If you're in the London area, you'll know how wintry it's turned lately. And to make matters worse, our heating has been gradually failing. It's now completely not working. (We have a humorously named "power shower", so we do at least get warm water dribbling over us and can keep clean, but actual heat? Not so much.) Which all contributed to making me feel a little bit more sorry for myself than usual this week.

Until I got a little package of comfort in the post.

I've never taken part in a swap before (various reasons, and I still don't expect to do this regularly, but oh my, it was rather fun). What a wonderful first swap package! I was trading with Ravelry's happycat, in a "hands across the sea" trade instigated on the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary group. (A very, very fine waste of time that group is - in a good way.) I had said something rather rude about American "chocolate" (having once had a rather traumatic experience with Hershey's kisses), and she decided to prove to me that they could do better.

Oh my.

See Jemima there? Even the cat couldn't resist. I got a big box of Joe-Joe's - apparently an annual special thingy; very yummy minty chocolate cookies - plus a small box of incredibly pretty Marble Hill chocolates (I still haven't tasted them, I'm just looking at them happily) - plus... the fudge. Oh. My. The fudge.

I'm really very fond of fudge. And I'm really quite indecently fond of this fudge. And now that I've read up a bit about it, having looked for linky goodness to show you how great it is...

Well. They make ice cream. And they're how many miles away from me? Oh woe, woe!

Never mind. The fudgey goodness that I do have is entirely awe inspiring enough. (I'm going to have to keep a very beady eye on Armin. I made the mistake of giving him a taste.) And besides the lovely chocolatey treats, there was of course knitty goodness to warm me even further!

Some lovely handpainted sock yarn called Jubilee by Misty Mountain. This colourway is Navajo Sunset - bringing some much needed desert warmth into my cold, cold home. Plus there's a lovely little test skein of Claudia's handpainted (ooh!), plus these incredibly dinky little stitch markers:

How cute is that giraffe! Thank you, Robin! Very well done indeed.

Posted by Robynn at 09:14 AM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

Bonus post: I done make some boot socks!

You know, I'm trying to break the habit of apologising for my pictures, but honestly. You'd think I could show off an actual finished project a bit better than this. Photographed last night, by Armin; I thought the advantage of having someone else behind the camera would outweigh the terrible lighting, but evidently not.

Oh well. They looked really cute with my boots, and kept my feet very snuggly all day.

Note to self: learn to make your socks SMALLER. Negative ease! Otherwise I'll never be able to show them off in cute strappy shoes... and while these are officially Boot Socks... cute little heels would have been good too, no?

*sigh*

Pattern: Veronik Avery's Spiral Boot Socks from Interweave Knits, Summer 07. (Ravelry link - sorry if you can't get in yet!)
Yarn: Posh Yarn's Emily (lambswool/angora/cashmere), in Pompous colourway. Gorgeous, non? So squishy and warm!
Needles: 2.75mm rosewood Sox Stix. I loved the colour of these needles with this yarn! Also, these socks were what I was working on throughout Ally Pally as well as Stitch n Bitch day - which, inexplicably, I haven't even blogged about, but it was fab - so any time people asked what sox stix were like to use, I was able to give them a demo. They were convinced!

Mods: I cast on an extra 8 stitches and did one extra pattern repeat down the leg, to accommodate my chunky calves. I also reversed the pattern stitch for the second sock, because I like symmetry. This worked fine up until the foot, when for some reason, at first I had real trouble with placing the yo and ssk bits... The really interesting part about that was that, although on a row-by-row basis I was ostensibly doing fine, progress was slow. Really slow. Slow like swimming backwards through treacle with a camel tied around my neck. Once I decided to rip back and do the foot over, adjusting the chart placement stuff, suddenly it was full steam ahead. It went so fast, I actually knit 3cm too far before I thought to check if it was time to start the toe yet. Weird, huh? Lesson learned: If my knitting isn't happy, I better stop and ask it why.

Posted by Robynn at 02:33 PM | Permalink | 4 cups of tea on the table

Never mind all that shop talk. Let me show you some knitting.

For a few weeks I've been working on Ysolda's gorgeous Snow White. I'm using teal Alchemy wool/silk, and it's looking fantastic. Well, the yarn is, I can't tell about the shaping yet. I'm just a leetle bit worried about the length/tightness... I decided to add 10cm on general principles, because shorter tops are not flattering on me, and also, me wide. Me busty. This means I tend to lose a bit of length in a lot of styles. (Both because the fabric gets pulled out a bit more, and because my ample bosom steals vertical as well as horizontal inches.) But, here's the flaw: Ysolda's pattern, while wonderfully detailed in many respects, has one strange omission: no length measurement that I can find. Not on the schematic, not in the text. So I may have underestimated; and now I'm worrying about the advisability of having fairly snug ribbing right over my least favourite body part - the belly.

(In fact, the further I get with this, the less advisable I think it is. I'm not at my slimmest - that's an understatement. And while this style would probably work on me when I am at my slimmest, right now, there's a bit too much of me to be wearing something so ... figure-hugging. But, bloody minded as ever, I'm chugging along. And will no doubt end up with something that will go straight into the "when I've lost a couple of stone" pile at the back of the cupboard. It's so pretty though!

(Aside: this being in the round, and involving some elegantly complex shaping, I had to break the habit of a lifetime and use stitch markers. Which has yielded an interesting discovery. The little fishy stitch markers from Heidi Petach? Are *wonderful*. I didn't especially like them in the bag, but on the needle they seriously come to life, swimming through the air most delightfully. Plus, it probably helps that their turquoise beads match my yarn!)

Posted by Robynn at 01:15 PM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

Hi! How've you been? Good to see you again. Enjoying the knitterly weather, are we? Got lots of cocoa on the go? Yeah, me too. So as I was saying yesterday -

What's that? I wasn't saying anything yesterday? Um, are you sure? I could have sworn. I've been around. What do you mean, no? I have! Haven't I?

Oh.

Well ANYway, as I would have been saying if I'd been here to say it, this is a funny time of year for me. On the one hand, as I've heard other people mentioning, there's a sort of sense of new beginnings in autumn. For me, that's mostly because as soon as the clocks go back and it's dark and all, I'm very aware of the End of the Year approaching, and I feel like whatever I was hoping to achieve this year, I've had my chance. That's it, done. Time to start preparing for next year now. So that's the beginning. More of an end, really, I suppose. Whatever. It's a cyclical turning point.

The other thing is, well, it's dark and cold. These are enjoyable things, sometimes, but also sometimes... not. If I'm feeling sorry for myself (because, say, I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I'd hoped), then I get to feeling more sorry for myself. If I'm feeling stressed, I get even more stressed, because all I want is to listen to the weather's very clear instructions and just Go To Bed with my knitting. But I have lots to do, that's what generally makes me stressed, so that's not an option, so frustrated desires make me even more stressed.

But I'm not stressed now. Nonono. I'm excited. I'm excited because I can see 2008 approaching. And it's going to be rather magic. Why?

Well, for one thing, I'm going to be working on Purlescence full-time. You may remember I mentioned that I have a part-time job - I'm quitting. So (apart from a little freelance editing) I will be able to devote all my time to this lovely website, and that can only be good news for all of us. Better service. More stuff. More ideas, more projects, more fun. Did I mention more stuff?

Gosh... have I been doing some serious stash enhancement, or is there something I'm not telling you?

Posted by Robynn at 04:59 PM | Permalink | 9 cups of tea on the table

Not at all knitting related, but quite marvellous none the less:

It's not what you think.

Posted by Robynn at 09:29 AM | Permalink | 3 cups of tea on the table

I'm not sure I should admit to having spent a single minute of the past three weeks doing anything but eat, sleep and work (after all, I should have been blogging with those precious minutes!), but in fact, I have.

Two weeks ago I was supposed to be celebrating a friend's 30th birthday by taking part in a selection of activities that I would never, ever normally bother with. Quad biking. Clay pigeon shooting. Axe throwing.

(Axe throwing?!)

But, owing to a dramatically unfortunate alignment of the planets, malicious actions on the part of the train company and possibly a small degree of personal idiocy, I didn't make it. Instead, after two hours of travel, Armin and I found ourselves in Brighton. With no plans. In a town we have both visited, and loved, but have never visited together. On a beautiful, clear, crisp and sparkling autumn afternoon. An afternoon that could, and possibly should, have seen us return dutifully home, to work on the many, many worky things we had to do... but an afternoon that was already officially accounted for.

Now, what would you do?

We went on funfair rides.

We ate fish 'n chips on the pier.

We introduced the sock* to the sea.

We wandered the Lanes, and put an end to a lifetime's questing for the Perfect Red Lipstick. (It's Mac's Russian Red. No no, no need to thank me. I did it for all of us.)

We had afternoon tea.

And then, just when we were ready to turn around and go back up the hill to the station, we trotted down to the beach for one last goodbye to the sea... and discovered the perfect sunset. Over the old pier. With amazing, breathtaking flocks of seagulls.

Come on, you know by now that there's no way I and my little cameraphone could do anything with that view. But somebody did. And maybe soon he'll upload them so we can all admire. The Cape Town photos, too. (I don't know why I think that nagging him on my knitting blog is going to help...)

_____
* Spiral boot socks, from Interweave, in Posh Yarn Emily. Loving them. Just about to turn the heel on the second one.

Posted by Robynn at 11:41 PM | Permalink | 3 cups of tea on the table

Please go and give a warm welcome to Extemporanea, over at Purl-handled revolver. Extemp - previously (and still) of Freckles & doubt - is a ferociously smart and funny woman, whose sudden decision to pick up the needles has made me quite indecently happy. The decision to start a knitting blog is even better. So, go say hi, and while you're at it, remind her to sign up for Ravelry.

Posted by Robynn at 12:23 PM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

A little musical diversion for you. Enjoy!

Posted by Robynn at 12:16 PM | Permalink