KIP day in Dunfermline

Prizewinners from Dunfermline Carnegie Knit in Public Day event. Don't quite know how it happened, but the winning ladies were sitting beside one another - must have been lucky seats!

On the left, we have one of our best customers, Mrs Betty Healy and on the right is Ravelry's very own, MrsJollyJackTar. I want to see the socks when they're done!

So, we launched our new library knitting group for members of the public on Worldwide KIP day. Great success with a good mix of ages and knitting tastes. We had a complete newbie learn to knit at the event and evaluation from the morning has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks to all the lovely knitters who turned up to support us on the day! Remember, the knitting group will be starting June 25th in Dunfermline Carnegie Library from 6-8pm and we'd love to see you there.

dyeing to meet you

For the second easter holidays in a row, my daughter and I have been dyeing like women possessed with Koolaid. Smells nice - except when you add cider vinegar to the dye, in which case it reeks like an especially rank pair of socks. It's easy to use and gives colours that are bright without being BRIGHT and looks homemade without looking too homespun, if you see what I mean. At least, I hope they don't look too homemade - let me know what you think!

We used at least 4 packets of Koolaid for each 100g of yarn - a nice undyed merino 4ply I bought from Texere mills online.

The yarn colourways are, from the top - where the wild socks are, spring, Irn-Bru on a summer day and below that, cherry blossom. The last picture is when the skeins were just dry and waiting to be re-skeined and buttoned - badly! Can anyone point me in the direction of a toot on how to skein and button yarn????

e.t.a. I've just noticed, when you embiggen the last photo of 'hand with yarn' you can see how wrinkly and pruned my fingertips are from all that dyeing.

reasons to be cheerful, 1,2,3...

No posts lately, down to the job being kerazy busy, but will try to do better. Maybe I can start by listing all the things I've knitted in the past while and then wait for the smack on the back of the head when I tell you that I have no pictures of any of them. Not the Charlie Brown jumper I've just finished for my niece's baby or the cardigan and Wicked jumper I knit with my Christmas wool. Pathetic.


I mean, how hard is it to walk the ten steps to pick up the camera after I've finished something and then take a few snaps? It's not like I'm having to fight my way through rampaging hordes to get to the camera or anything. No, the worst we're talking about negotiating is a flight of stairs. And yet, still there are no photos. I'm thinking of just passing all photographing duties over to either the daughter or the husband.

It's not always pure laziness, though. Although I can't imagine feeling completely at home in any other country and I love living in Scotland, our days are not always filled with the type of light that lets you take effortlessly lovely photos - like the ones on brooklyntweed's blog for example. His photos are amazing. Just beautiful. He captures everything in one go; the fibre, the stitch pattern - everything. If I could put one photo up on this blog that is one tenth of his standard, I would be so delighted.


Maybe I should aim lower and plan to have one photo per post this year. And with that in mind - here you go. One photo. My pattern - albeit heavily influenced by the very warm hat by EZ. And I am entitled to look like that. I've been in a service plan meeting all day with the 'high heid yins'. You'd look like this too if you'd been there! And I clearly have the attention span of a cheese sandwich 'cos I see from the title of this post it was meant to be something entirely different.

"I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you anyhow."

Any guesses for this lyric??

laugh 'til you puke

Had a little photoshoot at work today during my coffee break. Wanted a not-too-horrific photo for my Ravelry avatar - nearly ended up with a laughter induced hernia.

and they say librarians are sane.

Lots of knitting on the cards - and the needles. We're talking Wicked, Branching Out, Malabrigo collars, christmas decorations.......Photo-rich posts to follow. Yeah, I know. It's been an empty promise before, but this time will be different.

Probably.

red

I'll explain the title of this post in a minute. meanwhile, here's a quick shot of a bundle of random squares - can you guess what it is yet? kind of self-explanatory, this one. still, he's cute isn't he? and this is the only time he's sat still for more than ten seconds at a time in his entire life, so the occasion needed to be marked.
new socks. and these ones will not be felted. are you listening, Scott? ankle sock pattern from socks, socks, socks. I swear I will insert something sharp in my husband if he felts another pair of handknitted socks.
another pic. of the mystery squares, looking less mysterious and more baby-blankety. for a lovely girl in the library who's expecting her first baby and knit by around ten of us at work. EZ's heart elbow patch pattern, so you know it must be good!

Now I've finally given you eye-candy, I can tell you about how I've lived up to the unexpected part of this blog's name this week.

Thursday, I got my hair cut at a recently re-modelled salon in town - I only mention this 'cos it means I can tell you they now have chairs with magic fingers that massage you as you get your hair washed. Good idea, but it kind of reminded me of all the irritating buggers who sit behind you in the cinema, rolling their knees down your back through your chair. Anyhow, I hated the way the girl 'styled' my hair into a nice, neat, turned-under brown helmet, so I went straight to the chemist and an hour later I was the proud owner of a crop of bright red hair.

Bright red. Not copper, or titian or rust. Bright red. Yay!

Must have been something in the air that day since I also bought and wore a bright yellow cardigan in the Monsoon sale. I've never to my knowledge worn yellow. Ever.

I like being unexpected. It's one of my favourite words and favourite things to be.

I'll post a pic. of the hair once I've re-done the dye-job, since it's fading already!

It's a disgustingly rainy day and I'm off work since Rhia's school is striking so I'll have to go and force myself to knit all day and watch the Olympics. Shame. Don't you feel sorry for me?

Alive

It's what I officially am.

Working hard - the contract as a service development librarian has been extended to next March so that's good. That's very good so far as Christmas and the putting of presents into stockings is concerned. The folk I share an office with are really cool and I'm having a great time as part of this team, so no worries there - or not until early March next year, anyhow.

Knitting not so hard - my mojo's all out of sorts. I lift and lay... lift and lay.... start and rip..... start and rip. At one point last weekend I actually thought it was a do-able reasonable plan to start threading outsized rainbow-coloured sequins onto a ball of bright pink mohair yarn and make a scarf with zany panels of sequins at either end. Yeah, that would have been fun; scraping sequins along yard after yard of hairy, shedding yarn knitting a scarf that nobody with half a fashion-recognising brain would ever wear.

If I'm knitting less than normal, I've still got multiple things on the go. Maybe that's the problem; as soon as I take up the ankle sock, the mitered squares start calling me and then there's the two balls of laceweight mohair I bought in Oban a few weeks ago - what the hell are they going to be, exactly? The internet must be browsed - the truth (in the form of the perfect pattern for whatever) is out there!

I need a good kick. And a glass of wine. A big one.

What exactly do you knit when your head is up your arse? I'm open to suggestions.


"I'm like a coo with a gun."
(Expression used by workmate to describe how uneasy she feels when handed a newborn.)

shaking the margarine tub of life

I should probably explain.

When I was little, we had a fridge (yes I came from a priveledged background, what of it?) and inside this fridge at any one time would be on average five or six identical margarine tubs. My mum would use them to store leftovers, so any time you wanted to spread some delicious margarine on a piece of toast say, you had to pick up and shake a few tubs before you hit paydirt. A heavy slosh meant tinned peaches, a slow slump meant tinned beans and as for a dry rattly shake, take my word for it and don't open this one - it'll only be maggots for your brother's weekend fishing trip. Yeah, that one still haunts me.

I'm realising as I age how much like my mother I am. Now I'm the one who won't throw away leftovers and won't mark freezer boxes so that what you think is tomato soup you're defrosting for lunch? Yeah, that'll be the strawberry/rhubarb puree I froze months ago.

I'm like this with my stash too. Half or quarter balls are kept - hell, balls that a dealer would give out as freebies are still kept for that rainy day project where they'll be indispensable.

But I've found a project to use up all of those micro balls of sock yarn at least. The Sock Yarn Blanket by Shelley Kang. Have a look at www.shellykang.com or search for sock yarn blanket on Ravelry. I promise it's worth a look.


"It's like fighting a battle of wills with an unarmed man."
overheard this week at work.