Happy Boxing Day to you =)

I hope everyone made it through Christmas without any major family breakdowns. We actually did quite well! Dan stayed on Christmas Eve and stayed for lunch on Christmas Day. Keith’s dad came over for a while, too, and was master of the Christmas cracker puzzles. Some of my gifts include a necklace that says “Oui!” (very apt: I say this a lot myself) from Helen, a Terramundi pot from Mutti (probably a lot safer than a stinkin’ bank account at the moment!) and a Ruby & Millie eyeliner set from Keith, which is brilliant because my black Ruby & Millie eye pencil is a bit overused and is little more than a stub.

I sent my Christmas knitting on its merry way. A pair of purple Fecthing mitts (knitty.com) and co-ordinating Cecily beanie (Knitting Little Luxuries, by Louisa Harding) went to Laura, and my own design, Sofascarf, in an oatmeal-coloured Debbie Bliss Rialto 4-ply went to Mutti.

I’m not overly thrilled with my finished Sofascarf. Ideally, I would have used another skein of yarn. I knit the scarf in two pieces (because I wanted both ends to benefit from a tubular cast-on) and had planned to graft them together in the middle. Of course, it was all very last minute, and I couldn’t get the hang of kitchener stitch (for the graft), especially not with Mutti leaping in and out of the room every five minutes. The scarf was meant to be - and, miraculously was - a surprise. I ended up using a three-needle bind off to join the two pieces, which isn’t ideal for a scarf.

Still, I’m going to practice my kitchener stitch on something chunky, then have another crack at the Sofascarf in my own time. I was going to post the Sofascarf pattern, but want it to be spot-on before I do so. I’m thinking of adding some more cables, as well as more yarn.

I finished work early on Christmas Eve and went to get a haircut. I went to the same salon but saw another stylist. I’m not overly thrilled with the result: I look like a button mushroom! I’m sure once it’s lost its sleekness and is a bit more messy, I’ll grow to like my new do :S And if I don’t, it’ll only take another 2 months to grow out (cry cry cry).

Button mushroom looks aside, it’s been a nice Christmas. My diet has consisted of tea, chocolate, stuffing and alcohol, and I think my blood may have turned to gravy.

Speaking of blood, I’m off to donate again on 30 December. I don’t like people who preach about this sort of thing, but if you have ever thought about giving blood, I really would encourgae you to do it. It doesn’t take very long at all, and genuinely doesn’t hurt. The National Blood Service website has a virtual session section that tells you all about what happens at a donor session. If you’re at all curious, it really is worth a look.

My apologies for the short post. Muriel and I are heading down to Arron’s tomorrow, and I really must get us both ready for it! I’ll be back next week with my New Year’s resolutions and hopefully, some new bells and whistles for the website =)

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It’s been a hive of Christmas activity in Chez beSottied this week. The tree is up and decorated, I’ve bought all of my presents, and wrapped most of them. The only panic I am having is with Mutti’s Sofascarf. Unfortuantely, all of this Christmassy togetherness is taking a serious toll on my secret knitting time. I almost stabbed myself in the heart with a circular needle on Wednesday evening, when Mutti positively burst in on me as I was sat on the sofa, clacking away on her scarf. My only option was to fold myself in half, secreting my WIP in a thigh-and-torso sandwich. I was greatly relieved when, once Mutti had vanished back upstairs, I gingerly straightened up and found my snowflake pyjama top completely free of blood.

Helen has been cooking up a festive storm in the kitchen. She’s made a couple of cookie Christmas trees (unfortunately I didn’t get a picture before she wrapped them). Simply put, each tree is made of star-shaped biscuits, getting ever smaller (or bigger!) in size, stacked on top of each other and coated with icing.

I comissioned some choco-mint cupcakes for the Knit Happens Christmas party on Thursday night. The meeting was great: fourteen of us showed up to find that the Starbucks staff had cordoned off our favourite area, moved the furniture around for us, decorated our little space and laid out plates of mince pies and cakes. Maggie brought along a yule log, too, so we all had a very nice time eating too much cake (I got crumbs on the Sofascarf and almost hyperventilated) before the Big Present Swap.

Each of us knitterly folk brought along one present (costing no more than £5) and plonked it in the middle of our circle. Once we could eat no more, we took a turn pulling a present out of the pile. I got two skeins of a really pretty Louisa Harding yarn, but have no idea what to do with it. This isn’t a bad thing: I can spend hours on Ravelry now, looking for suitable projects =) Thank you to my Secret Santa!

I’ve been really tired all week and so sank gratefully into bed last night after The Best Night In in Ages. Have I got News for You, followed by Gavin and Stacey, followed by Live at the Apollo with Dara O’Brien and Frankie Boyle. I wonder if this credit crunch fiasco means TV will get better? I mean, I know all the stuff that used to be shown on Friday and Saturday nights was crap, but at least it was watchable crap. Shows like Don’t Forget your Toothbrush, Patrick Kielty’s Last Chance Lottery, Blind Date (you know you loved it really) and great comedy such as Father Ted. Hopefully, now that people have less money to spend on going out, getting blind drunk and having a fight before being sick on their shoes, nights in will be a bit more exciting than Police, Camera, Action! Caravanning Special and endless sodding property shows.

Ooo, I got all on a roll there, rabbitting on about TV. What I was going to say was, having being so tired, I treated myself to a little lie-in this morning. I still got up out of bed once I woke up, though, instead of lying there like a big, stinking beast (which is what I would have preferred, in all honesty). Partly, this was because I had things to do, presents to wrap and a Sofascarf to complete, but quite a lot of it was down to my burning need to go to the loo.

I did feel a bit more energetic once I got out of bed, but I’m not sure if this was down to my log-like sleep, or my recent Christmas calorie orgy. Either way, I felt refreshed and determined and so pulled on my wellies for a much-needed Muriel Bathtime. She was so covered in muddy spray and salt from the roads that she was beginning to resemble a half-sucked chocolate lime (urgh) and seeing out of my windscreen was becoming a bit of a hardship. The weather was relatively mild today so I just filled a bucket, grabbed about 50 sponges, and got down to it. Result = one glossy little Citroën.

Once that was done, I headed back inside to WRAP! I’m one of those annoying people who loves to wrap presents, so I busied myself with sellotape and scissors and curling ribbon while Aunt Bessie Helen was mixing up a Guinnessy Christmas cake and rice cake for those of us who don’t like Christmas cake (me). I’m a bit worried that we’re turning into a two-woman WI so am going to spend some time on the internet now, being a nerd and looking at masculine things. Big, oily bits of machinery, reviews of stupid war-based computer games, and BBC Sport.

On second thoughts, I’ll stick with the two-woman WI =)

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‘Ello ‘ello, mon Christmassy chums =)

As I said in my last post, I spent the weekend in London, with Arron. I got back home late on Sunday evening but have spent most of my free time since then with Mutti’s Sofascarf in one hand, a vodka in the other, and a cable needle clamped between my teeth.

I hope Arron had fun this weekend. Unfortunately for him, I was a bit of a Grumpy Gertie. Because we plan our visits so far in advance (because of the distance) Arron sometimes has to put up with me when all I’m really fit for is lying on the sofa in my pyjamas, eating cake. But… we did go to Arron’s beloved Stamford Bridge [Chelsea football stadium], where I had my photo taken with the squad. Sort of:

We should’ve taken one when I was pretending to cup John Terry’s… er. Wilbert. Oh, by the way: if you speak to him, Arron will make out like I wanted to go to Stamford Bridge. This is a blatant lie =) Still, the Megastore was quite fun (and very Mega).

We also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, but, shamefully, only for the gift shop. We did spend Sunday afternoon in the brilliant Science Museum, though. I had great fun creeping through a darkened room full of infra-red beams, trying to get to a safe without tripping the alarm (so what if it’s for kids?!). Arron liked the space section. Did you know that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin only spent three hours on the moon? When they’d gone all that way! Still, I don’t suppose there was all that much to do. Anyway, here I am beneath a big fat rocket:

They even had a Citroën 2CV mounted on the wall (really, really high. I couldn’t get a photo). I liked the description “The car was described as ‘four wheels under an umbrella’”.

We made our way over to Piccadilly Circus for dinner before it was time for me to catch my train. When we emerged from the tube station, a whole crowd of rollerblade-wearing Santa Clauses were ambling around in the street. We never found out why, but it was fun to watch nontheless.

We met up with some of Arron’s friends for a football fundraiser on Saturday evening, I imbibed quite a bit of vodka and booted some kids off the dancefloor to lark about with my new London chum (whether she wants to be or not) Kim. A 23-year-old (me) dancing to High School Musical songs? Oh, yes!

I had some good news earlier in the week, too. I had to give two presentations at uni last week, and in my “Perspectives on Communication” class, I got 61%. I thought that was pretty crappy until Leigh explained it was a 2:1, which is Really Rather Good. My “Communication in Action” presentation was a less impressive but still respectable 58%, leaving me with a 2:2. Not too shabby for my first two pieces of assessed work. Now I really have to crack on with the two essays I have due in the New Year!

Aloha mon lovely chums! Hope you’re all fine and dandy.

I’m running away to London for the weekend, visiting Arron. I’ll be back on Sunday evening, hopefully with a fair selection of photos for your perusal =D

Toodle pip!

It has happened. I’ve finally joined Ravelry. And what fun =) I’ve been describing it to Arron, Laura and Andrew as “a knitter’s Facebook” but anyone who’s a member will know that it is so much more than that. I’ve only uploaded a few photos so far, and added a couple of skeins to my stash, but I’m looking forward to wasting mucho time on the site in the coming months! And, because it’s password-protected, I’ve posted a couple of photos of my Christmas projects on there. If you’re a member, look me up. My username is besottied.

As promised in my last post, I’ve cobbled together this little selection of links to make up for my lack of knitting updates.

Ysolda

At the end of November, the wonderfully talented Ysolda Teague wrote about a pair of stockings she has designed. The Rapunzel Stockings will be featured in a forthcoming issue of Knit 1, and I think I’ll be buying. Unfortunately, Ysolda’s legs look a substantially longer than my own - I might have to miss out a few pattern repeats!

Rapunzel Stockings on Ysolda.com

Little Cotton Rabbits

I’ve been cooing over Julie’s gorgeous Little Cotton Rabbits for over a year now. This lovely blogger has spread a little Christmas cheer by very kindly sharing her pattern for Christmas Tree Bears.

Christmas Tree Bears on Little Cotton Rabbits.

Knit 1 magazine

This American magazine aimed at younger knitters has a “Knitstrology” section on its website.

Knitstrology on Knit 1.

The Christmas Goat

Meredith of Pink Flamingo deserves all of the credit for finding this, the biggest Christmas Goat in the world. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a Christmas Goat of any size. That said, this 42-foot whopper is quite a sight to behold =) Proudly constructed in the Swedish town of Gävle every Christmas since 1966, the Gävle Goat is made entirely of straw and has been burned down a total of 22 times in 41 years. Now it has webcams trained on it, poised for disaster.

Pink Flamingo
The Christmas Goat

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