2ply handspun alpaca and silk

2ply handspun alpaca and silk, a photo by Alpagalaine on Flickr.

AND! Another thing

Programme tonight on BBC 4 about the devastation of hurricane Katrina. It was awful, tragic, so many people have had their lives changed forever. Pakistan anyone?

I just can't stand it!

It's no good, I'm going to have to come out of hiding after 2 and half years (or whatever, I can't be assed to count...).

Two things on Rav tonight.

1 'How can I become ordained so that I can officiate at my friends wedding?' WTF!!! Isn't there supposed to be something in there about a calling? What do you do after the wedding, give up? And the best thing - there was no end of advice about how to do it - ON BLEEDING LINE would you belive?

2 On US V UK clothing habits, - this thread has moved along sumwat, serious discussion about how many people in the UK hang their clothes out to dry and don't use a dryer, but some do.
CO2 Emissions per capita US = 19 UK 9.4 (2006 DATA from the world bank)

3 Girl is 'phobic' about birth control, doesn't want babies, but gets all panicky about the thought of the pill.

GIVE ME BLOODY STRENGTH.

I've sold Max

My lovely stud male, Max, is going to a new home in Cornwall. He hasn't had any work for the last two years, well, just two shags with Lissie. There is little demand for rose greys, so I'm very pleased he at last will get some use. And, as important, he will be cared for by a very experienced and caring owner, I couldn't have asked for better for him.

There will be tears.

Spinning, but not in a good way

I want to spin up some lace weight, as I fancy making this, or this. I've some merino and silk top in soft oranges and golden brown which has been in my stash for years. I don't know if I was too uptight, or what, but I didn't take enough care, I seemed to go far to fast, then lose control of the amount of fibre I was drafting, with the result the singles are quite uneven in both diameter and twist. I just rushed the whole thing, now I'm not at all pleased with the result. A sample I've knitted up isn't too bad, so, not all wasted, but not the result I wanted, I wanted it to be perfect dammit. Today, I was much more controlled, slowed down, took my time, and breathed. About 10% will be good, the rest will just be good enough. It's probably going to be the Flower Basket Shawl as there won't be enough for the Aeolian. And that really does deserve some decent work.

Or maybe a moebius.

Victorian Lace Today, Gripe

I have this book, it's wonderful. What I am cheesed off about is that the half hexagon, (Spinder's web shawls, p45) isn't. No doubt it's wonderful to wear, lots of lovely lace flowing around your shoulders, but when a diagram shows a half hexagon, with 3 triangles, the angles which meet at the center of the straight side, should each measure 60 degrees. Well, they don't, they are nearer 90. They are bound to really. When constructing a normal triangular shawl from the neck edge, there are 4 increases every other row, this gives you a straight edge, if you have 6 increases, then no wonder the 180 degree angle increases to 270. I've looked at the VLT group on Ravelry, and no-one complains about it, there are many pictures of stunning shawls. So it must be me, I was using a firm yarn just for sampling, and I think it only works in a fine lace weight, then the shaping is fluid and less noticeable. It does sit around the shoulders instead of across them, so from that point of view it's good. But, as you double the amount for a full 'hexagon' as far as I'm concerned, it just means you are knitting two unnecessary sections, to tight wad me (time and yarn) it's a waste.



The top image is how the half-hexagon is represented in the book, p 180, the lower diagram is how it comes out in practice.

And I'm not the only one either, Jersey Knitter noticed it as well. See what I mean?

Six months gone

I thought I would stop blogging, but I keep feeling the urge to get going again. I never worry if anyone actually reads this stuff, but sometimes I just want to write.

Back in March, as I was uploading photos to Flickr, I realised that many were public that I wanted private, so to save time, I changed them all, in one fail swoop to private.

Today, I get my blog out, dust it down and think I will start again, but all the photo's links are broken (pic set to private - does not work). No worries, re-set them all back to public.

THAT DOESNT WORK EITHER AS THE HTMBUGGERL IS CHANGED AND THE ONLY WAY I CAN GET THEM TO DISPLAY AGAIN IS TO REPOST ALL 65 OR SO IMAGES. Then of course you have to play about with their positioning again as for some reason blogger is incapable of placing them anywhere except at the beginning of your post. I thought I would delete the whole lot in a fit of pique, but some of my posts made me smile. Remembering that during this time I was anything but smiling a lot of the time, I really didn't want to to that. So I will leave it, slowly I may restore the images, but until then, any casual reader will have to make do with an awful lot of this.

Snow?! This is snow....

A Wakes bus stuck in the snow on the Fosse Way in Somerset
The media have been full of stories of heavy snowfall, complete disruption, chaos etc etc. Those of us of more mature vintage who remember '78 clearly and even 1963 know that this is nothing.

On Boxing day 1962, I was with my brother, Mum and Dad as we drove the couple of miles back home from my uncles, where we had spent the afternoon. I was excited when heavy snow began to fall, hoping there would be a decent amount, enough to make snowmen. The following morning, I couldn't see out of my bedroom window for the snow stuck to the glass, outside there was a complete blanket of snow with only trees and the tops of hedges showing through. There had been strong winds which created drifts, 6' of snow across half a road, and just 6" on the other side, an impossible task to clear quickly. I thought it was brilliant! Hard frosts prevented a thaw for weeks, creating a firm crust on the snow, I could walk along the top of the drifts over the hedges. And school stayed shut for 6 weeks.

In 1978 I was working as a staff nurse on nights at Cheddon Road Hospital in Taunton. Driving to work on Friday evening in February, I heard the weather forecast warning of heavy snowfall overnight. During the night I remember looking out of the window towards a car park as I took my coffee for a break, snow had been falling gently, now the wind was whipping it up. When I walked back, there was at least 24" out there! I realised I wouldn't be going anywhere in the morning. I usually did Friday and Saturday night, this week, I carried on and did Sunday and Monday as well, staying in a absent student's room. I walked home on Tuesday morning, it was only about 4 miles. The streets in town were passable by now, but as soon as you reached the country lanes it was difficult again. My husband and daughters met me about a mile from home. We got milk from our neigbouring farmer as he was having to pour it down the drain as the milk lorries couldn't get through to collect it. And the pub stayed open all day.


This is the scene at Bishops Lydeard the day after the Great Blizzard
© Stephen Edge

Creative commons licence