Zoe's slipper socks

Zomo commissioned me to make her some cosy slipper socks for the winter and I finished them last month:

I started out with the intention of using this very nice pattern from Patons but it turned out that the charcoal grey yarn really didn't show up the cables very well and there's no point in cabling if no one sees it (hm, sounds like a the beginning of a philosophical aphorism 'if a cable is made but no one can see it....') I digress.

So I went for a plain rib instead with a wee trim of hand-dyed pure wool on the cast-on edge:

They don't look great on my feet, this is not because Zoe is a mutant but rather that I have much smaller feet than her.

I have to admit that knitting has taken a bit of a backseat in the past month or so. I still do a bit of knitting most days but have lots of other things to do so I've been doing a lot less of it even though I'm still loving it when I do get round to doing it.

Full project details on Ravelry.

Silly Auntie Helen

Last weekend we had a visit from Brian and William and had some Halloween fun. Silly Uncle Kenny* did a great job of pumpkin carving considering that the pumpkin (bought just a couple of days before) was already starting to rot. Yuk.

William and I made spooky fairy cakes, did lots of drawing, read stories and took a trip to our nearby lovely park.


It's tremendous fun being an auntie, I always knew I would enjoy being one but as ever I am full of awe for parents. How they manage to do ANYTHING while having children - even going to the loo becomes tricky let alone manage a house or have a job - is a complete mystery to me. By the time William left I was absolutely shattered; happy to have had such fun together but shattered!



*as William has perceptively taken to calling him.

knitted poem complete!

The Knitted Poem was unveiled yesterday as part of the Poetry Society's National Poetry Day celebrations. I'm really pleased I took part in this project as the finished article looks amazing. There are some great pictures on the Poetry Society's site and also the Facebook page for the project. The poem turned out to be Dylan Thomas' 'In my craft or sullen art' which you can read in full here.

In recent weeks I have been busy living life rather than blogging about it. I stated a Spanish course last week and have also been doing a patchwork class (although as I suspected patchwork demands a level of accuracy that doesn't come easily to me so I doubt it will become my number one craft).

I've also been going to a book group and choir and CAMRA meetings (got my knitting out for the first time on Monday night, didn't go down too badly). Aside from being enjoyable in themselves, these activities are a way of testing out my stamina and energy in a non-threatening way and hopefully a precursor to returning to some kind of paid work in the future. All this, together with the limitations of using a dongle for internet access means I haven't been inclined to blog much and although I don't intend on giving up blogging completely, the entries are going to be more infrequent than they used to be from now on.

Knitting Mandy

Jim and Kenny are glued to the conference coverage as usual. I dip in and out but happened to catch Mandelson's speech this afternoon and the camera panned round to the audience and found one of them knitting. A radio DJ has just described this as a 'gift' to TV news editors; presumably on the grounds that it will demonstrate a bored or inattentive audience.

Purlpower believes that this represents a common misconception among non-knitters - that if we are knitting we are not paying attention to what else is going on. This is not the case (although I probably wouldn't recommend knitting while driving). If you have spoken to me on the telephone at any time over the past six years there's a good chance that I was knitting at time. Doesn't mean I wasn't listening intently to what you were saying. Knitting helps me concentrate and I don't think I'm alone in this, in fact several studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of knitting (and c******) upon memory and other brain functions.

"some knitting, yesterday"

I've knitted at lectures, meetings and gigs. Admittedly one Maori-metal band were so disturbed by this that they stopped playing halfway through a song and asked me what I was making (a baby blanket as it goes). And I haven't knitted through a CAMRA meeting yet but my friends, it is only a matter of time. So take heart Mandy, just because we're knitting doesn't mean we're not listening.

Staying on a broadly political theme see how this writer wishes politics could be more knitterly, like Ravelry, here.

Billie's hen do

Last Friday, just in time for a visit from Rachael and Billie for Bill's hen do, the sun came out. I was so chuffed I took a picture of the sky:

It rained every day in August without relent. It rained so consistently that the bottom of the garden turned to bog:

Highly annoying since I had just planted up several herb and lavender plants which had labels saying 'does not like standing in cold water'. So I was absolutely delighted that the good weather held out for the entire Derbian visit:

We were even able to go on the open bit of the tourist bus.


Rach, Billie and I did our GCSE's together back in 1993 alongside Jane who was sorely missed. We realised that we hadn't actually been out together without partners, kids etc. since that time so it was great to have a girls' night out and thanks to Rachael's connections and Billie's generosity we had a fun, pampered weekend.

I felt very proud of Glasgow, it really looked ace in the sunshine and I think our two guests were pleasantly surprised at how cultural a place it is.

We finished the weekend with pie and a pint in one of my favourite Glasgow pubs,
Tennents Bar in the West End and had a surprisingly fine pint of Neil Morrissey's latest brew.

Cheers to old chums!

I love Glasgow

Did I tell you all yet how much I love Glasgow? I just think it is the most perfect size for a city i.e. bigger than Derby but not as big as London. And there are just as many beautiful buildings as Edinburgh has, it's just that in Glasgow they tend to be mixed up with crap ones rather than well-preserved.

See here how they are keeping the fascade but building something new behind it; I love watching people work on stuff like this:

But the beautiful and majestic GOMA for example is opposite this egg-box of a building:


There's so much arty stuff happening here too, I haven't even dipped more than a toe into what's going on.

This weekend I have friends visiting from Derby so I have been checking out what's happening and found that this place is opening soon with lots of family-friendly art activities. I've also been enjoying going to a book group at GOMA (my favourite museum), a knitting group and found a really good folk session at this pub (the name means 'Water of life' aka 'Whisky' in Gaelic). We have become active members of our local CAMRA branch which organises Scotland's biggest beer festival every year at Paisley Town Hall and have been tackling Jim's garden whenever it isn't raining.

If only I had the energy I need to pursue all these interests properly I would be an unstoppable force...

It's tricky thinking about what the ideal place to live would be; I love the laid-back lifestyle and weather of Spain and miss our friends there but then I love being somewhere where a project like Trongate 103 is a viable concern.

On the needles at the moment I have a delicate laceweight cardigan for myself in a simple lace design adapted from this free pattern I haven't made a garment for myself for a rather long time so it's good to knit for myself again.

Really bloody good weekend, part two

If there is a finer way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon in Renfrewshire than with a pint of Houston Ale and the Sunday paper, plus knitting of course, then I have yet to find it.

(The Eagle-eyed will see the paper that weekend featured an interview with Paisley's golden boy, Paolo Nutini in which he says "Some people don't like to lose at anything, never mind a brawl. In Paisley you have these wee guys talking to you like they're 7ft tall. Ask them their surname and you realise why they're so aggressive - they've got five big brothers, four crazy cousins, two mad uncles" which made me laugh).

The Fox and Hounds in Houston is a great pub which puts on mini-beer festivals throughout the year and deserves praise for continuing to do this despite unrelentingly poor weather and the apparent determination of most people in attendance to drink Stella and Blue WKD, the fools.

The range of beers brewed on-site is varied, inventive and uniformly delicious, my only bugbear being the (hopefully tongue-in-cheek) dated sexist labeling of seasonal beers such as 'Blonde Bombshell'. If they would balance this out with the occasional 'Tennant's Deliciously Dark Tardis' (to commemorate the great Paisley man's final turn as Dr Who this winter) or 'Nuttini's Autumnal Natty Nuts' complete with suitably lewd pictures, (oh and lay on a shuttle-bus between Paisley and Houston for the day) then my life would be complete.

Speaking of Mr Tennant how on earth did he come second in the Scotland's Hottest Competition behind James McAvoy? Can't believe that the nerd army behind Dr Who could have let him down in the internet voting. Still, well done for coming second David. (he he, 'cos he reads this blog all the time y'know)