dumb people

Some of the people i work for can be so dumb it hurts my head. They don't know that they're even doing it too.

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Rock Shows and Craft Shows

Feeling pretty poorly and I have nothing to do so I thought I’d write myself a blog.

Today is Friday and I’m very excited as tomorrow I’m off to see Avenue Q and then on Sunday I’m going to see the Kerrang tour to see New Found Glory. I saw New Found Glory at Leeds Festival and they were awesome so I cannot wait to see them again. Unfortunately the other band playing, Sum 41, had to pull out due to illness and were replaced with another band called The Blackout but they are worlds apart in terms of music style and I’m not sure how well this will go down. I’ll be seeing them with my friend Lisa who is a big fan of the band so I'll have to enjoy they for her. After all she stayed with me all the way through The Strokes at Leeds Fest.

Also, while on the subject of music, I bought my first ever Nine Inch Nails song last night, I don’t know why this would be important but for some random reason I feel it is. I also bought my first ever tracks by Death Cab for Cutie and They Might be Giants and some night 80s stuff by Go West but you don’t see blogging about those do you (:p I bought other music too, good music, don’t judge me on just these bands please or you’ll think I’m weird)

On to crafts, Myself and Lauren will be trading at Miscellarium in August with our joint craft venture Non-Conformist Crafts. We went to the Maker Market last weekend and meant Fiona (organiser of Maker Market and Miscellarium) and Daniel (trader at Maker Market and organiser of Miscellarium and owner of Impossible Gears) face to face.

They both seemed amazingly lovely but I was just too hungover from the night before to say anything interesting so I’m sure they both think I’m a right sap. But there’ll be plenty of other opportunities in the future to show them how amazing and brilliant I am. I bought a necklace from Daniels stall and I LOVE it. I wear it all the time however the pendant is the inside of a watch and it’s a little bit too pokey to wear all the time and I keep catching scarves etc in it. But that’s part of why I love it.

As for the crafts I’ve been making myself. I have been finishing off some bits for Non-Conformist crafts. I have finished the bag that could stand up for itself. I have made a pattern and some mock ups of gloves/wrist warmers with a little bit of a ruffle on them. I’m not sure if they are overly special as there are probably a lot of slightly ruffley gloves/wrist warmers out there but I’m quite proud as its my first pattern I’ve made that has worked without any major issues. I've also sorted out all the flower pins to take those too.

I finally joined the rest of the world and cast on a featherweight cardigan for myself. A lot of people have tried to talk me out of it as its dull and its quite shapeless, or at least I'm told its just a straight body with loose arms, well that's exactly the type of cardigan I want to knit for myself so I guess we're all in luck aren't we? I've also cast on a jumper which i can not remember the name of right now but it has a low low neck line, sleeves that look like they have actual poof to them and from the bust down its all rib. I can on with the King Cole Galaxy that my mum bought me for Christmas and I'm enjoying working on it a lot, its quite mindless so far as it's all rib but I've been in the mood for mindless projects I can carry around without needing lots of patterns etc. Which brings me on to my socks. I love the look of them and I love the yarn I'm using but I'm sick of carrying notes with me so I know where I am in the pattern so they are getting neglected. Which yet again brings me to my next project, I've started a sock yarn blanket and so far I really love it. I have all my scraps in the wooden bowl Alan's parents got me on the coffee table and I make squares while I watch telly. I've had some donations from my knitting group of sock yarn scraps to go towards the blanket (which are great as I'd like to to be as colourful and different as possible) but unless I start finishing some 4 ply projects soon I'll run out of scraps and I'll have to stop which will suck so I need to keep my head down and get those socks and the featherweight done!

I feel this has gone on long enough but I wanted to mention that I'm trying to go for another stash down year. I tried last year and got to about May and then continued as I always do (spending loads). This year it was barely past the new year mark before I was buying more yarn but so far I have only bought in decent quantities (so I can actually make something instead of wondering what to do with a single balls worth of something) and I've only bought stuff in sales that was at least under two pounds. I know I can't stop all together but I have so much I want to save up for this year with holidays and hopefully moving in with Alan, that I hope I can at least be sensible with it and try to keep my spending down.

c2c - lets see how long this lasts

I'll just come out and say it. I'm really considering doing a coast 2 coast bike ride from the west coast of England to the east (http://www.c2c-guide.co.uk/ if your interested)

I'm not sure if this is a very good idea. I'm physically unfit. I've never been too keen on changing this in the past either. I don't own a bike. I am terrible at estimating distance. I don't like the idea of wearing a helmet and I know I won't look good in one either.

I still think it will be good though. I like a challenge and I bet it will be a lot of fun once I've done some training and all that. I'll have the added bonus of getting myself a bit healthier too.

As for the issue of not owning a bike I'm trying to pick up a bargain second hand off ebay. I'm the highest bidder on one at the moment but its still got a few days left on it. I want one now so I can go out and get practicing. also, once I have the bike I can start buying all the cute bike accessories.

Two posts in one month? I must have gone mad!

Hiya

So yeah. Spinning is kind of sitting to one side while myself and Nik work on something else. We have decided to crochet a big afghan for a wedding gift for when her brother gets married next week. I'm starting to think that we will never have it finished in time but there is only one thing you can do when that happens, CROCHET FASTER!

I've been thinking today what i want to do the day after the wedding, when i won’t be surrounded by crap acrylic, crocheting endless annoying squares and i think I’ll start with my grandmas tea cosy.

She has asked for her birthday (it was last week but she asked knowing there was no way I had time so she wants me to just do it as soon as I can) for a tea cosy to fit her teeny tiny teapot so I've decided on http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mistake-rib-tea-cosy which comes in a small size. I just need to choose what colours now. All I know it that I want it to be very bright.

Once I've done that I'm going to finish my peppermint twist jumper. Not far to go now, just sleeves and collar. I keep praying to the knitting gods (and Buffy too, it's always good to remember Buffy whilst praying) that it will fit. I do not want a repeat of the 5 dollars in Newcastle jumper i made which i stupidly did in alpaca because it was so soft and lovely! And it would be perfect for a wide neck jumper!

No it was not.

It stretched and stretched within a couple hours of me wearing it i had to keep my hands in the air so it didn't fall off my shoulders and show everyone my boobies.

While i was at work.

Luckily a rep had just dropped off a load of free promo t-shirts so i could get changed. My step dad is now the proud owner of a lovely greenbyte t-shirt (other European made storage arrays are available)

I would also like to finish my socks. I started making these on Boxing Day and I’m still working on them. I know that’s slow but I have been working on other things in the meantime. I’m so close to being finished I just want these done. I’m on the second sock and I’ve just got a couple more rows left before the toe decrease. I could have got there last night but I wanted to compare the second sock to the first which I didn’t have with me. I know the first is a tiny bit short but it still fits over my foot and I’d rather have matching slightly too small socks then odd ones. They are a bit too tight for my giant fat legs anyway. I think maybe next time I knit socks I’ll read the pattern properly before I start and use 2.75mm needles instead of seeing ‘size 2 needles’ and getting started before I remember that is what American’s call a 2.75mm needle. What an idiot.

I have also seen this pattern, http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/abalone-4 and decided I want to make it out of my grey/blue King Cole anti-tickle yarn I bought from Ann’s. I don’t know why but I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s the rounded corners on the bottom. I see myself wearing the hell out of this but I want to be a good girl and swatch etc. first, not sure if I can wait though. I’m so naughty.

I also really want to finish the dinosaur hat I’ve been making for Charles. It’s been sat as a hat with no spikes for ages and I feel like a terrible aunty so I think I’ll finish this before I start the cardi. I’ve also been thinking I’d make him a matching scarf. I made this http://www.ravelry.com/projects/toric/pipers-chain-scarf for my beautiful niece Eleanor at the beginning of the year and I thought I could do the same for Charles but instead of multi coloured I’d do just black and red to match the hat.

Another project I’ve started and would like to finish is my first ever shawl and my first ever bought off Ravelry pattern http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/tuch-shawl-lazykaty

I’ve cast it on in the red/purple and black Zauberball dad got me for Christmas. So far I love the yarn, I’m not sure particularly what I like about it so much, I think I like the tension that it’s been plied together (I don’t know if that’s even a thing, I just made it up) it’s nice and springy and still feels pretty study.

Well, I’m pretty sure that’s enough knitting to keep me occupied for the rest of my life so I’m going to leave it there. Though by the time I next post I’ll have likely changed my mind about everything and decided to knit myself a whole bunch of other ridiculous stuff.

My Poor Neglected Blog

So I had every intention of using my blog and I've posted twice. Well done me!

Considering my last post was about how I'd re-learnt to knit by finishing my first project I guess I've got quite a bit to update. I think the biggest news is that myself and Nik learnt to spin! now we can make our own yarn! Yippee! And this brings me to my current news.

While having a lovely four days camping in the west of scotland I noticed an awful lot of sheep about. I pointed this out to my friends who informed me that was because we were stood in the middle of a sheep farm. What knitter doesn't love a sheep farm? So when the campsite owner/farmer came round to ask if we were ok I asked if he sold fleeces and he went away to check prices and came back and informed us (my friend who is also ginger, I would have thought Scotish farmers would be one of the few groups of people who can tell the difference between gingers but i was wrong) it would cost me 10 pounds. I've never bought a fleece before but I think 10 pounds must be a right bargain. I spend that on a single ball of yarn! And there is so much of it! The farmer told me to pick out whatever fleece I wanted, i found one with nice long hairs or fibres or whatever I'm supposed to call them and pulled out a fleece the size of a medium to large sheep skin rug and smiles at the man all happy with myself and he said 'no, theres more' and pulled out more fleece about twice the size I pulled out. I dont think I've ever seen a whole sheep as big as the size of this fleece.

So anyway, me and Nik have now spent two night washing fleece, soapy wash, vinear wash, hot wash repeat and we are both now immune to sheep poop. We have three laundry baskets full sat in her spare room and a set of carders waiting to be picked up from Chester le Street post office.

The next step will be teasing the yarn. All I can think about when I hear this term is the episode of The Good Life where they make their own clothes. In fact, thanks to that episode I already new the basics of how to spin my own yarn before I started reading about it. Looking back now I am amazed with how quickly the managed to spin enough yarn to use on a giant loom.

And once we've done that all thats left is carding, spining, washing, plying, washing, dying and kniting. We'll probably have it all done in about a week and a half. pfft yeah right!

found this online and i love it. my dream is to visit every state in america so i found it quite fitting.

visited 4 states (8%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

i finished the mega ugly hat for my niece Grace. it was VERY ugly but it servered its perpose and it got my more comfortable with knitting again. I have a picture of her in it but my sister has banned me from showing anyone it.

Since then i made myself this shrug http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/50902A.html. I started this shrug the night before I left for my brothers wedding and finished it on the car ride up. I was so quick to knock up and I got a LOT of compliments for it. I changed some parts of the pattern a little, I used size 20mm needles instead of 25mm and I used merino instead of mohair. I increased the number of cast on stitches to 36 instead of 34 since I was using smaller needles but I wished I hadnt cos its a 'little' too big to keep on my shoulders. My mother has asked me to make one for her for her birthday on the 20th, I've knit about 18 inches so far.

I tried to adapt a pattern to make a little bride and groom for my brothers wedding but i gave up on them. The style of them was a cute thing with big head and body and little details with things like arms. Though with the little skirt on the bride and the lack of arms and the big round head she looked a bit more like a sea monster so that project has been pretty much permantly shelved (literally, on my top shelf)

Still need to finish other booty and ballet cardigan for eleanor