Posts Tagged ‘plotting and scheming’

Will you do the Fandango?

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

A little bit of a geeky reference to a Queen song, just to get things kicked off.

The Ravelympics came and went, and though I didn’t finish my project, I did really well. Vivian was done up as far as the yoke, which considering just how many times I had to restart the cabled project of doom is pretty impressive.

What is less impressive is the fact that I’ve not picked her up again since. Real life has exploded over the last couple of weeks, and unfortunately it hasn’t all been in good ways by a long shot.

Bad times require mindless knitting, so a couple of balls of Sugar and Cream got turned from stash into FOs.

lime-washcloths

Much like handknitted socks, washcloths tend to suffer from a serious case of “why wouldn’t you just buy them”. As the owner of one very sensitive face, I’ve become addicted to the things. They take no time to work up, are fabulously soft yet still manage to exfoliate my skin so that I don’t end up with puberty-face.

mistletoe-cloths

These ones remind me less of Christmas and more of Italy. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking now that Spring is in the air.

In spectacular fashion, I stayed in all day yesterday, despite the fact that it was national drinking day Paddy’s day in Ireland. I was far too domesticated* Did a lot of handwashing (our washing machine is still out of order three weeks later. Bloody nightmare!) and finished a pair of socks that had been hanging around for far too long.

scaramouche

So not my colour, but they’re still fabulously comfy. I love Lorna’s laces sock yarn bigtime.

I also had a slight lightbulb moment yesterday. Not only did I darn a sock (my lovely tofutsies sock) that I’ve been ignoring for weeks and weeks, but in the great rummage for the end of the ball of yarn, I found a perfectly wound cake of Malabrigo silky merino. The cake that I convinced myself that I didn’t have back in February when I was working on my Clapotis, which resulted in wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Slightly embarassed (though very frugal-feeling, now that I don’t have to buy another skein) work has resumed on the Clap. Should be done over the weekend, and then it’s back to Vivian!

The down side to that particular see saw is that cash is tight for us right now, so I’m forcing myself to do a destash-for-cash. I have been feeling rather guilty about my huge box of sock yarn that’s just sitting in my room when we’re managing to just about scrape by on rent and bills. I’ve got some good stuff on the way out, including one of my precious, precious skeins of Wollmeise. If anyone’s interested, it’s up on my trade page on Ravelry.

I’ve also uploaded a whole load of new, shiny and fabulously squishy yarns on my etsy store, so check them out!

*Don’t worry, I still had a couple of drinks. Though that ended with a mad dive to rescue a laptop, a sticky mobile phone and a rather flustered HusBeast…

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The times, they are a changin’

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Life has been a bit of a rollercoaster over the last 8 weeks.

monsta

The Monster is still without arms, legs or facial features.

cardiganus-interruptus

The pretzel cardigan remains about 10 rows and a button band away from completion.

beddy-byes

The bed frame is still taking up most of the downstairs hall, and is still held together by spit and hope….

hope-and-spit

eco-system

The mini eco-system that is the back garden is still flourishing, and the neighbours’ adorable black cat comes to visit and play in it on a very regular basis.

…..so what exactly has changed in the two months I’ve left unblogged?

Lots.

I’ve been doing everything other than blogging, because I’ve been run off my feet on a regular basis. I might not have a proper job, but you’d never know it. I’ve even had to splash out on a proper filofax to keep track of things.

The end of June was mostly spent dealing with tax bits, which I’m still dealing with and am not going to bore you with. By the time my mother’s birthday rolled around in July, things were in full swing. She had her first break out of the rut in two years, and came to Dublin with my dad for a couple of days. As soon as that was over, it was into gaming high season for one of the many gaming groups I’m involved with.

vanessa-olden

All very glamourous, but rather exhausting.

From there, I moved rapidly on to working on a short movie…

belvo-set

digging

…then got my dig on. Indiana Jones, eat your heart out!

Myself and Husbeast are working on a show at the moment as well; the last couple of weeks have been mostly filled with propmaking, painting sets and sewing costumes. It’s awesomely good fun. I’ve missed being involved in theatre and film so much since my dad got sick, and I’m finally starting to make my way back in to it.

I haven’t entirely abandoned my yarny goodness, even though it has been entirely moved to the back burner for the last while. It’s on the way back with a vengence. Have to either fit more hours in the day, or learn to survive on far less sleep in order to cram everything in - that’s the tricky bit.

In an effort to get some mindless knitting going (as nothing complicated should be attempted when sleep depped or stressed) I started my Christmas present for my mother.

tablerunner

It’s the  Adobe table runner from Summer’s Interweave Knits. Amazingly simple, and will look fab when finished and blocked. My mother’s dining table is about two feet longer than I had realised though, so I need to put in some serious time on this yet. The yarn is some indigo dyed fingering weight cotton that I picked up from Avoca. I had been trying to come up with a way to use it, and had my lightbulb moment on flicking through IK. The slight downside is the milage.  Even after finishing this runner, I’ll have enough left for an entire set of placemats and coasters for her birthday next year…..and still have most of a kilo of the stuff left. It’s not making my stash knitdown any easier, I’ll tell ya!

Yup, the stash knitdown. Seeing as I have a yarn budget of precisely zero at the moment, I’ve been reassessing my stash. Some is going to be sold off, because I have a lot of pretty things that I bought in a moment of weakness and will most likely never get around to knitting. The rest is finally going to be worked through, a piece at a time.  I have the yarn to make a central park hoodie for almost three years, but haven’t even downloaded the pattern yet!

Am I the only one to have the bag of yarn for some jumper or cardigan or other lurking in the stash for years? With the pattern picked out, and all the right sized needles ready to go? I may not be crazy lady with cats, but I sure seem to be “crazy lady with RowanSpun”…

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Purple monsters and fingers

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Rowan all seasons cotton is very nice. Very nice indeed. Knitting it in the round on 3.5mm needles is distinctly not advised though.

I’m taking a break from knitting my purple monster (and from the resulting hand cramp. There are a hella lot of ssks and k2togs in that pattern!) to do a quick update. Again, photoless due to  my camera battery being dead, and my photoshop trial being over *sob*

A quick jaunt down to Waterford took place at the weekend, where I got to catch up with some people that I haven’t seen since the wedding. Shameful, I know. Large amounts of yummy food was consumed, along with multiple mojitos. The weather even obliged and allowed for my first al fresco meal of the year.

Shockingly I didn’t get near the new yarn shop in the city centre, due entirely to the aforementioned mojitos and company. I’ll be back down there in a few weeks though, so will give a full report then. The things I do for my readers!

Last night, myself and HusBeast headed into Dublin and went to a Bill Bailey gig. I got the tickets back in October - I’d failed to get them every other time he was touring here for the last five years  - and they were an anniversary prezzie for himself. I won’t post spoilers for those of you who are still to see the show, but suffice to say that it was fantastic. I had serious issues with not being able to breathe because I was laughing so much. Clever funny as well. Not just an assortment of “tit and bum” jokes, which is all too prevailant in stand up these days. Just to sound like an old fart.

This morning I was rudely awakened by the postman. At 7.15am. Has to be some kind of record for earliest delivery by the Irish postal service. I had been hoping that it was a package from the States for me, but alas, it was for The Lodger. It seems that the best way to get me out of bed and down stairs in 15 seconds or fewer is the promise of peanut butter M’n'Ms.

The finishing touches on my BSJ were completed at SnB this morning, which left me feeling rather chuffed. It’s a very cute looking thing, and finished just in the nick of time. Pity the intended recipient will have grown out of it in about ten minutes, but he is a baby and that is their way. You turn your back for just a moment, and poof!, they’ve grown another inch. I’ll console myself knowing that Becky will like it, and will possibly be able to reuse it at some stage in the future as it’s in a nice gender neutral colour.

Wow, I used the term “gender neutral”. I may have earned a gold star from the PC police, horror of horrors.

Apart from suffering from hand cramp (mind out of the gutters, thanking you!) there’s not much going on chez moi. I’m trying to get the stuffed purple monster body done this evening before bed, so am ensconced on one end of the sofa with some tea and Tom Waits on the stereo while HusBeast and The Lodger are currently saving the universe from alien invaders on the other end. For my part, I’m being encouraging by making comments loaded with double entendre and singing the Faceplant song every time one of them gets splatted. It’s a pretty regular thing, but they’re getting better.

Many things are getting better.

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Water of life

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

We woke up on Sunday morning to sun and glorious blue skies. After some quick consulting with the all-knowing Google, we decided to take a road trip.

The weather was perfect for driving, and as we were heading to the midlands and not the beach, most of the traffic was going in the other direction. We were even in such a good mood that when the googlemap directions turned out to have been written by blind monkeys and were abandoned in favour of my internal satnav, we were still smiling.

It was a day on which there were many reasons to smile.

The first day this year that the birkies have been worn outside without risk of frostbite, for one!

sandals

Wow…I need a pedicure.

The drive (eventually) brought us to what is traditionally known as “culchieland” by those in Dublin….and by a lot of people outside it as well. County Offaly has been the butt end of jokes for countless years. Most involve sheep or having an extra finger/toe.      Our current Taoiseach (Prime minister) is known as BIFFO (Big Ignorant F***er From Offaly).  It’s quite a gorgeous place though, for all the slagging off we give it. 40 shades of green doesn’t even come close. It’s also home to one of the last remaining distilleries in Ireland.

Yes, dear readers, I drove all the way to see whiskey on my sunny Sunday.

more-posing

Not that there were many objections from HusBeast, who even deigned to pose for a photo.

The Tullamore Dew distillery was in the building behind him for most of it’s life, but was recently moved out in favour of this “modernisation” malarkey. The building has been turned into a heritage centre, and while it’s very much geared up for TransAtlantic tourists, it was an interesting way to spend an hour or so. There are displays about the history of the town, whiskey making, and some nice bits of old kit

bottlefiller

like this bottlefiller, which was manned by an amazingly creepy looking waxwork of a bottlefiller operator.

At the end of our wander around, we headed downstairs to the bar that’s not really a bar. It used to be a working bar at some stage in the past, and now sits empty and forlorn looking in between busloads of tourists. We had a sample of Tullamore Dew, which is not my favourite whiskey by a long shot, I must admit. It’s good in cocktails and fab in Irish coffees, but I prefer my whiskey without an umbrella in it. Irish mist has been associated with big hair and shoulderpads and other pinnacles of 80’s fashion in my head since childhood, and it turns out that it’s actually a nice drink too.

Naturally, we had to take home a souvenier. Ahem.

whiskeypost

It’s a bottle of Heritage, which is their special distillation. When it’s gone, it’s gone  - that kind of deeley. No idea what it tastes like, as the nearest pub didn’t actually have any Tullamore Dew at all. Not the smartest marketing strategy, I feel.

Since then, I’ve mostly been knitting. The Tangled Yoke is flying along.

tangled-yoke-part-one

Flying for me, at least. The body section is done, sleeve one is done, and sleeve two is coming along nicely. Once that’s finished, it’s on to the slightly complicated part. This is actually the first Interweave Knits pattern that I’ve knitted (as opposed to queuing and never getting around to knitting) and I’m getting into the swing of their pattern-writing style nicely.

If that wasn’t enough, I’ve also had the dyepot going. I’ve posted off a custom order today, and I’ve been working on something new to boot. Here’s a sneek preview

new-kits

More to come soon!

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Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

I received a box in the post at work today.
In it are 2 green MY LITTLE CTHULHU’S!!!!!!!

*jumps around like a mad thing*

One is for me, the other is a gift.
Roll on payday. I’m gonna gets me a red one too….hur hur.

I also received something else yarn-related and most squee worthy, but I want to save that news til later.

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Those 3am moments of clarity

Monday, May 21st, 2007

So, another weekend spend on a train and in a hospital has passed, and it’s Monday again. Bah and humbug.

I got sod all knitting done this weekend. Didn’t want to cast on a new project on the train (new project is lace) and risk a sudden bump or stop resulting in me flushing my yarn. Cardigan is now too big and annoying to bring on public transport.

Instead of knitting, I read some Harry Potter. Order of the Phoenix. I’ve had it since the day it was released, and never managed to finish it, due to moving house and classes and other real life ™ stuff. My next problem is that my copy of Half-Blood Prince is in storage. Gah.

Well I should have some proper pics for you again tomorrow - I’m bringing home the lappy tonight, which means that I can do some uploading. Huzzah!

I do have many, many plans at the moment though, some even involve yarn. Yes, I’m remaining cryptic for now. I think I’ve decided that I need to retrain (as opposed to thinking and then dismissing said thoughts), and in what.

Since the age of 4, I’ve been studying drama. I even spent 2 years going to a professional acting school. Somehow, I managed to end up in a desk job, where my unofficial title is CS manager/office manager/I.T. manager. It is a strange evolution.

Don’t get me wrong - as office jobs go, this one rocks. I really like the people I work with. They’re nice, friendly people, and when we have nights out we have a blast. The work is challenging enough to keep me on my toes, but not so challenging that I’m pulling out my hair in frustration.

Despite this, I’m setting myself up to leave. It won’t be until next year, but I will be leaving this job, in the hope that my creative endevours will work out.
There is about 4% chance of me ever being a working and bill paying actor. The two sides of that equation only meet in those lucky few that grace our screens on a regular basis.

I’m not giving up though. I’m just…expanding.
Hopefully my waistline won’t follow suit as well!

…..watch this space….

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