Hello!

Anniversary

It's my wedding anniversary.

And I do love him lots.

n

Veg Box Fun

When the Veg Box Man brings you this...

Do you weep?

No, you get out the dyepots and you make these...

And then, after a culinary session Gordon Ramsay himself would be proud of, you make these...

Cabbage Roses.

Flippin' Fantastic! (sorry, couldn't resist)

Designed for lace spinners, or for anyone who would like a heathery yarn.
This is part of a new design of fibre styles, and will be called the Erica range... erica being the latin for the heather family of plants.

n

(BFL superwash, since you asked!)

Update

Thank you for all the good wishes for himself. The ankle was a little better yesterday. Still swollen and bruised, but improving. However it is sore again this morning and it is supposed to be travelling to Orkney tomorrow ... we shall see.

This is for Jane from Manitoulin Island in Northern Ontario, Canada. (How exciting to be visited from such a wonderful sounding place).

If you search on You Tube for Carol Beer you'll find she is rather famous for saying "No".

Harrogate was fun, despite the inauspicious start. If I had gone expecting yarn, yarn and more yarn then I would have been disappointed. There was a stand selling the infamous "wider shoes for mature ladies" and another selling some amazing sook-up-spilled-liquid-absorbent-mat stuff as is to be expected at all such shows (apart from the iKnit extravaganza). However the rest of the show was a riot of colour and texture for anyone with a tendency towards fibre-fetish-ness.

I collected some new laceweight to try.
I may have found a couple of new Scottish yarns.
And I learned to knit continental.
I am so ridiculously delighted by this last achievement that I am searching around for a project to knit which will give me lots of practice.
I'm wondering about a Pi Shawl.
In Caber. Excellent yardage. Nice heathery look. Drapey fabric.

I could dye some up in semi-solid colours or very subtle adventure shades.
Heck - I might even do a special offer.
The two skein Pi shawl. Or three?
What do you think?

The Mitts are coming along, BTW, It's just taking longer than we thought ...

n

Carol is alive and well.

The weekend was interesting.

It was trying to snow as I left the house so I had my fleecy hat and gloves on, but the bus was on time and the journey into Edinburgh was uneventful, and I arrived at Waverley in plenty of time.
The fact that is was uneventful is significant as it was the last thing which went according to plan.
I bought my sushi from M&S and added a smoothie for dessert. Sushi is my personal treat when I travel by train. Much nicer than sandwiches.
I consulted my ticket. Coach E, seat 63, and wandered down to the appropriate bit of the platform. It beats me why the platforms aren't marked with the carriage numbers so you know where to stand. It seems as though every other country in the world does this, but not here. Oh well.
I waited. It was too cold to knit on the platform, so I just people-watched.
The train arrived.
Coach A
Coach B
Coach C
Coach D
Coach F
Coach G

ABCDFG.

There was a sizeable gaggle of confused travellers on the platform looking at each other.
We got on the train so that it wouldn't leave without us. Definitely no coach E.
Each coach takes about a hundred people and the train had started in Aberdeen, so although there weren't a hundred of us looking for a seat from Edinburgh, there were quite a few of us. I grabbed a seat vacated by someone travelling from Leuchars to Edinburgh and sat down. I had wanted to be forward-facing, next to the window and in the Quiet Carriage. I was, you can guess, rearward facing in an aisle seat next to bleeping cellphones.
I reached for my knitting, as you would under these circumstances.
There was no announcement, just a fairly terse instruction that the train was fully booked and not to be used unless you had a ticket for THAT train.
The guard came to check the tickets. He said nothing about me being in the wrong carriage, nor about the complete absence of E.
So, I asked.
I was astonished to discover that Carol Beer from Little Britain - "the computer says no" - is alive and well, and working for National Express. Carol was now a man, but you get the idea.
Carol - "There isn't one".
I phrased my question a bit differently.
Carol - "There hasn't been one since Aberdeen."
I asked what about the seats from Newcastle (my seat was booked by someone else from Newcastle to York).
Carol - There isn't a coach E from Newcastle.
I gave up.

I opened my sushi box.
No chopsticks or fork.

The tea trolley arrived.
You will know that I was, by this time on Friday, suffering from severe tea deprivation, having run out of teabags on Wednesday.
"A cup of tea please" I said, and smiled at the gentleman with the trolley.
He morphed into Carol.
Carol - "No hot water".
And walked off!!!
I called him back... "excuse me, will there be tea later?"
Carol - "No. No hot water."

At Newcastle I swapped seats to a vacant Newcastle to York seat. I was lucky. A number of people were standing.

At York I changed trains and got on the local service to Harrogate. No problems on that train. It was obvious that the things-happening-in-threes curse was over.

Met Gavin.
Got to hotel room.
Knitted.

Gavin was in Harrogate for a Conference and was going to the Conference Party that evening (not the Knitting Show party, there wasn't one of those, sadly). I decided that I'd eat at the hotel in my room, but I wanted to stretch my legs (and save the £3 room service delivery charge) so I walked down to the bar to order my supper.
The bar was cold, devoid of customers and not somewhere you would want to eat by yourself.
I ordered and said that I would take the food to my room.
There were four bar staff.
I was immediately faced with not one, but four Carols.
Carols - "We can't do that".
I thought they meant that there was no food.
But no, there was food. I wasn't allowed to take it to my room.
I could eat it by myself in the barn of a bar or they could deliver it (and charge me £3).
I said I would take it up... I was standing there in front of them after all.
Carols - "You can't do that".

I went to reception and asked if this was correct. No it wasn't and of course I could take my food up myself. The receptionist came back to the bar with me.
The Carols were immovable.
At this point, tea-less (apart from a tiny hotel-room cup on arrival made with that disgusting mini-milk stuff they have), and tired, I snapped.
Me - "Frankly, I would rather starve than have you deliver it to me, so you can keep your food."
I walked off.
I haven't been quite so cross since I dealt with Parcel Force.
With hindsight I should have ordered, sat in the bar, and when the food arrived, picked up the plate and said "Ner, ner ne ner ner". And walked out with it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

We only had one room key so we had an arrangment that Gavin would phone me when he was about to get in the lift and I'd get up and open the door. It sounds convoluted but I was happy with it. (I had kept the key so that I could go and buy my supper in the bar and carry it back upstairs, you see.)

The phone rang at 01.30... no problem. I opened the door. He came in.
"Nat (he's one of the very very few people who call me Nat)... we may have a problem."
"What's up?"
"Well I was dancing and I went over on my ankle and I think I've hurt it".
Sure enough, his right ankle looked as though there was half a satsuma stuck on the side of it. I ran a bath of cold water so he could stand in it, working on the RICE principle. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. I offered to get ice from the Carols in the bar but he refused.
Now you have to understand that Gavin doesn't drink at work events.
I asked him when it happened.
"At about half-past mumble mumble."
"Sorry?"
"Half past mumble mumble."
"I didn't catch that."
"Half past nine."
Silence from me.
"Would no-one bring you back?"
"It was fine, I felt it pop so I just rested it for a bit."
"Pop?".... "A bit?"
"Well it seemed OK after a while so I just did some more dancing."
Gavin's dancing style is, shall we say, energetic.

In the morning the satsuma was still there.
We went to casualty.
They said the wait time was four hours.
Gavin insisted I go to the Knitting Show. I waited for a bit, but there were two crash-calls and we figured it was quite likely to be four hours. This is exactly right and proper and there were no complaints from us.
It was x-rayed. He could walk on it so we didn't think it was fractured.
It wasn't fractured.
No treatment.
NO TREATMENT.

RICE is no more... or at least it's now C-less. No Compression. No bandage or tubigrip.

I went to the Show.

I had a lovely time.

THE END.

Maybe...

this is what my girls need.

The pattern's not on ravelry yet though...

n

Bearhunt?

Don't ask me why, but that's what popped into my head when I dyed this.

And yes, there's only one of it.

All the yarns tonight are Adventure yarns.

n

Emergency!!!

No. Tea. Bags.

n

Best laid plans...

Blame the wind.
Too much to put anything outside to dry, so although some of the yarn is ready for the shop, I'd prefer to wait until there is more for you.

In the meantime, here's a little taster.

I have brand new Adventurous lace yarn!

Not convinced?

Abracadabra!

and

And for the purple fans we have...

rewound, it looks like this.

Now, as you know I can't rewind all yarn, each one of these took 15 minutes to do, so it's not possible to do it for all yarns, but I thought I'd give you a rare treat in lieu of the Update this evening.

There are two skeins of the woody one and four of the purple one. The skeins I send won't be rewound, but I just thought you'd like a glimpse of it all-glammed up!

n

Camera batts are flat!

So no photos until later I'm afraid.

I have been dyeing and packing flat out for a few days and of course the packing always takes longer than I expect so there won't be a HUGE update tonight, but there will be a few choice morsels.

I do have a few new ideas for you though, and if they aren't in the shop tonight, they will be very soon. I've cleared the decks and it will be dye dye dye all next week.

90% chance of snow in Scotland this weekend and 80% in the east of England... good job I'm going to Harrogate on the train!

Back later...

n

Bits and pieces

• Fibre Club is going in the post this morning. It is quite different from anything I have sent before.
• If you peel a banana from the bottom up rather than from the top down, you don't get any of those stringy bits.
• My chickens have now been not-laying for six weeks. Harumph.
• There will be a shop update tomorrow. I will add photos to the blog throughout the day, expect lots of glimpses of new stuff.
• Beware exploding knitting needles.
• The Mitt-A-Long design is progressing. It will begin with a long tail cast on like this. If you've never used this before, you need to learn it! The pattern will be available in more-or-less weekly downloads from the website. You will need 2mm dpns (or circs).
• The squirrels are digging up the bulbs in my mum's window boxes. She is coming to borrow chicken mesh today to foil the little horrors.
• I made spicy parsnip soup... so that's what I'm having for lunch.

Bye for now.
Lots of mini blogging over the next two days...

n