I'm moving house tomorrow which is a combination of excitement and extreme terror. I feel woefully unprepared and there have been some things at the new place which have needed/will need fixing.
On the plus side, the new neighbours seem nice! And there should be room for all the yarn!
I get internet access back on Wednesday hopefully.
Not the most original title but I am hopefully now back to blogging more regularly than I have been in a long time, plus I am back from a trip to Barcelona!
Our hotel was only about ten minutes walk from Gaudi's famous church which after over a hundred years is still under construction, and which some say may never be completed!
It was only a short trip but it was still great to get away. It was my second visit there, the first time was over twelve years ago, and I saw more of the city this time. We took the open top bus trip which I'd recommend to anyone wanting to see the city since it's good value at 19 euros for one day or 24 for two days. But don't make our mistake and think that you have to buy the tickets before you can get on the bus and then spend ages looking for somewhere to buy the tickets! You can buy them right on the bus. There are three routes, we took the red line first and went to Park Guell where I made my only purchase during the trip, aside from some duty free, a model of the famous mosaic dragon that greets you at the park entrance.
We also spent a long time in the Museu Picasso.
This was also one of the first times since I began to knit that I've been abroad and haven't bought any yarn. This was for a couple of reasons - number one being that I don't actually need any more yarn really and number two being that since we only had one real day there there just wasn't enough time. Maybe next time.
I'm serious about the no yarn buying though, these days unless it's for a particular special project, I rarely buy yarn unless it's really special. In particular the experience of moving house over a year ago taught me that I have a lot of stuff! I'm not going to cease buying yarn altogether of course, don't be silly!, but I do have to do some destashing.
Head on over to KnitCast and download the new update mp3. It's only a short file but a listener eons ago suggested that I record one so that people who only subscribed but didn't read the blog knew where I was.
I realised a couple of days ago that I couldn't remember when I'd last picked up my knitting. I've not been able to make the time or energy for it recently plus other factors have got in the way. For example, I need to wind a skein of yarn so that I can continue on a top down raglan but I can't get into my knitting/spare room full of all my boxed crap into order to unpack my swift.
With another top down raglan, the lovely Art Fibers Kyoto one, I've become stuck on the sleeve decreases of the final sleeve. That's right, all I have to do is finish the last sleeve, sew in ends and a button and it's done. But I forgot to make a note of how many stitches I decreased to when I knit the first sleeve and everytime I've looked at it I've been too tired to figure it out. I think the answer is to just look at it in daylight one day. I would like to finish it before New York.
I've been trying to decide what to take to knit on the journey and I'm not sure. It can't be a sock, and I don't want to take anything too big but I'm also a bit tired of scarves. Of course I do have to organise a way into the yarn/crap room so that I can look through my stuff.
However before I can do that I need to organise some of the other rooms in my house. I'm still renting, I decided to take a break from house hunting since I wasn't finding anything I liked. So now I'm trying to get some semblance of order at home so that it does feel more like a home and less of a place to store boxes!
I haven't blogged in over two months! Oh lots of reasons why, mainly due to lack of time, and that's also why KnitCast is late. The Welsh general election has kept me busy at work and sorting through my various hoardings, desperately trying to downsize has kept me a little busy too.
Last weekend I sorted through twenty years worth of clothes. Yes. TWENTY YEARS! I actually had stuff from far back as 14. Hannah helped me and joked that she could see the various stages I'd been through in life, including the extended Goth period. Which never really went away entirely. I gave 99.9 per cent of it away to charity, Hannah and others had some too. I feel really good about it because now I can buy more clothes with impunity. Ummmm....can't I?! :)
Now onto KnitCast. That's mainly been delayed because I haven't quite made the switch from editing audio on a PC to editing audio on a Mac. It's a bit ironic considering that I am Mac mad and rather evangelical about them! A certain Mac friend of mine is probably laughing at this! Although Macs are superior to PCs, don't crash as often, don't really get viruses etc. they also don't have as many software programs written for them. So my main bug bare is that Nero Wave Editor which I used to use to edit is not available for the Mac. I can't edit quite as finely with Audacity as I'd like and anyone who's listened to Knitcast will know how I love my editing. I think though that I may have to worry less about editing since I would like to get a podcast out before the end of the month.
And speaking of podcasting, I'm hoping to record some interviews when I go on holiday to New York in July. I'll be there for the first week of July and I have some ideas for interviews and I'll be contacting people soon about those. However I do want to leave the majority of my trip for shopping! It'll be my third visit to NYC and my second trip to the Garment District. I'm really looking forward to it! Let's hope I don't go over my baggage weight allowance on the way home!
I wasn't quite sure exactly what I was going to blog about today but Jeni has tagged me so I'm going to finish with the Seven Random Things About Me...warning they are very random!
* I love Woody Allen films, although I tend to prefer his earlier, funnier ones! (in joke!) My favourites are Manhattan and Annie Hall. I can never choose between the two and have watched both far too many times to count.
* I've wanted to live in America since I was a kid. I intend to fulfill this dream one day :)
* Madonna - I've been a fan of hers for nearly twenty two years! I still have lace gloves from my teenage years!
* Spring is my favourite season. I love seeing the bulbs come up and trees blossom after a cold winter.
* Nature makes me feel very spiritual. There's something godlike almost in growing things from seed and I also have a quiet fascination with how numbers appear in nature. However I'm crap at maths!
* I love order but somehow always end up in chaos. I'm incredibly untidy!
* I'm really into astrology. Well ok, I do read several horoscopes each day and pick and choose which bits I like, but I do think there's more than an element of truth in them.
Now I have to decide whom to tag...I'll have to think about that and update this later
You can still hear it online on demand at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radiowales . Just go to Listen Live or Listen Online on the page, click one of those links and then scroll down until you find Wales in Stitches. It should hopefully remain there until Wed 21st March.
Just a reminder again that the programme is available via streaming Real Media, not as a podcast, so you'll need Real Player to hear it.
Well since it's nearly the end of January I thought it was high time that I posted! I've also had a couple of "are you ok?" type emails, so I want to assure everyone that yes I'm fine and everything's well. I'm very busy putting together my BBC radio programme on knitting, that'll be broadcast in mid March. So for the moment that's my priority over KnitCast - sorry guys.
I'm also busy househunting - I rent at the moment but am looking to buy my second house. I'm having to work overtime to stop myself from thinking about future decorating plans. Best to leave those until I have an actual home to decorate again!
But in the midst of all the programme making, house stuff and my day job I'm still knitting. I cast on for this on Xmas day
Sorry about the poor photo quality - it was taken on my phone in very bad light, but I wanted to prove that I have been knitting! I used some small candles to hold the fabric down.
That's the back of "Lizzy" from Jane Ellison's "Naturally Noro" it's knit in Noro Kureyon 153 which is a mix of purples, greens with an odd bit of peach and brown in there too. But who can understand the Noro colour choosers! And ummmm four stitches of it were knit by my boyfriend...:)
I don't like to get too personal in my blog but I'm aware that people have been wondering where I've been and when the next edition of Knitcast is coming out etc.
This year I sort of went into hibenation for a while, I was going through some problems with my relationship and I spent a lot of time trying to hide from those problems thinking they'd just solve themselves. Well they didn't just solve themselves and I've had to admit that my relationship has just come to a natural end. Andy and I are very amicable about the split but it's still a big deal. Fourteen years is a long time. I'm moving out in about a week and half, I'll be renting a small house and Pushkin will be coming with me. It'll be a bit strange at first but I'm looking forward to having my own place.
Unpacking will take a lot of time so things will be quiet I think on the blog front and certainly on the podcasting front, for a while. I have a lot to pack, especially the yarn! I'm trying not to think about all that yarn...but my new yarnroom will be twice the size of the old one!
So apologies all for my silence and know that I'm ok. I'm also still knitting! have a pair of Trekking socks in a fab purple nearly finished and a sleeve and a bit left on my Art Fibers Kyoto cardi. Let's hope I don't misplace them in the move.
But I have been busy working on my radio feature, knitting, fighting email problems - if you've emailed me during April I probably haven't recieved it, and occasionally - like today - been sick with the ongoing stomach thing.
When I put it all out there like that it reads, to me anyway, like a list of excuses. But there we are. So as a result KnitCast has been delayed to the point where part of the Toronto special is actually out of date. But it's edited so it's going to be posted. In the next thirty minutes in fact!
Knitting wise I'm on a sock journey again. I love socks, they're so easy to knit and small and portable. Plus they confuse non-knitters when you begin them. All of mine are knit from the toe up so people tend to wonder if I'm knitting a very small baby hat (I take a size four shoe, so I guess they mean a REALLY small baby). At the moment I'm knitting purple, lime, red and pink striped socks. I forget the shade but it's sock yarn by the German company Online. I'm well into the cuff of the first sock so hopefully they'll be finished soon. I'm trying to resist the pull of the other sock yarns in the sitting room. And come to mention it resist the pull of the various other things I could be kntting.
No, at this time socks are about all I can handle. I have to go to the doctor soon to see about my stomach. Still no news on when I'll get an appointment at the hospital for it to be checked out. So for the time being I guess I'll just continue to have days when I just can't function normally.
We arrived back in the UK last Thursday and I had a hairdressers appointment literally minutes after getting home to my house. So my hair, which had faded to a strawberry blonde, is now a plummy red again. The red took a bit stronger this time since the base hair was darker than when I first had it done.
As some KnitCast listeners will no doubt have noticed, I'm a bit late with the Canadian edition. I've been suffering from jet lag since we got home, and the clock going back an hour for British Summer Time (daylight savings) last Sunday made it even worse. So when I've not been working I've been trying to sleep.
Work wise one of the things I got up to this week was meeting the stars of Doctor Who. You can listen to the report online here.
Knitting wise I haven't started any new projects. I finally darned the ends in of some socks I knit last summer, finished off a Celestial Merino sock that just needed an inch knit and did some rows on my vacation knitting. Oh and I met a knitting flight attendant on the plane home! Debbie from Air Canada admired my bias knit garter scarf and asked for the pattern. I had no paper so had to resort to writing it on a sick bag! Debbie if you're reading this - I apologise for my terrible hand writing! if you'd like the pattern emailed to you let me know.
Yes, we're in Toronto again. And it's about the same weather as back home - freezing! But that's only to be expected this time of year.
We arrived yesterday evening so today was our first full day in the city. And you can't visit Toronto without a visit to Romni Wools. I went mainly for Fleece Artist. I'd heard of FA before our first visit here two years ago, but had no idea how beautifulit was. You really need to see it in the flesh to appreciate it. And while I still haven't knitted up everything I bought last time, well that's what a stash is for! :-), that didn't stop me from getting more.
so I picked up a Goldilocks Shawl kit in pinks, a Favourite Mittens/Socks kit in wonderful blues/greens, Thrum Socks kit in blues, purples and green as well as something for Jeni. but Jeni - you'll have to wait until I get back to find out what it is! :-)
There were a few visits to comic stores too where I pcked up a Cat Woman action figure, Wonder Woman graphic novel and the first issue of the new Ms Marvel series. I used to read Ms Marvel back in the Seventies when I was a kid so it's great to see that she has her own series again.
Vacation knitting - it's always difficult to think what to pack so I picked up a directional scarf that I'd started last year in Fauvre by Art Fibers. It's purples and golds and the yarn is a cotton/linen mix with rayon so it makes an amazing looking scarf. I really want to start that FA Goldilocks shawl though. It's a very simple triangular shawl in garter stitch so I'll probably get bored halfway through it! But it will look wonderful when done.
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