Stuff, stuff happening on this blog

Tonight we have branched out wildly and had lemon tart for pudding (I’m doing well on the no sugar thing, aren’t I? Look. Lemon is a fruit). This is because I have been reading Joanna Blythman’s Bad Food Britain and have gone into full beady-eyed No Trans Fats In My Kitchen! mode. So, having had to engage with pastry, just before I go and collapse twitching I just wanted to say a few things:

First, thanks so, so much to Crafty Cripple, who nominated me for a Liebster blog award, how nice of you to think of me! ;-). I should now nominate five other people, but I have to confess that I always find it incredibly difficult to narrow down all the blogs I read and I am mentally exhausted from the pastry, so if you all don’t mind I will pass on this for the moment and then if I rethink in a few days I will revisit. If you haven’t checked out Crafty Cripple’s blog, though, I’d really strongly encourage you to go and have a look, as her blog is one of the ones I read and enjoy very much.

Second, I don’t know how this is almost upon us or where the time has gone, but, tomorrow is the beginning of Knit and Crochet Blog Week 2011, info on Eskimimi’s blog here, and we are all going to be blogging about knit and crochet related subjects all week. Anyone who wants to join in is more than welcome: Eskimimi has a special tagging system so you can tag your posts and we can all find each other. If you don’t think you can manage seven days straight or you have other things you want to blog about as well, it’s fine just to join in for a couple of days, Mimi has assured us there are no Knit and Crochet Blog Week Police and I think we had better believe her as she normally seems to know what she is talking about. The subjects to write about are actually really interesting so it's something you might enjoy.

And third, I thought I might open up this blog to occasional guest contributors (I know, don’t all rush at once). So I am starting with a very particular guest contributor, some time after Knit and Crochet Blog Week, who is going to be doing a regular post. She is writing her first blog post (first blog post ever in the world, in fact) right now. There may be tears, there may be tantrums close to the deadline, I may need to edit scurrilousness and swearing, we do not know. I will not reveal her identity just yet. I will just say that I do not think we can avoid a blog post at some point about Why Beige Cardigans are Excoriatingly Fashionable This Year And Susie is Just Wrong. I have specified that photographs must be provided as I like photographs, so, shops of Meadowhall, Bakewell and Chesterfield and tearooms and factory shops of the Peak District, brace yourselves. Our Correspondent In The North is coming.

OK everyone early to bed. Big week! Lots of blogging to do. It’s day 5 I’m worried about. No clue yet, people, no clue.

Fire. I'll teach you to burn

So, before I ask your advice about my quilt-in-progress, I just want to tell you about Knit and Crochet Blog Week (KniCroBloWe? No, perhaps not ;-) ).

It’s being organised by Eskimimi of Eskimimi Knits, as a thing arising from the Blog Hub group on Ravelry (I didn’t express that very well, you know what I mean). Anyway, during that week, lots of knit and crochet bloggers are going to be blogging on the same topics but bringing their own personal neuroses creativity into it, it’s going to be great. If you have any interest at all in things of an interlocking loop nature, why don’t you join in? You’d be very welcome. Even if you’re not a knit/ crochet blogger normally, you could join in any of the days where the topics interest you or you have something to say, because there’s nothing the knit/ crochet blog community likes more than Fresh Blood. Come, come and join us (says she with a sinister expression, beckoning from behind cloak).

Also, if you’re not already on Ravelry and you have even the most passing interest in anything woolly – if you once admired the size of a huge ball of aran: if you’ve ever peered at your friend’s handknit shawl in handspun laceweight and said ‘I’d like one like that. Could you make me one for next week? I’ll give you £5 and try not to leave it in the pub': if you have a secret hankering for one of those poodle toilet roll covers which you can’t buy in shops: then do not waste another moment of this brief, confusing life, get over instantly to Ravelry and register, because it’s just a marvellous, marvellous site. Patterns, help, projects to lust after, everything. And we nice people in the Blog Hub group will mop up your blood and tears when you turn up, fresh from the triumph of having rushed to the forums 1 minute after signing up and started a topic with the title ‘I can’t believe people knit with Acrylic! OMGZ!!!!! Have they got no taste!!!?’ or, ‘Why would anyone want to crochet LOL? I suppose only because it’s so much easier than knitting’.

For lots more info on KniCroBloWe (I jest), get on over to Mimi’s lovely blog. If you haven’t already found her blog, then you’re in for a treat, I personally wish she would come over and take all my photographs for me because, well, look at hers, so she is very lucky she doesn’t live in Cambridge because I can imagine that might come to be a burden in time.

Now onto my quilt-in-progress. Could I have some advice, pls, nice internet people? I have pieced the top, this is it.

900 squares of pleasure

There are a couple more rows of blue on the top where it is hanging over the fence. In case you are not quite sure what my Vision was, it is supposed to look like fire (do you see, hey hey hey? At the bottom?). It is 60” square and I am thinking that what will set it off is a 5” border all the way around. People: I do not have it in me to piece a border. I am going to go wild and buy more fabric so I can do a solid border. But, what colour? What do you think? It is a quilt for my mother, and obviously I could ask her, but she will say beige and, this might surprise you, but I am not a beige person (I mean, I would consider it, but. Let’s think of ALL the other options first). I thought possibly grey? Or fuschia? Or navy? I will use either a solid colour or, one with a small print. I have looked in John Lewis and, nothing, so I shall have to poke about online. Sigh, internet fabric shopping, such a burden, my life, it is hard, whine whine whine.

(Go on, mum, tell me what you want. Leave me a comment. I’m ignoring you if you say beige, though).

The New Look

At the advanced age I have now reached, I have accepted that there are some things I am just not good at and nor will I ever be. One of them is lace knitting. Another of them is having a house that looks like the houses in Living Etc (one word: woodchip. Another word: pebbledash). And another is getting blogs to look the way I want them to, despite lots of effort and going cross-eyed over css and Gimp and worse. In fact put me in front of a blog template and I am paralysed by indecision. What colour do I want my fonts to be? What shall I do with my header? And I look at people with stylish blogs and think, hmm look at you with your coherent css, jealously. Oh, it is a painful process.

So, thank goodness for Susie Jefferson (link to etsy shop), who has made over my blog – thanks Susie, I think it’s great! Susie is very easy to work with, and extremely helpful (and I suspect she’s the same even with people who don’t have the same name as her ;-) ). I was worried I would be a nightmare to work with because I had that marvellous combination of not knowing what I wanted but being very definite about what I didn’t want, but no, it was an easy, pleasant process and I would definitely recommend Susie’s services. And although I don’t like to big up my own blog, I must say, I think the end result is rather cool. (OK. I love it!)

The only problem for me now, obviously, is that I may be paralysed with stage fright at the thought of posting on my posh new blog, and will have to start writing about sensible things instead of my usual ramblings. Luckily we will be away next week so I can adjust emotionally, and return in splendour next Sunday to bore you with my holiday photos. It is also possible I may be struck with new and innovative ideas for upcycling textiles in Cley next the Sea, and if I am I will certainly tell you about it. In fact le tout Cley may be wearing Junky Styling-esque getups and it may furnish enough inspiration to get me through to Christmas (eeek! The C word! And we’re not in August yet!)

Have a lovely week everyone, and I’ll see you when I get back! x

Look Look Look!

AC from AC Engineered Knits has given me a blogger of substance award!

I am very excited, indeed I am so excited I have decided to spare you my usual tirade about how I never normally win anything, particularly as it then leads inevitably to the anecdote about the time I won a mixed grill (raw, in a tray, including black pudding) at Bingo, and this annoys my brother as he says it was actually his mixed grill and I am stealing his memories. Anyway, these are the rules of acceptance:

Thank the blogger who bestowed you with the award.
This one was not hard. Thank you, AC, it’s very kind of you! Actually not only am I pleased to have got the award, I’m pleased to have discovered your blog, I like it very much. Although I have got a confession for you: I only ever use two methods of casting on. And one of them is not really a proper method.

Sum up your blogging experience, philosophy and motivation in five (5) words.
This one was hard, because, well, do I strike you as a woman who is concise of expression? I thought not. OK. Here goes. Learning, enjoyment, connections, structure, exploration.

Nominate 10 deserving bloggers
And this one was absolutely agonising. I read loads of blogs and I love them all. They’re like having a glimpse into other people’s lives and you learn so much. So, you know, if I’ve not tagged you below don’t think I’m not reading your blog like a stalker because I very likely am. You don’t escape that easily ;-)

Ok then,

Ialheg of I Spy With My Altered Eye
Unbought Delicacies
Resa of Discovering Asterisms
Mumma Troll of Chronicles of the Troll Family
Colour It Green
The Absinthe Fairy
A Sulky Cat
Silver of Quicksilver Crafter
Oh Miss West
Au Fil Des Laines

Consider yourselves nominated! ;-)