The Wool Palace

Sweet like chocolate

Ah, I love Fridays.  No work, children at school, just me and my knitting.  Plus the housework of course but I'm not thinking about that right now.

Invigorated from my Peter Jones trip, I have cast of for a new project.  I know I said I would knit Bianca, but I'm just not feeling the 4 ply feeling at the moment.  I am using the lovely Jaeger Matchmaker DK I bought on Saturday for Peridot from the new JB37 book.

One thing I have learnt is that dark brown wool does not photograph well and is not easy to knit with at night.

I am doing the textured version rather than the two colour version and I am also following my tried and tested, 'sleeve as a swatch' method.  Now the pattern is simple to remember and rather fun to knit - more variety than stocking stitch but easy enough to do while watching TV.  However, where I get stuck is incorporating the increases into the pattern; and as this is a sleeve there are a fair amount of increases.  It should be simple but for some reason I can't get my head around it.  In the end, I printed off some knitter's graph paper and got busy with a pencil and made myself a chart for the sleeve up to the end of the increases (that's what you can see under the knitting).  I don't need to follow it for every row but it's handy to have next to me on my magnetic board so I can glance at it when I get to an increase row.

I have also been getting reacquainted with River and we are good friends again now.  Here's how we're doing.

I feel my knitting mojo coming back.  Bring on Ally Pally!

Oh dear

Must remember not to talk to my hairdresser or an taxi drivers about my blog.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/27092005/80/say-dogging-blogging-brits-confused.html

Me and Mr Jones

I know it's Monday night but I'm a bit behind with my weekend reporting.

I had a lovely time on Saturday.  Toby was away climbing all last weekend so I negotiated a day off for me this weekend.  Happily it coincided with one of the Rowan coffee mornings at Peter Jones.  I've never been to one before so I was off to book my ticket faster than you could say, 'chatting with knitting friends all morning and a 10% discount on wool, yes please!'.

What a lovely way to spend a Saturday.  Coffee morning is a misnomer really as it runs well into lunch time.  We had a talk by a designer (I am ashamed to say I've forgotten her name),  a presentation on the new Rowan and Jaeger collections, plus plenty of yarn to play with and of course lots of people to chat with.  Dawn was there, along with Amelia, Jill, Jacinta and her daughter, Felicity, Sharon and plenty more.  A good time was had by all.  Dawn had brought along a wonderful book of Icelandic shawls, complete with translation, plus a great sock book that I think I have to get.  Jill had the new Wrap Style book which is another must buy, plus some of the new Louisa Harding yarns and the accessories book.

We adjourned to the restaurant for lunch, then it was off to the yarn department to make the most of our 10% discount vouchers.  I was pretty restrained, visions of Ally Pally hanging over my head.  I picked up a few new pattern books and some Jaeger Matchmaker DK to make Peridot.

I also fell in love with some Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Chunky in the 024 colourway and had to take a ball home to play with.  I haven't checked the gauge yet, but a simple sweater a la Hourglass is calling to me.  Every time I buy the Jaeger yarns I am reminded of what good value they are.  Such good quality and a good range of colours.  I think I need to build up my Jaeger stash.

Sunday we had our first roast dinner of the autumn.  I love having friends over for Sunday lunch and it's finally getting cool enough to eat a hot meal.  So yesterday was lovely roast pork, potatoes and parsnips, accompanied by braised red cabbage and steamed green cabbage and carrots, plus homemade apple sauce and gravy.  Dessert was lemon sponge pudding and plenty of stinky cheese and grapes.  This was the scene at about 7pm last night after our friends had left.

What you don't see is Toby asleep on the sofa - he was still recovering from his brother's stag night on Saturday and me watching TV and doing not a stitch of knitting.  A lovely lazy Sunday.

What a grey day it is today.  Autumn is definitely on the way.

I have been doing some knitting, you'll be pleased to hear.  For the past week I have been occupied with turning this

into this.

In fact I only used the yarn for the scarf.  The chocolate I happily turned into extra calories for me.

This is my Stitch Ya Neck Out project.  The yarn was sent to me by Tatjana, who has chosen the Here & There Cables pattern from Scarf Style.  It's not the quickest of knits, but the joy of it is that it is just perfect for picking up and working on for a short time as the pattern is a 7 row repeat with only one row of cabling.  I'm confident I'll have it done by the October deadline.  I'm not sure of the yarn composition - it came on a cone with no label.  It feels like it may have some cotton in it.  Perhaps Tatjana can shed some light on it?

Other than the scarf I am not really working on anything.  River is stalled - I put her down before going to Cornwall and have now lost my rythm.  There is one sock made for Toby that needs a mate but a sock in 2x2 rib doesn't appeal right now.  I have washed and rewound the 4 ply wool from the frogged jumper, but now I'm not so sure that I like the colour for Bianca. 

I'm in need of inspiration I think.  I feel a little stash enhancement expedition coming on...

Blast from the past

I was tagged (a shamefully long time ago) by Polly and Jeanne for this meme. 

5 Things I Miss from Childhood

I think this may turn into '5 Things I Miss from New Zealand', but here we go.

The sea.  Growing up in Auckland, especially where I did, the sea is a constant in your life.  You see it and smell it every day.  Leisure time, summer and winter, is often spent on or around it.  The beaches on which we spent most of our time weren't the picture postcard stuff, white sand etc.  Most were lined with pohutukawa trees, their leaves and flowers falling and mixing with the sand.  Sometimes we would swim with our friends on a 'private beach' which was basically a little inlet of Auckland Harbour that we got to by walking down a neighbour's drive.  I am absolutely rubbish at swimming lengths in a pool but put me in the sea and I will happily wallow around for hours at a time.

Cycling.  Sam and Josie are just discovering the joys of whizzing about on bikes with their friends.  I remember being able to fill up a whole day cycling aimlessly around.  Our street ran to the top of an extinct volcano, on which a pa had been built centuries before.  The fortifications were exposed on one side and we used to whizz down over the bumps onto the rugby field below.  When that got boring we'd take our bikes through the storm drain under the motorway and play in the mangrove swamps.  Messy and smelly, perfect for kids.

Going to the dairy at the weekend to spend our pocket money on sweets.  In New Zealand a dairy is basically like a newsagent in the UK, but it has to sell milk in order to have that name.  K bars and the selection of 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 were favourites when I was young.  As I got older I might indulge in Twisties, L&P or that finest of convenience food, the pie.

Not wearing any shoes.  Another New Zealand thing I think.  Most summer holidays were spent with no shoes on.  We used to walk up to the shops without shoes; it would be an endurance test to see how long you could walk on the hot asphalt before chickening out and going on the grass.  Lunchtimes at primary school in the hot weather were marked by piles of  Roman sandals by the side of the playing fields while we ran around getting bee stings and prickles in our feet.

Cats.  My family is most definitely a 'cat family', although I have let the side down and married into a 'dog family'.  We went through many, many cats during my childhood.  There was Pumpernickel, who ran away while we were in England.  The news was broken to me and my sisters by our mother on our way home from school on a dreary day in Oxford and we all cried.  Marley was a ginger tom who became very grumpy after losing some of his tail in a fight.  If he decided to sit on a chair, that was it, you risked losing part of your hand if you tried to move him.  Truffle was a white cat who had his ears and nose tattooed blue to guard against skin cancer.  He was very good at fetching little balls of scrunched up paper that we would throw for him.  There were many others, too many to list, but they all gave us great joy.

I've taken so long to answer this that I'm sure anyone who wants to do it has done so already, but if you would like to have a go, consider yourself tagged.

Don't look back in anger

Don't you just love it when you spend an hour or so on a post, painstakingly adding in all those links and everything and then Typepad loses it?

Yeah, it's just great.

The little knitter that could

It was touch and go there for a while but I've scraped through Sockapal2za with a day to spare.

I ended up switching from the Koigu narrow failures to these ones.  These are Conwy from Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush.  Done in Lorna's Laces, Baltic colourway on 2.25mm Brittany Birches.

A very nice pattern to knit.  The twist adds an element of interest while being easy to execute and memorise.  A pretty quick knit as well.  I started sock number 2 on Saturday morning and it was all done by Monday evening.

They are still a little bit damp so I'll be sending my sock pal an email letting her know to expect them in a week.  I hope she likes them.

Now, on to my Stitch Ya Neck Out project...

The envelope please

The lines are closed, the votes have been counted and it is now time for me to talk to the house...

Yes folks, we have a winner!  Thank you to everyone who has left comments over the past week, it's been good to visit a few new blogs and find out who some of my readers are.  The magic 500 has passed (and yes, Typepad does the counting for me, much easier that way).

So, Diana, drop me an email with your address and some woolly goodness will be on its way to you.  And rest assured it is not flood damaged either (thank you Dawn!) but will be pristine and fresh from the stash chest. 

Andrea asked for clarification of a couple of things in the SP package.  I did try and take some photos of the individual items but they all came out very badly so I didn't put them up.  The glass globe is a handblown bauble, which I will be putting on my tree later this year.  The round thing with the ball of yarn inside is actually a tin with a collar charm inside.  Adele thought it would make a good stitch marker and I think she's right.

I had hoped to be posting about the triumphant finish of my Sockapal2za socks, but sadly it is not to be.  I seem to have fallen into a state where I am incapable of knitting a sock that will fit a normal foot.  All my attempts recently have turned out too narrow.  I guess this could be linked to the fact that all my attempts recently have been cabled patterns.  I am currently on the foot of Conwy from Knitting on the Road and I am pretty sure it is going to be too narrow, as was the previous Rib & Cable (or Cable & Rib) sock - do you think Nancy Bush has it in for me?  Still, I will persevere.  In the meantime, if anyone needs several single narrow socks to use in some sort of display, maybe titled, 'When Good Socks Turn Bad' or something like that, just let me know.  All samples are knitted in the highest quality yarns and are finished to a good standard.

In order to avoid a completely photoless post - and let's face it, no one wants one of those, I give you...

... a seal.  I did say we got up close and personal didn't I?

Revealing all

So, I think it's about time we got back to the knitting around here, don't you?

Before that, I just want to say I was enormously touched by all your kind and supportive comments about my various disasters, self inflicted and otherwise.  I haven't even begun to reply, so please bear with me.  At the moment I feel like the blog is running at 100 miles an hour and I'm running at 10, so it will take a few days to get back on top of things.

Just before all the bad stuff started happening a couple of great packages showed up at the Wool Palace.  There was much excitement when it was found that one was for Josie, from her Kid's Secret Pal pal (does that make sense?).  Josie's pal has been an absolute star and had already sent her a couple of e-cards and a postcard from Cornwall, but this package topped it all.

From one 7 year old girl to another, it was just perfect.  Josie was thrilled and took everything with her to Taunton and then camping as well, where other 7 year old (and older) girls were equally impressed.  The magic flower was a particular hit.  So a big shout out to Josie's Secret Pal and her mum, who I'm sure had a hand in things too. 

I must admit we've been a little slow off the mark with our Kid's Secret Pal packages, but they will be going out this week and I will make sure that we keep up our end of the bargain.  We haven't heard from Sam's pal yet, but I'm figuring they're probably in the same situation as me, summer holidays are a hectic time for all families.

Moving on, I got my final SP5 package which was chock full of goodies.

Sock bunnies for Sam and Josie which my pal had made herself.  She had even gone to the trouble of emailing me to find out what their favourite colours were.  Both have taken up permanent residence in their bedroom, of course.  The beautiful stitch markers are also made by herself.  Everything else was sourced locally and shows the care and time my pal has spent. 

And then, as if that wasn't enough, I got another package!

Apologies for the slightly blurry photo, it was the best I could get, for some reason.  This is a beautiful cloak pin made by, wait for it, one of my pal's, 'blacksmithing coworkers'.  I would love to have a job where my coworkers were blacksmiths, especially if they could make something as beautiful as this.

So a big thank you goes to Adele, who has been a wonderful Secret Pal to me.  This was her first Secret Pal, so if she's doing SP6 and you get her, trust me, you're in for a treat!  Thanks again Adele, I've enjoyed everything you've sent.

My final package will be sent off to my pal in the next couple of weeks, so I'll wait until then to say who I was sending too.  I've really enjoyed SP5 but I feel I haven't been as good as a pal as I could have been, so I think I'm going to sit out SP6.  There's enough going on around here with Sockapal2za and Stitch Ya Neck Out to keep me busy for a while.  So for those of you doing SP6, enjoy and I may see you for SP7.

Back to life

Yes we are back, smelling of wood smoke and with mountains of dirty laundry.

The dehumidifier is back on but the flat is looking pretty good.  The mumps thing went away after a couple of days so obviously wasn't mumps; I'm waiting for blood test results to see if they can figure out what it was.

Cornwall was wonderful, as it always is.  We had one day of spectacular storms, which seemed to sit themselves directly above our tent, but other than that the sun shone and we had lots of fun.  Sam learned to boogie board and went climbing with Toby on Bodmin Moor.  The children and I got up close and personal with some seals while Toby did a day's climbing.  There was lots of swimming in the sea and walking the South West Coastal Path and shamefully little knitting.  I'll put up some photos when they are sorted out.

Sam and Josie had a wonderful time - no TV, no PS2, just lots of fresh air and space and plenty of other children for them to run around with. 

It's back to school for us today - yesterday was spent frantically running round the shops buying new shoes, uniforms etc.  There's nothing like leaving it until the last minute!

Check back this evening for something knitting related.  And in case you were wondering, we're not quite up to 500 comments yet, so if you haven't posted yet, or if you have and fancy another go, you know what to do!