Books

Specifically, sock knitting books.

I haven't got a photograph of them at the moment, but I can tell you that I went a little bit nuts last month and slowly acquired a fair set of sock-knitting books.

I'll get a photo of them for you this week, but it's enough to say that I'll have plenty to keep myself busy with for a good while.

I've also been thinking lately that I may store away some of my knitting books, and even my writing books, in favour of going up into the attic and bringing back down a bunch of my film studies books. This is all because in the last couple of months I have properly devoured the recent issues of Empire that have come out, and because I scored a couple of film books when a branch of Borders was having a sale.

Some of the old wheels have started turning, and I think I ought to see to them. Plus, it's an excuse to watch more films again.

Thursdays

Yes, I know it's actually Monday. But hear me out. Because this is also about Mondays.

For what feels like forever now - in reality, maybe since the beginning of the year - Thursday nights have been my knit night. I go to work, I finish work, and eventually I would leave work and weave my merry way to Alice's where I would sit and knit with friends, chatting and eating and drinking, knowing that knitting at that moment was different to knitting at work.

Since the merger though, that has changed, and now the Thursday night knit nights are over at where I work. And somehow, that has never felt quite right.

I liked being able to leave one idea of knitting behind to engage in a different one. I liked moving my social aspect away from my work aspect. And I deeply sympathize with Alice now, after so long of having things that way, when your social group comes to your workplace to relax, and you don't really get to go anywhere.

I mean, it's nice that I don't have to worry about walking or buses or rush myself, and it's nice that my commute doesn't change - it only moves back a few hours - but it's still not quite right. I like being able to switch off. And I've found that I can't.

And then along came Arianna, who wanted to start a fortnightly roving knit night in North London. It was still a lot of the usual Thursday night group, and several others who can't make it down to South London for social knitting. So a day was picked - Monday - and venues were picked.

And I love them. I love these Monday nights when it's all back to the way it was for me. Good company, good knitting, good food, and work a very long way away from me. I am so happy to have the social aspect back in my knitting, no longer weighed down by the work aspect. I am switched off, joyous and giddy as a ferret in a tutu.

So thank you, Monday knit night people. You all know who you are.

Twilight

No, not the books, or the film. None of those wastes of paper and time.

I am talking fibre. And spinning.

Spunky Eclectic Fibre Club for January '09, Twilight, in Organic Merino

Beingthe daft thing that I am, I failed to photograph the fibre prior to spinning. Being the daft but somewhat generous thing that I am, I didn't have the full 4 oz. of the fibre because when Chantelle came to visit once and her Bosworth spindle had arrived, I tore out some of the fibre and said, "Here you go; have a play."

At least she did thoroughly enjoy herself.

While the organic merino was very nice indeed, I wasn't crazy about the colours. At least, I knew I wouldn't like them in a plied yarn. So I opted for low-twist singles, just so I can practice doing them for when I plan on doing laceweight singles. And I'm certainly much happier with the results.

At 13 wpi, its nearly a fingering weight, so I am very pleased indeed.

172 yards, 98g, 13 wpi. Spun on my Rose at 1:4.25.

Raaaar!

I am a manta ray!

See, it even has eyes.

Yes, I'm still knitting this. I know I had it on this blog in... what was it, August? I'm getting there.

It's finally clicked. I'm on row 61 now, just over halfway. 

And you know what? I still have no idea how this thing works.

(It's a Baby Surprise Jacket, by the way).

Warm Things

November rain, being the cold sort of thing that it is, makes you long for warm things. Especially if you've been caught in it, even for a little bit.

I got on a warm train. I got off into a warm station. Only to find that I couldn't do the next leg of my journey home because of a fire at my home station. The one I'm trying to get to.

So I got back out into the rain, misread the bus map, walked in the rain for a bit, found a different bus map that was identical to the first one, realized my mistake, walked back the way I came and went over the road to find the correct bus stop that will get me a bus to take me home.

After standing in the rain - which was still cold - for a bit, I got on a very warm bus.

About 45 minutes later I got off the warm bus - and I have no sympathy for people who refuse to acknowledge that I am trying to get off the bus because they're too busy yapping on their mobile phones to move out of the way when my backpack smashes into them - and into the warm waiting cuddle of my husband.

We got into the warm car - now both of us cold from the November rain - and drove home. Where he then presented me with this:

A shortbread biscuit that looks like an owl, a mug of chocolate Horlicks, and my sock-knitting.

The shortbread was very delicious - just crumbly enough, not too sweet and not too buttery or rich - and the Horlicks very warming indeed.

The sock is the toe from Cat Bordhi's new book, Personal Footprints for Insouciant Sock Knitters.

It's clever, fun stuff. More on that eventually.

*kerthud*

Wow, I am wiped.

But I am here, still keeping up the good fight. I'm not going to fall out after only the fifth day of November, after all.

I am home after a fab knit night with all the old crew back in town, some new people and a few in-between people who are becoming more and more comfortable with the old crew. It's pretty cool watching the knitting group evolve so, knowing that it can only get better with numbers.

And Chinese food has just been delivered to soothe an achy soul: deep fried battered prawns, hot and sour soup, and broccoli and chinese mushrooms in oyster sauce, given my huge craving for veggies today. Rice was steamed at home.

I am now off to tuck in to food and watch Russell Howard. 

Night-night.

It is Time

... to get the big black winter coat out.

It's about four-thirty in the afternoon and there isn't a whole lot of light left. It's been cold since morning. After what little 'heatwave' we had the other week, this morning Nick and I got into the car, and we looked at the car's thermostat.

"The car says it's 5 degrees out there. And you know, for once..." he said.

"I believe it," I finished.

I'll have to go home and find my hat. And my gloves. And when Nathalie gets back I need to ask her how to make the heater in the shop work properly, because I've spent most of this afternoon trying to jockey for a position near a vent that is actually pumping out warm air and it would only work if I could figure out how to sit inside a shelf.

But I don't actually mind the cold. Cold, I can do something about. I can find a duvet and make a hot water bottle. I can turn the heating on. I can put on another jumper. I can get a hot drink. I can get out extra blankets. Right now I am thinking jealously of the log fire up at Nick's parents' house, and how I would happily chop the wood and kindling and haul bags of wood into the house if it meant I could warm up in front of the fire.

This is weather for a long walk that has a pub with hot chips at the end. Good, cold and brisk. Wet only when you're not outside, enough to bring some freshness back into the air.

Now then: where's the snow? My inner four-year-old demands it.

It's Not What It Looks Like

For a small part of my day today, this is what work looked like:

My eeePC, Okami-chan (i.e. 'little great god') on Ravelry, some simple knitting, and the latest issue of Empire.

I can tell you now that a lot of the time this setting does not last long. Today, at least, it didn't last because I got cold and skulked back to the till where there was a fan heater I could blast for a bit, taking my copy of Empire with me.

The important thing about the above setting is that I took the photo with my iPhone. And not begrudgingly. 

I think maybe I am a bit of a camera snob. I don't entirely see why a phone should also be a camera, and if it has to be also a camera, then it would still never be as good as a real camera. So despite having an iPhone, for a while I really resented the camera built into it.

Nick keeps telling me that having a built-in camera is useful on the phone. For example, taking photos of the scene of an accident you might have been involved in. Noting a book title or ISBN number you might want to look up later at home. That sort of thing.

Me, I've been teaching my eyes to 'switch on', to pick out things I wouldn't ordinarily look at and make them interesting. This is all in theory for when I eventually do get off my arse and take my DSLR out and shoot stuff. But I figured it's fair practice.

So sometimes, I have my eyes 'on', and I have no camera.

And I have to say, sometimes, the little iPhone camera really does surprise me.

A burst of tomatoes at Borough Market.

I did very little with this shot when I pulled it out of the camera and onto the computer. And what I realized I liked about the iPhone's camera is, much like using a fixed focal length lens, you are limited to how you compose. You can't zoom in and out; you have to be the one to move. The limitation is what makes you think around corners, makes you move and work out how to make that shot look good. 

So I guess I don't really resent a cameraphone so much anymore. And perhaps it was always silly of me to have done so.

Ill-gotten Gains

Well, okay. Perhaps not so ill-gotten.

It's the first Monday of the month, and therefore the night when we have the yarn-tasting evening for the Yarn of the Month at the shop. This month - well, right up until just before Christmas at least - is The Knitting Goddess, nd I can tell you that Joy is precisely that: a goddess. 

Beyond the fact that she is rather quite the genius with her dyeing - I think I did say to her, "You've made two different shades of white. How? How have you worked this magic?"- she is also a wonderfully kind and charming human being and I spent the loveliest evening with her and all the other evening's participants.

Naturally, yarn came home with me. But that's for another time.

Also, not all of it is for me. So I feel a little bit exonorated. A little bit.

But my bonus for today is that both Nick and our friend Martin - who you may remember was our team leader for the Trailwalker challenge - had interviews this afternoon, and as we don't see Martin very often and he's come all the way from Southampton for his interview, we arranged a quick meet-up at Waterloo station. While waiting for Nick to turn up at the Paul cafe I tucked into my raspberry tart and hot chocolate which he kindly bought me, and he sipped his own hot chocolate.

If you've not had the hot chocolate from Paul before, you should. It's not just hot chocolate. It's molten chocolate. We were pretty sure that if we let it cool down enough it would set and we could eat it with a fork. If you had a mold and you poured this stuff in and popped it into the fridge, you'd have a dessert. It was rich and overindulgent but my God, perfect for a cold day and certainly took the edge off how tired and flustered I was feeling.

So somewhere between the lovely yarn, the fantastic hot chocolate, the raspberry tart, the company of one of my oldest friends and of a great bunch of knitters, I've gained a decent day, and hopefully it'll see me through this week ahead.

NaBloPoMo

... because every year I fail at NaNoWriMo.

November is National Novel Writing Month, though as Natalie rightly says, it should be (Inter)National Novel Writing Month. As she also wonderfully points out, November is National Blog Posting Month, too.

So given that every year I only get so far as a title and an idea for NaNoWriMo, this year I'll do NaBloPoMo.

Largely to make up for my absence here on the blog due to all the other things happening - or for a time, not happening - lately, but also because I quite miss writing on the blog, whether it's related to knitting and spinning or not.

I mean, it shouldn't be hard work. No sort of writing should be hard work because you're meant to enjoy writing. If I can tweet a bit of nonsense nearly every day I can blog something a little more meaningful every day this month. 

So let me start with this:

My one-and-only sister-in-law Lindsay - who I've only recently realized has been the recipient of the most knitted items from me - has now moved to Nottingham for a new job. She's renting a lovely little place in a town outside of the city itself, and the town has a yarn shop. It was Mummy Irish who pointed this out, despite the fact that Lindsay doesn't knit.

She has also recently been told that she has earned a distinction for the Masters degree in Translation. Her apparent response to this was, "I are clever."

Yes, yes, you are, Lindsay. And yes, you are still getting mitts to match your hat for Christmas.