Feeling optimistic

I am feeling optimistic that our knitting group can forge ahead, reinvigorated and ready to enjoy one another's company as well as our knitting.

To demonstrate this I will leave you with a picture of two polar bears snugging.

The photographer was Lisa Vogt. x K

*There's no point in dwelling on the past but our knitting group has been through a tough week or so. A line has been drawn under these events and the remaining members are energized and looking forward to a period of calm, democracy, fun and knitting.

Birthday Flowers

Here are some of the highlights of my birthday bouquet (36, eek!) arranged in my "Flower Magic" set I got at the Hobbycrafts show at the SECC a couple of years ago. Didn't do much for the birthday this year as it was also Ash Wednesday, but did feast my eyes on my lovely roses and stem carnations. :-)

Recycling

Can you believe it is the 23rd of February and I am finally presenting you my first finished object of 2007?
I think my first one in 2006 was ten minutes after the bells or something.

Anyway, this is another version of the Frothy scarf I knitted in December. If you remember this pattern was part of a renewal gift from Rowan International a while back.

The yarn is Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora, like the Froth scarf I made and sent to Louisiana for Christmas. So I've recycled the pattern and revisited the yarn I used before. The only different is this time I have edged it in a a self colour which has been added to the range. Angora Pure shade#6

I bought these lovely yarns at Stitching Time, Hamilton.
BTW have you checked out Nan's blog yet? Nagged2k
(Nagged to knit) on the sidebar.

Nice and long at around 2m!! I enjoyed knitting this but of it was inevitably tedious doing the ruffle, but I made it and I'm pleased with it.

French for Dummies lesson #450

Okay, so we can't find the camera. It's not lost it's just "misplaced" in our home, but you all know what the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame cathedral look like anyway, don't you?
If you can't wait there's always Google Images in the meantime.


You don't really want to know about the beautiful sites we visited anyway, do you? You want to know if I BOUGHT STUFF, don't you? Well, yes I did buy stuff.


But firstly, I learned stuff too.
I learned that mache with a circumflex is lambs lettuce and the word for sea bass.
When my credit card wasn't cooperating in the chip and pin machine I learned to tell the assistant Il faut la passer a la piste with a grave on the a. (You'll have to swipe it.)
I was delighted to learn that France no longer has any unemployed people, hourah!!! ;-)
Only demandeurs d'emploi (job seekers)

And I learned that Alpaca is alpaga.

I bought four lovely skeins of it in le Bonmarche on the rue du Bac and rue de Babylone corner.
Plassard 100% Alpaga des Andes
4ply weight? Size 3mm needles anyway.
180m per 50g ball.
I feel some lace coming on!

I did also buy some other very unusual yarn which I haven't seen at home but it's earmarked for a gift, so I can't say too much yet.

You may also notice the scarf lengths in two colours of crushed velvet in the top picture. They were bought in the Droguerie concession within the same store. Must get the sewing machine out and rustle up a posh scarf for myself. I can see a beaded edging of some sort in my mind's eye.

In the Droguerie section I also bought a corsage making kit. It was so lovely to buy from helpful, knowledgeable staff.

Off to resume the search for the camera. I may be gone some time! x K

Something is wrong with this picture...

Either I had too many cocktails (quite feasible) or my photography skills need brushed up.

Only have mobile phone pix at the mo'.

Hope to give you better ones soon, along with an update.

Suffice it to say -sights were visited, croissants were eaten, wine was drunk, stairs were climbed, rivers were sailed, Valentine kisses were exchanged, yarn was bought - was a great trip.

Now we have a decent camera we DID take some pictures of the sights, hope to get a chance to show you some in the next few days.

Safely home at least. Thanks for the good wishes, K x

Romance is not dead

See you in a few days' time!

Happy knitting x K

Dragged through the mire

I know I told you I wasn't looking forward to doing yards of rib on this little number, but I'm sure you'll agree that's no reason to start dragging it through the mud at the municipal dump!

I know this isn't the clearest picture ever, but if you get the idea that there's this knitting and it's caked in dirt then you're pretty much up to speed.

This is what happens when you unwittingly let your yarn and knitting get tangled around your legs as you step out of the car to help unload packing materials into a skip. The man was shouting at me "Haw hen" ("Excuse me, my dear") "yer trailin yer knittin".

Not pretty and is delaying the sewing up operation even further. (I have to join the raglans before I do the famous rib.)

I blame our new car. Well, it can't have been my fault, can it?

Vast plains of rib

Colours are for fun, not links.


I have completed the back of this jacket in Twilley's Freedom Spirit yarn.
I have whizzed through left front.
I have successfully reversed the shapings for right front.
I have survived two and a half long weeks of not just Sleeve Island, but its more remote and more desolate counterpart Raglan Sleeve Island.
And now I have to face the biggest challenge yet- the acres of tundra known as the Vast Plains of Rib. And I do mean vast. Pick up and knit 650 odd stitches and do short row shaping on 3mm. Sounds like a great laugh.
Don't hold your breath waiting for this one to be finished!