Mr & Mrs

We did it! I'm an honest woman now. Thanks for all your good wishes. We had a lovely day. I finished Cloud, although Josie spent more time wearing it than me. We're off to Rome tomorrow, so I'll give you all more details about the wedding when we get back.

Somebody stop me

Cloud is coming along nicely. I am about one third of the way through ball number three, so hopefully she will we done and ready to block tomorrow. While knitting away last night, I found myself wondering if I would have time to knit Josie a poncho to go with her wedding clothes...

The Long and Winding Road

No pictures yet I'm afraid. We converted to broadband on Friday, but then on Saturday our line was disconnected somewhere under the streets of London. Apparently it can't be fixed until Tuesday, so I am phoneless, emailess and internetless at home. So this is a short at work post - I don't think I can start taking WIPs out at work, take photos of them, load the photos onto the PC and upload them to my blog. I haven't actually checked with my boss, but I think I know what the answer will be.

So, less than a week to go until the wedding! Great time to have no phone, it's not like I would need to speak to caterers, the venue or even friends and family is it? Anyway, I thought this would be a great time to start to try to knit something for me to wear on the big day. So, I thought, what would be the best thing to knit quickly? I know! Why don't I knit something lacy, in a really fine yarn? This strange idea came to me on Friday night, obviously buying the dress had sent my confidence levels soaring into overdrive.

Anyway, I had 3 balls of Rowan KidSilk Haze in my stash. They were originally purchased for Birch, but I did that in Donegal Lambswool 4 ply so I had then earmarked them for Karis, which I love. However, even in my current state, I know that I cannot finish Karis by Saturday, so I got them out and cast on for this. I knitted the scarf version of this about a month ago, used some Mohair Boucle from Touch Yarns that I bought at Ally Pally, so I know the pattern is very easy to follow.

I was right, the pattern was a easy and effective as I remembered. However, KidSilk Haze lasts forever. I have been knitting solidly since Friday evening and have only used 1½ balls - the patterns takes 3 balls to make. I have five evenings left until I get married. But now I'm in too deep, I can't give up. I will finish it. I will also (in those five evenings) buy myself some shoes, buy Josie some shoes, buy myself some jewellery/corsagey type thing to jazz up the dress, go and pay the caterer their deposit, confirm final numbers attending (without access to my email due to problem mentioned above), take Josie for a haircut, make 2 costumes for Sam & Josie's school play, write to the school to let them know that Sam & Josie will be missing next week off school, phone the hotel in Rome to confirm our reservation and airport transfer (will be interesting to do this without phone or email) and of course, do the usual cook dinner, wash clothes, oversee homework, read bedtime stories sort of thing.

All in all, a nice quiet, relaxing week.

I'm so excited

Three comments! You wait a whole week, and then three come along at one. Thanks everyone - it's nice to get feedback, especially from lovely people like yourselves.

I did read them all yesterday and wrote an entry, but then Blogger went down and I lost it all.

I was full of gloom and despair as I hadn't been able to find anything for the wedding, after 5 hours traipsing up and down Oxford Street, around Selfridges etc, all on late night shopping day and in the rain. Fun, fun, fun! I did manage to get an outfit for Sam and some new pyjamas for him too. The pyjamas were pretty essential as he is going to a sleepover tomorrow and the ones he is currently wearing have holes in the knees (yes, I am a bad, slack mother). I popped into Liberty and picked up new 2.5mm dpns and some 4.5mm dpns for Hourglass Sweater. It was a mark of how depressed I was that I didn't even go and join the Rowanettes meeting in the cafe. Sorry girls, if any of you are reading this, I wouldn't have been good company.

Fi asked about the Hourglass Sweater. I don't think it requires an hourglass figure, it's more that it has shaping at the waist, which the book says,'flatters most women's figures'. So there you go. Digital camera is at work at the moment (actually it belongs to work, but I can borrow it sometimes) so I will take a picture on Monday, which will hopefully show the shaping.

Thanks for all your kind words about the wedding. The good news is that I did find a dress today! All that wandering around yesterday, today I went into this shop, which is very near where I do voluntary work on Friday mornings. An hour later, I was walking out with a new dress. I'll keep the details secret for now, but I'm very pleased. It's by no means a traditional wedding dress, but it fits in with the feel of the day, or how I want it to be.

Not much

knitting over the last few days.

Saturday was my Not-Hen-Party. Wedding is now less than 2 weeks away!

The actual meal was fairly sedate, but I managed to stay up very late with my sisters afterwards - putting the world to rights, as you do.

Consequently, on Sunday, I felt - let's just say, delicate. Luckily Toby looked after the children all day. I did get up for lunch, but then retired to bed to watch Pollyanna. Toby, meanwhile, had rented the children some totally unsuitable DVD. But heh, it was my Not-Hen-Party. I will return the favour for him next weekend when it's his Not-Stag-Night. My sister did make guacamole with them, so they had some sort of constructive activity for the day.

I managed to rise from bed Sunday night and finish Josie's 2nd sock and cast on the first of a pair for Sam. I finished the first one Monday evening and am about halfway through the second one. Once that's done, it's on to one of the sock patterns in Lucy Neatby's book for Toby - I fancy trying a short row heel.

Hourglass Sweater has stalled. I think I secretly am wishing for 4.5mm dpns for the sleeves, as I'm not convinced about the Magic Loop method. I am off to Liberty on Thursday night, if I'm not wedding dress shopping (did I mention I don't have anything to wear for my own wedding?), so will try and pick up some there. I also have a strangely bowed 2.5mm dpn - I didn't know bamboos could do that, so will have to get some replacements for them too, if I'm not wedding dress shopping.

OK, so now I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I posted the last entry - including photos, but it doesn't seem to be showing up. Maybe it's just my view? I'm not sure. It's too late at night to worry about it now. It's also Friday which is wine, takeaway and varying standards of comedy programmes on Channel 4 night, so I'll leave it there. Hourglass Sweater is growing - almost time to divide for the yoke. Then I just need to try and work out the magic loop technique, as I haven't got a small enough circular to do the sleeves. Wish me luck.

It's so Surreal

So Tuesday night was knitting night. My knitting group meets in a pub, as do lots of London groups. As pubs go, it's pretty good - not too smokey, nice comfy leather sofas and that bar staff are nice to us. There was a reasonably big group there this time - about 8 of us. For the last couple of months it's just been 4 of us, the 4 that started the group, at each meeting, so it's good to see more people coming along.

So there we all are, knitting away, talking about things, then Helen decides to take some photos to record the event. Then, suddenly a man sidles up and asks if he can take a photo of us too - 'why?' we ask. His reply, 'It's so surreal, to walk into a groovy bar and find a bunch of girls knitting'. Hmmm. The use of the phrase 'groovy bar' about a pub down a side street in Clapham on a Tuesday night was his first mistake. Anyway, he took his photo, we took ours and went our separate ways (he went to a table in the conservatory with his friends).



Here we are looking askance at the man having the 'surreal' experience



So, anyway, back to knitting (just ignore him).

Grrr

Bad day yesterday. The whole afternoon was spent dealing with grumpy 8 year old with Zoo Tycoon issues, namely his wanting to play it and my refusal to let him. Our moods can be summed up by these examples from his spelling homework:

My mum is horrible.
I feel terrible.
It is possible that my mum will become very angry.

He had to go to bed straight after his bath.

I then spent almost 6 hours sewing up a bloody elephant that I had rashly agreed to knit for someone. 6 hours sewing up - this is why I don't knit toys. The last toy I knitted was a teddy for my younger sister when I was about 10. Not a coincidence I think that this was the last thing I knitted until I was 26 and pregnant? No more toys for me. I was actually paid to knit this toy - but no sum would be enough to knit something that takes 6 hours to sew up. My own fault really, I should have said no.

After all that sewing, I did a little knitting while watching the final of The Sopranos, which finished at past midnight (why Channel 4?). I managed to do one more set of increases on the Hourglass Sweater - 14 rounds in total. Only two more to go before I divide for the yoke.

Off to my knitting group tonight. Details are on the Cast Off website if anyone's interested.

Scary...

So I thought I'd dip my toe into the world of blogging. Things didn't start off too well - the first two blogs I tried to set up have locked somewhere in the process, so here's hoping this one goes better. I certainly hope so, as I don't think I can come up with any more names for the thing! The house is, not so much a wool palace, as a wool shack, in need of some serious redecoration (and stash reduction), but that doesn't have the same ring to it does it?
No pictures today, as I don't think I can even start to handle that, but current WIPs are the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, which I'm knitting in Rowan Felted Tweed which I've had sitting in my stash for the last 2 years, just waiting for the right project. It's the first sweater I've knitted in the round, so I'll be interested to see how it goes. I'm using my new rosewood circulars from Scottish Fibres, which are lovely, better points than my bamboos and very smooth joins.
Bus/tube knitting is socks - almost always is. Current ones are just in a basic sock pattern from The Purl Stitch. I recently bought Lucy Neatby's book (I know it's been out for ages), so I think I will try something a little more interesting for the next pair.
Am also knitting the 'Elegant Gauntlets', again from The Purl Stitch. I am using some Koigu that I got from getknitted.com a while ago. I really like them, although husband thinks they, 'look like some Victorian thing'. I finished one this weekend - cast it on Friday night and finished it Saturday night. Hopefully I will get the other one done by tomorrow.
So that's it peeps. Welcome to my wild and crazy world!