Knitting? I do that!

Spinning is now firmly established as part of my daily life. One of these days I'll just be too busy with all of the crafty things to remember to go to work - oh, wait, maybe that's why I was a bit late the other day - oops - too much ravelry at breakfast.

I am though at heart still a knitter first and foremost and there's very little that a knitter can do when the yarn calls, but cast on. An eagerly anticipated parcel arrived from Socktopus on Saturday (does anyone else notice that Alice is turning out to be a most wonderful enabler!) with the fifth sock parcel. I can't believe it's the fifth sock already. I've signed up again for next year because (a) it's been brilliant and (b) otherwise I'd be terribly sad at it ending. Oh and (c) H really likes the shiny parcels.

Before I got further:
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
If you are in the Socktopus Club and want to keep it a surprise then move along. Come back tomorrow or maybe Wednesday.

Right then, just us left? Look-see:



Toe-up Hopscotch Socks in yarn that is mushrooms and clouds and sunsets and green leaves all at once. It is more muted than anything that I ever pick for myself, being queen of the bright colours, but it is just gorgeous; and very soothing to look it.

It lasted about 5 or 6 hours in my home before I wound it up.

The little box is my most favourite bell and whistle yet. It opens out to become:


More little boxes - it's almost as good as a tardis. And inside the little boxes there were:

A thread cutter, a plastic sewing up needle, post it notes, a harmony cable needle which is nice and short and has cunning little grooves in it to hold the stitches without stabbing your hand, blue marking tape, little stitch marker elastics and coil-less safety pins. I've added a little tape measure from my work sewing kit and it is my constant companion on my many train trips.

But enough of this, I know what you really want to see:



The first few inches of sock. Mesmerising, engaging cables with lots of lovely plain rounds in between - you can't ask for more.

All that train knitting does mean that I get a fair few socks done and so I have finished each of my socktopus socks before the next one arrives, and so I got badges:



I feel that I need a sash to put them on (although in my day it was the sleeve(s) of your tunic), preferably with a slightly tatty name tape that says 1st Warwickshire Knitters, and an embroidered picture of the bear and crooked staff that's slightly skewiff.

If you have absolutely no idea what I'm going on about try here and here. In the interests of full disclosure I should tell you that I had the Northamptonshire Tudor Rose on my sleeve. I was an Imp. Clearly nothing very much has changed, and I'm still a sucker for badges.

Spinning: Part Deux

In which we fall, and fall harder.

The beauty of the Socktopus beginner spinning course is that in spreading it out over two Sundays with a week or two in between, you get to practice and get to grips with drafting and spindling and the whole rub-your-tummy-pat-your-head scenario. I'm glad I practiced as much as I did because today was when the simple, meditative action of spindle spinning blue faced leicester or merino, kicked up a notch. There were wheels and there was fibre.

We did do a little bit of spindle spinning our existing fibre to start the day off and warm up the fingers and brains but then, there were wheels, both Ashford Joys. Pretty much as soon as I gently pressed down on the treadle I knew I was sunk. It took a little while to get used to drafting in time with the twist, and it took several shufflings before I got the wheel and my chair far enough apart that my lanky legs didn't get in the way - it's like reaching for the pedals on a car- but by the end of each of my turn on the wheels I was spinning yarn that I was happy with, thin-ish, and not too overtwisted.

I'm hoping that I can hold out until Christmas to save up for a wheel but Christmas may have to come early. I really liked the Joy but I will aim to try a few wheels just to see. I love the look of the Schacht Ladybug but it is significantly more expensive than the Joy and if it's just a red wheel with a little ladybug it may not be worth the extra funds. If you have any recommendations for something that you think that I must try then please let me know.

Diane also showed us her spindle lazy kate and a brilliant way to transfer yarn from the spindle without asking your husband to sit and hold a revolving spindle for half an hour by sliding it onto a drinking straw and then using it on a lazy kate. Either we are going to have to get one or H is going to have to make one. I know this because he gave me a ballwinder and swift shortly after I started needing him to spread the yarn to wind skeins. A lazy kate is technically a gadget so that passes muster with the man of the house.

The rest of the time was spent playing with fibre. We have:



Tussah silk - soft and golden,


Mohair

And more mohair. My associations with mohair are that it is soft and fluffy but this is hard and a thick fibre. Diane had some pure mohair spun up and it is very crunchy and not something you would want next to your skin. Kid Silk Haze is clearly a product of the alchemist rather than the spinning mills.

This is Wensleydale ( I think). It is much coarser to touch than the merino of BFL and is very very curly. I think it would need a bit more carding before spinning.

This is Corridale, coarser than BFL and merino and described as a pot scrubber by one of our number. It does have lovely long fibres though and should spin up nicely.

And alpaca


Doesn't it look like a Jackson Pollock painting?

I had some locks as well which I carded on the hand cards into these two rolls - the top one is the second one and the better one!



It's a different sort of preparation for spinning because the fibres are all parallel to each other here, rather than leading into each other as in combed top. I know that this makes the difference as to whether I'm spinning worsted or woolen but I can't remember which one's which. Whichever it is, this should make big fluffy yarn.

And finally, we had some Poleworth to play with and flick card into big white fluffy clouds like this:




What, you don't see it? Alas I left my fluffy angel cloud on the side of Alice's sofa and forgot to pick it up to bring home. I'm going to have to find some more at some point though!

And the reason why none of these fibres are on my spindle at the moment?


It's been a little occupied!

All in all it's been a great day and I highly recommend the Socktopus classes if you fancy learning to spin.

The order of the garter

Although it may appear as if I have fallen down a spinning rabbit hole to the abandon of everything else I am happy to report that this is not entirely the case. For one thing, spinning and trains are unlikely ever to mix.

I finished H's latest pair of socks; 'the socks that saw the Harlot'; on Thursday evening (yes, after I finished making the pretty handspun, did I mention that spinning leads to late nights?) and I discovered that although my husband will be unimpressed if I wake him up merely to show him knitting, waking him up by putting the second sock on his cold bare foot is acceptable wifely conduct. That or it is the true wonder of Shelridge Farms Ultra

As it was sunny this morning he agreed to pose for pictures:



Isn't it great to know that he has become sufficiently overwhelmed by the wool fumes in this house that "stand there while I take pictures of your feet please", is a perfectly normal request. Actually I asked for an artistic pose as well and I got...


... quasi-Tai Kwondo! It does show the sock beautifully so I can't fault it.

As you can see, this is a garter stitch heel and toe as an alternative to my usual vanilla sock pattern, inspired by the latest Rockin Sock Club pattern. To do the garter heel simple knit your normal top down sock until you get to the heel shaping. My sock is over 72 sts on 2.5mm needles; fifteen rounds of 2x2 rib and then sixty rounds of plain stocking stitch.

First, rearrange your stitches so that you have half your stitches plus 2 on one/two needles, and the rest sitting on the final needle. The needle with the larger number of stitches is holds the sts which will be used to form the heel. Knit across those stitches until the last stitch, then wrap and turn by bringing the yarn forward between the needles, slipping the last st across, putting the yarn to the back and slipping the stitch back again. This stitch hasn't been worked but it looks like it's wearing a scarf (apologies to anyone I just taught to suck eggs). Knit back across your heel stitches until the final stitch and wrap and turn again.

You then work back and forth knitting every row and every row stop one short of where you got to last time and wrap and turn. At some point you need to start working outwards again. If you started with an even number of sts then make sure you work until there are an even number of sts unwrapped in the middle of the heel (I use 10 but 8 or 12 would work just as well, it depends on how many sts you started with). If you started with and odd number of sts then use 11 (or 9 or 13), you see the idea.

Then knit until the first wrapped st, knit that st and wrap and turn the next one. Repeat as before, each time knitting the next wrapped st and wrapping the one after until you have only the outside two double wrapped sts. You do NOT need to knit the wraps in this method - and I find that it looks nicer without.

Then start knitting in the round again, when you come to the join I find the best trick is to knit the final wrapped stitch, then pick up the wraps and knit them with the next stitch. Similarly, when you work the final stitch of the top of the foot, pick up the wraps and knit them with that stitch. Finally, adjust the needles so that you can tell where the instep/sole divide is.

When you come to the toe simple repeat the heel, working with the stitches on the top of the foot and when you are finished, kitchener stitch the toe to the sole of the sock and you're done. It's a nice variation on an otherwise plain sock.

As a commute without knitting is unimaginable I stuck a pin in the stash and came out with this:


Manos Pure Wool in a colour which might seem surprisingly tame for me but which has such rich deep colours that I couldn't resist it. In an effort to provide conclusive proof that knitting controls, if not the universe, at least the weather, I noticed that it was getting a little parky in the mornings and cast on a pair of fingerless mittens on Friday morning. It has been increasingly warm and sunny ever since.

Unfortunately, I have to report that it will rain tomorrow because I have finished them:


These are the Maine Morning Mitts from Clara Parkes' Knitters Book of Yarn; (and also available as a free download) a pattern written deliberately to show off beautiful coloured singles yarns like Manos and Noro Kureyon. I think we can say that it succeeded.

As you may have noticed from the picture above, these mittens have been decreed to be unisex. So should they be for me


Or for H?



He is bigger than me, so I think I know who would win a tug of mitten.

Can't stop this thing we've started

In which our knitter realises that she may be heading towards the title 'fibre artist'

I cannot say that I did not know, that I was tricked into spinning, slyly passed handspun to pet, or that passers by put spindle and fibre into my hands as I dozed on the train and I woke up with half a skein of singles. I knew that spinning was something that would chime a chord with the part of my soul that responds to the call of the yarn and needles. And yet it is more, an addictive, hypnotic trance brought on by watching the spindle twizzle round and round while you desperately wonder whether you've put enough twist in.

Spinning is responsible for at least two late nights in this household (and certainly not the last) as I got to grips with my class homework (I'm very conscientious about homework; particularly if it's knitting related). On Wednesday night I finished spinning the singles and, without pausing to run up for the camera to record the full bobbin, I enlisted the trusty H to let the spindle turn through his hands as I cranked the ball winder.

This means that within a week or so he will have either (a) found some clever spinny tool on the internet that holds a spindle or (b) rigged up a Heath-Robinson contraption for me. For now though I had a sizeable ball of handspun and I even managed to unite handspun and camera in one place.

I did go to bed when I realised that I wouldn't be able to ply it all that night but as soon as I got home on Thursday the pyjamas were on and the spindle was plying [NB - I got home late, the PJ thing isn't that odd].

I was surprised at how much more space the plied yarn seemed to take up on the spindle but I suppose that it makes sense geometrically. The spindle seemed pretty full by the time I was finished so I'm a little nervous at spinning a whole 100g on it if it's full at 50g - are there any cunning tricks that I don't know about yet?

The next stage in the sheep to stash process is to wind the plied yarn around a niddy noddy (spinning has such great words). This looks a little bit like a wooden anchor and logically the structure would help to even out the twist as it can't just curl up on itself like it could if I went straight to the swift. I have no idea whether I've got that right, it's just what makes sense to me.

Anyway, I don't have a wooden niddy noddy. I found some instructions on how to make one here (from PVC pipe) but sadly we had no pipe, or wood. H offered to make me one but the craving to skein up the new yarn and bask in it's soft glory was too much so we set too with ingenuity and the contents of our house.

Now all you need to come up with a solution like this is a childhood spent making Blue Peter projects out of shoe boxes, loo roll tubes, egg cartons and washing up bottles and a husband with a Masters degree in Engineering.

You need:

~ the tube from a roll of wrapping paper
~ a craft knife
~ sellotape
~ a pair of metal knitting needles

1: Cut about 6 inches of tube off either end. If you want to be precise about the size of your skein then measure the centre length you want and cut the remainder in two.

2: In each of your short lengths cut a rough circular hole, slightly smaller than the diameter of the tube.

3: Pinch each end of the long tube and slot into the holes on either short piece.

4: Sellotape in place, taking care that you have one end running up and down and the other, side to side.

5: For stability insert a metal knitting needle down each of the end tubes, squashing it in next to the end of the centre tube so that it stays in place and doesn't jiggle about. I used 5mm but as long as it's sturdy I doubt it matters.

Finito. It looks a bit like this (with pleading not to notice the bits of cardboard and fluff on the carpet)

I finished it off with a little dip in some lavender Eucalan and then blocked it out and gave it a few whacks on the kitchen cupboard. And now it is dry:

If the last effort was Carie Big Wool then careful examination of the stash cupboard tells me that this is Carie Warwickshire Tweed - a southern cousin of the sadly discontinued Yorkshire Tweed. It is about 12wpi but I don't know what that really means in practice - I just have a little Karatstix measure from Socktopus to play with.

It's certainly thinner than the first iteration:

but I don't know really how much yarn I have in terms of length. I'm just really pleased that it looks like a real skein; see:

I even managed to find a penny for the obligatory 'money shot' (yes, you may come and hit me now)

If the last mini skein that I showed you was First Handspun then this is Second Handspun, first Knittable Handspun, and as such is equally treasured. If I can find the right pattern then I'd love to knit with this - any suggestions?

In the meantime, some Strawberries and Cream coloured merino is serenading me from the basket with promises of reclaiming summer, so if you need me I'll just be over there.

The return of Bigfoot

What is the crucial difference between this photo (exhibit A):


And this photo (exhibit B):


Could it be that exhibit A is a delightful, feminine, pastel shade and exhibit B is a more rousing, rugged, masculine blue and brown?

No.

Could it be that exhibit A is knit into a flowing droplet pattern, reminiscent of boiled sweets or fat dew drops sliding down leaves and exhibit B is plain vanilla?

No.

Could it be that exhibit A is a smaller sock, well suited to a ladies step and exhibit B is knit for the foot that covers vast distances with sturdy strides?

No.

Exhibit B has a small ball of yarn still attached to the sock, enough to finish the foot and tie the socks to the recipients foot should he desire. Exhibit A - sob - has none.

This is the medium size of the fourth Rockin Sock Club pattern, knit on the needles recommended to an only slightly looser gauge and I've run out of yarn with most of the toe still to go. If I'd made it over the top of the toe I would fill in with some leftovers from the stash but anything else here is going to be really noticeable.

I have a cunning plan though - the yarn arrived with a choice of patterns - gumdrops socks or sweet tart anklets so if I ordered another skein I could finish these socks and make the sweet tart socks - possibly to be a Christmas or birthday gift if I was really organised.

One of the real benefits of sock clubs is that you learn new techniques and different options to use on your everyday socks. This latest RSC pattern introduced me to the garter stitch heel and toe and I love it:

The reason for it here is that it makes the heel and toe reversible to match the socks but it also makes the heel plumper,


and means that you can do short row heels without needing to pick up the wraps.


Consultation with H late on Friday night had established that he didn't want any fussy patterns on this pair of socks, just nice ordinary socks, and that fitted with my plan to have something to knit at Iknit that would work on autopilot. My autopilot does like a little excitement so I tried out another garter st short row heel; and it worked. Again (why this should surprise me I really don't know).


It makes for a beautiful squishy sock and if anyone is interested I'll write up a mini how to, in terms of calculating numbers etc.


Now then, the important question - if a little something else falls into my basket while I am buying the yarn to finish off the gumdrops socks, would that really be so bad? It might be considered compensation for having unfinished socks in the house!

Day two, in London

Sunday

If Saturday was hustle and bustle, meeting new and familiar faces, and laughing til my cheeks ached, Sunday was its counterbalance; a quiet day spent in the best possible company and learning a new skill/reason for stash.

I've known for a while that spinning and me was a when not an if; when I was a little girl, maybe about eight years old, I remember collecting the wisps of wool from the gorse bushes and barbed wire fences on our cliff top walks with the express design of using it to make my grandmother a pair of gloves for Christmas. I filled my cagoule pocket but never saw the little fluffy locks again after we returned home so I suspect that either (a) there is a very sheepy waterproof somewhere in my parents house or (b), the more likely option, my mother decided that they weren't quite the thing for gloves and disposed of them.*

More recently on a long walk in May I found I was absent-mindedly collecting fleecy chunks and winding them together as I walked, so when I saw that Alice of Socktopus was running a beginner spinning class I knew it was time.

The class is split over two days to allow us time to practice in between; lesson 1 was yesterday and lesson 2 is next Sunday both taught by Diane Mullholland who, besides being an excellent teacher, also designed the fabulous mosaic socks that were parcel number 3 of the Socktopus sock club.

Taking our first tentative steps towards spinning we tried rolling our Blue Faced Leicester combed top between our fingers; it does make yarn but only very slowly. Next was the 'park and draft' method where each action is separate - put some twist into the yarn by spinning the spindle, then jam it between your knees and let the twist run up the drafted fibre. It's a little like having stabilisers on your bike; you won't fall off because it's harder to drop the spindle, but you can't go quite as fast either.

Diane came round with a spanner before we paused for lunch to take those stabilisers off and get us going on the real thing, spinning and drafting together. I'm amazed at how quickly it all came together once my brain worked out what my hands needed to be doing.

I know that when I started letting the spindle go I kept thinking that it would be OK if I couldn't do this, I knew how to park and draft and that would take care of the roving that fell into my bag at Iknit. Having spun yesterday for all that time in London, for another couple of hours in the evening and a couple of hours tonight I can tell that it is all coming together and I am happily drop spindling away at every opportunity. It is already starting to move into the 'less thinking, more doing' category which I find so relaxing. Diane's top tip - to twist the fibre as you release your pinch to get it going in the right direction - reminds me so much of the little flick you give to rope when you coil it to help it lie flat and I'm only dropping the spindle on very rare occasions.

To round off the day we plied our yarn back on itself and learnt how to finish/block/set/ it (help! someone please let me know what the correct word is). So would you like to see? I spun all of this in London and then finished it off with a little soak, a little blocking and a few thwacks against the kitchen cupboard when I got home:


Some of it is clearly chronically underspun and it all fluffs up on washing just to accentuate that lack of spinning but there are bits that are undeniably yarn and which I am very pleased with.

The fifth strand from the left for example.



I have medium sized hands if that helps for scale. I like most of the strands in this shot although in the interests of full and frank disclosure I should tell you that I tucked a few dodgy ones underneath the others.

I hereby name this yarn: First Handspun of Cariemay. All hail First Handspun!

The week's homework from Diane is to continue spinning in preparation for our trying out different fibres and a wheel next Sunday so I have made inroads into our practice fibre (more BFL) comme ca:


I think I've spun the same again this evening so my prep is well in hand. I also have some very pretty pink and white merino that I'd like to try out. Yes, I admit it, I'm hooked (or rather, spun).

I can see when so many new spinners suddenly need more than one spindle - given that I never work on only one pattern at once it would be overly optimistic to expect me to be able to keep to just the one fibre, wouldn't it?

* I did make the gloves, but they were for me, in dark blue wool with a white snowflake on the back of the hand and they were knit ENTIRELY on straight needles!

One day, in London

Saturday

Being as I am, unencumbered by small children, small or large animals, or a husband who considers that the day properly commences before half past ten, this:


was a bit of a shock to the system. Yes that is 7.10 am on Saturday morning. Not something I am familiar with. On the plus side the train was pretty empty and for some reason unknown to me, people choose not to sit next to the lady furiously knitting pastel yarn into a tube whose bag reads "Hands off my Socks".

The reason for the really early start (as opposed to just the early start) was that I was meeting Zee, her husband and her friend R:


in front of a Palace (as you do). We saw soldiers:

And as it was R's hen weekend we followed the sound of the drum and went to the Household Cavalry Barracks and watched some drill through the railings. They were not very good at drill. I suspect that this is because they are the Army. They really need to go to watch the Navy for a bit and then they will get better. (NB Biased? Moi!?).

However, whilst soldiers are very pretty and soldiers doing drill are very funny, we needed breakfast. So in true English style we went to the pub.

I knit while I was waiting for my breakfast and Zee filched my camera to record the occasion. The decor shows that it was a real pub. I also know this because at 10.15ish as we sat eating breakfast two Chelsea Pensioners came in for double whiskeys.

However, much as I love my sister the call of the yarn is strong and I could swear that a faint whiff of lanolin was creeping under the door of the pub, swept past by the bulk of another red bus. And here is where I went:

IKnit in the Royal Horticultural Halls.

These Halls are a testimony to Art Deco architecture and even the overhead lights have a touch of the Rennie Macintosh. This is only something that I noticed later as I was rather taken up by the yarn, and the other yarn, and the next yarn, and the fibre, and the yarn, to pay much attention to anything.

Whilst trying desperately to prevent myself from leaping headfirst into the piles of yarn and lying their cosying up to the alpaca/silk/cashmere blend I went to Jane Waller's presentation on the relaunch of her book, A Stitch in Time, which covers vintage patterns from the 20s through to the 50s. It was fascinating to learn the way in which garment shapes changed and the reasons why; for example, the switch from early 40s plain, practical almost military short sleeved rib pullovers to the embroidered flowers of the late 40s/50s when the war ended and people wanted a little frivolity again. Jane's talk was followed by a fashion show parading some of the knitwear from the book and there are a good three or four that I am seriously tempted to put on the 'some-day I will knit this' list.

The highlight of Iknit was always going to be Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's latest stop on her book tour. She was, as expected, charming, entertaining and intelligently humourous. It was great and I haven't laughed that hard in ages. I would be lying if I said that I did not find it especially funny that a Cambridge PhD student thinks that it is impractial to carry emergency knitting - I always knew they didn't quite make our grade.

To add the cherry to the icing on an already jam-packed cake (if you'll excuse the pun), it was just before Stephanie's talk that a lady a few rows in front of me turned around; and it was Caroline, better known as Wool for Brains. This is the first time I have met a blogger in person who I have only known through the internet before and it was a real pleasure to chat to her and tour the marketplace for a little while.

One of the things that separates Iknit from other knitting shows is the amount of knitting being done during the day. I was polishing off the foot of the Gumdrops socks in the morning and when I ran out of yarn half way through I picked up another ball and cast on a sock for H. The yarn was this:


And it seemed rather appropriate to be knitting Canadian yarn to go to see a Canadian knitter!

And then, as all good things must, our knitting day came to an end. Nowhere else could I have seen so many knitters, of so many different nationalities, all together. Nowhere else would people come up to feel my sleeve and ask me about the yarn and the pattern and how long it took to knit, and nowhere else will anybody ask my why my bag says "Hands off my Socks"; here they giggled. I very much hope that it is adieu not farewell to the Iknit land of knitters because next year, if they're there, I'm there.


Sock, meet Oliver and Ben;
Eye spy with my little eye, something beginning with S

Early one morning

It's 6.20am on a Saturday. I'm up and I'm about to head off to the IKnit Day and I am sooooooooo excited. See you all later!

Down by the riverside

Gonna lay down my sticks and yarn
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Gonna lay down the pattern sheet
Down by the riverside
I'm knitting these socks no more!



Finally dry and photographed in a brief moment of sunshine yesterday. You can see it was brief because I'm being very careful not to stand in a puddle!

There is a reason for just the one foot being photographed - my artistic director was out and although I'm tall I can't bend far enough to take good pictures without needing a leg to balance!

As you see the lace magic has worked again - I save one sock for H to unpin but he didn't seem that impressed by it - clearly leaving with me has made him blase about knitting alchemy. I think they're simply wonderful and frilly and I want to be very cavalier in them!

So, welcome to the sock drawer little Frenchman's Creek socks!

Do we think the needles stayed empty for long?


Nope.

Random things I have seen #1: On Greys' Inn Road in London there is a bus stop that dispenses free tennis balls. I wish I could take a photo but we can't take cameras into the court. You'll just have to take my word for it!

Here comes the rain

It is clearly September. I know this because I had the window open at work today and after half an hour I realised that the raining sound was rain coming in the window and landing on the files on my windowsill - oops.

I also know this because my deep longing to show you the finished Frenchman's Creek socks has been thwarted by (a) the fact that it is raining and (b) therefore it was dark when I got home and (c) the socks themselves are not dry, despite being pinned out yesterday evening. The weather is on the turn.

The socks themselves look like this at the moment:


That is most of the pins that I own, pinned out by H and me for an hour. H was terribly worried that he was doing it wrong but he's done brilliantly. More fool him, unlike the hand-spreading vs ballwinder and swift he won't be able to buy me a mechanical device to do blocking pinning. Having said that he did ask why I didn't just bend arc blocking wires so maybe I need to get him onto that!

Having emptied the sock needles I promptly filled them up again; first of all to prove that good things come in twos:


I can't wait for there to be a little pair of baby hands to wear these although life being what it is, the bambino will probably have outgrown them by the time I get to meet him or her. I hope it's a her - H's generation of his family has 4 boys and 4 girls (and 2 wives but we don't count) so this baby will tip the balance. Plus I think Aunt A would love a little girl.

I've also started a little something that may or may not come in a pair:

A little while ago those of us of the Tsock Flock Club persuasion got a little package called the Tsock Tsuspense Package: Part 1. I don't know what it's going to be I only know that it is red and my favourite red at that. The Tsarina has said that we may want to knit two but not that we will need to knit two to avoid looking lopsided so my bet is that it is a Christmas stocking. Only time and the good offices of the Royal Mail will tell (note: flattery is intended to ensure that my post arrives in a timely manner - take the hint).

Speaking of sock clubs I have started the fourth Socks that Rock club sock but I don't have a picture at the moment (see above reference rain). It's very pretty though.

Now then. It is 1st September 2008. On 30 November 2008 (I think) my lovely sister-in-law Lulla turns 30. In honour of that auspicious birthday I have been making her a cross-stitch. I have been making it since at least a year before we got married but have failed to complete it in time for either birthdays or Christmas. I therefore declare before all of you as witnesses that for the month of September my evening craft will be this picture. I am over half way and I think I should be able to finish before the end of September giving me ample time to finish the baby knitting before the hoard arrives.

There are a few exceptions:

1. Knitting will continue on the train.
2. Knitting is allowed at Knit Night (otherwise it would be cross-stitch night and that would be odd)
3. Knitting is fair game this coming weekend for (a) the IKnit day and (b) my Socktopus spinning class on Sunday. Plus train rides both ways.
4. The same is true for the following Sunday for the same reason.

Let the needle and silk commence.