Castaway

I've started making a bit of a dent in my fibre stash, starting with this Romney from Spunky Eclectic that had been sitting on the bobbins for too long. I started spinning this in early July, where at the end of that month I found myself on crutches after spraining - and breaking off a tiny bit of bone - my ankle, so I wasn't allowed to spin for a while.

8 oz. of Romney in Castaway.

In the weeks after the injury I spun every so often, but I finally had enough and over the weekend and yesterday I hammered out the rest and plied the lot.

We're talking about roughly 370 yards of fluffy goodness, 11 wpi.

I gave it a hot-cold-hot bath and then shocked the heck out of it, and then hung it up to dry. It never ceases to satisfy me how all the twists and curls all straighten up after a good setting.

Mmm. Halo-y squishiness.

Showing Who's Boss

I am one of few ambitions in this world. For instance, presently, apart from all the knitting I have lined up, I aspire to have one of my yarn/fibre drawers to be full of leftover balls of sock yarn or handspun. If I wish for it to be the latter, I have to get back to spinning more regularly.

So with great anticipation, this late afternnon I got one of the chairs from the dining table, set up my stereo to play some classical - but skipping over Katherine Jenkins, because she has no idea how to enunciate - and got Gabriel Rose warmed up. I've had one full bobbin of Romney sitting about for ages, awaiting the second full bobbin so that it can be plied.

Now, long ago, about a week before I sprained my ankle and thus rendering me not allowed to spin for a while, my Rose was making an odd noise that had an accompanying 'thud' under my left treadle. The 'thud' was resonant enough that I could feel it. So as I treadled, I would hear a 'click' and feel a 'thud'. Which I guess any other person might have taken as a personality trait developing in the wheel, but me being me, it drove me absolutely bonkers.

Nick and I messed about with treadles, joiners, vaseline and eventually, the Majacraft forum on Ravelry, and we got the noise to stop, but the thudding persisted, though less enthusiastically. I talked to Martin at P&M Woolcraft about it, and he said that I've done all that he could think of to do and if it went on or returned with gusto to contact Majacraft themselves.

All well and good and eventually forgotten about, as I haven't been spinning for a while.

We return to this late afternoon. By about track 8 or so on my CD, the thudding steadily returned. I got up, fiddled around a bit, and spun some more.

The thud was still there. Nowhere near as bad as when it first started all that time ago, but there nonetheless.

I did the one other thing I hadn't tried yet.

I stamped my foot down hard on the left treadle.

The thud hasn't been back since.

Of Disappointments and Decisions

I've had some terrible luck this last week or so with my knitting. It has largely been to do with the Socktopus Sock Club's Fiori di Zucca socks - or in my case, sock - as while I love the yarn and the pattern and the process of knitting such fine but actually simple lace, I've cocked it up too many times now.

Firstly, I cast on at least three times. This is normal for me. But I remember the at one point I made a mistake in the first chart and lost a stitch permanently; no matter how carefully I tinked back - and I tinked, not ripped - I could not regain that missing stitch.

But I persevered, and soon I was working down the leg and making beautiful lacy blossoms. I started to worry a little that the medium size would not accommodate my 16" calves, but they sort of did, which made me feel a little better. I'd considered making the large size leg but the medium foot, but had no idea if it would work, and if I was clever enough to adjust it.

Then came the heel chart, which took a little thinking but I eventually got the idea. Again, I tinked back this chart at least three times before I found myself totally stuck. Something was wrong but I counted up perfectly.

And then I remembered there was an errata. So I'd been knitting the wrong chart all that time. So I tinked back again, started the corrected chart, and it was fine, until I lost a stitch. And like before, no matter how carefully I tinked back, the stitch could not be regained.

I cried, and pouted, and felt very disappointed in myself, but I pulled my needles out, got my ballwinder, and wound the lot back into a ball before I could further exhaust the yarn.

What upset me was not that I completely cocked the sock, but the fact that now I had fallen further behind in finishing the sock club socks. I've so far only completed two pairs out of five - though I did cast on the Hopscotch socks for August and they're still on the needles - and I certainly won't be able to complete all six before the end of the year, which means I won't earn all my badges.

But then, I thought, they're badges. There's a really cool idea and having seen them, they look really cool, too, but I don't know if they're worth this much aggravation. I don't know if they're worth taking to heart people's comments about how they've zoomed along and caught up and are well on their way to earning badges. I had to remember that I knit because I enjoy it, not for some thrill of some race to glory.

I mean, if I wanted that, I'd take up Formula One.

So I've decided that I will knit up these beautiful socks someday, but not today, not while I still think they don't like me. And maybe I'll try and earn badges during next year's sock club, but for now I am going to enjoy my knitting. Life is too short for competing in knitting.

Having made that decision, I figured I may as well start on one of the two Christmas presents I need to make.

This is the faint beginnings of the world-renowned Clapotis, by Kate Gilbert. I'm making it for Nick's paternal grandmother, who we call Nana. Nana is, if I remember correctly, 83, and really doesn't seem to think she is. She wears bright colours, is very cheerful, walks everywhere and still drives herself, and as I like to tell people, she's still all original parts. So I think she would like a lovely bright and rich-coloured shawl-scarf for Christmas. 

And this is for me:

We were looking through some of the colours of Dream in Color Classy recently and I fell in love with one colour which I thought would make a lovely pullover for myself. But after some consultation, we came to the conclusion that while the pattern would look great on me, the colour I chose would look a little sad. So we threw some colours around and arrived at this one:

This is an odd dyelot of Deep Seaflower. Yeah, I know. Crazy, huh?

I'm not normally a blue person, as a lot of blues make my skin look sallow, but this jewel-toned blue somehow pulls out the warmer tones of my skin, and it's unlikely that this odd dyelot would come around again - for Dream in Color enthusiasts, it's like Blue Lagoon, only less green, rather than like Deep Seaflower itself, which tends to be deeper and more purpley - so I went for it.

I've been doing the usual reading around - for instance, I'm going to do a knitted hem to make it look neater; I'm not a fan of the rolled edges on the bottom edge and sleeves - and I'm hoping to cast on once I finish the Clapotis.

Knitting should be about enjoying myself, and dammit, that's just what I'm going to do. Oh, and the sudden turn in the weather helps with such decisions, too.

A Royal Day Out

On Saturday, after Nick picked me up from my first day school with the Open University, he asked me if we wanted to do anything on Sunday. I asked if we could go somewhere. He said it would be a plan. I asked if we could go to Virginia Water and see the gardens there, given that the autumn weather had been spectacular all week.

He said yes.

So Sunday lunchtime we found ourselves at The Royal Landscape, having lunch in the Savill Building. After we'd eaten - and shared one of the nicest creamy cakes ever - we went past the turnstiles and into the Savill Garden proper.

Usually, when we decide to do day outs like this, I worry about bringing my camera. I always worry that if I have my camera with me, I wouldn't enjoy the actual trip; it would be more like work than play. This time was different: I needed to distract myself with something more than just a lovely amble in a beautiful place in the glorious weather. So I brought out the big boy - my Canon 40D - and got to work.

And I had a fantastic time.

It took me a little while to warm up, but slowly I got the hang of using the manual focus rather than the autofocus, and coming to grips with what all the number on my display meant. I am really digging digital photography technology because I'm not sure I would have got my head around shutter speeds and aperture values if I'd tried to learn it with film photography. With digital the numbers inform me early on and store them for my reference, and I can adjust my shots as necessary.

So here's eight of the 14 shots that I have chosen from this day out, all having gone through post-production. Some needed more, some needed less. At the end of the day I had 22 shots that I was happy with, but I'm sure I had taken at least 60 before I whittled it down to the best lot.

If you click on any one of these photos you'll be taken to a larger version of it, so you can see more detail.

Let's go by theme. There's water:

This pretty little waterfall was part of the ponds in the Savill Garden.

Prior to this shot, I'd been trying to get a different sort of photograph over where a pretty mallard duck was, which resulted in the sentence, "This might work, considering where I'm putting the duck."

Just so you know, 'this' didn't work. Hence, no pictures of ducks.

The Cascade

We did eventually leave the Savill Garden and began our walk around Virginia Water itself. Because the whole place was pretty massive we decided we'd aim to get to the Cascade - a man-made waterfall - before we'd turn back and head towards the car park again.

What was great about Virginia Water was that there were dogs everywhere. So many kinds of dogs were out and about, and best of all, they were all allowed to play in the water. The number of labs and retrievers going headlong into the water to retrieve balls and frisbees was enough to tickle me all day and forced Nick into listening to me go, "When can we have a dog?" for the rest of the afternoon. And evening.

Next theme: trees.

Autumn sunlight does amazing things to colours and shadows. And autumn leaves! Aren't autumn leaves crazy gorgeous?

I am rather proud of this shot. I decided that if I am going to do well when the time comes for me to start my digital photography course next summer, I need to do better than a visitor's snapshot. I need to really start to think about how to pick out things and pick up details. The lattice-like pattern on this tree trunk is exactly that.

Next up: plants!

These were in the summer garden in the Savill Garden. I probably should have taken note of what they were; all I remember was seeing them and going, "Ooh, hang on; they're cool!"

I think I got the effect I wanted, which was to have the background blooms sharp and everything else out of focus. There were several attempts before getting this shot, including one where I had the shutter speed too slow and I nearly blinded myself with how bright the image was.

What I wouldn't give for a macro lens. I think I would have so much fun with macro photography.

This next one is my very favourite. I am not one to be really proud of myself, but after I got this shot, I could only think one thing:

"Fucking hell, I'm brilliant."

Finally, architecture:

This shot involved me 'accidentally' finding a large gap in a gigantic hedge and finding a whole world underneath. It was amazing. And there in the dakrness the sun poked through just to illuminate this delicate spiderweb. Spiders are such clever architects.

But then again, so are we:

The ceiling of the Savill Building

I have six more images to put through post-production, but these were, in my opinion, the best ones, and I am very happy with them. I hope you like them as much as I do.

But do go visit this place. It's fantastic. Especially visit if you have a dog. I would have taken pictures of the few dogs I saw playing in the water but I wasn't sure if their owners would have been happy about it. Anyway, yes: go visit.

All images belong to me and should not be used without my permission.

Coming Unravelled

It's terribly unlike me to wait this long before updating the blog, but here I am.

We more or less survived our trip back to Kuala Lumpur. We both got told we needed to lose weight, and then proceeded to be told to eat. We caught up on my huge extended family, did lots of visiting, brought back goodies for people back in London and rode the Airbus A380 home. In fact, the one in the photo on that link is very likely the one we were on.

The suitcases only got put away last night, so I've been slacking, but otherwise we're all back to normal. Apart from my self-esteem, that is. But Nick had taken steps to help with this, what with getting us tickets to Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall next week, which given my now almost blinding love and curiosity for classical music seems like perfect timing. I am very much looking forward to this and immediately cheered up when I remembered that we were going.

Over the course of the stay in Kuala Lumpur I devoured almost all of Classical Music for Dummies while listening to its accompanying CD, and I am incredibly happy with how much I've learned. The music becomes so much better, so much more interesting once I had some context to it all. I am more drawn to Beethoven's 5th - though let's face it, that's not hard - now that I know that his deafness was already plaguing him then, and yet he still composed four more symphonies thereafter. I love the thought of 'Papa Haydn' mentoring other great composers. I love trying to figure out how Bach played the organ, and let me tell you, once I understood what a fugue was, I was thrilled to bits when I found where it was in Vanessa Mae's rendition of his Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor.

Though, shame on the Dummies series: not a mention of Elgar. Not one. Honestly. How could they leave him out?

So I have somewhat unravelled some of the mysteries of classical music. Here's more unravelling:

A Conjoined Creations Flat Feet sock yarn sheet. 

Stash started stocking these last week, and my curiosity got the better of me (see how often it gets me into all sorts of trouble?) so I picked one and started knitting. It's pretty cool, and it has made me stop looking longingly at sites selling Trekking XXL yarn because this stuff is very similar to that, except flat.

It's striping very nicely, and plus you can be pretty sure it's not going to pool!

The sock is a bog-standard Judy's Magic Cast On on Magic Loop and will have a short row heel. The only reason I didn't do a short row toe was that I didn't have any waste yarn on hand. Luckily for me I know more than one trick.

Now for a finished object:

My mum's Plain Peacock Socks, chilling out on a nice seat out on the patio of her house.

Pattern: plain sock with short row heel and toe
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino in Peacock
Needles: 2.5mm, 80cm