Middle Aged Weekend

Last night Graeme and I went to see I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (the long-running BBC radio 4 comedy) being recorded at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland. I've never been to the Empire before. It's unlike any other theatre I've ever been in. It reminds me slightly of the Lyceum in Sheffield, except that the interior plausterwork is painted rad and gold. It's less open than the Lyceum, giving it a very Victorian, music hall feel. Arriving at the theatre gave me a similar feeling to arriving at the Knitting and Stitching Show. Most people there appeared to be over 50 (at least).

Because I'd booked early, thanks to Rob's encouragement, we were sat in the middle of the stalls. We actually ended up sat almost directly behind some friends from uni (Sam, the famous pyromaniac from bonfire night and co.). We had a cracking view of Humph (Humphrey Lyttelton), the pannelists (Tony Hawkes, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer), Colin Sell and of course the lovely Samantha.

They recorded two shows during the evening, each taking around 45 minutes to record. The whole thing was quite entertaining and only slightly marred by the Captain Birdseye-a-like sitting next to us, who laughed raucously with tears streaming down his face for the entire performance. It was funny but it wasn't that funny.

The only low point of the evening was spending half an hour waiting to get out of the multi-storey car park. However since Graeme and I have been working like mad for the past few weeks it did give us chance to have a chat. (It comes to something when your only quality time together is spent waiting to get out of a multi-storey car park). I'm glad I went, though I'm shattered now. Better get on with tomorrow's planning if I'm even going to get some knitting time tonight.

Ran out.....

Yesterday I went to the Kitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate with Snaterkat, Pinkphish and Impressionist. We set off bright (well drizzly) and early at 8.30 am. Because I've been recently getting up to drive to school ever morning this was still a lie in for me. I woke early anyway and couldn't sleep because I was thinking about all the lovely things we would see at the show. We got there in good time and after a bit or argy bargy managed to find a carpark with spaces (we got one of the last few). We negotiated the crowds outside, eventually found the right door, paid and went in.

The place was massive with four halls of stands, each with a section devoted to exhibitions of textile art. There was a 5th hall downstairs with seating and food stalls and a 6th hall with fashion shows going on. Unlike WoolFest there was no straw on the floor or livestock to gawp at.
The whole thing was a bit commercial. There were quite a lot of sewing stalls in there two. As Snaterkat pointed out to me, it was a good thing we were only interesting in one craft or we'd never get round everything.

I was a lot less overwhelmed than I had been at WoolFest (my first experience of this type of event). But as time wore on the place got bussier and bussier. By the afternoon it was heaving. Elbows were out and the old biddies weren't taking any prisoners. Whoever said that the older generation is more polite has never been to one of these events. Whatever happened to saying 'excuse me'? I finally decided I'd had enough when I got myself into a mobbed button stall and couldn't get out again.

I didn't spend too much money. I got a couple of reduced books and some magazines. I was particularly glad to get Yarn Forward magazine as I've been wanting to have a read of it since it came out.

I got some nice 4.5 and 5.5 mm wooden DPNs for a small amount of money. I bought some cashmere (so soft), angora (uber-bargin!), some silky stuff in greens, enough hemp to make the Linda cardi from the House of Hemp book and some star shaped buttons to go with it.

I also got some tiny knitting needles.

The only bad thing about the day was that my camera wouldn't work. The lens wouldn't open and pop out like it's supposed to so I couldn't take any pictures. I'll have to take a trip down to Jessops next weekend. Anyway, that's why there are no pictures from the show and why these ones are so rubbish.

We were all feeling pretty exhausted by the end of the day. I got home at about six, had dinner and settled down to watch The Time Machine, which I'd borrowed from one of the teachers at school.

I quite enjoyed the film. I was desperate to play with my new yarn, but being a sensible young lady without much free time to knit, I decided that the best thing to do was try and finish my digger jumper. I got part way up the second sleeve and promptly ran out of yarn. My experience of knitting kids' patterns is that the yarn amounts are always underestimated. Who comes up with the amounts? I could understand it if I didn't knit at the right guage but I do. Grr..... I predicted this from the start, so I can take comfort in the fact that I was right!!! However it's annoying to have to order an extra ball just to do half a sleeve and the neck edging.

Still being sensible I decided to make a start on another knit for Christmas. It's meant to be for a little boy. I'm still not sure about the colour though. Is it a bit girly? He's only 1 year old. What do you think? I could save it for someone else.

It's my last week of teaching practice this week. I'm finding it hard to motivate myself today because I only have one lesson tomorrow. I should probably make an effort to get on though, because I will be grateful for it later in the week. I've enjoyed the experience, but I can't wait to finish and be able to relax a little. Right now all I want to do is vegetate and knit.

Diggers

I feel much more relaxed this weekend. I think it helps that I have a lighter teaching load next week. I'm also feeling more confident because I managed to deal with some behaviour issues last week that will make my life much easier this week and next. 3 out of 5 weeks of my teaching practice are done and the end is in sight. I can't wait for my lovely long 3 week Christmas holiday (can you imagine!!!).

I managed to get the digger design on my jumper finished last night. I just need to put in the french knots and tie in the loose ends at the back, but I'll do that once I've finished the stripes at the top. It's my first bit of successful intarsia using more than 2 colours.

Graeme's mum and dad have been visiting us this weekend. It was lovely to see them. They recently travelled across Russia and Siberia on the Trans-Siberean Express. They brought us this set of Russian dolls. The smallest one is just a couple of millimetres tall.

In case anyone was wondering, I did manage to make some monsters after my last post. Here they are sitting happily on the fridge.

The parental visit meant that I missed out on the Centurian and the planned post-knitting Turkish bath this weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I'm hoping to make up for it with a visit to the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate next weekend. I will be following a strict budget while I am there. Can't wait!

Blogalog

I feel like I should start by apologising for my lack of blogging. Mostly its been laziness. I was waiting till I got round to taking some photos and that took longer than I thought.

I've had some lovely birthday presents from my fellow knitters. Including this Frog Tree yarn from Suzanne. It's so soft I could just sit and cuddle it.



And this lovely silky sock yarn from Sarah with sparkly bits in it. Very glamerous. Just the ticket for some lacy gloves or socks.




Sarah also gave me this fantastic Curious Yarns sock yarns, with an extra small skein for doing the heel in. Very cool.




Becca gave me this necklace and earings, which have already made the trip out to the pub on a Friday night. I'd like to say they were much admired but I was out with boys and they didn't even notice. I felt good in them though.



Becca also got me a monster making set with modelling clay and magnets for sticking them to the fridge. I'm planning not to do any work tonight, since everything is planned already for tomorrow. I think I might try my hand at moster creation.

On Saturday evening I started knitting this digger jumper from Lucinda Guy's Designs for Kids. I'm using Rowan Cotton Glace. This is the back. Hopefully I'll be able to get this section almost finished tonight.

Job Titles

I don't have much exciting stuff to talk about at the moment. The Forth has been very odd recently. I don't think I've been two weeks in a row where the same people have been there. I like seeing new people but I miss seeing everyone else on a weekly basis. Autumn seems to be quite a busy time for everyone.

One of the good things I've found about training to be a teacher is that you get a good response when people ask what you do. When I was working in research explaining my job to people led to a wide variety of responses. Some people say 'you must be really clever' (what do you say to that?) and some people say 'that's interesting' (meaning they have no idea what I'm on about), but most people just look at you a bit funny. Everyone knows what a teacher is and most people see it as a worthwhile thing to do. Also it makes people feel like that can talk to you rather than thinking they're addressing the next Albert Eintein (which they're not). I quite like it.

Bon Fires

Today has been a good day. I went to knitting this morning, picking up two birthday parcels on the way, that had been sitting in the post office all week. One of them turned out to be these fabulous slippers from Graeme's brother and family.


I'm wearing them now as I type and they lovely. Cosy and warm.

This afternoon we drove up to Druridge bay to meet up with some friends. One of them, Sam, had planned a fabulous firework display and barbecue. I love watching fireworks and I always feel a bit cheated if I don't get to go and watch some around Guy Fawkes night. I think I've had more than my quota for this year :) Photos don't really do it justice, so I decided to finally have a go at using you-tube. I couldn't figure out how to change it round from being sideways though.

We also got to see the sunset.

This week feels like it's going on forever. I'm so glad it's Thurday. I teach in the day and when I'm not teaching I'm talking about teaching or thinking about teaching. In the evening I'm preparing my lessons and then at night I dream about them. The only knitting I've done was on Tuesday at the Forth and then I was so tired I made a mistake, pulled out everything I'd knitted and had to pick the stitches up again. I ended up only doing couple of rounds total knitting. I can't wait for the end of Friday so I can come home, go to the pub, get all my teaching gripes out of my system and have Saturday off!!!

On a different note I went to the Forth on Tuesday to see Rachel Henderson (as advertised by PurlPower). It was meant to start at 6. I was late back from school (staff meetings and traffic, grrrr....). I got their about 6.30pm and there was a group of 7 people. Two regulars and 4 people I hadn't met before. The 7th I recognised as Rachel from the cover photos on her books, though she never introduced herself. After a while 4/5 more knitters arrived (including Sarah). The coffee table was covered in yarn and books though I wasn't sure whether they were for sale or use??? Rachel appeared to have lots to talk to people about on her phone. I sat their for a hour, making a mess of my knitting. At 7.30 I had to leave because Graeme was cooking me birthday tea. In that hour Rachel had moved seats but nothing appeared to happen. I put some money in her charity tins, announced to everyone there that we'd be there again next tuesday from 7 if they wanted to come and left.

I don't really understand what was supposed to be happened. I thought she was going to give a talk, or demonstrate something and take photos for her book. None of that happened while I was there. Did I miss it by leaving early? If anyone stayed and something exciting happened later can you let me know. I must admit that I was disappointed by the whole thing and sort of wished I'd stayed at home to open my presents instead.

Birthday

It's my birthday today. It's 6.45am and I'm absolutly shattered following a rubbish night's sleep, which comprised of lots of short dreams about the lesson I am due to teach in 2.5 hours time. It's been prepared and changed more than any lesson really deserves to be. I'm not sure how it's going to go. I have another one straight afterward which isn't so worrying because it's A level, with less students. In 12 hours time, all being well, I'll be sitting in the Forth (hopefully awake) knitting at the special Rowan event. I hope people turn up. Can't wait for it.

I'm making it all sound very miserable. It's not that bad. I had a lovely time on Saturday when I went out for Tepan-yaki with my parents and a random collection of friends. I'd been worried beforehand because most people coming didn't know the others, but in the end everyone got on swimmingly. Thanks to everyone who came. Right, I'd better go and get ready so I can go to school and panic there.

P.S. I was so worried about my lesson I forgot to carve the huge pumpkin I bought. :S

Dramatic Cloudscapes

A sunrise over Sandyford.

And clouds over Druridge Bay.

Knitting Update

I thought this blog was a bit lacking in knitting so here's an update on what I've been working on recently.

I've almost finished rabbit no. 2, who is a ballerina. She just needs a skirt and a face. I'm not sure whether I want to buy a large quanitity of netting just to make one rabbit skirt. Maybe I'll knit her a friend.

She hasn't got a face yet. I don't feel like I can do the face until she's properly dressed.

I've also been knitting a cushion cover as a Christmas present for a friend, who doesn't read this blog (I think).

It's from a pattern that was in Knitting Today, the new magazine. I'm a bit irritated with it at the moment because the pattern is fairly dull and because of this I got distracted and moved one of the stripes one stitch to the right when I was in the Forth on Tuesday. I can't blame anyone else for this because I was sitting by myself when I did it, before anyone else arrived. I only noticed last night and had to pull out a 3rd of what I'd knitted. Grrr....!

I'm also working on this glove, which is from a pattern in Odham's knitting encyclopedia.

I already knitted one pair for the secret swap parcel I sent to Snaterkat. The pattern uses straight needles, but it is a pain in the rear end to have to sew up all those little seams, especially because it has to be done as you're going along. I decided to knit it in the round instead (on some old size 10 DPNs that used to belong to my grandma and probably date from the same time as the pattern book). So far it's going quite well.

I'm sorry to say that I still haven't got round to finishing Rufflette (picot cast off of about 400 sts on circulars - my personal nightmare) or the baby alpaca scarf I started a while ago. I can't actually remember the pattern I was using for the scarf so I'm going to have to have a dig around on the internet and try and find where it came from.

I'm meant to be knitting more Christmas hats for school and I've also got a few Christmas present projects waiting in the wings. So many things to knit, so little time....

Post number 101: Fascinating Fungi

On Sunday Snaterkat, Graeme and I went along to the fascinating fungi event at Thornley woods, near Rowlands Gill. Some people obviously knew what they were doing and quickly went and squirreled away large quantities of edible mushrooms. We spent a long time trying to find different types. We'd take them back to the table and add them to the group collection. Here's one of our hauls:

We saw some fantastic bracket fungi,


and some cool orange jelly fungi:

All together we ended up with a fantastic haul and learned lots about fungi. This is just some of it.

I'm pretty confident I could identify one or two species of edible fungi. We ended up bringing a couple home and friend them in butter and salt. They were very tasty. I really must find some more some time. I had a look in Jesmond Dene this afternoon but there didn't seem to be any at all. Wonder why.

Fudgaster

While making my secret parcel for Snaterkat I decided to make some fudge. I know she has a liking for rum and raisin. I looked at several recipes on the internet and in books that I had. I eventually chose one (they were all pretty similar) and decided to have a go. I couldn't get hold of any condensed milk and so I also found a recipe for making condensed milk out of evapourated milk (basically adding a lot of sugar). I followed the instruction and poured out the fudge into a lined pan and after it had cooled a bit I stuck it in the fridge. The next morning I got up expecting it to be set, but it wasn't.

I admit I could have started all this a bit more in advance but I wasn't sure how it would keep and I didn't think I would have much trouble. I've made toffee and fudge before. So, I sent the parcel without the fudge, thinking I would be able to pass it on the next day. People at uni assured me it would take longer to set, but I'm sorry to say that it never has. So I decided to make a second batch. This time with condensed milk and adding the rum just before pouring it out into the tin. It worked a little better. The middle seemed to solidify quite quickly, but the edges never did.

I don't quite understand what I did wrong. I'm pretty sure I got it to a hot enough temperature (i.e. vigerously boiling for 10 plus minutes) and it looked like it was beginning to solidify just after I poured it, so what stopped it? Any useful advice would be helpful. Now I should go and make a start on using up some of this fudge sauce. ;)

Parcel

Today was the swap day for the mini-secret pals swap which is being run by my friend Kay. I managed to get the majority of my parcel sent off at once. I have had some difficulties which I shall tell you about tomorrow.

I recieved my parcel this morning in the post.

I hesitated in opening it at first in case it was a birthday present, but I didn't recognise the handwriting or address. The card said there were some halloween items so I opened the first parcel to find this. :(

This isn't the first time I've recieved broken pottery through the post. I think safely packaging it is a nightmare. Fortunately the important part, the chocolate, was in tact. I'm not sure what it was meant to be. I did try putting the pieces together to reconstruct it, but I think there's just too many pieces. The second parcel was this:

A lovely recipe book. Many thanks to Luise for sending it.

Books

I was intending to do all sorts of things today, including writing a long blog post, but the whole day got taken over by building shelves we bought yesterday at Ikea and filling them with books. I love putting together flat packed furniature (well, the well made kind). It's like lego for grown ups. There's always tomorrow.

Milestone

I did my first teaching today. It was just half a lesson about volcanos, earthquakes and tsunamis to a small bottom set class. I was very nervous when I started but was beginning to feel a bit more comfortable towards the end. Hopefully next time I'll be able to keep my head better. There's so many things to remember all at once. Anyway, it's the first of many milestones in my PGCE course. Glad to have it out of the way.

Missed knitting

Missed knitting in the Forth today because I was planning a geohazards lesson. Bum!

Lots to post

The weekend has been fairly busy. Graeme's friend Lovett was visiting. We went to the coast on Saturday. It wasn't too cold but rather windy. I think it was the first time that I've seen Saint Mary's Lighthouse cut off from the mainland.

On Sunday we went down to Durham and stopped off at the Angel on the way. I haven't been for a while. The first time I went I was slightly disappointed by the size but this time it seemed much bigger than I remember.

I also managed to finish my first hat and knitted a couple of legs for rabbit number two, who is destined to become a ballerina.

I'm in school all week this week, but when I got home this afternoon I found a parcel sitting on my doorstep. It was from my cousin Gill in Canada. Inside was this amazing and highly appropriate T-Shirt.



Fantastic!!! I love it. Thanks Gill. I wish I could wear it tomorrow, but I have to be all teachery instead and dress smartly. I don't want to get mistaken for a sixth former. I think it will be very hard for anyone to top this T-shirt design. I am a happy bunny.

Operation Christmas Child

The school I am at for my teaching practice is involved in Operation Christmas Child, which involves sending christmas presents to children in desperate situations all over the world. The school is hoping to break their record, sending hundreds of boxes this year. We all know how exciting it is to get presents and we get loads. These kids don't get anything. I know the organisation is Christian, which might put some people off but we all love giving gifts.

I've agreed to knit some hats to put in the presents (which are in wrapped shoe boxes). The lady organising it uses a simple knitting pattern, which I've put below, but I'm sure all hats are welcome. If anyone would like to help out and knit a few hats bring them along to the Centurion or Forth knitting groups and I'll take them in to school. If you're not in Newcastle send me an email of leave a comment and I'll sort something out with you.

Simple Hat Pattern

Using DK yarn and 4mm needles, CO 104 sts.
Knit 45 rows 1x1 rib.
Row 46: (k1,p1,k2tog tbl) to end.
Row 47: p1(k1,p2tog) to end.
Row 48: rep row 46.
Row 49: (p2tog,k1) to end.
Row 50: (k2tog tbl) to end.
Row 51: Break yarn, draw through remaining stitches and pull together. Stitch seam.

Use brightly colours stripes or patterns where possible.
Key: k1 - knit 1, p1 - purl 1, k2tog - knit 2 together, p2tog - purl 2 together, tbl - through back loop

Free Post

I thought I'd post a picture of the socks I knitted with the sock yarn I dyed. I sent them to my cousin for a present and they arrived yesterday, so they're no longer a surprise.

It feels like a bit of a cheat, but I don't have much else to show just now. :S

A giant leap for rabbit kind

Here's my first finished rabbit.



There was a pattern for making a little jumper for it, but I'm not sure I like the look of a roll neck on a rabbit. As Graeme said, the rabbit looks better naked.

The felted bag came out quite well, although I made a bit of a miscalculation with the handle. I was intending to use a couple of rings and attach another piece, once I'd got an idea of the shrinking during felting, but the handle sections curled up so much that I'm not sure I'll be able to fold them over and put a rivet through properly. The bag started off 26 cm wide and 24 cm tall and is now 19 cm wide and 16 cm tall. It was even smaller when it first came out of the machine, but I stretched it out to a more reasonable size.

I need to line the bag. I think I'll have to force myself to do it next weekend. I have a big backlog of sewing jobs to do. Must get on with them properly.