striped hat

This is the second thing I made this weekend from Erika Knight's new book Men's Knits. It was very easy and looks really good, especially on Craig. It done on 4.5mm with artesano alpaca/wool aran.

gorgeous.

The next two pictures, of Craig and myself, are taken with us wearing the gifts from Erika. Craig is in a huge Blue Sky Alpaca jumper and as you can see he is excited and looking forward to winter! I love my cardigan, it's hemp and it fits so well I think Erika made it especially for me! Thanks again, Erika, we love them both.
Even more gorgeous!
I don't think it's the cardigan that makes me camp, unfortunately. I am booking in to de-camp school.

Thanks to Jane for the pictures.

Gxx

thursday is for socks

We had another delivery today. Lots more sock. This time it's Lang, a fab German yarn that's come in so many colours and different blends that I was exhausted just looking at the shade card.

There is also lots of shades of self patterning which are fab, and they are all machine washable.

I managed to so a little of one of them, tiny, tiny, tiny sock!

Then all of these people turned up and now I'm in the corner while they are having a fab time knitting and chatting over a bottle of cider or a glass of wine. Thanks to karen for the gorgeous sample of organic spanish red. I had something called vino terrano (home brew) on new years eve while staying with craig's day in Spain. It was powerful stuff and I had heartburn for 3 weeks afterwards. This wine is not like that, it's lovely.

There was over 35 people in the shop tonight. It's marvelous. There is even someone granting wishes! It's a funny looking wand, though, so I'm not holding my breath!

This is Christine with another Victorian Lace Today product. Although you can't tell from the angle of this picture, Christine is just as happy with her shawl as the baby is!

I love Christine - she has become very interested in artesano alpaca. btw, I also love Denise, who is friends with Christine, thanks for the biscuits, Denise, you're a star!

Gxx

Saturday night's alright

On the way home from the shop tonight I decided I fancied a little glass of rosé wine.

I never know what to buy though. Sainsbury's is not Oddbins. I was busy trying to decide when I noticed a rather glamorous woman in the same aisle. I was distracted by what I thought was her 'Britt Ekland trout pout'. Did you see the pictures in the papers recently - she was on a TV program or something. The woman was slightly scary but she pounced on a couple of bottles of rosé.

If it's good enough for her, I thought...so I picked up the same two types of wine. I'm a little happy right now after drinking a couple of glasses, in fact.

Anyway, I remembered that Craig needed a new scrubber for the dish washing so I went and got some of them and there, again, was the same woman, also looking at scrubbers. I had a better angle this time and I noticed the signs of a bad face lift and then the sunglasses and then the fur lined floor length coat. I was so drawn to the weird shaped lips, I couldn't stop looking. It was then that I realised that it was Britt Ekland.

Mad. You see all sorts in our Sainsburys. Floella Benjamin was my favorite. She's about 12 foot tall.

Anyway, I'm making a scarf.

The scarf I am wearing is a prototype, really. The idea belongs to Susy. She is quite choosy, apparently, so I thought it must be good. In fact I think it's great! Susy had some Paul Smith ribbon and said she was going to copy the colours knitting a length ways scarf. She gave me some of the ribbon and I made a scarf. I'm keeping the first as it's thin and too short but I like it so I didn't unravel. I'm making another for a belated Christmas gift.

I'm knitting on 3.75mm addi's, using Artesano's new DK Alpaca in pretty much all of the colours.

I've no idea how many stitches there are - life's too short to count 'em, so I don't know how long it'll be but I'm sure it'll be grand. I've got about 8 or 9 more rows left, I can't wait to finish. I've a feeling that this is going to be one of those gifts I find hard to give up.

Gxx

about last week

Sorry for not posting for a few days. We've been busy as ever. My main excuse for not posting is camera problems! I can't find the battery charger part to the bleedin' camera! So no pics. I have been knitting, though. I'm half way through a pair of socks using Easyknits. The colourway is inspired by Rufus Wainwright and called Release the stars. It's yellow and brown and orange and it's gorgeous. I will post pictures in the next few days.
I've also done some of the flowers from the scarf on the cover of the latest Vogue Knitting. They are so easy. I'm not making the scarf, just the flowers for a bit of decoration. I made a huge version out of colinette point five and it's all peaches and cream - pink and that! It's gorgeous.
I've started on a tea cosy, too. It's from a new book we got to the shop. It's called Tea Cosies, funnily enough. I'm doing a sheep tea cosy. I've only done the sheep's head and the ears, in artesano alpaca, and it's also fab. I've decided that it's my Saturday knitting so I can't wait to spend some time doing the loop stitch this weekend.
In other news - Thanks to Amy, my social life has seen lots of action this week! Last Friday I went as Amy's plus 1 to Hell's Kitchen. Nothing much happened, to be honest, but it was still rather marvellous. It's strange having a camera 2 inches from your face when you are trying to decide which starter to have. I got all confused and nervous and forgot I had to order a main meal, too! It may have been the champagne and the gin cocktail we had before we ordered, actually.
So, if you have been watching you may be familiar with the menu (I've only seen 1 episode and it was after I had been), I had scallops to start. They were amazing. I'm not used to dining so well so Amy helped me decide and they were cooked perfectly! I gave them 10/10. They even came with a bit of pastry!
Then I had dover sole. It was a little salty with a tomato salsa and anchovies but I love anchovies and salt and the fish was cooked well so I was happy again!
Then I had raspberries that were built into this castle with sugar wafers. That was very sweet, gorgeous. Amy's dessert wasn't that nice, an undercooked soufflé, so she sent it back and we were ready for action. The maitre'd was really nice and said 'I'll bring you another.' I was a bit disappointed to be honest, I wanted to be kicked out full of lovely food and lots and lots of wine. There were loads of people there, I met the Puppini Sisters who are almost edible themselves.
This week I went to the press night of the new cast of Spamalot. It was marvellous. Craig has seen the show a few months ago and loved every minute of it and talked about it for weeks so I have been really keen to see it. There were so many famous people there, including half of the Coronation Street cast. I was desperate to talk to Cilla in the party later. We didn't stay long though.
Will Young was also there. Now, one of the more interesting things about having a tracker on the blog is seeing that certain websites are sending a lot of people your way. One of those is williamyoung.biz. I'm rather dim and didn't put 2+2 together so couldn't work out why, until I went there and discovered that William is long for Will. I mentioned him in a post about Glastonbury and the Will fans found it and told other Will fans to come over and read. Anyway - Will looked lovely.
In real life - thanks to everyone for your well wishes for Craig's speedy recovery. He's seeing a physiotherapist and spending a lot of time lying on his side and he's feeling much better for it.
The UK Stitch 'n Bitch Day is almost here - I can't beleive it! We've got so much planned, and so much yarn will be there, including Wensleydale Long Wool Sheep Shop and Garthenor. Debbie Stoller keeps telling us that she is so excited - she can't wait to meet the UK's knitters!
Gxx

alpaca blanket and last night's Retro Bar...

I've just finished this baby blanket. I think it is among the top 5 of my favorite knitted things. Not just because it's so simple!

There is a moss stitch border to the central stocking stitch panel, 110 stitches on 44mm needles - simple as that. I used Artesano Hummingbird 100% alpaca in Woodpecker. It's designed to be a thick sock yarn but I need a blanket. It is so soft that I think I might have to cover my pillow with it!

The colours are amazing, you can see the pattern is incredible! It came out all on it's own! People keep talking about why knitting is so popular at the moment - it's due, at least in part, to the amazing yarns available that not only look and feel great but they are exciting to knit with, too!

Gxx

Last night's knitting group met up at our favourite bar in London, Retro Bar, down George Court. This is our local when we're not knitting (even if it's not actually that local!), but the upstairs bar is a great place to snuggle up in the booths and get the needles out. It was a good laugh last night - we taught Phillip the barman how to cast on, cast off, knit and purl all while he was in between serving up the drinks!

I have a sneaky suspicion he's done it before because he picked it up like a natural! It's always great to meet new knitters and the best thing about the meetings for me is that it's got really nothing to do with I Knit London - - everyone just turns up and gets on with it, meets new knit mates and has a laugh. So, thanks to all the old and new faces who popped in during the night - as always a few hearty souls managed to knit all the way to last orders....

Ann, Donna (aka Dolly) and Jo

Tanja, who we haven't seen for a while, was there and I just had to share her ingenious double-magic-loop method for knitting socks. She said that she once knitted from the top down down but on one pair of extra long socks she got to the end of sock 2 only to run out of yarn. Since then she's knitted from the toe up, both socks at the same time from the same ball of yarn! The mind boggles but it makes so much sense - both socks will be the same length AND all the yarn is used up. I love it, and it probably eliminates SSS (second sock syndrome)

!

Craig
xx