Today because it’s Good Friday all the family are around, my plans are to visit the chiropractor(keeps the back from groaning to much), allow the DH to take me out for lunch, come home, attend to a load of yarn, do some dyeing, and then tonight we are all going out en famille for dinner, to a lovely country hotel on the edge of the Brecon Beacons, the only one who can’t come is Ruth’s bloke, but he’s given me a lovely bunch of flowers.It’s pouring in rain, but who cares, the first of the seeds that went in last weekend is through, namely hyssop, and that always gets me excited(not the hyssop, I mean seeing the seedlings poking through the soil). I just love spring as well as birthdays.Mentally my age stays around 25, unfortunatley the rest of me seems to be getting older!

And talking of older, the story in the Times yesterday about the old lady of 98 pulled from the wreckage of the Italian earthquake, who had spent the time waiting to be rescued, knitting.How wonderful is that on so many counts.

1.The earth literally moved for her, she was entombed in rubble, with aftershocks going on all round her.

2.Her total belief that she would be rescued

3.She was so calm that she thought “Ooh I seem to have 48 hours or so going spare,I can translate this into good knitting time,shame to waste it”  and reached for her knitting, that she happened to have along side her.(Reminder: this earthquake happened at 3am)Thoughts: I keep wondering what she was knitting, and Wye Sue wonders if she had enough yarn whilst waiting for rescue.

4. For crying out loud she is 98 years old.She has all her marbles and she is still knitting, and  remarkably knitted, entombed in rubble, with a major earthquake going on around her.

Respect Italian lady, on this my birthday, my birthday wish is that I make it to your age and am still knitting, with all marbles in place, though if you don’t mind I’ll pass on the earthquake.

I’ve had a bit of a vacuum lately, re-knitting, I just couldn’t get my head round it, just couldn’t find anything to light my fire, but then……….I saw the Aeolian Shawl on Knitty, and all the neurons started firing, and I could feel the knitting fever rising in me, need need need need to knit that shawl NOW.It’s really really lovely, not only that it has nupps and beads—– ooooooh! After much deliberation and trawling through all the Knitwitches boxes I have settled on a 2 ply silk in shades of a luminescent turquoisey/aqua/pale jadey green.Those who know me will know that I always end up with those kind of colours , they always end up singing songs to me.I have been to Hobbeycraft and got the beads as well.

The DH had just interrupted this knitting muse to insist on me telling him where his toilet bag is right now. I won’t tell you what I said, but he has gone away in a right huff. I mean perlease, as Catherine Tate would say “Am I bovvered, do I look like I care?”.I suppose his interruption means that I need to go sort stuff out. My knitting bag will of course be the first one I find and pack.

See you next week

Still enough of me, you will all be aware of the awfullness of the Victoria Bush fire, the terrible loss of life  and the heart wrenching stories of the survivors.A wonderful knitting blogger in Melbourne, Jaqueline  has asked for donations to the Australian Red Cross to help support these poor people who have lost everything.The Australian Red Cross is on the ground working with the survivors. For every 10AUS$ donated an entry is made to the yarn raffle. There are wonderful yarn prizes to be won, so come on please fellow knitters, make a donation and enter the prize draw. The yarn prizes are really great, just check out the blog. To find out how to do this and for full updates, please log  onto Jaqueline’s blog .

http://passionfruit.typepad.com/serendipity/

With the current exchange rates 10AUS$ isn’t very much, just think of how much your donation will help, and also think of all that lovely yarn that could be won by you.OOOOh lurvely stuff.

“WANTED- Christmas Fairies. Work time approx 2 weeks prior to and 1 week after Christmas- may involve extra time if 12 days of Christmas observed.

Hours - 24/7 for duration of Christmas period - Holidays approx 49 weeks annually

Skills needed- ability to stay still for long periods at a time. Ability also needed to endure large parts of Christmas Tree top up long frock and nether regions.Those with allergies to fir trees need not apply.Dress, usually long white with glitter. Please bring own wings.

Due to the nature of this job, only those under 8 inches high are elegible for the posts of Christmas Fairy. It is a requirement of the posts that all applicants are members of STUOMAAP (Santa’s Trade Union of Magic and Allied Personnel)

In aknowledgement of the hours invloved it has been decided to allow all fairies to knit whilst in position on the trees, they may either bring their own knitting with them or can be supplied by the elves  with suitable yarn,it would be appreciated that fairies do not knit whilst anyone is looking, in addition they are given the right/ability to grant 3 wishes to any knitter who catches them knitting and approaches them to ask what they are knitting, and who they deem worthy of this gift. The gift of the 3 knitting wishes is soley within the rights of each individual fairy appointed and cannot be challenged at any time.

Salary- strictly by negotiation with Santa’s Management Human Resources Team.Unlimited fairy dust laceweight magic moonlight gossamer wing yarn supplied whilst in position. Those appointed may keep everything knitted”

   This advert of course raises serious problems for the committed knitter:

1. Of course I beleive in fairies, right from the moment I read this advert actually.

2. How long can I stare at the fairy on the top of the tree before I keel over sideways.

3. How bad is it going to look, if I tell someone who asks that I am watching the Christmas Tree Fairy to see if I can catch them knitting so’s I can be granted the 3 knitting wishes.

4. Do I really care as long as I get those 3 wishes

5.What would I ask for as my 3  knitting wishes, if I got lucky and caught her knitting

6.  Where  can I get hold of  the fairy dust laceweight magic moonlight gossamer wings  yarn, and if I ask her does that count as one of my 3 wishes.

A little bit of fun at Christmas. Let me know what your 3 Christmas Knitting wishes would be. That should keep everyone quiet for a bit, my brain has just gone all refelective.

Cheers everyone!

It was a great adventure, and I had a lot of fun, and look who  was at the show

The lovely Craig and Gerard from IKnit London, 2 of my favourite people, I just love them to bits. I have offered to adopt Craig as my nephew.I’d adopt Gerard as well but his mum might object!

and then there was

 Craig taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. This was on the last day as we were saying goodbye and feeling a bit silly.

The show was great and the people were lovely and warm and friendly. I didn’t buy as much as I thought that I would, but still manged to make significant inroads into my spending money.The button stands were amazing. I indulged in some beautiful natural grey DK alpaca( I seem to have lost the picture I took of that) enough for a sweater. And on the amazing Wind Valley Alaska stand I succombed to a little bit of, well actually enough for 2 shawls if you must know, of their suri  alapca lace weight. Seriously high quality and soooooo nice,and no, I’m not going to tell you what it cost.

And then there were the most amazing needles I have ever handled, truly the Rolls Royces of needles, precision engineered and things of beauty and balance.

 These are the 7 inch ones, I also bought 2 sets of dpns in them. The circulars are coming next year, if they had been available at the show I would have remortgaged the house and bought a full set and yes they really are expensive, but just amazing. These are Signature Needles stiletto points. Check them out on www.signatureneedlearts.com

The other needles were the square circulars by Kollage yarns. They didn’t photo well as they are well just what they say, square needles. I have bought  a full set of the sizes that I use most. Lovely to handle with a very soft cable, they cause the knitter to produce extremely even tension when knitting. Beautifully crafted and balanced and very unusual. They are only just on the market www.kollageyarns.com .

Did I finish the lace cape, well not in time for the friday night dinner but I did by saturday afternoon. I am really thrilled with it. My cunning plan for beading on the plane using fishing line worked a treat.

You can just see the beading on the ege of the border

 Here’s me looking very smug wearing it. Possibly the jeans and red shirt were not a fashion statement with this beautiful cape.

And lastly 2 lovely ladies who run a LYS in New Hampshire called the Elegant Ewe

 There are other pictures of me on the Cherry Tree Hills website under Behind the Scenes at Stitches, and on the IKnit London blog.

http://cherryyarn.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/11/behind-the-scenes-at-stitches-east.html

http://www.iknit.org.uk/iknitblog.html

Jen I wore the shawl I knitted for you on the friday night, and thank you so much for loaning it to me in case I didn’t finish the purple cape, the picture of me wearing it is on the Cherry Tree Hills website.

I am desperatley trying to finish the gorgeous cape from Victorian Lace Today, so’s I can wear it to the Fashion Show and Dinner on Friday night.  I am knitting the border  andI  have 4.5 repeats along the bottom of the cape pattern to do before I turn the corner and come up the side.Each repeat at the base of the cape is taking me over 2 hours to do.Of course it’s not helping time wise that I’m beading the edge of the border. I panicked for a bit that I would be unable to knit on the plane, because of the crochet hook I’m using to do the beading( as  in not allowed to take it on the plane) but friend Tish is a genius and has come up with a way. This involves plastic fishing line. You thread the bead onto the line , then thread the line through the stitch, then double the thread back through the bead pulling the stitch down through the bead with the line. I hope that it makes sense, it works like a charm. When I went into the fishing shop to buy the line on sat, fortunatley there was a woman serving there, as I plonked the jar of beads on the counter, smiled and said “could I look at fishing lines please”. I have had to buy an entire spool of 10lb fishing line, but needs must. In reality all I need is about 1 ft. I have Brittany wooden Dpns, to take in my pencil case,loaned to me by the lovely Sue . I love the sheer ingenuity of knitters. It fills me with great pride in our community.

I have worked out how little I need to take with me clothes wise, and find that I will have loads of room in my large suitcase. Oh dear, what ever shall I do to fill it when I come home next monday to stop my clothes sliding around in it? Gosh do you think that maybe I should by some yarn and related stuff, just to ensure that the case is full?It’s really quite a problem isn’t it.  In reality if I don’t find lots of knitterly goodies there, I may just throw a tantrum and possibly cry, probably both at the same time actually.

I suspect that I will probably need a lie down when I see the sheer size of the market hall there, and every stall is yarn( breathe Eirwen breathe) and it all has the pontential to come home with me, if it sings to me it certainly will.

I need to crack on now so’s I can get an afternoon of knitting in. I will wear that cape on Friday, I will, I will. There is however a plan B, Jen , bless her has loaned me the red cashmere wrap I made her as a wedding present, so that should my cunning plan A fail, I will wear her cashmere wrap, that I dyed and knitted.

So onward ever onward.

Speak to you all next week.

Since I wrote this yesterday I have been in touch, with my lovely friend Wye Sue, who is also as it happens seriously good on the computer. She sorted my computer problems out very pronto. The problem was that some gremlin had changed the date on my computer to 2009, thus invalidating a lot of sign in’s. Cheers Sue, your a star. Also DH has fixed Ravelry access for me as I was realy getting withdrawal symptoms.

The Ally Pally was great, we had a super time and sold ooodles of yarn, which made me very happy, my cousin Chris has become my main show helper now and she is just brilliant, and loves every second of it, we have another yarn junkie in the making here.
Sue( aka Wyesue) was up to the show on thursday and friday, and hung out on the stand from time to time.

 Here is a picture of the stand with me looking a little manic( I was actually very manic by this stage) and there’s Sue and Chris in the background.All the people we met were just so nice, and what always amazes is me is the different nationalities that come to these shows. It’s so good to know that my great passion is shared by people from all over the world. 4 days on one’s feet is a killer and by the time I got home late on sunday night I’d passed through tiredness and was put in some wurble wurble land the other side.

And that is of course now history, and now I can say that I am going to Stitches East in Baltimore USA on the 5th November, as a visitor. I am so excited, all that yarn under one roof, Be still my beating heart. I have worked out just how little I can get away with taking to wear so as I have loads of room in my suitcase.

The good news is that I have loads of scrummy yarn to take to Ikit, and  what I’m really chuffed about is that I am one of the judges on the Knit and Alien competition  at the show. I have been a Trekkie for more years than I can remember plus all teh other sci fi stuff. The problem with this is that I haven’t been able to knit my very own alien, and I had a really good idea for one.

Pnly a short blog this time. See you all on Sat.

However, being me, it has set me thinking as to what kind of enhancements I would like in my life that I wouldn’t mind a pill for, and here they are:

1. A pill to -  enhance my ability to multi task beyond the Olympic Gold standard that it already is,(particulary useful with yarn shows coming up like IKnit and the Ally Pally).

2.A pill to - enhance my ability to find the most beautiful yarns in the world. I’m actually not doing too badly here.

2.A pill to -   enhance/grant me the ability to knit lace faster with out making any mistakes such as too many/too few yarn overs ( yeah right)

3.A pill to -   enhance my ability to actually not only finish what I’m knitting but also get it blocked and sewn up before the aforementioned garment reaches it’s first birthday.

4.A pill to -  enhance as for no.3, but also prevent me from being distracted by, and wanting to start the really fab shawl I’ve just seen, before I’ve finished the one I’m doing.

6.A pill to - enhance my ability to do all the boring things in life, such as housework/shopping/ironing/tax returns/books, really really fast, so’s I stop ignoring them hoping that they’ll go away, get them done really fast and then get more knitting time in.(sigh!)

7.A pill-   to enhance my ability to convince/re- programme knitters, who don’t know any better, that knitting with acrylic is a crime against the knitting community, and hey you know, there really is a life beyond £1.99 per 500gm ball of acrylic. 

That’s it for now, if any of you have any more suggestions(printable ones that is) re the above let me know.

Here are some other thoughts I had whilst on hol last week:

I am in trouble because:

1. I found myself in a Sherbourne charity shop and got excited because they had a pair of new wellies on sale very cheap.

2. I read an article in a local free rural paper on spider silk in the garden, and wondered what it would be like to knit with. 

And now because I’ve been a good girl and worked hard all the week we are heading off to a cottage in Deepest Dorset for a weeks rest and relaxation, just me and himself and the dogs Poppy and Ellie, and of course the knitting and reading. I shall knit/read/walk/partake of most excellent afternoon teas and otherwise ignore the world.

My holiday knit is the utterly fabulous lace cape from Victorian Lace Today. I have wanted that from the moment I got the book, and finally I have found a yarn worthy of the pattern. This is a lace weight 60%kid mohair/40%silk yarn.Think off the scale soft, silky and totally dreamy here. This yarn is dribble making. I have dyed it dark dark purple. Hopefully I will have it ready for IKNit for the Knitwitches stand. Will I have the yarn on sale at IKnit? Might do says she      ( of course I will).

Now I need to go pack. I have just looked out of the window, and oh look it’s raining, there’s a surprise.