My knitting was pushed aside this week,

In favor of books, bookbinding. So today I thought I would distract you all with images of the most recent, and the most challenging. That way you might not notice the lack of knitting content, then again ... given the title of the blog that may be a little optimistic.
When ever I'd Google for bookbinding information, especially for tutorials I'd find many many well put together and informative tutorials and helpful sites. Bookbinders seem akin to knitters, with a willingness to share that can only be called generous. Amongst the information I found there were almost always references to a binding called secret Belgian binding. At first I ignored those posts, the clearest instructions seemed rather confusing ... Diagrams showing many holes and a complex stitching path. So I found other bindings to practice. I bought bookbinding books. Then this week one of my students asked if I knew about the secret Belgian binding, and as a class we had one of those conversations about how nothing on the Internet should really be called secret. After that I thought I really should look more at what was so special about the binding ... And maybe even play a little with it.
I dug a little deeper, well rather I read all the posts I had ignored about the SBB, and found out why it was held in high regard by so many. I also found that the binding had another name, the criss-cross binding, and a few storys that explain different origins here & here. All in all the book seemed to have some clear benefits, pages that lay open flat, a spine as flexible as a Coptic bound book but all covered and protected with a hard spine. So I thought I would try to follow the instructions. It wasn't hard, just detailed, fiddly at times, and I found that I had to read the instructions and follow them - not anticipate the next stage. I was glad I had a few dozen books of different types experience before I started this one.

So I started, and committed to making an A4 book, folded from a brand new pad of quality A3 art paper (expensive!) and covered in bookcloth (also expensive - usually I restrict bookcloth to the spine to make my meager stash last longer). This is the equivalent of casting on with the best yarn in the stash. But unlike knitting, some of the materials can't be unravelled and returned to a neat and ready state if it all goes wrong.
I made the covers and prepared the pages, and then strung the covers together, in this binding the covers consist of a front and back board with a separate spine board. Holes are punched near the hinge edges of the front and back cover boards. The cover is assembled by lacing the spine between the front and back covers. One of those trickier to start, and tricker to explain but actually quite straightforward when underway processes. With the cover assembled the signatures - that would be sets of pages, are stitched inplace. In this binding the signatures are stitched to the lacing that holds the covers together.

I usually find curved needles tricky to use, I can't seem to predict where the point will go and find them much trickier to manipulate than straight needles, they rotate in my fingers and point in odd directions, but for this work I needed a curved needle. The shape was perfect for threading the signature threads under the cover threads. I laced the cover with dark navy and sewed the signatures with white thread.

Here is the book all complete, cover closed and neat. Now I understand the process I would make changes next time. Firstly I would punch with a much smaller hole, and I would use much thicker binding cord. This is ok, but thicker cord would make the binding more visable, more dramatic. I was worried about making the holes too small to pass a needle and thread through three times, which is what is done in this binding. Turns out with this size thread I could have had much smaller holes. Next time I will swatch the thread and hole size before I committ to punching the holes in the covers.

This is the interior view, see how nicely the pages lay open, partly because they are super thick 200gsm Fabrino recycled artists paper. Mostly because of the way the binding hinges each set of pages off a very flexible cord arrangement.
Below shows the rather neat first page view, how the pages meet the covers ... I like this very much. This book took much of today to make, mostly as I didn't know what I was building up to. I think this is a much more time consuming bind than the saddle stitched, Coptic or tapped signatures - and one I will work again. I think for me this may become my sketch book binding. But then again I'm just a learner ... At the start of a journey and I imagine there are many many more binding options for me to discover and explore.

Na Stella,
Take care

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Wednesday

Today is Wednesday, or at least it is here where I live, in fact late afternoon Wednesday, after a full day at the 'office' that was only supposed to be an hour or so before heading home to finish up preparation for the weekend workshops. You can imagine how that goes, pop in to work for a 9am meeting that has been rescheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled, the meeting attempts to cover what is several hours work in the scheduled hour ... and predictably we finish several hours latter. It was a marking meeting, so following that there was the several hours of post-marking admin, logging copies of mark-sheets in the system, sorting and filing things ready for students to pick up, documenting any changes discussed, and then and only then was I able to escape .... late-afternoon! Given I'm not full time this year, that ended up being a standard work day .. so much for heading home to prep for the weekend.


So here I am, quickly updating the blog, what else can I do in the half hour I have whilst I wait for small cubs to arrive home? Not enough time to make inroads into any real work, and I suspect there won't be a weekend blog but there might be a Monday one. One the cubs arrive it gets really busy, one needs to snack, then turn around and head out for a swim lesson and the other can do his homework, then there is the evening meal to find and prepare and clean up after .. .and after that what do you know the day is mostly gone. At least there is the evening to work in. I'll clear the table and settle down to plan the hand outs for my workshops ... I have tonight and tomorrow and if I skip knit-night I'll even have tomorrow night. It might just come to that. What I can say is that the material will be 'fresh'!
I have now have a full suite of little hottie covers, all soft and warm, in a variety of gauges, with all sorts of closures and textures.

This is my favorite, I do have a weak spot for simple graphics. Combine that with soft possum merino that is soft and fluffy and .... mmmmm its even warm without the hot water inside. I have all the processes and notes and things all ready for that class, little design templates and cards to use to test colour combinations, and a lesson plan.

The master workshop content is also coming along. The handmade people wanted me to modify my original proposal from a workshop to more of a lecture .. so I did. I now have nearly 2 hours to cover darning knits ......oh my, that could be one geeky boring session but I'm doing my best to make sure its not. I've been building a bit of a contemporary look at the current view of darning and mending ... using books from my shelves. It looks all theoretical but I've picked out the super interesting and almost funny bits - I promise. For example, Heather Nicholson wrote that in days gone by the most common labor saving device most families had was a daughter!


Then the lecture-workshop will look at historical methods of darning and mending. I have a goodly collection of old-books on teaching needlework and those have come in really useful here. They are all so old that I can happily use images and diagrams from them as the copyright has expired. My earliest one is 1886, and I go up to some published in 1913 - when teaching needlework was very much part of the curriculum. Using those as sources I've got a plan to position mending as important but forgotten, and omitted much of the time. Again I'm going to keep it informative and interesting, although I'm not sure about including the instructions for 'French mending' of fine knits, suggesting using one strand of human hair for a really invisible finish, even to specifying that the blond and red-heads were the source of the strongest and best hair to use! Tell me is that creepy or interesting?
I'll finish up with five or six examples of different types of mending and one example of something awaiting a mend. Along the way I hope for a bit of audience participation, that people will contribute what their understanding of mending and darning is, but I'm not promising to darn any ones socks. People should go away with a deeper appreciation of making and mending and some knowledge of how people used to mend.

I've also finished spinning the sock pencil roving, and now it sits waiting for me to ply it. I was lucky enough to score another on Monday in her shop - Cululus all misty grey blues (Morag will be smiling as she knows I am a complete sucker for any and all grey-blue that she dyes).

I have worked a sample in 2 ply and in 3 ply ... and I'm not sure which to go with. The three is rounder and heavier, so I will knit it up and see how thick it will be. The two ply is finer - and I worry it might be to light for socks ... I guess I just have to knit up both sample skeins and see what they are like knit up.

So thats my day so far -how was yours? Still no cubs but the bus will be here any moment ... so I'll head off to fix snacks.
Take care
If you are in Wellington this weekend, pop into TePapa and say hi!
cheers
Stella

And now I really need to say Thank-you

because I have many things to thank people for, many, many things. And this is where it gets tricky as I really can't put my thank you's in order, each is as significant as any other, and so I'm just going to introduce things in the order of their arrival. And then after I have a little bit of progress on my knitting to report and the final installment in the Vintage Purls sock-yarn club joined my stash, and lastly a pencil joke - one that has Bear and I giggling but one that the cubs puzzeled by the things that amuse adults. But first thank yous ...


A little over a week ago this wonderful book arrived at my doorstep, Fashioning Fashion - European dress in detail 1700 to 1915. This book goes-with an exhibition that was on at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, finishing only a few weeks ago. A friend had alerted me to the exhibition .. but of course LA is just a tad far to travel at short notice, so I suggested I treat both of us the book if there was one. Turns out there was .. but instead I was the one who was treated the book. I am really lucky .. this is an amazing book, and is a heavy hardback book so it was quite a gift. Sitting on the title page is a wee tiny 90mm long mechanical pencil that Bear found this week and gifted to me. It was amongst his family things, and so could have been his mothers or her mothers. The pencil takes a 1.1mm lead, which is still available, and has the most gorgeous tassel. I have no idea what this was for, I suspected it was a Bridge pencil but it seems they came in sets of four (clubs, hearts, diamonds, and spades), and it seems unlikely to be a golf pencil with a tassel like that although some sources say that small mechanical pencils were for golf. I wonder if it was a dance card pencil? Does any one have any clues? It is beautiful and will probably become my knit kit pencil.

Then my prize from Dave's Mechanical Pencils and Cult pens arrived, or rather I had to collect it from the local Post shop. This is nearly all of it, as my darling youngest cub has adopted her gift as her preferred pen and it now resides at school so was unavailable for the photo. In the spirit of the giver, I really tried to focus on pencils, so this is what I ordered :

1. Worther Slight Mechanical Pencil in Black with spare leads.
2. Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil Gift Set with a box of 12 replacement pencils.
3. Two Caran d-Arche Fixpencils, a 22 and a 77, leads, and a spare button, these are gifts one for Bear and one for S who gifted me the above book. gifts because I already have one and love it so much I want to share.
4. Tombo Mono 100 in B pencil x 3, these are rumored to be one of the best Japanese pencils on the market and I have not found any stocked locally so took the opportunity to try some, Bear gets one, I get one and we will see which of us gets the 3rd one.
5. Staedtler Mars Lumograph Pencil in B, x 2. Again not stocked locally but one Bear asked for one as he remembered Advts from his junior drafting days for these and always considered them the best but had never seen them for sale so had lusted after one as only a pencil trained draftsman can. He does have Mars Lumograph leads for his two vintage 2mm clutch pencils, and so has some expectation of the quality of the lead..
6. Schneider Base Fountain Pen in Boysenberry (as explained missing from photo) for the youngest cub, plus a converter so she can explore bottled ink, and a box of Diamine assorted ink cartridges colour way 'floral'.
7. Lamy Z25 converter so the other cub can take advantage of bottled ink in his Bright Yellow Lamy Safari fountain pen, and not be limited to the ink colours of Lamy cartridges.
8. One bottle of Edelstein Fountain pen ink, in Sapphire Blue, and two Parker Delux converters so I could upgrade the filling unit in one of my and one of Bears Parker fountain pens and play with a colour that is not readily available in New Zealand.

So... I'm happy, ecstatic really to be able to order without worrying about the cost and the shipping, such a lovely assortment of writing things. I treated myself to the Worther Slight, as I love my vintage mechanical pencils and they all take a 1.1mm lead, this seemed the perfect opportunity to invest in a modern production pencil in the same category of lead size. I won't go into to much detail here as I thought Dave might like a full review. Ditto the Faber-Castell Perfect pencil, I have used a junior version of this for ages now, the pencils are amazing, providing a very sharp black line but keeping a good point for ages. The extender doubles as a point protector and houses one of the most efficient pencil sharpeners I have ever used - one or two turns is all it takes to shave a pencil to a fine point. I took this opportunity to buy the 'gift-box' version for myself. I have given away so many of the junior perfect pencils at work to those who borrow and admire mine that I thought it might be prudent to have the grown up one to differentiate mine from theirs. Then the other items were all pretty much pure indulgences, gifts for people, family and friends, and things that I had heard good things about but not found locally, and things that made what we already had more useful.

Now having thanked S, Bear, Dave and Cult Pens .. I can move onto the knitting. The double knit mittens grow, honestly I love this technique but find the chart a learning curve of some steepness. I have frogged at least half a row once or twice. The above book has seriously distracted me most nights, and this week there was the additional iD fashion events that overtook my knitting time. Oh and on that side of things, the shows were amazing, I got to supervise students help Liz Mitchell fit her models and so saw her designs up close and in detail (just like the book!). The iD show was amazing, as always, but I'll leave it to you to browse and decide what ones inspire you, let me know what you think.

When I have not been able to manage the double knitting chart, and have not been distracted by the FF book ... I have managed to start the elder cubs second sock. Progress as shown, I am up to the gusset increases and onto the second colour of contrast yarn, soon the heel with start and then it will really look like a sock.

Then just to make my week even more exciting - the last installment in the Vintage Purls Sock yarn club arrived. The feature of this club is that it includes sock yarn but not necessarily sock patterns, as always this is is a colour and pattern I love. There is a yarn that has depth and warmth, and a pattern for gloves with a clever and decorative and interesting cuff with a real vintage feel, and then there is more. Tucked inside is a chocolate fish (a very New Zealand treat - most often used as small prizes in schools and learning situations), and more, a little pack of the most adorable vintage knitwear themed post cards I have ever seen. I know I have enough yarn .. but when her kits provide surprises like this ... it just have to have one.

Then lastly there is a pencil that youngest cub gave Bear. In truth it was a gift to her from a student teacher who was finishing her post with the class, a shiny new pencil for each student. Youngest Cub knowing how geeky her parents are about pencils and knowing it was Bears Birthday (56!) thoughtfully passed the pencil on to him. But what Bear noticed and what I love it that it is a fake pencil, oh it is a pencil all right, it sharpens and writes just fine so it is not really a fake pencil but a fake version of a famous high quality pencil, the Staedtler Norris Club HB Pencil, Made in Germany. What really makes Bear and I giggle is the name - Stapler, and the cubs just shake their heads sadly at what their parents find funny.

Thank you, for putting up with me and my non-knitting content, again.
Take care, knit some, perhaps even use an old fashioned wooden pencil, real or fake .. and enjoy the week.
na Stella

December ?

Its December .. the local shops are full of Christmas cheer, like most of the western world that means fake fir trees, fairy lights, and sparkly things that catch the light in the night time, which is seasonal for those with winter christmas's.E xcept in the shoppers that mill around are wearing sandels and have bare legs and short sleeves, and the sun sets latter and later - for it is summer here. I have one more week at work before my summer vacation begins, five days in which to pack up my desk and book case ready for the move to a new building 5km away, attend an all day professional development seminar, and attend our students graduation ceremony. Five days! I also have to get as much of the preparation ready for next years teaching as I can, I will be off work until 2 weeks before the students arrive so I know I will be flat tack once I start back. In that new office ... oh my - it dosn't bear thinking about does it. So I knit, and walk, I'm back on my feet, the swelling has gone, crutches parked by the door ready to return, and I'm mobile again.


There has not been a lot of knitting on any of my projects, the secret one grew by a repeat or two .... and the Spiral Bound sock is now part way thru the heel, I've worked the gusset increases and now I'm mid heel extension. The gold safety pin indicates progress since last I blogged. Once the heel flap is done ... it is only the leg to go and that is quick.


I added a book to my knit library during the week, Sweaters that talk back by Lisa Anne Auerbach (2008). I stumbled across a reference to this book on Ravelry, and between wanting to support some one working with knitting in a political way and liking her approach ... subversive knitting, I had to buy it. I'm not sure I'll ever knit something from the book exactly as charted .. and here in New Zealand the protest messages in her work are not so applicable, but I will be inspired, and I want to inspire my students.

With the last week at work in our current building looming I have been lugging home my library of books from the shelves behind my desk. As the architects planned the new spaces I measured my shelving, I have 4.7 m of fashion theory, design theory and pattern making books, including some of my knitting ones. There is probably double or triple that number at home. Work wants us to box up our office and label it and will move things for us, but I have moved 7 times in 11 years and each time something has been lost. This time I'm taking all my important stuff home. I warned Bear that for the next 2-3 months there will be a working library under the bed, its the only place I could think of to put them that was out of the way of foot traffic. These are mostly pattern making books, the construction and knitting ones are in a wheeled shopping trundler waiting for their turn to be brought home. The theory ones will come home last as I need those to plan lectures right up to the last days, so they need to be on the top of the pile. While I'm looking forward to the holiday's I can't help thinking the weeks just before and just after might drain me more than the holidays refresh me.

Oh well, such is life, the garden grows, I think I am pulling out more weeds than are growing, spinning is at my house this week, the sun shines the days are warm and life is good. I know life is good because while I was at home last week with my ankle up I took the time to enter in all the yarns that I had acquired that had not made it into my Ravelry stash list - that included my recent spinning. I added 21 new yarns and fibers to spin to my stash list .... slightly embarrassing really, to have so much, but better to have it listed where I can see it and be reminded of what I bought it all for.
Take care :D
na Stella

Coming clean - fessing up

In today's post I'll share my goodies acquired on my Shetland trip - and that feels a little like coming clean, of confessing. Next post I'll talk more about the conference ... promise, but I feel like I need to 'process' the new acquisitions just so I can put them away. By process I mean, document, add the books to my Library Thing listing, and to my Ravelry page, and the same with yarn and fibre. I will also update you on the knitting- in progress, there is something finished, something lost, something new and something making good progress but in the wrong size.
First the goodies, then the knighting - OK?


So Shetland goodies .. well my first knitting purchases were at the Shetland times, Lorna my traveling companion had this place on her 'must do' list. She went with a list of books she 'needed' to add to her library. I was happy just to look, but had read the latest Knitter on the way over and saw Jarad Floods recommendation for Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller as a must have for those thinking about lace, On Lorna's recommendation I also picked up Shetland Lace by Gladys Amedro (recently reprinted), A Stitch in Time Unst's Fine lace knitting by the Unst Heritage Trust, Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont (nothing to do with Shetland knitting but they had it in stock - who was I to ignore it?).

A few days latter Annemor Sundbo's luggage arrived and the Shetland Museum and Archives had her books for sale - so I splurged. Now I am the proud owner of Everyday Knitting - Treasures from the Ragpile (which I thought was out of print!), Setesdal Sweaters - the History of the Norwegian Lice Pattern, and Invisible Threads in Knitting. All of these are available direct from Annemor herself. Her website if worth a visit just to spend time looking at her treasures in her flickr gallery. If you are into history and historic knitting - do visit the photo gallery of the Shetland Museum Archives - between the photos of people wearing knitting and photos of knitting itself here is more than enough to look at.

The best bit was I summoned up enough courage to be a real knitting groupie and ask for a copy of Everyday Knitting - Treasures from the Ragpile to be signed - and it was, with my name!



Also at the museum I picked up these two treasures, the University of Southampton Guide to the Knitting collections was a conference bag gift, and contains more information on the three significant collections they hold. It is now the repository of the collections of Montse Stanley, Richard Rutt and Jane Waller, and it contains not only printed knitting materials but artifacts and tools as well. The little volume underneath is the brand new Guide to the Shetland Museum Textile collection - which is full of beautiful images of old and new textiles, many of which are knit.

Then there was the fibre shopping - I bought fibre, both yarn and combed top ... all of which are souvenir fibre, the kind that will bring back fond memories as I spin and knit. At Jamiesons I asked if they had any fibre for spinning and they answered they did. They said usually they just gave out a plastic bag and took you out to the back room where there was a few boxes of mixed mill waste - and I could help myself. Oh my, just like at the mill in Milton - Mill scraps! The plastic bag was huge - well it was a large black garbage bag ... which I knew I couldn't fill and fit into my suitcase .. so I carefully selected some fibre that I think will spin into something for colour work. I tend towards muted colours .. but tried to give myself a bit of contrast in this selection.


At Jamiesons and Smith, the 'other' Shetland mill on the islands - the combed Shetland top was on display - and this pale blue just felt like one I would easily add to my fibre stash. This is the colourway Haar . and is a mix of white, medium blue and grey - greyer than it is here.


The knitting mis-hap that occurred, occured early in my trip, we had five planes from New Zealand to Shetland. Some where on the 3rd plane I slept, and I stowed my knitting project in its knitting bag on the floor by my feet. When I woke I could not find it, I didn't panic but I was hampered by the chair in front being reclined so I had little room to search and bend in. Those economy seats - are not called cattle class for nothing. When we went to disembark .. my knitting in its bag was not there. The flight attendants, Lorna and I searched the section of the plane around where we sat .. but could not find it. Either it rolled far away during the flight and landing .. or some one else scooped it up amongst their belongings.

Either way - I keep thinking what use is 160g of handspun perendale part knitted into a centre out blanket to most peopl? especially as I was making it up as I knit so there was no pattern. As a result the first yarn I bought was a replacement for the baby blanket, 4 balls of Lace weight from Jamiesons and Smith, in white. This was to provide my 'conference knitting', you know the mindless project that I could knit on whilst I listened.


Then after seeing the museum collections, and many many inspiring shawls and blankets in the books I bought and in some of the talks .. well I decided to add a lace border, in medium grey, dark grey and blue so added these to my travel stash.

At Jamiesons I added these to the stash ... loving the colour selection, not knowing what I wanted to make but feeling that I couldn't ignore having so many colours in the same weight of yarn to choose from.





At every knitting shop they sold knitting belts and at the conference there were on going knitting lounges with demonstrations of how to knit in the Shetland way. So I came home with a belt, and plans to practice.





And I'm still thinking of knitting Wintergreen by Kate Gilbert .. so these colour might just the the ones. This is the only yarn that I bought with a plan in mind.





And finally the knitting, I finished the second Theodora sock whilst I was away and wore them. They are now in the wash ... its been wintery here I'm waiting for drying weather before they are washed, photos next time I promise. I did finish one of the mittens intended for Toby ... but it is to small in the thumb. My plan is to knit the second mitten and make the thumb longer, adding more of the fish skeleton pattern to do so.











And I'm still loving the paw print on the reverse of these. They were mostly knit on the plane trip the the UK .. but it was a little bumpy on the return trip so I opted to knit the blanket. Plus I was tired by then, I didn't want to have to worry about charts bumping around on my knee.









so ... all in all a little more than I expected to buy, especially the books, but nothing I regret, and a lot to look forward to reading and using.
take care - conference report next post :D
Stella

progress, mail, and nearly there ...

Today, progress reports on my two main projects (Hedgerow and Fannigan), more mail arrived, and a Queue update.

So progress on Hedgerow is good, I've turned a very nice heel, many thanks to Jane, and now am working on decreasing the gusset stitches all away. Sock progress always seems quicker once the heel is done, top down or toe up, doesn't matter, just quicker. Jane's instructions are very very clear, and very sensible, down to picking up and decreasing out extra stitches to hide the typical gap between gusset and heel flap. And explaining why the heel cup starts with a wrong side row (nicer finish).


And more progress reporting, Fannigan has both sleeves completed, and I'm now working on the yoke, I've decided to work Fannigan as a knit in the round raglan. I was thinking of a saddle shouldered shaping, but two things stopped me. First the arrangement of the stripes as I worked the saddle was an issue I could not resolve for a saddle shouldered stripped sweater- would I keep the stripes, would I abandon them and replace them with more stars across the saddle, would I knit the saddle plain or stripped - and how would I get it all matching up? I sketched various options - but none appealed. My other option was to knit fannigan as a raglan, with the stripes continuing around the body, until just below the neck line shaping. That is what I did for Poppy's mint merino raglan, and it worked well. I did knit the last portion where short rows lift the back neck - in one colour. I think this is a nicer option for Fannigan as well, partly as I would rather not short row in fair isle (read purl back and risk this), and also because I'm not sure what to do with the pattern as rows disapear into the neck line.

You might notice I've worked the first inch or so on two circs - which helps with knitting past that narrow section where the underarm stitches are on a holder and there is not enough distance there to stretch out for ease of knitting the sleeve section. I've now moved to a single circular, but realise that I really need to make sure I have two of each circs in the sizes I use most to make this easier when knitting sweaters in the round.

Fannigan will probably have a square neck line, so I need to think through what to do after casting off the front neck stitches. Do I shape the back in a curve - or try and plan it straight. I also need to work on what do do once she is steeked along the center front - will I fold and face with gros-grain, will I knit a facing, or an extension as on the baby blanket, can I find fabric the right colour to bind it with as in the originals? Decisions, decisons ...


I also found that working the first row of a corrugated rib in K1Green,P1Red was not a good way to prevent flick up, see.... Won't be doing that again any time soon. The sleeves were worked this way, but the body had a single row of K1P1 in green to set the rib before working the corrugated K1P1 rib in colour. That is not showing any tendency to flick up.


So, today when I got home from a v.looooong day of meetings with students, its a mid project checkpoint, and then finishing with recording a nearly hour long interview with a first year student for my study ... there were not one but two parcels on the table for me. How nice, there were also two huggy kids and a Bear cooking pasta for dinner - I felt truely spoilt. Parcel one was Folk socks by Nancy Bush, and it looks good. Lots of toe and heel options to study in more detail. My kind of book. I'm planning to work my way through a book or so a month. This is something I do occasionally - build up my library collection in one area - right now it is sock technique books. Parcel number two (from the knittingzone)- had two items, Trekking sock yarn, an undyed skein, and a set of 4" steel dpns in 2.25mm. I love my brittany needles, the warmth and the shortness, but after that one broke I feel the need for something more sturdy in that smaller size. The undyed Trekking I plan to semi-solid dye fire and brimstone colours (flames with a hint of dark charcoal maybe...?) and use in Brother Amos socks.



Nearly there, so close and yet so far, I'm expecting my 'invite' to arrive tomorrow, this is where I am tonight (12th sept)
* 226 people are ahead of you in line.
* 19935 people are behind you in line. (nearly 20,000 waiting!)

and this is where I was this time last week,
# 952 people are ahead of you in line.
# 18496 people are behind you in line
so 726 people invited in this last week(?), yet a whopping 1,439 added to the queue! Its hard to imagine so many net savvy knitters out there in(on?) the web. Also hard to imagine how so many people can be added at any one time when Ravelry eventually goes live, without some sort of bottle neck.

But it will be next week before I can take a day off work and play away some time in Ravelry. Next Tuesday or Thursday to be exact .... until then I'll be snatching time in the evenings and not knitting .....

I've got mail - the old fashioned kind,

A few weeks ago, Bear asked if I wanted this book, while he was buying some darkroom books. You see Amazon suggested this, he must have been known to buy the odd sock book. I wonder why? hhmmmm
Yesterday it arrived - and I think between Hedgerow, and Brother Amos (yes that arrived yesterday as well), and the other book I ordered yesterday from Amazon for myself I guess it will be a year or two of socks.

And stash - Yes Tania I do have Stash, albeit a small stash, only two shallow drawers in a large set of drawers, and a plastic tub in the hall cupboard. See the side bar for an update.
And I am all prepared to be very very sheepish when I become a Ravelry addict like better knitters than me, such as Stellify and Tania and Jussie. Can you believe the waiting list to Ravel is over 19,o00 people! Just as well we are all knitting something to Ravel latter. I looked myself up today, and with 1,033 ahead of me (11,000 already in), and 18,000 behind me - that is just huge! - Don't you love how the waiting list checker is coded 'Antsy'?
So ...

• You are #12039 on the list.
• 1033 people are ahead of you in line.
• 18357 people are behind you in line.
• 36% of the list has been invited so far

Do you feel so so sorry for that 30,396th person (maths 12039+18357)
- do you think they knew they were so far down the list when they signed up? (we are not at all sorry for the 12,039th person - she has many many WIP's to finish),
and yet you know that within a day or so another hundred or more will clip on to that list.