A Lazy Afternoon in Brighton

It's Saturday morning, the phyllo is soaking in preparation for blocking and I am sat here with a mug of good coffee. You know, it has been a week and a bit since the Fella returned home. For some reason, it is at everyday times like this that I miss him the most - he should be here drinking Saturday coffee with me!

As a result I have found myself flipping back through our July photographs. There are surprisingly few (we rarely remember to take our cameras out with us). However, one time that we did remember, is an afternoon where we decided to sneak off during the GB Open, as two naughty children absconding from school a much needed break from the competitions. We jumped into the car and took off to Brighton for some fresh sea air and a look around the town.

We wandered through the South Lanes, which are a little maze of shopping alleys in the town centre - has anyone else noticed that there seems to be an abundance of jewellery shops there? I am ashamed to say that I got so close to one window display that that my nose (or was it my forehead?) bounced audibly off the glass, much to the delight of two passing shoppers.

We also strolled along the North Laines, which are a long ribbon of connecting streets with little independent shops and cafes etc. Now, while it was great to be able to walk along a street without falling over a chain coffee shop every two metres, I was left with the nagging feeling that Brighton might not be an entirely sheep friendly town.

All head, no fleece.

Ok, what happened to their bodies? Do I need to start digging up Brighton patios? Are these intended as knitter horror film props, or what?! After the shock of that grisly discovery, we headed to the seafront to take in the sea air along the pebble beach.



We paddled in the sea. Well okay, I paddled in the sea while the Fella gentlemanly kept my handbag safe.



We strolled along the pier, shared an obligatory small portion of fish and chips, won a round of Dolphin Derby and took advantage of a very obvious photo opportunity.

Then, at the very end of our afternoon, we headed to a fish restaurant for dinner before pootling gently off home to face the next round of events.

What a fabulous, lazy holiday afternoon. There are some more Brighton photos here.

Opps – time to start phyllo blocking. I am not sure that it will dry in time to take photos this weekend? So, as it seems to be almost dark by the time I get home after work at the moment, I may not be able to take any pictures until next weekend. Please bear with me!

Phyllo Yoked Marquee

Ooof! Note the 100% progress bar on the right of this page?

My Norah Gaughan phyllo yoked pullover is finished (except sewing up the underarms seams). I should be celebrating, right?

A whole finished summer pullover worked in beautifully soft, lovely, purple Rowan Cotton Calmer. There should be pictures galore in this post, of me revelling in my finished knit, beaming in a very self satisfied way, right?

No, I am afraid not. I knew that the jumper would be too big (as I am reduced in size from a 46" chest to a 38" chest) but I hoped that it would work on me as an oversized tunic?

It doesn't work - when I lifted it over my head to try it on, it slipped down, whistled straight over my shoulders and shot down my arms (where I then extricated my hands) and sat sullenly around my waist looking like a warped phyllo waisted skirt, with bell sleeves jutting out like saddle bags.

Opps.

Now my other thought was that if it did not work on me, that it would be sufficiently well knitted to give away - sadly, I am not even sure that I can gift it or swap it in its current state.

Did I mention that my tension using circulars is tighter than when using straight needles? I sort of thought that it didn't look too bad while I was knitting.

However, when the jumper is on? The difference between the body, arms and yoke is extremely visible and I doubt that blocking will even it out.

What do you think - is it worth trying to see if I can salvage the jumper at least (to gift it onwards)? Or good grief, do I just bite the bullet and frog it?

A whole 46" chest, adult sized jumper. Wow. Owch. It is sitting on a bed at home, awaiting my decision.

I might do what all good knitwear stylists do - get some large bulldog clips and take some photos for posterity.

Then I'll take some more without bull dog clips so you can see the real deal and help me decide on its exit?

One day (over the rainbow) I might make something for myself that I can actually wear. It's not happened yet - the lace shaped tee that I made last autumn was only worn twice and now sits in a cupboard feeling very unloved.

Early - Mid Summer Blooms

It feels to me that the year is whizzing past so quickly that I feel like I am running to keep up, yet I am still falling behind.

You see, I can hardly believe that it is August already. The early - mid summer blooms have come and gone in my garden. The compilation on the left show some plants that I managed to catch. However, there were many more that my camera missed - including my clemantis, some wild geraniums, white Astrantia and my remaining delphiniums (the slugs and snails usually feast on these while they are tender shoots).

Mind you, it has not all been a success on the gardening front though. Ahem! I only read the instructions on the outside of my David Austin bare root rose packaging that I received late last autumn. Do you remember - the pink Hero rose I ordered last September that it has taken me three years to obtain?!

Ahh well, the instructions on the outside of the packaging advised that the rose should be placed in a frost free place if it could not be planted straight away. So I thought it best not to open the packet. Instead I put it, unopened, into my garden shed.

Oh, don't ask - if common sense had entered into this equation at all, I would have thought through the fact that something alive should not spend the entire winter in the shed without any light, moisture or air.

I am guessing that the instructions on the packet were intended only for a week or two, not all of the winter into early Spring months. As a result, I opened the packet, took out a very dead looking twig, read the more detailed instructions inside (which pointed out the error of my ways) and I sighed.

On a bright note, it seems that I am afflicted just as equally by gardening denial, as I am by knitterly denial. So I must be an optimist at heart? You see, I planted it out into a pot (just in case). And lo! Here it is, 5 months on:

Yup, as dead as a bloomin' dodo!

Also, have I ever mentioned that my neighbour's garden is trying to take over the earth, one square inch of bindweed and ornamental vine at a time?

The nasty stuff has started to come through their fence and has started to pop up in my flowerbeds - it's a constant battle. Although my tree peony is putting up a good, strong boundary defence, it seems that the darker elements of next door's plantlife decided that my absence at the GB Open was the ideal opportunity to launch another world offensive:

It may not look too bad in these pictures but trust me, these are sly plants. Left unattended, they spread and spread, either quietly choking all in their path or clambering over them with hobnailed wide, vine leaved boots, obliterating out the light for everything below them.

Now I appreciate that a weed is really only a plant in the wrong place but these intruders from next door are total thugs and as you can see from the image below, they seem to work very well in partnership:


So, is anyone else out there battling persistent weeds or bug infestations, in the global battle for greater gardening good this summer?!

Let me bounce back with...

Please note that this yacht photo was taken by Tambako the Jaguar and appears here under Creative Commons licence. Please respect this image. I have not used a Creative Commons image before, so I hope that I have done this correctly!

...an open post to the Chandlery worker who seemed to believe that people who do not own boats should not be in their shop.

Hello, my name is Gabrielle. Sadly, as much as I love being by water, enjoy sitting by, paddling or swimming in rivers and the sea, I am not lucky enough to own any kind of boat, yacht, water or marine going vessel - not even an inflatable or model one.

I know that you spotted this the moment that I entered your establishment. I guess that you could see from the uncertainty in my body language that 'I did not belong'. I am just sorry that you decided that the prospect of selling something specialist to a member of the General Public for a non boating purpose (shock horror) was irritating.

After all, you work for a retail outlet. Surely my money is just as good as the next person who walked in, reeking suitably of outboard motor fuel? I know that your Chandlery is not a general DIY store - it exists to cater for a specialist market. Actually, this was why I was standing in your shop, waiting for product assistance on the specialist paint that you stock. I am intelligent woman. I did not wander in by mistake. I made specific enquiries at a boatyard and drove out to the marina where you are based, in order to purchase it.

So why did you ignore me for almost 30 minutes? It was pointless for you to keep walking off in the opposite direction when I followed you around trying to catch your attention, in the hope that I would go away. I refer you to my point above, you had the paint that I needed to buy, so I was unlikely to leave until you served me.

I was polite. I even tried to work through the paint range on my own. I watched while you served the boat owner in front of me. I noted that you gave him real advice on the same range of products I was looking at - unfortunately, he needed something different to me, otherwise, I would have wimped, simply collected up what I needed, paid and run.

Eventually, I queued at the boat maintenance counter and spoke to another employee, who was perfectly polite but had to refer me to you, as you are the Chandlery's boat paint specialist.

You see, it is clear that buying boat paint is not like buying paint from a general DIY store - it is a whole specialist system with Thinners 1 - 9, a whole range of under and top coats. The range and combination needed depends on the surface that one applies it to and whether it is over or under water.

Well, it was interesting to catch you out when I followed him over to where you were lurking. You thought that I would remain standing at the paint stand. Yes, I did see you gesture in irritation, mutter that this is not a DIY shop and tell him to, 'Just get rid of her'.

I remained polite because I am stubborn, I wanted the paint and by that point, I was going to make you serve me even if the very idea of it made you choke. I simply and quietly suggested that the more quickly you served me, the sooner I would be gone. I also pointed out that if you gave me the correct advice, it would significantly reduce the chance that I would need to come back...

...despite this, I feel a little embarassed for you that you did not have the manners to deal with me gracefully.

Having observed your earlier paint advice to a boat owner, it was interesting to watch you take the tin of paint that I handed over to you, asking whether this was what I needed and then read me verbatum, all of the text on the back of the tin. Slowly and without intonation too - pretty much in the way a small child does when learning to read.

At that point, I gave up on you. I feel that the shame is on you for your lack of manners. So, I returned to the paint stand, I took out my mobile phone and phoned the fella who was eight timezones and 4500 miles away at that point and checked with him instead.

5 minutes later, I was at the till (with the polite employee) to pay for the products that I needed.

I suspect that I should counsel people to avoid your Chandlery at all costs. However, why should I give you the satisfaction of reducing your contact with non-boating members of the General Public?

Nope, instead - I intend to recommend the product that you sold me to absolutely everyone. If they ask, I will not blog it but I will tell them privately where I purchased it and send them all your way. Please think of it as personal development and I hope that, over time, you will learn to deal with non boating members of the public more gracefully.

I might warn them that they will not get a warm welcome and that they will need to be persistent, if not firm with you.

You see, time will tell but I suspect that specialist, very high UV resistent boat paint is much better for south facing external woodwork than the stuff that one can purchase at a general DIY place.

Yup, I went through that priceless snippet of poor customer service to obain high UV paint to protect my new front door. My home vessel might be very landlocked but I do care for it, so it deserves the best paint that I can purchase for it.

Here is my front door before I replaced it earlier this month:

I last rubbed it down, undercoated and glossed it about 2-3 years ago. As you can see - the hot, south facing sun, wind and rain had not been kind to it at all. In fact, some of my neighbours had started to ask when I was going to deal with it.

Mind you, not that I am alone in front door shabbiness on my side of the street. Here is a snippet of another front door in my road! It was painted about the same time that I did mine:

The reason that I had not dealt with mine, was that I intended to replace the whole door with a brand new one. I finally managed to organise it to happen this month.

Here is my new front door. It is not anything special but it has been beautifully painted in high UV resistent boat paint for me by my wonderful fella.

(Yep Mel, my front door is still red without a house number).

I cannot help it, what can I tell you? I like red front doors.

Before the fella suggested boat paint, I thought that I would have to paint it white to help the finish last longer.

Yes, if the blue door people ask - I will tell them where I got my paint and tell them that it comes in several, lovely shades of blue too!

So...if you have a south facing home with peeling front door paint. You could do worse than investigate boat paint - just be prepared to put on a rhino skin coat before you cross the threshold of your local chandlery.

I am back and...

...it does seem that I never learn!

First and firemost though - happy August and Summer to you all!

Okay, if you managed to catch my last post, you will note that I asserted that I would only take one project away with me to work on at the GB Open. Instead of making a third year pattern repeat of taking away lots of projects (that I do not touch), I would pack one project and finish it.

I wanted to return triumphant and stun you all with Brooklyn Tweed style quality photographs (cough) of my summer holiday knitting. Yep, yep, yep, I was so there (mentally) and ready to impress, I even took my tripod so that the Fella could take the photos...

...ho hum, best laid plans and all that. When I unpacked this evening, I found these in my knitting project bag:

Yup, not one project but five. Five. Each and every one is incomplete too. My unfinished phyllo plus two lots of Dashing, one shrug-wrap and a baby garment (none of which which are started)!

I did manage to work a couple of rounds on my phyllo during a team match, fairly on on the competition but that - folks - is it.

Why? Well the answer is quite simple. I was not knitting, I was doing my level best, alongside 999 or so other competitors, to win some of these trophies:

And do you know what? I did not blooming win any of them. Not one!

I came randomly vaguely close on occasion - I was 2nd in one minor competition, then 6th and 32nd in the two key finals (each after two knockout rounds), I competed in all of the major matches for my home nation and I quietly crept onto the Grand Aggregate board, just sneaked into 50th place on the last day of competitions:

I realise that it is only 50th place but I have never managed to finish on the board before. Apparently my father sat my sister down and explained to her (in detail), just how well I'd done. I did laugh - trust me, having my GB Open results explained to you in detail if you are not involved in my sport, is akin to being a non knitter and listening to someone describing in detail the WPI of their handspun or charity shop treasures. Zzzzzzzz.....

...so, it seems that my phyllo yoke goes on, and on, and on. Picked up again in June and now to be finished in August?!

So someday soon, maybe, I'll have something to show for all my efforts? I blooming hope so!

Mind you, it occurs to me that after all this UFO busting that I have been doing lately, that I deserve the reward of knitting something new? The fact that I packed new projects and not other unfinished objects suggests that that is the way my brain is headed. However, what should it be?

A) That wrap-shrug thing (for me?)

B) Dashing - i) for the fella ii) for the fella's son (neither pairs needed til cold weather)

C) Baby garment (1st birthday target present - needs to reach Marseille by early September)

I know which of the above is tugging insistently at my brain - but can you guess too?!

26 Rounds Left...!

I think that I should publish this post, even though it dates back to just before the GB Open started...

...because it demonstrates that in 3 years, I still have not learnt a bloomin' thing!

* * *

I still have no pictures of my phyllo because I have been competing almost non stop since last Thursday. I have nothing very special to report in terms of my individual results but I am delighted to say that my Club team beat Canada and Kenya in a warm up match last Friday!


It's odd, I always think that I will have plenty of time between competitions to knit, yet somehow it does not ever work out that way. For the past two years I have taken all sorts of projects with me to do between events and not worked a single stitch.


So I am not setting myself up to fail this year by taking 3-4 projects with me. Instead, I think that I would like to quietly work my way through the remaining rounds of this pullover and sew in its ends.


It's a holiday objective of sorts?!

Argh...still knitting!

I have just noticed that on the 20th June, I mentioned on a Ravelry forum that I was about to pick up all 352 stitches for the yoke on my Phyllo Yoked Pullover, so I could set off on the lace chart home stretch.

Okay...now I promise that I have knitted each and every 70 minute round train commute since that date plus a couple of hours in front of the tv last night and...

...I am still only past the intro rounds and 25.5 rows into a 57 row chart.

Basically, it's taking me about 35mins to do 1.5 rounds. Good grief.

That said, I am really enjoying working it - I love how the overall piece is revealing itself and the stitches work together to create the pattern. What I am loving a little less is that it has become very clear to me that my tension is a lot tighter on circular needles than it is on straight needles.

Visibly so, in fact. I have not ripped back because by the time I had worked enough to spot it, I could not face it. So I will just have to see how it all looks when I have finished. Ho hum. Learning note to self: go up at least .5mm on circular needle size when tackling a project that combines straights and circulars.

I haven't posted any pictures of progress because I was convinced that I would whip quickly enough through this last bit to be able to show the whole thing finished.

Hmm, not so - I should have known better! So I promise that I will try to find time* to take some photos in the next few days for you to see what I am up to!

~*~*~*~

Notes: it is the GB Open for my sport this month. Time is very scarce for anything other than breathing, working and competing - as a result, things on my blog are likely to be a bit slow until the end of July!

Dear Neglected Baby Jumper...

...as a UFO, you are finished - done - sorted!

I can barely articulate the very heartfelt relief I feel at your completion.


This said, I am very sorry but I am afraid that I shall wave you off without a tear because you became a very guilty millstone around my neck - one that winked at me, reminding me of my slow knitting speed, short attention span and my failure to meet a deadline, each and every time I opened a cupboard or a drawer (depending on the year). Hurray, no more!

It's astonishing but do you realise that I was knitting you the very first time that I met Mel at the gym and she invited me to join a new knitting group that she was setting up - Amida Knitters?


Now...I know that you were intended for an older brother* but this does not in any way negate the sentiment with which I gift you to the youngest child of a friend.

Actually, I thank the very big hole in the ozone layer that I was given another opportunity - another pregnancy, another boy, another chance. (It would have felt wrong to gift this jumper to any other family.)


So please - do your best and serve your wearer well. It's summer, you are cotton - easy to wear and easy to wash. Please do not come undone at the seams and please do not cast off your buttons.


Most of all, please enjoy the next phase of your existence - after all, whatever gets smeared into you or whatever you roll in, it all has to be a much better than you living a life unfulfilled, half finished in a project bag, tucked away and taking up the time of two stitch holders?

So this is your time - revel in it and make me proud!

Lots of love,

Gabrielle
Your Rather Slow Maker

* * *

Notes:

1) Finished Object Stats:
Pattern: Striped Top - Quick Baby Knits - Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Rowan Glace Cotton - DK
Project Duration: March 2005 - June 2008
Worked: at the gym, during work commutes and at knit nights!

2) Just over a year ago, the older brother received a different handknit jumper for his second birthday. I learned my lesson - it was Dumpling from Rowan Babies, worked in Rowan Big Wool - he loved it and wore it half to pieces!

3) I did not use the teddy bear buttons because they were freaking me out. I looked at them and to be honest, they gave me an insight into teddy bear and clown phobia. How could I inflict these buttons, with this strange look in their eyes, on a one year old little boy?


I doubt that he would have been able to sleep at night!

Shhh...

...knitting.

The UFO busting continues. I don't want to say much, just in case I jinx progress. It's not red, it's purple but y'know, clearing the decks, getting there.

No I have not knitted a pocket onto the front of the baby jumper. I think that everyone who has commented is right yet I cannot bring myself to knit another stitch on it. I have lost my poppers and I cannot find my mini-aeroplane buttons. So its finishing has to wait until this weekend when I want it done (and gone)!

In other news, I had an email from one of my sisters the other day who asked me for my blog address...

...um, I felt a bit nervous about it because my sister knits and she teaches fashion-textiles.

GULP, no pressure here to be stylish then! As it happens, my sister is one of the most effortlessly fashionable people that I know. I am not sure that I know anyone else who could succesfully twin a shop bought gillet and handknit scarf (I think) to such good effect?!

She just sorta does?

Note: I have only chopped off my sister's head because I didn't have her permission to blog this photo. She is, in fact, is extremely lovely and goodlooking. She is also a lot of fun!

Bare, Bears, Planes or What...?!

(Photos taken on my mobile phone as I was leaving the house this morning).

I don't know, what do you think?

What am I talking about?! Okay, here are some bears and planes for your consideration:

What are they for? Well, I have sewn up the neglected baby jumper UFO at long last and I am even almost happy with my seaming. Hurray! Sadly, it seems that I am the creator of the most boring (duck egg?) blue cotton baby jumper on earth. Sigh:

Not only is it exceptionally plain, it's surprisingly heavy. There is another problem too. The buttonholes in the pattern were simple YOs, created on 2.75mm needles.

As a result of this, my tension or both, they are too small for any buttons that I can think of. So I plan to use poppers and sew decorative buttons over the top. Maybe. So okay then, how do I save this top from its plainness?

1) Get over myself and leave it bare?

2) Sew these oversized novelty baby buttons to its front? Or is this a 'pull off and chew' risk for a one year old? If it is okay to sew a choking hazard to the front of a dull jumper, which ones do I use - teddy bears or aeroplanes?!

3) Do something else? A duplicate stitch something? What? I haven't found any decent duplicate stitch motifs on the web yet. Any suggestions?

She quietly winces, thinking that this is all just more time that needs to be spent trying to doll up something that she started about three years ago, which missed its deadline and if she doesn't pull her finger out, will also miss her second chance deadline (the original gift recepient's parents had another baby boy who has just had his first birthday).

The moral of the story is that if you are newly returned to knitting, standing in the queue to pay for a book that suggests that it is full of quick, achievable baby knits and you are holding sufficient 4-ply yarn for one of its patterns?

The book is fibbing - there'll be nothing quick about the knit at all.