Tuesday, January 29, 2008

What makes me happy?

Joceyln, the Knitting linguist, nominated me as one of the many blogs that made her happy, part of the thing going around about nominating blogs that improve your day. The rules of the nomination are these: “Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy.... Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times. " so .... what makes me happy, its hard, so hard to choose just 10 but here is my short list, all listed in random order - and Joceyln - you should be on my list but I'm not sure thats allowed, so I've listed A&C daily instead even if its not a blog.
  1. Cogknition, where I find nice blend of educational in practice theory and knitting, from a knitter who also has a life, and some times it gets in the way.
  2. Kathleen's blog, where she posts the most amazing vintage paper dolls and colour work mittens, e-v-e-r-y week, how does she do that, why did they dress like that?
  3. Debs mostly sock blog, oh that woman is clever - I bet most of you have knit or wanted to knit her many different socks as seen on knitty.
  4. Ysolda's blog, because she designs pretty pretty cardigans that I just want to knit and wear, and her Elijah is pretty cute (he is the elephant).
  5. Desi-knitter, where just like me and many other knitters, she juggles knitting choices, successes, yarn selection and academic life, and shares the fab results, and shares also when its not to pretty, I love honesty.
  6. Lene from Dances with wool, who knits amazing socks (check out her banner) and shows off pure simple beauty in finished knits where is it really cold and you need warm knits, she also details her design process.
  7. Jane, well Jane who is calm, and knits and designs socks, and has a beautiful aesthetic and spins, it was the images of singles and plied yarn on a wooden spool that tempted me so strongly into spinning, and check out her tag line about which way the knitting can go ...
  8. and this is not a knitting blog, its totally work related, but this is another Kathleen who thinks like I do, its so nice to see you are not alone, and she has such a great collection of useful tutorials and advice and just plain intelligent opinionated posts.
  9. Practical Polly, because you gotta smile and laugh and feel happier about the world when some one like Kirsty turns Wonderwomans costume into a wearable hand knit sweater don't you?
  10. Arts and Letters Daily, which makes me think, laugh, cry, wonder, and informs me and worries me and mostly makes the world more understandable.
so, with the hardest bit of the blog post to write done its onwards to the knitting stuff(I'll leave comments on the blogs next week - I promise - part of the feel good bit of this nomination is to share the praise).



... Well sock one is done, and sock two just begun, and the sock fits well, very well. Now I know the process by which these socks are built, well the knitting will be less blind. I did have to transfer them to a circ and try them on once the heel was formed. I'm a big footed girl at times living in a small footprint world. Have any of you with size 8.5's feet tried buying shoes in asia? Don't even ask - the assistants fall about laughing while you wish the earth would open up right there and then, or the shoe rack just fall and bury you. There was only 62 stitches on the needle, so I needed to put my mind at rest with a quick check that they fit and then I was able to confidently knit on to the toe. They did and I did.



And - I've been haunting the on line New Zealand equivalent of a boot sale-yard sale-garage sale-rummage sale-white elephant stall, Trademe. The spinning section needs to be seen to be believed, once you get past the people selling overly colorful fiber and new stuff, amongst whats left are the proverbial one-jaded fiber junkies cast offs is another spinners treasure. Look what I found, an older style Ashford spinning chair of beech wood, to match my wheel, all for $NZ20 +$NZ10 shipping. And sad to say thats not all, - I won't be posting this weekend, Bear and I are off on a road trip to adopt a second double drive castle wheel I won at auction, we will have to think of a name .....

So are spinning wheels tools or stash ?
Please do excuse me, but my new/old chair was only unpacked today when I got home, and I would love to stay and chat, but I really need to sit and spin and play with my new chair ....
Stella

5 comments:

Knitting Linguist said...

A chair, too? Girl, you made out like a bandit! It's beautiful :) You'll definitely have to teach me how to shop NZ-style if I make it out there this summer. I love the new sock, too -- the colors are so cheerful, and the pattern really shows them off beautifully. Enjoy spinning on your new wheel!

Anonymous said...

you lucky thing! Its gorgeous... can't wait for photos of the new wheel.

Anonymous said...

Hey, thank you so much for the shout-out! I enjoy your blog very much too.

Kirsty said...

Oh my gosh, thanks for the mention! Those socks are fab, by the way...

Anonymous said...

I'm super late to the game, but thanks for the mention!