International Scrabbling and a Quick Revisit by Winter

Last night, between bowls of pasta and apple crumble (not a sophisticated menu), I looked over at my two dinner guests and persuaded them that there was only one thing that could possibly salvage our carb and alcohol stupified brains -Super Scrabble!

My dinner guests were my Italian Host Sister (IHS), who is staying with me while she job hunts, and one of my younger brothers.



Hmm, an Italian not operating in her first language and, I had forgotten that, my brother happens to be dyslexic - it could have been a dreadful mistake. However, it was not at all.

There were some excellent, if not compelling, debates over viable words and their imaginative spelling. Both my IHS and my brother were convinced, mainly by their highly competitive natures, of being correct. I did my best to mediate by waving the Scrabble dictionary over their heads!

My IHS kept writing down words that she did not know. We did congratulate her on such a good idea but when I peeped over her shoulder, I am just not sure how useful she will find 'qi', 'zo', 'jol' and 'ruga' in everyday life?!

I can picture it now, "Hello, I would love to work for your company. As you can tell, my English is excellent. Yes, I would love a cup of tea. No sugar, thank you - just a little zo milk, please."

Now those were just the players present in person. To add to the international flavour of our game, I eyed up the 4th empty letter holder and actually, I really missed the Fella.

So um...I cheekily video skyped him and got him to join our game over the internet. That almost flattened my brother who couldn't get over the fact that someone living 8 hours behind us, where it was still daylight, was playing Scrabble with us. Not to mention the hilarity generated by my dangling my laptop over the game, so he could see the word layout on the board.

So really, it was just your average Saturday night in at a house in the London suburbs - 3 people and a laptop huddled around a game of Super Scrabble?

The photos show the snowy scenes that greeted us when we ventured out this morning. However snow in London tends to be a fragile thing and by the time that we got back from a restorative pub lunch, it had all gone. I am just hoping that the snow did not damage my wood peony flower buds!

Luscious Pinkness - Garden in April

There is just something about pink. I find it very uplifting for some reason! So, as the weather is very grey and rainy here today, I thought that I would share these, just in case things are gloomy in your part of the world too...

...I hope that they brighten your mood in the same way that they have brightened mine. I can see these from my kitchen window. I love-love-love my camillia - it's colour, its neat cupped structure and its glossy green leaves.

Oh and speaking of things that are uplifting, do you think that this might be a sign that my tree peony might flower for the first time ever this year?

I really hope so! I have had this plant for around 6 years, possibly more? It was a gift from my mother. Every year it has grown in size and got more leafy but it has never flowered. This is the first year that it has budded. 6 years is a long time, in a small garden, to wait to see how a plant will flower, so I very much hope that it will flower this year. I will feel so disappointed if these buds turn out to be blind.

Any suggestions on what I might do to encourage it to flower healthily? Ignore it or give it a feed of something specific?

Okay enough - back to the drudgery of the work document that I am trying to complete this weekend.

When Five Become Four...

One of my Brittany 2.5mm needles has snapped.

Over the course of the past week it has become progressively more bendy . Then at I Knit on Wednesday night, I bought those little rubber needle end thingies, to stop the second sock from escaping before I have properly finished stabbing it to death.

On the train on the way home, I was extracting the needles from the rubber needle thingie and the bendy one snapped. It's not fatal yet as I have been working this sock over 3 needles rather than 4.

However, my question is, does this snappage enable me to join the ranks of real sock knitters?! Or does it not count because I was not actually knitting at the time of breakage?

Or does this simply demonstrate my deep ignorance of sock knitting tools and in fact, count against me in my quest to become a fully qualified sock knitter? (Just because any sock knitter, worth their salt, would know that you simply don't use those rubber needle end thingies with wooden sock dpns?!)

So, out of curiousity, what is the usual life expectancy of a wooden dpn - is it more than a single pair of socks? Should I be getting twitchy that another needle could snap at any moment?!

I didn't like working with the bamboo dpns very much, the Brittanys are much nicer to work with but if I decide to invest in another set of sock dpns, which ones should I go for (not keen on metal, too slippery and I have seen many metal dpns fall out of sock WIPs much to horror of the knitter in question).

So, Lantern Moon Ebonys? Or something else?

It’s a Funny Old Life

This week, I realised that my blog anniversary had wheedled its way into the life event area of my brain. I keep thinking about the past knit year, what I am working on now and what I would like to do next. It is not earth shattering stuff but I need to get it out of my brain (sorry):

What have I done since I started this blog?

1. Primarily? I have bought more knitting books, yarn and notions than I have used! I seem to have yarn, parts of projects and pattern books in almost every room while my coffee table has started to groan under the weight of recent book acquisitions. My stash and notions have burst out of my textiles cupboard, the overflow log basket is well...overflowing...and the remainder of my yarn has taken up residence in three drawers in my bedroom. I have been reassured that this is not a stash problem. (Phew!)
   
   
2. I have developed a project list that, at my current speed of knitting, will take over 5 years of daily work commutes to finish. I am not worried about this. In fact, I very much hope that my 'to do knit list' will telescope reassuringly onwards to entertain and occupy me for the rest of my life. I have an odd image of me protesting to my employer that I cannot possibly retire yet because I haven't finished a sleeve or something silly. (What?!)
   
   
3. Despite knitting through each work commute and at various knit nights, I have only completed 6 scarves, 5 hats, 2 gaiters, 1 baby ballerina wrap, 1 lace shaped tee, 1 sock and endless swatches for various projects. It is not an impressive list but then, I have never hidden the fact that I am a slow knitter. Luckily Knitter Bunny reassured me recently, knitting is not just about quantity of work produced, it is about individual enjoyment too. (So there.)
   
   
4. In the past year, I started or worked on but have not yet finished:
   o Own Pattern Hat Test (99% done)
   o Debbie Bliss Blue cotton baby jumper (95% done, needs sewing up)
   o Own Pattern Sister's Birthday Scarf (95% done)
   o Erika Knight Ribbed Shrug (done, but needs ripping back to 80%)
   o Norah Gaughan Phyllo Yoked Pullover (75% done)
   o Second sock (60% done)
   o Storm Water Scarf (40% done)
   o Own Pattern Wrap (0% done, just swatched to date)
   
   Oh. Perhaps this helps to explain the reason that my completed list is a bit on the thin side? (Opps.)
   
   
5. Last but not least, I have met some brilliant people through knit nights, knitting events, Ravelry and my blog. Without reservation, I can say that you have all enhanced my life and knitting in one way or another. Even that novice knitter with her penchant for bobbles. (Aww.)
   

Am I on track?

Last year, I set myself some informal objectives to learn more techniques and complete a garment for myself. I have a long way to go before I will feel that I am a confident knitter but in the past year I have tackled a variety of things e.g. lace, beading (mainly in swatches that I have not shown on my blog, interestingly) and completed my shaped lace tee. So, in general, I think that I am on the right learning track, even though my rate of progress is slower than I would like.

Is there anything that I need to sort out?

Put bluntly, the number of incomplete projects on my list. Some are stalled by waned enthusiasm, some by a struggle with a specific technique and others by my perception that I need to prioritise different projects before I allow myself to pick them up again.

Also, I am aware that I have yarn in my stash, where 'the moment has passed'. So while I appear to have more than enough yarn in stock, I have reached the point where I doubt that I will use some of it. It's a bit like having a wardrobe full of clothes yet not being able to find anything to wear. I get tricked into big yarn at almost every John Lewis sale but I cannot find a pattern for it that wouldn't magic me into a yarn armoured blimp. I love the idea of 'knit-o-matic' style working up a fast something or other but...what is the point if it won't suit me?

So, what's next?

I will continue to set myself projects that contain a learning challenge e.g. the Chrissy-On-The-Go socks that I am making now. If nothing else, you can cackle at my ineptitude. I will also nibble away at the things on my incomplete project list, to keep WIPs at a manageable level. I do not want to drown mentally.

In terms of the yarn-without-a-cause, I plan to reorganise my yarn stash, take a hard look at what I have and then offer what I do not need for destash sale on Ravelry, just to see if anyone would like it. Actually, a subset of this yarn needs a burst of positive karma to speed it effectively on its way. So if someone decides that they would like it, I will donate the proceeds from the yarn to a charity that I support.

But hey, who knows what the year will bring? Like I said, it's a funny old life - it could decide to do anything and I reserve the right to knit anything I like, whenever I like.

Like, right now, I am torn between an anatomically correct doll or a toilet roll cover.

The Return of Lumpy Liverhead...

...a West London Mustachioed Avenger. With her fella Chim-Chim Apple-Tush.

But pray tell, why would Lumpy look so preoccupied, piqued even, while the Fella looks affable, relaxed and happy?

Perhaps Lumpy is reflecting on the appalling manner in which she managed to pick up the stitches along the heel flap of her second ever sock?

"Damn, that will take some tinking," Lumpy says out loud.

The smile suddenly vanishes from Chim-Chim's face.

It seems that the thought of tinking back 3-4 rows of 64 stitches on 2.5mm dpns has caused Lumpy's hand to clench involuntarily, forming a death grip on a rather sensitive area.

"Ooh, well done darling," chortles Lumpy," Quelle Erqsome did suggest solemn and aloof".

Lumpy wasn't sure but Chim-Chim may have muttered something, quietly and through gritted teeth, about needing his balls back.

~*~*~

Notes: clearly no Fellas were injured in the taking of these photographs as this woman is not in the filthy habit of public manhandling but heck, why let the truth get in the way of a good eyeliner moustache and an awful heel flap?!

I have tinked, I have redone and I think it looks better but I have been warned by a sock pro friend that I caught up with at the Twisted Stitch, Knit and Stitch event on Sunday that my heel is not square. As soon as I am a few rows away from the stitch pick up, I will try it on to see.

Hmm, what's the bet that could be more red sock tinking in my future?!

ORK HQ - The Easter Lowdown!

The weather in London over Easter was cold, rainy, windy with snow flurries. In fact, a London newspaper reported this week that Retail sales were down over our long weekend break because the weather was so awful that everybody sane stayed at home.

Clearly there was no one sane in residence at ORK HQ: bad weather? Pah! Suck it up - we jump for bad weather! So instead of a long, warm and cosy weekend indoors, hugging a radiator with my knitting, Easter was a rollercoaster of mainly outdoor activities. Any members of the ORK HQ unit who flagged by the roadside were rallied by the sharp cry of, ‘C’mon, stop slacking - what do you think this is? A holiday?!’

On Good Friday, we braved the inclement weather to spend time on the South Bank up in London. This featured the acquisition of Blackie* the sheep, a few cocktails, a trip on the London Eye, a pizza at Gabriel’s Wharf, being seriously hailed on while lightening cracked fiercely overhead (survival rated over photography at that point) and then we jumped in a cab to Leicester Square to go see 10,000 BC (please, do not bother) before heading home for…yup, the start of the Easter Scrabble Tournament.

Photos of me and the kneeling girl
appear courtsey of Fella's Son (the camera shy one)

On Easter Saturday, we bundled Blackie into the car and took off around the M25 to Suffolk for a traditional pub lunch and a walk around Sutton Hoo, an Anglo Saxon Ship burial. You may have seen some of the antiquities from this burial at the British Museum. Well, after introducing Blackie to some older, rather more accomplished examples of metalwork and frogmarching ourselves around the mounds to avoid freezing to the grassy knolls, we trooped the 2.5hours back home again to…yup, continue the Easter Scrabble Tournament.

If you look carefully behind Fella, there is a faint trace of his camera shy Son

Easter Sunday and Monday whistled past in a full on frenzy of family, friends, a wagonload of food^, chocolate, DVDs, a visit to Hampton Court Palace and oh yes….continuance of the Easter Scrabble Tournament.

Centre right and bottom centre photos appear courtesy of
the ever elusive Son. Almost captured on camera, top left.

I would like to point out that I was not behind all of this energetic activity. While I was back at work after Easter, Fella and Son took themselves off to see the Dr Who and Terracotta Warriors exhibitions as well. Then, in the evenings, yes...more DVDs and Scrabble.

So I know, I know - where are the photos of my knitting? Good grief, with all that going on?!

Bah humbug, give me a break! Ohhh yes, preferably one somewhere nice and warm, with nothing to do except rest, eat, sleep, sip drinks, squidge soft golden sand between my toes, read and knit.

************************************

Notes:

* Blackie: the sheep, as named by the Fella. It might be obvious but it could have been a lot worse. (Trust me.)

^ Food: while we did our best to protect Blackie from the grim reality of being a sheep over the Easter period (by focusing strongly on humans’ overwhelming love of fibre) it was hard for us to protect him completely from the rather delicious truth about sheep. After all, it is a tradition that goes back a very long way – it seems that the warrior buried with his horse at Sutton Hoo, was buried with some lamb chops in his satchel.

1st Blog Anniversary

Today is my very first blog anniversary - 1 whole year of blogging!

However, I am sitting here trying to type and being prodded by a two metre extendable ruler by the Fella, while Son sets up Scrabble ready for a last game before they head home tomorrow.

Oh now, Son is joining in with the prodding action. Not-sure-how-long-I-can-hold-out!

So I will blog tomorrow and provide an update on our Easter exploits...things around here have been a touch busy. (If I am lucky, it will distract me from the void created by their departure.)

Progress on sock two is slow but hey, I am working on this one and plotting more socks, a pair for Fella, actually...

...um, opps. Damn, where are those brownies? Huh? Huh?!

27/03/08 Edited to add: at last - success! After 6 days of being destroyed at Scrabble by Fella and Son, I finally triumphed on home turf, in our last game! So ok, who knew that freshly Fella baked, warm Cornbread (with chopped hot chilli pepper and cheese) is in fact, Scrabble brain food?

Fella and Son are currently trundling down a runway on their way home, so my house will feel very empty this evening - I will miss them both. It's been a very good Easter at ORK HQ!

Very Quickly...

...I am rushed off my feet preparing for the fella and his son to arrive for Easter this week (hurray!) and I am delighted that Amazon has just delivered:

• Super Scrabble, Scrabble Timer and Dictionary: so, let the Easter re-match tournament begin!
  
  Please note that this time, Fella and Son, I am DETERMINED reign supreme on my home turf. (Quite unlike my February performance in Vancouver!)
  
  So anyone who is up for a knit and scrabble contest in London after Easter, just let me know;
  
  
• Erika Knight Classic Knits: required for the Debbie Bliss yarn that I got in a sale last summer (plus other projects);
  
  
• Good Housekeeping - Knitting Pattern Library, 2nd hand book: just in case someone needs help with bobbles and to legitimise my scrawling of the gooseberry pattern on the back of a napkin last week; and
  
  
• Poor Cook, Recipe Book, 2nd hand version: a recipe book from my youth that was one of our family food bibles. Sadly, this is simply a paperback, not the larger format, hardback that I remember. If you have a copy of this book - please treasure it as it is worth money over at Amazon. (Or just send it to me, to love and take care of it until I pop my clogs!)

I have almost finished my purple hat pattern test knit - it's knitted, I just have to finish its hat band. Oh and um, I ball wound that other ball of Koigu and I am working my way through the 2nd plain and boring sock. Yknow, I just want to see if I can solve the heel problem posed by the first one I knitted.

Pictures soon!

Wha'? A Gooseberry?

If I were feeling generous, I would stretch my imagination. I would suggest that gooseberry stitch really resembles something a lot closer to a regimented rows of raspberries or popcorn.

If I were not, I would suggest that it looks a lot more like a serious outbreak of common warts - I will spare you the images.

Either way, I cannot see, not in the slightest, how it might resemble gooseberries, can you?!

Unless, gooseberry in this instance, actually refers to this stitch being perfect for that special garment one should knit and reserve for dinner outings with smug, gooey couples?

After all, if you have to sit there and politely endure their PDAs in the middle of a restaurant, you may as well feel frumpy, as well as a spare, unnecessary part, in a gooseberry stitch garment?

Hmm, judging by this very brief experience, I have decided that I am not cut out for a true appreciation of very, densely bobbled stitch patterns. Oh well, I'll live!

Gooseberry Fool?!*

I am not sure that I am a good person.

Last night I popped along to an I Knit meeting at Craig and Gerard’s new local pub, in Lower Marsh Street (in lieu of being able to get to their shop relocation opening on Saturday).

Although they hardly know me, I like them both and as a London based knitter, I really appreciate what I Knit has to offer - it is not just a yarn shop, it feels to me like an important part of the London knitting community. So...

...there I was, tucked up on a squashy leather sofa, halfway through a large glass of Italian chardonnay, working my way through the last 30% of my Castle Couture hat pattern test knitting and quietly observing the knitters around me when...

…a slightly shy figure loomed up behind the knitter on my right.

She eyed the space on the sofa next to me. She had a mug of tea wobbling on a saucer in one hand (it had a teabag bobbing about in it that had gently stewed her cuppa to a very bright tan colour) and her knitting bag dangling from the other.

Then, with a sudden grit of determination that didn’t quite tally with her uncertain posture, she clambered across knitters, rucksacks and settled into position beside me, unpacking a pair of long wooden dpns (size unknown), a book and a plastic bag full of an assortment of odds and ends, mostly synthetic looking yarns.

In retrospect, the contents of her bag should have been my clue - no distinct project, no pattern, just odds and ends of yarn and a stitch book? Perhaps I should have stuck with my friendly welcome smile, then just kept my eyes averted, my head down, remained focused on my own knitting and simply sung quietly to myself (the pub’s ‘Best of 80s’ pop CD)?

Nope - that's just not us community minded knitters, is it?! To seal my fate, it just so happened that I glanced across (at the very same time as the knitter, sitting on my right) to find her very carefully applying herself to her needles, with her book open on her lap,

She took our glances as interest in her book, which she generously proffered in our joint direction. It was a well preserved library copy of a ‘Good Housekeeping - Knitting - Pattern Library’ (1981). In summary, she was very enthusiastic about it, was delighted by its vintage, 1970s aspect, it looked like she had renewed it twice from the library and she was living in hope to find a copy in a charity shop somewhere soon.

The knitter on my right dutifully thumbed through it (while Ann Budd’s ‘Knitting from the Top Down’ and Barbara G Walker’s ‘A Treasury of Charted Stitch Patterns’ poked out of the top of her bag) and then handed it back, making nice noises and suggesting some names of online second hand bookstores where it might be possible to find a copy. She went back to her knitting.

As the shy knitter reached out to take her book, it fell open at Gooseberry stitch, whereupon she declared, ‘I love that pattern - it is all bobbly! But I tried…and I couldn’t do it.’

I glanced at the instructions and without thinking, I said, ‘That’s not difficult.’

Yep, the next time you are in my company and this looks like it might happen, please feel free to pop a shoe in my mouth as it opens. Seriously - before I’d even closed my mouth - the shy knitter had pulled her current piece off her needles and was casting on again.

Now…I would be crowing like mad about my teaching brilliance right now...if the penny had dropped for her at any point during the 4 rows we completed of the 8 row repeat .

It is just that it did not. I felt so bad for her that every single stitch ended up being a replay of repeated explanation and demonstration. Also, I felt very frustrated that I was unable to show or explain in a way that she could ‘see’ it. Was I doing something wrong?

Our communication (both visual and aural) was hampered by the fact that she holds her needles in a very different way to me. So my demonstrations and suggestions did not work well for her. Also, the way that she positions her needles, made it very difficult for her to see how to move the yarn backwards and forwards during the bobbles.

The Good Housekeeping book ended up being treated like a phrase book. I would demonstrate and then she would flip back to the explanatory diagrams to see if she could work out what I was getting at from the book illustrations - completely hopeless.

The worst bit was that I had to run out on her before the end of the 8 row repeat to catch my train home. Before I left, I scribbled the stitch instructions down on a napkin+ and handed my dismal teaching baton over to Gerard who looked exhausted.

‘What? Gooseberry stitch? What’s that?’

I showed him. At that point, the shy knitter was in the process of trying to stab one of her needles through a p3tog, with a look of absolute concentration on her face. His tired face fell about an inch. ‘It’s not often that you’ll hear me suggest trying something a bit easier but…’

‘…Oh no,’ I interrupted, ‘she’s halfway through, it would be wrong for her to give up now?’

His face fell another inch. If I hadn't spent the previous hour or so attempting to explain p1,yo,p1,yo,p1 into the same stitch, I might have felt more sympathetic for his predicament?!

As it was, on my way out, I am ashamed to say that I chuckled (just a little bit, sorry Gerard).

Now d’you see? I am not sure that I am a very good person at all!

In fact (see photo) when I got home last night, I needed another glass of wine to recover.

~~~*~~~

PS, on my way home tonight, I cast on a gooseberry stitch swatch. I am not the fastest in the world but I did have a fairly good idea about what I was trying to achieve. As it took me half an hour to complete 4 rows, across 23 stitches, I now realise that the shy knitter was doing a pretty good job yesterday evening! (I hope that she didn't give up.)

I'll photo it to show tomorrow - apparently, Good Housekeeping recommends this stitch for things like cot blankets? Well, from what I have seen so far? Only if one is happy to spend a lot time trying to pick baby sick out of the bobbles with a pin.

~~~*~~~

Notes

* Gooseberry Fool (just in case you have no idea what it is)

+ For those of you shocked at my scribbling down a stitch pattern out of a library book, I went online today and bought myself a second hand copy of the book for 40p. (Just in case, it might come in handy as a translation device at any point in the future.)