Il Pleut - Le Competition de La Tour de France

In honour of the Tour de France KAL I am holding my very first Blog competition......

It has rained here every day for the last 14 days - I don't mean that it is raining all the time, just that every day we have had some and I am getting tired of it. So let's add some fun to the rain!!!
All you have to do to enter is guess how many days, during the Tour de France race, rain will fall on my house....

The Prizes
For some lucky people in the world it is not raining, in fact it is very hot so you may choose one of the following as your prize.....
1. Green & Blacks Organic Chocolate in 2 flavours of your choice. Absolutely gorgeous.
2. Schaefer Ann Sock Yarn in Burgundy/Wine colourway.
3. 200g of Top Quality Sari Silk - washed and softened and NOT smelly!
4. A copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Almanac.

Et 'Un Prix pour La Lanterne Rouge'....as suggested by Meg for the person who gets it most wrong. Une parapluie!!!


The Rules
1. Email your answers - whole numbers only please, there are no fractions of rain - to me at Nikki[at] greengreenplanet [dot] com. Entries by July 7th Midnight BST (British Summer Time- that's 11pm GMT)
2. My children will be keeping a chart from 3pm July 7th (start of the race) to July 29th (whatever time the winner crosses the line) logging the rainfall. At night they will be leaving a 'Rain Collector' in the garden in case it rains during the night.
3. My eldest son's word on whether or not it rained is final!!
4. In the event of a tie there will be a tie-break question also to do with the weather.

Gobsmacked.....

Allow me to introduce you to my friend's home made Swift. She made it herself out of pieces of softwood from the DIY store and some tools. It all comes to pieces so it can be stored flat. She lent it to me because I was dyeing and having to hand wind the skeins round the end of my kitchen table and it wobbles a bit but it works and I think it's great.

So when my husband saw it he said "I can make you one of those" and I said, "Thanks, that would be fantastic." So a few minutes later he came downstairs with this hilarious offering.......

Made out of the kids' Meccano. It isn't a square - more a trapezoid but it does actually work and the spindle in the middle rotates really smoothly and it doesn't wobble. Both boys thought it was hilarious and took it upstairs to play with it, winding some of my cheap and nasty acrylic round and round.

But then yesterday I received a package from my SP - she'd said it was going to be small and after her brilliant, way over the top 2nd package I wasn't surprised. After all everybody has a budget and sometimes bills just have to be paid and you can't spend money on your stash or on your SP. But the postman brought a bulky, heavy package and in it was this...

A truly generous, totally unnecessary, brought tears to my eyes gift - A handmade Swift from Sublime Spindles. Made from ethically sourced hardwood with a brass spindle, felt on the bottom so it doesn't slip across my table, the arms even fold up so I can store it neatly (although I don't belong in the same sentence as the word neat).

And there was chocolate - real plain dark organic chocolate and a handmade card she had made herself. Words fail me, I can't thank her enough for her generosity. I've emailed her on both her email addresses but she must be offline - so WanderLust Knits, if you are reading this a) check your email addresses, b) I nominated you for Best Pal and you so deserve to win and c) I've sent you something in the post as a thank you, it doesn't come anywhere near what you've just sent me but I'm hoping it will make you happy for a little while.

P.S. Can you see how dark and dingy these photos are? They were taken next to a floor to ceiling window in what passes for natural daylight in these parts - yes it's raining again!!!

SP11 Sign-ups are Open!!

Here

Swapping starts in September so it won't clash with any Summer Activities I might organise.
SP10 has been great although I still don't know who Secret Squirrel is and I haven't tried very hard to find out either as that would spoil the surprise.
I'm guessing that she's American as she uses phrases that are definitely not 'The Queen's English' e.g. gussied up and there is something about her written English and handwriting that just says she's not a Native Brit. She does live here though as her parcels come by Royal Mail from London.
Secret Squirrel is good at taking close-up photos of flowers - she has sent me some great ones.
Secret Squirrel doesn't have kids - she hand embroidered my needle case with complicated Celtic knotwork and it must have taken hours - far longer than knitting something so she must have 'time on her hands' (lucky lucky person).
That's about all I've managed to come up with and she's done a good job of hiding her identity so WELL DONE Secret Squirrel. Can't wait until her last gift arrives and I find out who she is.

And my own Secret Pal? Well I can't say just yet as her final package hasn't arrived yet.....

Joining In

I'm not one of life's 'Joiners'. I prefer to do my own thing.

BUT I have joined two KALs for the summer so I have something to do on the knitting front.

I'm in the Tour de France KAL as a Green Jersey - this means that I have undertaken to start and finish a project during the race. I'll be knitting this......Skin of the Sea by Ilga Leja

in this..... Hipknits Aran Silk - colourway Vibrant.

I have also signed up for Mystery Stole 3 after Knitting Nanny (my Secret Summer Santa) suggested it. I made a 1.5hr round trip in the rain yesterday to fetch the beads and a crochet hook from Hobbycraft but almost cried when I got home and found that the hook won't go through the beads. The size of hooks being used by others in the group varies through 1mm, 0.9mm and 0.75mm - all with 8/0 beads and having no problems - others are having to use 0.6mm hooks. If the size of the bead is fixed at 8/0 why aren't the holes the same size for every bead? I've been in Manufacturing all my working life - making parts for cars (amongst other things) that are measured in MICRONS and every part you make has to be exactly the same. So why can't the bead manufacturers do the same thing????? Today I'll be making my own hook out of fuse wire and ordering the Jaggerspun Zephyr in Ebony as I want a black stole.

Sign-ups for both close 6th July so get in quick if you want to have a little KAL fun.

Summer Readalong

If I ever go into a 'real' bookshop I'm hopeless at choosing new books, I almost always read Crime Novels and I have my favourite Authors plugged in to Amazon anyway so that I can keep up with the new releases. In order to introduce a little variety I decided that I would 'Read Along with Richard & Judy' and for the last two years have been reading their chosen book selections.
Overall it's a really good experience as I've read books by authors I'd never heard of and books with subject matter that I wouldn't normally touch with a barge pole. I think it's good for the soul as well as the mind to try new things.
The Summer Reading List for 2007 (Starts Wed 4th July) has just been released and the books are:-
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Relentless by Simon Kernick
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon
The Savage Garden by Mark Mills
How To Talk To A Widower by Jonathan Tropper
The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson

I have a few self-imposed rules for the ReadAlong:-
1. Books may be read in any order - the point here is to expand your reading horizons not keep up with the Joneses.
2. Books may be read at any speed - I have 3 children, do Richard & Judy really think I've got time to read a book a week, even on holiday?
3. You must read at least the first chapter of each book. If it's so awful that you can't bear to continue then you may give up but please recycle the book! This has only happened to me once with a book set in the Deep South of the US at the time of the Civil War and I'm sorry but despite the fact that Richard raved about it - it was deadly dull and it had to go.
4.Books should be obtained from a) the shelf of the library (cost-nil) b) Library Reservations (cost - 80p per book) c) http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/ (cost - 2nd class postage) d) Charity Shops e) ebay or GreenMetropolis.com for a SECONDHAND COPY and finally you are allowed to buy a new copy if all other options have been exhausted.

So I'm starting with Relentless because it's a thriller and so ought to be an easy first read. I found it on the shelf of the village library so I grabbed it before Richard and Judy start talking about it - once they mention a book it goes out of my library for months on end.....

Want to Join In?

Bill Gates You Should Be ASHAMED.....

....taking my money, making your products almost indispensable and then fobbing me off when I have a problem. Well actually it's not just me, there are hundreds if not thousands of other people around the globe with exactly the same problem as me and Microsoft can't be bothered to fix it.

I'll start at the beginning. I have a Dell Desktop - over 4 years old now and a real workhorse, not the fastest machine and no fancy sound or graphics but it has worked all day every day for the past 4 years and I don't think you can ask more than that. But recently my USB ports have only worked intermittently - some days I can upload photos from the Camera and some days I can't, the Memory Stick sometimes works in the ports on the front of the machine and other days it will only work in the ones on the rear. Some days the Scanner won't start, some days the Colour Printer and on some glorious days NOTHING WORKS AT ALL.

I have tried every possible combination of equipment and ports and every combination of having things plugged in at Boot Up and plugged in after Booting up - the result? never the same on two consecutive days. I Googled to see if anyone else had the same problem....
Ooh look, lots of people have the same problem!! What did they do to fix it?

Tried tweaking the Registry, Un-installing and Re-installing Drivers etc etc and nothing worked. So I went to the Microsoft site and looked for their answer.
Guess what they say? Along the lines of 'We are aware that Users are experiencing intermittent problems with USB ports' BUT as the problem is intermittent and it doesn't affect everybody's machine in the whole wide world and because we're unlikely to get sued by anybody - WE'RE GOING TO DO NOTHING ABOUT IT.

I've bought a new laptop so I've got backup now but that brings it's own problems - it runs Vista and I didn't want to swap over and some of my favourite free utilities - AVG, ZoneAlarm etc are rumoured not to work properly under Vista. I will also have to look at a Wireless Network for the house as we only have one phone line. No time to knit this week - too busy cursing Bill.....

It's Been a Good Week for......

.....Fiesta Feet Socks (Pattern by Lucy Neatby) The heel flap is in a honeycomb stitch which looks great - my only complaint is that one side has a stocking stitch edge to it which makes picking up the stitches easy and neat, the other side of the flap is all slip stitches and by comparison looks a mess. The pattern on the sole is lovely - will do a close-up when I have some better daylight but if I'm honest I don't like the 'jog' in the pattern at the end of each round - I think it needs to be moved a couple of stitches over. Still, I'm now on the long slog up (or should that be down?) the foot towards the toe.

.... Finally Starting to Sell Online

I have had a website selling eco-friendly gifts for 18 months now and things have been moving VERY slowly. This week things finally started to move a bit faster and I actually had to re-order. These fairly traded baskets come from Madagascar and make GREAT summer knitting bags - they are all lined and have a drawstring or zip closure - room in there for a book and suntan lotion too. PLEASE check them out and tell your friends www.GreenGreenPlanet.com and there are plenty of other lovely little gifts.....

....Tidying up my life.
The downstairs rooms all all pretty clear now apart from the books which we are still trying to sell on ebay or exchange on ReadItSwapIt. That just leaves me with the mess and the clutter upstairs. I've been reading a book by Dawna Walters - the woman who started 'The Holding Company' selling all kinds of things to put your 'stuff' in. Now of course she has realised that the root of the problem is actually 'the stuff' and she advocates getting rid of it rather than buying storage for it. I can see her point but I don't think my kids are ready for it yet.
I have written myself a computer program that will match up the patterns I want to knit with the yarns I now have in my cupboard. I'm on the waiting list for Ravelry but in the meantime I need to get my house in order. The advantage of MY version of Ravelry is that I don't have to photograph my stash - after all I know perfectly well what it looks like, it's only upstairs!!

Not Knitting Glade.....

So what's happening with Glade?? I'm sick to death of it that's what. I'm normally a 1 project person - slogging away at each thing until it's completed. But Glade just gets to me. I can't bear to frog it and forget it because I REALLY like the finished article but I just can't face it for a while. Here's the bottom edging 3.5 of 8 pattern repeats in and I still don't know if I'll have enough yarn. It's gone in a Carrier Bag for now until......Christmas??
Have cast on for Fiesta Feet Socks by Lucy Neatby instead - using Panda Wool in Ivory for the main colour and Panda Cotton for the variegated. I would have preferred to use Wool for the variegated part as well but it doesn't come in this colourway - Fruit Salad. Anyway you cast on and knit garter stitch stripes until the piece fits round your leg without stretching. Here's mine...

Then you graft the two ends together to make the cuff and pick up stitches along one edge. You then start knitting various textured stitches. Here I am having just divided for the heel.
I'm really pleased with the colours and with the level of difficulty of the pattern - it just looks enormous after the last pair of socks I knitted but it fits really well and the yarn is soft and comfy. A very welcome break from the Dreaded Glade.

Thoroughly Spoiled....

TWICE in a couple of days... First a Brown Box containing all sorts of goodies from my Angel Yarns Secret Summer Santa - Knitting Nanny. She says I was difficult to shop for but she really did a good job for me - I'm thrilled. The theme was 'The Sea' and everything came wrapped in beautiful blue and silver paper with a load of seashells to add to my collection. Inside the parcels I got... Merino Laceweight in a lovely Baby Blue and a Fiddlesticks Inky-Dinky Spider Stole pattern that I love the look of.
A paua shell bracelet, M&S Organic Chocolate with Rose, A Ball of JamiePossum DK in 'Ocean' and some iridescent beads (these last two came with the suggestion to knit Odessa from Magknits.)
Even the children got presents from KnittingNanny - what a star. It was a lovely ending to a yukky week.

On Monday I got ANOTHER parcel, this time from my SP10 pal and I still have no idea who it is although the return address said London. The box was ginormous and here's what was in it...

*With apologies for not rotating the photo before uploading it
On the bottom is a handmade needle case - the outside is a soft chenille and it's padded too. On the top of the inside flap is a Celtic Design that my Pal embroidered herself! Talented or what. Poking out of one of the pockets is a pair of Namaste Glass needles - drools......
Then there's a heart shaped box of fabulous chocolates with no nuts, a scented candle and finally two skeins of Colinette Tao Silk. What a treat - she's a great pal and I'm really itching to find out who she is.

Eco Tip - Number 1

I decided that there isn't enough 'Green' content on here so I'm going to publish ONE eco tip per week - something small and easy to do, nothing strenuous. Think about it - can you change your life one little green step at a time?

Tips Number 1 - Get a Fly Swat (You didn't expect me to be TOO serious did you?)
It's almost summer and as the weather in the UK improves, out come all the flies - big ones, little ones, ones that buzz, ones that bite. We're really lucky in England not to have the midges that they have in Scotland and not to have anything seriously gruesome like they have in hotter countries.
But still those little buzzy things are dead annoying not to say downright unhygenic. Before you reach for that can of Fly Spray or hang those sticky traps, have you stopped to think what's in them and just how they kill the insects????
I won't go into details here, you can Google for the answers, suffice to say that the chemicals in insect killer sprays are NASTY. Nasty for you, nasty for your children, nasty for your home oh and of course nasty for the insects. Spray enough in a room and close the door and you too would choke to death.
A plain old fly swat is the cheap and fun alternative. Round here they cost 50p - £1 (that's $1 to $2) and it's a lot of fun swatting and very satisfying to despatch the insect quickly and stop it from buzzing around your head. (Apologies to any Buddhists - I promise I say a prayer for each and every one I kill and no, i don't want to come back as a Housefly.) Even my children like to swat the flies and now if they see one in the room they come running for the fly swat so they can 'have a go'.
So this week's eco tip is ' Stop using chemical insect killers on a regular basis, either learn to live with them or SWAT them!'

P.S. Don't forget to clean your fly swat regularly - no NOT with bleach - hot soapy water will be fine!!

No More Dyeing Then.....

....sorry about the pun but I'm a big fan of Ruth Rendell and I have been doing a lot of dyeing this week. Without giving too much away as it was all for swap partners - I did two 1200 yard skeins of Laceweight BFL, one I called 'Strawberry Ripple' and the other I christened Summer Meadow because it is green. One has gone to a swap partner and the other is waiting for some other items to join it for another Swap Package.

I also dyed 250g (8oz) of British BFL Tops for yet another Swap. I was really pleased with the colours so I hope she likes it as much as I do - good job I can't spin or I might have been tempted to keep it for myself.

The fibres came from Wingham Wool Work which has a workshop that looks like this


lovely isn't it? and it's only a few miles from where my Mother lives in Yorkshire.

And otherwise my only knitting is the dreaded Glade. I have successfully knitted up two cuff edgings now - both had to have extra plain rows on each end to make them fit the bottom of the stocking stitch sleeve. Then I realised that I wasn't going to have anywhere near enough yarn to complete the edging.
Having measured the back I have realised that it is way too big and so I had no choice but to unravel it all. I've now worked out how many stitches to cast on to make the back the correct size and hopefully with the spare yarn generated by knitting it smaller, I'll have enough to finish the cuff.
I'm really sick of Glade now and wish to God that I hadn't started.

Knitters Treat Exchange

I've benn waiting for so long but it finally arrive - my Knitters Treat Exchange package. My Treater was Lucy at Zebraknits and it came by Surface Mail all the way from the US. A big big thank you to Lucy for wrapping everything so well - nothing escaped from the package or got damaged. Here's what I got....


Quilting Arts magazine - hope there'll be some inspiration in here for using up my VERY large stash of fabrics.
Food Magazine which I haven't had time to look at yet but the cover looks good.
Body Shop Coconut Body Butter - now how on earth did Lucy know that I love this stuff - I have two pots of it upstairs. I was also surprised to find out that you could get Body Shop in the US - you learn something new every day.
Body & Bath Works Coconut Bath Gel
and finally - the yarn - Knitpicks Elegance Alpaca Silk in Lilac (their colour name not mine - it's darker than any Lilac bush I ever saw).
Have spent what little free time I've had this week looking up the yarn on Knitpicks' website and seeing what I could make with it. Lucy suggested a scarf but I'm still hoping that Summer will arrive in England soon so I'm very tempted to buy some more yarn and make at least a waistcoat if not a fully fledged jumper. Only problem is Knitpicks don't ship to the UK so I will have to hunt for some on ebay.com or find a compatible yarn in the UK. Someday soon I've promised myself that I'll take a day off from the chores and the tidying......

Thanks again to Lucy - this was her first exchange - Lucy, I've added your Blog to my Feed Reader so I'll be keeping an eye on your quilting and your knitting.