Owl cowl has eyes

I got my first ravelympics medal for the mittens today. Woohooo.

I ended up choosing a blue button for it, but decided to only put a the button on the right hand for a fully functional mitten, and keep the left hand button free because I think it looks prettier that way. So the best of both worlds, I think.

For a cookie bake along this weekend I made fortune cookies.
Yumm. The first batch didn't work out so great, most of them cracked and crumbled as I was folding them, but the second day's batch turned out much better, I think it's because the batter thickened overnight.

Next week's bakealong is scones. If you're on ravelry feel free to join in, you are on ravelry, aren't you?

M cowl owl is finished. The knitting was finished a few days ago, but and it was a very quick knit, but it was also in dire need of blocking. I put the eyes on just an hour ago.

My third and last ravelympics project is to finish a WIP, gloves for Jessamy. I've never made gloves before, and this is going sooo slow. The cable pattern is from Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation.

I hope I can finish them in time!

Just call me destructo

I used to think that invisibility (being able to walk in and out of rooms without anyone noticing) was my superpower, but now I'm thinking I have a knack for breaking knitting tools. Late last night, as I was completing the EZ sewn bind off for convertible Bella's Mittens (just found out that they aren't technically "glittens" because they don't have mitten-like fingers) I did this:

*

Broke a tapestry needle.

This is the third time in as many months that I broke a knitting instrument.

On Christmas day I broke my first 2.0 mm needle, but I was determined to continue knitting and succeeded in gluing it in such a way that it wouldn't catch on the yarn. Perhaps I was overly tense that day and knit tighter than normal, who knows. Last month though I broke my second 2.0 mm bamboo by accidentally leaning on it with my knuckle. I took the hint and bought another set of needles.

*I didn't actually realize until I took this picture that perhaps I don't have to save those broken needles.

Thankfully I have some metal tapestry needles, and was able to finish weaving in the ends. It's not completely done, I still need to add the buttons, which I'll probably do this weekend, but I'm glad to be moving on to my next ravelympics project, The Owl Cowl.

Different cities

My main reservations when I arrived in Edinburgh were
1. it was cold
2. i didn't know my way around
3. i couldn't find one of those stores that sells cheaply made things for cheap prices.

But now that I've been here for over a month I've realized ...
1. ya, it is cold, so I better just get used to it and buy better gloves (and knit some mittens)
2. finding my way around has a nice way of sorting itself out over time, with a fair amount of wondering around
3. it might just be a wonderful thing that those cheap stuff stores are a bit out of the way.

Edinburgh has a lot of neat, independent stores, and I'm wondering if it's partially to do with reason #3.

In Newcastle there was no place in the centre of town to buy fresh bread from an independent baker.

But this morning, I walked three blocks from my house and bought this:
Bread from The Manna House. I've already been there a few times for sweet treats.

In Newcastle, if you wanted non-acrylic yarn you had to go to a department store, or get on the metro and leave the city centre.

But today I bought these needles at a yarn store 5 minutes walk from town.
And this
is from a neat little store called The Treasure Trove. A charity shop that sells hand-made items. Tablet is a traditional Scottish sweet made from butter, milk, and sugar. I haven't yet eaten one, so I was very happy to see it at the store.

And now I should go back to ravelympics and knitting my warm glittens.

Day 3 of Ravelympics

Valentines Day 2010 has come and gone. And my lemon cake was baked ...

but is not yet entirely gone. But we did manage to eat about half of it last night, and I managed to not eat any of it today until the late afternoon. I'm sure we'll manage to eat the rest of it tonight. It was a simple recipe pattern, requiring mixing a bunch of ingredients then baking for an hour. It may not have tasted as superb as an expensive, pre-made one at a bakery, but it tasted sweet and was still warm, right out of the oven.

I'm into my third day of ravelympics. I finished one glitten around 1pm. Also known as a convertible mitten.

It's now 6 and I haven't started on the second glitten! I blame social networks and almost by extension random and interesting links (like this one about saving the gansey). I'm afraid that the wondrous thing that is the internet, without which there would be no ravelympics, will lead to my poor ravelympic scores.

Day 1 of Ravelympics

It's 10:30, nearing the end (at least for this time zone) of day one of the 2010 Ravelympics. This is my first year doing it, and I've had fun. Lots more projects and pictures and knitting in general to see on ravelry and twitter.

The first project I'm doing is the Bella Glittens, taken from Mariamaria's modification of Bella's Mittens.
Not bad progress I think considering I did some errands in the morning (so I could stay inside and knit all day tomorrow - woohoo), didn't start until noon, and spent a lot of the day tending to Jessamy, who has a cold.

I'm hoping to have this one finished by tomorrow, and the project done by the end of Monday.
Go TeamTARDIS!

From pieces into a whole

My latest sewing project started off life as

The interfacing (my first time using it) and the fabric became this

The embroidery thread, with the help of the bobbins, became


A little bit of thread became this strange embroidery


Then I combined them together to make a very amusing project.


I've already washed some dishes with the now clothed (and I'm sure much warmer now as well) dishwashing liquid. And it really did make washing dishes a lot more amusing. I used these instructions for making the apron.

In Tune

I finally bought a tuner for the ukulele! I am very happy about my purchase because I was having to tune the uke using a YouTube tuning video about once a week, really annoying and time consuming and probably not very accurate. I've been trying to learn my first non-folk song, the ukelized version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, though I think I'm several weeks away from a sharable video.

Only one finished project this week - a lunch box for J. I still can't sew straight, but it didn't really matter for this project.

Almost finished that sock I started last month, in fact I would have finished it at the time of this writing, had I not realized sooner that I went about an inch and a half past the point where I needed to do the toe decreases.

And the last bit of news, twice this week I made baked tortilla samosas.
The original idea for tortilla samosas came from a guest on a fun British cooking show called Hairy Bikers. I made these using a combination of these two recipes.

Organic

We had beautiful weather this weekend. Cold, of course, but sharp and clear and lovely.

Perfect weather to finally visit the Edinburgh Farmers Market. It was actually bigger than I thought it would be, though different from outdoor markets that I'm used too - a large portion of stalls being meat-related. Game, venison, boar. And although I'm cooking meat in my new cooking class (today's meat was bacon), I'm still not ready to buy from a specialist meat monger.

For the complete opposite reason (knowing I'd go buying crazy) I also wouldn't let myself get close to the cheese stall. We did however buy a few veggies.

I love photographs of plants.

I like photographs of architecture too, but even the interestingly-shaped, non boxy type of building and monuments don't look as ...

organic as a cabbage.

Plus, you could spend a long time taking pictures of a Gothic Revival church, but you can't take it home and cook it. And I'm a fan of practicalities.

Drawing, lace, and and a weird looking thing

Happy Friday!

No classes today, so I spent a good chunk of the day crafting (it helped that I didn't turn the computer on until 2pm). The first thing I did today was make a cell phone caddy. Basically I wanted to make something that would give a little padding between the phone and the floor in case the wake-up alarm wakes up the neighbors.

It's one of the least attractive things I've made in a while. But, at least I have a few excuses.

1. I haven't done Tunisian Crochet in about two years 2. I didn't have instructions on how to do Tunisian Crochet in front of me, hence not realizing that there's a huge bias until half way done 3. I was making up the pattern as I was going along 4. I started making it about a half hour after I woke up and 5. It wasn't meant to be perfect.

That said I've made my peace with the caddy (mostly).

I also finished my first bobbing lace.

Not too bad I think.

Yesterday was my first ever drawing class. The teacher is really great, and makes sincere positive comments on the drawings. How do I know they're sincere? Because he made no comments on my first 3 drawings : )

I had expected to be taking the class with others who hadn't taken a drawing lesson before but at least three of the eight students had taken another drawing class together. I've since realized that that's a really good thing for me, since I can't realistically compare my drawings with theirs.

It wasn't until the teacher wanted us to draw with out non-dominant hand (in my case my left hand) that I made something that I considered better than what a four year old could draw.

And my next picture (back to right hand):

Ok, so they aren't that great. Or even good for that matter. But believe me, these are way better than anything I've drawn before.

It Burns!

Yesterday was Burns Night. We celebrated by eating some piping hot (it burns ...) vegetarian haggis, which was very good, and reciting, and listening to, some of Burns' poetry in the comfort our home.



Yesterday was also the first session of a cooking class I'm taking, and also the first time I've cooked chicken in my adult life. It was a very informal class, essentially a bunch of people in front of stoves making the "same" dish. Yesterday's dish was a fruity-lentil- chicken curry. I think the teacher felt a little sorry for me when I told her it was the first time I've cooked chicken, and didn't seem to believe me when I said I thought it was good for me to learn ...

And, today was the first session of my Intermediate Spanish class. I was by far, as in by at least 20 years, the youngest student there. As in yesterday's cooking class most of the students were regulars, apparently taking the same class over and over again. Thankfully there was one student who seemed to know less Spanish than me (Phew)!

New Hobby! ... when I get to it

Today I went to a store called Bits and Bobs, which is a charity that recycles craft materials. Most of their stock is donated from companies, but it looks like a lot of it could come from estate sales too (lots of very random old things). J and I were pondering over the fabrics for a while because we'd like to cover our ugly old sofa but we couldn't decide on anything, and then suddenly I found this:

I am really excited. I've wanted to learn bobbin lace ever since I saw a woman demonstrate it at the LA county fair five or so years ago.

I also went to K1 Yarns, a LYS in the city centre's old town and bought a replacement set of DPs (I broke my second #0 needle yesterday). The yarns were nice, though on the expensive side, or maybe I just gravitated to the expensive stuff? They had lots of Manos del Uruguay and some yarn from British sheeps that I'll definitely go back for one of these days. They also sold cups of tea! How British.

And a part of a sock

I've spent a lot of time this week "cramming" for the first meeting of the intermediate Spanish class that's taking place next week. I took four years of Spanish in high school, and have been told many times that I have a great accent and it sounds like what I'm saying in Spanish should make sense, so I really, really don't want to take a beginner's class. Only I can't actually remember how to say anything but the basics, so I've been looking at learn-to-speak-Spanish videos on YouTube and tomorrow will be going to the library to see what I can find there in the hopes that I can pass for intermediate when next week comes around.

My ukulele skills are getting very slowly better, though I'm not actually at the point yet where I've tried to learn a song.

So between Spanish, ukulele, watching the hummingbird in Orange County, and making interesting dinners like grilled goat cheese on toasted pieces of french bread on salad I've managed to make a little progress on the sock.

Tah Dah. I'm still surprised at how impressive self-striping yarn looks.

Wheel and Heel

Today I willingly left the warm flat and sat on a bus for half an hour to sit with a bunch of strangers.

Weird, eh.

But this wasn't just any bunch of strangers, this was a guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers, and I went because I really wanted to learn to use a spinning wheel. My reluctant teacher ended up being someone, a Canadian funny enough, who was new to the guild and I think mainly came to socialize but somehow got stuck teaching me instead. I felt kind of bad, but after giving her several attempts to back out of someone else's nomination that she teach me, I resigned us both to our fates. I did end up getting the hang of it, after what felt like a long while, I'm just really glad I knew how to drop spindle first or I might have gotten discouraged. After more or less getting the hang of spinning and giving the wheel back to its owner : ) and, while asking a lot of questions from a very helpful and friendly spinner sitting next to me, I started on this:

It's a Jaywalker in self-striping Sockotta, one of the many old yarn store yarns which I purchased from dad when I went back home because all the leftover yarns were being stored in my room and the tubs of yarn were the last things I would see before going to bed. I tried to ignore them, but at the last moment they somehow ended up in my suitcase.

What, unlimited usage?

After nearly two years of crappy, unreliable, capped mobile broadband we finally were able to get home broadband! I am sooo happy. Now I can download the Bible on LibraVox, watch the season of Lost that I missed, and post pictures of Edinburgh without getting frustrated!











And two more pictures:

This is my bathtub. The black inky stuff is what came out of my shower moments after the shower started to make weird noises, and seconds after I instinctively turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub. I've left a message on the fix-it guy's mobile ....

Here's Max's socks, which I didn't end up finishing while I was in LA - I had chosen to hang out with the siblings instead.

They look oddly misshapen, but I'm pretty sure they fit him as I had him try them on many times while I was making them. I still have to send them though ...

Letting it snow

I now have a monthly bus pass!! Yay mobility.

It's still snowing, will be for a while I think, but today wasn't as cold or snowy as in past days. I went to look for my first pair of adult non-wellie boots today. And looked is an understatement. More like I searched for hours and hours. But I didn't find any that fit, looked good, and did not have a big heel. I'm looking for boots so that I won't slip on the ice and snow, not for boots that will make me trip.

Land of snow

I'm in Edinburgh!

When I left LA on the 5th the temperature was in the mid-60s F, when I landed in London on the 6th it was +1 C and snowing.

Today, it's -2 C.

I'm not very far into the unpacking. So far I've managed to unpack the toothbrush, ukulele, yarn, and dirty clothes. In other words, the essentials.

Happy 2010!

2010 is off to a nice start. Knitted with friends twice, went bike riding with mom, and it's been nice and warm here. I hear it's been snowing in Newcastle but I'm not even bothering wondering what the weather will be like in Edinburgh. Max's socks are nearly done, I just have the leg of one to do. I'm pretty sure I can manage to pack and knit the rest of the sock tomorrow. If not, well, my flight doesn't leave until Tuesday afternoon, so I'll have some time to pack Tuesday morning...

Happy New Years Eve!

Another year, very nearly gone. It wasn't my favorite year, I have to say, but I'm very much looking forward to next year in Scotland.

At least this year ended with two nice things: a trip to Disneyland, and a friend really liking some slippers I knit and felted for her (I'll post pictures of the slippers if I can ever get my camera to work).

Happy New Years Eve, I hope you have a safe and enjoyable night.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you had a lovely Christmas. We had a mixture of old family traditions, and new leanings. We did mostly joint presents this year - focusing on requested items rather than stabs in the dark (mostly correct in past years) and one of my sisters couldn't join us for Christmas. I didn't get any yarn-related items this year, which was kind of strange, but I'm sure I'll more than make up for that during the next coming year.

I only gave one knitted gift this year, which I will post a picture of later on when I'm sure that my friend has received it. I'm also knitting one of my brothers a pair of grey socks from the Gentleman Sock pattern. It's not really a Christmas present (and good thing too since it won't be done for a few days now), just an excuse to knit. I'm knitting them on size 0 needles, and actually nearly broke one of the needles on Christmas day. I knew I knit a little too tight on cables and crossed stitches as my guage always changes dramatically when I do those stitches, but apparently I knit crossed stitches as if I was in a life or death struggle with them. Fortunately we had some glue, so I was able to seal the gigantic splinter that was my needle and continue with the socks.

Home

Well, I'm home.

I've been home for the past couple of days with a bad case of jetlag (dead tired by six, ready to get up and knit by 3am). On the plane I watched District 9 and Julie and Julia, a strange combination, did gauge swatches on size 15, 13, 11, and finally got gauge on a 10.5 for for a pair of French Pressed Slippers for a friend, and managed to knit the majority of it the slippers while waiting to be tired enough to fall asleep despite the coughs, snuffling, eating, and other assorted crowded plane noises. Never did fall asleep..

Sadly though, despite my attempts at being a rule-abiding gauge-swatching knitter I've just checked, and my gauge is now off! I'm wondering if I just dreamed about getting gauge...
Or maybe the recirculated air prefelted the wool ...
I'm going to just continue with them though, should be done tonight, and see if they turn out.

No computer, no fun

J brought the computer with her to Edinburgh (she started last week). So I'm writing this from the library. Fortunately I'm not sitting next to someone who smells this time ...
I had a lovely weekend in London this past weekend, we went to a few museums, and ate out a lot. No pictures unfortunately, J forgot her camera and all the batteries for mine are in Edinburgh. London looked much the same as last year though, so you're not missing much.

I have however started the countdown to my Christmas in America - I'll be back home in a week! Yay.

Managed to finish Jessamy's scarf right before she moved to Edinburgh (I'll be joining her soon). It was nice for once to do a quick, mindless project. She wanted a long scarf, so she made two short panels of ribbed stripes, and I made one long one (good public transport project) then I weaved in the never ending ends, grafted the panels together (had to take out the cast on rows for two of the panels, if I were doing it again I would do a provisional) and there you go!

The News

Last week I said I had some news.

Well, it's official. Today J got her contract for her first paid post-graduate job!

And, it's in Edinburgh, my favorite city!

It's a contract job, for ten months, which is a pretty decent chunk of time. I'm moving there in January, after my trip home for Christmas.

And I've heard there's a great yarn store there! Yay!

Girly socks?

What do you think?

I'm going to knit some socks for my brother for Christmas, and I showed him this pattern as an example of cables, and he said he liked the pattern.

Soooo. Do you think it would be too girly if I used this yarn?



It's one of the ones I dyed with black bean.

So far two nice twitter folks said no, one said it wouldn't be "too girly". Hmmm.

Swirly hat

I decided to take a break from the gloves and work on a simple project, the swirly hat. Might not have gotten a great picture of the hat, but at east it's an interesting picture.

Where are all the feminist Romantic Comedies?

J and I watched the movie Wedding Planner last night (nothing else was on) and despite some big news (which I'll share about soon ...) it was all I could think of this morning. Despite the two main characters being together in the end (big surprise), it's not actually a happy ending. The J.Lo character is a nice person, the M.M. character is not.

So instead of trying to go back to sleep this morning, I was analyzing the love interest's faults, which goes as follows (hope you're not going to see the movie as I'm going to spoil it):
1. He's wasteful. He throws out all the MnMs, except the brown ones.
2. Not only does he throw them out, but he throws them on the ground, in technical terms, he litters.
3. When he met the lead character (and nearly kissed her) he was already engaged.
4. He didn't tell his fiance about his near-cheating.
5. He cancelled his wedding on the day of the wedding, and didn't tell any of the guests, which makes him a total coward.

The J.Lo character also has a history of falling for men who cheat on her.

And I'm supposed to be happy that they're together? Noooooo. I am most definitely not happy, I'm actually really bothered about the whole movie. When there's a happy ending, I want some actual happy closure to the movie. Not an ending which leaves me feeling like the main character is going to have her heart broken and an emotional breakdown in just six months. Where's a feminist Romantic Comedies when you need one?

From sock to glove

Way back in September I had started a sock from Cookie A's Sock Innovation book. It's a 37 pattern repeat, but I had been amused by it for the few hours I had managed to actually work on it. It being a sock, I had decided to skip the gauge swatch and just start knitting. Everything was looking good, the two times J tried it on, it fit. And then, the inevitable happened. 5.5 inches from the cuff I handed the sock to her to try it on again ... it was too small.

So, instead of socks, she's getting gloves.

Now, this actually happened two weeks ago, and ever since then I've been trying to figure out how to actually make them into a glove.

I've been ripping out because I've been increasing too much for the thumb or ripping because I've increased too little. And just yesterday, after I took this picture, I tinked at least an inch because my suddenly switching into reverse stockinette for three of the four cables panels on the hand just looked weird.

There's no walking today (gale force winds were predicted today) so I'm hoping to devote some uninterrupted time for the glove today.

Holy Island

No, not I'm talking about England in general.

Yesterday we went to Holy Island, a small island just off of the eastern coast. It's famous for a few things, one being that St. Cuthbert, one of the most celebrated saints in England, lived there. It's also where the Lindisfarne Gospels were written, the island's causeway is only open during certain hours of the day, resulting in the occasional news story about unfortunate people getting stuck in the water after they try to cross at the wrong time, and they manufacture mead (yes, we did buy some).

Here is J and our roommate on our way to the "castle." The castle was built during Henry the blahblahblah's time (ok, so I wasn't paying that much attention) as a fortified building for soldiers (they were worried about attacks from the Scottish at that time). By the 19th century that threat had long past and the castle had fallen into ruin. The owner of the magazine country life bought it and hired an architect to transform it into a home. Now it's open to the public.



In the castle, where cannons once stood. Now there's a bench.

There were lots of photographers and bird watchers on the island. It was surprisingly hard to tell from a distance who has taking a picture and who was just watching for winged creatures.

This is part of the priory, now in ruins.




Mead! I can assure you my hair wasn't messy because I had already started drinking my purchase, but after an otherwise beautiful and sunny day (rare at this time of year) it had gotten a little windy at that point.

This is taken form the bus, on the way back through the causeway. As you can see, just directly next to the road there are puddles. In just a few hours the road would be completely covered with water.