I’ve just signed up for Sock Wars, and the 1st rule of Sock Wars is….you must talk about Sock Wars so here goes.

The
original and bloodiest extreme knitting tournament has returned! If you
are brave enough sign up to do battle and you will be emailed a top
secret file on 13th October. This dossier contains the details of your
target and a pattern with which to assasinate them.

To
kill your target you must knit them the pair of socks in the pattern
and mail it to them.Once your target receives your parcel they are dead
and must post their death on the “fallen comrades” section of the
sockwars site.

They
must also immediately send you details of their intended target (who
becomes your next person to assassinate) along with their unfinished
knitting (which becomes your new weapon).

All the while this is going on, someone has been assigned you as their target…

Prepare to live in fear… Kill or be killed!

THE RULES OF SOCK WARS

1. The first rule of Sock Wars is: You must talk about Sock Wars.
2. The second rule of Sock Wars is: You MUST talk about Sock Wars. (no really, for this to be a success we need as many combatants as possible)
3. Two socks to a fight.
4. One fight at a time.
5. No shirts, no shoes, just socks
6. Fights will go on as long as they have to.

THE NITTY GRITTY Sign ups close by 23:59 on 1st October 2007. To sign up as a participant go here now!

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Tags: sockwars knitting

Just a very, very quick post to say thanks to everyone for their kind wishes - all those good vibes must have worked because the adoption panel have approved us!

Slightly scary to think we may soon find ourselves with an instant family…..:)

Off to open a bottle of wine with J and celebrate now…catch you later

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Tags: adoption

I was just looking around on Ravelry at groups and spotted one for WOT (for those not in “the know”, WOT refers to the Wheel of Time series of books by Robert Jordan), I was intrigued so went to have a look and found a post telling me that Robert Jordan had died….I was shocked and went racing off to Google to check.

It’s true, James O Rigney who wrote under the pen name Robert Jordan passed away on 16th September in Charleston SC. I felt so sad….I had never met this man, never spoken to him or corresponded with him but his passing has touched me because his writing touched me.

The Wheel of Time is a series of fantasy books with a huge worldwide following (just go Google it and you’ll see)…now I know fantasy books do seem to attract big cult followings but these books justified it. The world which Robert Jordan created and the people who inhabited it were incredibly real (even if they were full of magic and Ogiers and the One Power) and the story that unfolded was one which held the reader and swept them along.

I was given the first WOT book, The Eye of the World, as a Christmas present in 1993 by my then boyfriend. We spent that Christmas with his parents and family at their home in Essex, it was the first time I’d spent any time with his family and I spent almost the entire time reading the book finishing it by the end of Boxing Day. I went out the week after Christmas and bought the next two books in the series - I think at that time there were 5 published and I read them all over the first few months in 2004. I then had to wait for the 6th book to come out and my boyfriend bought that for me the next Christmas.

The next books came out at 2 or 3 year intervals and the wait each time was interminable. The final book, Knife of Dreams, was published at the end of 2005 and my husband bought it for me for Christmas. As it had been nearly 2 years since the previous book and 12 years since I’d read the first I decided to re-read the entire series before reading book 11 which I did over several months in 2006.

Whilst talking with a colleague at work about books I mentioned them to him, he’s a David Eddings fan (as am I) but had never heard of WOT so I lent him Book 1. He was hooked, went out and bought the whole series and read them in a few weeks. We’ve talked about them a lot and speculated on how the 12th, and final, book would end.

Robert Jordan has been ill for a long time and was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, amyloidosis, in 2006. WIth that knowledge he had commited most of the final book to word processor or audio tape and disclosed the story to his wife and his cousin. They plan to publish the book as per his wishes.

From a knitters viewpoint the books provide some inspiration, the most powerful society in the WOT world are the Aes Sedai - an order of women who weild the “One Power”. When a woman is made a full member of the Aes Sedai she is said to “attain the shawl” these shawls are worn on formal occasions and have a coloured fringe indicating which of the 7 sects, or Ajahs, she belongs to. I think each shawl is different - whether the Aes Sedai make or buy them is not clear…or whether they are woven, knit, crocheted….I always imagined a light, silky shawl with a very long fringe….I may have to design something…..

Also, women who have not “attained the shawl” for some reason are cast out and forbidden from weilding the One Power, others run away and go into hiding. These women form a secret society known as the Kin the leading council of the Kin is called the Knitting Circle.

So I think in tribute to Robert Jordan I’m off to design my very first knitting pattern - a lace shawl for an Aes Sedai…..may have to re-read again for ideas.

With regards to his family and friends, he will be missed by us all even those, like me, who never met him.

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Tags: WOT, wheel of time, robert jordan,

Whew, just realised it was over a week ago I posted last and it’s not for lack of things to say…quite the opposite really.

So, when I spoke last we were getting ready for our Annual Barbecue, this has become a fixture in our social calender since we invited people round for a barbecue on our 1st wedding anniversary…actually before that I used to have an annual summer barbecue for my work colleagues years ago when I was single and then a second one for my friends. Since Jon and I got married we’ve carried on inviting our friends and family over at least once during the summer for a big get together.

We have smaller gatherings with just a few friends all through the year but twice a year we invite everyone. One of these events is a pre-Christmas Mince Pie and Mulled Wine party for just our friends, not family. We have this on the last Friday before Christmas as a chance to spend time with our friends before Christmas as we are all focussed on our families over the Christmas period. This event is always very relaxed with maybe 20-30 people, we have parlour games and everyone gets a present from Santa’s Sack - it’s a bit like a bran-tub affair with lots of very silly, cheap presents.

During the summer we have our barbecue which seems to get bigger every year, all our friends and family are invited and we provide meat and veggies for the barbecue with everyone else bringing salads, desserts and drinks. It’s a wonderful day every year, a lot of our friends have children so they are running around the garden playing swingball, quoits, climbing our trees or playing on the swing. It’s open house all day from about 2pm so people come and go depending on the age of chidren who have to be taken home to bed, people working and coming over later in the evening…this year over the course of about 12 hours from 2pm to 2am we had around 30 adults and a dozen children aged 10 months to 9 years old passing through our garden.

Here are some of our photos - click to see them larger or to go to Flickr to see the rest -

As you can see from the pictures the weather was VERY good to us, probably one of the hottest sunniest days we’ve had all year…very similar to the weather 7 years ago

As the sun went down on our barbecue it stayed fairly warm and there were people out in the garden till pretty late, we lit the candles and torches and one of our friends put on a show for us with his “Fire Poi”

As usual, a lovely day and not enough time to talk properly to all our friends.

Since then the weather has turned and it’s been cold and today it’s wet and windy so I think we picked the best day!

I’ve been doing plenty of knitting this week but most of it is secret so I can’t show you much - I’m in several Swaps at the moment and I know my partners are checking blogs so can only tell you this much.

This is a project for the HSKS3 swap

As you can probably guess, my swap partner is in Hufflepuff House!

I’m also working on this for my hubby

ok- so that’s just a bag of yarn I know! From the colours the observant amongst you might see the Harry Potter theme here as well, bought this about a year ago for the Gryffindor colours and it’s been lurking ever since. This is being knit into a top secret project for J (no peeking….)

Non secret knitting has been started -

I finally decided between the three projects I’ve been wanting to start - Rogue, Eris and Arwen - and went for Arwen from Interweave Knits Winter 2006. The yarn was purchased specifically for this project (or whichever of the three I decided on) with an Angel Yarns voucher I received in Secret Pal 3. I’ve made a couple of adjustments to the pattern.

As I’m substituting Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK for the Debbie Bliss specified and this has a lower yardage on the ball band I wasn’t totally sure I would have enough yarn. It was going to be tight anyway so I decided to knit the hem facings with a different yarn, this i an airforce blue Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK I’ve had in the stash for a while. Contrasts well with the baby blue Jaeger.

Also, rather than sew the hem facing up and have to do invisible stitches (and I hate sewing stuff anyway) I used a crochet provisional cast on with waste yarn -

and then when the body was the same length as the hem facing I took out the waste yarn, put the stitches on another needle and then knit together one hem stitch with one body stitch across the row. I think it looks very neat -

I’m knitting this on my Brittany Birch Needles (birthday present from hubby) which I really love using, they are so smooth and so light!

I’ve completed the back of the cardigan and reached the sleeve on the left piece of the cardigan. For anyone not familiar with the pattern it is an unusual construction in just 3 pieces. The back is knit as one piece, then the left front is knit, when the armhole is reached stitches are cast on to form the sleeve, the shaping is done with short rows and the sleeve is then knit along with the body thus knitting up and over the arm. The sleeve stitches are then cast off and the left side of the hood is then knit in one continuous piece with the body. The right side is knit the same.

I’ve knit the left front to the sleeve and currently working my way over the shoulder… I’d forgotten how much I love cables…

More swap news, I recently hosted a swap on swap-bot for Knitting Accessories - send at least 2 knitting accessories (stitch markers, row counters etc) to your partner. My partner was Marie Sierra and she sent me this wonderful parcel

 - includes a skein of Plymouth Encore DK, a box of green tea, a hand-knit wash-cloth, some lavender sachets in this beautiful pink organza bag

and best of all (I actually squealed when I opened it) the book Amigurumi: Super Happy Crochet Cute by Beth Doherty. I have wanted this book for so long, it isn’t sold in this country - I could get it on Amazon but I’d have to pay huge amounts of postage so this was so lovely to receive as a gift

J has already requested the monkey on the left of the picture!!!

That’s about it for now - I’ve just sent off two swap parcels so will write about them when they’ve been received.

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Tags: SP3, HSKS3, barbecue, amigurumi, arwen,

OK, this sounded like such a lovely idea. I love knitting things, I love gifting things and I love getting parcels in the post so here’s how it works.

I’ve joined in this through Devin’s blog, Devin is my house prefect for HSKS3 and she posted about this a little while ago and I decided I wanted to join in.

It’s the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on.

In this case, I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So, if you would like to be one of the three people I gift to and would like to pay-it-forward by gifting to three others then just leave a comment. The gift doesn’t have to be knitted, just hand-made by you.

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Tags: pay-it-forward, exchange, knit, gift

This evening we let the chickens out in the garden for the first time. They’ve been with us a few weeks now but they’ve been living in their ark. We didn’t plan to let them out this evening, I was going to wait a week or so more and get the fences & gate checked out properly..however, Demelza had different ideas.
I was home early today as DH and I both had to go for medicals (for the adoption application) and when I got back I went out to check the chickens had water and give them a few handfuls of grain. As I was changing the water Demelza made a bid for freedom and  bolted past me and out of the ark, as she was out I decided I may as well leave the door off and let the other two out.

We had hours of amusement watching the three of them investigating the garden. DH spent the whole time panicking that (a)  the cat would get them (b) they would jump over the fence or (c) they wouldn’t go back into their house.
As far as (a) went, Simpson did have one go at them - they squawked a lot and fluttered away. He then spent the evening sat with us on the patio watching them VERY closely!
(b) Well, they didn’t jump the fences but Morwenna became very determined to jump on the pation chairs and then the table.

She did this several times before making her final intent clear and making a bid for the roof of our single storey extension! Luckily she didn’t make it or goodness knows where she would have ended up! She then wandered off down the garden a bit and promptly “flew” up into a bush at which point I decided I had better clip her wings. As she was perched in a bush it was quite easy to pick her off her branch, DH got the scissors and we clipped her feathers on her left wing. Hopefully that will stop her!

And as it started getting dark they wandered back towards their ark (with just a little encouragement from us)

So, all very exciting but I’m very happy that they made it through their first outing safely. I’m planning to let them out every evening when we’re home then all day at weekends to start with and then I may just leave them out all the time just shutting them up at night.

As this is supposed to be a knitting blog here is some knitting content -

This is the finished Ms Marigold. I actually finished her about a week ago as she was very fast to knit taking about 3 days to knit. I love the finished tank-top, it’s just what I wanted for work on those slightly colder autumn days - smart but with slightly querky features such as the ruffles on the shoulders.

The pattern was not the best pattern I’ve ever followed, there are no stitch counts after increases - it simply says “increase until the piece measures x inches” so you are not sure how many stitches you should end up with. I increased as much as I wanted, worked the body and then did some extra increases at the side to fit over my hips…then realised  I had an even number of stitches but not one that was divisible by 4…except I didn’t realise this until I worked the first round of 2×2 rib and got back round to the beginning to find I’d just worked 2 knit and needed to work another 2 knit for the beginning of the second round!!!!

However, I do like the idea of knitting the shoulders and back altogether and then joining in the round so there are NO seams to sew….I love this idea as I hate seaming and also you get such a smooth outline with no seams.

I wore this to work today and got lots of compliments.

I’ve also made a start on some Christmas knitting - as two people told me in the past 4 days how many weeks it is till Christmas!

This will be a “Weasley Sweater” from Charmed Knits by Alison Hansel although it is also available for free on her blog here. It’s based on the sweater Mrs Weasley knits for Harry Potter for Christmas in the first book, this one has a “T” as it’s for my friends son, Thomas.

The yarn is an aran weight tweedy wool in a dark navy and a bright green. I bought this in a little craft shop in Dingle, Southern Ireland a few weeks after Thomas was born, I’ve tried knitting it up about 4 times since then but always been disappointed and frogged. This sweater seems perfect for it - being a big believer in fate etc I am convinced I was drawn to buy it in order to knit a sweater for Thomas when he was older. I bought him a pottery mug in the same shop as a Christening present.

I am still working on the Genome Socks from Interweave Knits Fall 2007 for a swap partner and have just about half the leg to complete.

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Tags: chickens, leghorns, knitting, weasley, genome, marigold

This week I got a huge package of goodies from a “swap buddy” in New Zealand. We were partners in a swap-bot swap sometime ago when I sent her a yarn ball wrapped in a rose patterned tea towel. She loved the tea towel so much she asked if I could get more items in the same pattern and we organised a little private swap. I sent her some more rose patterned goodies, some English delicacies (Jaffa Cakes and Batchelors Cup-A-Soup) and some other goodies and in return she sent me all of this -

A tea-towel with New Zealand flowers on it, a squeezy tomato ketchup bottle, “Tiki” salad servers, a copy of “The Listener” a NZ magazine, 2 balls of The Wool Company Utiku Merino Possum Yarn (yes yarn made from possums!), a bath tea-bag, a NZ fridge magnet, button badge, NZ magnetic poetry (lots of NZ expressions I had to have explained), the cutest little brooch with two tiny needles and a piece of knitting, “Twisters” (NZ cheesy corn snack - bit like Wotsits), 2 bars of dark NZ chocolate and a jar of NZ marmite.

Phew! a real slice of New Zealand here in my own back garden in England. The magnetic poetry had to have some translation so here are some New Zealand phrases -

“jandals” = flip-flops in UK, thongs in US/Australia and most of world
“pack a sad” = to react negatively rather than get on with things. You might say “don’t pack a sad” meaning lighten up.
“smoko” = morning or afternoon tea (even if you don’t smoke). Someone will say “lets have a smoko” meaning lets take a break
“piker” = a kill-joy or someone who won’t join in
“rattle your dags” = hurry up
“puckeroo” = refers to something that has broken

I was interested to receive the marmite as I had assumed marmite was peculiar to England, although I was aware that in Australia they have vegemite (a poor imitation). To those of you in the US who have no idea what marmite is, it is a yeast extract which you spread on toast or sandwiches, it’s very salty and has a taste which you either love or hate. This love/hate is used as the advertising for marmite in the UK. Marmite is also used to flavour Twiglets which are baked corn snacks which look remarkably like twigs (hence the name)

Whilst I was putting the NZ Marmite away in the cupboard I realised that I had 4 different jars of yeast extract in my kitchen cupboards. I immediately wondered whether they all tasted the same or if each different variety had its own distinct taste….an experiment followed.

I gathered the 4 jars of yeast extract as follows -

From l-r, Vegemite from Australia, original Marmite from England in the new squeezy bottle, Marmite from New Zealand and limited edition Guinness Marmite (made with Guinness yeast extract apparantly)

Next I got two volunteer tasters (me and J) and armed them with pitta bread with which to tast the yeast extract.

We began with the Vegemite, the texture was much more solid than the other three spreads and the colour is the lightest brown of the four. The taste was quite subtle and not as salty as British marmite

Next was the Guinnes Marmite, I was interested to know if this tasted any different to normal marmite or whether this was a marketing ploy. The texture of the Guinness Marmite was the “runniest” of the four and the colour very dark brown. The taste was different to ordinary marmite but still very strong and salty. I love it!

Third was original Marmite, still the best in my opinion. The new squeezy bottle is an inspired innovation IMHO, I use marmite quite a lot in cooking. I’m vegetarian and when I make bolognaise sauce or chilli with soya mince I often add a spoon of marmite for colour and taste - squeezing it in from the plastic bottle is much easier than scraping marmite from a spoon into the saucepan. Still, I digress - original marmite slighty firmer texture than Guinnes Marmite but still runnier than the vegemite, colour very dark brown. Taste, very strong salty taste - delicious.

Finally, the New Zealand Marmite - of the four this was the darkest in colour being almost black and was only slightly less solid than the Vegemite. The taste was very different to the other three - whilst they were all clearly salty with the Vegemite being just more subtle, the New Zealand Marmite tasted completely different and was almost sweet. I like it but not as much as British Marmite. I will have to try it on hot toast which is always the best way to eat marmite.

So the results are that they all taste, and indeed look, very different.

Earlier in the day we attended the wedding of our friends Ceri & Mick at All Saints Church, Marlow. This is Ceri in her beautiful dress

I wore MS3 for the first time to the wedding and here I am in my outfit including the Mystery Stole 3 (btw that’s a feathered head-dress on top of my head, my hair is not quite that wild or bright pink)

I’m really pleased with the way MS3 turned out and it went perfectly with my wedding outfit. The yarn was Patons Fairytale 2ply and I knit on 4mm circulars. Here are some more photos of it taken in the garden when we got home from the wedding this evening.

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Tags: marmite, vegemite, yeast extract, wedding, ms3

Back in March my DH bought me (amongst other lovely knitty gifts) 6 skeins of Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK in a shade called “Cocoa” - a lovely chocolatey brown. He immediately went into a slump about it declaring “I made a mistake, the colour’s horrible, 70’s sludge brown…and I didn’t buy enough for you to make anything ….”

I, on the other hand, thought the colour was wonderful and immediately decided it needed to be a v-neck slip-over/vest/tank-top (whatever word you use to describe a sleeveless jumper/pullover)…so I started looking for a pattern I liked. I was unable to find anything immediately and so the yarn got stashed but everytime I see a tank-top pattern I dig it out again to see if it would work….I was on the point of designing something myself (never designed a pattern but willing to give it a go) when I saw this post on Roo’s blog.

The pattern is Ms Marigold available to purchase at Zephyr Style

This is it - it’s perfect! So, I hope Roo doesn’t mind me being a copy-cat (they do say that it’s the greatest form of flattery) but I immediately bought the pattern and cast on yesterday evening. This is how far I got by the time I went to bed last night

and here is a close up showing the lovely way the stitches form up - think this is due to the twist in the yarn which is quite pronounced

I am really loving knitting this - it’s one of the most enjoyable knits I’ve had for ages. The yarn is gorgeous, it is so soft and slips through your hands. The pattern seems perfect for it and I managed to do the increases leaning left and right to for this wonderfully neat shoulder section

Doesn’t show brilliantly in that pic - I’ll post a close up later. Overall I am really pleased with it so far, hope my joy continues and I end up with a lovely tank-top to wear to work later in the year over a blouse!

I’ve also signed up to another swap (I just can’t help myself) this one is the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap 3, and I’m not even a Harry Potter fan (I have never read any of the books although I have been to the films accompanying my Potter fan hubby) However from what I’ve read about rounds 1 & 2 on peoples blogs it sounds like a fun swap and whatever I end up making I can gift to one of the Potter mad people I’m surrounded by.

I filled in the sign up form so I hope I’m in, I was “sorted” into Gryffindor

Get Sorted By The Hogwarts Sorting Hat!

which is good because if I’m to receive a sock kit to make something I’m going to gift I’d want it to be Gryffindor.

MS3 was completed some time ago but haven’t had time to block it or blog it - just pinned it out on the floor of the spare room as I am off to a wedding tomorrow and I am thinking of wearing MS3 …mind you the weather has perversely for a Bank Holiday weekend turned hot and sunny so I probably wont need a shawl.

Here I am blocking it

and here is a close up of the “wing”

Finally, non knitting activity in my house mainly involves my new chickens so here they are -

this is Morwenna a white bantam leghorn

this is Demelza a red mottled leghorn

Demelza made a bid for freedom on Thursday night, I was putting them to bed for the evening and I am trying to get them used to being handled by people but she slipped through my hands and ran off into the undergrowth in my garden…which is mainly brambles through which I had to crawl to get her as it was getting dark and I didn’t want her out there with my cat and the foxes…..

and this is Tegen a blue bantam leghorn

Tags: jaeger, merino, ms marigold, chicken, ms3, hogwart

I’m hosting a swap on Swap-bot, if you haven’t heard of this site and love swaps then go check it out. My swap is for knitting accessories/notions - so if you fancy receiving some new stitch-markers, row-counters, tape-measures etc then come and sign up. Full details -

As knitters we know that you can never have too many notions/accessories and we are probably all seduced by cute stitch-markers and tape measures. So this swap is designed to feed that addiction.

# Minimum Requirements

Each person is assigned one partner and must send at least 2 knitting accessories/notions totalling at least £10 (that’s about $20) not including postage.

If you want to send more than 2 then that’s fine but the minimum requirement is 2 items.

If you feel you cannot spend £10 then this isn’t the swap for you.

# The Swap

After signing up you can, if you wish, list the accessories you would like to received in the comments. If you want to leave if up to your partner to pick then that’s fine.

Items to send can be anything from stitch-markers to scissors, row-counters to tape-measures, needle cases to stitch-holders.

You can also specify whether or not you’re happy to receive handmade items. I know lots of us love to make stitch-markers and I’ve seen some wonderful beaded stitch/row counter bracelets. Obviously hand-made items should be of a quality you would be happy to receive yourself and the minimum £10 spend requirement still holds so good materials please!

If there is something you would particularly NOT want to get, for instance if you have tape measures falling out of every drawer and project bag already, then mention that in the comments too.

There will be 2 weeks from sign-up to send your items so that should be plenty of time even if you need to buy things online.

Enjoy! Any questions just contact me.

As well as hosting this swap I have just signed up for a Christmas (yes Christmas!!!) knitting swap and there are still a few places left on it - go visit the Christmas Around the World Knitters Swap - to find out more. If you love Christmas, love knitting and like finding out about different traditions around the world this is the swap for you.

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Tags: swap, swap-bot, accessories, notions

Sorry for the break…been on hols in Cornwall so here is a catch up post.

Before we went away my chicken ark arrived and had to be put together

and painted

Then we packed up the car and headed for Cornwall on Saturday morning. We were staying with Js parents in Talland Bay but on Saturday night we were invited to a party being thrown by a friend of our pal Tracey (FairyCross). It was a “tent party” - meaning we were all staying over in tents in Steve’s garden on the night of the party. There are plenty of embarrassing photos on flickr and here are some of my favourites

The host himself -

Some rather drunk people -

Some VERY drunk people dancing (I’m told) to Grandma’s Feather Bed by John Denver - don’t ask it’s safer not to know -

Katy playing DS the next morning -

Pretty pictures of Cornish scenery

I did some reading -

and I did some knitting -

I am in a prayer-shawl swap and started my shawl whilst in Cornwall as I was in a lovely relaxing setting where I could meditate on the shawl. Here I’m knitting in the swing seat at my in-laws looking at this view  -

that’s the sea at Talland Bay.

Arrived back home this afternoon having visited Tracey on the way to collect the chickens which her hubby was letting me have (he breeds them) so when we got home we showed them their new home

and introduced Simpson to his new family members

this is Morwenna - she is a white leghorn and is already proving to be the bossiest and the bravest of the three. The other two are Tegen and Demelza.

Will write a proper post tomorrow

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Tags: chickenark cornwall party