Podcasts

Hi Guys

How are we all?

I'm great.

A quick update of what's happened in my life in the last month or two. I went to Florida for a jolly holiday with the family for a couple weeks. Very fun. Took the nieces and nephew to Disney World and then moved down to Clearwater to see the sand and palm trees but not the dolphins, there were no dolphins.

I also handed in my notice at the IT company where I work. I'm off to go work in a craft shop. I'm sure its not career brilliant but I know I will have a jolly fun time and love every minute of being surrounded by so much ribbon.

Third item of news that I guess belongs on a blog that's meant to contain craft stuff, I got a sewing machine! Yippee! I love it. It's all new and shiny so I don't have to try and repair it every five minutes like my old machine. Previously I have never really sewn more than a straight line but since I know a lot of people who can't even do that I decided that means I must be an expert already. I took myself to my new place of work (I needed to hand in a form, mentioned I just got a sewing machine and was lovingly guided to the fabric section) and bought a pattern and some fabric to get started. A nice lovely skirt with a ribbon trim. It turns out I know nothing. It was terrible. I had no idea how to cut out a pattern which meant meant I was working on fabric which was half the size it was meant to be and then I had no idea how to overlock a hem so I had a very crinkled, frayed, half sized piece of fabric. This was when the mother in law popped round and showed me how to do the lot. I'm so grateful. she sat with me for FOUR HOURS! while we went through the whole lot, she taught me so much. So now I get to go back to considering myself an expert again. Yippee!

As the title of this post says, Podcasts.

I have so many items sat at home waiting to be finished. a bow on my skirt, a border on my cardigan so I can't use this post to show off any finished items. However if I had waited until they were finished I'd forget all about updating this blog so I thought instead I'd list a few of my favourite podcasts

First of all I''ll go through my knitting favourites
Knit.Spin.Cake www.knitspincake.blogspot.com
Auntieaipee tells us all about her life, her knitting and wind farms. It often comes with a cake recipe too


Electric Sheep www.hoxtonhandmade.com/electric-sheep-podcast
hoxtonhandmade reads amazing lectures about a variety of subjects and then updates us on the fun side of knitting

Knit 1 Geek 2 knit1geek2.mt-pockets.org
Karen and Maggie tell us about their adventures in knitting and then update us on the world of geekdom

And then non-knitting related podcasts -
Friday Night Comedy Podcast from Radio 4
We either have The News Quiz with Sandy Toksvig or The Now Show with Hugh Dennis. They are very funny and a more humorous way to swag for the pub quiz.

Jay and Silent Bob get Old
Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith meet once a week to take about life and such, this one is normally VERY rude by the way. It was started as a way to keep Jason Mewes off the drugs but its very funny listening to their stories.

The Perfect Ten with Phil and Phill
Phil Jupitas and Phill Wilding are meant to answer ten questions in thirty minutes but they usually go off topic and just have a bit of a laugh. This one also gets rude in places but not as bad as Jay and Silent Bob Get Old. Unfortunately though this is a great podcast I think I've only seen it updated once in the whole time I've subscribed to it.

Stuff You Missed in History Class
This is one of the hundreds (14) podcasts that the How Stuff Works website offers but its my favourite. The episodes are shorter than my usual podcast (usually about 10-20 mins long) and feature a different but very interesting subject each time. Its updated a couple times a week but it goes back to about 2008 so I'm still listening to the backlog of it.

This American Life
This is the podcast of a Chicago radio station. Once a week they have a different subject and look at it from some very interesting but mostly unique angles. It often contains a mix of real life interviews and fiction as well as other things.

The last one I love which I want to mention quickly though I'm going to have to run for a bus very soon is The Yogspod. There's these two fellas, Simon and Lewis who run a YouTube channel for computer games. This is how I found them. I'm not so big on computer games but Simon and Lewis are just as terrible at them as I am. They are just lovely to listen to, they are SO British and very very funny. The podcast contains absolutely no mentions of games, it's just funny stories and made up tales of fancy from Simon and Lewis usually has to try and ground him a little. Quite daft and will not broaden your mind.

Right, I'm going to have to run now. I don't even have time to read back for grammar errors so I hope I've been a careful typer.

Til next time!
Tori

Finish-itis

I'm having a completely weird time at the moment (in relation to knitting) and its my darling sock yarn blankets fault. I LOVE knitting this blanket. I love watching it grow and seeing all the pretty colours and I can't wait until its finished and myself and the boyfriend can snuggle up underneath it.

I've received a lot of donations from my knitting group, in fact I'm not sure if there's anyone left who hasn't donated (and I am very grateful to them all!) but i keep wanting more which means I'm desperate to finish loads of 4ply projects so I can have my scraps.

I've finished my Hermione everyday socks that have been sat neglected on the needles for far too long.
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/toric/hermiones-everyday-socks
I'm very glad they are finished. I love them. As soon as they were cast off I put them straight on. I love how the yarn turned out too, they look far more like they have a vague stripe to them instead of the pooling I usually experience with jitterbug yarn.

I have also finished my featherweight cardigan (which I don't have a picture of yet :( ) and despite this being a super annoying knit (I mean really? sleeves? most boring things ever) I really like this finished cardigan. I get loads of complements when I wear it out and I'm sure I'll get a lot of wear out of it as it goes with pretty much every item of clothing I own.

I also finished the boyfriends hat. This isn't one of my 4ply adventures but I was very much spurred on to finish this. I think it was a combination of my finishing binge for everything else, the boyfriend constantly asking me if it was done and the fact I hated knitting it (k1 p1 forever :s ).
Though I think it was mostly because my non-knitting family kept laughing at me for making him a hat. They were all so sure it was going to be horrid and the boyfriend would have to wear it all the time because I've never knit him anything before. I was getting lots of 'haha are you going to put a big pompom on it?' no of course I'm not. 'haha why are you knitting him a hat? It's April?' well darling family, in case you haven't noticed yet it may be April but its 2 degrees Celsius outside and my boyfriends job often takes him up Scottish hills past the snow line.
I'm sure you can tell that typing this out is bringing back all those memories of me knitting away in a dark room sat with the family fantasizing about making my darling sister eat the remaining yarn once I'm done.
Anyway, the hat was finished. Though the knit was boring (k1 p1 k1 p1 k1 p1 k1 p1 k1 p1 yargh!!) I am happy with the hat, its an attractive looking hat for a man and the rib makes it stretchy so i didn't have to stress about the fit.
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/toric/wasatch-backcountry-hat

And then after my finishing binge I didn't have a clue what I wanted to cast on. I could even decide if I was in the mood for garment, accessory or sock. I've been padding for time with some teeny tiny baby items for the step brother who is having a baby soon (via his wife) and the fabulous sock yarn blanket.
I have cast on the lace shrug from Glamour Knits by Erika Knight (bought for me by the best mate Nik for my birthday, thank you chick!) with a mohair/merino blend in a pale green. However I'm a bit unfamiliar with lace knitting  so this will have to be kept as in-the-house knitting.

And hopefully I will remember to keep my blog updated when the inevitable start-itis begins :)

Thank you anyone who reads this, much appreciated