The Wool Palace

Focus, focus, focus

Well,  I seem to have stunned many of you into silence with my account of our camping trip.  Let me just say, as a last word, preparation is key.  Cooking steaks, and not just any steaks, but Jamie-Oliver-endorsed-matured-for-21-days steaks, over  a fire at 11pm is not necessarily how one wants to start one's weekend of camping.  Although the resulting steak sandwiches did taste mighty fine - even though we couldn't see them.

Moving swiftly on.  There are no pictures tonight because I haven't taken any.  This is because nothing really looks very interesting.

With that in mind, I have prepared a list of what I will do over the next few days.  If I can accomplish this I can move onto to newer and more interesting things, which I can take photos of.

1.   Finish the toe up socks.  I am not entirely happy with heel number 2, but I am sticking with it.  I have about 20 rows to go before I start the cuff.  I can do this by tomorrow, I'm sure.

2.   Finish the moss stitch part of the Blanket of Doom.  When I measured it in the pub tonight (it was the South London knitting group meeting)  I only had 1½ inches to go.  No doubt when I measure it tomorrow, I will have 3 inches to go.  Even so, I can do this by Friday.

3.   Find the fun little knitting kit I bought my Secret Pal about 2 weeks ago as I want to send it to her.  This may take a while - sorry Secret Pal, I'll send you something else in the meantime.

4.   Start the second half of the Viennese Shrug.  I am currently stalled on the cuff of the first half, for no good reason.

For the next two days I will focus only on the above. 

I will not think about new projects, I will not think about new projects,  I will not think about new projects...

Summer Daze

We are all back in one piece and not washed away.  It seems that we picked the only place in the South of England not lashed by rain and storms on Friday.  Good job we held off on the Glastonbury plans!

So, we spent a pretty idyllic weekend in Purbeck.  Lots of walking, plenty of relaxing and a bit of swimming.  We got back late last night, smelling of wood smoke and feeling a bit sunburnt.  What more can you ask from a weekend camping?

We squeezed in a trip to Corfe Castle.

We walked a section of the South West Coast Path, which never fails to push my fear of heights to its limit. 

It was very hazy that day, so you can't really see that behind Toby and Josie is just a big drop away to the sea.  Every fibre of my being was screaming, 'GET AWAY FROM THE EDGE'.  It was only the fact that I was suffering a hayfever meltdown at the time that stopped me taking action.  Me, heights and summer make a wonderful combination.

Sunday was hot enough to swim in the sea.

Despite appearances, Sam did get his shirt off and do some swimming too.

We had a slightly wobbly start to the camping, as the campsite I had picked on the strength of its website didn't live up to expectations.  Luckily we were able to find a campsite we had stayed at a couple of years ago, which was perfect.  Wool Palace camping is rough and ready; open fires are essential, although we don't say no to showers.  We had lots of space to relax and play games.

So, for anyone planning a camping trip in the next few weeks, I will pass on this tip:  When packing your tent for your trip, remember to check that you have your tent pegs.  You may think you have them, but if you haven't camped since last summer, maybe you've had a bright idea to separate them from your tent.  If you have done this, and you don't check, you may find yourself in a situation where you have put your tent up and it's about 8.30pm and you're in the middle of the country and all the shops that sell tent pegs are shut.  Then you have to go to your campsite neighbours and tell your embarrassing story and borrow their spare pegs and then you have to go to sleep that night knowing that your 2 bedroom family tent is held up by 5 tent pegs.  If that happens, you have to really, really hope there won't be a storm. 

Next time I'll give you the tip for what you should do to avoid a situation where you've held your tent up with 5 pegs and you then go to start cooking dinner only to find that you've forgotten the connector for your camping stove.

Still hot, still not much knitting I'm afraid.

Actually there has been quite a bit of knitting, but a lot of it was on the Blue Sky Alpaca blanket - henceforth to be known as the Blanket of Doom due to it's inability to grow, no matter how much moss stitch I do.  I'd show you a picture, but it looks like the last one and that one wasn't very exciting.

I've been on a training course this week which has involved much longer bus rides than I normally have to do to get to work.  Excellent knitting time, albeit extremely hot knitting time.  What better project to work on than a sock, I thought.  So I took along my second toe up sock, which has been languishing sadly next to its completed mate.  I knitted away happily on it, completed the foot, started the gusset, got home, realised I'd made a pig's ear of it and ripped it all out (all of the gusset that is).  Did it again, started the Sherman heel, realised I'd made a pig's ear of it and ripped it all out.  Are you sensing a theme here?  I don't know what's going on, the first one flew by.  I'm going to revisit it this morning and try and work out where I'm going wrong.

The Viennese Shrug has been going pretty well.  I do feel able to show you a picture of this.

I like the construction of this.  You start in the middle of the back with a provisional cast on, knit flat until you reach the armhole, then join and work in the round using progressively smaller dpns for the arm down to the cuff.  The use of the smaller needles means that after you've reduced the pattern by one repeat at the first join for working in the round, you don't have to reduce any more stitches until you get to the cuff, meaning the lace pattern is uninterrrupted.  Clever eh?

We've been cooling ourselves off from the sticky London weather by going here.

If you have to suffer a heatwave, then having the largest open air pool in Europe 15 minutes drive from your house does offer some comfort.  If you live in South London and haven't been, you really should go (but not on a hot weekend - after work is much nicer).

We're off to Purbeck for some camping this weekend.  I might even squeeze in a visit to the Blue Pool, as recommended by Tracy.  Enjoy your weekends!

If you can't stand the heat...

Too hot to knit, too hot to type, too hot to do anything really.

The slumber party has come and gone.  They all had a great time, with no arguments.  I could have done without them waking up at 6.30 this morning, especially as they eventually went to sleep about 12.30 last night, but hey ho, what can you do?

So I'm not only too hot to do much, but I'm also too tired to make much sense.

Luckily, I have goodies to show you, in the form of my first SP5 package.  It arrived on Saturday, all the way from Canada.

Two tins of deliciously scented tea, two skeins of hand dyed merino wool and a beautiful card.   All the goods were sourced from local producers close to my Secret Pal's home, which I thought was a really nice touch.  Thank you so much Secret Pal - I love it all.  I will be sending you a separate email too.  If you don't get it, please leave me a comment and let me know.  The only reason I mention this is that during SP4 Caroline and I had problems with our emails reaching each other, which was a shame, so I wouldn't want it to happen again.

And because I know you all want it, here's a close up of the beautiful merino wool.

Now I really am too hot to carry on.  Toby has just moved my knitting off the coffee table as he says looking at it is making him hot.  I'm off for a cool bath and then hopefully some sleep.  Is it wrong to wish for a storm?

Just a quickie

What do you think of my lovely new banner?  The very talented, multi-tasking Tracy made it for me.  She made one for Dawn too.  Thank you Tracy - very kind and generous, as always!

I was planning to post a list of knitting goals for the weekend but then we went out for dinner with friends last night and, basically, I have a hangover today so am not up for any goal setting at all, other than the goal of getting rid of my headache.  Obviously I am a glutton for punishment, because I am in the middle of preparing a rather elaborate Thai meal for friends who will be arriving in about 2 hours.  What it is to live in such a social whirl.

Any knitting goals may also be severely hampered by the events of tomorrow.  Yes, the slumber party is upon us.  8 excited 7 year old girls will be beating a path to our door tomorrow afternoon.  Wish me luck.

Must dash.  I have to boil some peanuts for 30 minutes before crushing them in a pestle and mortar with assorted chillies.  There's also a crab that needs it tomalley scraping.

Enjoy the sunny weekend!

Living on the edge

It feels like a long while since there have been any finished projects lying around the Wool Palace.  So, it makes me very happy to bring you a finished Edgy Exchange project.

Knitted in Kaalund Yarns Expressions (100% Kid Mohair).  Each 100g skein measures 460m and I had to dip into the second skein to finish the final long ruffle.  The colour is called 'Ironbark', which I think is appropriate as it reminds me a lot of the inner bark of a tree in my friend's garden in New Zealand.  I think it was some sort of gum tree - we used to rip the outer bark off and see this papery, bright orangey brown bark underneath.

I used a pattern given to me by the lovely Kristine as inspiration.  The midde strip was knit on 4mm dpns, then I used bamboo 3.5mm circulars to pick up the stitches for the ruffles, before switching to my Denise circulars (4mm points) to do the increase rows.  All in all a very simple pattern, fun to knit, although the last few rows do require perseverance due to the fact that each one takes about 20 minutes.  As for casting off - I don't want to talk about it right now.

This little lady is off for a Eucalan bath before she's sent off to her Edgy Exchange recipient.  For once I am well ahead of the deadline.  Mind you, I could be speaking too soon, I have been know to procrastinate severely over actually making that trip to the Post Office.  I mean, come on, it's at least a 10 minute walk from here - and I have to queue.

To hide the fact that I have nothing more to say tonight, I present two more views of Edgy.

Short and sweet.

Long and lean.

Final Call

Thank you for all your messages about the wrist.  It's not too bad really, just a sprain.  Ironically it happened on the bus on the way home from the VV Rouleaux playground market.  I was changing seats, as you do when you're with a 6 7 year old, the bus lurched one way, I fell the other, but kept my grip on the pole, resulting is a nasty wrench in the wrist area.  I didn't feel it much at the time, but when we got home it had stiffened up a lot, hence the bandaging.

The market was lots of fun.  Josie was unconvinced beforehand, but enjoyed herself mightily, trying on hats and looking at jewellery.  She left with a little dog made of crystal beads and a rather fetching knitted cat, which needs to be photographed I think.  I bought a little something for my Secret Pal, which will have to remain secret for now.  Apologies to anyone I said I would meet up with, but I was running on 7 year old time, which goes a lot quicker than knitters' time.  I will definitely be going again, as the market is on every Saturday.  If you are in the Sloane Square area, do drop in and have a browse - lots of crafty things, including knitting.

I did a little knitting today, the first since Saturday.  The final three rows of Edgy are done.  She needs to be sewn and blocked and I will photograph her tomorrow.  Preliminary modelling shots in the bathroom mirror are looking positive.

The final call of the title is for anyone wanted to go to Get Knitted on Saturday 9th July.  I have emailed everyone who expressed an interest after my last post, but if you fancy coming along drop me a line.  For any London readers, a few of us are planning to go by train and take advantage of discounted group booking rates, so do let me know if you want to join us.  Deadline for replies is Wednesday - after that you're more than welcome to join in, but you will have to make your own travel arrangements. 

Owww

And I only have three rows left on Edgy as well - why now?

It could be worse, it is my left hand, not my right, but typing still hurts (the curse of being a touch typist).  The full story will have to wait for a day or so, but it happened on the way back from a knitting related trip. 

Dr Josie assures me it will be better in the morning, but I'm not holding my breath.

Blue Skies

First off - thank you for all the birthday wishes for Josie.  And the compliments to Sam.  The chocolate cake is all gone I'm afraid, but the recipe is in Nigella Lawson's 'How to Eat' if you fancy having a go.  It has been The Wool Palace's default birthday cake for the last 3 or 4 years.  The only change I make is to put strawberries and cream in the middle rather than chocolate ganache - I save that for the outside.

I've been a little low the last few days, hence the lack of communication.  It's difficult to write when you don't think you have anything to say.  Anyway, I am now back to my normal delusion that I have plenty to say and that it is full of wit and humour.

Such beautiful weather in London today and yesterday.  We had our knitting class al fresco yesterday after school.   There is a sweet little garden with railing round it and a lovely big tree in the middle, so we sat in there and knitted.  The fresh air seemed to bring about an enthusiasm for new projects.  One girl has started a sort of paper chain of knitted, well, chains.  She is knitting one, joining it together, then looping the next one through as she knits.  This sparked a sudden enthusiasm for bracelets amongst the others.  We tried knitting single stitch chains, but they found this a bit difficult.  Before I knew what I was doing, I was offering to bring in crochet hooks next week.  My crochet skills are basic at the most, so it will be a case of the blind leading the blind I think.

I have been taking advantage of the sunshine to try and photograph my projects in some natural light.  However the unexpected photo shoot led to the camera batteries dying, so you will have to wait in suspense until tomorrow (or maybe later tonight).  I am concentrating on my Edgy Exchange project which is in the home straight, otherwise known as the last long ruffle.  It may be a fairly long home straight though, as towards the end each row takes about ½ an hour.  Still, I"m itching to get back to the Viennese Shrug so hopefully that will be incentive enough.

I'm in the office on my own today, so I might sneak off a little early to enjoy the sunshine before I have to pick up the children.

Tip for today:  If you're in the office alone, have a bit of free time and a skein of Kaalund Expressions that needs winding - and let's face it, we've all been in this situation haven't we - then two spinny office chairs, placed back to back, make a great stand-in for an umbrella swift.

Happy Birthday

There was an auspicious day to be celebrated this weekend at the Wool Palace.

Unbelievably, for me who still thinks of her as my baby, Josie turned 7.  Bratz dolls were bought, many many necklaces and assorted hair accessories were bought.  Diaries with locks and a scarily life size Bratz head-that-you-put-make-up-on also made an appearance.  If you don't know what Bratz are, be very thankful (think Barbie with all the perkiness taken away and replaced with haughty attitude and expensive accessories).

The rug making kit was a success.

Sam was happy with his consolation present of Lord of the Rings Warhammers.

I didn't realise he'd finish them all in one afternoon.

No knitting, but I think you'll agree that sometimes there are more important things to do.

There's still a slumber party to come.  Be afraid, be very afraid.