It dunt fit.  :(  Bugger.

This fits though.

It’s the exotically named 109-3 jacket in ‘Alaska’ with cables, raglan sleeves and hood from Drops.  I don’t know how they come up with these names, I really don’t.

Because the yarn was all so cheap, I thought I’d buy two cardie’s worth at once and have a nice purple cardie for home and a nice blue one for work.  The other cardie uses two different yarns and while one of them turned out to be the exact blue it was in the photo, the other one is a quite decided purple, so my nice blue cardie is turning out to be a questionable mottled cardie.

At least I’ll have something to wear when I have my temper tantrum on my ill fitting rug.

Sweet Tee from IK Spring ‘09  but with AWESOME pirate skullz instead of girly wet flowers.

Go knit one.  Go knit five!  I used the recommended yarn on the recommended needles, and didn’t change anything except for my Mighty Skullz and it’s perfect.  I was a bit worried when it came off the needles as the neck was very loose and floppy, but I gave it a wash and did I mention IT’S AWESOME?

There’s a knack to taking a decent photo of yourself (in your secret identity fake human suit) on a cloudy day in a mirror.  It’s not a knack I possess.

But look at my top!  Look at my skulls!  Join me in a rousing YO HO HO!

YO HO HO!

I hate this pattern.  And another thing.  VLT always makes me think of VPL.  The Victorians have a lot to answer for.

The pattern I was hankering after was that there Sweet Tee from the latest IK.  But not with silly girly flowers.  Oh no.  I’m putting in piratical skulls and then I’m going out on the rampage.

I have a special tip for this pattern.  It seems they sell the yarn in 50g balls in the US, but 100g balls over here.  At least I don’t need to worry about running out of yarn.  It’s deeeeeep purple, not pasty blue.  I’m not a pasty blue pirate.

I’m only up to the sleeves and I’ve taken a week off since then.  You see that brown background?  That’s my new sofa.  It’s huge and wonderful and a palace of comfort.  Of course, I had to clear off the old sofa so we could shift it out of the way.  The old sofa was broken and rabbit chewed and was covered in chocolate stains (Hence the new brown sofa.  A pre-stained, labour saving delight.) and piled up with all my knitting stuff.  It turns out it was also filled with most of my missing stitch markers and quite a lot of Coco Pops.

So everything went upstairs and I camped out on the floor to wait.  And it arrived and it was wonderful and I lounged and I snoozed and I read and I turned my hand to wooing Vaughn in Harvest Moon, that cowboy is hard work.  I might go for Denny instead, he’s crazy for fish, but I reckon he probably smells.  Pierre is pretty easy, but he eats too much and you just know that Vaughn has to be covered in rippling broody muscles, while Pierre will be a pale fleshy blob. Plus he’s got a Willy Wonka fashion thing going on and it’s a little disturbing.

Anyway.  When I went back to gather up my knitting, all the yarn was tangled and the balls were collapsed and, well, meh.  So I read a book instead.

I finally found a decent sub for Rowan Big Wool that’s a more appropriate sort of a yarn for a bathroom rug, so I made a start on the crocheted Round Floor Rug (another imaginative name there) from Essential Crochet from Cygnet Seriously Chunky.  It’s not glamourous but it’s not going to felt any time soon.

Please bear in mind the size of my mighty sofa.  The rug is bigger than it looks.  I should have included a monkey for scale.  I’m at the point now where I have to start paying attention to the pattern again, so I think I’ll have a look at untangling my Sweet Tee yarn instead.  It’s called structured procrastination and it’s the only way I get anything done.

Ooh.  I’ve just noticed that the purple yarn next to it is now the purple that it actually is.  So there you go.  That’s my pirate purple.

http://www.johnlewis.com/230476982/Product.aspx

And that’s my sofa.

Santa brought me a new bag for Crimbo, but it’s one of them there ones with a zip along the top and gappy bits at the ends and it’s rained and snowed and sleeted and rained ever since.   I took some inspiration from Craft magazine and fashioned (and I really do think fashion is the appropriate word to use for something so incredibly styling) a poncho for my bag.

BEHOLD!

There were some who said it couldn’t be done.  There were some who said it shouldn’t.  But they’re all dead now and I have a lovely dry bag.

The best bit is I can still get to the innards when the bagcho is attached.

I didn’t have any sort of a pattern, and I usually don’t get on terribly well with sticky things, so I’m jolly pleased with myself.  The whole thing took under an hour and I didn’t need rescuing and it went right the first time.

I have loads of fabric lef.  Probably enough to make another three bagchos, but I have no other bags that need them so I might start randomly wrapping things in the house, and it only cost £3.25.  My mum would be so proud.  Maybe I should phone her, but I’m not sure I could convey the magnitude of my AWESOME ABILITIES over the phone.

Don’t let that last photo fool you.  It’s definitely purple.

Lights on…

Lights off…

Pretty sweet, huh?  Fashions go out of style, but style never goes out of fashion, and I practically ooze style and good taste.  But the doctor’s given me a cream and promises it will clear up by the end of the week.

I’m mostly back now and I brought a little friend!

I’m not sure having a dead mouse glued to the wall gave the best impression to the kitchen fitters, and they made a point of leaving him there for us to peel off ourselves.  Apparently mouse removal was not included in the price.   With recession looming large, you’d think tradespeople would be a little keener to please their customers.

I’m sure you’re aware you missed my birthday too.  It’s ok though.  You can get me a better present for Crimbo and I’ll let you off the hook.  Otherwise the hook stays in and you can keep swinging for another month.

Look what I got though!

Just so you don’t miss out on the HILARIOUS pun, those are FREUDIAN SLIPPERS! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!  There’s some pirate cutlassery, a remote controlled zombie (could have done with him when I needed that mouse eating), Bag Style, a book to collect my Precious Thoughts in, the first series of Old Harry’s Game, a new red DS, and in the middle is some laceweight that’s going to become these, and a bunch of stuff that turned up after I took the photo.  Ooh, I got weird sweeties that mess with your taste buds.  I’m thinking of hiding some in the Crimbo dinner.  Maybe they’ll make sprouts bearable.

So Giftmass is coming, but I can’t be arsed with knitting presents this year, so I’m going to pretend to be poor and get away with some cheaparse presents and everyone buying me lovely stuff to cheer me up.  I hope no one I’m related to reads the blog.

I did knit this for the Crimbo party though.

It’s the two toned shrug from fitted knits, but with Rowan Shimmer in the ribbing to make me look all glam.  It’s pretty stretchy so I should be able to hide a fair few sausage rolls down the sleeves.  I’m going to avoid raiding the cheese and pineapple hedgehog after an unfortunate incident last year involving a cocktail stick and the Spanish Ambassador.  I was able to pay him off with a box of Ferrero Rocher, but it was a close call, and I’m not made of rice crispies.  I wish I was.  It would be awesome to be that crunchy.  A bit risky at the seaside though what with the ever present threat of seagulls.  I’ve heard you can explode birds with rice, but does that work if it’s already popped?  Probably not, and I’d not want to lose my leg for the sake of experiment.

I spent some of my birthday pennies on some of that there self striping Fyberspates malarky.

I think it might be witchcraft.

You get buggering loads of it.  I had enough for socks and a dreamswatch headscarf.  It makes me look like a flowerpower hippy, so I haven’t worn it to work yet.  They have an impression of me as being a tiny bit scary and unhinged and I don’t want to ruin that by having them think I like peace and hugging.  They might try and touch me and then I’d have to cut them, and that always leads to awkward social situations and screaming.

We went to the Interknit Cafe on my birthday, and as a special treat the Professor let me buy him some yarn so I could make him a hat.  I’m terribly spoiled.

Do you know, that furry bugger still hasn’t made me my birthday cake?

The only other thing I can remember that I made was a scarf from some alpaca that I think came from Peru or somewhere.  I don’t know.  I don’t care anymore.  It’s not important.

It’s this one, without the fringe and in fuzzier yarn, but otherwise identical.  Apart from the colour.

Now.  If you’re in Blighty, have you seen those Trevor Sorbie ads for the hairdryer with the stuff you put in that does something or other to your hair and he wants everyone to buy them and be shiny?

Right.  Well look at this and then ask yourself if you really want to coat your hair in whatever it is he’s pushing.

No.  I didn’t think so.  Probably what happens is when enough people have shiny hair a chain reaction is set off that blows up Paris.  So very predictable.  Blofeld/Blowdryer.  Does he take us all for fools?

Hey ho.

Have I posted this one already?  I can’t remember.  It’s Norah Gaughan’s Spiral Scarf from Knitting Nature.  Except it’s not Norah’s, it’s mine.  She could probably have it if she wanted it.  I don’t really like orange.  Which leads me to wonder why I bought orange fibre in the first place.  Anyhoo, it’s handspun from my Wingham stash, and it gives a rough impression of what the pattern would look like if I’d been paying attention, but I wasn’t, so my hexagons aren’t necessarily the right size, nor are they necessarily attached in the right place.

More handspun.  This time it’s that colour changey stuff from the Dye Studio.  I spun it all the way through in one direction, and then back again, and then made a 2-ply lining up the colour changes against each other.   I’m really happy with the way it came out, and the finished scarf is very flumpy indeed.

This is Terttu in Touch yarns laceweight.  Not much more to say about it really.  It’s red and it has holes in it.

Finally, there is Sahara.  The photo is shite, but the jumper is lovely.  It’s Airedale Aran from Texere.  I was going to use it for the Simple Knitted Bodice, but there’s no frigging way I could get gauge for the lace section and Sahara had far saner requirements.  I made no mods and it fits perfectly.

THAT IS ALL!

I have know that fear.  And it has a name.

Blackgang Chine.

Oh sure, they make out they’re all jolly and fun on their little leaflet, but don’t be taken in by their lies.  Beyond their gates lies nothing but horror and death.  Also gnomes.  Awful gnomes with dead, staring eyes.

It all starts out innocently enough.  There’s a maze you can’t get lost in, and a rollercoaster that travels at a heady 35mph, which the island children assured me was terrifying.  They were wrong.  The terror was yet to come.

It began in the Blackgang sawmill.  There were engines and waterwheelies and the comforting smell of engine oil.  We skipped and tripped through the exhibits.

They had awesome anvils.

Plenty of dead people, stuffed and arranged into interesting poses.

They even had wheelie deelies.  We thought we were safe.  We were wrong.  Just around the corner was a world of lies, horror and atrocious spelling mistakes.

Fur?  FUR?  That’s not fur!  THAT IS WOOD!

Where’s the sand?  Where’s the sea?  It’s not a bloody beach, it’s quite clearly a tree!

I was getting pretty riled by this point, as I’m sure you can imagine.  But we had barely scratched the surface of the tip of the iceberg of doom.

This is a whale.  I’m sure it looks innocent enough to you, but you don’t know the half of it.  They expect you to walk in through the whale’s mouth LIKE A FOOL!  And what happens when you’re in there?  IT SQUIRTS YOU!  And then you come out through its arse and you’re wet with whale juice.  AS WET AS A WHALE’S BELLY!  Is that any way to treat a paying customer?

This is Brian.  He hides in the woods and touches people as they walk past.  Parents!  Do not let your children lick his mushroom.

Ne’er do wells lurk around every corner.  This chap reckoned he was hard.  Well he’s dead now and I have no regrets.

This is where we stumbled into the house of a well to do chap who wanted to eat us.  A wittier monkey might call him a dinnersaur.  Not me though.  I like to refer to him as WTF?!??!

It was at this point that I stopped taking photos, so you’ll just have to take my word for the rest of it.  It was the cowboy town that did for me.  Or rather it was the smell of the cowboy town.  We decided to leave as quickly as possible but we were very lost indeed.  There was a giant snakes and ladders set that was steeper than the steepest thing, and we knew it was purest folly to play.  So we went past that and found a freakass scary castle.  We ran.  And ended up back at the snakes and ladders.  We ran again.  And ended up back at the snakes and ladders.

There were more dinosaurs.  Giant scary butterflies and then there was this weather wizard thing with music and goblins and I think that was when I passed out.  When I woke up there was a man dancing on the floor and the floor made the music and there were mirrors that made me look funny and made my belly feel sick like Satan was playing with my kidneys and there was a crooked house and demons lived there and they wanted to eat my soul and I ran and I ran and I couldn’t get out and then all of a sudden there was the giant smuggler and I ran through his legs and back to the car but I couldn’t see the Professor and I didn’t know where he was and then there was screaming and everything went black.

I woke up back at the hotel and the Professor was there and he didn’t remember anything.  If I mention smugglers or dinosaurs he starts to shake and rock back and forth and it was horrible and if you love your sanity you’ll stay away from that land of horror.

It’s not easy being a three inch monkey in a six foot world, so this year the Professor booked a surprised holibag in a special town for midgets! We flew in to the local airport, but we’re still not sure where our luggage went.

Our hotel was but a short train ride away. The local export is speciality meat. Please do not be disturbed by the graphic scenes of a locomotive nature. We all have our livings to make, and it’s not for us enlightened types to judge the primitives and their barbaric ways.

It didn’t take us long to get settled in our hotel, though there was a strange smell of rendered pterodactyl meat on the air.

You may rest assured that though the cake shop was monkey sized…

…the portions were as they should be.

The locals threw us a welcome concert that evening. It’s not often they get such modest, glossy and heroic monkeys as me visiting their squalid little town, so it’s right and proper that they showed their appreciation.

You may rest assured that I have many holibag adventures to share with you, including a SHOCKING time at the donkey sanctuary.

But those are tales for another day.

This is the Moonlight Sonata shawl in Posh Yarn lace club blue stuff from many moons ago.

It lives with the holibag bunny sitter now. The Professor was all for wiping her brain and dumping her listless body out on the moors lest she divulge the secrets of his lab to the world, but I thought that might come off as a little ungrateful.

Besides, if we did anything to her just after we got back it might look suspicious. Better to wait and kill her in the autumn see how the situation develops.

If you’re making this one, be warned. The yardage printed is a gross underestimate. I had more yarn than the pattern called for and still had to stop early and forgo the crochet cast off.

I haven’t blocked it. It’s huge. See that futon it’s on? That’s where I block. It’s already the width of a double bed so I’m buggered if I know where I can pin it out undisturbed for a couple of days. I need a frame I think. Or a spatial distortion device. It’s only really the outer cobwebby bit that needs a spritz and a stretch, the middle is mostly ok apart from the odd iffy stitch.

It’s very hard to get a decent photo of it as it’s so very large and I’m only three inches tall.

Still, at least it should catch a fair few flies.

And now I am returned to that twilight world of Between Projects.