Colour and Who

The dark days of winter are here in Scotland and 2013 is coming to a close. Christmas this year has been a lovely family time after a long struggle to this year and brought a lot of closure. The man who killed my Uncle was convicted and sent to prison for a long time so we can now start to move on.

One thing that I've found a love for this year is colour or more specifically colour work. It's really not as scary as it seems. I've dabbled a little before but decided to dive in full force and knit Little birds by Ysolda Teague.



Which involved steeking or cutting knitting for the non knitters. Again not as scary as it seems.



I utterly love the cardigan and have worn it a lot.


The other big thing for me for the end of this year was the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. I started watching Doctor Who when I was very small and have loved the show since I first hid from the Daleks whilst they fought Tom Baker. So when it was announced that there would be an anniversary event in London on the day of the anniversary, I booked my ticket straightaway. There was of course, some pre event knitting.

Police box mittens in OMA Tardis and Dreich



And of course the scarf - which was finished off for the event a little shorter than planned but will eventually be fully finished



The scarf even got to meet some Doctor Who companions - Lalla Ward aka Romana II who was my favourite.



Louise Jamieson aka Leela



And Jenna Coleman aka Clara Oswin



I met and listened to many other Doctor Who people which was really cool.

London, V&A and Knit Nation

Late July, I took a trip down to London for Knit Nation, a fun show of classes on knitting and spinning plus a great marketplace. The event was held at Imperial college in London and I stayed in the student halls. The other big attraction for me in the area was the chance to go back to the Victoria and Albert museum. I think its my favourite museum. I took a ton of pictures which I've made into a slide show below.



Imperial College itself was a lovely venue for the Knit Nation event.



I loved the glass panels outside.



The market place opened on the Thursday evening with a preview night. Most of the early arrivals headed for the Wollmeise stall.





The stall was pretty crowded but mostly good natured. I'm not very tall and I got jostled a little in the crowd plus at one point, I bent down to look at yarn and before I got up again, skeins of wollmeise yarn started falling on my head. Ironically in the subsequent two marketplace days, you could walk right up to the stall for good parts of the day and browse in peace.

On the Friday I took a all day class with Cookie A on top down sock design, during which I completely forgot to take any pictures. The class was amazing and Cookie A is a very inspirational teacher. I have a sock in progress which I designed during the class that I'm knitting away at very slowly.

Another fun aspect of the weekend was the Ravelry pattern on the Saturday night which was a lot of fun. Jess and Casey from Ravelry were exactly how I pictured them and bought lovely project bags as a gift for the attendees.






The whole Knit Nation experience was really good. Alice and Cookie A and the volunteers all did an amazing job of organising the event and making it a lot of fun. As did all the stall holders who did well to keep functioning seeing how long the event was. It was sad when it was all over.

London Part 2, Iknit and the OMA trunk show

Finally getting around to blogging the rest of my London/Iknit trip. At the end of my last post, I had been sightseeing around London.

On the Friday, the Iknit weekender started. One of the big appeals of the IKnit event was the chance to take a class with Marjan of Yarnissma fame. Most of the socks I have knitted in the past are cuff down ones but I've been getting pushed into the direction of Toe up socks due to a combination of the Socktopus sock club and loving the look of Yarnissma's patterns. In the class Marjan explained the ins and outs of toe up socks and she also bought along all her sample socks. The sample socks were amazing to see - I have a couple of the Yarnissma kits so it was very inspiring. I completely failed to take any pictures of them however. I did finish my little sample sock



After lunch with some of the Gourock knitters and Catherine from the Glasgow group, it was back to shopping. Later on, I also got to meet up with Joy from Knitting goddess yarns and some of the other knitters from her Ravelry group. We all had a great chat and I got to catch up with Scully, who I have known for such a long time and haven't seen for a while. Some neighbouring knitters got enabled into Ravelry and Ysolda of Ysolda Teague designs wandered by too. I really love her designs so it was more than a little cool to meet her.

After all the shopping and chatting, I was only really up to relaxing on Ravelry and eating Sushi - two of my favourite things lol.



Saturday was yet another lovely day so I went off for a wander again before heading to Iknit. Piccadilly Circus was busy as always



I had more of a wander around Whitehall and Westminister. Lots of statues to see but sadly very few were of women. I did find one of Florence Nightingale.



And one to the Women of World War 2.



And then I was off to the Iknit weekender - the one and only picture I took there.



Once inside, I bought more yarn and some really brilliant buttons. I also finally managed to have a chat with Natalie from the Yarn yard who I keep missing at other events. Slightly ironic that we both travel from Scotland to meet there.



Speaking of the Yarn yard, I was also lucky enough to win some yarn in the P/hop raffle at IKnit. P/Hop stands for Pennies per hour of pleasure and is a fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres, a rather excellent charity that provides health care in areas where its is really needed. I had a very interesting chat about their work that gave me a little to think about.

This is the yarn I won. Very me colours.


On the Sunday, it was time to head home but before heading home, I met up with another Raveler and travelled out to the Old Maiden Aunt trunk show at Socktopus. I met Lilith of OMA in my knitting group. She doesn't get the chance to attend these days but I do see her sometimes so I really wanted to go the trunk show to support her as I knew she was getting stressed about it. Also I've been a customer of Alice of Socktopus since she opened her shop and I couldn't miss the chance to meet her too and visit her shop, especially as she is moving to within Stash. We arrived a little early and thankfully Alice and Lilith let us in.

There were a lot of people keen to get in.



And then shop for mostly purple yarn



Carefully examine the yarn and eat Brownies and jelly beans



And just knit and socialise.



The trunk show was fab and it was great to met lots of people who I only know via Ravelry. Also I got the chance to catch up with another Joy from Crafty threads and yarns as we completely missed each other at Iknit. Alice is so lovely and I'm so glad I got to visit her shop before she moved to Stash.

I bought some of Lilith's yarn at the show, which is a little ironic considering that I live fairly near to Lilith's studio. But holiday yarn is the best sort.

Catch up and London trip part 1

Currently I'm in holiday mode as I'm coming to the end of a fortnight off work. I've been keeping pretty busy with lots of knitting and a trip to London.

Right at the start of my time off and just in time for my birthday, I finished a second Ishbel shawl in Yarn yard merino tencel in the shade Lavender Water.



I spent most of last week visiting London, partly for the Iknit weekender plus I added on a few extra days for sightseeing. Due to a bizarre coincidence, my parents were also in London during the same week so whilst I was down there, we joined forces for some sightseeing. On Wednesday afternoon, we all went on a tour around the Houses of Parliament.





The only place within that you can take pictures is in Westminister Hall, where figures of state have lay in state prior to their funerals. Beyond this point, photographs aren't allowed, which is a pity as the buildings are gorgeous.



The guide we had was not so good. She said quite a few things which I knew where inaccurate and also let her political opinions cloud some of the things she said, which was pretty sad but the buildings more than made up for it.

On Thursday, I had plans to meet my parents later in day for a late lunch followed by going to see The Mousetrap - the longest running show. Given the beautiful weather that London was having, I decided to have a walk around central London followed by a open top bus tour. The hotel I was staying in was in Pimlico so I set off to walk towards Trafalgar square.







At the moment, there is a public art project called One and other, where members of the public are getting one hour on the fourth plinth on the square to do whatever they want (within reason). I arrived just as a changeover was taking place.



Its all filmed so you can watch it on the internet at any time.



From there, I went off on a open top bus tour and then it was off to lunch in Chinatown and the mousetrap. Rather than post all the pictuures, I thought I would link to a slideshow.

Iknit, London, an exchange and other things

I've been back from London since Sunday evening but a combination of a bad cold, tiredness and a different job have kept me a little occupied.

When I got back on Sunday, I had a lovely exchange parcel waiting for me from Nicki. Its a Shepherds bush design called Pumpkin Hill and its beautifully finished.



My trip to London and Iknit was fantastic. The hotel I picked was about 10 minutes walk away from the Royal Horticultural halls where the Iknit day was being held. Readers in the UK might recognise the hall from some BBC channel idents from a few years ago. Its a nice and spacious venue even though I think they underestimated the catering a little. I'm not sure they thought that there would be as many attendees so the sandwiches ran out early on and there were fairly big queues for the catering generally.

Some of the charity knitting stalls



Lots of lace shawls to ooh over



Lots and lots of knitters





After a couple of hours of yarn buying, it was off to the other hall to see the Yarn Harlot, who was a fantastic speaker. It got off to a weird start with a little microphone misfunction.



And then it was on to the now traditional sock picture.



And finally the talk which lasted around 90 minutes and was followed by lots of questions. She is a great and funny speaker and I would love to hear her speak again in the future. She did say she would come back to the UK again so hopefully I will get the chance. This picture isn't the best.



It was then back to the main hall for some more shopping and chatting with fellow knitters. A combination of the Glasgow and Gourock knitters had laid claim to a table in the hall and we all popped in and out from the table to shop with breaks for chatting and eating. In a weird coincidence, someone in my group ended up in conversation with Jackie and Kate from the Crafty threads n yarns forum that I belong to and I was sitting chatting to Jackie when I realised that I knew her already from the forum and we were in an exchange together. I managed to meet up with a few people that I know though various places on the net, including the lovely Joy, who I recognised by her lovely shawl lol. I did miss quite a few people though but that was probably just as well for them as I had developed a pretty bad cold by Saturday and was gradually losing my voice through the day. Apologies to anyone at Iknit that I gave the cold to. By late in the afternoon, I was flagging badly so I decided against queuing for the Yarn harlot book signing. Stephanie was a real trooper as she signed books for several hours after her talk, which is very impressive.

Saturday night, the combined Gourock and Glasgow knitters went off for a lovely meal in a very nice restaurant somewhere in Kensington. My London geography is a little lacking but thankfully I was guided there and back by my fellow knitters.

Sunday morning, I managed to fit a little sightseeing in before my afternoon flight back. I was staying at Victoria so I decided to have a walk down towards the river. My walk took me by the Houses of Parliament



The streets were closed up for the start of the Tour of Britain so there were lots of men in shorts.





I then walked across Westminister bridge and being a little geeky, all I could think about was the first episode of the New Doctor Who series with the Doctor and Rose running across it towards the London Eye. Its an amazing sight, the London eye and the views from it must be amazing.



Opposite the Houses of Parliament, there is a small patch of Sunflowers which seem to be randomly planted at the riverside. Its a lovely contrast to the city surroundings.



All too soon, it was time for me to head back to Glasgow after a not particularly pleasant flight which the take off seem to be a little steep and the cabin pressure gave a lot of the passengers ear ache. I was really badly affected and it took several hours before it settled and a day or so before my hearing was back to normal. I had taken a decongestant before the flight but it didn't particularly help. I've only ever had some mild ear popping on a flight before so this was an unwelcome surprise which was related to the cold I have. I'm only really getting my voice back fully now.

This week I've been on my job trial this week. The job itself isn't particularly exciting but it does use a lot of the skills I've built up over the years. The people there are lovely also. Sadly there is a but coming as towards the end of the week, I noticed that my back was getting more painful than it has been. This job, whilst its not as heavy as a ward job, involves more standing and worst still, more standing on the same spot than the job I already have and my back is not coping with this. Its pretty disappointing to realise over this past weekend that its not going to work out but that's life I guess and so its back to the job hunting again. I've still got a further week of the trial to go so things might change but it seems unlikely.