I wandered over to Covent Garden today. I wanted to buy these sunglasses since I don’t have any sunglasses right now and I know Oliver has bought me a 50s style dress as a birthday present. But alas, they didn’t have any in stock in the store. They did suggest buying them online, but shipping is like £5.50. Over half the price of the item. Not worth it. The shop girl was really nice though. She’d bought some for herself online and let me try them on. They were cute. I might get them one day if I ever order something else from them at the same time. So I wandered around some more, found another retro shop and voila, now I have sunglasses. For only £10 too! :D Whatcha think?

During my wanderings, I also came across a massive queue to get into Five Guys, a blue chicken, a cute cottage and kayakers in the Thames. :D

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone suggested that instead of having ice cream, try a frozen banana instead. So today I was like, cool, I’ve got bananas, I’ll try it. So I put one in the freezer. A few hours later, when it was frozen solid, I took it out and realized I’d forgotten one crucial step: peel the darn banana first! I tried defrosting it but the whole thing just turned to mush. Gave up on that one. Attempt #2 is currently in the freezer (and yes, I did remember to peel this one)… To be continued! Maybe. If I remember to update. So probably not.

I went to Woolfest last weekend with three of my friends from Sheffield. I went up to Sheffield by coach on Friday. If you follow me on Twitter, then you already know that the air conditioning wasn’t working and it was just awful where I was sitting. But there was a plug socket and free WiFi so it wasn’t too bad. I spent Friday night at Lucy’s and we went out to eat with Sarah and Janice for my second ever curry. I’ve decided that I like Indian food, as long as it’s very mild on the spice. If I remember correctly, I had a lamb paneer? Whatever it was, I liked it. The portion was huuuuuge, so next time I’d be better off just getting a side portion instead of a main, but that’s an issue I have with a lot of places.

Saturday was Woolfest day! The drive there and back was fine. I really miss driving, even with the morons who hog the middle lane on the M1. Seriously, if you’re not passing other cars, just shift over to the left. I managed to be a bit more restrained in my spending this year, but I still feel like I came back with some really great stuff. I got 100g of fibre from Woolyknits, a skein of Sparkleduck Spirit, two skeins of Eden Cottage Yarns Bowland DK, a skein of EasyKnits Cherish (I think), buttons from three different places and butterfly hair accessories. I also got a lot of photos of sheep and alpacas and goats while there, but I haven’t uploaded those from my camera yet.

Came back from Sheffield by coach on Sunday. This time the air conditioning was working, but there were no power sockets and no Wifi. Fun times. And it looks like I missed the great weather down south while at Woolfest! It was only +15C and slightly rainy on Saturday up in Cumbria. Sunday it got to +27C and was super sunny down in London. Today? Partly cloudy and only about +20C. How do I always seem to miss the nice weather?

We decided to go out to eat yesterday and settled on Byron Hamburgers at Westfield. I was really pleasantly surprised at how great the service was. All of the staff were super friendly and our waiter in particular was awesome. He took the time to chat with us and made me feel like he actually wanted to know what we had to say (unlike some places that just pretend to like chit-chat). I also noticed how attentive and fun he was with the kids sitting in the booth next to ours. So I’ve now e-mailed the company and let them know. I know how rare it is to hear good things, so I make a point of letting the manager, etc know if I’ve had great service at a restaurant or shop. Plus the food was great so I’m definitely going back there again at some point.

Knitting-wise (since this is supposed to be a mainly knitting blog), I’ve now finished all of the WIPs I’ve had on the needles since forever. My Joanie sweater still needs buttons (I bought some from Iceland but I can’t find them!), the Ethereal shawl is done as are the Glass Slipper socks. So today I’ve cast on TPHPE by Heather Zoppetti. I’ve got an urge to learn double knitting after I saw someone do it at the knit group at the Loop two weeks ago. So I figure this’ll be a good starter project.

So, in my last post I mentioned lots of exciting things are happening around here, but I didn’t say what. Now that it’s all official and nothing’s going to get jinxed (I hope!), I can reveal some of the somethings.

Firstly, and this is a big reason why I’ve been off-grid for awhile, we moved to London (and therefore have had no broadband for almost a month, so I’ve only been keeping up with Twitter and e-mail for the most part)! O got a new job and that required us to leave Sheffield. I love Sheffield, but there really weren’t that many opportunities for us there. Plus, I’ve been kinda itching to move again. Staying put for five years is a long time for someone who’s used to moving almost once a year. Anyway, our new flat is fabulous and we’re sharing it with a friend of ours that we’ve known for a long long time. Plus, sharing is a great way to save money and we get a much nicer place this way. And when I say nice, I mean nice. Right now, as I’m typing this, I get to sit on our balcony and watch boats go by on the Thames. And I can see the top of Westminster Abbey (I think… I’d better double-check that with O actually, just to make sure). So the last few weeks I’ve been dealing with all of the fun stuff that comes with moving. Like transferring utilities over, learning that when this place said furnished they meant it (I’ve never had crockery be included in a furnished place before!), discovering that the previous tenants hadn’t cleaned the oven at all, that there are carpet beetles in this place too. One was right smack in the middle of the wall as we were doing the inventory before we moved our stuff in so I know we didn’t bring it with us. But seriously, I’m so glad that we’re here. I do miss my friends back up north, but we do visit Sheffield quite often, so it’s not too bad.

Secondly, because we moved, I gave up my day job. I’m probably going to look for some part-time work here since I want to get out of the flat and actually talk to people during the day (there is only so much TV that I can watch while I knit), but I’m also going to focus on making the knit designing thing more profitable (ie actually pay me too for some of my time instead of just paying the materials). Now that I have the time and energy during the day again, I’ve been doing quite a bit of sketching and swatching. And I actually have a pattern that’s just been released! I’ll write more about it in a separate post next week, but for now, all I’ll say it’s pretty, it’s lace, it’s a shawl/scarf and it only takes one skein of 4ply/fingering weight/sock yarn. And it’s on sale until July1st! Sinikka will normally be £3.75, but if you use the coupon code “WOOLFEST13”, you can get it for just £2.50.

Thirdly, although this could kind of go with the secondly as it’s to do with knitting, I’ve been published in a book! The book, What (Else) Would Madam Defarge Knit?, came out this April. I haven’t really talked about it on the blog because I wanted to make sure it was a surprise for my parents and grandparents. They’ve received copies of the papercopy in the mail, so now it’s all good. It’s been so hard not talking about this (my designs were accepted back in November 2011), but now that they’ve been surprised, I can talk about it freely. My patterns are based on a fairytale by the Brothers Grimm. The story is about a child and his friend who stick together through the hard times and overcome a witch who’s trying to eat the poor thing (why? I still haven’t figured that out and story doesn’t say!). There are two versions of the fingerless mitts: twisted stitches knit in DK-weight and colourwork using 4ply. You can buy the e-book either through Ravelry or through Co-operative Press and if you want a paper copy, you can get that through Co-Operative Press too. There will be a KAL for my patterns in the WWMDfK Ravelry group later this year, so feel free to join us there too. There’s one more thing in the works relating to this bit, but I’ll wait to announce it here until it’s all official.

So excited! About everything! And now the coffee has kicked in too, so extra exclamation points!!!

There will be a “proper” post shortly!

… from all of the boxes that still need packing.

So, we went to Iceland last month! Want to see all that Monkey saw?

From Monkey’s Iceland Adventure

Link to album

Many more exciting things are afoot chez nous, but I’ll save all that for a later post when things have settled down a bit first. That includes editing all of the photos I took in Iceland not featuring Monkey!

Monkey, the TT team’s mascot, accompanied me to Finland for Christmas this year. Click the photo to see everything he saw!

Monkey’s Christmas Adventure

And tomorrow? He’s off to New York City with my co-worker L. Lucky thing.

Both from Stitches N Rows:

Killjoy - Definitive Soles sock yarn (100% superwash BFL) Minty - Luxe Soles sock yarn (80% merino/10% cashmere/10% nylon)

No clue what they want to be yet, but I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.

Winner announced! Congrats HeavensJoy!

My designer friend Erica Jackofsky has graciously sent me her Mythos Collection (Ravelry link) for reviewing.

The collection consists of seven shawlettes each using only one skein of fingering weight. They are all based on Greek and Roman myths and each pattern has a little blurb at the beginning giving a bit of background on how the myth inspired the shawl. Both written and charted directions are given and the collection does say that the skill level needed is intermediate. There’s a nice mix of bottom up, top down and even sideways knits.

One thing I have noticed about all of the patterns that offer both written and charted directions, it isn’t indicated when to start the chart. I assume it’ll be clearer when you’re actually about to start knitting the patterns and can match up the charts with the directions, but just reading through nothing jumps out at me saying “Do x, then start chart.”

Onto the patterns!

Harvest is the first shawlette and is based on Demeter and Ceres. The cast on is massive (over 800 sts!), so be prepared to do a lot of stitch counting before working the first row. I know I wouldn’t want to rip that beast out because I mis-counted the cast on.

Bacchus/Dionysus is the inspiration for the second shawlette Merriment and has beads. The beads are optional (as they pretty much always are) and this one is worked from the top down. I also thought it was a cute idea to give the section of the pattern their own name: Cluster of Grape, Merriment and Madness.

The next shawlette (Underworld) also has beads, but it also has dropped stitches! The beads rest on the bottom edge of the shawlette where the dropped stitches are. It looks really interesting and is definitely going in my queue. Just note that this pattern doesn’t have a chart, it’s all written directions.

Allure, knit sideways, is the fourth pattern. The lace pattern looks interesting but simple enough to be TV knitting for me. It is patterned on both sides though, so be careful if you’re new to lace knitting. I’ll say it right up front, this one is my favourite. I haven’t knit it yet, but I was planning on knitting it even before I received the collection for reviewing. I think it also helps that the sample is knit in a shade of pink/purple. I’m always drawn to patterns in those colours (and red). That and it’s lace. Lace is my thing.

Next up is Wrought. Directions are provided for two sizes, and it’s worked from the bottom up. The nice thing about bottom up patterns is that the rows get shorter as you go. The shawlette isn’t a triangle, it’s got a nice curve but it’s not really a semi-circle either (as far as I can tell from the photos). And no pointy ends.

Then again, if you want pointy ends and a semi-circle, there’s Solar Flare! It’s top down with eyelet rows and looks like rays of sunshine. If I were to knit this, I might add beads down the centre of the eyelet columns. Because I like bling apparently. (My last two shawls/neck things have been beaded.)

Last, but not least, is Wandering Waves. This is knit sideways on the bias and you decrease as you go. As the lace pattern isn’t too complicated, I think a slightly more variegated yarn might work for this one, but don’t go overboard. Subtle and/or light coloured yarn would be the way to go. Oh and this one is offered as a free Ravelry download.

You can either buy patterns individually (most are 6.00 USD each, but I think one or two may be 5.00 USD) or get the whole collection for 20.00 USD.

You can find Erica on Plurk, Ravelry and Twitter as FiddleKnits and she blogs at fiddleknits.blogspot.com. She sells her patterns on Ravelry and on her website Fiddleknits.com. I’m sure there’s a Facebook page/group/whatever too, but I’m not really on Facebook myself, so I haven’t looked for it.

And now the giveaway! Since I was going to knit Allure most likely anyway, I’m going to gift one pattern from this collection to someone through Ravelry. Just leave a comment saying which pattern you’d like (and why would be nice, but not mandatory) and your Ravelry name. I’ll do the drawing on November 4th (Sunday) at about 9pm my time (London time! GMT.) with the help of the random number generator.

Happy knitting and good luck!

From Blog photos

Pattern: Kelsey Mitts by Silka Burgoyne, Knitscene Fall 2012 Yarn: Natural Dye Studio BFL/Exmoor Blueface (Great British Wool Club January 2012 shipment)

They’re done! My Smurf mitts are done. I’ve nicknamed them that because of the yarn. Whenever I knit on them, I got this stripe of blue on the my left index finger and the tips of my fingers were tinged blue after a few rounds. I understand that because of the way the yarn is dyed, the transference is to be expected, but it’s still slightly annoying to have tinted hands. I believe (and hope really really hard) that giving these beauties a good gentle wash will take care of the excess blue coming off on my hands when I wear them.

I mostly knit these as written, mostly. I used the smaller needles throughout for the ribbing and the larger ones only for the cabled section. I lengthened the top ribbing section by a little bit. I just kept going until the ribbing came up to the middle knuckles of my index fingers. Also, I thought it was a bit weird to do the thumb first and then the rest of the hand. Working the thumb while I kept the other sts on hold (left them on the dpns) felt like I was wrestling with a porcupine. It also made it fiddly around the join when working the rest of the hand because the thumb kept getting in the way. But, there are no gaps in the join when done this way, so… *shrug*