Rest day

Blenheim, Water Terrace, hot chocolate, knitting, no one else around - perfect.

Believe me, I know, I mean I really know, how lucky I am to have a place like this right on my doorstep. I even did a twirly dance on the Vanbrugh Bridge at how gorgeous everything was. Then I had to stop because I got dizzy. There was even a marquee put up on the Water Terrace so I could sit right by the fountains without freezing my ass off. I am now feeling much more relaxed.

RSPCA Christmas Bazaar tomorrow

Just a quick plug for the RSPCA Christmas Bazaar at the Methodist Church Hall in Woodstock tomorrow between 2-5pm. I'll be manning a stall on behalf of Oxford WSD. We'll be selling gorgeous hand-dyed yarn and fibre by The Thylacine and Yarnimals, beautiful recycled tweed brooches in the shape of little houses, and there'll be a few of my little owls. I'm hoping there'll be lots of bird lovers who would just love a woolly little friend to perch on their coat.



[check out these jewel coloured (somewhat over-exposed) lovelies]

Megan dropped off this big bag of yarn last night. The colours are so pretty it's taking all my self-control not to just snatch the lot and flee the country.

You can't have too many bras*

Or rather, I have had to buy yet another bra to go with the new dress I bought at John Lewis at the weekend. It's one of the things you don't remember to think about in the shop when you're sizing up the price or how "high maintenance" a new dress is likely to be. They should put it on the care label after the laundering instructions: "Handwash at low temperatures. Do not tumble-dry. Oh, and you'll probably need a new bra with that neckline." Either that, or on the price label "£69 (€92) + £20 bra-tax". The thing is that I thought I already had all the bras - white, black, nude, strapless, multi-way, padded, not-so-padded, fancy, plain - obviously I was wrong.

Still, the new bra is an engineering miracle - there are allegedly over 100 ways to wear it. If only someone would tell me what they all are because I can't get much above twenty, not including "as improvised earmuffs" or "emergency airline pillow".

* I am clearly the anti-Harlot on this point.

Champagne moment

I don't want to start enumerating poultry and I'm keeping skin contact with the wooden desk at all times as I type this but I think that the work project we have been planning and sweating over for the past few months and which has been keeping me awake at nights for the past couple of weeks (culminating in yesterday's night of total insomnia) is just about completed. I'm sitting here with a glass of Sainsbury's finest champagne (it really is very good) just about to head downstairs for a steak dinner and Strictly Come Dancing. Life is good right at this minute.

Plus I have a kick dress (as Buffy would say) and shoes which I bought in John Lewis this morning. Photos tomorrow maybe.

Pain, I can't sleep*

I know that I can claim time in lieu (i.e. leave) for work done at the weekend but do you think I can claim a lie-in in lieu for project-related sleepless nights? On the plus side I have managed to knit a whole mitten in a pattern I've been trying to work up since Woolfest in the summer (when I had my last bout of insomnia - although that time it was mainly because I was high on caffeine and wool fumes). I got a lot of knitting done that night too. Not that my knitting doesn't suffer a bit under these conditions. For instance I just made a beautiful spit splice to an entirely random bit of yarn under the impression that it was the piece I had broken off at the thumb.

Talking of Woolfest reminds me that my work stresses are very small beer compared to the misery of the poor people in Cumbria who have been flooded out this weekend. It's heartbreaking to see Cockermouth, where Kate (and Tom), Lara, Felix, and I had such a lovely time in the summer, submerged under feet of water and Keswick and Kendal too - places that I know really well.

* just to say, there's no any actual pain involved - it's a lyric from a song which I have on my ipod.

Random Thursday

I scraped my knuckles on an extremely vicious bit of hedge whilst running on Tuesday. If anyone asks I'm going to claim I was in a fight and you should see the other guy.

I get intensely annoyed by cyclists who cycle either in the road or the bus lane when there's a perfectly good cycle path right there! If there's a 50mph speed limit and your name's not Mark Cavendish then you shouldn't be in the road holding up the traffic.

I've been out running three times this week already and I hope to make it four on Saturday. I may have to buy yet more running socks as the laundry is not keeping up with this schedule.

I'll be knitting more tiny owls this weekend as I'm manning a stall for the OGWSD at an RSPCA fundraising fair in Woodstock on Saturday the 28th. Hopefully there'll be lots of bird lovers there.

Is this the weirdest looking sock you've ever seen?

So weird in fact that Lien had to ask what it was at Bluestockings this evening! Trust me, it looks a lot more sock-like on the foot. I really wanted to design a sock where all the shaping was created by the stitch pattern and the only way I could do it was with a very small, pointy toe. There was quite a bit of sock knitting going on round the table. Ellen was working on her niece's fabulous Christmas stocking and Jenny had completed her first sock in the lovely red yarn.

I came home to find that the boyfriend had created a masterpiece in shepherd's pie form. He was so proud of his beautiful pie that he thought it deserved a mention on the blog.



The potatoes are light and fluffy, the sauce is full of flavour, and it's as pretty as a picture...but is it good enough for the quarter-final of Masterchef?

De-stressing, two knits and two purls at a time

Nothing quite like 2x2 rib to take your mind off things. Work is not the most stress-free environment in the world at the moment and the knitting is pretty darn necessary to take the edge off. This sock is a prototype for a design I have in mind. It's not perfect as it stands but it's going to be lovely and cushy and perfectly wearable.

You know what else is good for stress? Cuddling babies. I went round to see Aliki and P after work today. P is such a sweet little thing, very smiley and very relaxed about being held by random friends of his mum. Hurrah for babies, I say.

Tiny and cosy

I might have mentioned, once or twice, that I have the cutest niece in the whole world. She turns two on Saturday and already she is totally the little mother. Whenever we take her to the park she'll have a quick go on the swings and slide herself and then spend the rest of the visit putting dolly on the swings, pushing dolly in her pram, changing dolly's nappy.

I had the idea to make dolly a gro-bag (baby sleeping bag) of her own after one afternoon in the park when Laurie spent the whole time tucking dolly into her own pram and covering her with her own gro-bag.



It's just a rectangle with armholes and a neckhole and a zip up the front. I used the rest of the snail and peapod fabric for the outer and a beautiful blue fabric with flower print for the lining.



The bias binding is the fabric I used for my needle roll.



When I saw Laurie at the end of October she had really got the hang of adjectives. She would hold up a Cheerio between her little fingers and say "TINY" at the highest possible volume and pitch. She gets very excited by things that are tiny. The other thing that she would do is to tuck dolly and mousey and Jane dolly into her pram and say "cosy". Hopefully she'll find this both "TINY" and "cosy" and she'll have a wonderful second birthday.