A PAIR of sock, yes, I've managed a pair!

I am now a working woman, so my commute has provided ample opportunity to whittle down my WIPs and turn them into FOs. Knitting on a train has many pluses, the top one being that if someone tries to invade your personal space, you can stab them with a needle! This week I have managed to finish my cotton bedsocks, yes I now have an actual pair and I love them, the patterned cotton knitted up reminds me of sunset or a thundery sky and although the ribbing could have been a bit tighter, I'm happy with them, I will be slathering my feet in foot butter tonight and popping them over the top, my husband will be thrilled!

The wool on the right is a purchase from my short trip to iknit, the middle one is a ball of Kaffe Fassett from Regia that will be perfect for a pair of socks, (this time I am going to use short rows to turn the heel) and the other two I picked up from the bin wonderfully marked 'Don't be afraid, it's only acrylic' (have I mentioned I don't do acrylic snobbery), they are Robin, which is one of the brands I am not mad about admittedly but they do have a nice felty feel to them and will be perfect incorporated into one of my odds and ends bags that I am making.

A berry nice bag.

I realised the other day that it is my Mother in Laws birthday very soon, now she is a very lovely woman, am immensely fond of her and she hinted the other week that she wouldn't mind if I knitted her a knitting bag.

For quite a while now I have been wanting to knit this
the knitting needle knitting bag and so I grabbed the opportunity with my usual enthusiasm (which means I will work like a demon on it for a couple of days and then get bored and move onto something else for a while, then return to it with all the joy of someone being hauled up by a firing squad).

My MIL is a very pink type of lady, in fact you would have seen evidence of this in her curtains on a previous post, so I popped down to the market for a 200g ball of Bretts best acrylic (I am not an acrylic snob, in fact I think a knitting bag demands acrylic, especially if you're using a Berry stitch). The yarn is called Marble and the pinky, purply, orangey one is for my MIL, while I was there I spotted the beautiful greeny blue one the evidence of which is at the top and bagged it for myself. You can't really see the real colours from the photo but it's a lovely bluey green which I am absolutely besotted with and I love the way the berry stitch makes the colours pop. And although I now have absolutely loads of knitting bags, witness my recent bag making extravaganza, I will be toteing it along to my knitting group with cheerful abandon.

A nice lining (in honour of Chrissnow)

Along with attempting to finish all the other things in my UFO bag, I have used MILs old curtains to contain some of my needles, hooks, spare balls of wool and other assorted crafting paraphenalia. Now as I may have mentioned, I do love a nice lining and this lovely granny print is no exception, am not mad about dusky rose velour but the lining just makes me feel all warm and happy and it is (dons halo) recycled (the bag that is, not strictly speaking, the lining). And while I am not absolutely in love with the outside, I think if I decorated it with some crochet flowers made out of cream coloured crochet thread, I could rather like it.




Onto one of my neglected UFOs, I have a vintage pattern fetish, which I may have mentioned before and which is indulged quite frequently, yes I am that annoying woman taking up all the counter space with the pattern book in your local age concern! This early 70s Patons pattern is one of a huge book of 60s and 70s patterns that my mum gave me when I first started to knit and crochet and I started it an age ago, in a fit of boredom, I picked it up the other night and started on the increase rows, heaven knows when it will actually be finished, probably in time for my dd's 21st I should think but, I am rather pleased with the way it's going.

Mind you, looking at these photos it looks like I am going through a deeply pink phase, must root out that teal wool to counteract the overwhelming girliness.

Bag lady and I've been TAGGED!!

Observing my fabric mountain, I thought it would be a good time to drag out the sewing machine and whittle down my stash by making some craft bags. The fabric for this stash bag came from a reccy in Walthamstow (recommended by an MNer) which cost the princely sum of a quid for a metre!! I lined it but I didn't bother interfacing it as it's only for keeping my UFOs in, (you can just spy a bit of one poking out of the top) and I've filled it fit to bursting already, as you can no doubt see. I made full use of the eyelet tool my Mum gave me and I bought a length of wonderfully gold naff curtain tie-back to use for the handles from the habby stall at Stevenage market.

Am now in the swing of it, so I am currently making a stiffer stash bag from my MILs dusky rose pink velour curtains (nice!!) and a denim bag using an old pair of jeans (which will no doubt be guest starring on these pages soon).

In other news, dear reader, I have been tagged by Greebos Whiskers
so if you don't want to destroy the wonderous vision you hold of me in your head, look away now.

4 jobs I have had:
A burger flipper in the, then, local Wimpy (yes I did have to wear the costume, it smelt, quite a lot as it happens).
Train Announcer (yes if you've travelled through a major London station circa 11 years ago, you have probably had the pleasure of hearing my dulcet tones. And I had the dubious honor of being the first female member of staff there for 15 years, what a trailblazer).
Booking Office Manager
Revenue Accounts Auditor (this is what happens when you are full of yourself, they promote you to head office, oh the giddy heights).

4 favourite films:
Dirty Dancing
Grease
Pretty in Pink (because Molly Ringwald is everything I want to be in this film)
Quadrophenia (love the film, love the fashion, love the music)

4 places I've been:
Hunstanton (what do you mean, where?)
Brussels (beer)
France
Spain

4 places I've lived:
Tottenham
Peterborough
Islington
Harringey

4 favourite tv shows:
Father Ted
Blackadder (the second, obviously)
Life on Mars
Buffy the Vampire Slayer

4 favourite radio programs:
Mark Lamarr on Radio 2
Radcliffe and Maconie on Radio 2
Womens Hour on Radio 4
And er.. that's it.

4 favourite foods:
Salsa with plenty of chili and lime
Pizza with chili oil
Macaroni cheese (added chili please)
Pasta with tomato sauce

4 places I'd rather be:
Loch Long
In my bed
New Zealand
Home.

Er, now I've got to think of someone else to tag, remember, it could be YOU.

Am back, I am tagging Littlegeckos.

I turned a corner....and a heel.

Well the lurgy finally caught up with me, so to while away the hours, I've done some more work on my WIPs for GM and Miaou and finally picked up the socks that I chucked onto the UFO pile sometime ago in disgust. I have made some very simple socks before but I have never turned a heel, so when heel turning time came on these I cocked it up royally, so fed up was I with the whole process that I hid the offending item at the bottom of my knitting bag with visions of ripping the whole lot out 'at some point'.
Because I needed to unearth the bottom of said bag today to look for a knitters needle, I happened upon them and decided to sit down and try and work out how to actually turn the flaming heel for once and all, and you know what, once I actually stopped to look at it properly I could see clearly how it was done. And voila.... I did it, I turned the heel and the switch in my head that insisted it couldn't be done.
I've knitted this in cotton for a purpose, so that I can swathe my manky old feet in half a jar of foot butter at night, slap above mentioned socks on and wake up with delicate, smooth as a babys bottom tootsies. Am enjoying it so much now that I have plans to knit socks for just about everyone I know, yes beware, if you have the misfortune to know me then you too could be the recipient of a pair of cotton bed socks and if you're really lucky a jar of foot butter for satisfying slathering!

Two WIPs for you to marvel at!

Ta dah!! Two amiguiri for the price of one, have started GMs owl, which is proving to be a good stash buster, it's the purply blue circle on the right and that circle ladies (and gentleman) will eventually be it's head, the one on the left is the beginnings of a flapper girl amiguiri doll, the pattern for which I am testing for another mner, the lovely Miaou, when it's finished I will post pics , here is Miaou's blog with Tilly (the flapper girl) included Miaoucrafts.com/jill
she's so lovely that I'm sure you will probably all want the pattern and you will have to contact Miaou for it. Strictly speaking the flapper girl should be cream but as my stash is bereft of cream (and overflowing with white), I've used white, after all pale was very fashionable in the 1920s, I believe.
The lovely Nbg has asked that I point you in the general direction of her doll craft swap so here it is
I am going to join, although I suspect my project may run late, of course ALL of my projects tend to run late but I do attempt not to be tardy, my life just has other ideas sometimes!

Buttons, buttons, buttons and a trip to the V&A!

Just recently I have been suffering from a severe button fetish brought on by buying some beautiful glass buttons from an MNer, this was followed by a couple of ebay purchases (the tin full of buttons in the middle pic being one of them). Of course, darling daughter has caught the bug too and rather fancied her own tin of buttons, so every week we visit the habby stall at our local market and I treat her (and me) to a few buttons, you can see a very small selection of dd's buttons at the bottom. We've also had a few goodies from the charity shops, the Sally Army shop being one of the best for real vintage buttons and she's even snapped up a few that I really want to pinch but 'she got there first'. I'm particularly fond of her big pink 60s style resin ones that she got from the habby man, so much so that after failing to prise them from her grubby mitts, I had to make a special trip to buy some of my own.'

Today, I made my much anticipated trip to the V&A, so no crafting but plenty of gawping , so much so that I managed to only 'gawp' at the lower levels. I unexpectedly, loved the Ottoman exhibits in the Middle East section, think it was the combination of the blues and greens in the tiling and textiles that did it and in case you're reading mother, blue and green are meant to be seen, not just when you're dining with the Queen! And the furniture and wall hangings in the Europe section just off the tube tunnel made me feel awed, even the ones that weren't to my taste, just because so much toil and sweat must have gone into them.

The fashion section was lovely, as expected and I did actually press my nose up against the glass trying to see the tiny stitchwork of the courturiers and I think I have a new appreciation for Vivienne Westwood, I can see where her ideas come from. In fact so engrossed was I, that time passed me by and I didn't get a chance to see the upper levels, so another trip is on the cards, I feel. I really want to see the Textiles and the Galleries, so while I am still a free woman (which is only until May) I am going back.!