Family Life...

If you forget all about Saturday Sky until about 6:25pm, this is all you get:

However, if you have the presence of mind to grab the camera first thing on a Wednesday morning, you could get lucky with this:

Knitting – well it’s happening, but it’s not really bloggable, and it involves mile upon mile of grey ribbing with 3mm needles, so not even the most interesting pictures…

So I shall distract you with pictures and tales of my family.

Firstly, a rare spotting of the husband. John’s plumage is not usually so vivid, but he entered right into the spirit of Wear It Pink on Friday:

(and he delighted Ruth and Adam by bringing home little pink cakes from work – except that now Ruth seems to think that she should have them for pudding every day… )

Then Ruth, or “Baby Mummy” as she prefers to be known:

(Please ignore the black eye – she fell off a trampoline at a party on Thursday – she spent a good while afterwards sitting on my knee sobbing “It will get better. It will get better…” )
Part of our bed-time routine with the children involves me going in at the very last to give Ruth (sorry, Baby Mummy – getting that wrong at bedtime constitutes a major faux pas) a final kiss and cuddle before she settles down. She has now decided that she doesn’t want me to leave, and I should get into her cot bed with her. I explained that I’m too big, and I have other things I need to do, so I can’t. “You will do,” she said sagely. “When you smaller, you can sleep with me.”

And finally Adam:

This is him with the bridge he constructed this morning. Isn’t he a gorgeous, happy-looking little boy? He has seriously tested my parenting skills today (which have, on the whole been found lacking – it’s odd – I keep finding myself wanting to overemphasise just how badly I think I’ve done today, but then I think about children who really do experience bad parenting skills, and although I’m not proud of some of my reactions today, I have children who are well-cared for, physically and emotionally, and who know that they are loved.) The main problem is that he simply will NOT SHUT UP!!!!! His interior monologue is continually being vocalised – this, combined with my pre-menstrual hormones is not a recipe for a calm and well-ordered household. He also needs to be told what to do a minimum of 5 times, and whines instantly whenever naysaid.

And breathe.

And yet I know that there is no little boy anywhere that I could love more. That I am so proud of him – both in his enthusiasm for learning to read and count, and his sociability – for his concern for others, etc, etc.

But anyway – John was around, I had the chance to run away, so I did – I took a little hat I’d knitted round to give to the week-old baby of a friend. And I was able to cuddle the baby, who is tiny and perfect and snuggled into my shoulder as though she belonged there…

Oh, and I broke one of my very firm knitting vows – never ever to buy a knitting pattern, as there are so many available free online… I’ve subscribed to Yarn Forward – I subscribed on Wednesday, and my first issue arrived today. And it’s good. John (with his editor’s hat on) was impressed by the design. I (with my knitter’s hat on) was impressed by the content. I particularly liked that the patterns didn’t have the disapproving “If you don’t knit it with the yarn we say, we can’t be held responsible for the consequences”, but instead gave a range of different suggestions, depending on budget. The only problem is that I already have too many projects lining up… But it’s something I’ll be glad to re-read.

Oh, and Mary has taken us out for groceries in Toronto.

Deadline approaching...

My competition below is running out of steam, although I believe that there are still one or two people who want to enter. So I’m setting a deadline – Tuesday 31 October. So please, go to your local shops before then (and take a camera with you… )

So far the entries I have are:
Louise
Jessie
Becky
Erika

and people who have expressed an interest are… – well, you know who you are, there’ll be no naming and shaming here… – but there’s a good number of you, so get out there with your cameras people! (And if you’ve done it, and you’re not listed above, please give me a shout.)

Oh as for my post about the difference between colleagues and knitting friends – I had my best reaction yet (and honestly didn’t expect it) – I told my lovely lovely Upper 6th group (aged about 17-18) about my sock pattern being accepted for publication – and they broke into a round of applause!

Speaking of stuff for publication – it’s possible that you’ll see a little more of this:
in a few months time…

We were away for the weekend – but did you know, there’s sky on a Saturday on the Wirral too:

How many?

I saw this on blueadt knits

Lots of fun – Anne is apparently statistically the 170th most common name, Adam is statistically the 143rd most common name (99.62% of people with Adam as their first name are male… ), Ruth is statistically the 50th most common name, and John is statistically the 2nd most common name. (I’d love to know how they rank non-statistically… ) But it appears that there is no-one who shares either our neighbour’s son’s first name, or his surname!

One Day in History

Make history with the History Matters campaign by writing your diary for 17th October here. All the entries will be stored by the British Library as a record of national life. You can also go and have a read of other people’s entries.

Why I love blogging...

How else would I discover fascinating things like this?

Arrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

I’m dead.

Thank you to Angelia for a lovely pair of blue socks of doom.

Being nosy... COMPETITION!

Way back in March this year, Becky of Knitting Interrupted organised a Backyard Fieldtrip. In the last couple of weeks Laurie (aka Crazy Aunt Purl) has entertained us with all our knitting spots (Wow – do I have respect for the woman having the patience to put all that together!) and she has shown us a video of her bus-ride through China town.

I love seeing this sort of thing – I’m incredibly nosy, and I particularly love seeing things that are peculiar to a country or region. So I have a challenge for you. (And yes, it’s going to be a contest, people always do these things if it’s a contest… )

Post a photo story of a trip to your local shops on your blog. Try to include some local oddities. (Feel free to cheat – it’s the flavour of where you live that I’m curious about, not a strict and accurate report.) Leave me a comment on this blog, and I’ll use the old favourite random number generator to pick a winner. (I’m not giving a closing date yet as this will take people a little while to organise.)

And to give you a flavour, and the chance to poke around the area where I live – here is my trip to the shops:

It’s a hideous wet grey October day here, and doesn’t it just show! (Oh, and one of those pictures is an imposter, it’s from my way home from work rather than my route to the shops – I did say that it’s OK to cheat… )

They're very different...

Two groups of people I spend time with – my colleagues, and my knitting friends. I have no problem with my colleagues, I don’t know that I’d want to work with any other group of people at the job I do, but still, there is a difference…

I wear my new jacket for work, and there are some very nice comments. I wear it to knitting group, and when I take it off it’s passed round everybody – they all cuddle it (oh, how I hope they didn’t sniff it – I’d just cycled into town wearing it… ) and comment on the construction, and the yarn and the colours – and I get well and truly swell-headed.

I told my colleagues about getting my pattern published. At knitting group I dropped into conversation that I’ve had my contract through from Debbie Stoller – I had requests for autographs…

Mind you, I’ll bet that my knitting friends would look equally blank if I asked them to consider the happiness of a quadratic function…

Sunrise Circle Jacket Finished!!!!!

Yay!!!!!

Pattern: Sunrise Circle Jacket by Kate Gilbert for Interweave Press.
Yarn: South West Trading Company: Karaoke, shade: Copper
Needles: 4.5mm Denises.

And it really does fit, and I love it – unreservedly, which I think is probably a first for something I’ve knitted for myself. The colours aren’t exactly true in the pics – it’s dark – I’ll try to get some better pics in daylight tomorrow. And my crocheted chains (shh – don’t tell… ) worked fine – my very first crochet… (yeah, yeah, I know – a chain of 10 stitches – even 4 chains of 10 stitches – doesn’t really count… ) And the sleeves are fine for length. (This has been an issue for some people.)

Happy happy happy – time for a Happy Dance! (And time for bed – it’s one minute to 11… )

Yes, it's Saturday again...

... so that means more Saturday Sky:

And the Sunrise Circle Jacket? Seamed, but yet to be hemmed and have buttons etc sewn on… – there will be pictures when it’s finished – but at least IT FITS!!!

So I went shopping on Wednesday… and bought this:
– destined to be a baby jacket (the mother-to-be requested “a chunky jacket in neutral colours” – Wendy Fusion should do nicely – I’ve been longing to make something with this since I first saw it – in fact I may simply cuddle it, and not bother knitting it at all… )

The Name Game

First of all: In Knitting News today, we have reports that the Sunrise Circle jacket (otherwise known as “The Jacket That Has Taken Forever” is being seamed… We will have further updates when we have more news…

Meanwhile, I found this meme on the Crazy Fiber Lady’s blog:

The Name Game

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: ( pet and current street name)

Ptolemy Foster

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your moms side, your favorite candy)

Gertrude Montezuma (How cool is that!?)

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of last name, first three letters of your middle name)

P Car

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)

Red Cat

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)

Carol Birkenhead

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom’s maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.)

Petanbubir

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (“The”, your favorite color, favorite drink)

The Red Elderflower Champagne (This seems to go quite well with my superpower of performing household tasks by identifying them.)

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of both your grandfathers)

Tom George

9. FUTURISTIC NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and the name of your favorite shoes)

Miss Dior Ecco

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother/father’s middle name )

John (which I think could make people a little suspicious, I don’t think I really look like a John, but my mother doesn’t have a middle name… )

(Edited to include) 11. PR*NSTAR NAME (name of your first pet and the name of a street you lived on as a child)

Bonzo Mellington
!!!!!!!!!!

(Hmmm – I’ve used a little artistic licence with some of these – you know – the ones that share answers with those questions you get asked as security on banking websites… )

By George she's got it!

I’ll spare you the minute details, but my daughter has today asked for the potty and used it thoroughly. (It’s the asking for it herself that makes us happiest.) So this time it’s for real. This is not a drill. We have potty training. Yay!!!

(Oh, and in silliest things I’ve ever heard – someone found my blog following a Google search for “domestic goddess blog” – huh!? Have Google seen the state of our house? – Clearly not, which is reassuring really!)