It arrived today!
Here's a deluge of pictures for you lol
Sorry for my stoned look, I made the mistake of going to Tesco last night. By the time I got home I was in absolute agony and I had to take a painkiller!
Here's a pic of Alex having a go on my Traddy, I think he might get into this.
I spun this today!
I was extremely proud and he thoroughly deserves it, he's worked very hard this year to contribute to the school and work on controlling himself.
Here he is receiving his award from Louis Attrill.
Louis won a gold medal in rowing in the 2000 Olympics and he and I went to school together.
She said that she didn't get one in the end because spare bobbins and such were expensive and that you had to buy different flyers for different ratios etc. She bought an Ashford Joy instead.
We discussed the Joy a little bit, then she offered to bring it to knit night on Monday so that I could see it "in the flesh" and test the lightness and ease of spinning.
I had a little play, but I didn't have any fibre to spin. It's easy to fold and extremely lightweight.
Then Su said I could take it home for the week until our spinning meet up!
That sealed the deal. I've had it at home since Monday night and spinning on it (even though hers is a single treadle) is soooo easy!
See? I did that in one evening!
I contacted Wingham Wool on Thursday morning and ordered an Ashford Joy DT. I don't know when it will get here, but I hope it's soon.
I want to spin!
I hate getting stressed about stuff; it makes me angry and it's too hot to be stressed and angry!
I'm overloading myself with stuff to do! I've been helping Joy wind yarn so she can get the shop back up to stock and I've done no spinning and hardly any knitting this week!
I still haven't finished the Vortical socks which I started AGES ago. I've got the first mystery shawl KAL to finish, the second one to start and catch up on, I've got one and a half sleeves and the hood of Wimbledon Wetland to do by the end of the Wimbledon Men's Finals tomorrow afternoon and Alex wants a pair of socks for his prom in a week or so! Oh, the Tour de Fleece started today too!
When am I supposed to get all this done?
I've come to the conclusion that my wheel is too heavy for me and that I should get something easy to use and reasonably easy to transport around. I've been gazing at all different wheels online and (after a play on Joy's Lendrum today) have narrowed it down to two.
The Lendrum or the Schacht Ladybug.
The Lendrum is a solid wheel and is soooooooooooooo smooth. It's almost too easy to use after the Traddy! I had to slow my pedalling right down because my hands couldn't keep up! Joy says most Double Treadle's are like that. I really do like the Lendrum, but go and check out the Ladybug.
Isn't that just the cutest? It's a quirky wheel, lighter than the Lendrum by 1kg, has built in handles and Lazy Kate and I just really like the look of it.
So, Joy has said she'll take me to Fibrecrafts on Friday to try the Ladybug out! If I like it, I'll probably buy it. The only thing that's giving me pause is whether I can get a woolee winder for it; I'm waiting to hear back from Schacht about that.
I'm also worried because there is only one UK stocker of Lendrums and I'm worried I might not like the Ladybug and he'll sell out of Lendrums between now and Friday! Joy said to ring and explain it all to them (she knows them quite well) and ask if he'll hold it until Friday afternoon for me. If he says no, then I'll have to decide quickly whether to just buy the Lendrum, or wait and see the Ladybug and risk not liking it but the Lendrum being out of stock!
Oh the agony of indecision!
Do you have either of these wheels? Why do you like/dislike the one you've got? What's your recommendation?
Tut!
Well, people on Ravelry came to my rescue, look at all the stuff I received!
I also placed an order with Alison for some teeny tiny 4" DPN's, some Wendy's Happy Yarn (it's gorgeous stuff, 75% Bamboo and 25% Nylon; sooooooooooooo soft!) and a chart holder.
Alison is the person that Kerry bought my KnitPicks needles from for my birthday last year and look what Alison did this year!
Our garden is a work in progress...ok, so I know that ALL gardens are considered a work in progress, but mine truly is. There used to be a huge shed in the middle of it which we knocked down (but we haven't got around to digging up the concrete floor yet), my mother has regular bonfires out there too.
The outside is starting to look ok, but the middle is a shit-tip!
But, I decided to try and be all inspired today and get some practice is with the camera and I wandered around my garden looking for things to photograph.
Here is the Russet Apple Tree and the 'working' part of the garden.
I found plants beginning to flower.
Roses in full flower.
Other flowers and plants growing well and in full bloom.
Fuschias!
Ladybirds working away industriously.
But it was all too much for Doyle!
This is a follow on from my hyperlink how-to.
Have you ever been on a website and seen a hyperlink that says send us an e-mail and you click on e-mail and it takes you to your e-mail program with the address already filled in?
Clever, isn't it.
It's VERY simple to do.
Type your word or phrase, how about: Contact me
Now, highlight it and click the hyperlink button. In the pop up box type "mailto:" immediately followed by your e-mail address and click ok, now you should have a hyperlink to your e-mail address
Today's how-to is hyperlinks.
Hyperlinks allow you to type in a word and then make that word a link that will take you somewhere else, for example here is a link to Ravelry.
First off, you need the address that you want to link to. There are a few ways to do this, you can either memorise it (if it's a straightforward address like http://www.ravelry.com then that's quite easy, if it's a great long address, it's a bit harder. If it's a longer address, the easiest way is to go to the page, now highlight the address in the white address bar and click ctrl+c to copy. If you see someone else has posted a link, for example here is the hyperlink to Ravelry, now right click on the link and click 'copy link location'.
Now, go back to where you want to put your hyperlink. Now you type your text, and then highlight the bit that you want to be the link - in this case the word Ravelry.
Now you need to look for the hyperlink symbol, on blogger it looks like this:
On Ravelry, it looks like this:
It's usually one of those two little globe symbols (sometimes you can also find it by right clicking on your highlighted word), click that and in the box that appears either paste the address that you copied earlier or just type the address if you know it. Click ok and there you go, you've created a hyperlink!
I actually got really upset and frustrated because no matter what I did, I COULDN'T DO IT!!!
I'd go on twitter and say, "why does the thing with the hooks on do that?", "is the bobbin (I knew that word!)supposed to do that?", "this thingy is doing that, is that right?"
Then I'd get this techno talk back about how the flyer (I now know that's the thing with hooks on) is supposed to do whatever it was doing and that there's too much twist and I need to adjust my tension, but no one would then tell me how LOL
It got to the point where I was beginning to think I was going to chuck it on the bonfire!
After a plaintive rant (with swearing, no less) on twitter, darling Joy came to my rescue! She dropped everything and came to my house EVEN THOUGH we're meeting tomorrow night at the restaurant that our knit nights are held.
Then she patiently stood and waited while my son gave a witness statement to the police (he witnessed a bloke hitting a woman) before sitting me down and taking me through it all!
And look at what I did!!!
Joy, I love you to bits!
I also want to thank wyndwitch and Knitcave1 (and everyone else on twitter) for putting up with me lol
I've just heard that Michael Jackson has also passed today after suffering a heart attack.
Farrah Fawcett, one of Charlie's Angels, has died at the age of 62 after a 3 year battle against cancer.
AND he wore his pink prom socks!
Here are some pictures of him with his date, Milly.
As you know, my first attempt at Vortical was a failure and I've had to reknit it. I finished the first sock this evening and it fits! It fits so well that it's given me more enthusiasm to finish the second one!
I just called Sky, they were lovely and polite until I refused to discuss staying with them. I told them I wanted to cancel and the guy says "Oh, we can give you a 25% discount for six months." So I asked what would happen after six months and he says "Well.....it'll go back up to what you're paying now!"
I asked him what the point was and he said "Well, it'll save you 25% per month." I explained that by cancelling, I'd save 100%...he didn't like that.
Then he tried to tell me that if I went into a shop and they offered me 25% off, I'd think that was a really good deal. I said "Not if I've been giving them approximately £65 per month for 11 years with nothing in return!"
He went awfully quiet for a minute and then told me that I wouldn't get TV any cheaper elsewhere, so I repeated that we barely watched it and it would be a WHOLE lot cheaper without it at all and I wasn't at all worried. He said "Well, this 25% off offer won't be valid after today." I was all blase and just said "Yes, I know." LOL
Funny, how their politeness drains away when you can out argue, in a cool, calm and collected manner, them!
I hope I don't find it too strange, I've had Sky TV for over 11 years now!
Sky TV will go off on July 22nd.
