Knit chat

A couple of days ago I found a Very Exciting Parcel in my mailbox, from Stoddart Family Farm.  Turns out there was one more installment of the woolshare program I'd joined last winter, and I just didn't know, so it was a nice surprise.

Or do I mean, a spectacular surprise?

(the blue is a Corriedale blend in laceweight; the autumn shades are more of my much-loved Romney/mohair blend.)

Of course I wrote Silvia right away to tell her how much I love these colours, and we got chatting, and she mentioned a really nice pattern for fingerless gloves she wants to knit, and I looked at the link and thought Wow, that looks like something Kate Davies would wear, and if you follow the link too you'll notice that duh, it's Kate Davies' blog.  (they are great gloves, you should think about it.)

Well, once I was there I thought I'd browse around at the other new patterns and fell pretty hard for a tea cosy with sheep on it.  I don't have time or even a teapot-shaped teapot, but I decided to buy the pattern anyway because I do have a teapot-shaped teapot at my cottage, and come spring I'm not going to be thinking of much but being at said cottage, plus the weather will be warm enough not to have me cranking out warm socks, so I'll probably be willing to make time for a seriously cute tea cosy.

And once I'd done that I also bought Kate's two installments of Textisles.  I haven't read them yet, but I know I will love them, because hello, it's Kate Davies.

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Speaking of people whose work you know you will love because they're basically awesome, I gave Jill one of my tinyhappy bags to hold her hat-in-progress.  She loved it and wanted the link to Melissa's shop so she could buy more, but oddly enough, when she got there, there were no little bags to be had.

Ahem.

(sorry Jill, I swear I bought this before I knew you wanted to buy one too!)

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Last night while I was getting out my pattern for Turkish Bed Socks - next week I'll show you whether or not Carol's 2012 pair are going to look great or not - I looked at the Diagon Alley hat pattern Louise designed  for her Biscotte yarns.  I love that hat pattern, and I don't have a speck of wool the right weight for it.  I think I need to put a Biscotte shopping fest into my Christmas plans, don't you?

Meanwhile, as the cowl I mentioned yesterday dries out from its blocking bath (YAY), I'm eying the second skein of the same yarn and thinking I should make a matching hat in case the handspun hat I'm working on turns out to look horrible.  The self-striping yarn won't work for the cables on Diagon, but it would look great knit up as Louise's Flight of the Phoenix, which is easily the most flattering winter hat I own.

Or in other words, I keep having to remind myself that Christmas is soon and I still have a lot of stuff to make for people.  Wouldn't it be great if I got the whole Christmas break just to knit as a reward for getting those things finished?

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This past week I've been working my way through The New Yorker's food issue and marveling at the artists who love food enough to make it for a living.  I can appreciate the passion because I feel much the same way about textiles, and I can definitely appreciate the luxury of a really good meal, but I can't at all relate to the willingness to dirty every pan and cutting board in the kitchen all in one go.   

(I should though, because right now my work area looks like an entire shipment of multicoloured yarn and knitting tools exploded out of an air cannon and landed, not so neatly, in that room alone.)

Anyhow, somehow all that reading led me to a look at Hubert Keller's well-reviewed book Souvenirs, which I'm thinking about buying for the story even though the recipes are unlikely to inspire me to get cooking.

I mean, if I could resist the recipe for apple cider caramels at Smitten Kitchen....

Okay, that was uncalled-for.  Just because that blog tortures me with its sumptuousness, there's no reason to make you suffer too.  Heh.

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I decided to take that Pilates class, in case you were wondering.  I've never done Pilates before so within a few hours of the end of the first session yesterday everything pretty much hurt including muscles I didn't know existed.  I'm not sorry I signed up, but I think I need to do a whole lot more stretching before and after the next few classes while I adapt.  Or not... because when you're that sore, nobody is going to argue with your need to sit on the sofa with a heating pad and some knitting.  Including yourself.

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I think that's as much chatty as I've got today; time to go do productive helpful things so as to earn more knitting time.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and that I see you again on Monday, with luck to look at things I actually finished.  (a girl can dream!)