I Did It

I'm going to let you into a big secret.

I'm a big scaredy cat, and I'm scared of failing.

I've wanted to do something fibrey for over a year now, and I've been umming and aahing about it, and talking myself out of it every day, and watching with jealousy as others stood up and took their ideas forward while I came up with excuse after excuse for why I couldn't be among them.

I love my day job - I really do - to know that what I do each day could make a difference to someone's life is something that gives me an immense sense of both purpose and satisfaction, but it's hard sometimes, because that job is more than a job - it's a vocation, and that makes it so very difficult to switch off when I leave the office.

Which is one of the reasons I took up knitting, because I needed something that I could do away from a computer, because I was slowly going mad from not being able to switch off, and while it solved that problem, it also filled holes in me I didn't know I had, and through it, I've found opportunities, enjoyment and friends I'd never have found otherwise, and I absolutely love it.

I get such a buzz out of knowing I can go anywhere in the world - anywhere - and find a yarn shop, and it'll feel like home, because no matter the language barrier, there's a commonality to the experience of being a knitter (or crocheter, or spinner, or felter, or whateverer).

I look back on the first night I went along to Angelknits, to join this knitting group I'd read about, and how I hid in the DVD section in Borders for 20 minutes before I got up the guts to go over and ask to join them and can't believe how scared I was.

Now, after the adrenaline of Saturday has died down, I'm looking back and wondering why I was so terrified of doing this - and I really was - I was literally shaking for the first three hours of the show - from fear, from excitement, from relief when the first person bought fibre from me. I could have hugged her. I actually thought my head would burst open and explode with the emotion - mostly relief - of it all.

I had an amazing day on Saturday. I'm never going to be rich running this little fledgling (for the moment) fibre business of mine, but then I don't need to. I'm running it to support my habit, and because it gives me a indulge even more in the alchemy that is taking the clippings from a sheep and turning it into something else.

I can't thank Nikki enough for sharing her space with me, and giving me the chance that I'd never have taken by myself, and Gerard and Craig for putting together an event where so many people came along and the atmosphere was just right for those of us starting out on this fabulous rollercoaster ride.

I met so many wonderful people and had such a good time that I don't even really mind that I didn't get a chance to shop for myself.

I've got a lot to learn, and a long way to go before I can consider it an overwhelming success, but even a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, and now I'm on that road, there's no turning back now.

Getting Off The Pot

I've dropped a few hints about super secret projects I've been working on, and the time has come to share one of them.

For a long time now, I've wanted to do more with fibre and dye, after a few experiments last year revealed the joyful alchemy of the dye pot.

I've also wanted to see if I could perhaps make a little money while having fun (because I just couldn't justify buying all that fibre and dye just for personal use), but I was a bit nervous about the whole "business" side of things.

Anyway, after a lot of faffing, a lot of thinking, a lot of planning and a lot of help and encouragement, I've actually done it.

I dyed some fibre, I've packaged it all up, I've made a website, and I'm all ready to go claim my corner of Nikki's Fluffenstuff table at the UK Stitch and Bitch day and see if this bird is ready to fly.

Do you have fibrelust?

Cos I definitely do.

Packing For The Weekend

I didn't quite manage to get all my stuff packed for my weekend away before I left for work this morning.

I did, however manage to pack the really important stuff.

Two balls of cerise Louisa Harding Kimono Angora and two turquoise, a ball of cerise Alpaca and a cake of pale pink and white mohair blend.

Anyone want to place a bet on how much of this is in it's current form by the end of this weekend (after two six hour car journeys and with only crochet hooks packed)?

There's a skein of yarn in it for you if you guess right. My choice (won't be nasty acrylic).

You've got til about 8pm on Sunday night (UK time) to get your answers in, and I'll reveal all then.

New Books, New Scarf

At the end of a week the likes of which I hope I don't have too often, it's nice to have a productive weekend.

The weekend's productivity started on Friday night, at the I Knit London film night. Although I had a project in my bag, I'd been thinking about something soft and fluffy for a couple of days, and when stash-raiding, had come up empty.

When I got to I Knit, I must have spent a full half hour stalking the shelves, trying to decide on the perfect yarn, and just as the film was about to start, I stopped ignoring the call of the Kid Silk Haze that I'd picked up and put down at least six times.

With a skein of KSH in one hand, a crochet hook in the other, and a glass of wine on the table in front of me, I started making a long foundation chain, intending to make a lengthways scarf while watching Sideways.

Somehow, after more than 200 chains and a fair amount of trebles (the crochet stitch, not the alcoholic shots), I found myself ripping it back (not the easiest thing with dark purple mohair yarn in the mostly dark) and starting over.

Without any real thought, I found myself doubling the yarn (taking the risky but successful step of using both ends at once) making a ring, then another, and then another. One flat circle followed by another, and another, and so on, and when the film ended and the lights came back up, I had six flat circles joined together and a good head start for a new scarf. Not wishing to tempt fate, I bought the other ball of purple KSH before I left the shop.

I crocheted at the bus stop, on the bus home, and for a while at home before K got home from his night out, and kept going over the weekend, til by the end of Sunday I had a pile of ends, a few yards spare (phew!) and a beautifully soft and fluffy purple crocheted Kid Silk Haze scarf.

I didn't even really stop to read the new books which the Amazon fairy brought me on Saturday morning: The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane "Yarnstorm" Brocket (whose domestic life I've been coveting for a long time now); 200 ripple stitch patterns and 200 crochet blocks by Jan Eaton and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off by the Yarn Harlot (I did read a little of this in the car on the way to and from the supermarket).

I'll be posting the pattern for the scarf, which I've christened Ynez (after Santa Ynez, the area of California where Sideways is set), just as soon as I can get enough time while it's still light to take a decent photo of it so check back in a couple of days if you're interested.

Bobbin Along

I know it's a terrible terrible pun, but I'm not apologising for it, because it makes me grin, and with the week I've had, that's a much needed thing.

As were these bobbins.

When I first bought my wheel, it came with three bobbins, and I kinda thought I might need more, but figured three was enough to be getting on with. Which it mostly was, for about the first week.

Since then, I've been desperately trying to justify buying more bobbins, and specifically, high speed ones, to help me spin finer yarn.

Typically enough, in that time of self denial, I've slowly developed techniques for spinning fine yarn on the normal ratio bobbins and since they're all full of lace weight singles, it follows that having finally gotten hold of high speed bobbins that I'll have an urge to spin heavier weight yarn.

Since the odds of anyone feeling confident about what I want or need to brave the P&M Woolcraft site to buy me bobbins for my birthday without me knowing about it were fairly small, these were purchased using birthday money. Two were bought using money from my mum and the other one - well the other one is a little bit special.

Since meeting K, my lovely boyfriend last year, I've been welcomed into his family in a way I didn't expect but am extremely grateful for. I was very touched that his parents brought birthday presents for me with them when they came to stay with us a few weeks before my birthday, but was entirely overwhelmed to get an unexpected birthday card in the post the day before my birthday.

I don't tend to get birthday cards through the post so I was a bit curious. It turned out that his grandparents had not only remembered my birthday, but had sent me a birthday card - which was surprise and delight enough, but as I opened it, a banknote slid out into my lap. It wasn't expected, and it wasn't much, but it was almost enough to buy one bobbin and so instead of the two I was originally going to buy, I bought three.

I think they'll appreciate it when I tell them what I used the money for. His Gran crochets granny square afghans despite her sight failing, and his Grandpa was taught to spin as a child by his mother and the last time we met, we had a lovely chat about it.

I've got a plan too. It may not be entirely do-able given the timescale, but I have a plan to spin up some yarn and knit or crochet them both something for Christmas.

Now to find the perfect patterns.

Waving, Not Drowning

I've been dealing with quote a lot of stress lately. Some of it comes from external sources, some from within myself (I'm sure I'm not the only one who beats themselves up for not being perfect all the time).

It sounds corny, but when I think about it, knitting (and crocheting, and spinning), have literally saved my sanity over the last couple of years, and I have a kind of sliding scale of what I can do when I'm stressed.

When I'm ok or a little bit stressed, I can knit. When I'm too stressed, I can't, but I can crochet. When I'm too stressed (or too tired to concentrate) to do both, I spin.

Normally this works really well, and accounts for the vast amount of spinning I've been doing lately, over and above what I'd do just for the love of it, but for the last couple of weeks, my wheel has been broken. The screw which holds the foot pedal post to the ball bearing worked it's way loose, and I didn't want to break it any more, so had to stop for a couple of weeks til I could figure out how to fix it.

This has left me with a bit of a hole in my therapy plan, which I've been filling with frantic crocheting, most especially this current piece, a wavy crochet wrap, using up the other 5 balls of Noro Silk Garden that I bought when I was making Lori's Clapotis.

It's kind of taken on a bit of meaning above and beyond just being a wavy wrap. Every day this week I've been crocheting furiously on the way to and from work, each stitch helping (but not entirely) distract me from the worries that have been crowding in, and as a result, it's become a bit of a monument to my need to recognise that I can't be perfect all the time, and sometimes, good enough is enough.

So although this has so many mistakes I'd be almost embarrassed to show it off to anyone who knows about crochet, I love it, because with each stitch, it helps me keep my head above water.

I'm waving, not drowning.

Honest.

(... and the wheel got fixed last night. Amazing what a little squirt of superglue can do.)

My First Crochet Hook

I learned to crochet at Ally Pally 2 years ago, and since I learned with a borrowed hook, I needed to get some of my own, sharpish.

So I did.

I wandered round the show, and stopped at a stall selling Vogue crochet hooks and knitting needles. I bought three hooks - an 8mm cream one, a 7mm lime green one and a 6.5mm pale blue one.

Although I've since bought many, many crochet hooks, including the super wonderful ergonomic clover ones, that green one is the one I've used the most.

It made the Tea Scarf, it's made many a twirly scarf or a one-skein scarf (from the Debbie Stoller Happy Hooker book), and it's currently making a wavy stole and a secret scarf (yes, two projects at once, don't you just love how it can multitask?).

On Saturday night though, it had a much more important function.

I firmly believe it's never too early to get kids involved with stuff, and at 13 months, my niece is growing up very, very quickly. Quite apart from being able to run around after the cats, she's able to hold crayons the correct way up and is beginning to draw. What's even more amazing to me is that when given a box of three crayons in Pizza Hut on Sunday, she not only took them out to play with them, but also put them back in the box - all facing the same way. On purpose. Several times. This kid is smart. Certainly smart enough to hold a crochet hook and start getting acclimatised to it.

Ok, so she used it as a drumstick for a bit, and chewed on it a little too - but then, so do I.

So although she's a little young yet to start crocheting, she was at least examining it and trying to figure out what the hook was for, which, I think, is a good sign and may indicate a future crocheter, and at that point, my first crochet hook will become her first crochet hook.

It just feels right, somehow.

Me and My Clapotis

Dee at Posh Yarn asked a very interesting question today, on her blog. She asked us to tell her what knitting project we enjoyed the most.

I was going to answer in her comments, but it all got a little too long and involved so I'm replying here, and hoping that she's got trackbacks enabled. Anyway, if you haven't read her post yet, then feel free to go do that now. The rest of this post will be waiting when you get back :)

I had a bit of a think about this, but in the end, there was really no other answer.

My absolute favourite knitting project has to be my Sari Silk Clapotis.

To be honest, I think that the Clapotis might be my favourite pattern to knit, ever, since I've knitted at least three of the things, but the sari silk one was the first, and remains my favourite.

It all came about when, late on one Friday afternoon, I was very bored at work and decided to have a look on eBay for some yarn. In doing so, I found a seller selling cones of sari silk yarn, and she had three left. I immediately bought and paid for them and didn't think much about it.

Until the next morning, when the ringing of the doorbell at 8am woke me. After I'd gotten a bit decent and stumbled downstairs I discovered it was the postman, with a package for me - the sari silk yarn.

Now, I was doubly lucky with that purchase, because not only did it arrive incredibly promptly, but it was also pretty much the best sari silk yarn I've ever touched.

It was so lustrous, soft and beautiful that although it was in the kind of colours I'd never previously have considered (at that point I was very much an "all black" kind of girl), it just screamed at me that it wanted to be knit with immediately, and that it wanted to be a Clapotis.

So that's exactly what I did.

A wee bit of pattern modification and a lot of hoping I didn't run out of yarn, and not long after I had a sari silk Clapotis, with barely three yards of sari silk left.

I loved it so much that I immediately cast on another one, this time in Debbie Bliss Cathay in purple (which was frogged at some point before it had a chance to realise it's full potential).

I then cast on another one, this time in white mercerised cotton, which I was going to wear to a wedding, but I didn't finish it in time, so it found a new purpose and home with Vanessa of Coloursknits as part of the first secret pal swap I participated in.

Later on, after seeing the picture of me wearing my Clapotis, my friend Lori fell under the spell of the Clapotis and asked me to make her one, and after a few false starts, that's exactly what I did. Five balls of Silk Garden later, and she had a full-size Clapotis all of her own, and I still look back and smile at the photos of Lori's Clapotis, my first seriously big knitting project made for someone else.

I've since started and changed my mind on making several other Clapotis', perhaps because I was worried I'd turn into a bit of a knitting one-trick pony, but really, there's no other pattern that's bewitched me quite like this one.

I've thought about it a big, and tried to pin down what it is about it that I like so much, and all I can think of is that it's ingeniously simple to knit (it punches way over it's weight in terms of effect vs effort), and it's got enough interest to keep you going even when it's starting to get boring (those drop stitches are so much fun), and there's so much potential for different looks and feels depending on which yarn you use. I've seen them made from about every kind of yarn, and they're all stunning. Not to mention, that when you wear one out, even the non-knitters ask where you got your scarf. On one memorable occasion, I brought the yarn department in Liberty to a standstill because all the staff were fascinated by it and were calling people from other departments over to show it off.

Y'know what though? All this thinking about Clapotis has made me think that maybe it's time to knit another one.

Have Hook, Will Travel

This week has been a week of almost perpetual motion.

On Tuesday I went from London to Perth (the one in Scotland, not the Australian one) so that I could be in Perth rested and ready to do a day's training with a really lovely group of people on Wednesday.

Then on Thursday, I did the journey in reverse.

Six hours each way on the train, not counting time either end getting to and from home/work/hotel made for an exhausting time. Coupled with having to work on the train, meant that the poor cake of my tequila sunrise hand-dyed handspun was sadly neglected, and came home the same way it went up, along with the 4 balls of Louisa Harding kimono angora, and mostly super secret skein of other stuff I'm doing for someone else (although I did manage to do some work on that in the hotel, before I conked out from exhaustion (training all day is hard work, especially when you're the trainer).

So nothing much to show off this week, which is a shame, because I've got lots of things I want to do (and clearly, either an over-developed sense of what I can get done when I travel, or a panic that I'll run out of yarn and be projectless) and other stuff I can't show off quite yet.

It's not even like I'll be able to do anything this weekend, unless I manage to get over my travel sickness enough to crochet in the car (I'm on a bit of a crochet trip right now), because I'm off to see my sister, brother-in-law and adorable niece.

Ally Pally

Two years ago (about six months into my newly acquired knitting addiction) on a whim, I decided to volunteer to help out at the Knit and Relax stand at the Alexandra Palace (aka Ally Pally) Knitting and Stitching show.

I really had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

I spent the best part of four days crocheting and finger knitting, and teaching other people to crochet and finger knit (I think I maxed out at 15 people at once) and quite literally reveling in the absolute joy of being amongst people who understood my urges to stroke yarn, in a place filled with more yarn and other fibery things than I'd ever seen in my life.

Last year I went for one day, and came home exhausted and energised again.

This year I went for only one day again and I had both a plan, and a man, in tow.

Rather than making faces, and shooing me off in the direction of North London with instructions not to break the bank manager's heart, my lovely boyfriend braved the eostragen overload and came with me. He even helped with the plan.

The plan was to meet Nikki and her boyfriend, go round the show, look at the wares, take note of amounts and costs and then, when I'd seen everything, calculate what I wanted to get and go get it.

It worked pretty well, for a couple of hours... we walked round, K took notes, I learned to felt and card, we walked round some more, then we got to a certain stand and I had a rather major falling down in the plan department.

After the major falling down, I went next door to the Fyberspates stand and had another falling down, this time in the silk hankie department. It was only a little one - 50g of silk hankies, spread across three colourways.

I managed to get hold of myself long enough to make it to the Knit and Relax stand where it was wonderful to catch up with Sue, Jane and Yvonne, who I haven't seen in a long time. It was also nice to have a quick chat with Mary-Lou and meet her other daughter (the one that *doesn't* think my boyfriend has a cute bum) and Gaz from the UK Handknitters Yahoo group (and his wonderful spindle).

With only an hour to go (and having lost the boys to the bar) Nikki and I did a quick trawl through the last half of the great hall, and at the end of the day, I headed back to the place I had my major falling down, and fell down again there, and at Fyberspates again, where I fell hard for a braid of 55% blue-faced leicester/45% silk fiber in berry colours (with a little hint of cream here and there).

I literally can't wait to show off everything I got, but the rest will have to wait, because it's for a super secret project and the time isn't quite right to reveal all.

In the meantime though, enjoy the fiber porn above :)