I'm in love with a kitchen implement

Yes. I know. First the iron, now this. I should see a therapist. Seriously though, Oh My God, my life has been changed by a microplane grater. This one in fact. I bought it with my Christmas money (thankyou Granny!) expecting it to be somewhat easier than zesting citrus fruit with the small holes on a cheese grater, but I was not prepared for how utterly perfect and simple it was. I want to put zest in EVERYTHING now.

And yet again, yes I am in my twenties, and no, apparently I do not get excited about the same things as other twenty-somethings.

I just made Amaretto Shortbread from Baking Bites - or at least I almost did. I had to leave out the lemon zest as Martin's stepdad saw my lemon in the fruitbowl and thought 'Ooh! Gin and tonic!' Grr. It still tastes good though!

I have now become so distracted by my shiny new toy that I've forgotten what I was going to say about my knitting, so let's be brief. This weekend we had Christmas again with Martin's family, and I'd knitted some presents for his parents.

His mum had requested a hat like Martin's last year, but with flamingos on. Ok, yep, no problem.


His stepdad wanted a neckwarmer, which I was all prepared to knit from stash, until he told me at the last minute that he couldn't wear wool. I was quite surprised to find how hard it is to buy 100% acrylic yarn at the moment. A good thing most of the time I admit, but then you get saddled with a fussy person. Bahhh, I'm sure he could have coped with 10% wool.


That's not a very exciting neckwarmer. I realise I should have closed with the flamingos. Eh. I'm tired.


There ya go. More flamingos. Yay!

New job new job la la la la la

I have a job! I went back to temping at Castle Cover, who've had me on and off since July and they offered me the permanent position on my first day back. I'm still officially a temp until my birthday (I was booked to the end of the month), then I shall be a permanent admin/mail assistant. It's......not the most exciting job in the world, but it's a hell of a lot better than never knowing when my next temp contract is coming in and things can only get better from here. And hey, it's ten minutes walk away from home! (Although, hadn't I just decided I was going to cut my losses and move out of Poole this year? Oh well.)

I got my security pass today when I signed my contract and whoever was in charge of the photo decided it would be easier to stretch it sideways into a square rather than just cropping it - so I have uneven googly fish eyes and a big clown mouth. Nice.

I'm not sure what the new job is going to mean for my crafting. I've been too exhausted to do anything other than surf the net most evenings, but hopefully that's just beacuse I'd gotten used to extreme lie-ins. I'd like to do more sewing this year, so I'll probably have to persuade myself to take my difficulty level down a few notches. The bad thing about having training in sewing (at least for me) is I have this ridiculous idea that simple projects are somehow beneath me, yet complex projects feel to much like work and I get flashbacks of university deadlines and critiques, which leads to me just ignoring my machine altogether. So, there will be attempts to break out of this habit and sew some simpler projects now. I got One Yard Wonders from Martin for Christmas which has some great ideas in, and over a year ago I was in a knit-and-sewalong in Ravelry for Cape May. I got the knitting part down, and cut up some fabric and then started thinking 'maybe I could add a pocket to the lining' or 'how about an adjustable strap' or 'could I put an extra compartment in this?' before that inevitably turned to 'Meh. Can't be bothered.' So if I can find the pieces, that'll be first on the sewing line.

And finally, just so this isn't an entirely pictureless post, and because I should show it off, I won a new year giveaway from Bugs and Fishes! She sent me 2m of wonderful cutout felt trim (she sells lots of felt, plus she has a new giveaway up)

It's way wider than I thought it would be - I was initially thinking skirt trim, but since I could cut it in half and have 4m, I may save it for when I eventually move out and start needing curtains. Have to find a flat first though...

The project that made me love my sewing machine again. And hate buttonholes.

Last post I showed a picture of Martin's Christmas present, a reproduction (nearly) of this Civil war jacket. I'm quite ashamed to say that this was the first garment I'd undertaken since leaving university, and when I first started drafting, that definitely showed! I can't believe how much I'd forgotten since my degree - my notes were nowhere near detailed enough. Ugh. After failing to remember how to draft jackets from scratch (something to practice for another day perhaps) I decided to swallow my pride and start from a pattern. This is based somewhat loosely on McCalls 4745, though it came up very small so there were a lot of adjustments to make on the first fitting.

Drafting out of the way, my actual sewing skills started to come back to me :) The jacket is fully lined and interlined with the lining finished by hand. The cuffs, collar and centre front are piped and the buttonholes are painstakingly and maddeningly sewn by hand (I was still doing that on Christmas Eve)


The russian braid (rideekulously expensive postage, go to London instead if possible) on the cuffs looks awesome, but was actually pretty easy - it worked much better freehand than trying to pin the braid on before sewing.

He even gets an inside pocket, because I'm that generous! The only thing I'm not entirely happy about is the collar. I'd never done a standup collar in university so I sort of made it up and it doesn't lie entirely flat. I'll get it right next time though!



Thankyou for modelling Martin. Yes, you were marvellous dear. I shall get Tyra on your case right away.

The mojo returneth

Hey hey! Guess what my new year's resolution is? More crafting, more cooking, more blogging.* That shouldn't be hard after lasting til March this year! I've had a peculiar mojoless year of blah, very little knitting and sewing and nothing else I've wanted to blog about in between. The desire to make, and more importantly for pie and handkerchiefs, the desire to blab about things I've made is gradually creeping back though, helped in no small part by Christmas. Actually I went a bit mad for Christmas. There were cross stitched Christmas cards (with no photos, bah), knitted hats and related woolies (pictures will be in my Ravelry projects) and lots and lots of cookies.

See? Many cookies.

Martin helped me decorate these

Dear God how did I ever think these would all get eaten?

Oh, and this.

Yeah. A nice simple project to ease me back into sewing. Better photos and detail shots to come. I'm so happy with this, as are Martin and my mum who both said 'I'm sooo glad you're sewing again' in the kind of tone that makes me think they would have staged an intervention otherwise. Fingers crossed that the machine will not gather dust for another year.


*well, there is also find a proper job and a place to live, not neccessarily in Dorsrt, but we'll see what happens later in the year.

FO: Honeycomb Vest

I finally have a photo of my finished Honeycomb :D I am very very happy with this project, not least because I finished it within the Ravelympics deadline. The yarn is Rowan Purelife Organic DK - my birthday present from the BF, a mere 300g of it. I knit it pretty much to the pattern, apart from adding an inch at the hem, and it fits wonderfully - better than in the photo in fact. It looks somewhat lumpy around the middle for some reason. I swear it's not. Nor am I (My lumps are beginning to position themselves on my hips instead - too much cake). I think this is probably a result of it being scrumpled up into wrinkles at the foot of my bed. I CAN'T HELP IT! It gets very hot in this bedroom, there is much flinging off of jumpers.



Also lookee! New haircut! I got a fringe cut last Tuesday for the first time in about 8 years. I regretted it so much when I first had it, probably just because I felt I didn't look like me, but I really like it now. It has a bit of a split personality too, sometimes it's wispy (as above), sometimes it's straight. I prefer the wisps, they are more friendly to people who miss being able to see their foreheads, but I'm getting used to the straight fringe as well though (it's more fashionable - I'm not accustomed to being fashionable). It looks cute with hats too :D I think I may be brave enough to knit a beret next time.

Watch this space for me experimenting with more wooly hats and passing out because the sun has now decided to come back to England.

My heels do not need hats.

I just saw a kitchen fire in the block of flats opposite me. I could see the guy looking unconcerned in the next room while the grill got more and more insane so I called the fire brigade and they were already on the way! The family in the flat knew! They were perfectly aware that their kitchen was burning and they were just....standing there. Making no effort to usher their YOUNG CHILDREN out of the building. People astonish me.

(They are all fine now. Fireman Sam arrived and they have a very black kitchen but nothing worse.)

Anyhoooooo, I got my vest finished the day before the end of the Olympics and it looks fabby. Still haven't bothered to get photos taken. I'm not fond of posing - despite the fact the America's Next Top Model is my latest guilty pleasure. I unironically love that show. Oh the shame.

In the mean time, I have an older finished object.



These are the Hat-Heel socks from Knitty, knit up in stripy Regia. They were quick - I started on my way up to my parents at the beginning of January and I think I was finished by the end of the month, but I'm not entirely convinced I like them. I don't thinkt he heel's the right shape for me, it's a little baggy and I don't like the pick up ridges. Interesting to knit, but not something I'd repeat. I will repeat the Surprising stretchy bind off though, that's brilliant.

I have moved on to bigger and better things now with little purple lacey wotsits from the Cookie A. book!

Whoosh

I'm not really quite sure how I've managed to knit this so fast, but I no longer have any worries about finishing this before the end of the Olympics (of course, I've now jinxed it, so four of my fingers will fall off today). Admittedly I haven't been watching much of the Games. I had planned to but, egad there are a lot of different ways to move over frozen water. I got behind and it was clogging up the Sky Plus box, so I've given up and I'm just watching the twirly girly ice skating and ignoring the rest now.

Since I've been zipping through the vest so fast, Iive also entered the Aerial Unwind event to frog old project fails (getting a headstart on reknitting later in the year too). I already frogged Rapunzel earlier in the month, with the intention of starting again from scratch (sob), and last week I demolished Chloe and the Snapping Turtle skirt.

These sad and weary projects are no more.


This was something I was designing myself, but I didn't touch it for ages, kinda lost track of what I was doing, and the yoke's looking somewhat funky. It'll probably be re knit into something vaguely similar, but starting from the top.

This was all but finished, but YACK, so unflattering. FAIL. This will be something completely different, possibly a stripy hoodie.

Better luck next time

Christmas hats

First majorly delayed post of Christmas presents! As well as the Christmas jumpers (which I'm sure I'll blog about at some point), I decided all the family and boyfriendly extensions deserved new hats!


My Dad's, finished way way in advance, whenI was being cocky and thinking I was going to be ahead on everything (ha), is the Swirly Hat (which seems to only be available through Ravelry now), knit in Rowan Felted Tweed Aran.
All the other hats were knit without patterns and with crossed fingers.
Mum's, knit mostly in Cashsoft Aran, was I believe the first stranded knitting I'd ever done (the little barely visible white zigzag in that photo), and my first chance to use my new Clover pompom makers - yaaaaay, so much easier than using rings of cardboard.
My brother Jack and his boyfriend Jay's hats are knit in Sirdar Balmoral and both have plastic mesh brims in as they are both highly trendy young men who don't wear hats without brims. Jack's is the grey one with more stranded/fair isle knitting, and Jay's is knit in moss stitch to match the scarf I also made him. That's made with Rowan Colourscape Chunky, which is a lovely yarn, and just enough for a one skein scarf.

(The dog did not get a hat. But he did get a squeaky purple monkey that he managed to destroy within five minutes)

My pride and joy of the hat parade was Martin's. Since he was actually around to ask, and to drive me to Hobbycraft to buy yarn, he got to choose what he wanted and asked for 'a blue and green ski hat with earflaps and bobbles and patterns and motorbikes on it please'.

Hang on, motorbikes?


Yes, motorbikes. Though they also look a bit like camels if you squint.

This is knit in Wendy Mode DK, plus bits and pieces of Other Stuff, and half lined in fleece, and has been greatly appreciated. He's worn it almost every day since Christmas, despite his workmates all taking the piss. A knitworthy young man indeed.

I have a new hat for myself too! This was finished way back in September, but got forgotten about with all the Christmas knitting. This is the Lavish Flap Hat (without flaps, obviously), knit in yummy Mirasol Miski (mmmmllama). I love the mini cable panels, but I think it looks pretty good inside out too.




P.S. Saw the Princess and the Frog today. It's pretty scary in parts, like the creepy parts of ye olde Pinocchio-era Disney. 'Bout time too. Loved it.

Olympic fever

Happy Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year/Day 2 of the Winter Olympics*, world! I am, perhaps insanely, participating in the Ravelympics this year. For those not on Ravelry (why?), the idea is to cast on a project - or several, for the overachievers - at the opening ceremony, and finish by the closing ceremony. Kind of like the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics, but taken a step further/more competitive since we now have The Best Knitting Community Since The Dawn Of Time. I am now attempting to finish a small gauge, all over cabled garment in less than two weeks. Hmmmmmm. We'll see how this goes. At least it doesn't have sleeves.

Speaking of things with no sleeves, I have a newwww finished top, finished a couple of weeks ago, just in time for my birthday, but only just photographed (quickly, because it was extremely cold).

This is the Big Montana Tunic from Interweave Knits Fall 09, knit in Sirdar Big Softie. I think I pretty much knit the whole thing twice. The first one I did, with 2" negative ease was ginormous and hugely unflattering, and then once I'd knit the smaller size I had to unpick the cowl again and make that smaller too. I made it about 3" shorter as well, didn't like the tunic length version, despite having a nice cosy bum first time round. I love this jumper now its finished, and helpfully my long-sleeved tshirts seem to be breeding to accomodate it (Thankyou Primani)

Ah, I am enjoying knitting for myself again. Pah to Christmas.

I don't mean it Christmas. I still love you. Really.

To everyone participating in the Ravelympics, enjoy crazy deadline knitting with no consequences if you don't finish in time!



*No, I'm not celebrating any of these. Martin and I aren't having flowers and chocolate, or dim sum and noodles, or, um, maple syrup and moose meat. We are having pizza, on the sofa, watching a marathon of Chuck.

Aaaaaah, Mr. Lappytop, how I have missed you!

Ahoyhoy. Happy 2010! Happy happy internet access! My harddrive died a tragic death a few weeks ago so I have been experiencing extreme withdrawal symptoms while a lovely young man from PCWorld fixed it for me (at half price, for I have Contacts. Heh.) I have over 1000 blog posts to catch up on (I shouldn't read so many) and probably 10 times that amount of forum posts over on Ravelry.

In the meantime, I have had Christmas! Twice! Wooooo! I am clearly in a scary, serious, grownup relationship now that I am sharing Christmas between the parents. Also, I got twice as much Christmas pudding. Score.
All my Christmas presents got finished on time, miraculously, not only that, they were all greatly appreciated, and they all fit! MY GENIUS KNOWS NO BOUNDS! Photos later, still gathering them all up from the near computer-death experience (and the-forgetting-to-take-photos-of-half-of-them-on-Christmas-Day. Duh.)

Martin and I also semi officially moved in to the new apartment this Saturday. His mum is still in the old house til it's sold (she has an offer though, touch wood), and his stepdad works in Brazil so he's out of the country most of the year, so we're having fun pretending we actually own the place. All of my stuff is tucked away in cupboards, most of Martin's is, but we still have to hop back and forth between the houses sorting out the junk/nostalgic and meaningful childhood treasures from the attic. Mother, if you thought I hoarded stuff...

*Collective groan as I inflict new house photos on the world*

The Lounge!

The thing about this apartment is that while all the individual rooms are much bigger, we're losing shed, garage and attic space. And two storage lockers. Martin's mum has started moving some of her things over, so the view below is now full of boxes waiting to be tetrissed into cupboards somewhere.

Those massive black things that look like barn doors? They are stepdad's speakers. Together they are worth approximately £20,000. I am scared to go near them.

The Kitchen SLASH Dining Room!


LOTS of cupboard rearranging to do in here. I should make a start on that tomorrow. Ugh. Also of note, boyfriend brownie points in the form of unexpected flowers. He also cooked dinner tonight, though that is because I am very slowly teaching/forcing him to. It was good though. Good Martin. Have cookie.

The Bedroom!

I went to Coinstar when we moved in to get rid of Martin's very old change collection. I mean very old. There was an old 5p in there, which I don't quite understand, as he still lived in Birmingham in The Big Five Pee days. He's not quite aware of how quickly change adds up so he was a little shocked when I came back from Sainsbury's with £100. He promptly went and burnt half of it on a fish tank. Fishies are all well and good, but I told him he was silly with money and he should give it all to me to look after for him. He came pretty close to agreeing.

Lookit the size of those windows! No excuse for rubbish photos now.

Please note, all decorative items in this room, for example, artwork, bedding and lamps were chosen by the boy. We're going to buy fish at the weekend and he's also decided that he only wants black and silver fish to match the furniture.

I'm fairly sure I picked a heterosexual boyfriend, but occasionally I wonder.

That's all for now folks.

P.S. I've just started knitting my Map of the World again after the Christmas giftathon. Thankyou to everyone who's downloading it, it's getting way more attention than I thought it would! Hope you all enjoy.

P.P.S. It is actually the 27th of January today. For some reason my last post seemed to think it was still November, but I promise I waited till December 1st to open my advent calendar.

P.P.P.S. It's 3 days to my birthday! I keep forgetting this. Having a second Christmas 2 weeks late has kinda sent my brain skewiff. Yay, yarn shopping on the horizon!

It's finally December!!

Ah, I have ben waiting so so long to open my advent calendar this year! It's not just your average cheap bits of chocolate behind a door thingummy (though I got one of those too because Martin's mum is awesome), but a handmade Christmas stocking filled with individually wrapped presents! This was the most recent swap I did with my Monthly adventures group on Ravelry and my received parcel was waiting, taunting me for over a fortnight.

I made my stocking from some lovely upholstery fabric that I bought in New York about 3 years ago. I have TONS of this fabric. I have no idea why I bought quite so much, but I probably have enough to cover an armchair, then make myself a full length coat for camouflage. I will be using it up very slowly at this rate! The knitted cuff is a pattern I found on knitting-and, knitted in Patons Fairytale 4ply. I got back into practice sewing some handmade presents for it as well, due to be enjoyed later in the month by Solvi in Norway.




My return stocking arrived a couple of days after I posted that, from Julia all the way in exotic Leeds, and I LOVE it! It's insanely decorative and pointy and looks like part of a principal boy's costume!

I pulled the cracker (proper traditional cracker, with plastic toy and rubbish joke :D ) as soon as it arrived but I had to wait very patiently for the rest. I even tried prodding and squeezing packages to try and make December come quicker and I'm not usually one to do that! But I finally get to rip things open now!

I got a tube of bubbles today, and a balloon, a silly straw and a cute fabric mouse yesterday (woo, triple giftage!)

I annoyed Martin intensely by insisting on drinking everything through that straw and slurping right the way down to the end of the bottle. That photo by the way, is posed on brand new freshly assembled Ikea furniture.

After 10 months waiting, Martin's stepdad's house has sold and we have keys to a brand spanking new (built 2 years ago) duplex in Poole town centre. This house has only just gone on the market so we can be nice and leisurely about moving in, but Martin and I could move in right now if we wanted, thus a very expensive and tiring shop in Ikea for bedroom furniture (not my money - the good kind of shopping). Of course, that was before we found out that it would be January before we had Sky and internet, but it's still nice to have the furniture all set up and waiting for us. Delivery was on Monday and I have been working like a machine to get things built - all much simpler than the generally accepted Ikea stereotype, apart from the wardrobe doors. Today was a rest day to get over strained muscles and angry, confused brains. Only the bed to go tomorrow though!

Tonight I have been making Honeyed Choc chip Cookies. As ever I have overestimated the size of each cookie and they have now spread to an ever increasing cookie slab. I have made these before! Why do I not learn! sigh. Tray 2 onwards will be much smaller. I hope.

Christmas knitting update: Finished Dad's jumper - Yay! Got behind on everything else - Boo.

Gunpowder, treason and superheroes

Happy November! I love November. I get to wear lots of knitwear, I get to be excited about Christmas without people thinking I'm weird, and I love the way November smells. Is that normal?

Best of all, here in the UK, we get Fireworks Night :D Martin and I went to watch the free display over Poole harbour last night. I didn't take my camera since I was fairly sure I wouldn't be able to get any good fireworks shots, but I really really wish I had, because we were entertained by Bournemouth Carnival Band while we were waiting. 24 men, mostly a little on the chubby side, marching in formation....all dressed as Spiderman. Brilliant.

I also have a FO! The blog's been fairly slow on finished objects in the last couple of months while I've been working on Christmas gifts, but this one's for meeeee!

I was about 80% finished with my Dad's jumper by the end of October when my Mum rang up to say the measurements I was knitting to were wrong. I don't know whether she measured wrong in the summer or I wrote it down wrong from the phone conversation, but it turned out I was knitting about 5" too big, and since it was knit all in one piece with the sleeves, there wasn't anywhere I could steek it without messing up the stitch pattern. I felt like crying. I also felt like finishing it anyway and giving it to my Dad with a big tub of lard and instructions to grow into it. But, I ended up ripping it all out and starting again anyway. *sob*

In the mean time however, I took a couple of days out of my frantic Christmas knitting schedule to grumble and ignore presents and make something just for me. Stuff the consequences.

This is a Plaited Cable Cowl in Colinette Cadenza which I picked up accidentally in the yarn shop in Scotland. (yeah, the photos are pants, natural light is a bit non-existant today) I never really thought much of cowls before now, but it's very useful to have a warm neck without trailing ends while riding a motorbike. And yep, it kept me suitably toasty outside last night.

Back onto gift knitting for the next couple of months, but I'll try my best not to abandon the blog completely. The vast majority of my knitting is being kept secret from prying eyes :P, but there are still a couple of things I can show off...

Map of the World charts

Bit of a blog experiment today. Someone on Ravely was reading about my crazy obsessive recharting of the Vogue Map of the World afghan and asked if I could put my new pattern online (the originals are painstakingly drawn out on graph paper). I've never charted anything in Excel before - not for public use anyway, I've never converted a Microsoft document to a PDF, and I've certainly never uploaded anything to be downloaded by others, so I have no idea if this is going to work at all. So, Marni (and anyone else who's interested), please let me know if this works properly.

Knittingwise, I've done about 1 and a third of the charts and I've just finished embroidering the first complete panel.

Yep, all those colourful little blobs next to Australia are the individually french-knotted island clusters of Polynesia. They don't show up on the chart I'm afraid, the whole point being that they would be smaller than a knit stitch, so you have three options

a) Find a map and go insane trying to get them as accurately placed as possible (In the absence of an atlas, I've found Wikipedia pretty useful.)

b) Forget the map and just embroider them on willy-nilly. Go crazy. Make pretty patterns. Maybe spell out some secret message in morse code.

c) Do the sensible thing and ignore the islands completely.

Ok, the original pattern is available online at Vogue, and my new charts - fingers crossed - should be downloadable here:

Map of the World Edited

FO: Candy

I finished my jacket :D It's not perfect - I was working from my own gauge so I really should have made more of a plan before I started knitting, and I changed things and made them up as I went along - but I'm pretty darn proud of it anyway. I was mildly hungover in this photo - that's what I'm blaming for the slightly confused expression. The plastic furniture background has to be blamed on my camera, which spazzed out and over-exposed EVERY OTHER ANGLE in the garden. Hey ho.

Pattern: Based on Candy, before being fiddled around with a bit.

Yarn: 100% wool bought from the Knitting4Fun stand at last year's Woolfest.

Modifications: Well, since I changed yarn weight, pretty much the whole garment, none of which I have notes for. I added some short rows around the back and shoulders to bring the neckline up a bit, and finished off with a couple of rows of pink before casting off.
The ribbing at the bottom edge was too small to meet in the middle due to my impressive grasp of what negative ease actually means, so I had to rip back and replace it with stocking stitch with some increases over my hips. I didn't knit enough ribbing on the bottom of this bit, so if I wear it unzipped it flips up at the back. Rats.
Finally, and again because it was a little too small without, I picked up along the edges and knit a band to give myself an extra inch, and decided on a zip rather than risk it straining and gapping around buttonholes. It is...not as easy as it should be to guess how long a finished zip band is going to be when you're deciding when to cast off the main body. Makes it somewhat awkward when zips only come in certain lengths. So yeah, it's a little longer than it should be and makes weird angles at the top and bottom. Who cares. I shall wear my first finished jacket with pride anyway.

(and the next one will be better thought out)

FO: Oliver Theo's Baby gifts

I have decided that I love making baby garments. I am going to start locking all the couples I know in cheesy lurve boudoirs until somebody else gets pregnant.

These are all knit in Rowan Extra fine Merino DK, which I think is discontinued now. Dang. I'm sure they have something similar though. The cardigan is based on Daisy, done in 2 row stripes (which I LOVE, no more ends to weave in!), with a moss stitch border added at the end.


The leftovers went into Seamless baby booties...

...and an improvised top down hat. I did initially start with a bottom up hat with a roll up brim which was fairly stupid as I used so much yarn on the brim that I ran out of green while I still had a bald patch sized hole to fill in. Top down makes much more sense. Plus my hat has a nipple.

*snigger*

Lulworth Castle

The Boyfriend and I spent last Sunday at Lulworth Castle catching one of the last summer jousting shows (*GASP! We left the house! We went outside and saw real life people!). I think I must have been spoiled by castle trips as a kid because Lulworth is rather heavily restored and I kinda feel cheated if a castle is more pine floors and plaster and double glazing than teeny spiral staircases and massive holes everywhere. Perhaps that's just me. Having said that, we had great fun on the outside of the castle. We wandered around the animal farm while waiting for the show to start, where among the pygmy pot bellied pigs (very cute, but rubbish at posing for photos) and many many peacocks, they had angora goats...

...and llamas.

...Or possibly alpaca. I couldn't find a sign and I don't know the difference.

We also had a go at the archery which I thought I was doing pretty well at when I had two arrows on the target and Martin was still shooting clouds and grass, but then he got into his stride and shot it three times in succession. Smug feeling gone. Dang it.

And then, at 12 o'clock, the knights!

who wore shiny lamé 'armour' and had heroic hair!

and galloped toward each other with big sticks!

and rode backwards and occasionally upside down on their horses!

and thwacked each other with wooden swords!

The blue knight is the bad guy by the way (obviously, he doesn't have Hero hair), but he got kicked in the balls at the end of the routine, so everything turns out for the best. It was horrendously cheesy and utterly utterly brilliant. Worth the price of admission by itself. Martin now wants me to make him a knight costume because he is 12.

In other news, my uncle emailed me a few days ago to say my cousin Laura has popped and she's given birth to a gorgeous baby boy called Oliver Theo. I finally got round to sewing the buttons on my cardigan yesterday (it had been sitting buttonless for about a week after sewing in all the ends annoyed me enough to shove it in a bag and forget about it), I've made some matching booties and today I'm finishing it off with a matching hat. Oliver's the first baby in the family and my first opportunity to knit baby clothes and they are soooo adorable. I keep catching glints of terror in the boyfriend's eyes when I squee over them.

Angus disapproves

Meet Angus the Angry Squid. Angus is 2 months old and lives in the wilds of Hamworthy. He likes curried eggs, America's Next Top Model and singing opera in the shower. He dislikes everything else.

This is Hansi Singh's Squid-a-licious pattern knit in leftover Cascade from my stripy jumper for my darling boyfriend (he was the advance guard, to make sure Martin's bedroom was liveable before I moved in)

The pattern is great - I bought 4 of hers and will at some point get round to making another one for myself - the only change I made was to stitch down a little ridge between the eyes and chain stitch on some eyebrows.