quelle erqsome...

unintentional haul

I swear I didn't mean to.

I only went to hang out with Robynn, it had been so long! Plus, I wanted to meet Claudia, who is so terribly cute I could have just eated her little belly. And I had my Organic Wool to pick up, of course, but I'd bought that ages ago, a back-order that had just come in -- that was secondary.

But then Nora held up two balls of the Bambi.

I was hooked. The colour! The twist! Thankfully, it was a bit too big for the project in question. I put it down. I nearly got away. But escape wasn't so easy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Serina.

£3?

Is that it? But it's so soft, and so vibrant! The way the colours shift almost imperceptibly...

£3? Are you sure? Well, you know as well I as that I'd be a sucker to refuse that. I'd only need seven balls for what I have in mind. A contrasting colour? Oh, yes, I see what you mean. I agree, I agree! So that's eight balls altogether.

£3! Lovely.

freedom!

I was going to post this on Thursday but, lest I jinx myself, I held off. However, now I can't wait any longer: I am now free. Everytime I say that a vision of Linda Evangelista mouthing earnestly to George Michael dances in front of me.

I have finished marking. I have finished invigilating exams. I have just finished two major freelance deadlines (one which only came on Monday and forced me to relearnInDesign veryveryquickly ). I have finished having food poisoning (emphatically not wonderful). I have finished having no unscheduled spare time. I have finished having no time to research or read or wallow gloriously in somewhat self-indulgentponderings of whether the Baroness Orczy knew what she was up to when she sent forth the Scarlet Pimpernel or what Quiller 's constant recording of eye twitches and various machine specs when he's giving chase or being chased might mean to his simultaneously frenetic and loathed adherence to the rules of Archive.

All this means that my long stretch of summer, barring catastrophe, disaster or calamity, is waiting to be filled with the fusty scent of old books, harrowing spy stories,Lacanian discourse, the occasional relapse into Deleuzian rhizomatic ontologies and a good many coffee shops waiting for me to sink into.

It's rather exciting.

I think later today I will have to post my reading list for InSpyNoMo. It begins tomorrow after all.

hornswaggled!

I was going to post my reading list for InSpyNoMo today, but instead I've got an axe to grind with my immune system. I'm not at all pleased with it. It's left me all sickly with some kind of revolting stomach bug since Sunday. And then yesterday it ganged up on me with Matthew.

Matthew had a meeting yesterday with an agent and made me promise not to do any work or even knit while he was gone, and then he took the manuscript and my mum's sock and hid them in my office.

'Promise you'll just sleep and NOT do anything?' he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed tying his shoes.

I nodded dutifully and silently schemed to retrieve them as soon as he left. I listened as the front door clicked shut and thought, I'll just stay here a moment in case he comes back and catches me in the act.

Five hours later I awoke and cursed his sneaky tactics. I'd been had! Fooled into sleep! And worse, betrayed by my own bashed immune system!

Such trickery I have to contend with...

birthday feasts and yarny feet

Mum's birthday is today -- happy birthday, Mum! -- but we celebrated on Saturday with a feast in Dulwich Park, involving potato salad, a pineapple and bulgar wheat concoction inspired by the Veganomicon, a sweet potato and butterbean pie, lemon-poppyseed loaf and some delicious pita crisps. Nom!

I forgot my camera, so no pics of my mum in her Ishbel, but she hardly took it off after unwrapping it. The delicate greens really bring out her hazel eyes and play with the soft silver of her hair. She was surprised by how warm it is, even though it's so airy and light.

She also dropped a few 'subtle' hints about how she's the only one in the whole family with no hand-knit socks, so I've started her a pair of Uptown Boot Socks from Favorite Socks out of lovely Indieknits Yarn. My mum has very large feet for such a teeny lady, so I'm not sure how long the foot will take, but the cuff has flown by so I'm pretty sure she'll have some surprise yarny feet in no time!

fo: fancy socks!

Pattern: Gentlemen's Fancy Socks by Nancy Bush (Knitting Vintage Socks)

Yarn: Noro Kureyon Sock (from the lovely Laura!)

Needles: 2.5 and 2.25 DPNs

Comments: I love the result! The colourway is bright and bold, yet incredibly subtle; the pattern was quick and easy without being boring (though I suspect the yarn's appeal had a lot to do with this as well); they are long and comfy and I like them!

Although I have a hearty and long-term respect for the wonders of Noro, I wasn't expecting to like knitting this yarn as much as I did. I was intrigued by the colourway and the slubby thick-thin 'ply', but I'm quite sensitive to knitting with yarns with a higher nylon content (I either get a sort of pseudo-eczema at any point of contact or the yarn feels like it's cutting into me, though I seem to be fine wearing higher-nylon-content yarns) and this weighs in at 30%. HOWEVER the colourway is awesome and I found I was concentrating more on the fabric it was creating than any discomfort I might have been feeling. Interestingly, I did find that the yarn itself seemed to soften somewhat the more I handled it. I have yet to block them, but I plan to add aggressive amounts of conditioner and see what happens.

I think the only mods I made were to leave out the calf shaping (Nancy Bush's calves and mine apparently bear little resemblance; it always looks like I've inserted balloons just above my ankle if I follow her instructions for it), lengthen the leg and substitute a Dutch heel for the one that Nancy Bush suggests. For some reason, as soon as I cast on the Dutch heel tucked itself into my imagined finished product and thus it had to be so.

fo: ishbel

Pattern: Ishbel by Ysolda, from Whimsical Little Knits

Yarn: Oceanwind Knits Sock Merino, in Sweet Grass

Needles: 4 mm circs.

Comments: I began this shawlet last week, last Thursday evening in fact. It's for my mum's birthday (she shares it with my granddad).

Last year I made her a sock. Just the one. It was the Oriel Lace pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks in amethyst Cherry Tree Hill and I despised every moment of it. I couldn't bear the yarn -- it was coarse and so solid it hurt my eyes. The lace pattern refused to imprint itself on my brain. I have not ripped the sock out, but I know I will never, ever finish it. I think the yarn might be cursed for a start; it's the yarn I began my never-ending Pomotami. My mum would occasionally mention her missing second sock and I would fudge through with an excuse and change the subject. Interestingly, I am right at this minute listening to the Electric Sheep episode 'Whales and Guerrillas' which is all about failure. This was an unmitigated failure.

Ishbel, on the other hand, was not. If anything, I have had to stop myself from walking it round my neighbourhood to show off just how freaking brilliant it is: to show off how wonderfully well the fabric drapes; how subtly the lace plays with the light; how the colourway seems to shimmer; how it blocked like a dream. The yarn! How I love the yarn. The pattern! How I love the pattern! It's only because I told my dad about the combination of the two just as I was casting on that I will go ahead with my original plan and give it to her.

I have another skein of Oceanwind Knits, in Elderberry, and if they are not destined to become a second Ishbel, they will certainly become a shawl.

Oooooh, OR I might just buy a second skein and try for a delicate lacy cardigan. :: swoon ::

fo: gentlemen's half hose

 

Pattern: Gentlemen's Half Hose by Nancy Bush

Yarn: Fyberspates Supersock Merino in Deep Sea

Needles: 2.5 mm DPNs

Comments: If I thought knitting up Ishbel was a treat, the combination of this pattern and this yarn has completely solidified my return to knitting fanaticism. Ever since the crawlies entered my house I've been very hesitant to knit anything for fear it will be eaten. However, my granddad's 80th is a bit of a special event and he's been dropping none-too-subtle hints about his desire for a pair of hand-knit socks, and as I think we're relatively on top of the crawlies I figured it was a good a time as any.

Cue return of knitting mojo! I've started and finished Ishbel, decided my Fancy Socks should be hit at least mid-calf, set in a sleeve, readjusted a shoulder and startecd and finished the Half Hose, all since last Tuesday. This after a month of struggling to even look at my needles! Nancy Bush's pattern is, not surprisingly, lovely. It's quick and effortless, with very pleasing, textural results.

The yarn is utterly butterly, it's gorgeous. It's dreamy. It's sproingy. It's like the Red Sea of knitting, except that instead of salt, you're floating in a sea of sheer hand-dyed, merino luxury. I have become horribly torn between my gasping love for Oceanwind Knits and this new infatuation for Fyberspates Supersock Merino. Though I have made a pact with myself to make any more (non-Loumms, of course) yarn purchases until I have used 12 skeins of sock yarn and finished at least the two cardigans adrift in my UFO pile, this might be the yarn that makes me stray.

whoa there

1. What's the deal? I just spent over £140 on books. They're all books I need but sweet crikey, that's a lot of money.

2. Why did I spend an outrageous amount on a handful of books? Because last night I declared June International Spy Novel Month, InSpyNoMo if you will, so I'm stocking up. Most of them are either out of print or stupidly priced, but in the end it makes more sense for me to own my copies than borrow them from the library. The plan, thus far, is to read a spy novel a day for the month of June and document my progress here. (And having publicly declared it, so it must be.) Join me if you dare...!

3. What could be better than InSpyNoMo? Oceanwind Knits merino was my favourite yarn ever before I even touch it. You can ask Alice, she'll confirm my drooling adoration. Now that I'm knitting with it, I can honestly agree with my prior convictions wholeheartedly.

4. What am I using it for? Ysolda Teague's Ishbel shawl out of Whimsical Little Knits. If ever there was mindless lace, Ysolda's Ishbel is it. It's wonderful and precisely what I need right now.

I seem to recall claiming at one of our Monday knit nights that I wasn't always wild about her patterns, and that they were often a bit too twee. I was clearly in a very contrary and disagreeable mood when I said it. I want to make just about everything in WLK! I think this is the third thing I've made from an Ysolda pattern and they are all wonderful. They're well written, well thought and all bear quite marvellous results. This shawlet is supposed to be for my mum, but I'm starting to doubt she really deserves it...

5. How can l claim lace wondefully mindless? It's so straightforward! The repeats are all very manageable which means you don't really have to watch your stitches as you go and there's a glorious purl-back every other row. Without dropping a single stitch or cocking up the pattern it's become my perfect end-of-term project. I've been knitting it up while paying diligant attention invigilating exams and while marking portfolios and I have to say it's made it all a lot easier to bear.

6. Anything else? No six, except perhaps that I'm hungry. I might make myself a sandwich...

from spock to sock

We went to see the new Star Trek film last night at the Peckham cinema and, without wanting to be the cause of any freak-outs in major fans, I heartily enjoyed it. I'm not as familiar with the original series as I am Next Generation, but I watched much of it years ago as a child. Alas, it's all a fond if distant memory, along with You Can't Do That On Television and Breaker High.

Regardless, I don't think you have to be intimately aware of the original to have a bit of a proper geekout at this one. The effects are pretty impressive, there's a rather interesting twist, Kirk isn't nearly as irritating as (in the wrong hands) he has the potential and Skyler is a dishier Spock than Nemoy ever was (I know, sacrilege, but I stand by my claims to the death!). It's also a far superior film, in terms of quality and general oomph factor rather than necessarily plot, than any of the previous Star Trek films were.

The Peckham cinema is one of my favourites in London, possibly even more so than the Ritzy, in spite of the predominance of trashy films. It's completely unpretentious, the audience invariably gets totally into whatever's on screen, the seats are comfy and slightly dented by years of use, the people who work there are either surly or bored and rarely anything inbetween. We had a membership for the Ritzy for the last couple of years, and now that it's lapsed I reckon we'll be spending a lot more time at this one.

One irritating thing about the experience, however, was that I had no knitting with me! I've never been one to vanilla sock it and I had nothing on the needles that I could knit in the dark without being a little nervous. Fortunately, the film is action-packed enough that I didn't miss it too much, but imagine if it had turned out to be a dreary dull waste of time!? I'd have been lost.

So, to rectify this, today I cast on the first of a pair of Gentleman's Fancy Socks from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, using some Noro Kureyon sock yarn the lovely Laura brought me back from her last visit to the States. This yarn definitely gets softer as you knit with it and I have to say it's the best procrastinator's yarn ever.

'I'll just keep knitting until the colour changes...'

parcels in the post

So yesterday was a veritable parcel bonanza in the House of Erqsome. Not only did I receive a fabulous box from 'Lista,

but the yarn I had Ravelled from lafileuse came

 

Gorgeous Briggs and Little Heritage in a steely heather.

AND I got a delivery of gorgeous fabric from Fabric Studio.

Linen! Lovely and soft and destined to become sachets.

The parcel from 'Lista, though, is awesome. She knit me a hat and it could not have come at a better time. All that lovely sun we had through April has turned into May Gross and Cold. I've hardly taken it off!

Hand-knit hat with BUTTONS!

Also very appropriate in the current climate, a cake of the softest yarn ever from an alpaca named Emmms!

The picture does not do the rich caramelly, almost Builders' Brew hues at all. Also included were buttons! 'Lista has amazing taste in buttons, but I don't think even she could have imagined how well the Briggs and Little would go with these beauties.

A perfect pairing.

Among all the lovely sweeties, including some truly NOM!able chocolate covered berries and almonds, were Guide Scout Thin Mints. I don't know if you are aware of this, but there are no Girl Guide cookies in the UK. They don't do the cookie runs here. There is no opportunity to promote 'financial skills such as goal setting, decision-making, customer-service and money management' with a Girl Guide Cookie Programme. Which means there are no Girl Scout Thin Mints in the entire UK. Except for these.

And to be honest, they weren't round for long.