5 Things I Love About Our New House

Despite our internet problems I am in love with our new house and gardens. Here's a list of my top ten best things:

1. The view and the surrounding countryside. After spending the last few years living in the middle of cities, with views of mostly concrete, cars, council depots etc., it's lovely to feel like there's so much space. When I get up in a morning and look out of these windows I can't believe how lucky I am.



2. The gardens. I love growing things and for the past year I've been resticted to pots in a north-facing, windy, damp yard, always in shade. I've got stuck right in here and now have a vegetable patch, hanging baskets and a flower bed.
   
   



3. Somewhere to sensibly store my stash Look, it's all organised, in neat plastic boxes, sorted by weight. I know exactly what is there and how much I have. Hurrah for space.
   



4. The Appliances This is a bit of a sad one, but we got a number of appliances with the house. The washing machine works like a dream, compared to the old, battered 10 year old one we had before, that used to dance around the kitchen. We have a second fridge, which means all the bottles and jars have somewhere to live. Finally we have a dishwasher, which is like a revelation to me. I've never had a dish washer before in my life. Just take a moment to marvel at the thought of not having to do dishes. I'm converted.



5. The light and space. These two go hand in hand really. Having lived in a series of grim, victorian houses and flats, I am really enjoying having so much light in every room. After the Tyneside flat, this place is palacial. I am very happy.

Knitting in Public

Here we are knitting in public, at the Newcastle Green Festival, for World Wide Knit in Public Day.

We're knitting little hats for the Innocent Smoothy/Age Concern campaign (these are Lucy's).

Even Becca, who normally scorns knitting in favour of crochet, made some.

Connected!

Yey! We have the internet again. After a lot of messing about we finally figured out that our wireless router had been interfering with the broadband for the entire street and everyone had been without internet since we moved in. Oops! Well a new power supply and a week of waiting later, we're up and running. Lots has happened and I have loads to tell you...

Still No Broadband

I have loads to blog and no broadband to blog from. I'm in uni at the moment. We're right at the end of the three weeks which we were quoted as being the max length of time getting the broadband sorted might take. If nothing happens today then first thing Monday something will have to be done. I have loads of pictures to show you. I will catch up eventually.

All Change

We're now all moved and settled in enough to be comfortable. I've now handed in all my uni assignments so I'm looking forward to a weekend of gardening and organising. I hope the weather improves.

Sorry for the blog silence. We still don't have our broadband turned on, for reasons I won't go into now. It might take a while to sort out, so normal service might not be restored for a couple of weeks. Your patience is appreciated.

Employed

I'm not sure who I have told about this. I didn't go crazy at the start because it seemd so unreal. I have a job for next year. It is teaching physics in a small co-ed independant school. I'll be able to do my NQT year in a nice relaxed environment. I know it's never going to be a picnic, but I think I am going to enjoy being able to concentrate on teaching instead of crowd control.

The countdown is on to moving day. I did a fair amount of packing yesterday. Planning to get more done today. If all goes to plan should be on track for a panic free move. Keep all your fingers crossed for me.

Also need to fit in writing two essays at some point. Urgh!

I always suspected...

Hannah Scoffield -- [noun]: A human transformer (Robot in disguise) 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Pasta flowers and little shoes.

I've nearly made it to the end of my teaching practice. I finally feel like I've got a handle on things. I've stopped obsessing over my abilities and am actually enjoying most of my lessons. So much so that I applied for a couple of teaching jobs and have interviews on Monday and Thursday. Wish me luck.

I have also found a bit of time to knit. I started knitting and joining hexagons based on a pattern from Knitting Nature. I felt that the pattern worked well with this handspun, naturally died yarn. The three shades are all created using onion skins. I bought the yarn last year from WoolFest and have been wondering what to do with it ever since. I think it will probably turn into a cushion cover.

I have also been knitting some baby shoes. I've been messing about with the guage to get different sizes. The small ones are really too small for anything but a premature baby or a doll. They'd make a cute ornament though. Just need to find some buttons.

After knitting today Graeme and I had some lovely sushi for lunch. I couldn't resist these flower shaped pastas in the oriental supermarket. I think I might put some in a salad for lunch next week.

Not much knitting going on this evening as I managed to slice a chunk out of the end of my index finger, while cutting up veges for dinner. Not having a great weekend in that respect. Missed King Creosote last night, because I had an asthma attack before the support had finished, and had to come home (and bring poor Graeme with me). Can't remember ever feeling that bad before. It wasn't great.

I'm not going to make any remarks about moving house because I don't want to jinx it. Slightly worried that I still haven't manage to pack anything more than this little lot, from a couple of weeks ago. Maybe we'll get some done tomorrow.

12 Days to Go

Well we're well into May now and more than half way through to the half term holiday and the end of my teaching practice. Things are going much better, but the kids are still wildly variable in their behaviour. I don't know if it is my fault (a lot of them don't have other problems) but I find it very wearing. Not going to let it drag me down this term.

We spent the weekend in Sheffield. On Saturday evening we attending my cousin's 40th birthday party (Happy Birthday Emma!), where I managed not to take any photos. During the day time we met up with my friend Cat who'd come up from London and visited the newly revamped Western Park Museum. I was pretty impressed.

They've revamped all the displays. I remember going as a child through gallery after gallery of stuffed animals. The stuffed animals are still there but they've made excellent use of them and their not creepy at all any more. They've still got a hive of bees that you can watch, but what I want to know is, what happened to the sumo wrestlers and the mummies? (I tried for quite a while to find a picture of these on the web and couldn't). It was lovely to see Cat too and it wasn't till I got home I realised it was the first time I'd seen her in person since August. This year is going so quickly.

On Sunday we went with my parents to Kelham Island museum. They've made a few changes, but everything is pretty much the same. I was dissapointed to see that my favourite engine (the crosley gas engine) was temporarily out of service.

The River Don Engine was on good form.

Anyway, we were back in Newcastle on Sunday and I had an interesting Monday trying to finish my uni assignment and preparation on the remaining battery life of my computer (I left the power supply in school). Managed in the end, though it was close and I missed out reading all the blogs I usually enjoy for a few days. Now for Thursday. Then there'll be 11. :)

Flashing the stash

Our moving date is looking likely to be about 2-4 weeks away. It struck us this weekend, how little time we might have to pack if things move quickly. So, we headed off to B&Q to get some packing tape, strong bags and bubble wrap. I decided to start by finding out and bagging up my yarn stash. Just out of interest I thought I'd get it all out at once and see how much I had. So here it is:

I have to say I was a little ashamed of myself for accumulating so much yarn, although I know it's not an extravagant stash (well, compared to other people's). I had almost started to feel like there wasn't that much, till I remembered the existence of this:

Well it's all bagged up now anyway, all 5 bags of it. I also stuffed another 15 bags full of various duvets, spare bedding, towels, winter clothes etc. It's worrying that that is only a small fraction of what is to come. Best not to think about it.

A little better...

Well, I don't want to speak too soon, but so far things this week have been going a bit better. Despite my lack of sleep on Sunday night, everything went well. The kids seem to have stopped hating me and wanting their normal teachers back. My voice is a little croaky. Hopefully things will continue to go well for the rest of the week and the term.

Sorry to say that once I started teaching I found it too hard to carry on trying to write my research proposal. I just couldn't concentrate. I think these things will just have to wait until the end of term. Oh well... one thing at a time.

Back to school

Well my lessons are planned, sandwiches made, bag packed, clothes ironed. I even managed to get to bed at 10.30 pm. Shame I didn't actually manage to sleep. I was so anxious about not being to tired this morning that I couldn't stop thinking about it long enough to actually relax and sleep. Oh well, I've felt worse on a school day. At least I'll be tired enough to sleep tonight.

Hooray!

I am literate, numerate and competant in ICT. :)

Time flies....

...when the school holidays are on and now it's nearly time to go back again. I knew I was tempting fate when in my late entry I wrote "I'll write some more about that tomorrow.". It's taken me over a week to get round to it.

I did get the wedding invitations done but many of them are still waiting for addresses (mainly G's side of things) and I have become distracted by other things. I wish I had bothered to take a picture of the 70-odd invitations sitting drying on the coffee table. It did look cool, but I was a bit sick of looking at them by then.

Last week was fun. I went to a mediocre gig (Minotors, Hush the Many and Fields) at the Cloony, but it was enjoyable. Also spent an afternoon knitting in Pinkphish's garden and another afternoon walking along the coast with her and Snaterkat and having afternoon tea in Tynemouth. On Friday evening Graeme and I headed to Edinburgh for a bit of kilt shopping. We didn't go mad sight seeing, since we've both been there several times, but it was pleasant to sit and walk in the sunshine in the quieter places in Edinburgh.

I paid a visit to the fantastic shop HK, described in detail by Purlpower and am ashamed to say that I lapsed from my pledge, buying 7 balls of lovely sock yarn.

We came back to Newcastle on a lovely meandering route along the coast, stopping at various places along the way.

It's unfortunate to say that this week has been something of a let down. I have a large pile of work I'd like to get through. Some of it is preparation for the coming term of teaching, some of it is PGCE assignments for university, and there's the small matter of the basic literacy, numeracy and ICT tests which I have been practising for and must go and take this morning (grr...). I've also had the crazy notion of writing a proposal for a research fellowship, having read nothing related for 9 months and having no real concrete ideas. It's Thursday already and I'm still not close to my ideal state of super-organised preparation. I'm beginning to accept that I am not going to reach that pinacle of achievement and instead will just make do and get on with things, comforting myself with the thought that at least I finally got round to cleaning the bathroom. Wish me luck in the tests......

YSP and spring lamb

Finally I am getting to enjoy my share of holiday days. We went down to Sheffield on Friday and had a lovely weekend, made even better by the sunshine. On Saturday we went up to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I have been before, years ago, with my Brownie pack. My only memories of the place were of a tree house which noone else seemed to believe existed. It is now all shiney and new, with a posh visitor's centre and galleries. While having a healthy appreciation for craft skills, my family is not what you would call arty, so we were all a bit suprised when my dad started raving about this particular piece. This photo is for you Dad.

It was lovely to see the lambs in the country park area....

...and the leaves coming out on the trees. Is it me or are the trees lagging behind a bit this year? The daffodils have already been and gone.

We ate a picnic lunch and even got a bit sunburnt.

On Easter Sunday we decided not to go too far afield. We headed up to Graves Park, where we spent many weekend afternoon's when we were younger. We all spent a lot of time looking at the newborn animals and saying 'ahhhh...'. These piglets were my mum's favourite. They seemed only to be a few hours old and hadn't been written on the board yet.

There were also some motherless lambs.

Refreshed from the weekend I am now throwing myself into the wedding preparations, which have been somewhat neglected over the last few weeks. The first wave of invitations will hopefully be going out at the end of the week. I apologise to people who don't recieve one straight away. Family are getting priority at this point. I'll write some more about that tomorrow.

Happy Easter

Hooray! I've arrived at the end of term safe and sound. I celebrated by paying a visit to Jen to coo over the tiny Isabelle. She was less than happy at being deprived of her food supply while I held her, but cute all the same.

I followed that up with a trip to the pub and the Lonsdale pub quiz. I didn't make it to the end though. Instead I came home, got into bed and had a lovely 9 hours of quality sleep. I only dreamt once about school, and it was a good dream where kids were all doing what they were supposed to and enjoying themselves too.

In a while we'll head off for a weekend with my family. Hopefully we'll have a chance to enjoyed the promised good weather. Hope you all have a lovely and relaxing Easter.

P.S. Still no sign of the daffodils. Think they're gone for good.

Nearly There

I've nearly made it to Easter. Just three more teaching days and an admin day at school to go. I feel like I've run a marathon already and I am only at the half way point. Fortunately I seem to have relaxed a little. One effect of this is that I am sleeping a lot better and have stopped loosing weight (Wonder how long it'll be before I can no longer fit into my small sized jeans again). The other effect is that I am now feeling more and more like procrastinating instead of getting on with work. Must focus properly on what I am doing. Good to feel like myself again either way.

I've finished another little sweater, in a third of the time it took to do the other one. It's no masterpiece, but I am very pleased with the little flower buttons that I bought in Lewis' on Friday afternoon.

One thing that put a dampner on my good mood yesterday was stepping out of my front door to find that that large (~50cm diameter), ceramic pot of dafodils that I had sitting in my front yard had disappeared. This feels like something of a mystery. I can't imagine anyone getting that far with it on foot. It wasn't light. I've scouted around the neighbourhood and can't see any sign of it (whole of broken). That probably means that someone has gone out of their way to actually steel it. I am quite angry about this, but at least it wasn't an expensive thing. The bulbs are last years and the pot was cheap.

My only hope is that it was a drunken student prank and they will bring it back at some point, instead of letting it fester in their yard. At the end of the day though, steeling is steeling.

At last an FO

OK, so productivity has be at a new low over the last few weeks, but I finally finished this baby cardigan I started at half term. It's done in Sirdar Suggly. Partially because I had some and I'm on a yarn diet at the moment (I didn't want to buy yarn for a project that was likely never to get finished), and partially because I feel guilty giving a new (non-knitting) mother hand-wash only baby clothes.

In other news, I'm still plodding through my teaching placement. I can't say I'm particularly enjoying myself, but my sanity seems to have returned to a more reasonable level (for me).

Sorry if I have neglected to send anyone presents or birthday cards, or have just ignored you. It's not intentional and normal service should resume soon (June at the latest).

Alive

Just to confirm, I am still alive. I am still teaching. I am working about as much as I expected, but I'm not enjoying it much at the moment. Keep hoping this will change. 2 weeks and a day until our Easter hols begin. Anyone who says that teacher's don't deserve their long holidays deserves a slap. Roll on Easter....

Churning

Well I'm just about to start my third week of my teaching practice. Only three and a half weeks till Easter. Hooray! That's become a little chant that I repeat to myself when I am feeling stressed. Compared to when I started I feel relatively calm, but I still never quite feel properly relaxed and normal. Just when I think I've managed to relax I find myself in a sudden panic about a worksheet I've forgotton to photocopy, or some equipment I haven't checked.

My friend Leanne from school visited over the weekend. Our mutual friend Helen lives locally, so she too a hard earned break from her kids and the three of us had a couple of meals together and did some shopping. It was great to spend some time with old friends who know me so well.

I spent all of Sunday working again. Despite getting up and starting early (8.30 am), hoping that I would finish what I needed and have time to pop along to Jen's baby shower, I still ended up working almost solidly till 8.30 pm. Can't vouch for my efficiency during the second half of the day, but things have to be done.

I'll finish by mentioning one of the more stupid things I have done this week. I did all my hand washing last night and put it in the washing machine on the delicate drying (water sucking) cycle, then went to bed without hanging it up. The distressing thing is that it included all of my bras. I'm now keeping everything crossed that at least one will be nearly dry by the time I get dressed. Otherwise I'm going to have some interesting wet patches during my morning lessons. Oh well, can't get everything right.

Little Surprises

I've actually had an alright day today. Probably my first since I started my teaching practice. Bearing in mind that I had to teach all five of today's lessons that's not bad going. Hope it continues through the week.

When I got home today there was a parcel sitting on the door mat. I wasn't sure where it was from. There was no return address and a printed label. In it was a copy of Rowan's Classic Alpaca and a slip saying 'Rowan, with compliments'. This was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't ordered it. I can't help but wonder where it has come from. Apart from the weirdness of the whole thing it was a really nice surprise. If you've sent me this then thank you very much. I wonder if there'll be any more parcels on the way. I can always hope.

Apologies

Just wanted to say sorry for not making it to knitting on Saturday, or on Tuesday. I've been hit with a wave of post-half-term teaching work/stress which I felt like I had to deal with instead. Coupled with selling the house and wedding stuff I feel under a fair amount of pressure at the moment.

On the upside, I only have 2 lessons today, as opposed to the 5 that I had yesterday, we have our first person coming to view the flat today, and I'm beginning to get to grips with my planning so I should be able to come to knitting next week.

I also offer some preemptive apologies for the lack of blog posts in the next few weeks. Easter is not that far away (thank heaven).

4.5 hours of my life I cannot get back

After spending a large part of yesterday wishing I didn't have to go and see Robert Lepage's 4.5 hour play Lipsynch at the Northern Stage (mainly due to the running time), I actually ended up quite enjoying it. The use of sets and projection were really innovative and there were some truly funny moments. I especially liked one scene which took place on a tube train. The crew used moving platforms and lighting to give the appearance of pulling in and out of stations. It was very effective.

The play was split into 7 chapters, each featuring a different character. The billing made it clear that it was a work in progress. I felt that the final chapter was a bit ropey. It was also way too long. Who wants the sit for 4.5 hours in an evening? In fact we were there for about 6 hours because of the intervals and the start. By the end I was dropping off to sleep. Lepage intends the final version to be 9 hours long, which I think is just asking for people to loose interest. I would be happy to go and see three seperate plays of 3 hours each, but I don't think I've ever been happy to sit and do anything for 9 hours. I don't even sleep that long.

I do not think that it was a wasted evening of my life. Particularly since I managed to overcome second sock syndrome during the interval, by casting on for the toe of the second Wyvern sock. I did this thinking I would have to overcome my boredom by knitting through the performance, but I was never bored.

So, in short, it's worth going, but if you do go take a picnic tea and some strong coffee.

Cracks

I'm feeling rather tired today after spending the last two days filling in cracks in plaster that, according to our estate agent "might scare first time buyers", and then painting the walls where these cracks appeared. By the end of yesterday I was cursing the people who previously lived here. They stripped off the wall paper and then filled all the holes in the wall in a very slap dash way. Then they painted right over the surface without sanding it down. So the wall is a big mess of lumpy bits and holes. There was no way that I was going to cover all this up with a bit of polyfiller, so I filled in the worst and then sanded and painted what I could. I also painted the bathroom, thoroughly cleaned all the grout and replaced the sealant on the bath and sink. I hope the potential buyers appreciate it.

Now there's just the small matter of some uni work and some lessons I have to finish planning for next week. We're also going to see a 4.5 hour play/improvised thing by Robert Lepage, this evening at the Northern Stage reviewed here. I'm interested to see what the theatre is like, as I haven't been since the renovation, but I can't say that the length is making me that enthusiastic. We'll see.

Knitting and Fridges

Finally some knitting to post. I finished this hat last weekend, but only got around to blocking it and posting it on Thursday/Friday last week. I knitted it for Dawn, who is in the middle of several rounds of chemotherapy and is also experimenting with a range of interesting head gear (I recommend having a look at her recent blog post). It's Shedir, from Knitty's breast cancer issue, in 100% cashmere (from here). It's easily the softest yarn I have ever worked with.

I finally got around to making a little skirt for my ballerina bunny yesterday. She's now waiting to be taken to the post office. Here she is limbering up.

In answer to GourdonGirl's post here are a couple of photos of our fridge. I didn't take the bottom half because it's empty. Mostly it's postcards, but there are some stickers (these are Graeme's, he's very selective) and some magnets (Korean Ladies and some I made). Not particularly interesting, but we've only had this fridge a couple of years.

Worth it?

Following my stressful week (which wasn't helped when on Friday afternoon I rang the SAGE only to find that they had given away our wedding date after I'd asked them to book if for us several times) I had a lovely weekend in Beadnell with my knitting chums. I love being by the sea and I was so excited to get up on Saturday morning and find that it wasn't raining and the sea was looking very blue and lovely.

I was even more excited later to see the harbour at high tide, with the waves crashing over the wall.

To add to this Emily had brought her ball winder so I got to wind all the skeins in my stash into lovely centre pulling cakes. Now, I don't want to paint a picture of myself as a sad person, who hasn't got out much recently, but it really was one of the funnest things I've done in a while. I just love mechanical processes, and I love them all the more when they're so simple and produce such lovely results.

On top of all this excitement I also had some fabulous food cooked by Emily, Helen, Jen, Lucy and Glenda. Yum!

It wasn't all frivolity and excitement. I did spend quite a considerable amount of time trying to wind a skein of Hipknits Silk into a ball. It turned out to be impossible to wind on the ball winder because some parts of it were so tightly wound and the skein was just a mess. I ended up winding it onto Becca's stick thing by hand. I'd just watched her do some and she came out with a nice, neat centre pulling ball. Mine ended up a right mess (anything to do with the wine I was drinking, or my wondering attention???). I won't go into too much details, though I feel I must apologise to the other ladies for the stream of expletives issuing from my lips for the majority of the evening. The nice thing about doing this in the company of knitters was that not one person suggested that I was getting unreasonably irate, or a bit obsessed. Everyone was very sympathetic.

I did think that I wouldn't want to look at the stuff again, but then I got home last night and started this. I actually feel like it was worth all the pain.

(Yes that is a wooden spoon the yarn in on. The ball was starting to collapse.)

Thanks to everyone who had a hand in organising the weekend. Particularly Lucy.

Job Update

Well the interview is over and the school decided not to appoint any of us. They're going to interview more people. The lesson I taught did not really show me in a particularly good light. At least I've had chance to practice and hopefully I won't be so nervous next time.

In other news we've had plenty of viewings and it looks like I have a nice list of small DIY chores for next week.

Better go and get my dinner ready before knitting.

Behind

I feel that I am once again behind in my posting. At the start of last week I was intending to write a nice post about last weekend. Firstly, about my friend Lee's surprise birthday party. Here he is cutting his cake:

It is the first time I have ever been to a surprise party and I must say that torturing Lee all day by pretending we didn't care about his birthday, refusing to go for a drink, and then hiding in his living room with party food, drink, balloons and a lit birthday cake was endlessly amusing. I think he enjoyed himself too, after chastising everyone for being mean.

Secondly, about my cousin Tracy's wedding in Sheffield last Saturday. Tracy and Steve have been together for about 12 years and home only just got round to tying the knot. Here they are cutting the cake.

I was feeling fairly lazy during the evening so I gave my camera to my willing sister-in-law-to-be, Michelle, who took some good photos. I also now have a large collection of close-up photos of my brother. For example:

I have several reasons for not getting round to posting earlier. I somehow seem to have ruined my camera batteries, which now only work for about 2 minutes, even after charging. I still haven't managed to get all of my photos off there. I was in school all week last week, and after weeks of being apathetic I finally feel motivated (or petrified) enough to actually do some work. We also had our house valued, which meant lots of cleaning and we went to view a couple of other houses yesterday.

Finally, I have a job interview tomorrow, which is scaring me most of all, and will be taking up a lot of today in preparation. I only found out about the interview on Wednesday evening. It hasn't done much for my sleep patterns, or general sanity over the last few days. I need to keep reminding myself that it's not that important. In 36 hours it will be over. Can't wait.

There would have been some knitting content to this post, but I'll save it for when I can extract the photos from my camera.

P.S. I just wanted to point out that it has finally stopped raining, for what I think is the first time since Friday evening. We are snow-free and very wet.

Green

I finally finished my green jumper. I bought this yarn at WoolFest from Dyed in the Wool. It's 100% wool and was labelled as DK, but knitted up more like aran weight. I've been wondering what to do with it for a while and decided to make a jumper for myself. I wanted to have a go at knitting a short row shaping bust, because I often find it difficult to increase enough for the bust without making everything look weird and out of shape. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I made up the pattern myself. It's perhaps not the most flattering colourway I could have used. Stripes are hardly slimming. As a first attempt at making up my own jumper pattern I don't think it's bad.

A couple of weeks ago I also knitted this shrug from ribbon twist that I bought in the John Lewis sale. I really like the colour and wish there had been enough to knit a whol jumper. Not being a particularly fashionable person I'm still not comfortable with the idea of wearing some sleeves. Maybe I'll get there eventually.

Finally, here is my contribution to the glittyknittyknitty knitablog, which has been around the world and ended up back in the toon.

Hatters Block

Apologies for the lack of posts in the last week. I don't really have any explanation for it, other than the general lack of interest I've been showing in most things this month. Personally I'll be really glad when January is over. It's been a month of laziness and apathy for me. I just can't be bothered to do anything including uni or housework. I'm even finding it hard to motivate myself to get dressed in the mornings and leave the house. This is not like me at all.

The only positive thing I can say about this week is that I did manage to go to the gym on Monday for the first time in about 6 months. I will try and go again tonight (otherwise Mondays visit won't mean anything).

Fortunately this malaise hasn't affected my knitting at all. I've managed to knit a couple of things of my own design, which I shall show you once I have taken some photos.

It's turned cold here and this has made me want more hats. I've tried knitting a few different hats this winter and I've been finding it much more difficult than I expected. I always end up frogging what I've knitted before I get much higher up than the ears. I can't really figure out why that is. Surely it's no different from knitting anything else??? My only explanation is that I don't care enough about hats to put the effort in. I've never worn hats that much myself. Perhaps I just can't see myself wearing it and so I can't see myself knitting it either. There must be some sort of therapy I can employ to get me through this???

The Pledge

I have decided that it is time that I took the pledge. I have enough yarn to keep me in projects for several months. Since Graeme and I are planning to move some time in the next few months I should be decreasing, not increasing my stash. My only reason for not doing so before Christmas was that I still needed to buy yarn to make particular presents. Now this has passed I feel that I really should do something. So here we go.

The Pre-Woolfest Pledge

I do solemnly swear that I Hannah Scoffield, will not purchase any yarn for myself from this day until Woolfest 2007 (or until everything is used up).

Visitations

Well it's Monday morning again and the weekend just seems like a blurr. We drove down to Leicester on Friday night in the howling gales (fortunatly the Southbound side of the A1 stayed open). It was my first trip back since moving properly to Newcastle in September. It felt like I'd never been away. My friends Ade and Sarah put us up (thank you very much) and we managed to fit in a curry at the Nila (yum!), visits to the Milans (mmm... pizza), the Yeomans (mmm.. red wine) and the Wrights (ahhh.. baby) and coffee with Lisa (ooo... gossip). As always when visiting Leicester, our livers have taken a bit of a battering. It was really good to see them all after 4 months of being away. Hopefully it won't be so long before we get to see them all again.

In my excitement at seeing everyone again I completely forgot to take any pictures. I didn't think about it till I was heading home. To make up for this here is a picture of the gloves I knitted my future sister-in-law, Michelle for her birthday last week.

And a picture of my ring for people who were asking. The stone is amber. It may or may not be replaced by something flashier at some point. We'll see....

Spool

I'd just like to draw your attention to the EP which has recently been released by my very good and talented friend Christophe's band Spool. You can listen to some of there music here on My Space. It's relaxing stuff. Chris is the one playing the fiddle.

I have known Chris for many years. We went to sixth form college together and he shared a house in Newcastle with Snaterkat and I for several months. He's since been galavanting all over Europe doing all sorts of exciting musical stuff that the rest of us can only dream of.

Book Review

In the excitement over getting married I ordered this book from AmazonWedding Knits by Suss Cousins, thinking that I would like to knit some items for my wedding. Maybe a shawl or some lacy items.

This book promised to have patterns for everything a bride might want including a beautiful wedding dress. I can safely say that I was totally dissapointed. There are only two or three patterns in the whole book that use something more complicated than simple stocking stitch. Even the garter is knitted in stocking stitch with lace sewn on. The dress is entirely stocking stitch and even makes the skinny model in the book look fat. Goodness knows what it would do to me. I was expecting lacy patterns or at least something more interesting to knit.

Another thing that irritates me about this book is there are several photographs of each item, one of which will be blurred. This book is written for people who can't knit, or maybe as Lucy suggested, for people who can't knit to give to people who can knit because it looks nice. Just to give you an idea of the sort of things in the book here are a couple of examples. These 'lovely' arm warmers.

Or this 'gorgeous' dress:

At the end of the day I'd rather poke myself in the eye with my needles than spend the next 6 months knitting items in stocking stitch and there's not much in the book I couldn't knit without the pattern (if I would knit it at all). So I've printed off the returns label and this thing is going straight back to Amazon this afternoon. Shame on you Suss Cousins for this blantant money-making lazy-arsed excuse for a knitting book. Rant over.

Feeling Very January

I'm feeling very January this week. That is to say that I feel rather glum. The holidays are over, everyone is going back to work and it's still a bit gloomy and dark. I also have a stupid assignment to write for uni and am having trouble getting over the feeling that it is just a total waste of my time.

I have been doing some knitting but it's a bit secret, so you'll have to wait a while to hear about it.

Next week I'm back in uni and I get to meet the teachers who'll be mentoring me through my next teaching practice. It'll be nice to actually know more about where I'll be and what I'll be doing. I'm also planning a visit to Leicester next weekend. I haven't been back since I moved up North, so I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends and having a good curry.

Thanks to everyone who's sent engagement cards and given us presents. It is much appreciated. I'm off to do some concentrated knitting on the secret items and then to meet my fab knitting homies at the Centurion.