James, Holly & Emily at the chocolate museum in Bruges. Emily & Holly think the egg is big enough for them both to hide in for an Easter surprise!

Off to Belgium for the weekend ...

... DOH wants to see the Menin Gate, I'm (secretly!) hoping to find the odd y**n-shop along the way ... and the children are hoping to discover that Belgium is entirely made out of chocolate!

Times when I wonder why I knit ...

Like just now - I was in Marks & Spencer, which is just across the road from my office, a few minutes ago. There's some astonishingly nice knitwear in stock at the moment (both in the main store and in the Per Una section), including some gorgeous cardigans and scarves (both curly whirly and hairpin crochet), and none of it seems to be staggeringly expensive either. In many cases, I doubt if I could even buy the required yarn at the prices they charge - it's definitely not a cheap sport anymore ...

Tagged (you're It!)

Ten years ago:
Was on maternity leave with my youngest child, Emily, born at home August 1995 (returned to work in Feb 1996).

Five years ago:
Still in the same job (have worked there since 1991), but had completed 2 OU courses in my spare time in basic mathematics, and aiming for a degree in Maths & Computing subjects. Had decided that I didn’t want to do the Chartered Insurance Institute exams especially, so the OU has been my alternate form of study (as my firm likes to encourage us to continue our education).


One year ago:
Same job as previous (‘nuff said – this is what I do, not who I am!). Gearing up for helping my middle child, Holly, pass her 11+ exam in Jan 2005, doing lots of practice papers, and explaining all the stuff that primary schools don’t teach, like algebra, and logic. Taking OU Exams in statistics and relational databases, and had just taken and passed an OU course in basic web design, with a web-site for a (sadly!) fictitious knitting group. Knitting scarves etc for Christmas presents.


Five yummy things:
Chocolate!
Bacon sandwiches (and the bread must be white ‘plastic’ bread, but no butter or margarine, and I absolutely hate sauce/ketchup)
Tapas – especially albondigas, chorizo & champiñones
Cheese – the smellier the better
Asparagus


Five songs I know by heart:
(but I know many more than five, and not just pop songs, either…!)
Kiss on my list
Every breath you take
Running in the family
Out of touch
Linden Lea


Five things I would do with a LOT of money:
Donate a fully-equipped plane, and the running costs, to ORBIS
Buy my mother a season ticket for Verona, or Milan.
Help my relatives
Buy a house with a tower, one of those victorian italianate villas
Buy a canal boat (though now I’ve seen that new Rick Stein series, it might have to be in France, rather than England!)


Five places I would love to escape to:
South west France
A Greek island
Munich
Prince Edward Island
A far pavilion of my very own, almost any mountain range would do …, and failing that, an island of my own would be pretty good (and it has to have a drawbridge)


Five things I would never wear:
Bootleg trousers
Anything cut to sit on the hips (I have a small waist, so why not use it?)
Don’t think there’s anything else I wouldn’t ever wear, so I’m going to make up for it on the TV shows instead …

Five Eight favourite TV-shows:
Currently enjoying “Love Soup” on BBC1 (an intelligent comedy, as opposed to sit-coms, which I hate)
”Star Trek” (the original 3 series)
“Moonlighting”
“The Preston Front”
“Roobarb & Custard”
“Jackanory” – I already loved books, but this gave me all sorts of books I might otherwise have missed out on
“Robinson Crusoe” – remember the dog dying?
“Das Boot”


Five things I enjoy doing:
Knitting
Reading
Playing computer games (addicted to strategy games, eg. Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, X-Com)
Puzzles – either Crossword or Sudoku – have heard it said that keeping your brain active helps prevent it degenerating in later life … watch this space!
Being out in the fresh air


Favourite toys:
My Denise Interchangeable needles
My digital camera
My mp3 player (but I want an iPod!)


Five people who get this meme:
and apologies to all five of you in advance! - especially if you've already been tagged, and I hadn't noticed it ...
Daisy
Colin
Uknitty
Susoolu
Sue

School's out ...

Sorry Susoolu, should have posted an update earlier - here it is ...

Loop was lovely, and because I didn't have a huge amount of time spare, I escaped relatively lightly, having only bought 2 magazines, and 3 skeins of the Louisa Harding Sari Silk - think this is destined to become Loopy and Luscious scarves. The magazines were the two Interweave Knits specials, Knitscene & Crochet. There's a gorgeous little pink jacket (very ladylike!) and a rather nice linen-y looking drawstring top with big buttons that I particularly want to knit from Knitscene, though I was a little irritated to find that they hadn't put all the patterns in the magazine, as some are to be found on the web instead - strikes me as a little strange, and perhaps lessens the value of the magazine? - What if I still want to knit those patterns in years to come, will they still be available ...?

Studying all done till February - the exam was OK, not bad, not good, but at least the questions were pretty much in line with previous exam papers. We were allowed a handbook of formulae etc (which I never find that helpful as it's all in greek, if you see what I mean ...) and we were allowed to annotate this as well - a dubious privilege in my view, as you can bet that any extra notes which I choose to include will be of no help whatsoever! On the whole, I think that I've probably passed, and if so then I've only one course left to do next year. The OU have 'kindly' posted copies of the relevant exam papers on our personal student pages - I am absolutely not going to look! - post mortems are too depressing for words, they only tend to show up how many bits you completely c**ked up. The questions were on such delights as factors contributing to mortality rates, the use of plots and graphs in general linear modelling, how closely length and breadth are related in a population of jellyfish, efects of nitrogen fertiliser on grass yields, etc, etc.

The exams both days finished at 5.30pm, and the strange thing was that because I'd been in a room with very little natural light (and the curtains were drawn), I found myself quite surprised when
I came out to find it was actually still daylight! Felt a little bit like a mole must feel when it makes another bumps in the lawn.

The dinner on Thursday evening was terrific, probably the best steak I've ever eaten, which is most unusual for a function of that type, the menus usually tend to be rather bland to avoid offending too many people (eg. chicken is almost alway served), and it was held in a really beautiful guild hall in the City of London - I have taken some photos, and will post them as soon as I can locate my card reader - in the meantime, check this link

Since Thursday, I've been knitting wildly, and I'm about halfway through my cabled top. I'm experimenting with allowing the size of the knitting needles to create some of the shaping for me, so started the main part with 4mm needles, and changed up to 4.5mm after about 3 inches, will possibly change up again to 5mm in another inch or so, that's the bit over the bust - think it seems to be working quite well so far, the step between the two needle sizes used so far is not nearly as noticeable as I thought it might be, but I think it will still improve the fit just that little bit. Have taken photos, and will post in next day or so ...

One more day to go, one more day of ...

(sing up, you all know the words!) Just off to the other exam - Linear Statistical Modelling - but since I have allowed myself several hours, am going to go and have a look at Loop on the way, if the Northern Line isn't still playing up! (Kent to Bayswater via Islington isn't really a detour, is it?).

Then the exam itself, and then out to a trade dinner this evening (chance to celebrate the exams being over for another year, and only 1 more year to go, I hope!) - have decided to wear the ladder yarn top, cos it's a bit dressy, and it packs up really small in my tote bag, obviously going to be useful for travelling ...

One down, and one to go!

In retrospect, the exam wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared - don't think that means I've done particularly well, but I think I've probably scraped a pass, and quite honestly, beyond that I don't really care ...!

Took a ball of King Cole Anti-Tickle DK and some needles with me on the train, so the cabled slip-over from the Womans Weekly Knitting Special 2005 is a WIP at last, which is really nice, had been suffering withdrawal symptoms over no knitting for the last 2 weeks or so, while I got on with revising - "got on with" is probably too strong a phrase, especially when combined with work/family life, eg. lots of school visits for youngest daughter who is taking 11+ in January, and pushing son to finish some of the coursework for his Maths GCSE retake which is due in on Friday - lucky I can do Maths, isn't it? - Parent-Teacher consultations, etc etc etc .............

Managed to do that nice circular look cast on (cable cast on alternately tfl and tbl, two rows of K1, yf, slip 1 p, yb, then rib as normal, and the ribbing is really looking nice with a lovely 'rolled' edge - though if someone can point me in the direction of a video tutorial for the matching bind-off, I'd be really grateful - have tried it before from Montse Stanley's book, and not sure I'm doing it right.

Hooray Hooray anyway - only Thursday to get through now!

You know that thing John Motson does?

When he opens his mouth to say something just before the opposition hit the winning goal in injury time? Well ... much as predicted in the previous posting, You Knit What? have got that coat on their blog ... it's not complimentary is all I wish to say

Meanwhile, I should really be revising - first exam is tomorrow afternoon at 2.30, somewhere in Bayswater - and in fact, I switched on the computer so I could look up some stuff on the OU's discussion boards, but I spotted a comment in my mailbox, so of course I had to reply to that, and then I had to have a fiddle, because it's so much more fun. Guess I'd better stop now and do what I should be doing instead ...

New Vogue Knitting just arrived ...

... so many knitting magazines in such a short space of time!

Lots of lovely colours in this issue, and some very covetable coats in there, including one which would definitely qualify for "Odd Ball knitting", containing at least 10 different yarns (and only a couple of balls of each) - could be a great excuse for stash reduction, though of course I might have to supplement the already accumulated stuff, to have sufficient to do it ... ;) I suspect that it will become a candidate for You Knit What?, they've already got one of the scarves up with some suitably trenchant comments - but no matter! I feel a long-term project coming on ...

Ally Pally starts today ...

... but sadly, I can't go. Will have to visit second-hand (so to speak) via everyone else's posts & blogs - meanwhile, found a new issue of "Simply Knitting" magazine in W H Smith, presumably timed to coincide with the Knitting & Stitching Show - some nice things to knit, a top with an asymmetric neckline, and some shrugs in some of those nice new yarns from Louisa Harding so at least I've got something new to look at (another tactic for avoiding exam revision ...!) while I wait for the reports from the show

LadderYarn top finished

LadderYarn top
Originally uploaded by mlq66.

So here it is ... The neckline hasn't draped as much as I would have liked, but I have a ball left over, so I shall knit a short wide tube with it, which will go over my head necklace-style, to form a drape. I've also got round to uploading a few new photos of stuff completed in the last 12 - 18 months ...

Tragic news, the screen on my laptop is almost dead, everything is garbled, not good with just over a week to go to exams - will have to take it to PC World and see if it's worth administering the kiss of life, or if (as I suspect!) it would be cheaper to buy a new one ... I know it was only one of DOH's cast-offs, but I was really getting very fond of it, not too big and heavy, so I could use it for studying on the train and so on. Am very sad today.

New Button!

Thanks to Ruth ...

New magazines ...

Found a copy of the new Womans Weekly Knitting & Stitching Special Issue in WHS at lunchtime, and when I got home, there was the final issue of my current subscription to Knitting magazine waiting for me.

I'd like to think that this was an embarrassment of riches, but I'm really not sure that it is ... and sadly (following an extremely quick perusal in the loo - the only place where I can read in peace!), I'm inclined to the view that I'm more likely to knit the stuff in the Womans Weekly mag, than I am to knit anything in the new Knitting.

Knitting magazine has recently undergone something of a metamorphosis, it's become very glossy and shiny, but the fashion-style photography is not useful when you're trying to work out what a garment actually is like (could you tell I've recently read one of Maggie Righetti's books?!) eg. dark sweaters on shadowy backgrounds, and not showing all the garment in the picture - and some of the items in this issue are just downright strange, not to mention being candidates for You knit what? , especially the full length "fur" coat (which I would expect to keep on s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g vertically till it's about a mile long) and the truly weird Nicky Epstein jacket with horrible dangly things round the bottom edge - some of the articles looked interesting though, which is certainly an improvement. The burning question is - Will I renew my subscription? The jury is still out on that one ...

The Womans Weekly special seemed to me to be more honest in it's approach, maybe it's just not trying quite so hard to be a fashion magazine - though that's not to say that there weren't fashionable things in it! The usual quota of exotic scarves, hats, baby clothes made an appearance, along with a fake ranch style "mink" stole, though for me the nicest items were the two great classics, a cabled slip-over and a cabled cardi. Also rather like the fluted hem skirt, but suspect that would seat horribly badly (especially on my bottom).

A thank-you to everyone who's looked at the blog so far, and especially to those who've left me comments regarding the photo gallery - glad to hear it's finally working ... I finished the ladder yarn top last night, so as soon as I can get some daylight to photograph it in - probably this weekend - I can add it to the Finished Creations gallery.

Sadly, I won't be doing much knitting over the next few weeks, as I have to revise for my exams which are starting to LURCH towards me, far too quickly for my liking. Roll on 5.30pm on 20th October (when the second one finishes) is all I can say - and then no more studying until February next year!

Sorry to be high maintenance ...

Have had another go at flickr as I've noticed that bandwidth has now been re-set. Hope I've got it right this time, but if you have a moment to check, please let me know if the gallery links are working now. Thanks!

Anyone out there ...?

go on, don't be shy - now I've installed a hit-counter, I know you've looked! - just tell me if it's all working properly, and especially whether you can access the photos? - otherwise I'll have to have a re-think ....