Steady as she goes

Well here we go again
You've found yourself a friend that knows you well
But no matter what you do
You'll always feel as though you tripped and fell
So steady as she goes

It's been an eventful month. Exams are over, wedding and family gatherings attended and derby begun... and ended rather promptly. I was really enjoying getting into roller derby. Although I was no way the best of the bunch, I was slowly getting the hang of skates and had decided to attend a Newbie Bootcamp after my third week of roller derby training so I could get a bit more practice and meet girls from other Derby leagues across Scotland. I had a brilliant time, I was really improving and getting the hang of T-stops and things which had really eluded me previously, and then I pushed myself too hard and had a rather epic fall when attempting a few jumps. I dislocated and broke my ankle and tore some ligaments in a pretty magnificent fashion... I had a two day stay in hospital with many many drugs and then was let home on the Monday with crutches.

This all happened in the week that I was supposed to be minding the shop while Bosslady was away on holiday, of course. Luckily for me Sian and Kirsten were megastars and covered loads of shifts for me, and then at the end of the week I went back to work (on crutches with a big stookie) for Friday, Saturday and Sunday so I could help out and manage the things that had been ignored for the early part of the week. It was exhausting but I'm glad I did it. I'm now having a week of rest before we try to work out when exactly I can go back to work, and how much I can do. I need six weeks off my leg completely, then lots of physio to get back to full fitness so it'll be at least 10-12 weeks before I'm back to normal. I go into hospital tomorrow to get my leg checked and a new cast put on it (hopefully a fibreglass one) which will be 10 days after the accident.

Of course this hasn't put me off derby - in fact I'm more determined than ever to stay involved and get back to it as soon as it's reasonable. In the mean time I can work on my balance and core muscle group, which definitely need work!

Of course all this time off my feet means I'll have lots of time to knit (and blog). This month I intend to go nuts with knitting - I aim to get more than 2km of knitting done! My to-do list for June includes:

• Shalom Cardigan
• Multnomah Shawl
• Transatlantic Shawl
• Abalone Cardigan
• Harmony shawlette
• As well as the self-designed hat and gloves I'm planning for my House Cup OWL, and the Myrtle I need to get cracking on for my other OWL.
  

All of these can be worked over two months but the more I get done next month, the better! And speaking of knitting, here's a rundown of some of my completed projects since my last post:

A Wee Buddy Purse from the book Knockdown Knits - Roller Derby inspired knitting projects! I used some cool psychedelic handdyed yarn that I received in a swap.


Knitted and crocheted Neurons - The Yarn Cake is taking part in the Glasgow Science Festival, we're hosting the Knitted Neurons event so I knit a few as samples for the shop!
Potentially my favourite project of this month - a Mega Epic Swallowtail, knit from 700m of Yarn Yard Toddy to create a really big version of Swallowtail so that I could wear it to Ben and Morven's wedding. It was a beautiful day, made all the better because I got to wear my gorgeous handknit shawl.

And finally, my Swing into Spring jacket - a lovely cosy cardigan which I made with DROPS Nepal yarn. A nice simple pattern which didn't take too long at all. I wore this to the Family Get-together at the start of the month and it was admired by many.

I also made a small panda for Slain Austen (my friend the derby girl who broke her leg - in the same place as me!! - a mere fortnight before I broke mine), a pinwheel purse, a Wooly Wormhead hat, and a shawl which I had with me to knit in the hospital. Just as well I had it as it saved my sanity during those two days! I haven't taken pictures of it yet but will do so later today and post them later this week. I'm also working on a sample for the shop, made with 400m of Yarn Yard Machair, a gorgeous alpaca/cashmere blend which is extremely soft and squishy. Hopefully I can get it finished and blocking today.

Best be off and get started on my dissertation research. Until next time! x

Are you ready?

Are you ready?
Are you ready,
do you know?
I feel it too ...

A stupid song, I know. But Stu has been putting together a slideshow thingy set to this music and now its stuck in my head...

It is quite appropriate though. My Masters classes finish this week and its crazy to think that only a year ago I was applying for my course. In the past year I've done a shedload of things I never thought I'd do, such as: doing a 10k, going back to Uni, helping a friend set up a business, getting another tattoo, knitting a ridiculous amount, working as the assistant manager in a knitting cafe... as well as some personal stuff I'm definitely not going to write about here.

As of next week I'm going to be taking up a new sport. ROLLER DERBY! It was something I was considering last year when I saw a poster for the Glasgow Roller Girls, but never quite got around to. It turns out one of my Uni friends skates with them, and through her enthusiasm I decided to join up! I bought skates last month (when I could hardly afford them) and have been trying to go out regularly to get some practice in. Its hard work just now but it'll be worth it when I'm skating like a pro. Practice makes perfect, as they say. I have never been much of a sports person, so telling my family about my decision to join a team that involves a lot of physical fitness and activity was in itself quite a boost. Mum and bro seemed quietly impressed, if a little sceptical ("Isn't it quite aggressive?" Um, yeah!?) and dad was just delighted. The new intake - where they teach girls from scratch how to skate and fall and stuff - starts next week and I've already got my name on the list. One week today I'll be falling with the best of them! Am I ready? Probably not, but it'll be a lot of fun anyway.

Since its been a while since I reported in, lets have a little FO parade of knitted goods.

First, the test knit I did for Sian. A companion to Bella Mitts, inspired by Twilight (ick).


Then there were some roses I made for the shop...


I did lots of bits and pieces for people, including blanket squares one and two, a hook holster to keep all my crochet hooks together, and some dice for Stu's dad. That'd be for a casino themed 50th then.


I also did a Pogona, which for some reason just about killed me. A simple knit/purl shawl, easy decreases, nice repetitive pattern... and yet I just had a mental block with it for some reason. I think it may have been because I began using hideous square needles with a sticky cable, but even swapping to knitpros didnt help! I bought the yarn as a present to myself for passing my exams. It didnt turn out to be much of a treat, but anyway, its done now. And very pretty!

And a blocking pic to show the shape:

I never did post pics of La Corbie, did I? Here she is in all her splendour:


More about my current and planned projects next time I think. And maybe I'll even post a bit about books for a change!

Until next time... xx

The tragic tale of La Corbie

La Corbie:

Country: Scotland. Whit like is it? It’s a peatbog, it’s a daurk forest. It’s a cauldron o’ lye, a saltpan or a coal mine. If you’re gey lucky it’s a bricht bere meadow or a park o’ kye. Or mibbe… it’s a field o’ stanes. It’s a tenement or a merchant’s ha’. It’s a hure hoose or a humble cot. Princes Street or Paddy’s Merkit. It’s a fistfu’ o’ fish or a pickle o’ oatmeal. It’s a queen’s banquet o’ roast meats and junketts. It depends. It depends … Ah dinna ken whit like your Scotland is. Here ’smines. National flower: the thistle. National pastime: nostalgia. National weather: smirr, haar, drizzle, snow. National bird: the crow, the corbie, le corbeau, moi! How me? Eh? Eh? Eh? Voice like a choked laugh. Ragbag o’a burd in ma black duds, a’ angles and elbows and broken oxter feathers, black beady een in ma executioner’s hood. No braw, but Ah think Ah ha’e a sort of black glamour.

Things are fairly light and airy at the moment, particularly now that I've finished my La Corbie shawl... but more on that in a minute.

In the main I seem to be keeping up with Uni work (just), and shop work, and not really at all with knitting because I can't blimmin' say no and keep having marvellous ideas!

Plans for designing at the moment include:
- actually publishing that KnitFlatBobbleHat pattern
- writing up a sideways shawl pattern, I have a skein of Crannog just perfect for some inspiration and experimentation
- getting those ampersands gloves made up, adding the asterisk hat and semi-colon scarf/shawl.

However, I have a multitude of things on the needles, including a test knit hat for Sian, a baktus that needs frogged, a cardigan that needs to get past the bottom hem (arrrrgh!) and many little swatch sized spirals to continue with my freeform project, not to mention two hibernating lace projects. I also really want to get some crochet roses done, and need to weave in ends of La Corbie, wash it and block it. Sigh indeed.

La Corbie has a tale (tail?) all her own. Are we sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

I wanted to make a gorgeous warm shawl to commemorate Liz Lochhead's becoming the Scottish Makar last month. I decided to think about one of the characters from my favourite play of hers, and used it as inspiration. I chose a nice pattern with pretty edgings and contrasty colours. I chose Scottish yarn (New Lanark DK) which is practical - not the prettiest but holds a certain charm, just like La Corbie from Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off - and went to it, beginning with a beautiful deep blue-purple for the border.

It took a lot longer than I planned, and then I messed up the grafting twice. Eventually I got to the end. I picked up the wrong amount of stitches with the rich purple Bramble yarn I had bought and started on the slip stitch pattern - which isn't actually very clearly explained in the pattern - before I decided that the colours weren't working together. The evidence:


I frogged back to the border, agonised over a new yarn choice and then picked up a new wrong number of stitches along the edge with Limestone instead. I started the slip stitch pattern and kept going. And going. And going. It took days longer than I anticipated and when I finally got to the last few rows I discovered that I must've gone wrong somewhere because my decreases were uneven. Urgh! Perfect. Anyway, I fudged a fix, kept going, cast off, and then picked up a million (160) stitches for the top border and picot edging. I realised I'd used the wrong size needles for this (4.5mm instead of 4mm) and decided I didn't care enough to stop now! I picked up the stitches, worked the garter rows, and began the four-stitch picot. Because it always does, the picot took FOREVER. I finally finished it before work on Tuesday, and could not be happier about it - the finishing, not the shawl. I then found a massive mistake in the central line of decreases, which I fudged a fix with much puffing and sighing.

It's now all done and off the needles, but is sitting in the naughty corner because I can't bear to weave in the ends just yet. I'll do it tomorrow I suppose, but I need some instant gratification in the mean time! I decided to move onto the hat I'm testing the Aislinn hat for Sian, but it all went a bit haywire when we tried to sort out the gauge - she knits crazy tight and tried to allow for normal people, but it made it all a little confusing. Back on track now though, I hope I'll get it finished if not tonight then tomorrow at least. It looks really pretty even if it is Moss Stitch, and it uses my favourite type of horseshoe cables!

Will report in at the weekend with blocked/finished shawl pics, along with a few other FOs I hope! xx

It's been a long time since I rock n rolled...

...Its been a long time since I did the stroll.
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back,
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from.
Its been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
Yes it has.

I may have mentioned before that I always find the best time to blog is when I've got tons of studying to do. Well, (clever me) I refrained from procrastinating like that over the past few weeks during my exams, but now that I've got some time on my hands, I think I should pick up the laptop and get a-writing again.

So, The Yarn Cake has been open since November, and the assistant managering has been rather fun. Things are going swimmingly, I get to help a lot of people with their knitting and yarn purchases, I get to bake and eat a LOT of cake and drink a lot of tea. An ideal job, you say? Not far off! I was working today and although it was quite busy I also spent some time designing this beginner-friendly hat pattern:

I'll need to work out a couple more options for sizes and then write it up before I can get it test knit, but hopefully someone at the Tuesday or Thursday group will be happy to help out there. 6.5mm needles, one skein of New Lanark, knit flat and seamed up the back, and a beautiful bobble on top!

What else? Well, I have gone a little hat-mad recently. This month alone I've made two other Woolly Wormhead hats (Spring Everglade and Evening Starburst), a Jayne Cobb hat (Cunning, because I was geeking out on Firefly), and I've started work on my Spiral Play hat, also inspired by Woolly Wormhead. Check them out:

I also made a four-day cardigan from New Lanark Chunky wool... it was brilliant! I plan on using the pattern again because it was so simple and customizable, but perhaps encorporating a lace pattern next time. Having said that I love the cable I put on the back of this, it looks awesome blocked.

As for books, I've started reading the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo etc etc), and I'm really enjoying them so far. I read the first one before Christmas, took a little break to concentrate on my exams and am now midway into the second book. They're pretty sexually explicit (rape, abuse and prostitution feature regularly) but are quite a compelling read. The character of Lisbeth is well-written but I found myself bored by the Blomkvist sections despite his supposed role as the protagonist. It was also a tad slow to start because it jumped straight into a court case and Swedish financial matters - areas in which I am not well-versed and therefore was a little confused/bored/disinterested. I'll probably write more as I progress through the series.

I've also spent some time on the Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fford. I thoroughly enjoyed The Eyre Affair for a mixture of fantasy and librarianism, and Lost in a Good Book only a little less - ahh, the difficult second album - and I do look forward to reading the next in the series when I get time to pop to the library.

More librarian chat next time I think. For now that's all my sweets. G'night! xx

An Epic Weekend of Finishing Things!

It is the job that's never started that takes the longest to finish. - JRR Tolkein

Ain't that the truth? Fortunately I did get a lot done this weekend even after all my procrastination, a lot of which I'm pretty darn proud of. Firstly, that Dratted Baby Blanket? Got it all done and dusted on Friday. Whoop!


My friend didn't come pick it up until last night and I wasn't even here to hand it over, but it was done on Friday which'd be the 15th - exactly halfway through the month, yay! I hope the recipient likes it.

Then on Sunday I did a 10k at Hopetoun House in Edinburgh. A huge number of my friends and I did it to raise money for Cancer Research UK, and all inspired by our wonderful brave friend Mairead, who is currently suffering from cancer. Here we all are after we finished:


Between us we managed to raise over £10,000 on our JustGiving page (including Gift Aid supplement). I personally didn't run because, well, I've never pretended that I'm a runner! The fastest of the group managed to come in at 43 minutes, shortly followed by another of our lads at 46 and yet another at 48 minutes! Um, I walked and came in at 1 hour 40 on the button, which isn't exactly impressive but I'm pretty pleased with my first ever 10k experience anyway. I have been a bit stiff in the leg department yesterday and today, hopefully I'll be back to normal tomorrow!

I also finished my Digital Libraries essay in time, despite the fact this meant I only got about 8 hours of sleep between Saturday morning and Monday night, even after the 10k! I don't have a pretty picture of that, but instead here's a picture of some old and pretty books.


And now for the big news..... The Yarn Cake is opening on Thursday! Yaaaaaaaaay! It's a preview evening for the Thursday Night Knitters, and then we open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 11am. Next week we'll be doing similar opening hours (Thurs eve, Fri, Sat, Sun) but I'll be there on my own as Antje is off visiting her dad for his birthday. I know she's stressing about leaving the business so soon but I'm sure it'll be fine. It'll be fine, right? I know it'll be fine. I'm confident... kinda. It'll be fine.

This evening I should definitely be writing up uni notes (I've fallen behind due to time spent on that essay) and I've got a list of stuff I need to look at for The Yarn Cake too. I must get some H+S reading done before bed... Better get rockin'!

The Inaugral First Blog Post

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. - CS Lewis

You also can't procrastinate enough on Ravelry, Facebook or Gmail while facing deadlines. I have my first assignment for my MSc Information and Library Studies course due next Monday, and yet while I'm browsing t'interwebs for 'useful' information and 'exciting' references for said assignment, all I keep thinking is that I should really write something on this blog which I've had for months now. So here I am, adding to my procrastination methods by (finally) getting started.

The assignment is about Digital Libraries, and requires a report of a piffling (or so I thought) 2000 words written on the services offered by traditional versus digital libraries and the changes in place thanks to leading technologies. We also have to use a 'search strategy' laid out by the course tutor to find resources - basically a list of websites and databases I need to look through and critique in an appendix to my report. Fun! The tutor was quite adamant that we use a variety of resources including: books, websites, articles, journals, blogs... And there I stopped, because personal blogs can be quite an interesting read when you get going.

But all work and no play makes Sadie a dull girl, so lets talk about more pleasant things!

I'm knitting a commissioned knit just now, a baby blanket which shall henceforth be referred to as That Dratted Baby Blanket. I am never doing a knit like this again! It's hard work knitting something for someone else to a deadline... especially for a friend. I'm happy to do gifts and surprises, but it takes all the fun out of it when you *have* to knit something! Anyway, it is fairly rocketing along - I started on Friday afternoon and am presently about halfway through. I'd love to get it out of the way this week and then I can focus on more fun things, like the Seraphina shawl I'm making for myself.

As for books, I'm back onto some brain candy Terry Pratchett after having finished some historical crime fiction recently which I found a bit hard going. Proper synopsis and reviews will be forthcoming.

The Yarn Cake is fairly coming on, it's been getting painted and decorated this weekend so we're into the Finishing Touches stage of the building work, before the furniture and stock get put in there. In a way I'm quite glad that the shop won't be open for another week(ish) - it'll give me time to get this assignment out the way and do my 10K for Cancer Research UK on Sunday, so I'll be able to breathe a big sigh of relief and focus on the opening next week properly.

I guess that's all for now, I should really get back to studying. Or maybe making a cup of tea. Or taking the dogs out. Or watching Buffy... Hmm.