I hate over-smart software!

My new camera, as I mentioned before, is gorgeous. Easy to use, has lovely features and technical gadgets and lots of settings. The 'easy-share' software, however, I could happily smash into tiny little pieces (except that software isn't really a physical thing you can get hold of to smash, sadly). If I was clever enough I'd write a virus to wipe it off the face of the planet. Now that may sound extreme (and I may or may not have PMT... I'm not telling) but before you judge me, listen to what it does: it vanishes my photos into the electronic ether. I have a lovely camera, with which I'm trying to get to grips, and some software that is tearing up my attempts and throwing them in the trash. Grrrr!
Basically, some berk with too much time on his hands has written the software to be 'intelligent', so if it thinks you're trying to copy a duplicate of a photo from the camera to the computer, it doesn't copy it. Instead it gives an error message saying 'some pictures were duplicates of ones in your collection and were not copied'. So, although they're not copies - they are very similar photos of the same knitting with different settings to see which comes out most clearly - and are not named the same, nor going into the same destination folder - it declines to copy them, but still deletes them from the camera. My photos! Gone! I just this minute (with no pics on the camera beforehand) took three pics of the shawl - 2 appeared on the computer. I took two pics of the new sock-in-progress - only one appeared on the computer. The camera is empty. I downloaded them into a brand new, empty folder on the desktop, in which there could not possibly have been duplicate photos. Does anyone know how I can stop the bl**dy thing eating my pictures? Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!
(ok, so PMT is a distinct possibility... does anyone have any chocolate or wine? I need to go raid the fridge to calm down...)

Ahhhhh, that's better. Calming down now. Rant mode cancel. Deep breaths...... and relax.
On the other hand,I do have for you here a picture of a pair of completed kermit socks on some very happy feet (they are very happy - the socks finished blocking / drying on the radiator 30 seconds before and are still toasty warm... bliss!)This amorphous red blob looks just the same as before, but has another whole repeat knitted - I have now done 4 of the 9 repeats of chart 2 as prescribed in the pattern. I probably won't show this again until it's a lot nearer the finish line - I find that there's a lot of knitting between the halfway stage of a lace shawl and the end where it looks exactly the same no matter how much you've done!

... and the start of some new travel knitting - more hubby socks. These will be purple and red stripes, in a thrifty way to use up the contrast heel and toe colours from his last two pairs. The yarn diet is still well in place here - and will be continuing for a long while, given the current state of finances chez knittingsheep. Good job I've got plenty to play with, hey? Although thinking about it, that very fact may have contributed to the cash-flow issues.... Nah! I'd just have spent it on something else, if not on wool! Wool lasts a lot longer than chocolate...

Ribbit, ribbit

I finished the kermit socks, but discovered an issue in blocking them. This gorgeous, intensely coloured self-striping sock wool from Fyberspates seems to bleed like a stuck pig...


I didn't discover this issue with the first, rainbow striped pair, because I didn't block them - they were so gorgeous I just wore them from the very second I finished weaving in the ends. I did notice, however, that the beautiful rainbow colours were a lot less bright once they'd been through the wash. The idea of losing this intense kermit colour made me sad, so I decided to try and fix the colour - I steamed the completed socks in a pan on the cooker for 10 minutes - no more bleeding! Here's hoping they will stay this bright now - we'll see after they go though the wash.
So then I had to find some more knitting - thought I'd be good and try to finish up another WIP instead of succumbing to startitis again... sadly, my cleite shawl had stalled as I'd fluffed up in the last but one row, so needed to tink back - tinking back in lace really isn't my favourite thing to do in the world, but I bit the bullet and did it, and am now back on the straight and narrow. I'm hoping that now I'll get into the swing of knitting this a bit more, as so far I've had to be reading the lace pattern and counting obsessively. knit one, YO, knit one, YO, knit 3, SSSK, YO, K2tog....

Cats and 'copters

Some Christmas presents are just inspired. Towards the end of the year we all tend to spend hours, days, weeks trying to find the perfect presents for our friends and loved ones. We tend to take into account their likes and dislikes, their hobbies, their life, their age and gender... but we would all do well to remember that men, no matter how old, are all 8 year old boys inside. I present to you this video... it's hard to tell who is the most transfixed by the plastic remote controlled helicopter...

...except that I can still hear it buzzing around even now, and Willow has long since been asleep. Boys will be boys.

I should add that Willow was in no way harmed in the making of this video, and I tried to hold her out of the way, but she wasn't having any of it. I think she thought it was a bird...

Today, apart from playing with new xmas toys (mine is bigger and louder, but not a helicopter), I have been mostly knitting a kermit sock.

And yes, this blurry photo is the best I can do. I even tried 4 different settings! More practice required, preferably without the two glasses of wine...

Beret in a day!

About two years ago, I bought this Rowan scottish tweed 4-ply and (strangely) used it to start a forest canopy shawl in a rather tight gauge. Needless to say, the shawl was quickly abandoned and it and the rest of the wool have languished sadly in the stash ever since. No longer!
Yesterday I found a beret pattern I really wanted to knit: Columbia Beret by Sarah at Blue Garter. It's a free download pdf file, and gorgeous in its simplicity - spiralling yarnovers and decreases and a simple garter band. So, having been laid up by my painful foot, this lunchtime I knitted a swatch (yes, I know! Shocking, no?) and promptly cast on the requisite 84 stitches.

A couple of programme catch-ups on BBC iplayer and the fabulously cheesy old film Crocodile Dundee 2 later (don't you just love all the old shit that's on telly at xmas?) and I have a hat!

Hello. I am the first beret Lucy has ever knitted. Aren't I special?

Even with lank hair, no makeup and a gloomy background, I still feel as though I look somehow sophisticated and Parisian. (non, je ne suis pas Parisienne. Je suis Anglaise. Got to keep up with the French practice!) I can't help noticing I also look kind of smug, but then I have just finished a rather fab and well-fitting beret, so I think that's ok!

The only mod I made was to leave off the ties on the top so that you can see the lovely swirl created by the yarnovers and decreases spiralling into the centre. A brilliant pattern. Thanks, Sarah! I'll be wearing this tomorrow!

The history of the ski hats

Once upon a time, for reasons that are no longer clear, a woman decided to make her brother a silly fleece hat to go skiing in. A hat with jester-style points was suggested and agreed upon. Although the woman suspects that her brother was expecting a slightly smaller hat...
...and it seemed to start a tradition. The next year, when he went on another ski trip, he needed another silly hat to keep the kids amused (the brother is also a teacher, these are all school ski trips with hordes of kids). The sister remembered back to when he was young and wore a horned hat (oxford united football club - blue peaked cap with yellow horns on the top - can't find a picture) everywhere for years and years...

Best pic I have of it. The hons are a bit floppy, and tend to get stuck in the top of ski lifts when you have to put the bar up to get out, as they are about 18 inches high. They do stand up straight when not covered in snow, but it's not the most practical hat (the jester one works surprisingly well at all but top speed, apparently).

That year Carey got a hat too... spiky sonic-the-hedgehog effect. The next year we basically modelled his spiky hairstyle in fleece - scaled up a bit, obviously. The lack of earflaps on this one makes it less stable. Not enough hat to grip the head.
Last year we went for a stegosaurus style... This one performs very well aerodynamically but isn't the most impressive to see from a distance. The wattles are a good shape, though, and continue all down the tail, which hangs down the back when in use.

Last year he also got a more sensible knitted chullo hat to keep ears warm at high speeds on the black runs. He's mental. I wouldn't dare. (Painful foot is making me even less keen to try skiing).

This year's effort is a rasta dreads hat: a black fleece base with hundreds of hand-dyed (and some handspun!) knitted i-cord dreads, felted for ease of cutting / sewing and for added durability. This was definitely my least favourite to make, even when I figured out a way to sew the dreads on with my sewing machine instead of by hand. He seems to like the effect though, and spent much of yesterday evening whipping the dreads round into new hairstyles. I'm now taking suggestions for the next hat design: he's going on three ski trips this year! Please leave me a comment with any suggestions...

And proof that he really does wear them on the slopes.....

...apparently you can spot him (and hear him coming!) half a mountain away in this one. Not a bad plan for the kids to be able to find their teacher, really!

Drat it.

Every year on the 27th December, we go up to a friend's house in Derbyshire for a day-after-Boxing-day clay pigeon shoot. We don't really hit many, and it's more a case of standing around chatting in the fresh air, eating mince pies and having a nice time catching up with friends. And so, normally, that's where I'd be. Except that yesterday, on the way out to shut the chickens, I stepped on a cobble stone that they had kicked onto the path outside the kitchen door, twisted my ankle and fell down hard into a nice fresh pile of chicken poo. So apart from having to hand-wash my gorgeous Kauni cardigan, I am also hobbling around like a 90-year-old with my left foot strapped up and resting on a hot water bottle. Not the ideal way to spend the rest of the xmas holidays, but I need to be better in time to start my new job on the 5th Jan!
So, while hubby represents the family in Derbyshire, I shall be knitting with my feet up. it's hard to complain about that sort of an injury, really... although it would have been nice to see everybody. Today I shall be trying to knit a hat that suits me better than a beanie. I think some sort of slouchy beret would be a good start, so I think I'll have a go at this one Sarah's just put up as a free download pdf at bluegarter. Time to go stash-diving.... carefully!

purrrr and grrrrrrrr...

I have a lovely new toy!

It's teeny-tiny and has millions of clever settings and 10.3 mega-pixels! The only annoying thing is that I can only download pics to my computer with its annoying 'Kodak Easy-share' software, and it's not easy, and I wouldn't even share it with my worst enemy! There are several setup options, so it seems like you don't have to have all the extra crap they want to give you to make greetings cards and fill up your hard drive, but unless you go for the complete programme, it won't recognise the camera. Go on, ask me how I know. Grrrrr. I may have to set hubby on it later. Still, the camera itself is lovely! Big viewscreen, and nice easy controls:The old camera is going to have a peaceful retirement dozing on a shelf, being used occasionally by hubby and no longer rattling round in my handbag. Old 3 m-p camera:

It's done pretty well over the last few years, and the poor quality of pics shown regularly here are entirely my fault, not the camera's, but the new one should enhance my crap skills, and has lots of features that make up for my lack of talent. It has a much faster shutter speed for one thing, making it a lot easier to get animal action pics...

...without them all walking away! They always want to come in the house, I think they're jealous of Willow. Fantastic discovery yesterday: Nugget is laying! Elsie started a week or so ago, lovely little brown Welsummer eggs, and just this week we'd had a couple of small pale broen eggs, but we didn't know what colour eggs Nugget would lay, white or brown... on xmas day she went into the eglu and came out a little later leaving a wram little pale-brown egg! We has 3 xmas eggs in total, but I'm not sure who one was from. I'm guessing Attila isn't laying, as she's moulting. She's the slightly scruffy fat one sitting on the step looking up at the camera. She pecks so hard it hurts, and seems to think fingers must be tasty!

I will be getting more practice with the camera and its many settings over the rest of the holiday, but the auto setting seems to take alright sock-in-progress pics....

Kermit!!!

Merry Christmas!

Willow wishes everybody a very Mery Christmas 2008.

Hope you've had a good one. Ours has been great: lots of nice food and thoughtful gifts, and best of all lots of time spent with family. Hope yours has been full of good cheer!

Done! I can sleep now...

Hubby's xmas socks are done, in plenty of time. inished and ends woven in by 8pm on xmas eve - not cutting it fine at all! I'll take a better pic when he's wearing them. He loves these colours, but I'm not quite so keen, I preferred the red mardi gras ones.
...and of course Willow's xmas pressie... three catnip mice. I was quite ashamed of the standard of sewing employed in making these, until I got a grip on myself (with a little prodding from hubby) and realised that they're for a cat to chew, and not supposed to be a masterpiece!

Hello. We are amorphous blobs stuffed with catnip.

These are the finished socks for my stepdad - finished a week or so ago. I was a little tired of knitting these by the time I was done, small gauge + deadline = unhappy Lucy. But I'm pleased with how they turned out and hope he likes them. It's turned into a sort of tradition that I always get him socks (posh, alpaca or cashmere £10+ a pair socks, not multipack ones) for xmas, so I hope he likes these. Lots more effort than buying them!

Now to bed so that santa can come and bring Willow more catnip! (I read her 'Twas the night before Christmas' earlier... I think I'm losing my marbles!)

'Twas the night before xmas, and all through the house...

...paint was drying and bedding was airing. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it...
Whose last-minute xmas preparations would include painting the bathroom? That would be me. We can now proudly say that every single room in the house, except the downstairs loo, has been painted this year. We must be mad (That's me and my lovely hubby, you understand, I haven't started using the royal 'we' under the delusion that I'm Queenie or something). Tomorrow I am cooking xmas dinner for 10, 8 of whom are also staying over. It's going to be a busy one, and we've only just about finished tidying and cleaning everything in sight. I'm still knitting one last xmas gift, but it's socks for hubby, and I'm nearly at the toe of sock 2 so no stress there, and I have to make Willow a catnip mouse for her pressie, but that's a 5 minute job on the sewing machine. I may even make several. I finally finished sewing all the dreads on the ski hat for my big brother, last night on the sewing machine. Still a pig of a job but it reduced a 4 or 5 hour job to a 45 minute one. Bearable. I'll take pics when he unwraps it on Boxing Day - SIL has to work tomorrow feeding her fishies, so they can't be here for xmas day. I'm trying not to see it as a reflection on my cooking from last year...
Hope all your xmas prep is going well, wherever you are.
Merry Xmas to all, and to all a good night!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...if you'll forgive the annoying jingle from the incessant TV ads! (That won't make a lot of sense if you're not in the UK. Supermarkets. 'Nuff said.) Normally I don't like to put the xmas decs up until xmas eve, or at least until I've finished work, but this year they went up more than a week before I finished school, about mid-December! I was busy right up to the last day of term, which could have been complete hell for a supply teacher, but I've mostly been in a very nice school for the last few weeks, so it's been fairly easy. It's still been hectic around here, though, with lots of shopping, making and wrapping presents, baking and cleaning up ready for lots of visitors on xmas day! The house feels much more festive this year, I thought it was a bit bare last year, so I've been making things on and off since January, and now there's something Christmassy everywhere.

...even on most of the doors!A couple of weeks ago I made a tree skirt in red velvet, piped in gold silk (yes I know it sounds über-fancy, but believe it or not, both were offcuts I had lying around!) - but it was just a smidge too small, especially with the cat jumping in and out of the tree and rearranging it! This evening i have been working on a solution: a frill of the gold silk around the edge, to make it wider.

Looks a teensy bit like theatre curtains now, but never mind... it has other uses...
Is it a bird? A plane? No, it's that mad sock knitting lady!

Caped crusader to the rescue!!
It even looks good under the tree... fiddly, but successful, I think. It'll soon be covered in cat hair.

Un chaussette de grenouilles....

Roughly translated, a kermit sock. Singular. As you could see in yesterday's post, I'm now back on the present knitting, purple and green socks for my stepdad. I'm hoping they'll fit, I haven't knit him socks before and they're a surprise so I can't get him to try them on. Luckily knitting is quite stretchy and forgiving of minor errors of fit. Fingers crossed.

Can the princess go to the ball with only one grass slipper? I mean, sock?

I'm sorry, everyone...

This weekend, there was surprisingly little knitting. I say surprisingly little, because you would really think that with a two-hour car journey each way, plus time on tubes and at lunch and stuff, I would have knit at least half a sock whilst in London.... but no. I mostly attribute this to the cold. Whilst walking around outside (well, being marched about by hyperactive brother), I was wearing a polo neck, a wooly cardigan, my thick winter coat, a wooly hat, a big scarf (actually my leaf lace alpaca shawl bundled up), and my new thick baby llama mittens. It was cold.
... though oddly, not a single pic of mittens 'in action'. Mostly because hands were busy. In between thawing hands out again, there were brief moments knitting in Westminster... I can't quite believe that it's taken me until age 27 to see the Houses of Parliament for myself - not just on Yes Minister.... There was knitting in front of Liz's house.... the flag was up, but she didn't come down to ask me what I was knitting. Maybe she's more into cross stitch... (I am there, behind the woman in the white coat. Look for the daft blue beanie hat that makes me look like I'm bald with hypothermia... I need to think about knitting a hat that doesn't look stupid on me. I've never found one yet! Suggestions on a postcard, please...There was even knitting on the tube. Note mad hyperactive brother and long-suffering sister-in-law (almost. No, they're still not. I'm still nagging).

There was knitting at the theatre, which was the whole point of the trip (the theatre, not the knitting) because we were in London this weekend to see............EDDIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ho yes. Eddie Izzard, at the Lyric, on Shaftesbury Avenue, in person... Wow. Just fabulous. I won't tell you any of the jokes in case I spoil it for any Eddie lovers out there who've not got there yet but it was great! And no, my chickens are normal, unmodified chickens. Just saying.

Happy now. Have fulfilled one of my dreams of the last 8 years and seen Eddie live. Brilliant.

And could I just apologise now to all those people I tied up with wool at the start of the interval in the dress circle at Saturday's show? I'm really sorry. But hey, if you got this far, you've already twigged about me and knitting, right? It's sort of compulsive. Sorry. (The ball dropped out of my bag, the sock didn't... lots of untangling sock wool round bemused people's ankles... I'm just so embarrassing to take out in public)!

Soldiering on...

I've had a whole week's work this week, which has totally wiped me out, coupled with one or two sleepless nights. The first kermit sock is done, and I'm halfway down the leg of a purply ribbed sock, but I'm simply too tired to find the camera and take photos. This weekend we're off to London to see Eddie Izzard, so next week there should be some pictures of sock-in-progress against some famous landmarks.... now I'm off to bed for a ridiculously early night. Zzzzzzzzzzz.....

This week, I have been mostly doing things I shouldn't...

...like sewing xmas decorations when I should have been knitting xmas prezzies. Four weeks till xmas, and I still need to knit another two pairs of socks. I don't like deadline knitting. There's nothing like putting my knitting under a deadline to make me decide I hate it and want to knit something totally different. Got to start soon though, but not tomorrow - je vais aller au collége pour ma classe francaise. (oui, Mlle. Wilson, I know that c should have a squiggly thing but I can't find it right now et je suis fatigueé). Nice sewing though... silks and velvets and lots of gold braid and beads. The idea is of course opulence, richness, worthy of kings...
The knitting that I have managed to squeeze in has been the kermit sock that I really shouldn't be knitting. Ooops. Love the colours though... these will be good zingy wake-me-up socks, I think. Whilst I have been faffing about, darling hubby has been concentrating on far more important matters.... purr....

Socks, socks, socks

The chocolate socks are done, and now blocking after a little soak in some wooly wash. So that's one pair of xmas socks done, two pairs to go. It's very doable in the time, but there's a great danger of boredom, as they'll all be pain stockinette socks. Boys won't have fancy patterns. Hubby's socks will be funky colours at least, since I insist on it (I just can't slog my way through 20,000 stitches of plain navy blue. Can't stay awake!) but I need to decide on the other pair.

A pair of men's socks, for my stepdad, in one or more of the following: I bought the tweedy brown colour with him in mind, but I'm not sure I can cope with another pair of brown socks right now. I asked hubby, and he advised me to use the purple, with maybe heels and toes of the green to make them extra funky. Have i finally convinced a man that knitwear can be other colours than blue? Apparently it is permissible, but only on the feet. That's a start though, don't you think?
To reward myself for finishing the brown socks, I'm allowing myself a bit of kermit action. Love that bright, zingy green. It almost glows!