Blog Giveaway
Remember this cardigan? My green alpaca cardigan with its handspun yoke?
Well, today it just got "favourited" for the 300th time on Ravelry. And so I'm throwing a tiny blog giveaway just to celebrate.
Just comment on this post - it'll require an email address, your name and you telling me what your current favourite object on Ravelry (or a craft blog) happens to be right now.
Most likely I'll need to approve your comment (my spam filter blocks everything with a link or anyone who hasn't commented before) but do not fret. All comments will enter into the giveaway. Winners are chosen randomly.
Prizes? As I said, it's a tiny giveaway but there are prizes. And they're straight from the stash.
- 1 skein of handdyed DK weight merino yarn in "Bramble" dyed by Old Maiden Aunt. It is an exclusive and not available to purchase on her site.
- A pair of vintage button ear rings (silver studs) handcrafted by yours truly. I've made several pairs for myself and they're supercute.
- A crocheted flower brooch (yes, handmade and perfect for your favourite coat) - I have three of these to give away
- My Ishbel shawl/scarf in KidSilk Haze.
- And, finally, a selection of vintage buttons from my vast collection of vintage buttons.
And have fun and feel free to link. Winners will be announced next week.
ETA: Some people report they're unable to comment due to proxy problems. This problem should now be solved. If you continue to have this problem, just drop me a line at distantsunATgmailDOTcom, rav message me, let me know on Facebook/Twitter etc. I'll put in a placeholder comment for you.
Dotty
Friday afternoon I packed my tote bag and headed out for my favourite spot in the local park: underneath the trees where the sparrowhawks hang out and close to the little corner which houses several foxes. I sat there with my knitting and then I had a visitor.
Magic Tricks and Music Halls
Yesterday I found a new favourite place in Glasgow. Walking into Tam Shepard's Trick Shop is like walking into another world, another era. The shop could have been straight out of the 1930s - except for the Obama masks and the nu-rave-esque wigs. It is a place where the owner will start a Victor Borge routine when he learns you are from Denmark, where a shop assistant will disappear through a hole in the floor, you can choose between twenty different kinds of fake moustaches, and tiny kids stare with much fascination at plastic spiders. Tam Shepard's Trick Shop is a family-run business and it has been going since the 1880s. You can see faded music hall posters bearing the names of ancestors and old photos of dishy dames performing magic tricks. "That's my great-grandma," the woman behind the counter informed me.
Glasgow has a very proud music hall tradition, actually, and tomorrow we are off to The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall for a steam punk craft show. The Panopticon is the oldest surviving music hall in Britain - the place where Stan Laurel of Laurel & Hardy made his stage debut, no less, and where a young Cary Grant performed while he was still Archie Leach - and it is a beautiful, almost derelict building. The Panopticon Trust has been trying to save the building for about a decade now but it is still fragile. For more information (and a bit of singing), this youtube clip from the AyeWrite literary festival features Judith Bowers, local historian and secretary of the Panopticon Trust, talking about the music hall. If you are local and you have never been, you can visit the building during the Glasgow Doors Open days in September.
Finally, I recently subscribed to My Vintage Vogue which is a tumblr feed featuring glamorous photo shoots from the Vogue archives. And I refuse to believe there has ever been a woman quite as beautiful as Cyd Charisse..
The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron
Channel4 executive: "OMG, OMG! BBC just had their poetry season and it was so supercool! What do we do?!"
Other Channel4 executive: "Is there anyway we can make poetry really sensationalist and entertaining? I mean, I am not not opposed to clever things but poetry is really stuffy, y'know?"
Channel4 Executive: "Uhm.... how about Lord Byron? He was not stuffy. He slept with his half-sister, was 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', wanted to liberate Greece, went a-roving with the Shelleys and wrote really amusing poetry about eating spaniels."
Other Channel4 Executive: "We need a celeb angle. We need.. we could send Rupert Everett around Europe whilst he settles into his botched facelift - and he could talk about Lord Byron's sex life. The incest bit and how he fancied Percy Bysshe Shelley?"
Rupert Everett: "I'll only do it if I get to say naughty words, show off my naked bum, swim in my underwear with cute semi-naked boys, eat caviar with Donatella Versace, and pretend that Lord Byron is really me, me, me!"
Channel4 Executives: "You're on!"
The Knitting Basket of Doom
Hello FLS, my old friend,
I've come to knit you again,
Because pretty yarn came softly creeping,
And I can knit you while sleeping,
And the shawl that was frogged yesterday
Still remains
Within the knitting basket of doom.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Wondered if I should knit Cobblestone,
'neath the halo of a second-hand lamp,
I turned my eyes to the weather cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of
bright light
That split the night
And touched the knitting basket of doom.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand possible projects, maybe more.
Projects without assigned yarns,
Projects with double-sided lace charts,
Projects that look fabulous - but not on me
And not one made me
Disturb the knitting basket of doom.
Head said you do know
Your yarn stash like a cancer grows.
Find some sweater amount for Hey Teach,
Take these patterns and an FO this month you may reach.
But my hands like idle raindrops fell,
And rested
By the knitting basket of doom.
And so to the great knitting goddess I prayed
I looked at items I had previously made.
And the signs were flashing,
By the sweater amounts I had been stashing.
And the signs said, top-down it shall be
It'll be easy garter-stitch and fancy-free
And suit that lovely wool-alpaca yarn you
have kept in the knitting basket of doom..
(apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)
Percy & Me
Yes, that would be my Percy(Bysshe Shelley) shawl. I finished the set-up chart, repeated Chart A eight times and, for about a week, struggled with Chart B.
Chart B was my first double-sided lace chart (i.e. knitting lace on both the knit and the purl rows) and I found it inexplicably difficult to read my purl rows. Post-it notes did help me keep my place, but progress was very, very slow. With an ordinary lace project I can zip through eight or ten rows without problem. With this one I got through two rows and I had to stop because I lost concentration. In four days I knitted thirteen rows. So Percy is no more. Yes, dear reader, I frogged my shawl last night at 11am.
Do you ever start a book, discover it is dire and yet you finish it, come hell or high water? I am a fickle reader. I start a book and if it does not grab me in one way or another, I stop reading it. My life is too short for dull reads. I'm a lot more loyal and disciplined when it comes to knitting. I never have more than three projects on the go (and frequently fewer) and although I do suffer from Second Sleeve Syndrome, I finish my projects. I think a lot about what I'm knitting and spend much time considering patterns and yarn before I even start.
But Percy started getting on my nerves. It was not fun and I consider lace knitting to be my fun projects. I'll try the pattern again in a much heavier yarn while the Old Maiden Aunt yarn is already ear-marked for another lace project.
(.. related: I've found some very delicious Swedish laceweight which I'll resist until I've knitted a huge part of my laceweight stash down..)
So, let us look at some new patterns. The new Drops patterns have been out for a wee while, but I have forgotten to mention them here. As always, the Garnstudio designs are a bit hit-and-miss but thanks to the sheer volume of designs, I always manage to find some real must-knits.
One of my favourites is this yoked pullover. It's classy and very wearable (which probably means it will languish in my Ravelry queue while less wearable and more flashy knits jump onto my needles). To wit, this tunic is far more likely to catch my knitting attention - maybe do it in gray? And what about adding long sleeves to this cool top? Also, a part of me is very, very taken with this crocheted skirt.. Moving swiftly along, I also really like this cardigan and am intrigued by the Twinkle-ness of another wearable cardigan. Or what about a cropped cardi? Finally, I know I'll never knit this and that it would look very unflattering on me, but this pullover just oozes "cosiness" and "snuggling up in front of a lit fireplace"..