box even though its baby pink and not exactly my colour but I couldn't leave it alone at that price. AND I also bought 4 balls of kid silk haze in silver. Why, I'm not exactly sure but I know it that it was good idea at the time. I reckon I'll make my mum a nice cardi with the cashmere and I'll have a think about what to do with the kid silk haze.
So in order to make room in my stash for the new commers, I'm doing some stash knitting. Frank's jumper is from some dark grey aran which I bought with the intentions of kniting an Aran jumper for him but he picked this one himself so he'd better like it.

The Highway to Hell

2011-01-12T01:12:00.001-08:00

Harriet's Purple Betties
Originally uploaded by MissMcNastie

is paved with broken New Year's Resolutions and too many WIPs on the needles.
But I had to! Honest. You see we're supposed to have this secret Santa thing on Saturday. Yes I know that its either late or very early indeed but somehow, that's just the way that its happened. Anyhoo, the reciever of my secret Santa present likes purple, likes knee-high lacey socks and loves hand made things and since I'm a lunatic and need to put myself under enormous amounts of pressure, I thought 'hey, lets make this person some purple lacey knee-high socks/stockings for secret santa'.
I started theses off in Zauberbal in a nice pinky purple - black purple colour and attempted to knit them in magic loop. That kind of backfired so they got frogged back to the toe.
I then decided to keep going but on 3 needles as the pattern suggests. and then I realised that if I wanted to get these babies finished before the Jan 15th 2012 then I'd better get some thicker yarn and some bigger needles so they got frogged again. This time all the way.
I then cast on with wollmeise in a nice purpley colour and got nearly to the heel of sock one when I realise that the center wasn't lined up properly so I frogged again and panicked. I mean I know I knit fast but 2 knee high's before saturday and only the toe and 2 pattern repeats finished!!!
Anyway, got a phone call to postpone the secret santa until the 29th so the pressure is off but I will finish these babies before I start anything else. I need to finish a project.
I did manage to knit and finish socks for the neefje while on my way to NL over the weekend. He was very pleased and shoved them on his wee feet straight away. He also informed me that his wee sister likes her wee neckerchiefs but that he's not to fond of his crockodile scarf and mittens. He thinks they're too scary and that he would like socks instead. Very nicely done. First the praise bit and then the blow. Diplomatic career ahead of this one I think :o)

burn babe burn

2011-01-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

There doesn't that make you feel a bit warmer?

And for those of you out there who are not aware, Hell has indeed frozen over. I've started to blog again :o) We've had snow, ice and all sorts of freezing stuff going on for months now and even I'm getting bored with it.

Christmas and New Year were good not only coz I got really nice presents BUT also because Hogmany (31st of December) signified the last day of a horrible year.

I've not posted since August 2010. There are various reasons for that which I won't go into too much but basically 2010 sucked big time and I'm glad to see the back of it. On to 2011 :o)

2011 has started off quite well and I've got a couple of resolutions which I will try to keep. Number 1 on the list is to chill out and not to take things so personally which is going okay-ish. There are still certain people who still annoy me just by breathing but my new zen approach will hopefully help me to ignore their normal caustic personalities and not get upset with the mere thought being in the same place at the same time as they are.

Number 2 on my list is that I shouldn't have any more than 3 knitting projects on the needles at any point in time. One of them always has to be a protable project and one has to be selfish knitting. The portable and selfish can be one and the same but hopefully this way, it will motivate me to finish some things and not have 1000s of UFOs kicking around. About UFO's, I've been frogging big time. I had a stash clearout and a UFO tidy-up.

Number 3 is to try and be more organised. iPhone calander is a wonderful thing and so far, so good. I've been tidying out my e-mails and updating my stash AND throwing things out.

Over to the side here is what I've got on the needles a the moment. This is my selfish and portable for now. Its in Anny Blatt - Lady Blatt and its gorgeous. So far its less than 1 ball of main colour per mitten and less than half a ball on the contrast colour. I'm now on the thumb of the first mitten so I feel secure in saying that. Considering that I'll have 2 of each colour left over then I might want to knit a matching hat or something. No point in wasting this gorgeous yarn.

the date for the big move is not yet set in stone but it should be at the end of March. Only 6 months over the original date of moving in but still we'll be getting to move in and I can't wait. I feel like I've been putting so many things on hold for so long now. Not just me but Mr McNastie too.

The good news is that we're both going to New Zealand for the rugby world cup this year and we have tickets for all of Scotland's games again including the big one in Auckland versus the Auld Enemy at Eden Park. Before we travel quite so far though, we're off to NL soon. Quick tour of the in-laws and back to Berlin with the usual haul of dutch goodies. The big NZ tour isn't until September anyway and I'm sure we'll have some mini trips inbetween so it won't all be work and no play.

Oh and you may have noticed that I've burned BerlinerBabe. 2010 reason's behind it but McNastie is here to stay.

Finished Objects

2010-08-11T05:28:00.001-07:00

Finished Articles
Originally uploaded by BerlinerBabe

Objects in the finished object pile may appear to be more numerous than in real life.

There is :-

1x Evenstar
1x Gothic Baby Blanket
1x Anastasia Socks
1x Neefje Steefje socks
1x Super Carla (ends sewn in at last)
1x Citron
1x Coquille
1x Nightsong

Actually that's 8 FO's so not too bad really. Now I don't feel nearly so guilty about buying 14 balls of Drops silk tweed and another Hanne Falkenburg kit. I have no idea what to do with the silk tweed but it was too nice to leave in the shop especially when it was reduced to silly money. I blame Winni again. She is my dealer/pusher and told me that the wee LYS in Alt Tegel has a SSV (summer sale). Unfortunately Drops will be leaving their stock forever (something to do with Drops making things difficult for stockists) which is a shame but hence the summer sale. its a shame as I kind of like Drops but I suppose if I really want it, I can order it online.

I've got socks for Frank OTN and the stupid picture won't upload. Stupid stupid Flikr. Ach I'll sort it later.

I managed to get a bit of knitting done while on holiday. The Anastasia socks are for me and were completed not while cycling along the Elbe as that is a bit too complicated but at various stops along the Elbe while on bike tour.

Since the photos of Frank's socks won't load then the photos from the Elberadweg won't either :o( which is a bit of bummer as its very pretty. We were really lucky with the weather too and cashed in our luck when we booked the train back on Saturday and missed the high water and floods where we'd been staying. If anyone is looking to start a business, there is a distinct lack of campsites between Torgau and Meissen.

Oh and boys and girls, that extra centimeter really does matter. I had a really, really sore behind only a few days into the tour and that never normally happens. We discovered that my saddle was too far back so we moved it 1cm forward. It made the biggest improvement ever. Actually so much improvement that we managed 75km the next day. All in all we did about 500km on our bikes.

I actually enjoyed things soo much that I've decided to get even fitter and signed up for a new gym which has spinning classes. Not the wooly spinning stuff but the bike spinning stuff which I used to do ages ago and loved it.

Sod it socks

2010-07-07T12:31:00.001-07:00

They're finished at last! Diana now has her socks and incidentally that's also one of her legs in them. Will get a better photo some other day but that's the best I can do considering that it's half time in the Germany v Spain semi- final and damn hot. Poor soul had to stuggle to get them on and then had to almost scrape them off. Too hot for wooly stuff.

....there's no place like home...

2010-06-30T07:05:00.001-07:00

Yes, its another iPhone sock. So far, I've knitted 3 of those babies and that one up there is the 4th. No doubt I will be required to knit more of them so I won't say that its my last one but I think I might branch out in to fair isle or aran patterns for the next one. I'm getting a bit bored with stocking stitch.

It kind of started with mine then McGee at O's wanted one for his new ipod thing and then my boss wanted one. She really is the boss and I'm too scared to say no. That's not true, she's a good boss and asked me nicely and like the good little civil servant I am, I complied. When she got hers, she did what a good recepiant of knitted items should do, and showed it off to everyone within showing off range. Said showing off action however has consequences and another colleague wants one. That's the one now on the needles.

I must admit that even though I'm trying not to cast on anything new and yes 4 iPhone covers does count as casting on, its kind of helping me keep on the straight and narrow when it comes to finishing my current wips and ufos. I've now finished the Evenstar and gorgeous as it is, I was right, it should be gorgeous on somone else and not me but I'll worry about that after its blocked.

I'm made excellent progress on Diana's socks. I really just need her to try them on. I have spotted a (ahem) deliberate mistake on one of the socks but if anyone spots it then they're looking too close. Actually I might put a nice wee sparkly thing there or a bow or something just to make it different. And the Gail or Nightsong shawl has made tremendous leaps and bounds. My MIL thinks the pattern looks Irish and in the colour of green that's there. I would tend to agree. I'm on the last pattern repeat and then it calls for the edging.

Talking of edging. On the Evenstar (photos to follow when blocked and looking lovely) there are 2800 beads. And to the woman in the bead shop where I bought the beads, YES YOU CAN PUT BEADS ON WOOL USING A CROCHET HOOK WHILE KNITTING - Phew, glad I got that off my chest. She decided to tell me that i couldn't possibly KNIT with beads and a crochet hook. She wasn't even anything to do with the shop, just another customer but one that had to stick her nose in. She didn't like it much when I ignored her a and bought the beads anyway. Will take the shawl to the shop to let them see the beads on the shawl. They will like that, its a nice shop.

It may seem that I've not really completed a lot of things since my last post and that was...how many weeks ago? Well there's a reason for that. I've been traveling for work and when i do that, I'm limited to knitting time and to what projects I can take with me. The Evenstar was left untouched, I packed Diana's socks in the hold luggage (metal needles and not a chance of getting them on the plane) and the Gail was sneaked on in my hand luggage. I've been to Dublin (didn't get to the wool shop and was very sad about that), London (went to Liberty's and John Lewis but didn't buy anything) and the Hague (didn't have time for wool shopping).

I'll be back in London in less than 3 weeks but I doubt that I'll be shopping. I booked a much better hotel this time round (its a bit more expensive anyway) as the last one was awful and I didn't really enjoy the stay. The chamber maid came in a stilly hours like 8am. Aparantly you have to put up a DND sign if you don't want to be caught naked in the shower by the chamber maid at that time in the morning. And the italian boys down stairs from me really liked the spanish girls upstairs from me and would communicate through the window. I politely suggested that she either give him her phone number of that they go forth and multiply down at the bar. I think they opted for the 2nd choice. Oh and there was queue a mile long, bus loads of people queuing for the world's crappiest breakfast.

Oh and just another wee whinge to the courting couple who invaded my space on the flight back from Den Haag. Because of your slurping noises and severe lack of propiety, I got an upgrade to business class and you didn't. Neener, neener, neener. And even though the noises sounded as if you were auditioning for a low budget prn movie, you actually have to have sex to join the mile high club. I would class that attempt as FAILED

And to finish this off at last and to relate to the title. Now that I'm home and have finished the Evenstar, I can get right on with blocking it and getting started on finishing the Peacock Feather shawl which has been on my needles for an eternity.

Stashbusting

2010-06-03T05:59:00.001-07:00

Lately, I've been trying not to cast on new things. I won't say that I've failed miserably because to an extent, I've been semi successful.
Hmm, let me think....... Finished objects compared to WIPS UFOs and new projects......... actually take that right back, i have failed miserably.
Okay so I finished a small lap blanket thing AND my new iPhone sock (see photie). I've also gotten stuck into Diana's socks which got lost, found, lost again and then frogged. This time I'm trying something new in that, i'm knitting 2 at 1 time. I have attempted that before but I gave up as too fiddly however, I appear to have gotten the hang of it now. Icidentally, Diana has only been waiting for her socks since September 09. Not good.

I think I'll be trying the 2 at one time method for more knee highs and stockings on the future. Keeps SSS to a minimum but I do seem to have developed leg length lethargy and i've not even arrived at the increases.

One new project which can't be lumped in with my lack of finished objectness is the rogue sweater which I will be casting on as soon as I have Berni's measurements. She also got a knitting menu for her b'day and chose the rogue.

I also managed to trade my soul for an Iphone. I love it. It's even got knitting apps. I do think that raveley should set up an app. If they did, my life would be complete and I would never want for anything ever again.

My evenstar is nearly at an end. Only 900 beads to go, block it, see if it suits me, decide that it doesn't and give it away to someone who will love it and hug it and call it.. Eh......Evenstar?

Pfaff-off

2010-02-08T06:40:00.000-08:00

Well I didn't update my U2 at the Brandenburg Gate post and I haven't written anything for ages but I've been doing real life stuff like stressing about work and giftmas and doing social things and other rubbish. I've travelling a bit too. Had a nightmare over Christmas when they lost my bags with 4 hanks of Wollmeise and the giftmas presents in it. ANYWAY.....I'm back, I've finally stopped running around and now I can't think what to write. Typical.

Here's what I did at the weekend

Are you jealous?

I was down in the land of bier, brezels and wollmseise again with some friends and we had an excellent time. Good food, good bier, good company and lots of knitting time.

Seriously though, its not all for me and it will probably be my last Stash Enhancing eXcursion in a long, long time. Wait, did I not write that in October? I think I did but since I've just bought a flat, I really will have to tighten the purse strings and actually knit some of the stuff I've bought.

U2 at brandenburg gate

2009-11-05T07:54:00.001-08:00

Report to follow.

Yrn Prn

2009-10-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

This is where our Stash Enhancing eXcursion all began. Okay so the shop was closed because of the Wollfest in Vaterstetten but nevertheless we had to at least make the pilgrimige to THE SHOP.
We didn't get very far but look at all those shelves full of Wollmeise. It brought back memories of being a kid in a sweetie shop and not having any pennies in my pocket for even 1 soor ploom. Don't think Claudia had to wash her windows that week. Actually probably had to wash them twice just to get the drool off of them.

We did get to the annual Vaterstetten Wolfest though. Above and below is the stash. 2 hours at the wollmeise stand and kilos of yarn. We actually planned to fill the bath tub with it and get photos of ourselves in the bath tub but sensibility took over and we decided that the windowsill was probably the best place for a picture. Oh and don't worry, this is not MY personal stash but the combined orders of half of Berlin and the rest of the world. My haul has already been shared out with the other half of Berlin but planning on going to Pfaffenhofen some other time.

Here is what got started on the train. Julia Müller's Autum Leaves. Its the first time I've done anything double knitting and I kind of like it. I think I might knit a matching ipod cover but that will have to wait until the hats are finished. Why is everyone wanting hats for christmas this year? Okay so it does feel like winter has come early and even I've dug out my mittens and bought myself an new snuggly jacket so I guess I've just answered my own question but the problem is, I want to knit mittens and glittens and gloves (oh my)

Next off the needles will be a Gretel hat then a Struan hat and then the above mittens. Miss Daisy's Aran Pocket shawl is my wrestling project at the moment. Its so damn heavy and boring that I'm kind of stuck. Think I'll need to reseve some me time with a good audio book and the thing. I'm sure that once its finished Aunt Joyce will be delighted but until then....

Running is not going too good at the moment. I manged to jar my knee on Monday because of a stupid Audi driver who decided to turn right without looking and I had to jump off my bike rather quickly. I thought it was okay but it gets sore so we've been doing fast walking instead till it heals or feels better anyway.

From Hand Spun to Habitat

2009-10-02T01:16:00.001-07:00

I am so very pleased with myself. Even if I hadn't spun the yarn with my own to hands, I would have been very pleased with the habitat hat. Its a bit big for me so I'm looking for a rather large and cold head to donate it to.

I completely over spun the yarn but that's a beginners mistake. The next lot I spun doesn't look nearly so strung out as this lot did so I think I'm a getting a bit more relaxed when spinning.

What Sari said in her comment about spinners not really missing knitting time is perfectly correct. Its more like part of the process of obtaining nice yarn. The whole whirring of the wheel and bobbin is kind of hypnotic and really is an excellent way to chill out and perfect for catching up with reading. Not the reading kind of reading but the listening kind of reading. I've discovered audio books and I'm getting addicted.

Amazon has a good deal with Audible but beware people. Its only really cut out for ipod owners. I ended up buying an ipod just so I could listen to books. Don't get me wrong, since purchasing my new technological toy, I have had massive amounts of fun and still am; what with the music, the books and the new chip thingie for my running show etc. but that's not the point. The point is, I had to go out and buy either a new mp3 player which can also play aac files or an ipod. In the end it doesn't really matter, I've got the ipod and I love it but just to warn those of you who want to do the amazon book thingie, you need an ipod or a really up to date mp3 player. Check out their list of suitable devices before you commit.

Also getting a new wee personality to come live with us. A very sweet little rat called Tar. She should be arriving this afternoon :o) so I'm buggering off early so that I can clear up and make her welcome. I'm soo excited.

Oh and on the running thing. Charleen an I are being very good. Despite being slightly under the weather we went out for a run around the park last night and will be again tonight. I'm actually begining to enjoy this running malarky. Never thought I would.

Söd it

2009-09-29T07:41:00.001-07:00

This is the beginning of the Södera Socks for Diana. I nicked BerlinBat's idea again and let her pick what she wanted and in what colour but with restrictions i.e. I pasted the photos from 4 designs which I though she would like and I wanted to knit into word. That way I wouldn't get landed with an uninspiring pattern and its something I've been wanting to knit for ages.

On a non knitting theme: I've signed up for the Berlin half marathon which is on March 28th 2010. I've already started the training which I'm enjoying as I'm training with a friend of mine and she has the same problems as me. We're both crap at self motivation and we both have short legs. Our pace matches quite well and we've got a wee bit of a rhythm going also its really difficult to let other people down so we manage to talk each other into things like going running in the rain.

I've also go a wonderful new thing. Its a chip which fits into my running shoe and the receiver plugs into my ipod. I no longer have to work out how far I run, what my pace was, how many calories I burned off etc etc. It does it all for me and plays my favourite music into the bargin. I just loaded more cds onto it last night. A wee bit of Metallica is great first thing in the morning. It certainly wakes up the brain.

The kromski is going great. I've taken fbz's advice and keep oiling the crap out of it. I've got 2 skiens of green stuff (BFL) hanging to dry in my bathroom and I'm very proud of myself. I reckon its alright for something I spun myself although I think you can tell that its the first thing I've ever spun. It will probably turn into a hat and if there is enough, some wrist warmers but I won't go casting on hats just yet. First the socks need to get finished. After that, I can cast on all sorts of wintery projects. Well maybe not; I'll get rid of some of the WIPs first.

Sleeping Beauty?

2009-09-24T02:02:00.000-07:00

Spinning Wheel - check
(new)Bed - check

add them up together and what do you get?

Sleeping Beauty.........or the Wicked Fairy? As I'm in a good mood today I'll go with the Wicked Fairy side

I am now the proud owner of this lovely spinning wheel. Its a kromski minstrel. This is fbz's photo of my lovely new purchase, before I purchased it. Isn't it gorgeous? And you know what? It works!

I picked it up last night but unfortunately didn't get a chance to play with it straight away. My new bed got delivered on Tuesday and I still needed to build the drawers for under the bed so I was a good girl for a change and did something I was supposed to over something I wanted to. The good news about the drawers getting built and put under the bed is that I've now tidied up loads of stuff and have more room for fiber. Anyway, after the drawers and the tidy up, I was too tired to work out how to get things going so I finished off my
Aestlight instead. The wool is Wollmeise and the colour way is 'am kalten polar' but it makes me think of the northern lights which is kind of appropriate for a shawl called Aestlight.

Anyhoo, back to my new aquisition. Last night as I was too tired to work out how to spin. I had a go this morning before I went to work and I managed to get something which looks like yarn. I am very pleased with myself. I'm now champing at the bit to get away from work so that I can run back home and play with it again.

Even though I've had a spinning wheel for about 4 years I've never managed to get anything which looks like yarn at all. Okay so the 'old' wheel is a no name which I bought in NL for €8 including the petrol costs of going to pick it up. Its a really basic thing and it goes really fast and not really recommended for beginners but at that price, who's complaining?

Spittens

2009-09-03T03:50:00.001-07:00

Live long and prosper......
At last night's stricktreff, we had a bit of discussion on what these should actually be called. The official pattern is 'Glittens' but Danni suggested Spockens and himself (when I got home) suggested Spittens. Well, whatever they should be called they're, well actually it's, knitted up on some purple Lanark Mills Aran weight and is very nice indeed. I know they were supposed to be in Wollmeise but that ended up frogged and this wool called to me from my stash. The wollmeise will perhaps become sotto socks and if not then I'm sure I'll find a use for it.

Himself thinks that the Sock Monster's mum will love them and if she doesn't then there is the nice drunk gentlemen whom I met last night who would like a pair but I think that's only because he was drunk and I was doing rude things with them. That however, is a different story entirely and would probably end up getting my blog x-rated.

Back to the point. When I got home from stricking and treffing, I cast on the 2nd spitten so that I wouldn't get scond spitten syndrom which I've heard, can even effect vulcans but I'm sure that with a bit of concentration, I'll get the 2nd one finished this weekend.

The next project to finish after that is Miss Daisy's (Aunt Joyce) aran pocket shawl. It was just getting too heavy for me to schlep around and also it was just far too warm to have it sitting on my knee while knitting. Its 100% alpaca for crying out loud. 100% Alpaca = heat stroke when the outside temperature is averaging on 30°C for weeks on end.
Actually scrap that. I'll hang off and wait to see if the temperature rises again. If so then the shawl from the firey depths of hell will just have to wait. I'll cast on some nice boring socks for himself.

Off to London next week. Not for I Knit but for work. Still I do hope to bring a few goodies back. We'll see. It all depends on whether or not I can drag my colleague into a wool shop or not :o)

Sumer Knitting

2009-08-28T02:44:00.000-07:00

This might not look very summerish but its a lot lighter to knit than the aran pocket scarf I was knitting for Auntie Joyce.

The aran pocket thing is just to heavy. It even makes my knees sweat when I'm knitting it.

This is for Niece Wies aka the sock monster (see last post). I got a bit frustrated making small thumbless mittens so I frogged and knitted this instead. Its cute isn't it. I've got loads of pink stuff left so I'm going to knit a negative of this and hope that its not too pink for the wee yin.

I think she'll look dead cute in it anyway.

This prime example is of the blue snowflake mittens order by my nephew. they are actually from Selbuvotter. NHM#5 if you really want to know which pattern number etc. The thumb is a pain to knit as its so wee but they turned out very nicely even if I do say so myself. I've still to knit the 2nd thumb but since I've got LFIM stricktreff this afternoon, I reckon they'll be finished sometime today.

My SIL is up next. She's getting Glittens or Spock Gloves as I like to call them. they are very handy things and I think she'll like them. I originally wanted to knit her other gloves but I managed to knit them big enough to fit himself and I know that her hands are a lot bigger than mine but they're not that big. Anyway I'd started them in the wollmeise blaue tinte which I've got loads of and to be honest, that's not really her colour so they got frogged, turned into Neefje Steefje Selbuvotter and she's now getting Wollmeise Rosenrot glittens. Red is much more her colour.

I'm still on my self inflicted yarn kauf verbot but I have just purchased a 2nd hand kromski spinning wheel with accoutriments. I won't be picking it up till mid Sept as soon to be ex-owner is out of town. She's downsizing and getting rid of the wheel and I've always wanted a wheel like that. This of course means that even though I'm on a yarn diet, I won't be on a fibre diet and can then spin my own stuff. There is a way around everything.

Off to LFIM stricktreff now. Lemon Iced Green Tea Frappechino here I come :o)

p.s. its 30° in my office at the moment which isn't as hot as yesterday.

Sock Monster

2009-08-18T04:56:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen. Roll up! Roll up! Roll up and witness this amazing discovery for yourselves. The ever elusive sock monster has at last been photographed in action.

This rare and exotic creature which is often believed to lurk in washing machines, praying on random socks has now been unveiled. Its not a horrible monster as once suspected. Its my niece and when she's old enough, she will write and apologise to everyone out there who's socks she's eaten.

The real story is that I needed a small project for on the train on my way to NL and this young lady's big brother had asked for brown socks. He's three and he likes brown at the moment (van Gough also when through a brown phase) so I knitted him brown(ish) socks. What one gets, the other needs to get too but brown socks for my niece well, it wouldn't look good on her so she got some pastle coloured stripey things which she immediately stuffed into her mouth. I think she likes them. Her big brother also likes his socks but not that much that he wants to eat them. He now wants blue mittens with snowflakes. I have one finished and I'm working on the other one so he'll have them for the winter. This of course means that the little sock monster will have to get some too but I'll knit her's without thumbs so that her Mum won't have to fiddle.

Loads happening since my last blog. I've managed to finish a few things and start on a few more I finished the whisper cardi, a small laminaria and the feather boa. I also finished fishnet stockings for my sister and the super karla but the border will be going to the frog pond as I don't like it. Will be thinking up a different border and eventually getting around to it.

Apart from the mittens for my niece and nephew and their mum (she's getting glittens) I'm trying not to start anything new for a while. I've also put myself on a yarn diet again. This time seriously. I'm really, really proud of myself so far. Since my mum has left (4th Aug) I haven't bought one single ball of wool, not even when i saw the new sauberball colours. The above mentioned socks were from the stash (leftover opal Owl and Candy Stripe I think) and the Glittens are being knitted up on Wollmeise which is also in the stash. I have to remind myself that wollmeise is not just for petting. It really is brilliant to knit with. Steven's mittens are from Blaue tinte and some white Lang's Sockenwolle which was in my stash.

Himself has also been hinting at more socks. I have (thanks to my dealer Winni) managed to aquire some black Wollmeise so that will be getting turned into some boat sized socks for Frank. He's not really into the coloured stuff although he does say that the colours are nice but just not for him.

I also found some cute dress patterns on the net for Niece Wies so that will use up some of the wollmeise too.

Will try and update a bit more.

Diet Schmeiet

2009-04-02T01:24:00.000-07:00

The WIP (work in progress for you muggles out there) wrestling is going well but the yarn diet isn't. Last night I turned up right on time to the stricktreff and was rewarded with this.... 3 hanks of Wollmeise. 2 in Sündig and Verrucht which means sinful and naughty (fits me precisely) and the other is Herzblut which is a bit difficult to translate. It literally means Heart's Blood but its other meaning is nice too. In english we would say that someone is your 'heart and soul' well in German you say that someone is your heart's blood.
As I was saying - I got to stricktreff on time last night and Suddenly these appeared on the table; 'for sale'. There was more but I managed to reign myself in to 'only' 3 skiens. The way the Wollmeise shop is set up just now is good for the Wollmeise herself but not so good for me who never seems to log on at the right time. So now I leave the buying on the website to my jammier (scottish word for those with more luck than the average person) stricktreffing friends. Lucky for me, sometimes the colours aren't quite what they expected so I get to enhance my stash :o)

Back to WIP westling. I'm still on the Whisper cardy but hopefully that will be finished for the weekend or by the end of it anyway. I've had a few episodes with this and it ended up in the naughty corner for a few hours while I went looking for a pattern to cast-on. I know that I'm not supposed to be actually casting-on right now but the act of looking for a pattern to cast-on isn't a crime during WIP Wrestling weeks however the act of casting-on itself is. Anyway I found what I was looking for, remembered that I hadn't wound the yarn and anyway, I was WIP wrestling so I couldn't.

Its at this point I realised that I have a particular behavior pattern when it comes to knitting. I seem to get annoyed with a particular project for some reason, put it in the naughty corner and cast-on with some nice new yarn which is screaming at me to do something with it. I then continue with the new project until it does something to displease me and ends up in the time out zone with the now forgotten about original project. The WIP weeks appear to be teaching me to alter this particular tick as I didn't go wind up the new yarn and I didn't load up the sticks. Instead, after finding the pattern I wanted to start, I stomped over to the sin bin and found Berni's socks. She's only been waiting on those since January and Ive got some WIP mittens to finish for her too.

I'm still itching to cast on something new but I'll think about it over the next 2.5 weeks and if I still want to cast-on the old shale shawl then I will. I think the wollmeise violet lace weight I have will be perfect for it.

Now for something completely different. I resigned from the 7's. Its been a long time coming but I've realised that I wasn't giving it my best and when you're not doing that, its time to move on. This year will be my last year in an organisational function. Its really difficult to put my feelings about this into words. If you include this year, I've been doing the 7's for nine years in total and when you do something for that long, you kind of get attached and its difficult to let go. I'll miss the buzz but I know that if things ever calm down for me, I'll be able to go back to it.

Wee Duckies

2009-03-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Easy knit for Easter. Just stuff the head and stick a chocolate egg in its bum and Fanny's your Aunt, an almost instant Easter pressie.

Materials

3mm needles

Double Knitting yarn

Instructions

Duck

cast on 26 sts, knit 1 row.

increase 1 st at beginning of each row until 42 sts (17 rows including row 1)

row 18 - cast off 11 sts and knit to end

row 19 - cast off 11 sts and knit to end (20 sts left on needle)

row 20-27 knit

row 28 - k1, (k2 tog) x9, k1

cut yarn and thread through remaining sts and pull tight. Sew up duck's head, back and tail. Leave seam along bum open for head and choccie egg stuffing.

Hat

cast on 24sts

row 1-8 - knit

row 9 - k4 (k2tog)x8, k4 (16 sts)

row 10-13 - knit

row 14 - k1, (k2 tog)x7, k1 (9sts)

row 15-22 - knit

row 23 - k1, k2tog til end (5sts)

cut yarn, thread through remaining sts, pull tight and sew up.

Scarf

Cast on 50 sts

row 1-2, knit

cast off

sew in ends

Stuff head with whatever you want, cotton wool, capok, stuffing, brains......

add eyes and beak.

stuff choccie egg in bottom and put hat and scarf on wee duckie :o)

What a not so scotsman wears under his......bathrobe?

2009-02-23T05:59:00.000-08:00

Well he wasn't wearing his kilt when he tired them on but he has got rather strapping legs for the socks AND they look really good.

When I'd finished Kitchener stitching the toe and sewing in the starting thread I did a wee happy dance all round the flat. I reckon that now I've done kilt socks, all other socks will be a doddle. Even socks for his nibs will be easy in comparison to those monsters.

The pattern is a heavily revised version of the John Anderson kilt hose. I knitted them top down instead of toe up. I used normal dpns and I did different decreases. Neither himself or myself like the v's created by ribbed decreases in some patterns so I did staggered decreasing. I will write up and post the pattern just in case anyone wants it. Although who in their right mind would want to knit kilt hose for a 6'3" rugby player?
Nobody answer that one please.

I've made this sound like a chore and it wasn at all. I liked the interesting cables and once I'd got the leg decreases worked out and done, the repetision knitting was good. The constant row counting between each cable was good to keep the brain active and the foot was really good tv knitting. I watched all sorts of rubbish while knitting the foot on the last sock.

I've now cast-on the jumper for my Mum. I've also frogged it and re-cast-on, frogged and re-cast-on a few times. I actually knitted a swatch this time round because the wool I'm using is not only a different brand but a different weight. The swatch knitted up exactly like it said it would in the pattern then I started kntting in earnest. My gauge was all off so I switched to a smaller set of needles then I couldn't get the right number of stitches cast on. THEN I did the mobius thing again AND THEN I finally got the right number cast-on and discovered that I had the wrong needles again. I decided that sod it, I like a really stretchy cast-on anyway so I started to knit. Knitting kept getting caught on the cable so I investigated to find 3 sets of ickle bunny teeth marks which was catching the yarn. Luckily for her, I was knitting on the knitpicks harmony series and could change the cable. Luckily for her, I still had a spare one of the same size. Luckily for her that she hid under the couch so that wee boss couldn't shave off her fur and take up spinning. As if I could do that to that gorgeous wee bunny.

Brrrrrrrlin

2009-02-19T06:32:00.001-08:00

Well its snowing again. I like snow so I can't really complain. I like sitting inside and watching it fall outside. One reason I like it so much is because it extends the knitting season by a couple of weeks. Also people are still using their chrismits and scarfs and it makes everything including that big ugly pick-up truck look pretty.

I don't like it when I step out of the door and fall on my bum because its just covered up a huge patch of ice that even my made for mountaineering boots go for a skite on (skite is scottish word for sliding or high speed. Not to be confused with going out on the skite (also scottish) which means going out with friends to a pub or club and drinking copious amounts of alcohol). Yes, the skiting without the alcohol happened this morning on my way to work and made my jeans rather wet. Not amused

To the left is a bit of a reward for doing all that knitting recently. More Malabrigo. This time pink frost and its lovely. My mum's colours realy as it doesn't, under any circumstances, go with my hair. Red and baby pink do not mix. Also makes me look bluer than I actually am. If I was any bluer, I would be a smurf. All I would need is a white pointy hat and you could call me Smurfette. I got the Malabrigo from our stricktreff 'dealer'. I mailed her to see if she still had the Wollmeise natural lace weight and if she could bring it for me and she brought this too. I'm on a yarn diet!!!!! I will not be lead into temptation. Okay so I dramatically caved into temptation but that's not a bad thing when it comes to Wollmeise or Malabrigo for that matter AND I have been knitting like a fiend recently. have a look at the pickies below and you'll see that himself's aircraft carrier sized socks are almost finished. All I have to do now is the heel and the foot and then Fanny's your aunt, they're finnished.

My trip to the Hague and Paris were both sucessful in certain ways. TH was okay despite the nasty person who decided to express his problem with my weight on a busy shopping street in the city centre.
Unwanted, rude and sometimes downright offensive opnion expressing is a national sport in this country so I try not to get offended. I've been told that the opionee's are just being honest and do this for the good of the opinion receiver's health and looks however, I'm not entirely convinced. Down right nastiness and the desire to make oneself feel good by making others feel bad about themselves seems like a more likely explaination.
The conversation went something like this.

rude cheese head: you're fat
me: excuse me?
rch: you're fat
me: well you're ugly
rch: you're still fat
me: well I can diet but you'll still be ugly.

I did manage to see a few friends there which is always nice and I got to stay in a big posh hotel which was nice too. The best thing about NL is that I can watch BBC1 and 2 there.

Paris was nice too. I didn't get to La Doguerie which is actually good because they have some new books and I would have needed check-in luggage after all. We had fun in the Thistle Bar (one of 3 scottish bars) I know it sounds silly, being scottish and going all the way to paris and then going to a scottish bar. Not living in Scotland kind of makes me homesick sometimes and going to a scottish bar makes me sick of home and anyway, I can buy walkers salt'n'vinegar and irn bru there. Also I wasn't really on a weekend break, I was on national service. We got beat by France but it was a good game and its much better than being beaten by Eng.

Out of Office

2009-02-11T04:01:00.000-08:00

I'll be off to Den Haag for a couple of days (work) so my knitting is packed and so is this. Its a birds nest smoke ring in Malabrigo Lace. Its really soft and its a pressie for a friend of mine. I hope she likes it. I really fancy one myself but I'm not sure about the way the colour has worked in. Also its a bit bright in this photo. the real thing has a purple burgandy note to it. I've got enough left to knit another one. Maybe this time with the pico edge. I got annoyed with the last picot edge and frogged it.

I'm not sure if the colours are any better in this close up. A wee bit but not much but maybe I should try without flash next time.

Well I'd bette get going. I've checked in on line so I don't need to get to the airport super early. I've got my pfauenauge clapotis packed and of course some extra yarn just in case I finish everything and have nothing to knit on the train to Paris. I'm going there on Friday. I'm not going for the romantic valentine's weekend for 2. No, I'm off to watch Scotland getting humped by France. Sorry, I'm off to watch Scotland play France at rugby....
Fingers crossed we do better than we did against the welsch.

Quickie

2009-02-10T02:54:00.000-08:00

Blogging was invented for rainy wet lunch times when you don't want to stick your head outside and you forgot to pick up your latest knitting project off the couch in the morning rush to get out of the door. Since taking this picture and posting it (record time of 5 minutes. Well its a record for me), the sky has become a deep shade of grey and the rain is bouncing off of the ground.

Oh joy. The weather gods are not on my side today. Not only did I forget my knitting, I also forgot my weather proofs which means that I'll be biking it back on the U-Bahn if this keeps up.

Just to cheer me up though. Here's a shot of Mrs W's shawl. Hope she likes it. If not then I'm sure one of her cronies will.

I'm really getting into my de-stashing or yarn dieting. Once I get back from Paris and before my mum-in-law gets here, I think I'll tidy the stash and see what screams at me next. I'm thinking that the baby pink kid silk night might want to jump onto a crochet hook and become a very lovely crochet scarf/wrap thing for summer.

The scary thing about tidying the stash is even though I only tidied a bit of it (the stuff I could see) I've not sorted the stuff in boxes yet. I'll need to empty out everything and perhaps weigh and catalogue stuff. Now that is scary. Perhaps I'll skip the weighing part. I never had a good relationship with scales anyway.

Back to the grindstone now

Frank's Fuzzy Feet Finished.

2009-02-09T01:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks to an ear infection, I've been quite industrious over the past week or so. I was off work for a whole three days and managed to get lots and lots done. Frank's fuzzy feet got finished, laminara got blocked, shawl for Joris' mum got started finished and blocked, birds nest cowl started and finished and I've started a clapotis with the wollmeise pfauen auge or whatever the colourway its called. I bought that particular lace weight ages ago to do the peacock feather shawl but the yarn didn't want to be a peacock feather shawl. I've started various projects with it only to frog after a few centimeters again because the yarn didn't want to be a laminara, a jeanie or anything else I attempted. So this very nice but stubbourn yarn got thrown into the naughty corner and left for a few months to think about its behavior and repent. Last week's bedroom and stash tidying episode brought various UFO's to light and also the naughty corner yarn came creeping out looking very sheepish (pun intended) and calling out 'I want to be a clapotis' so its becoming a clapotis (piccie to follow sometime)

The baby sock in the above photo isn't actually a baby sock, its my size 38s. I've not got tiny feet. They're kind of average but when compared to Frank's titanic sized feet, they're more like wee tiny life boats for one. Okay so the huge sock is not for a giant. Its an UN-felted Fuzzy Foot.

This is the after foto. After 2 times in the washing machine. They fit himself extremely well and have been keeping his feet all snugly. I've still got some of the wool left and I would guess that I have enough to make myself a pair but I've got that purple stuff too. Decisions decisions... I'll make up my mind some day.

You may already have guessed since this blog is kind of picture heavy but I have a new digi camera hence another photo of Laminnara. This time while its blocking on top of a towel on my bed. I love it and I've hardly had it off of my neck since it dried. Tis very warm too.

This lovely example is for my friends mum. She used to knit for everyone and however she's now quite ill and unable to knit. She's always cold when she goes to visit so I thought a nice wee wrap, shawl, tuch or something would be good for her. I used a whole ball of some italian kid silk mohair thing. Same stuff as kid silk haze but very much cheaper and in my stash (yarn diet not broken for that) and that was including the frill at the end. The instructions I got were rubbish and in typical brit style, written out row by row. I like charts. Charts are easier to read and you're less likely to loose your place. Why do the majority of UK designers insist on writing out row by row instructions (yes its rant time again) when a chart takes up less space, gives you view on what its supposed to look like without a photo and the only translating which needs done, if you need it translating, is the key. Oh and its almost idiot proof. I ended up charting the thing myself. I also ended up changing a few things and ingoring the instructions on the frill. It turned out really well and will be on its way to NL tomorrow.

Even though its Monday, I'm actually in a good mood. The weekend was good and without hangovers. Shocking considering that this weekend I was celebrating my new job, it was karaoke AND 6 nations. I'm off to Paris on Friday to watch Scotland getting humped again. This time by France. If we win the wooden spoon 3 times in a row, do we get to keep it? Actually I think its time we started selling them back to the rest of the participants. Would be nice if someone else won it for a change.

Fuzzie

2009-01-28T05:22:00.001-08:00

Another photo of my Laminnara and the colours show a bit better but not much considering that the wool looks slightly green in the photo and there's no green in the wool. Still using the rubbish phone camera though.
Went up to the Faden Insel at lunch time. Actually I was on another secret errand wthat I don't dare post here just in case the person involved sees even though they're not a very bloggy person and also not really into knitting. You never know so best kept unpublished for now. Anyhoo the Faden Insel was on the way back to work so of course I couldn't resist going in. They now have the new knitpicks tunisian crochet for doing big projects. You can screw one of those cords on and bob's your father's brother, you can do big blankets etc.
The yarn diet was broken only slightly as his nibs requested fuzzy feet last night and I don't have enough feltable stuff to make them for him. I had made a pair for him before but he managed to really felt one so that it fits me (must make myself another one). He was doing the wash so I couldn't shout at him for being careless. At the moment, he's at home nursing a bad cold and would like fuzzy feet to keep his tootsies warm. He insists that he has the flu but he's a guy. What more can I say?
I'm getting sidetracked yet again. Anyway the fuzzy feet. Actually I do have enough feltable wool for his fuzzies. I have purple feltable wool but I don't really fancy making using that for him. Purple is my colour. I bought some manly navy blue stuff for the manly fuzzies. That's really a contradiction in terms but never mind. I bought enough to make a new pair for him. I will just chuck the other black one in the wash some more so that I have a pair and then knit myself another pair of purple ones. Or, I could make a bag out of the purple stuff. Here that would be a good idea. Nice purple cable pattern then felted.
I've taken a couple of hours free this afternoon so I'm off to the bookshop on the way home. I'm on a yarn diet not a literature diet. Oh and I've decided to sign up for the OU english lit course. I'll be doing that soon and then starting in September. I read that much that it makes sence to get some sort of qualification out of it.

Catch up and Australia Day

2009-01-26T00:11:00.001-08:00

This is what I managed to get done on my road trip this weekend. its not such a good photo but its a phone camera so what do you expect? I would have gotten more done but I did have to do a stint of driving, partying, meeting new niece and shopping. The pattern is.......yep you guessed it.....Laminara from Knitty and I'm actually enjoying knitting it. The yarn is malbringo baby merino. The colourway is paris night. Unfortunately, you can't really see the colours in this photo (apologies again for my rubbish phone camera). Its a very dark grey with dark lilac and turquoise. Sort of twighlight colours. The best thing about this project is that its for me :o) I'm still on the monster kilt socks for Frank. He has extremely long legs. I've got Charleen's darkside cowl done (one night knit)in Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran and of course a couple of wee jasjes (dutch for wee jackets) for my new niece also in cashmerino and something else soft.

I'm on a yarn diet at the moment and its going well. I'm only allowed to buy yarn if I get rid of 500g of stashed yarn. Its called Wollabspecken in german :). I'm thinking of starting up a group on ravelry as I've come up with some pretty cool rules and fun things to help those with yarn dietry issues. Not just me actually. I pinched some ideas from some fellow yarn adicts. So far I've managed to get rid of a few extra gramms of wool and after the monster socks are done, the laminara, the wips, ufos and orphans, I'll be able to buy a few kilos again :o)
Rule so far is for every 500g used. I get to buy 100g. I also get to buy 100g for every 2kg I loose personaly :) Sort of Wollbauchbeinpoabspeckregime (wool-tums-legs-bums-fatloss-regime). Dunno if that will make the next edition of the Duden dictionary but I kind of like it.

Life wise, everything is cool. My new niece (yippee a girl, I can knit wee dresses for her and everything) is lovely and weighs a tonne already. My nephew is gorgeous too and keeps giving his new wee sister kisses and cuddles which is really sweet. Berlin is cold and grey but that's January for you. I reckon that January was invented for knitters. You see the thing is, all those folks who don't knit, crochet, sew, quilt etc etc are absolutely bored out of their minds and hate January. I love it. I get to spend time at home knitting, reading (currently on a non fiction kick) and other indoorsy stuff. I've even heard of some folks who start their christmas knitting in January. If you're that organised then fine. I'm going to wait till summer. the mittens which I didn't get finished this year are up for next year.

And to my lovely Australian friends. Happy Australia day. This time last year, I was in an Aussie bar in Amsterdam with Mess (my twin brother seperated by parentage, a continent and 4 months) getting rather drunk and doing my impression of Shrek by shouting at Donkey (another aussie who's nickname is donkey. I won't say why though) This year, I'll have toast with butter and vegemite. Yumm.

Schwetter Happens

2008-12-22T04:24:00.001-08:00

Well at least it didn't get too wet. This happened on the way to work this morning. I picked the worst time to cycle to work and then my carrier bag broke (didn't realise that it was a nice eco friendly plastic bag that disintegrates in rain) and my knitting landed on the ground. Luckily for me, it was so wet that I'd decided to stop, lock up my bike and take the u-bahn so I had stopped at the time and it was on the pavement in a semi dry place so none of my knitting got run over by trams, cars, trucks or nasty white van drivers (white van drivers tend to be much more agressive than other coloured van drivers). I don't think I'm supposed to knit with lacy lamb ever. The last time I started something with lacy lamb a child threw up on me and my knitting on the train. to top it off, the mother refused to believe that the yarn is €17 per ball and left without even saying "sorry well here's a fiver towards new stuff". Hmm I don't think I'll go into that now as I'm relatively calm at the moment and I don't want to ruin the christmas vibe I've got.

I was supposed to be keeping up with my blogging but things have continued to be as hectic as before. What with 2 trips to NL and a visit from Mum and Auntie not to mention various chrimbo parties and get togethers. Those interfering things have also got in the way of my knitting. I've not finished anything for ages. Well, 1.5 socks, a scarf for a friend of mine(that's the long pink thing on the radiator) and that's about it. The lacy lamb project is the swallow tail shawl for my MIL for christmas. I'm just about to start the 14th 'budding lace 2' repeat so I'm kind of on track for having it finished, blocked and packaged for Thursday. Well I would be if I had from now until late wednesday night uninterrupted knitting time but I don't. My friend Julianne (the soon to be owner of a semi-dry pink silk scarf) is coming tonight for a visit then tomorrow I'm meeting another friend for a gift exchange and Wednesday I'll be traveling to NL. At least I've got a 6 hour train ride to get some more done. I also need to package up some presents for himself and neefje steefje.

My new neefje or nichtje (dutch diminuative form for nephew or niece) hasn't arrived as yet. He or she was supposed to say hello to the world yesterday but probably wants to be called Noel or Carol so is waiting for Christmas day. We'll see.

Well I'm off to get on with some work now. Will do some knitting on my next break (hopefully the yarn will be dry by then)

In case I don't get to post beforehand. Have a great Christmas and an excellent new year when it comes and as we say in some parts of Scotland "Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath ùr."

Stuck for words

2008-11-27T05:40:00.001-08:00

Well I was stuck for words and I was being lazy about blogging AND I've also been kind of busy with work, play, visitors and visiting. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

the picture above is of a WIP scarf for yours truly here. I need a new one as my scarf from 2 years ago is getting a bit tatty. Time for a homeless person to benefit from it if they want it that is. Anyway the above scarf is in a fake Noro from Karstadt's own brand. Its a merino and silk mix (no polymide or other plastic in it) and was only 3.50 euries per ball so I bought 5 although on knitting it up, I only think I'll need 3 max but I can always make mitts and a hat to match. The pattern is some sort of multi-coloured brioche stitch. The pattern is called the inside out scarf and you can get it here. I didn't stick to the pattern (as usual) and added a few extra stitches. I cast on 37 in total. I kind of need a nice thick and wide scarf for cycling to work in the mornings.

Other knitting things have happened. Loads of socks have been knitted and sent to their recipients. Including the half pair which was given to my best friend at home in Scotland. She insisted on a full pair until I assured her that the other one was still on the needles and that she would get it very soon so she gracefully accepted one sock and a promise that she would have a full pair before Christmas.

I'm off to NL next week for work. Not looking forward to that but that's another story. Staying with a friend there who wants to knit so at least I'll have some sort of fun.

Will try to blog on a more regular basis. I promise.....Yeah yeah, we've all heard that one before.

WIP Wrestling and Shawl Crawling

2008-08-12T05:34:00.001-07:00

falkenberg2
Originally uploaded by BerlinerBabe

I'm signed up for 2 events on the Ravelrympics which is to be honest, a bit over ambitious for me. I've also signed up for the group 'over committed' which appears to reflect my knitting character extremely accurately. Actually not just knitting. I'm over committed to all of my craft projects. At least the ravelympics is kind of keeping me on the straight and narrow for a change although I am still project, social life and gym juggling but hey that's what makes life interesting.

The blue thing in the photo is where I'd got to with the Hanne Falkenberg I bought a while ago before getting annoyed with the german instructions and bannishing it to the naughty corner. Its now decided to behave and now that I've read the instructions about 40, I'm begining to get used to them the jacket is knitting up quite nicely now. I'm on the increases for he back and collar. Looooooong rows of plain knitting which is fairly useful when you're watching the olympics. Its also my WIP Wrestling team project. I've still to start the shawl crawl project but I'm saving that for the final stretch.

My favorite event so far is the swimming. I keep hoping that big headed American, what's his name, no not Bush, Phelps. That's it. That he'll get beaten by some obscure swimmer from a tiny wee country but he keeps winning. I suppose its swings and round-a-bouts. I mean last time round it was the dutch and the aussies who cleaned the medal cupboard out. This time round its the U.S.
I'm quite glad that van der Hoogenband isnt' swiming this year. In 2004 I was geting earache from all of the mispronounciactions of his name. That and Inge de Bruijn. Actually the dutch swimmers should just change there name to something everyone can pronounce. It would make the life of the commentators a lot easier.

I've also been on my travels again and brought back loads of goodies from Liberty's. I managed to get 20 balls of Rowan damask for 20 quid and 10 balls of kid silk night for 18.75 or something equally as ridiculous in price. If that's not enough to make the average knitter jealous as hell. I'm off to Bayern in October for.... well for work really but I managed to plan it so that it coincided with the Wollfest again. Sneaky or what? I've already e-mailed the Wollmeise to warn her of the Berlin sacking of her stall. Well maybe not quite but I do expect to be coming back to Berlin with a trolley case full to bursting and yes I will be bringing back goodies for the stricktreffers so don't worry.

Then to really rub salt into the wounds. I'm off to the big craft fair in Brimingham in November. It should be good. Last time I went in Scotland I came out with nothing. I was really dissapointed so went on a spending spree at John Lewis to cheer me up. The rowan rep there is really nice and she told me about the big fair in Birmingham and that a lot of wool suppliers only go there and don't bother with the Scottish one. Well if Mohamed won't come to the mountain then this Scottish Ben (Scottish for mountain) will go there. Hmph.

Chrismitts

2008-07-02T07:40:00.001-07:00

I've finished my first pair of Chrismitts. That's my christmas mittens project. Okay I know that its July and that the temperatures are in the 30's but who cares. If I want to knit everyone mittens for christmas 2008 then quite honestly, I should have started in July 2007. Anyway. I'm well chuffed with the result of these ones. The pattern is from the Selbuvotter book and I really like it. These are knitted in Lang's sock wool and Wollmeise's rhubarb (rabarber in german I think). I like the colour change of the contrast colour. It makes the knitting interesting.

I think the next ones will be gloves and at the same time I still need to get Frank's NEC/St Pauli mittens finished. Well I've always got a million projects on at the same time so another one won't make any difference. I know that once I've done those then there will more than likely be a request for another pair for a couple of his friends who are die hard NEC and StPauli fans but they can wait till everyone else has their mittens, socks, jumpers, shawls and a few things which I would like to knit for me.

I've not yet added piccies from our holiday on the bikes but I will try and remember to do that tonight or tomorrow. I also need to update ravelry with some project, stash and other stuff photies. I'm diversing again. We didn't quite make it back to Berlin on the bikes but we did get to the old east/west border and then got the train back from Hizenacker or whatever its called. my achillies got rather sore which is why we stopped there. Otherwise it was straight up the Elbe and then onto the Havel and futher to Berlin but I suppose these things happen. I would still like to do the rest of the journey. Maybe do Berlin Hizenacker or something.

I'm off to Stricktreff now as its Wednesday and its stricktreff and that's what I like to do on Wednesday's.

Kip day

2008-06-14T04:57:00.001-07:00

Me on ameland knitting in my rugby gear. Playing again tomorrow and knitting too probably.

Schlepping Projects

2008-06-10T06:55:00.001-07:00

I thought I would post my latest schlepping (carry round) WIP. Its waving lace socks from the favorite socks book and its in wollmeise Storm. I frogged the waving lace in wollery dopio (rusty red colour) as I've heard that it shrinks in the wash and I'm a 'if the socks can't get washed in the washing machine then I'm not knitting them' kind of girl so off to the frog pond they went. I think the wool is much more suited to a shawl or even the colour bits in my mittens and gloves for everyone's christmas project. I've still to start that but I intend to while I'm on my hollibags. The holiday knitting should be the above mentioned socks and mittens and maybe if I'm lucky, I might pick up something along the way.

Also I've kind of split my knitting into types of project. Home projects and Schlepping round with me projects. At home there are various things OTN and the little amount of time I've been spending at home lately I've been working on that Anne Falkenberg thing. Its easy knitting especially with the loooooooong rows of knit stitch. I don' t have to concentrate too much. Not like in the begining. And to break up the monotony, I have my schlepping projects.

I know that most folks will be meeting up and knitting somewhere in the sun this weekend however, I'll be on a beach in the middle of a rugby tournament knitting in between games. Should be fun and I will try to keep the sand out of the wool although since I can't keep the sand out of my bag usually I've not got much chance. After that we're off on our bikes again. This time from NL back to Berlin. Should be fun and not very hilly so we might have a chance of actually reaching our destination. We won't be doing the direct route which is a bit boring but the coastal route and well, if we get bored or saddle sore, we can always jump on a train back to Berlin or to somewhere sunny.

I'm still gym bunnying away but the numbers on the scales keep going up the way. Hoping that's to do with the weather and not the increased consumption of ice-cream. Well it is hot

I'm back

2008-05-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yep its me, in my motorhead baseball hat and the vertrans 10's trophy. I am actually old enough to play the vets rugby now (yes but I look like a wee spring chicken and no arguments about that)but for our tournament I'm the wrong sex so I just got to pretend for a bit.
The tournament went really well. I got 20 womens teams in so I was really chuffed and top notch teams they were too. I got to go on a boat trip with the Mens South African national 7's team which was excellent fun and the lads were really really nice. I also managed to do the announcements for the Women's European Championship games which kicked off on the Saturday night. By the time it had all finished on Sunday I was so tired, i couldn't even drink beer. Actually that's not entirely true. I could drink beer, just not Heineken. I hate the stuff now. I think my tastebuds are now in tune with the more refined german stuff. Anyway, everyone worked really hard and my mates Tessa and Sarah are stars :o) coz they ran me around, put me up and generally just helped me out loads.

I got absolutely no knitting done almost the whole time I was in A'dam. I did knit on the way there though. I started a sock which I had to frog as it was too big but that was it. Before I went I finished the swallow tail shawl in KSN purple stuff with glitter. Photo will follow when I get around to blocking it. I slept near enough the whole way back on the train so no knitting done there but since I've been back I've done 1.5 socks. I've had visitors as well and I do feel that I'm not paying them enough attention if I sit and knit while they're here. This weekend I have some more visitors and I need to get 0.5 of the other sock finished before they arrive as the socks are a sort of belated b'day pressie for one of them. Hopefully I'll get the top part of the sock finished tonight.

My wish to turn into a gym bunny is slowly working, I'm just trying now to work up the courage to get my knitting out while on the exercise bike as I feel it cuts down on my hobby time. I mean I don't mind reading while I'm on the bike but I'm not sure about knitting yet. I have read knitting books and patterns while cycling to nowhere so the next logical step would be to whip out the pins and knit in time to the pedals. We'll see.

Book Quiz and stuff.

2008-05-08T03:02:00.000-07:00

Was at stricktreff last night and it was great fun. I did more treffing than stricking as I made a mistake with the swallowtail shawl. Yes I've moved on already. The other stuff has not been forgotten but I'd been sorting out my stash when I came across some lovely kid silk night in a purpley plum colour. It was there sparkling and blinking at me saying 'knit me please' so i did. I'm on the 2nd graph of lilly of the valley lace and I don't like it. I'm glad that there is only a few more rows to go before that stops. I think its the yarn and the needles that makes it all the more difficult to purl 5 together on the return rows.

I'm also turning into a gym bunny (Well I'm trying) I went last night before stricktreff and got myself a new training schedule. This one involves coming to the gym 5 times per week and bouncing around on the cross trainer rather a lot. I did 30 mins on the cross trainer and 30 mins on the bike, sweated like a pig and felt great afterwards. Although my toes did go slightly numb. Maybe once some kilos have gone, they won't go as numb. Also I need to be perfectly honest with myself. I DO have time to go 5 times per week. I mean what else do I do apart from sit at home and knit? And to make it less tedious - yes bouncing around on the cross trainer can be very tedious - I've to break up the training days, so 2 days off per week and not one after the other. This does mean that I have to go to the gym at some point over the weekend. Fingers crossed that I manage to keep it up.

I got this from SaRi's blog and thought that it would be fun. Quite appropriate book concidering the gym bunny stuff and the fact that I do talk about rabbits :o)

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Wips

2008-05-02T02:58:00.000-07:00

This is my current WIP. Its Laminaria from knitty. I'm not putting in the link coz the blog police always think that I'm a spam blogger and cut me off for weeks at a time. Okay so that was a slight exaggeration and its normally only for a couple of days at a time but its a pain especially when you're an infrequent blogger like myself. The wool is from Wollmeise in deepest darkest Bayern and the colour is Pfauen fädern I think. They are really pretty colours when in the skein but I'm not so sure about them now that they're knitted. I think this might be a present for someone. We'll see.
I've also decided I like the term Work in Progress or WIP much better than UFO. In that case I have tonnes of them. Another WIP (started yesterday) is the Hanna Valkenberg or however you spell her name's Gloria. Its kind of petroly blue colours and very nice. Its kind of wierd to knit and they didn't have the english pattern so I'm knitting auf deutsch but its going okay so far. Its quite complicated but the woman in the shop was right. Just follow the instructions to the letter and it works. Because I'm having to concentrate on the german thing, I'm not making as many mistakes as I normally would with a new style of knitting so I would strike the 'its going okay' and change it to ' I'm quite pleased so far'. We'll see how far I get with it before i get bored again.
Fank's boat warmers are finished. Well his feet are the size of boats so the socks can be classed as boat warmers.
Off to sort out some 7's stuff now. One cancellation and one other team from the waiting list in, Its going well.

Phone mitten

2008-04-18T02:12:00.000-07:00

This is my new phone mit. Most folks have phone socks but not me. I've got a wee latvian mit.
Okay so it was originally knitted for neefje steefje but he won't mind coz he's too big for it already and I only knitted one. I've got a wonderful new phone and I can blog instantly from it so I might just be able to keep this up to date for a change.

What's been happening lately? Too much if truth be told. One funeral after another, one business trip after another etc and not enough time either in Berlin or with the knitting needles

On a more positive note, my Mum retired and had a great retirement party. She got some really nice presents and is so far enjoying every minute of being retired. The first official day of retirement, I dragged her into a bookies to pick up my winnings from the Scotland v England game at Murrayfield (yes I was there and Scotland won). Its the first time she'd ever been inside a bookies in her life.

AAC (my old rugby team in amsterdam) won the championships after a fantastic final against Tilburg. I even got to run out onto the pitch with the team. Okay so that was by accident and I had a couple of beers in my hand at the time. I also I got rather inebriated during the celebrations and lost my lovely pink phone, hence the reason for my new lovely phone which isn't pink but it does have a phone mitten.

Jules and the Beaniestalk

2008-01-17T04:33:00.000-08:00

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

TADAAAAA!!!!!

2008-01-10T14:27:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-10T07:45:00.001-08:00

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.

Out of the Dumps

2008-01-08T05:16:00.000-08:00

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.

Back in the BRD

2007-10-26T02:54:00.000-07:00

I know that I've not blogged for ages and I'm firmly on my way to hell as i have been paving the way with good intentions for ages now but I'm blaming it on post-holiday-blues.

I had such a good time. I even met Andy Nichol. For those of you who don't know him. He's the next best thing to god on the rugby pitch. Well for me anyway. He played for Scotland for years and is an incredibly nice man. Does more commentating than playing now but he's still wonderful.

The World Cup is now over and the only consolation about South Africa winning is that England didn't (sorry to all my english friends out there)

I've been knitting like a fiend too however I don't appear to be finishing anything. I'm a project buterfly. Well I could thing of other adjectives to describe this sort of behavior but I won't go into that just now as I've already offended half of my friends with england rugby comment. I've got socks, mittens, jackets, shawls and everything else imaginable on the needles and nothing appears to be getting finished. That's not entirely ture as Frank's mittens are doing okay and Its almost 1 down and start on the 2nd asap as he's now wearing socks over his hands on the way to work. (yes ladies and gents, its that cold in Berlin) I on the other hand (pardon the pun) have been wearing an odd glove/mitten combination so I will need to be knitting some mittens for myself too.

Regarding rugby, things are going okay. So far we've lost all of our games and I've had various injuries, including some stud shaped bruising under my chin. Don't ask me how that happened, I don't know. The girls are getting better though and even though the last score doesn't reflect how we played, it was still an improvement. Last night we worked on aggression at the training. It went quite well and all the old excercises which Eric taught us at AAC are coming out of the closet. Game experience comes into it too and some of them are chalking up a lot of experience. Oh and I've been invited to the national selections - now don't go getting any ideas. I've not lost 20kg, and gained mega fitness in 2 months. There's a trainers workshop there too and I'll be going to that.

I'm off out now. Goning out to celebrate Happy Pay Day to me but will need to go somewhere where they do nice salads. I'm back on the diet and 3.5kg lighter than I was at the begining of the week. I also want to go to the flicks but know that I will be tempted by the popcorn. I know that there is not many calories in popcorn. Calories are not the problem. Carbohydrates are.

Will post piccies tomorrow if I get the chance

Honeymoon

2007-09-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

Its a bit unusual to be blogging from one's honeymoon but since I forgot to post a message before I left, I thought I might post one now. I'm about half way through my holibags and I'm having a great time. Took the night train to Basel, got on another 3 trains in total to get to St Etienne and watched Scotland beat Portugal.
We then got on our bikes and started the journey to Paris. We're not talking motorbikes here so it goes a bit slower than on the back of a kaiwasaki, honda or harley. The first day cycling was mostly down hill and we stayed a a lovey wee camping a ferme in Feurs. The 2nd day was probably the hardest and we managed 4 very steep hills. Going up wasn't so much fun but coming down was excellent. There are however some disadvantages to coming down hill at very high speeds when you're all hot and sweaty from cycling up hill. I manged not to think about what all those tour de france guys do on decents, did not wrap up warm and ended up with a throat infection or mal de gore as they call it in France. Sounds much more serious in french I think. runing out of time at the internet cafe will post more later

Homesick?

2007-08-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

The simple answer to that is NO. All I have to do is look out of the window at all that lovely rain and the homesick feeling dissappears fast. Just now the rain is bouncing almost up to the windowsill here at work and that's pretty high up off of the ground. The lighting and the thunder haven't stopped for the last 30 mins and light outside would suggest that its midnight not midday. In fact its so dark out there, the streetlights have come on. At least its better at this time of day. 2 nights ago it was between 3am and 5.30am and even with earplugs in I could still hear it so you can guess who arrvied at work with a sunny outlook. Well it wasn't me so don't look at me with that tone of voice.

On the knitting front, I've done a few things. I've knitting 1.5 pairs of Obelix socks. That's Frank's old old rugby club in NL. They have one yellow sock and one green. Mr Obelix (Patrick) will be a daddy very soon so I've knitted baby's first obelix socks. The pair that are finished are newborn size and the 0.5 of the pair is a few months old size. Just one green one to do and I'll send them off. I'm also still working on the cable rib socks but I think I'll have to rip out a bit as my gauge is a bit tight. Might have to go up a needle size if it continues.

Only 2.5 weeks to go till we're off on our honeymoon. I know its a year after the big event but timing isn't everything. We've decided to cycle from St Etienne to Paris before picking up our train to London and then Glasgow. At the moment all I can think of is 'ouch' my bum is going to hurt but it should be a load of fun. Its mostly downhill so it won't be too much work on the legs and I'm hoping that France in September will not be as wet as Berlin in August. If it is then we'll camp out at hotel and jump on a train.

Rugby wise I've not been doing much. I will be going training on Thrusday though as I like the ground better when its a bit wet and muddy. Makes sliding tackles all the more fun. I've also agreed to take on the position of forwards trainer after my holiday so that should be fun. I've never done that before so it will be something new for all of us.

Too hot to knit?

2007-08-09T02:34:00.000-07:00

I know that the title might raise some eyebrows as there are knitters is far hotter places than Berlin however, yesterday was sooo hot and sticky even after the thunder storms that it really was too hot to knit. I went along to stricktreff taking along my embossed leaves socks to play with and ended up knitting about 5 rows and making 50 mistakes.

I wasn't the only one. Most of the srticktreff maedels felt the same way and we ended up packing up our stuff early and just chitchatting for a while before heading home a whole hour before normal. Still I did come home with the new filati book thanks to Bettina (thank you) Its got some really nice designs in it which I quite fancy knitting up soon.

When I came home I ripped out the embossed leaves and started designing my skull and crossbones for the st pauli argyle socks which I want to knit. As Im not working this morming (still a bit woozy from yesterday's migrane) and its no longer so hot and sticky. I knitted a swatch. Yes me readers, ME. I actually knitted a swatch. Now normally I never swatch for socks. I do occassionally for other projects but for socks.....well....this is the first time. Okay so the colours are not what I'll be using but it will be the same make of yarn. However before I go out and get the other colours I need I think I'll make a very loud pair of argyles just for fun and to practice. Glad I've got the jolly roger all sorted though. I'think they will make very fun socks when I get around to knitting them.

Beerfested

2007-08-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

On Friday evening I went to heaven. Don't worry, I didn't get knocked off my bike again, I went to the beermeile in Berlin. 2.2km of beer and crap music. Well some folks liked the music but I tend to think of german Schlagermusik as something I have to put up with if I want to enjoy beer festivals in Germany. I enjoyed the beer so much that I spend most of saturday and sunday on the couch finishing these. That's Frank modeling them for me. As you can see, they're very short but that's what he wanted, so that's what he got. The yarn is a bamboo mix which his nibbs loves. He swears that they make his feet less smelly and I tend to agree with him so I'll keep making them until his entire sock drawer is full of them. These are knitted up on 2mm's as the yarn is very thin and on the 2.5mm's the stitches were just too loose. The yarn is by Online and was half the price of the Regia Bamboo but we'll see if its any different in wearability, washability and general comfyness. Actually its tough if he likes the Regia better coz I've got another ball of the Online stuff and some left over from the ball that I made these out of. I tend to have these type of socks as an ongoing project for when I don't need to concentrate too much on what I'm knitting. You see his feet are huge and especially with the 2mm needles, it seems to take forever to get a foot done.

I've also had loads of mails from people concerned about my friend Jeroen. He's doing better now. The collar will be coming off soon and he's moving around quite the thing. He says himself that it looks a lot worse than it was but still, its a bit of a shocker. Its making me seriously concider buying one of those really ugly but very safe cycling helmets. When I think of the amount of times I've been nearly knocked off my bike or actually knocked off my bike here in Berlin, I think that it might actually be useful to have and to wear one. I might look daft but at least I've got less chance of having my brains splattered across the pavement or road. Just wonder if they do them in Frank's size. He's got a rather large head as well as feet.

I'm now on another 2 pairs of socks. Still finishing the jitterbug socks. They have just not turned out the way I wanted them to but they'll keep my feet warm in my blundstone boots this winter. I've also started a pair of socks in the flaemschen muster from the genial sockenworkshop book. I don't think pattern looks like flames at all. It looks more like the eye in a peacock feather to me so I'm knitting them up in a nice turquoise colour. Will take photo when I get good light again which is usually in the morning.

Not for the faint hearted

2007-08-01T02:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Hit and Run driver,

I understand that last week Thursday may have been a bit of a stressful day for you and that you couldn't hang around to see the damage you caused to my friend Jeroen so I thought I would show you.

Just to jog your memory; you were driving along De Clerqstraat in Amsterdam on Thursday evening around 11.30 pm and hit someone who was cycling along minding their own business. You didn't stop to see what had happenend but kept driving like the arrogant swine you were probably brought up to be. Luckily for my friend, the people behind saw everything and managed to call an ambulance But fortunately for you, they didn't managage to catch your number plate. Shame really as it would have been nice for you to meet Jeroen. He's a funny guy and I'm sure he would have laughed and joked with you about the whole thing, had he been concious at the time.

This is day 1 and by the looks of things, Jereon is still out of it. Which is kind of lucky because after he smacked the ground at high speed, his eye socket and cheekbone broke. I imagine that it must have hurt a bit. Oh I nearly forgot, you managed to crack his skull too. To be quite precise the external occipital protuberance. As you will see from the next 2 photos, he's getting better however he has to wear a collar for a few weeks in order to let the various breaks heal up.

While you were racing off home, checking for bloodstains on your car and snuggling up in bed, my best friend (Jeroen's girlfriend) was pacing the floor and worrying herself sick. I don't know if you've ever worried about someone in your life but its like a very painful limbo, not knowing where someone is or what has happened to them. All sorts of thoughts fly through your head. You imagine terrible things like them lying in a ditch or a the side of a road after being knocked off of their bike by some eejit.

So Mr or Ms Hit and Run Driver, if you ever read this (or get someone who's more literate to read it for you), driving is not a game of grand theft auto. In real life the people you knock down don't get back up again so easily.

I really hope that what goes around comes around.
Groetjes
Jules

Unblogged

2007-07-30T10:40:00.000-07:00

I'm back in the land of blogging again. It only took them over 3 days to unblock the thing and now I've got far too much to say in one post but I'll try and keep it as short as someone who's been unable to blog for the past 3 days possibly can.

Thursday night was great fun. I have been in agony for most of the weekend however it was worth it. The following photo of my arm was not caused by domestic violence but by my first rugby training in over a year. My skin will toughen up eventually. At least its better than trying to explain black eyes to the doctor. While still playing in Amsterdam I managed to get 5 black eyes in the space of 3 months. My doctor gave me domestic abuse leaflets with the first 2 and with the next one, even though I was in the emergency room in still wearing my rugby gear and covered from head to toe in mud, they wanted to call the police for me and get my gorgeous hubby (the boyfriend at the time) arrested for beating me up. Now anyone who knows Frank also knows that the concept of him giving me a smack is completely outrageous but I suppose they were only doing their job. I did have a broken cheekbone then so I can imagine that it looked quite bad from where they were standing.

We'll skip Friday's karaoke and head straight to Saturday. Went shopping, went to stricktreff and knitted away quite happily. Met up with Charlene and then went to see the 'Seamen' Frank's band. Here's a wee photo of them. The bloke in the kilt is mine :o) They were playing at a club called JWD which stands for Janz Weit Draussen. German for 'in the middle of nowhere' Well it was in the middle of nowhere but quite packed for place where the only next door neighbours are a family of ducks. They played extrememly well and got loads and loads of applause. A few of the locals even took to the dancefloor. It was a bit like the old 'dorf disco' in Attendorn but the natives were friendly, the beer was cold and the music was good. All in all it was a good night.

Back to the socks now. I'm still playing with the collinette jitterbug and on Sunday I looked at what I'd been knitting on Saturday and decided to take Gisela's advice. She reckoned that my needles were too small for the thickness of the yarn. I have to admit that she was right. I was knitting the main part of the sock up with 2.5mm's and it did look a bit to tight. I ripped back to the cuff. Knitted up with a 3mm, the bundchen is just too loose so with the 2.5's for the bundchen and then the 3mm's for the leg, its going much better and the colours are pooling in a spiral rather than the strange inkspot blob which had appeared using the 2.5's. So thanks Gisela not only for lending me 10 euries when the silly Opern Cafe wouldn't take my EC card but also for the wisedom about the needle size.

Murphy's still in town.

2007-07-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

This post was originally supposed to be called 'return to rugby' however on trying to blog this morning I recieved a notification that my blog was locked due to the blog being a 'spam' blog. Now they're probably right about the content being rubbish, but spam? Must be the grammar police or something. So I've sent in my wee secret code or whatever its supposed to be and I'm now waiting not so patiently for them to unlock it so that I can post again. Seemingly I can save this a draft until some 'real' person reviews my blog and judges its content to be unharmful to the world. That may take some time.

I'll post my return to rugby pictures when I actually know that my blog is going to be published.

So thankyou very much Mr Spam-Prevention Robot. NOT

A touch of the Murphy's

2007-07-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

I'm having another one of those days/weeks/months I think. You know, those times where nothing seems to go right and everything that can go wrong will go wrong? The separate actions fall directly under Murphy's Law however when it apears to be more of a virus which will eventually clear up then its a Touch of the Murphy's.

List of Bad things

Got knocked off my bike on Tuesday

Couldn't get toe up sock right at all.

Ripped out Collinette jiterbug socks 4 times

Ripped out again when I got home after strick treff as I didn't like the pattern and it was too stretchy.

argued with my colleague

Frank bought huge sideboard for a euro and now we can't get it upstairs or in the cellar.

Not getting my knitting time this morning

Back light on bike dying last night

Harry Potter dying on page 536 (joke)

Managed to post this on the wrong blog

Okay so some things have been gonig well too and I'm just whinging and being a grump.

List of good things

Found pattern in my favourite socks for the jitterbug

Went to stricktreff last night and didn't get knocked off my bike or rained on

Made up with colleague

Stalin has calmed down and is now only Atilla the Hun(my boss)

Found new rugby club which will be playing 15-a-side.

Got Colin's toe up right by the 2nd go

Manged to delete entry from wrong blog

Here's a photo of my stricktreff in TeaTheTee or whatever its called. Its not our normal treffing spot but, as our usual haunt was on holiday, we had to find somewhere else to click the sticks. Last night's treff back in the Aurum and was good fun. There wasn't that many of us there but we ended up having a discussion about language history and blunders. Language blunders are one of my favourtie and I abousolutely love it when folks here ask about becoming sausages. I also like making mistakes myself. Maybe I should write more german and see what kind of hillarity comes from it. Acutally I dunno, there's a difference between writing e-mails in bad german and writing blog in bad german. Knowing my luck I'd probably get put in prison by the german grammar police for grammatically gross misbrauch.
Tonight I'm gonig to be cycling miles to the rugby training. Its my first rugby training in over a year so I'll probably be in agnoy tomorrow. I love the german word for muscle ache caused by excercise 'musclekarte' I hope I've spelled that correctly or the spelling police might get me but anyway it literally translates as muscle hangover. Brilliant! Its a much better word that 'Strickjacke'
And because I will have my muscle hangover tomorrow I expect sympathy and chocolate :o)

Toe up tragedy

2007-07-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I hate toe up socks. I think in general, the principle is good i.e. you can knit and knit until you run out of yarn.
This is all fine and well if you have 2 balls of 50g or if you have 2 balls of equal length.
The thing which bugs me about toe-ups is the toe. I've tried loads of different ways and I personally like the results of the sherman toe. However I hate picking up the stitches after the toe is completed. I always end up with the wrong number and I'm sure I've dropped more than I've picked up and I find it difficult to unzipp the crocheted chain.

Maybe it was just a bad day but its now the 3rd time I've had to rip out the toe at the unzip stage and I'm getting ever so slightly annoyed with it.

The good news is, I've almost finished my cotton jeans short jacket. I know it will be a bit on the small side but hey, I don't care any more. I hate diets too. They make me more miserable than toe up socks.

Ach never mind. I'll have another go at the toe and if it works out, I'll go back on the diet and fit the jacket.

Finally

2007-07-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

So I actually took a picture of something that I've finished. I'm very pleased with myself. Its the first time I've used 2 colours over 2 different fingers. It goes so much quicker than picking up one colour at at time. I can't quite get the 2 colour on 1 finger technique and to be honest I like this one a lot better anyway.

I'm now going to lie down for a while even though its 4pm on a Saturday afternoon. I have a slight ye olde wilde hangover again.

Oh but before I do crawl back into my scratcher. Someone gave us back the summer and there is a huge big bright warm thing in the sky again. Its nice :o)

Addictions in General

2007-07-13T05:29:00.000-07:00

Okay so I'm addicted to knitting, wool, books and a few other things. Crafty and f!*@ abouty things. I do also (very) occassionally when the mood takes me, have a sneaky ciggarette however I am trying to stop that completely and only tend to do so when I'm out on the sauce.

Anyway, on the way to work this morning, an incident took place which has left me not only in pain but also with enough incentive never to suck on a cancer stick again.

There's me cycling to work. I decided to go down Friedrichstrasse this morning as Charlottenstrasse can be a bit iffy around 9ish when one is in a hurry. Although F-str can be just as iffy, at least there are plenty of police and traffic lights and its a haupt strasse with lots of yellow diamond signs which means that even me on a bike has right of way. I diverse again. As I was cycling along minding my own business, one of my pet hate's drove by. A BMW s.u.v. I hate those things in town but nonetheless it was there and it was driving. The passenger (sitting on the right chair in this country) was casually flicking the ash from his ciggie as his friend drove along as fast as the morning traffic would allow him. There was however, a bit of a wind and the ash of his ciggie landed straight in my eye. I yowled with pain then cycled as fast as my legs would go in order to catch up with him at the next set of traffic lights. I caught him and was extremely pleased to be able to tell him off in german with tears streaming down from my left eye. He did try to blame the big truck in front but concidering there was no passenger in that vehicle, it didn't really wash and I also knew that it was him. I did see it from my one functioning eye.

The point of this little rant is simple. If you smoke and you want to smoke in your car, please do so but flick the ash into the ashtray. That's what its there for. If you don't smoke in your car then fill it with pot pourri or whatever but then please don't fill it with pot-pourri and flick the ash out of the window onto unsuspecting cyclists or pedestrians who happen to have chosen a much more environmentally freindly way of traveling to work than sitting in a BMW s.u.v. Rant over

My book arrived today. I can't wait to get home now. I had written to Amazon to complain that one of my stricktreffers ordered her book about 1 week after me and had gotten her book last week and my delivery date still said August. 5 mins later I got shipment notification and today it arrived. Yippeee. Harry Potter next weekend and in between should be the Loop delivery. Oh my knickers are in a knot now. He he. I've just thought something up. knickers which are called 'knot now knickers' which look something like a chatstity belt. Either that its what you give to someone to destress them. 'here you go love,have some knot now knickers so that you can get yours out of the knot/twist they've just got into'

Service

2007-07-11T06:16:00.000-07:00

I must admit that I love Loop in London. I ordered my needle case on Thursday and it arrived on Monday. I could only pick it up last night but I was soo happy that I did a wee dance at the post office. Well not quite but I almost did. The jitterbug sock yarn is even more gorgeous irl so and I'm kind of itching to wind it, knit it and wear it but I want to wait for my favourite socks book to come in. Mind you I did by the Genial Sock Workshop book and that's got some really nice patterns in it too. We'll see.

Anyway the good thing about www.loopshop.gb.com is that they sent me an advert with the rowan cotton jeans on sale. One of the girls at the stricktreff had been admiring mine so I sent the advert to her. It was such a good deal that I decided I wanted some too and well we ordered loads of the stuff. 40 balls in total. The didn't have enough of the hemp colour (now christened brombeerjoghurt by us as it looks like bramble yoghurt) for Sabine so we both got this. The colour is Jute. Well they' didn't have 40 of that either but 39 so I've ordered 39 and I should be able to make a jumper and matching hat out of my 21. It knits up really well and feels sooo nice. The competition is now on though as Sabine and I now have to make 2 completely different garments so that we don't look like we're doing a 'single white female' . Better go and do some work now or I'll get shouted at by Satlin (my new boss he's called Satlin as he's a cross between Satan and Stalin)

Spending Spree

2007-07-05T04:27:00.001-07:00

Look what I bought!! I don't think his nibs will be able to moan at me for this one as it will be helping tidy up the flat. Well it will tidy out the old tin I'm using at the moment and once that's tidy I can shove more stuff in there thus creating space somewhere else in the flat. Well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

I also finally caved in and bought some Colinette Jitterbug yarn. Its a nice pinky purpley colour. I know that I don't really need any more sock yarn, never mind pinky purpley sock yarn but I heard soooo many good reports about it AND it was too gorgeous to resist.

I know its been a while since I've posted but I've been kind of busy running around like an eejit as usual. I've been to a couple of stricktrefs and had fun. Also the Seamen made their first appearence live. I still think the Seamen all over Berlin would make brilliant t-shirts. Maybe even 'Pirates of the Mugglezee' on the back or something... I'm off on a tangent again. Anyway I have been finishing projects which is highly unusual for me. One project will be going to its recipient on Saturday so I'll post some piccies after then. My other secret project is the Harry Potter SockSwap. Those are just beeing finshed and put in the post. Same goes for HPSS photo's. The Rowan cardi only has half a sleeve and a collar to go an its done then I don't know what to do. I think I'll finish Berni's jumper. Its been on the back burner for so long that I've forgotten what I was supposed to be doing with it. Well not quite but I have worked out what I'm supposed to be doing with the neck which is something. While deciding on that, I suppose I could be getting on with knitting some socks for Frank. I've got 1 sock almost finished and 2 x 100g balls of bamboo yarn to be knitting. I also want to be knitting some corsages and doing a felted bag and knitting up a skirt which I thought up AND a purse AND start on Christmas presents AND AND AND. So really I think I do know what to do and there is no shortage of projects.

Oh and bunny update. The poor wee soul had a tummy bug or something as she had a dose of the trots and wasn't eating or drinking. Well she had been trying to eat the fixtures in the flat and had a good go at the door and door frame but that's not proper bunny food. Maybe thought she could eat her way into the living room or something. We took her to the vet who gave her a couple of wee jags and she's now doing fine, eating snoepjes again and has thankfully stopped eating the house.

Ye Olde Wilde Hangover

2007-06-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Bad Bunny

2007-06-15T08:43:00.001-07:00

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.

Small Whinge

2007-06-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Rrrrrippping Yarn

2007-05-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Went to my Stricktreff last night and had lots of fun. Knitted away at my HSS and the more I knitted the more I realised that I didn't like the foot at all. So while I'm really happy with the leg and the pattern, its really baggy around the foot so off to the frog pond it goes again.

While at the stricktreff, I bought the most amazing sock wool from one of the girls. Its from the wolmeise and the colourway is Salamander. She reckons that its too dark and I reckon that it will make perfect Harry Potter socks for my swap partner.

Keeping this short today as I've loads to do.

Finally

2007-05-30T01:18:00.000-07:00

Okay so I'm not the brightest spark when it comes to computers and uploading and downloading stuff but I've managed it. I've got the pdf uploaded and in my links section of the blog. That means, those of you who have been clamouring for the pattern, Go for it :o) Its under HSS pattern

Just noticed a small mistake. It should read repeat rows 15-26 x 3 or how many times you like.

Here's the key

● = knit
/ = knit 2 tog
○ = yarn over
\ = ssk (slip slip knit or knit 2 tog throug back of loop)
▲ = slip 1, k2 tog, pass slipped stitch over

Last night while playing about with my socks, I decided indeed that I really hated the heel so I frogged it. Then did a short row hell. Not sure if it was the sherman as I was working from my own memory rather than the computer's but it turned out a lot better and tightened up the ankle area. So my recomendations are, if you're going to knit this and you're a loose knitter then use a short row heel or an afterthought heel. If you are going to do a heel flap and gusset, then I suggest you do the gusset decreases on every row rather than every 2nd. That should also stop nora batty syndrom socks.

Next Friday I'll be off galavanting again. I'm off home this time. Himself is going to Ameland Beach Rugby. I was supposed to be going too but have decided that I would much rather go home to scotland and get rained on than on some northern dutch island where it also rains a lot. I've had enough of that here in the past few days so I'm hoping that Glasow will look a bit like the piccie on the right when I get there. And not the one down here on the left. Will also stop in on some friends and maybe even get to meet my sisters newish boyfriend. I say newish because he's been on the books for a while now but I've yet to meet him. You get that when you live in different countries though.

That was the week that was

2007-05-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

Phew is the only way I can put it. Almost 2 weeks of running around like mad, working like crazy and almost no knitting, I really need a break.

The tournament went really well. 16 womens teams, 54 men's teams and 11 vets teams, all turned up to play and we had a great time. The beer was flowing and the sun was shining right up until the men's final. The rain, however didn't cast too much of a shaddow on the festivities. Have a look at this and you'll see what I mean. I do warn you, there is some nudity :o) For those of you who would rather see some fully clothed players, this what the tournament is really about. Its in dutch but you'll get the jist of it I think.

The monday after is traditionally 'Bloody Mary Monday' at the cafe Corso. This is what I can only describe as an experience. It doesn't matter what you order, be it coffee, coke, beer or water; you get a bloody mary. I managed a couple but the problem is that they go down far too easily so I opted for sobriety, left and went to have a proper breakfast, go back home and get some sleep.

On the way back to Berlin on Friday I had another adventure. This time KLM were not to blame. It was the weather gods this time. Looks like I upset them again by putting my winter jackets away. We were delayed by 30 mins with take off, then we circled over Berlin for another half hour. We landed at the wrong airport and waited for 45 mins till the ground staff were allowed out again to refuel and handle the baggage. The turbulance was excellent fun and the light show in the clouds below was great so it wasn't all in all an unpleasant experience. Oh and this time, I checked in online so that they couldn't give my seat away and make me sit next to the hugest, smelliest person on the plane. I'm fat myself so I prefer to sit next to skinny people so that I can hang over onto their seat too.

In 1.5 weeks I managed to knit 0 rows, rounds or even frog anything. I brought my knitting with me of course on bamboo so that it could come with me in the plane, extra yarn just in case I finished the heart shaped sox and wanted to start on something different. Mr Murphy must have been pointing his sodding law book in my direction as you could bet your life that if I hadn't brought my knitting along I would have had a nano second in which to whip out the sticks and rattle off 2 pairs of socks and a jumper. It wasn't until Saturday just gone that managed to sit down and knit for a bit. Turned the heel and thought.......yeuk. Unfortunately I'll need to keep going until I get nearer the toe before I decide to frog the heel and go for the sherman. It just looks too loose and baggy at the moment but it will probably fit my fat ankles perfectly. We'll see.

Amsterdammed

2007-05-17T04:25:00.000-07:00

Back in the dam after an almost trouble free flight. Every time I fly KLM something goes wrong. This time my luggage nearly ended up on a flight to Tel Aviv. Seemingly there were only 5 passengers or something who were actually stopping in Amsterdam. The rest of the flight from Berlin were flying onto various other places. Tel Aviv being one of them and all 5 passengers who should have picked up their luggage in Amsterdam had to go to the KLM info desk to be told that their luggage would follow them a few days later. Not impressed but after some gentle persuasion (me shouting my head of in Dutch) they agreed to get someone to go get the luggage from the baggage tolley and bring it to us pronto I mean the flight wasn't taking off for another few hours so it should have been easy enough. As it turns out it was and me's is now very happy coz at least I will now have clean underwear for tomorrow.

the link on my blog appears to be working for me but doesn't appear to be working for anyone else. I really will have to work out how to do the pdf thingie. As soon as the 7's is over and I've got some free time and I can work out how exactly one converts word or excel into pdf I'll post it.

Right now I'm waiting on a phone call to tell me what exactly we're supposed to be up to and what still needs to get done before everything kicks off on Friday evening. For those of you curious about the rugby weekend the website is www.amsterdamsevens.com the website isn't brilliant but at least you'll get the picture. Its ususally a lot of half nacked blokes in rugby gear running round the pitch and looking very gorgeous which is one of the reasons I'm still doing part of the organising for this tournament. Free eye candy the whole weekend. And as I'm normally at the jury cabin where most players and people come by at some point in time, I get to see almost everything except the games. Well I do get to see a couple of those. Me and Tessa (a good rugby friend and ex team mate) started it up last year for the first time. We're called the Corolettes, named after cafe Corso in A'dam. Its the best rugby pub in the world and James the owner sponsors us AND the Corso Marauders. This year we've got a bit of tough competition though. We'll see. The tournament is always a surprise when it comes to the women's teams.

Phone's ringing now so better go and get things done.

HTML Maybe

2007-05-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

I think I've worked out how to get this thing up and running. HTML. Its bulky but it just might work.

Here's the link

Just hope that it works for non gmail or google blog users. If not then post a comment and I'll try figure out the pdf thing.

p.s. I spoke too soon about the weather. Forgot to take my lucky umbrella with me tonight and got rained on. No Likey :o(

Me Silly

2007-05-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

I got so many really nice comments both on the blog and on the socknitters group about my heart shaped sox. Also most of them asking for the pattern. So at lunch today, I played with excel and came up with a chart. Now I can't seem to post the thing. If I try to copy paste it, it comes up with a load of symbols and now I can't seem to convert it to a pdf document. How do other people manage it? More research is required, either that or a degree in IT which I definately don't have. I'm normally allergic instruction manuals. Colin, I'm with you all the way on that one.

AAAAAHHHHH. Life wasn't meant to be easy but tell that to someone who gives a s#@t!

What a difference the daylight makes

2007-05-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning with the sunlight. Looks as if someone chased the rain god away for a bit. The funny thing about rain is that its good for the plants etc and we need it for water supplies but we all moan when its here. I would really like it, if it just fell at night time when we were sleeping. That way the plants would be happy and so would we.

Got kind of stuck into my heart shaped sox last night. I've now worked out the pattern in my head so all I need to do now is get it on paper and I've designed my first pattern. Maybe not entirely my first but the first one I'll put on paper anyway. I'm just hopeless at chart writing. Í'll see what I can come up with.

Tomorrow I'm off to A'dam again. This time for the 7's. Hopefully the weather will stay nice for it. Got my 16 teams so things should work out. I've managed to couple it with a business trip to the Hague so I won't be back in sunny Berlin for over a week :o(. Poor bunny has to go to the bunny hotel for a while. She likes it there anyway. The woman there thinks she's very hubsch. Well she is. She's just camera shy. This phot was taken in our old house in A'dam but as you can see, she doesn't really like cameras and decided to go hide in her usual place. She likes it under there for some strange reason. Even here in the new house she still does it.

I have to go and do some real work now :o( I don't want to. I want to stay outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Fixed - well almost

2007-05-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

The broken Brittnays are almost fixed. I asked my sock group about them and loads of folks said to email them with the size of the needle, the problem and my mailing address. In a few weeks, I should get a new needle or 2. Cool eh? Will now be counting the days till I get my new needles.

Oh and while I was at it, I contacted Vogue Knitting about my barely recieved subscription and they're sending out the holiday season, winter and spring magazines to me again. If they don't arrive by mid June, I'm cancelling my sub and if anything nice is in them, then I'll be ordering from one of the german or uk suppliers. Not putting up with it. Don't think they ever sent out my mags to the new address.

Blizten and Broken Brittnay's

2007-05-15T00:31:00.000-07:00

We were off to the Schnizelwirtin last night. Monday night is schnitzel night at the Andechserhof Hotel on our street. Its eat as much as you want but if you can finish one then you're doing well. Seemingly one wee skinny bloke ate 6 of them but I'm not sure I believe it. I reckon its an urban myth.

After sunday night's 'party' we decided to take it easy so after stuffing ourselves we went back home and chilled out. Unfortunately for me, I was all fingers and thumbs and managed to knit NOTHING. Well I did knit some stuff but frogged it, started again, frogged it started again and frogged it.

During one of my start from scratch attempts, my brittnay's broke :o( I was not impressed. I'm a kind of chilled knitter and don't even put a lot of tension on the needles so I can't understand why the thing snapped. Okay so its a 2.25mm (us size 2 I think) but that shouldn't make a difference. So one broken needle, half a dozen attempts at a pink sock with hearts, toe up, toe down and whatever way I tried, one frayed temper and no chocolate, I decided to go to bed.

About 3am this morning, I thought things were exploding around me. There was an almighty simultanious flash and bang with the sound riccocheting around the small hof at the back of our house. The lightning must have been directly overhead or something. So no I haven't slept well, yes I am a grumpy git and yes I will get better just as soon as I get some tea down my neck and some food in my tummy.

Off to the canteen for chocolate. Oh I know I'm on a diet but sometimes a girl really needs chocolate. Like NOW

Summer's Back?

2007-05-14T03:54:00.000-07:00

Well not quite but at least it stops raining occassionally.

We had a voll programma weekend. On Friday, himself picked me and my bike up from work and we went off to pick up the hall wardrobe which we'd bought on one of those internet auctions. Anyway we took a left turn too soon and ended up doing a 75km detour through parts of Berlin which I didn't know existed. Also you would have sworn that we were driving in Scotland. Wee lochs, single track road and lots of trees. Back to the point... I don't think either of us realised that it was so heavy but we had fun humpfing it up 4 flights of stairs.

Saturday I had my striktreff in the Opera Cafe in Berlin but before that I went to the new LYS with spinning wheel in hand and it was declared as working and wunderschön. Also had a good chat with the owner and introduced her to the stricktreff group. She came along after she closed up for the evening. I also met some english speaking knitters too which is great. Sometimes I really miss speaking english. Okay so himself and I babble away in english sometimes too but we usually end up speaking our mix of everything because we're too lazy to translate everything. Started on the lovehearts socks and have now decided to frog them. The pattern is too loose and more importantly, I don't like it. I think I'll knit something else.

After the striktreff it was off to meet the band. Himself is the talented one in the family and is in a band called the Seamen of all things. He is trying to get them to change the name and even the threat of a t-shirt which says 'Seamen all over Europe' won't budge them. I'm off on a tangent again......

So, off to meet the band and wifes/girlfriends. I normally hate things like that but it was fun. A bit of an adventure getting there and I would have been cheaper in a taxi but I got a new pair of jeans out of it AND a new shirt. The heavens opened and I got soaked and of course I couldn't go to meet new people and drip all over their hall carpet. As it happens we were outside anyway so it didn't matter about the carpet but you know what I mean.

Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of my wee Daddy's deathday so I wasn't really in the mood for anything but went out for dinner and got drunk. Slept in this morning an didn't get to work until 9:45 Oops my bad. It happens. I've also got a tick bite which is itching like hell so think if its still red tomorrow then I might go to the docs and get it checked as they're rife this year and I don't want Limes disease.

N'er cast a clout til Mai is oot

2007-05-11T02:00:00.000-07:00

Who ever made up that old wives point of view was 100% correct. Its freezing here. Okay so the thermometer hasn't dropped below 10° and its not technically freezing but its horrible, wet, windy and me no likey so there. I even left my bike at work last night, borrowed my colleague's brolley and U-Bahned it home.

It wasn't really all that unpleasant. I even got to stop at Friedrichstraße for some grocery shopping or messages as we call it in Glasgow. Anyway got the old DDR feeling when I had to que to get into the supermarket there. Seemingly lots of other people had left their bikes at work, U-Bahned it home and thought 'oh, there's a supermarket at Freidrichstraße and its under cover and I won't have to go out in this pissy wet weather and get soaked' so they got there before me and I had to wait until a few people had left before the security guard would let me in. It was either that or he thought I was going to hold up the store.

Anyway got home, relatively dry. Sat on my bum and finished the Aedelweiss Socks or however you spell them. My tootsies were cold so I put them on straight away. Of course they fit perfectly and are nice and snuggly. Immediately started on a pair of lace heart socks. The pattern is in dutch but its easy enough to decipher. If I get stuck I can always ask Omi.

At the momement my aim is to reduce my stash and actually use some of the yarn I have instead of keeping it in boxes and occassionally petting it. Also my bunny likes knabbeling the boxes and has created rather large holes in them so its either put the yarn in bunny proof boxes or use the stuff. I think I'll have more fun using it. I have given myself a small incentive though. The more stuff I knit from the stash. The sooner I get to replace it :o) Dunno if himself will like that but he sometimes gets the fruits of my labour.

See I can actually post piccies occassionally. Even if they are out of focus and are more of a work in progress than anything else. These were finished before going to Belgium for the Tour de Geuze and himself loves them. Made from Regia Bamboo. He swears the keep his feet from smelling. You know what? I believe him :o). Don't think he'll object if I buy more bamboo yarn for his big sweaty feet. He's a size 46-47 in EU sizes. Not nice when you're doing the gussets but since he likes plain socks it makes great tv knitting. Think I got most of these done watching Germany's next Top Model by Heidi Klum. My favourite crapy tv program by far. I can't stand watching all the dubbed stuff so its either Sex and the City dvd's or that. Mind you the Simpsons in German are hillarious.

Oh and its now thunder, lightning and torrential rain. I've still to go out for lunch and I'm not looking forward to it. Looks like the colleague's brolly again and a walk along to the imbiß.

2007-05-10T08:05:00.001-07:00

Harry Potter Book 7 Swap It Questionnaire:

1)What are your favorite Harry Potter Book Hogwarts House color combinations?.......Oh I think I'm a Gryffindor kind of girl at heart. I really can't stand the combination of yellow and black on anything else than bumble bees.

2)Do you have a sock yarn that you can't wear? Or just hate?.......I'm not fussed so long as it doesn't itch.

3) Would you prefer nice "Harry Potter" socks, or can your sock Pal go all Funky on you? How weird is to weird for you?..............I don't mind funky. In fact my socks don't even need to match but no frilly bits. I'm not all that frilly really.

4) Who is your favorite teacher at Hogwarts?.... I like Minerva McGonagal.

5) Is there a color that you just can't wear, you know the one that makes you look sick, or you just can't stand? Explain the color? (Example ~ Light green, not med, or dark, but light..yuck!)

For my feet it doesn't really matter too much but I'm not a fan of yellow and black together as previously mentioned and also the combo of Green and white is definately off.

6) Are you a superwash sock person or a 100% Wool sock person?
I'm a superwash girl all the way. Just no 100% nylon. I have an aversion to socks that squeak on the needles as well as on my feet.

7) What do you think is the funniest scene in one of the books and what was it? ...................When Hermione punches Malfoy.

8) Will you be attending any Harry Potter parties or midnight releases like what Barnes and Nobles has put on in the past?.........Nope, I'll be at home, sitting behind the letterbox, waiting for Amazon to drop it through on the release date.

9) Was there a scene that just cranked your needles? A scene that just made you mad?........In the last one when Snape bumped off Dumbledore. Got well upset by that one.

10) Have you watched the movies and read the books? or just one and or the other, and if so which ones?.......Read all the books, watched one film and have stayed away from HP films since.

11) Have you or do you have any plans to knit anything else "themed" Harry Potter?.....I've already knitted an HP mini Gryffindor scarf as a book mark.

12) What is your favorite all time sock yarn, and your favorite sock pattern?
Oh difficult one as I like lots of yarn for different reasons. I do love Lorna's Laces though but a bit on the expensive side for a sock swap.

13) Do you knit your socks, toe up, cuff down, DPN's, Circ's or whatever you feel like?......I do whatever I feel like. I've just taught myself how to knit continental style so I'm now on a dpns kick again.

14) Are you a Chocolate, Soda, Tea, Coffee, or Hard Candy kind of person?
I like tea, chocolate, sweeties, coffee and beer. I don't drink much of what the US calls Soda but prefer water or Apfelschorles if forced to.

Any special treats you just can't resist? Haribo Fröschli and gummi bears

15) Anything else you would like to tell about yourself, about the books, or about your knitting, bring it on! :c)
Oh too much to tell in one sitting. Best read the blog. If you can call it a blog yet.

BRB

2007-05-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

Well......
As you can tell, I really am crap at this blogging thing. I have however been up to loads over the past few weeks, months, years, well months really. I've been to NL loads of times, I've been home, I've been to Belgium and for some of the time I've also been in Berlin which would make sence as I still live here. When I have been here. I've been inundated with visitors. That's also nice but doesn't leave you a lot of time for knitting. After this month, I get to sit on my bum for a bit which will be very welcome.

In the mean time and for the build up to the release of the new Harry Potter book, I've joined a Knit Swap and Knit-along thingie. The link to the blog is here

It should be a laugh and I hope to get a nice pair of HP socks out of it. I've no idea who my swap pal will be but I'm not fussed. Just hope they don't have HUGE feet.

OTN just now is a pair of socks for myself!!!!! Its the Aidleweiss pattern from Vogue Fall 2006 in MegaBoots Stretch in nice peacocky colours. Beat knitting plain vanilla socks all the time.

Berni's jumper is still on the go. Got the back and the front done, one sleeve finished and the other one to be started. Once that's done I just need to attach the sleeves to the body and then worry about the neck but think I'll do the i-cord cast off for that. Then I need to embroider a salamander of all things on the back of it..... Don't ask.

Better post my HP KAL and Swap questionnaire now.

New Years Resolutions

2007-01-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

I've worked out that I'm not very good at this blogging stuff but will attempt to be better at it now that 2006 is over and 2007 is well underway.

To be honest the start of this year has just been as hectic as the 2006. I've already been to NL twice and will be going again in 2 weeks. You would think I actually liked the place the amount of times I have to go back.

This weekend was good fun though. F wanted to go to the Obelix New Year's borrel. I always manage to get absolutely trollied there. Anyway lost my pink gloves somewhere. Next I missed the 7s meeting and got to A'dam in the afternoon. Met up with Sarah, Petra and Berni then later with Cindy and Tessa. We had a right laugh. I think I need to go on detox for the next 3 weeks or something. I feel really really unhealthy. Spent an absolute fortune in Waterstones only to discover that they hadn't put in the DVD's I bought F for his b'day. Phoned them though today. They were really honest about it and told me that they would keep them by for me until next time I'm in A'dam.

The Tara tried to do us for 1 irish breakie, 1 cup of coffee and a pint of Murphy's. However the girl got a good tip out of us and she reckons that it was an honest mistake however when I think of the things that the waitresses used to get up to in the Kilkenny then I'm not so sure.

Left my lovely just finished cardigan on the train on the way back. DB haven't found it yet but have said that it could take a day or 2 to make its way to the lost and found dept. Fingers crossed that it does.

Oh and remember that I was moaning about my digital camera? Well the thing wasn't broke, we were just using what we thought was charged up batteries. One of the batteries wasn't charging properly so the whole thing wasn't working properly. Got new ones and everything is now hunky dorey and it takes piccies again. That means that I can start adding photo's to my blog. Might make it more interesting for knitty folk.

On the needles right now is Berni's jumper. Poor soul has only waited about 2 years for it but it is on its way. I'm knitting it in the round with jaeger mohair art in black and will be adding some furry stuff later to it.

Neefje Steefjes jumper after that and then Mum's socks and some stuff for me for a change. Oh the list goes on. One day I will get through the list but to be honest i like doing it so I shouldn't really complain.

Surprises

2006-09-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

Oh I do wish my digi camera was working. Its still sucking the life out of batteries without doing much. It would probably do a lot more if I took it to the camera shop but since I keep forgetting, I doubt if it will happen any time soon.

Anyway the reason I want the digi camera to work is so that I can upload a piccie of the lovely surprises I got today at work. I walked in to Vania jumping out from behind my desk shouting 'surprise' The minx is supposed to be on holiday, well moving house and not at work anyway AND to top it off she had baked a cake. A very smakelijk cake at that. Also the spare desk was piled with goodies. Well a small trolley case, you know like the ones you used to be able to take on as hand luggage and store in the overhead locker, and a large box with a large bow on top. Inside both packages was loads and loads of dutch goodies like pindakaas (peanut butter to us anglophones), hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), chocolate, frite saus and lots and lots more. I really can't believe how much stuff I came back with. Its lucky that the wee trolley case had wheels otherwise I would have had very sore arms.

That brings me to another point. Wee felix our car is no longer our car. He's off down to Nijmemgen and has now joined the 94kmph is also a very nice speed even though the limit is 120 club. Frank's mum bought our wee car. Our car bunny Benjamin tells us that Felix is quite happy to go into retirement as he's a bit fed up with traffic jams and being driven up and down to the Hague every day.
Its really nice the way everything is falling into place with the car, the house, the flat in Berlin. Im not really a believer in fate etc but it kind of tells me that the move to Berlin is the right decision. Im sure it is. All we need now is for Frank to find a job there and we'll have landed on our feet. He's a clever lad and I'm pretty sure that he'll find something soon.

I decided to have a rest from knitting tonight. Sometimes its nice to read a book instead. I turned the TV off and put some music on. I must admit that its much more relaxing. Might as well get used to it. I hate german television so I think I'll be listening to a lot more music instead.

I'm still wondering what to get Sarah as a thankyou for being my witness at the wedding and for helping me make the outfit. She did the trousers and helped me pin and cut out the top. I want to get her something that she can keep but not something that will break. Or maybe something that won't break too easily. She does have 4 cats after all. Maybe a book or something sparkly like jewlery or something but then again I'm not sure what to get her. Maybe some silly freindship thing. She'll like that. I'll think about it a bit more in bed. I'm dead sleepy and have the cold. I've just finished the Gran Bel kill or cure you toddie. I think its curing so will go and reap the benefits now.

'trusten en groetjes
BB

Long Time no Blog

2006-09-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

Okay so 3 posts doesn't make me a blogger so I'd better add more to make it worth while. A few things have happened on the way to Berlin. I'm not there yet but will be leaving shortly. First of all we got married. That's me in the green and F in the white shirt. Shame you can't see his legs coz he had a kilt on. My best buddy and myself made my outfit then I did all the embroidery including a nice thistle on the right sleeve to match my thistle tattoo (got that in August on my unofficial hen night). We got married in the Stadsdeelkantoor Oud Zuid in Amsterdam and then went to the Vondelpark for a picnic afterwards. Later on we went with close friends and family to La Caña (the wee tapas bar which I couldn't remember the name of) and stuffed ourselves full of very nice food and sangria. Friday we had a party at the rugby clubhouse. It was mad. All the important people were there and we managed to get through 5 kegs of Heineken and 1 keg of Boon Kriek.

We should have bought 2 of them as they are soooo lekker. My Mum and my Sister were a wee bit drunk at the party but they had great fun. In fact everyone who was there had great fun. I thouroughly reckommend getting married. Its the best party ever.

Saturday was spent nursing hangovers and farting about on a canal boat with some of the friends who came over for the party. The best way to see Amsterdam is by boat. You see it from a completely different angle. Then back to the club house to hose down the floor and check everything was still in one piece.

Between the last blog and now we've been to Berlin 3 times and found a flat in Berlin Mitte. Its such a cool place. We're in the Scheunenviertel which is lovely. There are loads of wee cafés, bars and restaurants just around the corner and we're really close to all of the main tourist attractions which makes it very easy for visitors. Last time we were there we stayed at wee hotel on the same street as we'll be living. I'm having a bit of bother posting a piccie but its called the Hotel Andechser Hof. www.andechserhof.de Its very sweet and not bad on the pocket either.

Well off to do something useful now however, I do promise to try and update my blog a bit more often as it will be nice to keep people posted on what we've been up to while we're there.

See ya, BB x

Blaaahhhh

2006-06-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

My digi camera is definately knacked. It won't even switch on now and itsucks the power from the batteries in one foul swoop. I reckon there must be a short somewhere but I don't know the first thing about their circuitry so it looks as if we'll need a new one. I'm a bit miffed about it as the camera is only 3 years old. Hmph.

Also had a bit of a wierd experience today. I saw someone die. I don't know what happened beforehand but I could see everything from the office window. The paramedics were pumping away at their chest for a long long time then eventually stopped. For one moment I thought they had put the person into the recovery position but they hadn't, they brought out a sheet and covered them. I felt so sad for the person's family. It kind of made me think about mortality in general and my own health but I suppose that sort of thing makes you think about these things. Its automatic.

I will think about it some more before deciding to become a non-smoking, vegan vegetrarian, biologial, fitness feak. Just clean up my act a bit. I'll need to if I want to look good on the wedding day.

Weekend Whinges and Birkenstocks

2006-06-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

My digi camera is not working :o( Its switching on, I can view pictures but I can't take pictures. F is going to the shop with it to see if there is anything that they can do. I doubt it but we'll see. So until it gets fixed or I get a new one, no sock, bunny moving or anthing piccies for the blog.

The weekend went well. NL won against the Elfenbeinkuste as they say in Germany. Exciting stuff. I caught the first half on the radio on the way home from work and the 2nd half in Tig Bara. Afterwards we found the best tapas bar in the world. Its taken a long long time but we've finally found one that's better than Genadio's. I'm not even sure what its called. JvD gave it an 8 in the lekker Amsterdam but he doesn't know what he's talking about. Anyway we booked it for the wedding.

Oh that's the other thing. We're getting married before we bugger off to Berlin. So we've got the food booked and the party booked. We've also got the rings ordered from www.metalart.nl . They're in the photo above. Ours are slightly different. We've got platinum instead of rose gold. We've also got an option on the date which we will confirm on Thursday. I've finally got all the paperwork sorted. Hopefully they won't decided that we're getting married for an NL passport and cause problems. I don't think they will.

Over the weekend I got half of the bedroom fixed up and looking gorgeous. New curtains up and a few boxes cleared out. I even tidied up. Shock Horror. We're getting there slowly. We also bought loads of plasterboard for the garden house ceiling so that will be looking gorgeous too and we can get on with the other jobs in the house.

Finally for today. On Saturday I bought the cutest Birki's ever. The picture is up there too. I love them. F hates them. They're all just jealous coz I can still fit into kids sizes. That's shoes only btw. My daddy always said I have small feet coz nothing, apart from mushies, grows in the dark.

Bloging Begin

2006-06-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

Funny time to start a blog. Half way through the world cup (football, soccer or whatever you want to call it) Anyway I've started one before but never got around to keeping it up. We'll see how well I do with this one. At the moment I'm in Amsterdam but will soon be moving to Berlin. Hence the name of the blog. I wouldn't say I was a babe exactly but it has a sort of rhythm to it and its better than calling myself the berliner bitch or something equally as derrogitory.
As I mentioned earlier, we're in the middle of the football world cup which is being held in various places in Germany. I'm not really a big footie fan but when its the world cup or the european cup then I give in to the animal instincts and actually start shouting at the TV. Today NL plays the Ivory Coast. Im kind of looking forward to it but I'll miss the 1st half as I'll just be leaving work. Not to worry though Im sure they'll do okay.
Enough of football for now. I'm a rugby player, I should be talking more about rugby. In Berlin I probably won't be a rugby player any more coz they only play 7's there. 7's is for girls. Okay so I am a girl but I'm a forward and don't like too much running around.
I also do a lot of faffy things like sewing and knitting. Knitting socks is a favourite of mine and I can be seen knitting socks in pubs, cafés, in traffic jams and various other places. I make teddy bears too although I've not done that for a while. I only really make them now for special people. I've still to make one for my new nephew but I'll wait until I get to Berlin for that as I've just packed all of the stuff together.
Okay OTN at the moment is the most boring sock in the world but its for him indoors so its a labour of love really. Its grey, all grey and nothing but grey and very big coz he's got big feet. You know what they say about blokes with big feet? Yep you guessed it. Big feet.
I'll see if I can get a photo of the socks once their finished. Or maybe a work in progress. Then you'll see how boring they actually are.
That's it for the intro.I'll write more about the move to Berlin as I go along