November - that explains it.

Now November is a busy month, for some it is Movember, for others NaNoWriMo where those that can aim to write a whole novel. and here, after 11 or so years I've finally realised that November is a month that I shouldn't have too many plans for, that I should just roll and flow and ebb, rather than have any specific goals and expectations. For you see November is the end of the academic year, and for me in my school  that means end of year show, and all of the finalizing marking that goes with preparation for graduation for the students. It also means invites from other institutions to visit and be part of their assessment for honors and final year graduates .... all in all a busy month. I feel like there should be a catchy acronym or such to describe my November - but given its November the best I can do is 'busy'.

Hence today's post, there is a little bit of spinning together with a hint of promise and a little bit of knitting and and the distraction of a new pen and ink combination.

Spinning, sometimes I knit, sometimes I spin. And when I am in the midst of knitting something and need to make some decisions on shaping or patterning or some such ... and its November .. then I default to spinning. There is a calmness to spinning, a rhythm or easy pace to spinning that isn't about each round and shaping and fitting. With spinning I can just spin. This is the second 50g bump of Merino Silk and Cashmere, so once plied it should be a continuation of the first bump which is now a skein of 212m. That is the promise, that the two skeins will be similar enough to work in one project.

I will let it sit for a week or so, as I want to ply from a center pull ball and for that it needs to be quite relaxed and settled, not all twisty and energetic.

Both socks are at points where decisions need to be made, and for reasons already explained that meant both socks have been shelved pending more thinking space. Friday there was a presentation  by a CAPL Student, who presented a designed collection that included three hand knit items. The hand knits were a beret, cuffs/wristers and a rather spectacular zip fronted cape/collar. As you might guess I have a soft spot for nice hand knits ... seeing her work was enough to tempt me to start a new project. That and I came across a link to a matching cast on for Jenny's super stretchy bind off so had to find something to test that on. There is a video, and I tracked down the instructions in Montse Stanleys book which are slightly different. Maybe it is because it is November but this one took me a a while to come to terms with. I cast on and unraveled it I don't know how many times on Friday night, and then last night a few times more .. before finally achieving something that looked even and regular. I think the cast on become one of those things that I wasn't going to walk away from .. so I kept trying and trying. At the end, it is a nice cast on and super stretch, and there is a knack to working it ... but I'm not sure I need this much stretch and yet I want to be good at this one - you know because I consider my self the kind of knitter who can do most things. So this is a 2x2 ribbed wrister, the first of two,  where the 2x2 rib transitions to a cable pattern for the hand.

This is my other distraction at the moment, Diamine Deep Magenta ink. This is an ink I bought for littlest cub, who is very much into letter writing at the moment. I picked the pinkest ink that was listed as in stock by the local online Ink Trader on Trademe. When the ink arrived I helped little cub fill her pen and then realized that this was an ink I wanted in one of my pens. Who knew, I thought I liked soft browns, blue greys,  blues and deep grey plum purples ... and then this ink sucked me in with its deep pink with a slight blue tinge. That was over two weeks ago and I've refilled the same pen and am thinking this might just become an ink and pen combination I keep on hand. I picked this pen, a vintage Burnham button filler with a Greg Minuskin retipped nib, because of its colouring, with the deep rose pink it seemed a good match for Deep Magenta. I know it probably isn't professional to write marksheets in Deep Magenta, or to sign letters in that ink .. but I want to. I'm trying to convince myself that using an ink like this is a fantastic way to identify my comments and prevent any incidents of tampering with marks. I've never had any of my comments or marks tampered with,  and there is a stash of 28 other inks in the drawer ... but not like this one. Still I can write drafts for most things in Deep Magenta with no professional worries. On  FPN there is a forum thread, what is your current favorite ink?, and I know now what they mean. Just like knitting - what appeals today is not necessarily what appealed yesterday, or what might appeal in a few weeks or months.

As they post on FPN - what colour are your fingers today and what is your current favorite ink?

Take care - na Stella

Oh my - I am one lucky birthday gal

I sure am, yesterday was my birthday and there was cake, and a lovely family dinner and lovely things to open and enjoy. I headed out to the KSG (Knitters Study Group) where I provided an old fashioned pound cake, with orange zest, vanilla innards (what is the name for the bit that you scrape out when you use pods?), and cloves. The best thing about having hobbies is that when people want to give you things they tend towards things that fit the hobbies you have. When friends are also into the same hobbies and activities .. well the gifts tend to be of the most amazing kind, the kind that really fit into what you want to do and use. Right at the end of the post is a new video, which I hope is of little or no use to most knitters, and of great use to a few in temporarily or permanently in special circumstances.


So ... first, is a pen - yes I know it is a knit-blog, but the pens have been creeping in of late and there appears to be naught I can do about that. The pens, and inks, are part of my life now, and we both have to adapt to that. Remember back in 2009 when I was knitting Owls in collaboration with Suzanne, well this pen called to S and reminded her of that collaboration. I knew there was a pen in the parcel - customs forms make a point of listing what is inside, in this case 'pen and ink'. I thought there might be a Tswbi pen, as was a firm favorite in her collection. I never expected a Sailor 1911 Maki-E Owl by Pen by Kosen Oshita.

Oh wow, you probably know all about yarn-porn, delicious photos of yummy yarn and fibre, here is some some pen-porn. The pen is predictably a fountain pen, a rather special one.

Maki-E is a traditional Japanese technique of decorating using layers of lacquer and precious materials, in this case gold and shell. This pen has the signature of the craftsman artist, and is absolutely beautiful.
Even the nib is amazing, 14ct gold with some of the prettiest engraving I have ever seen. This is a Japanese Medium nib, equal to a European fine. The pen if filled with Noodlers Summer Tanager Ink, a lovely burnt pumpkin shade. I am not at all disappointed that is was not a Twsbi as this is a pen in an entirely different league.

I was also gifted the spinning fibre, Morag shared some of her limited edition hand dyed cashmere-merino-silk. She said the colour choice was a no brainer, cool blue with a hint of grey .... and the wee notepad with button detail just reminded her of me.

Then Zoomer provided samples of her new button range, sweaters and Jandles (only Aussies call them thongs). I am going to have to knit lovely cotton summery things just to make use of these .....

I have been knitting, and rediscovering that if I pick a project and work on it for a few nights that considerable progress is made. I finished the first Heart of Glass sock, and cast on the toe of the second one on Thursday at knit-night. By Saturday night I had made it almost thru turning the heel!

And I am still spinning, so far 80grams spun, and 80 grams to go. Bobbin one is now done, and about to be put aside. I hope that when I ply this on the majacraft those bobbins will be large enough to make an unbroken skein.

The second half of the fibre is soft, and pink and predrafted al ready to spin. Monday night is spin night at my house .. so I will be able to spin more then. I am trying to spin at least 30 minutes most days, but that cuts into my knit and pen time.

And I am planning the next project,sewing. I am on leave this week. Supposedly the whole week Monday to Friday but effectively Monday to Wednesday because of the Cutting Circle workshops which came up after I planned my leave. Usually if I have a few days leave I plan to sew something, and this week is no exception. Global fabrics have just opened a store in Dunedin so I thought I should 'test-their wares'. Here is a lovely pure silk which all going well should become a nice simple dress. The plain purple brown fabric will be the lining and the paler brown knit is for a long sleeved tee for smallest cub. Global has so much to choose from that I very nearly went mad and selected more than this. I wisely thought that I could sew this Monday and then return to see what else I could sew Tuesday and Wednesday?

As it is still the Tour de fleece, I'm off to spin some, and then play with a special new pen and ink and pet some fibre ... and even knit some.
Take care - enjoy the rest of your weekend - where ever you are.
Stella

Post Script
.. a few weeks ago Bear and I made an new instructional video. How to knit with one hand, the left ... for a special wee boy who wanted to learn. I was sure there was a way and yes there is, based on lever knitting. Over time I hope to add in a few more showing how to increase, decrease and yarn over ... or cables (those I can't quite get my head around how to do those yet).

Today there has been knitting .....

but I can't really show you, there are now two finished projects, and for two very different reasons neither will appear here today. One is my 2011 Take-back-the-knit Secret swap gift - all finished and ready to go, but that must remain a secret until the actual swapping happens. The other finished project was also a gift and is done, and complete and gifted. I even managed to make photos before the gifting ... but then left the photos on the SD card on my desk at work. Still there is knitting content, I've been working on the double knit mittens, and spinning (a lot), and there is a new sock club - and exciting new yarn and patterns. And I've just signed a contract to write a regular column for a magazine ... so now there are new deadlines.

I have finally made it back to the double knit mittens, these have been on the go since, oh the 1st of April this year and so far I have knit one, realized my gauge had changed as I became more familiar with the double knit method and it was way to large. I then started a second one which will become the first of a pair, if I ever finish the third. This pattern ties me to the chart, so it is 'at-home' knitting, and knitting where I need to focus. This has been pushed aside as I focus on other things .. but now it is back and in progress.


This is when I get to introduce you to Max, super sock yarn. I signed up for the VP Winter 2011 sock yarn club. I didn't need much convincing, as the yarn and colours and patterns and treats are always spectacular, but also as I am not sure I could stand the envy if M brought sock club kits to knit night and I didn't get one to go home with. There is a new sock yarn in her stable, Max, a thicker sock yarn, proper sock yarn with nylon and super wash merino, deliciously dyed, and soft. Max is designed for more than socks, but also for hats, mitts, baby wear and blankets and well ... anything that you would want to knit in soft yarn on 4-5mm needles. In New Zealand this weight is called DK short for Double knit, but elsewhere this would be called Worsted.


Vintage Purls is run by a fountain pen user, and I have tempted her across to pens that you can put ink in. Now that might not sound so outrageous, after all all-pens-have-ink don't they? Well no, not ink like you can get for fountain pens. Long story short, for now M is signing her kit letters with a fountain pen, collecting pens and inks, and this time the ink was an amazing colour ... and my envelope had the ink details recorded as she knew I would ask. Deep Magenta, yummy, I just might have to invest in a bottle for myself sometime, Diamine offer 80 colours, and many of the other brands offer an equal number.

This past three weeks I have been teaching every day on the knitting elective, which is run as a block course so short, sharp and intensive. Over three weeks I managed to take 18 non-knitters from casting on, and off, knitting purling, increasing and decreasing, cabling and eyelets. Some even went further to dying their own yarns, or picking up and edging or working lace within a boarder, and almost all played with adding pom-poms or tassels. I can't claim credit as they were a very bright bunch of motivated students who put the work in, and all designed something to hand in at on Friday, the end of the three week block. One casualty was my own knitting, after a day with knitting in my hands I needed another thing to relax with at home of-an-evening. I turned to my spinning and some of the lovely fibre that Kathy left for me last week. I suspect this is the finest singles I have every spun consistently, all due to the amazing fibre. I divided up the fibre into 6 sections, 2 of each colour and spun it into two bobbins with the same shift in colour. My hope is that I will score a almost lace weight yarn that shifts from cream to chocolate over its length, with some mottled transitions between each tone. My long term aim is a shawl that transitions from pale to dark.



My news this week is that I have signed a contract for an ongoing column in Entangled, which means four columns a year if I remember the fine print correctly. The next deadline looms near so I have been planning and writing and putting the next article on paper. Literally on paper as I am choosing to write the roughs and drafts with a fountain pen. Here I am using a c. 1955 Pelikan pen, with a fine nib filled with Pelikan Edelstein Ink in Saphire (the bottle is amazing and the ink pretty nice as well). Bear bought this pen as he is also a 1955 model, but the nib was too dry for him, luckily I had bought a vintage Lamy that wrote too wet and broad for me. We swapped and both are now happy.

Of course this leads to lots of distraction as I have three pens inked at the moment, and it occurred to me that the words might flow better if I use a different pen and ink. In the middle is a 1950's Burnham button filler with a fine nib, and to the right is a green 1950's Onoto with a lovely flex nib. The Onoto was a gift from a local knitter and I sent it away to England to be restored. The Burnham has my current all time favorite ink, Diamine Damson, a dark mystery plum colour, and the Onoto has Pelikan Edelstein Mandarin - which is a lovely bright fun orange. Mandarin sounds odd for a pen ink but it is brilliant for editing and annotating.

So what am I writing about you ask? Well, repairs, mending, fixing, and darning, activities and ideas that seem old fashioned and yet are totally in keeping with today's messages of recycle, reuse and re-purpose. In my next Entangled article I'm looking at the ideas we have about mending and fixing, and perhaps were those ideas came from. I have done a wee bit on this already for Handmade at Te Papa 2011, but this article will be more formal and look not only at the traditions of darning, a specific form of mending of knitwear, but also at how ideas of repairing and mending have shifted over the past few hundred years. The image shows a cute wee 'vintage' honey pot, we inherited it from Bears family. The pot was almost pristine when we took over its ownership, with only a small chip in the base. Unfortunately two small children meant that over the past 12 years the honey bee has lost first one then the other wing. Both incidents resulted in me reaching for the glue to repair it. A new honey pot wouldn't be a as nice (I know, I've looked) nor would it have the same family connection. As I glued the pot I realized that fixing things had been a constant in my own childhood, pot handles were glued, bikes were mended, elbows patched, rips repaired. My Nana took things way to far when she glued and used broken plates, but mending the honey pot made me aware that for many in the western world mending isn't something they do.
So I'd best head off, pick up those lovely pens and ink and sort more thoughts on repairs and mending, and knit some and spin some .....

take care
Stella

Around and around and around ...

is my knit path this week, everything seems to be about going around. The blanket continues to have its edge added, one repeat at a time, corner by corner. The sock grows, the stripes have come to an end and now there is just the rib and then the second sock. And the weekend was long and good ... Bear is pink, which is still a nice surprise to see, and as a family we headed away for a long lunch and a spot of relaxation inland and along the way there was a pen find and a gift.

Here is the blanket in its most recent form, the edging is I think over half way done. At some point over the past few days I knit past the join from one 25g skein to another, but silly me, I forgot to make note of where the join is. In hindsight I hope that point was more than half way around the blanket ... just so I will have enough blue yarn to complete the edging.

The sock grew and is now nearly done, all that remains is to work the ribbing at the top, weave in ends and make a pair. Kathy suggested I invest in stealth needles, and make something of a stealth sock ... and I am sorely tempted. The Blackthorne needles have caught my eye before as have the Celtic Swan Stirling silver ones. Oh is it both wonderful and terrible to be tempted by so many nice knitting tools, and I really love that there is such choice ... one day, I tell myself, one day.

Monday was a 'non-work' day, Otago Anniversary day, so both Bear, the cubs and I had a long weekend. Bear suggested we head inland to Ranfurly for a lunch and bit of antiquing .... and the day was lovely. Along the way Bear spotted this pen, a Conway Stewart in Blue ... with a 14ct gold nib. A little reserach tells us it is late 1940's to mid 1950,s and it will need a little work (the nib split is a tad open and the sac that hold the ink is old and brittle). those are easy things to arrange ... and Bear knowing my penchant for things blue bought it for me. Amongst pen collectors this kind of find is called in-the-wild, I've been wondering what the knitters equivalent is ..... the potential of stash being spotted in-the-wild seems less likely. Karma follows, today Bear received a gift of a pen from his sister, a lovely modern gold Targa Sheaffer 1005, that her husband R had been gifted when he retired. R is not into fountain pens and so when Bears sister shared Bears hand written letter with him, R dug out the unused pen and passed on to Bear knowing he would use it. Lovely sometimes how the world works. Being nice begets being nice.


It is Tuesday, my 'long-day, Tuesdays my teaching starts at 9am and finishes at 5:30pm, then I go home, ...and now I'm fully done ... the dishes are cleared and away .. and its time to knit.

na Stella

Mmmmm sometimes the plan works and sometimes the plan needs changing ...

But it isn't always clear at the beginning that the plan isn't going to work, otherwise there would be no need to frog. Today I have something that is now finished and went to plan, albeit at times a very slow movement towards the end, but finished all the same, and something that was planned but perhaps could be better. Then there is the pen update, because pen and ink is almost as good at fibre and stash.

Way back in June I started to knit another large garter stitch blanket, a pattern I had knit before (2008/9). The impetus for this blanket was the yarn, a factory shop sale of very thick almost unspun 6 strands of pencil roving yarn, at a price I could not resisit. Well I did resist .. but a fellow knit nighter splurged and then offloaded when she had second thoughts about adding too much to her own stash. That was way back in September 2009, by June 2010 I was ready to take on another garter stitch project of this scale. Technically the blanket was complete in December of 2010 ... but I had a 'wheel' of white yarn to add an i-cord boarder to it. This past week I did just that, and like most projects, once I sat down to knit it ... well it was only 3 nights knitting! By the third night I had only a little to do.

For the this blanket I picked up to attach the i-cord binding thru both loops of the slipped stitchs that edge the blanket, and that has made the edge more reversible than the previous blankets edge. Like the previous blanket this one is huge, and warm and thick, perhaps thicker as it has not been stretched and blocked, and was immediately claimed by one of the cubs, even though we are in summer. While I don't enjoy knitting these (quite frankly it is boring), I love the result and the scale ....

The other project that I was looking to finish soon is the 'replacement' blanket, the one I started in Shetland to replace the one I mislaid on the plane. The original plan was to knit the centre in white, a band in mid grey, a band in blue with lace, and then cast off with a lace boarder in dark grey. In theory it sounded good, in practice even Yo-yo the house cat has reservations about the results, as do I.

I like the two laces I have chosen, but not the order of the colours .. so after this post I'm going to frog the darker grey and blue sections .... and knit them again. That will also give me a chance to change slightly how I knit the lace in the first lace band. I will reknit it with mid grey, dark grey, and then the blue as an edge .. .which I hope will look like a smoother and more planned transition of colours.

And on the pen front, the pen trays I was waiting on from GoPens arrived yesterday. I had a lot of fun planning how to cut these into exactly the right sizes and shapes to fit into the Bento box. This is where my not-currently-inked pens are stored, the inked ones live in a vintage vase or a pen case in my bag. I think I may need another one of these staking bento boxes for my mechanical pencil collection, have I mentioned I like vintage mechanical pencils as well?, but there is no hurry.

So excuse me while I go and puddle in the frog pond ....
hope your weekend ends smoothly, ready for the week ahead,

na Stella

Nearly there twice ...

Today's post has two projects which are nearly there, the secret one which I can't provide many details of yet has a deadline which has expired. This is a team effort and two of us are working the first relay .. and the second relay team is standing by ready to do their share, its not a race but it is only fair if I complete my section in time for the next participants to complete theirs. The second project that is nearly there is my first socks of the year, which are pretty much done sans the ribbing at the top of the second one and weaving in the ends. These socks have also turned into a team effort. The third part of this post is nothing to do with knitting, or yarns or spinning, but does have a fibre link .. albeit a thin link.

Secret projects are not really compatable with blogging or with Ravelry. How can one fill a post or project page with all the details of a project when one can't share it yet? Even posting photos can be difficult, Oh its fairly easy to make a photo black and white, and to photograph a teasing little section that will make guessing hard. What is difficult is showing progress without giving away any hints about the size of the project ....but I think I've managed it. This project is colourwork, stranded, and I'm nearly ready to cast off. The working needles are a wee way away from the cast on and start of the tape measure shown here. I should be able to share my bits and the whole project with you all soon.

I can share the first pair of socks of 2011, which are nearly done. I was pleased that I made good notes on the first heel .. so much so that I was able to follow them for the second heel. I wound off a little section of the yarn so I could start the second sock with the same colour yarn section .... and so far the socks are turning into a fairly well matched pair.

This is the project I took up to my Dads to collect the cubs. Smallest cub sat next to me on the couch and dropped fairly clear hints that she wanted work on my knitting. The hints ran along the lines of 'I forgot to bring my knitting', 'I've never knit with needles as small as that', and 'oooo - you are knitting, is there any purl in that round? I can knit you know'. What really convinced me to hand my knitting over was her interest in the self patterning yarn, she couldn't work out how the pattern was made. Eventually I just handed it over, showed her how magic loop worked and kept an eye on her. She did well, the tension is a little looser than mine, she worked the first few rounds of this grey and white colour change, and it was only the next day I spotted the one drooped stitch. She came with me to knit night this week, where she got bored with her knitting and again worked on my sock, and even went home with sock yarn of her own .... how can one deny a beginner knitter new yarn? I won't take her every time, she needs her sleep, and she can't cast on for socks until the hat is nearly done ... I'm mean like that. Start 'em young and keep 'em keen.

And so the end of the post departs from things knitterly and heads off into the vintage fountain pen and pencil section of my life. I now have several (ahem .... nearly two dozen) fountain pens, mechanical and clutch pencils and vintage ball points I have been looking at ways to store them safely and neatly. Some collectors use purpose built storage drawers,, some use cigar boxes which are customized for pen display or storage, some of these customized boxes are very very very nice with built in display sections. If you have a collection that has between 2 and 140 pens .. there are all sorts of ready to use storage boxes out there for you. All of these strike me as being particularly adaptable for knitting needles and tips. However I'm not yet in the market for something as formal as that .. but I was looking for something that was nicer than a shoe box or plastic tray. In Waimate I spotted this little lacquer box in the window of a junk shop. A little hand written tad identified it as 'old sewing box', which sort of identifies it for a fibre craft. I tried the three pens in my hand bag in it, and they fit.


Back home I cleaned the box up using pen cleaning products from Tryphon Enterprises. I thought that vintage lacquer was probably not terribly different to vintage pens. The box easily holds my longest pens and pencils, has three stacking trays and all that fits into a neat matching tray with carry handle. For now the pens rest on a layer of folded kitchen towel .. but I will be fitting black pen trays as soon as they arrive. That will stop pens drifting around if I move the tray.

Please - if any one can give me more into on what this little set of boxes was originally intended for, or if you have memories of simillar boxes - please let me know. I'm curious, about when, and what, and how, and where, and who ... you know all the usual questions.

so .. take care, knit some, the weekend is upon us, relax some,
na Stella

Wow! So many good suggestions.

I'm slightly in awe of the number and quality of the suggestions readers have for a new name for the little beaded ballet wrap ... Bear suggests as there are so many good ones, that I may have to resort to a ballot, he may be right. He often is. If you are like me and takes a while for ideas to ferment .. then you have until the end of January 2011 to leave a suggestion on the original post - I'm not rushing this at all.
I'm still on leave, but yet again the knitting has not been as frequent or as progressive as I would have expected. There is a new sock, inspired by a fellow blogger and knitter, and the cubs have been away since Tuesday (its now Sunday). They went to visit their Granddad for two days, but rang to say they wanted to travel with him to Christchurch to visit my brother, and wouldn't be back until Sunday. My little Brother smashed his ankle mountain biking in the North Island just after New Year .. and had emergency surgery, and airlift to a larger hospital, and plates and screws holding everything inside together and is now home. He will live, and as he has already had both knees rebuilt .. so I suspect this may slow him down but will not stop him. My Dad thought it would be nice to visit him with our cubs. Chris and I will get up to see him, taking the cubs back up with us, in a few weeks. In the meanwhile Bear and I have been busy, we had a few days out and about lunching and shopping ... in the hope of finding old pens ... but none came to light, instead Bear bought me an old-new-to-me present which is fun, and I've been knitting.

So socks, new socks, the first socks of the year. These are boy socks, either for eldest cub or Bear whomever they fit best. There is a tendency among some knitters to dismiss yarn that is 'self-patterning', and yes - once one can knit colour work the idea of knitting a single yarn that will 'magically' form a colour work like pattern seems a little bizarre. The fact that for the pattern to appear as the designer intended you need the exact gauge and stitch count that it was planned for ... which rarely occurs. This is Moda Vera Noir yarn I picked up on sale from Spotlight, a big box craft store, that regularly puts all their yarn on sale to make room for themed occasions, Easter, Valentines, Christmas, Ball season, it seems that the yarn is the first to go when they need an empty isle to display seasonal stock. The good news is that because they don't value knitting and yarn enough to stock it year round ... they also don't have any idea of its inherent or permanent value - so often one can buy sock yarn for $NZ4 a 100g. In any ones books that is a cheap pair of hand knit socks, spun in Turkey, with 25% nylon, and a feel that says 'durable'. What I find interesting is that I'm sort of apologetic amongst other knitters because yes I am knitting with self patterning yarn ... but Bear admired the yarn and said it was rather elegant, and usually I trust his taste. He appears to have good taste.

These socks are toe up, and knit as I always do with self patterning yarn, with a slip stitch to disrupt the pattern and give it a little bit of life. I've worked the slip stitches every 5th stitch on the instep, every second round for 10 rounds, then 10 rounds plain. For the leg I've worked the slip stitches every second round continuously. I think I prefer the leg section .. but will work the other as a match. The heel was inspired by Ricks-toe-up sock, as developed by Jocelyn. I've no idea if I've worked my as she worked hers .... but it seems sucessful. The slip stitch heel flap runs along the end of the sole, followed by a little heel cup extension, then stitches are picked up along the sides of the flap and gusset decreases work them away.

And this is the vintage writing slope Bear bought for me, closed it is corrugated blackened wood. Kind of a bizarre black mini coffin with a small peaked roof. I don't have a key for the lock - but I know a lock smith can make a key to fit very easily and economically, so I get that done that soon. Technically this is an anniversary present ... but I'm allowed to play with it already a few weeks early.

When the first flap is lifted it reveals storage for pens and pen things, and enough room to write a quick note or address an envelope. All the little lids and covers were there, and all the hinges are brass and working, I do need to make a wee tassel for one of the lids .. it has a ring that is crying out for a tassel.

When the second flap is folded down, a larger green felt slope is revealed, with is very comfortable for writing on. Bear pointed out that it looks surprisingly like a typewriter slope ... or the angle of a keyboard with supports.

The green felt sections then lift up to access storage for paper, and other flat things, there are even little secret drawers. I'm glad we were told about it in the shop .. I've no idea how long it would have taken me to find out about those drawers.

Under the lower section of the slope is another little storage area, with a lovely shaped and sprung brass clip.

With just enough room for envelopes and my Vintage Purls stickies. It seems ok to put something as special as that in something as special as this.

Up in the top section there is room for my un-inked fountain pens. I now have a small but growing collection and have heard that it is best to leave them nib up with the cap on, so this is for BP (Ball Points) and pencils and such. There are four little lidded sections. One pen length size, one I have put two vintage sharpeners in (a cute lead pointer for a 2mm lead holder and a vintage metal Stadleter), and in the next an eraser, because I make mistakes and I know and accept it, and the end section has a wee block of wax. I've learned that one can make an envelope address weather resistant by rubbing wax over it.


Its all rather lovely and for some one who has a real box fetish, who loves containers and boxes and storage stuff .. this is a weird kind of heavenly play thing.

While the cubs have been away Bear and I spring cleaned their room ... completely. Both rooms were emptied out and we swapped the beds over, and cleaned from ceiling to floor, windows and all. We put the furniture back in new arrangements which should give them more play space ... they have both had the same arrangement for 5 years ... and now they play differently and have different stuff. This is half of Smallest Cubs room, the head of her bed used to be where the dolls house is .....

And this is the other end of her room, complete with Curley Bear, Denise the ballet bear, ukulele, and the bed that her brother used to have in his room. It is oak, complete with the original oak frame, and was never shortened during the 'modern' 1950's ... so is still tall and Edwardian. the letter is from her school friend who has spent the past year in Edinburgh.

The older cub has the smallest room, and when we swapped over the beds we decided to try it with the bed along the short wall. This has given him much more usable play-space on the floor ... before he had a narrow corridor between the bed and the window.


Look! we are such good parents, we even set out the Lego on display! Of course I have probably mixed up up the Star Wars lego with the City lego, with the Atalantas and Space Police lego, and the remote controlled Technics lego, and the Bionicle lego. When I was a kid lego was lego - now it is all themed, and if their are any complaints I will remind him that I tidied his room ... next time he can do it.

So its been a busy week, we are both tired and happy. Bear goes back to work tomorrow, and I'll head off to collect the cubs.
Take care
hope the sun shines where you are, and the knitting goes well.
na Stella

Couldn't have planned that

Merry Christmas .. or happy holiday, or seasons greetings, travel well, or whatever might be appropriate where you are. Things here are an odd mix of quiet and busy, we had a quiet Christmas day, then the busy started, people to visit, wonderful food to eat, and traveling to do with more people to visit. We have just got back from a whirlwind visit to my Dad, where there was even more wonderful food to eat - Harpuka caught by his friend Bruno, and local strawberries. Oh the joys of a summer Christmas, as usual we spent a day at the Waimate Rodeo, it was warm and overcast and great fun as it always is. I can't decide if my favorite event is the junior calf throwing or the sheep riding (you have to be under 6 years of age to ride a sheep - and those sheep are fast). I love the way the horses in the calf riding know to back up and keep the rope taut while the cowboy/girl binds the calf, impressive teamwork going on there.

With all the 'not working' I have been knitting - a lot. Knitting while visiting, knitting while being visited, knitting while the cubs played with new games and toys, knitting in the car ... in short - knitting. Which means that I have finished one more sock, well finished apart from working the afterthought heel.


And made a significant inroad on its mate. These sock are being knit from Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball and I had expected to knit two fraternal socks, as happens with Noro, but these are coming out as a very well matched identical twins. A quick check on Ravelry shows that this is not uncommon - people who knit socks with this yarn seem to have matching pairs, I guess Schoppel-Wolle are clever enough to put two complete repeats in each ball and if you work it right then you will knit two that match. I'm not usually a fan of afterthought heels, but they are a sensible solution when knitting with yarn that has long colour changes. If I had knit a more conventional heel with a flat then I would have risked an unsightly (to my eyes) colour change across where the foot meets the leg.

Bear was very generous to me this year, I got what is known by pen buffs as a 'grail' pen. That is a pen that one learns about and wants but can't afford or find straight away. Like most hobbies people who are into pens have a wish list, and this kind of pen was on my list. His gift was a Parker 51, Vacumatic from 1946, in Cedar Blue. There is several exciting things about this pen, first it is Vacumatic filling mechanism and it has a 'split arrow clip', with the blue diamond, and the cap has a 'stacked coin band'. For all sorts of reasons this pen was only made in this configuration for a few years, before the filling mechanism and clip style was changed, so this is kind-a-rare and so kind-of-valuable - but not to valuable to use. Having said that around 20 million Parker 51's were made in various forms and sold ... so this is just one of many. I'm a little embarassed as my gifts to him are still in transit, so I wrapped up the reviews and order confirmation and picked him up a copy of Pencils from UBS to tide him over until the post is delivered. It is entirely my fault - I left ordering until it was too late.

So we are home, for now, the warm sunny weather has been replaced by rain, and overcast sky's and more worryingly the weather forcast if for torrential rain and river flooding across much of the country ... so I think we will bunker in and relax with another slice of our home made Christmas cake.

take care
hope there is some relax with fibre time in your week
na Stella