Wonderwool!!

On Saturday I went to Wonderwool where I had a great time, bought some lovely stuff, met some great people and was generally inspired by the fantastic work of the artists and craftspeople who were exhibiting.

I was quite restrained with my purchases, considering all the stuff that I could have bought. I tried to restrict myself to things that I wouldn't be able to get locally or that I hadn't seen before (though there was lots of new stuff).

What I did end up with was this -

Now, this looks in the photo like a pile of the stuff that comes out of your hoover bag, but actually it's 50g of Sari Silk Fibre and is full of beautiful jewel-bright colours that the camera hasn't picked up. I reckon it will look amazing spun through some merino or a merino silk mix. This came from TwistFibreCraft, all the way from Newburgh in Scotland. As I may have mentioned before I spent several years in Newburgh when I was growing up, my parents lived there for a long time and it's a place that's close to my heart. When I lived there it was a bit rundown, not much happening, but the nice people at TwistFibreCraft say it's becoming quite an arty little community and I'm really pleased to hear it.

I also bought some cream 4ply Merino wool (on the right) which I will dye in lots of lovely colours, and some pencil roving (to the left) which was incredibly cheap as it was slightly water-marked. Again this will be dyed so the watermarking doesn't matter.

Next on my list was some Schoppel Wolle Fingerwolle -

it's a twist of brightly coloured merino pencil roving with instructions for turning it into a great felted scarf like this one


I bought mine from ForestFibres at the show but you can also get them online from KnitnCaboodle. I'll show you how it turns out when I get the chance to make it.

My problem now is that I have so many ideas and projects in my head that I can't decide what to do next. Do I make the felted scarf? Or do I make the other scarf with the wonderful Wensleydale curls as a fringe? Or do I make a wrap using chiffon and merino like the great samples on the Moral Fibre stand.

I was totally re-enthused about weaving too, having seen all the beautiful work other people had done. It made me want to really get to grips with it. To assist me I bought a book from The Threshing Barn stand. I'd been trying to get this book for ages but it doesn't seem to be available through bookshops here - trust me, I've tried. I was really chuffed to be able to get it at the show. There were tons and tons of great books there but I did just buy the one.

Of course I had to get a little fix of fibre for spinning too and it was hard to resist all the colours and mixes but I just bought a little of this -

I'm not even entirely sure what it is (fibrewise I mean), and it looks like something and nothing on the screen but it's a steely grey shot through with subtle greens and blues and lots and lots of little neps of white stuff. Just lovely.

And that's about all for the woolly side of things, though I did get some wooden beads and a spare shuttle for my loom.

Because there was a whole other side to the day - along with Wonderwool the good people of Builth Wells had put on a Local Food Festival, with cookery demonstrations (Anthony Worrall-Thompson was there!) and tastings and lovely food to buy. I'd gone down for the day with Pete and he took the opportunity, while I was browsing the woolly wonders next door, to sample a bit of everything and we came home with some great local cider, some Welsh-brewed beers, olives (not sure how Welsh they were but they tasted great) and smoked nuts. There were sausages and cheeses and preserves and liqueurs and all manner of lovely tasty things which we tried but didn't buy as we couldn't buy everything.

All in all a great day was had by us both. I hope everyone else had just as much fun as we did, and that the traders did well and will want to come back next year. Thanks everyone for a fantastic day out!

The Long and the Short of it

I just wanted to reassure anyone who is worried that I have been frittering away my precious days off, sitting around knitting or reading or watching the TV......

that is exactly what I have been doing. I have finished Pete's socks, and knitted a pair for the Evilpixie -


Just a little difference in the sizes! These were helped by a daily dose of the old BBC drama Elizabeth R starring Glenda Jackson, which has been showing on UKTV History. Anyway I have now fulfilled my familial sock obligations for a while and can feel free to squander my knitting time on more selfish projects.

Icarus continues slowly. Although I'm in the not very interesting bit in the middle where the rows just get longer and longer, and the pattern is not at all complicated, I find that I can only knit this when there is no TV or radio, or conversation happening anywhere in the room. This is a definitely one of those for knitting when the house is empty. I'm finding the increasing rows and the steady monotonous rhythm quite relaxing, in a Zen kind of way, as long as no-one talks to me, then I find I have dropped a stitch or miscounted (and it only requires that I count up to seven!).

As I also need some knitting for when there are people in the house, or if I want to talk at the same time, I have cast on this -

Yes, I'm afraid it really is that orange. It's Rowan Cotton Tape bought a long time ago on sale somewhere and destined to look something like this when it's finished,
(only oranger!)

It may be a tad too bright, but it is for wearing in Florida where we shall be having a little holiday later in the year. All that glorious sunshine warrants a few bright colours.

Have I been reading? Oh yes. I finished We That Were Young by Irene Rathbone. It was interesting but not such a good book as Testament of Youth, probably as it was fictionalised and so I felt slightly removed from the emotions and events, which in Testament were laid bare in all their horror with no apparent filter. Not that I didn't enjoy the Rathbone book, I did, and for research purposes it was great, very informative.

I'm now reading Dark Fire by C J Sansom. I've only just started it but so far it is very good, as expected.

I had planned to get out into the garden and get some planting done in our new vegetable plot this week, but I'm waiting for the men to come and restore the garden after they drove a JCB over it a couple of weeks ago while digging a trench down the side. Half the garden bears a passing resemblance to The Somme and all the topsoil has washed down the nearest drain. Hence I am becoming more and more surrounded by broad bean and tomato plants that really want to be getting planted out and are currently occupying almost every windowsill. I wish they'd hurry up, some of these beans are beginning to look mean!

A Few Days Off

I've had a few days off work, using up some of the holiday time that's accrued over the past year. Here's a little clue as to what I've been up to -

That's the Icarus shawl, now on it's fourth or fifth incarnation after a few false starts with the wrong yarn, wrong gauge and an unfortunate incident with the vacuum cleaner. (This is one of the reasons I feel I shouldn't have to do any housework - it endangers knitting!). However, all is currently going well with Icarus (she says, tempting the knitting gods shamelessly) and I have finished the first set of repeats - now there are just another 115 ever-increasing rows of the same pattern until I hit the complicated stuff at the border.

I had a day out on Tuesday to Leamington where I scored a couple of lovely books in the charity shops (very good quality charity stuff in Leamington). There's Bliss and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield which I had been meaning to get to for a while, and then there's We That Were Young by Irene Rathbone. It's a semi-autobiographical novel which is an account of the work of women during the First World War. It's absolutely great for period detail and the everyday lives of these woman - just the sort of thing I have been looking for. Sadly, it seems to be out of print, at least in the UK.

I have just the one work day this week (Saturday) and then I'm off for another week. I'm hoping to get out into the garden next week and get some seedlings planted out. It's our first attempt at growing our own veg this year and we will be planting a herb border as well. Should be fun!

Sara Paretsky at the Town Hall

Last week, Sara Paretsky was in town (briefly) and she gave a talk at West Brom Town Hall (organised by the lovely Paul of Sandwell Libraries) and a good time was had by all.

I was very impressed with the turnout - over a hundred people turned up to hear Sara talk about growing up in Kansas and how she came to write her latest book, Bleeding Kansas, set unsurprisingly in the state where she grew up. She then read two passages from the book, both of which were very good. Obviously other people thought so too as there were lots of people buying her books (I was there in my official capacity as bookseller to the masses) . A very interesting evening. Here's Sara answering the many questions from the floor after her talk.

She was a real sport, arriving slightly late (as she had been on the radio in London until 4pm), having had no dinner, she still talked for over an hour and a half, then signed books for a huge queue of people.



Regular readers will know that Sara is a longtime favourite of mine, the one who got me reading crime to start with, so meeting her was a bit of a thrill for me.

The venue, West Bromwich Town Hall, was lovely. I'd never been there before. It's a beautiful high Victorian building with a fantastic pipe organ. I meant to get a photo of it but I forgot. This one is from the West Brom walking tour website, and while it's good it doesn't really do justice to the colours and you can't really see the organ which is beautifully painted in green and gold. Next time I'm there I promise I'll do photos.

The Wood for the Trees

So, I said I was going to compare these two books with similar titles and themes - In the Woods by Tana French and The Woods by Harlan Coben.

Even the covers are vaguely similar, in design if not in colour. Both feature lots of trees, which is hardly a surprise, but the French one has the more menacing looking cover - dark green with gloomy, forbidding trees. The Coben cover is pale blue with light shining through the trees, silhouetting a figure.

I'd have to say that the covers illustrate the books pretty well, with the French one being the darker of the two. The protagonist is Rob Ryan, a detective in the Dublin police, and a very troubled man. He was in the eponymous woods twenty years before when two of his friends disappeared without trace. To say it has left him scarred would be a bit of an understatement. When the body of a child is found on an archeological dig next to the woods, he is forced to look back into the past and the day his friends went missing. He apparently remembers nothing at all of that day, but as the case progresses, slowly memories start to resurface. It's a spooky and chilling book and the main characters, Ryan and his partner Cassie, are complex and interesting. This is no run of the mill thriller and it kept me guessing right to the end.

The Coben book, for all its similarities of title and subject is a very different kettle of fish. Here we are in the US, mostly New Jersey and the protagonist is a prosecutor, Paul Copeland. Cope, as he is known, is a single dad, bringing up his daughter after the death of his wife from cancer. Twenty years before, his sister disappeared from the woods surrounding a summer camp where their father was employed and where Cope worked as a camp counsellor. Two teenagers' bodies were found in the woods but Cope's sister and another boy were never found. Several years later a serial killer was convicted of similar killings and jailed, but he always denied those at the summer camp. One day, Cope gets a call from NYPD about a body they've found with clipping about him in his pockets. Cope is convinced that it's Gil Perez, the boy who disappeared with his sister all those years before. But is it really Gil, and if it is, why has he been killed now? Does this all link back to that night in the woods or is there another reason this is all being dragged up again, just as Cope is trying to prosecute the son of a local bigwig for rape. Again this is a complex and well-structured book. It's very slick and American - just what you expect from Harlan Coben - and the character of Cope is a bit too clean cut for my tastes, but it's still a good book.

And the verdict?

Well, I have to say that I preferred the Tana French book. I did like the Harlan Coben but it didn't surprise me. It did exactly what it said on the tin - and that after all is what Harlan Coben is all about. He's a good writer and his plots are plausable and suitably complex. You know what to expect with a Harlan Coben book and he invariable delivers. In the Woods however, is Tana French's first novel and it really surprised me. I was expecting a competent mystery with good characters (well, that's the very minimum I expect of any crime novel - not that I always get it!), but this one got right under the skin of Rob Ryan and it totally hooked me. I read it in a weekend and could barely put it down. Given my current state of ennui with the crime genre it was a fantastic boost to find this. I hope she's writing another one.

After all that wandering though the gloomy woods I had a bit of a break from crime and I read The Disappearing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell. This was a shortish novel about a woman locked up in an institution for almost her whole life, through no fault of her own . I'd say it was a slight book - enjoyable but not memorable. It had vague feeling of Muriel Spark to it, and I couldn't help but think how much more powerful it would have been if Spark had actually written it.

Moving on I then read The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory. This was a bit on the light, romantic side of historical fiction for my taste but enjoyable nonetheless - a good story helps of course and Jane Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Anne of Cleves made an interesting triumvirite of narrators. I think Gregory herself would admit to a fair degree of prosaic licence as to characterisation as it seems not a lot is known about Old Henry's 4th and 5th wives respectively, though it seems generally agreed that Ann Boleyn's sister-in-law was a real piece of work. By far the most interesting thing about the book was how it showed these women's lives and how constrained they were by familial duty and how dependant they were on a husband for status, reputation and security. It made me very glad to be a 20th century girl.

Tonight is the Sara Paretsky event at West Bromwich Town Hall, which I am looking forward to. I'll be taking my camera so hopefully there will be pics later in the week.

Cracked it!

I finally (I think) have the right yarn for the Icarus Shawl. I won a couple of skeins of Fyberspates laceweight mohair on eBay last week and and have just started to knit with it.

Hopefully you can see the beautiful delicate shades of green and lilac in the skein. The green is proving a bit more dominant than I had hoped but it's still lovely. Here is my fledgling Icarus - 25 rows done - quite a lot still to go.

Look - Buttons!!!!

Yes, Williamsro is finished. I will get Pete to take a photo of me wearing it for my next post, but in the meantime here's a still life -

I love it and feel that it will get a lot of use. A highly practical garment. I knitted it pretty much as per the pattern with a few minor alterations. The sleeves would have been very wide so I narrowed them down quite a lot. I don't like flappy sleeves - too drafty! And I added two small pockets which are cunningly disguised behind the border at the bottom. Other than that I followed the pattern, though it was full of hideous errors and took a little interpretation. The main body is knitted in New Lanark Aran (colourway - denim) used double and the border is my own handspun merino chunky.

There's been a lot of work this week and not a lot of spare time so although I have finished reading the two "Woods" books I don't have my thoughts down on paper yet so that will have to wait for the next post.

What I did get down on paper though was the start of the book I have been planning for the last year or so. Yes, I finally bit the bullet and started to write. I figured that if I didn't at least make a start then I would just go on researching forever (which I could quite easily do for this project). I won't update you on how it's progressing in every post but I shall let know know periodically. In the meantime, can anyone suggest a few books that an intelligent, middle-class, young Englishwoman might have been reading around 1910-1914?

No Buttons

The buttons for Williamsro still haven't arrived so it's still not finished.

I have finally finished the stripy socks though -




I love the way they turned out - not at all how I was expecting when I bought them.






I have of course immediately cast on another pair of socks, but they are just a few inches of rib at the moment so photos later when there's actually something to show.



I've been flirting with a lacy shawl, trying various patterns and various gauges, but nothing is quite right yet. I won some lovely green and lilac laceweight mohair on eBay this weekend and I'm hoping that will work better than the shades of blue wool laceweight I was trying out.



In the meantime I have this to play with -




A lovely Dryad 4-shaft loom, just about 18" wide. It's borrowed from my spinning group and I'm about to go and try to warp it up for the first time. I'm guessing that won't be as easy as the book makes it seem.

I read In the Woods by Tana French over the weekend. When I went to the shelf to see what I wanted to read next I was torn between this one and The Woods by Harlan Coben. Apart from the obviously similar titles they are both about children who went missing many years before and both main characters are from a law enforcement background - one's a policemen and one's a prosecutor. I thought it would be interesting to compare the two, so I've read In the Woods and am now reading The Woods. I'll let you know what I think when I'm finished.

Still Not Finished!

The Williamsro cardigan languishes still unfinished on the desk in the office. I've completed the knitting but I still need to sew it together. Plus I don't have the buttons yet.

I bought these -

And while they are lovely buttons and just the sort of thing I was looking for they are slightly too small for such a chunky cardigan. So I've ordered some others which are slightly different in design and larger. Hopefully they will be here this weekend and I will have no more excuses not to finish the cardigan.

I am now dangerously between projects. I did cast on an Icarus shawl in some angora that was lurking in the stash but it just wasn't right so I'm having a rethink. I have some laceweight in varying shades of blue that might work or there's also some Rowan Kidsilk Haze in sparkly purple, though there may not be enough of that. I will be stash-diving and rummaging throigh pattern books with a vengeance later.

I have 5 days off in a row over this weekend so I'm hoping to borrow a 4 shaft sample loom from my spinning group so I can have a play with it while I'm off. They also have a wider loom I can borrow later once I've taught myself the ins and outs of it all. Some swearing may be involved in this! I promise to photograph the proceedings.

Big News - those lovely chaps over at the Big Green Bookshop will be opening their doors on Saturday. So if you're anywhere near Wood Green please drop in and buy a book in the interests of supporting a new independent bookshop, run by two blokes who just love books. I wish them the very best of success in their endeavour, and if the work they've put in to getting the shop open is anything to go by then they deserve it.

I'm still reading Blacklist by Sara Paretsky, not because it's a slow read but because I have it in hardback and it's too big to be portable. In between I have finished A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R King, which is a wonderful Holmesian romp through post WW1 London. I avoided this series for a long time because I thought that an American could not possibly do justice to the great Sherlock Holmes and I was a bit affronted that she had the nerve to try, and to saddle him with a woman sidekick too. Then I had to read Locked Rooms (the eighth book in the series) for reading group and discovered that all my misconceptions and prejudices were unfounded. I loved it and couldn't wait to read more. I should have known better of course because Laurie King is a fine writer and I have always loved her Kate Martinelli series, I should have trusted that she would do a sterling job with Mary Russell. My humble apologies to her. My only regret is that I haven't yet managed to find a copy of the Beekeeper's Apprentice ( I'm on a budget here so many of my books come second-hand, hence my sometimes rather erratic reading schedule). I'd have liked to start with the first in the series. Finally I read The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill. This is the first of her Simon Serrailler novels that I've read and I shall certainly read more. He could turn out to be a very interesting character.

Last, and by no means least, in celebration of Gundog Day at Crufts, (which I would have liked to have gone to only Pete couldn't get the day off), here is a gratuitous picture of Bubba.

He's wet, muddy and having a whale of a time in the park - the perfect antidote to all those pampered and ribboned Toy breeds on display yesterday.

Mills and Boon Involved in Criminal Activity!!

I had an email this week from Seb over at ArtsWOM telling me that Mills and Boon were to start publishing crime fiction and asking what my opinion on the matter was.


I have to admit that this news had bypassed me, but when I looked to see what they were planning I wasn't unduly worried about the future of the detective novel. It seems that they're intending to publish five titles every two months, covering everything from cosies to thrillers, under the imprint of Black Star Crime. I can't really see a downside to this at all. I don't think the vast majority of crime fiction readers would stop buying other books in order to buy these. On the other hand some readers of M&B romances might pick up a Black Star Crime novel, like it and read other crime novels. M&B have been around for a long time and if they didn't think there was a gap in the market for this type of branded series, they wouldn't be doing it.


Plus, this opens up a whole new market for aspiring crime writers. M&B say they will be using some established writers and some new ones. As a company they have always been very proactive in recruiting new talent, issuing detailed guidelines and encouraging submissions. I know Seb is worried about the standard of the writing, but I think you need to trust the reader. If the writing's not good then they just won't sell. A crime novel is a totally different kettle of lobsters to the romance novel. It needs to work on a technical level and that takes a certain amount of skill. Of course both you and I know that even bad crime novels get published, but do writers of bad novels stay successful?


I think there's room in the market for all genres of crime writing and all tastes. Whether or not this series will work in the long run remains to be seen but I'm not overly concerned about the impact this will have. You never know, they might unearth a great new author for us!


Talking of new authors, I had a proof of Volk's Game, the first novel by Brent Ghelfi, due to be published in April. It's a modern day thriller, set in the shady underworld of Moscow with its mafia bosses and military kingpins. Alexei Volkovoy is not a nice man. He runs an empire of drugs, prostitution and pornography and yet somehow Brent Ghelfi made me like him. He's a bit like Lee Child's Jack Reacher but without the scuples, which makes him a very interesting character. This is really not a book I would normally have picked for myself, graphic violence, guns and ex-military protagonists not being at the top of my favourites list, but it was really good. So thanks to the lovely Gemma at Faber & Faber for sending me this as I would never have discovered it otherwise. A full review will be winging its way over to Eurocrime this week sometime.


I was less successful with another proof that Gemma sent me - The Man in the Window by K O Dahl. I just can't get to grips with this Scandinavian crime thing. I've tried, I've really, really tried but I just can't read them. I don't know if it's the translation or if it's that I don't get the Scandinavian mindset but I just find them tedious. Where's the tension? Where's the drama? I've had to give up on the Man in the Window and I've passed the proof on to someone who will hopefully enjoy it and do it justice.


After my disasterous foray over to Norway I am now back on familiar territory with Sara Paretsky's Blacklist. I've probably said before but Sara Paretsky was the first modern crime novel I ever read, thereby condemning me to a life of crime. I hadn't read any of her more recent novels but I was prompted to pick this up off the shelf as she will be coming to the Black Country at the end of March. West Bromich Town Hall will be holding An Evening with Sara Paretsky on 27th March 2008 at 7.30pm. More info can be had from West Brom Central Library (or email me). This is a bit of a coup for the Black Country as I understand she doesn't do many publicity events. I'm looking forward to this and will of course report back on it.


I have of course been knitting. The Williamsro cardigan is progessing well, though more slowly than predicted, possibly because I haven't actually been working on it. I am only on the first sleeve. Here however is the almost finished body with the front and bottom edging done.

And here's a close-up of the edging.

I am hoping to finish at least one sleeve and possibly both this afternoon as the Reading v Aston Villa match is on the TV - excellent stuff to knit along to.

Random Thursday Stuff

Ok, so it seems I'm not too good at the whole regular blogging thing. I'm just not sure where the days go to. They just slide by in the endless rota of work, reading, dog-walking, knitting and a bit of housework (but not too much housework!)



So, what have I been reading since the last post? Well, I finished A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris, a review of which will be on its way to Eurocrime this week, hopefully.

And I started (and finished) the first book in the Medicus series by R S Downie - Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls. I liked this even more than the second one (which I read first). This is not to say that the first one was better than the second, but I think I should have read them in the right order. I do try not to read books out of sequence, but I had a proof of the second book for review. I liked it a lot so I wanted to go back and read where it all started.



Now I'm reading the second of the books that Fabers sent me for review a couple of weeks ago. This one is also set in St Petersburg, but this one is a modern day thriller. I'm thinking that Porfiry Petrovich would be a tad horrified at the levels and kinds of crime occurring in his city in the present day. It's a far cry from the gentle (though still murder-filled) world of 19th century St Petersburg.



I've also been reading Tommy by Richard Holmes, which is an account of the First World War with a particular emphasis on the ordinary soldier. It's fascinating and is throwing up all kinds of questions and sidetracks for me to explore. Don't you just love research!



The Williamsro cardigan is growing quickly. So quickly in fact that I had to spend the afternoon yesterday spinning and plying the merino for the edging as I think I will probably be finished the main body of the cardigan by the weekend. I'm not sure if I have quite enough of the merino though, so it may have to be mixed with something else as I knit it - the odd random stripe of purple or turquoise should solve the problem. I should know when I've spun the last third of the roving and measured it whether or not that will be necessary. The cardigan is certainly a quick knit, as you would expect from aran-weight wool used double and knitted on 9mm needles.

Apologies for the lack of links in this post, but our broadband connection is acting up again so it was either wait another day until in was working and I could get access to a website where I could link to, or just to post without the links. It's quite possible that I won't be able to publish this either - keep your fingers crossed.

Lots of Lovely Fibrous Goodies

So, yesterday I said I would tell you about my trip to Wingham Wool Work. I'd not been before but I'd heard tales of the wonders to be found in their "sheds".

Still, I'm not sure I was quite prepared for what awaited me. I got there just after they opened on Sunday and was given a little tour of the aforementioned sheds and their workshops which were just brimming with stacks of fleece and other fibres waiting to be processed. There was the shed with the huge carding machine which they use to make enormous batts. And there was the blebing machine which they use to combine lots of different colours and types of fibre into beautiful rovings.

Then there was the Merino shed - full of big coils of the 125 different colours of merino they hold in stock. I selected a few colours that I thought I could use but really I wanted all of them. Anyway I picked out some deep red, and a rusty colour and a bright turquoise and a pale green and an olive green plus a mid-green.

And then there was the British Wools shed, full of all the different types of wool from British breeds and a few others all undyed in their natural colours. I bought some Light Grey Cheviot which is for a particular project I have in mind, and some Grey Norwegian, just because I couldn't resist the colour. Also in this photo is a bag of Tussah Silk and some scoured kid mohair, which came from the main part of the shop.

But the very best bit for me was what they call the "rainbow shed" which is just stuffed to the rafters with bags full of beautiful, rainbow coloured blended merino and silk. What happens is that they will custom blend merino for you (and add silk if you want it) and they do it on a one-off basis, just for you. And as they almost always process more than the customer has ordered of a particular blend it goes into the rainbow shed and is sold to customers who go there in person (you can't buy this online). For someone like me who loves seeing the colours blended together it was just heaven. I was a bit spoiled for choice, and also it started off a chain of thought about which colours would be my ultimate combination. You can use up to 6 colours I think (any of the 125 they have in stock), and they will blend them for you.

I did buy a couple of bits (are you surprised).

There's 200g of this, 100% Merino with black, dark blue, turquoise and magenta. It's a little darker than the photo in real life. I think this will be the edging and cuffs for the Williamsro cardigan I was blogging about last week.


I did buy some stuff with other people in mind. As soon as I saw this I thought it would make a great pair of socks for Pete -

It's also 100% Merino and it's a mix of at least 2 possibly 3 different blues with grey and green.

There there is this which I knew I had to have as soon as I saw it -

It's a Merino / Tencel mix which gives it a beautiful sheen in places. I have tried to identify all the colours in this and there are just so many - reds, blues, purples, mustardy yellow, oranges, greens. Here's a close up so you can see for yourself -

So, I now have at least 4 or 5 different spinning projects lined up. That should keep me quiet for a while, don't you think?

Birmingham Knitters are Revolting

I went to Stitch 'n' Bitch on Saturday and there was uproar. We've been meeting in the cafe at the Central Library for a number of years now but when we arrived on Saturday we got a real telling off from the woman who runs the cafe. It seems that our moving the tables so we can sit together as a group is "damaging" the tables (?), and apart from that we apparently never put the tables back (we always do!). We were made to feel most unwelcome. However we knitters are a resourceful bunch, plus we don't like being made unwelcome all of a sudden, so we are moving. From the beginning of March we'll be meeting in the Art Gallery Cafe (also known as the Edwardian Tearooms) instead. I shall not be sorry for the move. The coffee is better at the art gallery, and they were most welcoming and helpful when we asked them if they could accommodate us. I'm looking forward to the change.

I've been progressing with the Lapland Mittens -


This is the second one so I'm hoping I will have a pair by the end of the week when the weather is predicted to turn rather nasty.

Because the mittens are not very portable, or very good to knit while nattering, I cast of a new pair of socks.

Aren't they colourful? They are Admiral R Druck in colourway 1744. Sorry Debbie, I know that's not very helpful. I bought the wool at the NEC but I don't remember who from, and a quick googling doesn't reveal any UK stockists. They are knitting up very nicely anyway.

I am still plodding on with A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris. It's plodding, not because I'm not enjoying it (I am), but it's quite a slow read. I'm having to pay attention in case I miss something and I'll admit to struggling a bit with the Russian nomenclature. The narrator almost always uses the surname of a character, but in conversation the other characters use the given name and patronymic. This means I occasionally (ok, more often than that), have to stop and think who is being referred to. It doesn't help that some of the names are similar, or have one part the same. I know this is being done for authenticity, but it's beginning to make my head hurt!

On Sunday, as Pete was away doing assault courses and crossing rope bridges with knives between his teeth, or whatever he was doing, I treated myself to a little day trip. I'd been looking for an excuse (however flimsy) to go to Wingham Wool Work near Rotherham for quite a while and this seemed like the ideal time. I had a lovely afternoon among all their fibrey wonders. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow and show you what I bought.

Friday Fibre Fest

A little bit of yarn pron as it's Friday......

This is a sample of space-dyed tussah silk from Wingham, corespun and then plied with an unidentified commercial spun brown yarn from the stash. There's not a lot of it, only about 60 yds, but then it was only a sample bag to start with. I can't remember the colourway, but it may have been Orange Grove.

I did a bit of dyeing yesterday and this is some Merino / Silk mix, again not a lot of this - about 65g but it was an experiment which I shall try and spin up later today so see how it looks. I'm planning to make this (the adult one) -

and as it would take me forever to spin all the yarn for it I thought I'd knit the main body of the cardigan in commercial yarn and handspin the edging yarn. It's one of Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton's designs from the Noro 2 book. I'm planning for the body to be dark blue (probably with a tweedy effect) and the edging to be a mix of pinks and blues and purples. Looking at the experimental roving I think the colours may be a little too light but it may look different when spun.

Also dyed yesterday were these -

Matching (ish) 50g skeins of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4ply. I can't believe they've discontinued this. It's one of my favourite commercial yarns for dyeing. I have a little bit left in the stash though. These are destined to be socks one day, though probably not in the near future.

In other news .... I am officially an idiot. Somehow I have managed to lose 800g of Merino fibre. I went to get it yesterday when I'd mixed up all my colours for dyeing, only to discover that it wasn't where I thought it was. It isn't in any of the obvious places where I thought it might have got moved to either. Very odd. It's not as though it's a small bag of fibre - it's a large bag - not easy to overlook. It has to be in the house somewhere, probably hidden behind something, laughing at me getting cross because I can't find it. I think it may have run away with my Color in Spinning book which I also can't find. I swear this summer I am finally going to reclaim the house from the European Book Mountain which has amassed in virtually every room. Does anyone want 10,000 previously owned paperbacks?????

13 days since my last post!

I'm not sure how that happened. I'm not sure where the days have gone. I could have sworn I blogged last week sometime.


Anyway, enough about memory failure.


I've been knitting - look here's a finished Lapland Mitten





Well, it would be a photo of a mitten if I could get the picture to upload. We've been having terrible connection problems with our broadband recently. We've had days with no broadband at all, then days when a page takes about 10 minutes to load. Yesterday we had no email all day. Today apparently it won't load photos to Blogger. (Hurrah, it's working. Better finish this post and get it published before the connection goes down again.)



The second mitten is barely started as I have have suffering from second mitten syndrome, also it has been temporarily shelved to knit a woolly hat for Pete who is going on a team-building course this weekend. It's in Devon and it involves being outside - a warm woolly hat was definitely called for.



I finished Ruso and the Demented Doctor by R S Downie which is a historical crime novel set in Roman Britain and features a doctor (not the demented one of the title) in the service of the legions and his British housekeeper/lover. I was a bit concerned before I started it that it would be a pale imitation of Lindsey Davis, who I like very much, but I needn't have worried. Ruso was a quite different kettle of fish from Falco and the British setting was great. It's not published until March but I do recommend it. My only quibble (and it's a small one) was that there was no map to tell me where the different locations were in Britain, or even a note to tell me that Coria (where most of the action takes place) is now known as Corbridge. However it was a proof that I was reading so maybe this will be included in the actual book. I shall now have to go back and try the first volume in the series, Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls.



Now I'm reading A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris, due to be published by Faber in February. It's set in 19th century St Petersburg and features investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich (from Crime and Punishment) and his new assistant. This is the second book in the series, but I've not read the first. Anyway I'm about halfway through and enjoying it immensely so far. It's a pretty convincing portrayal of the city (as far as I know anyway - it convinces me!) and I'm really getting to like Porfiry Petrovich, who I guess I've met before as I have read C&P but it was a long time ago and I don't remember much about it or him. More about this one as the plot unfolds, but so far so good.

Best of 2007

So, I promised my favourite books of 2007 and a little look ahead.

This has been trickier than I thought it would be. When I had to pick my top five European Crime novels of the year for Eurocrime I managed without any difficulty to select the following five -

John Connolly - The Unquiet
Stuart McBride - Dying Light
Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine
Stef Penney - The Tenderness of Wolves
Ian Rankin - Exit Music

However when I add non-crime and non-European to the mix it becomes a lot more complicated. I've been trying to read more non-crime this year and have been helped in this aim by a certain ennuie with the genre. But as I've substituted the crime almost exclusively with historical fiction I'm not sure I've broadened my horizons very far, and while I've read some very good historical novels this year none have made it into my top five. After much deliberation I've narrowed it down to these -

Vera Brittain - Letters of a Lost Generation
Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine
Joe R Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line
Stef Penney - The Tenderness of Wolves
James Lee Burke - The Tin Roof Blowdown

That's my favourite books READ in 2007, not necessarily published in that year. I may have cheated as I have put The Crystal Skull on this year's list as it was only published in January, otherwise something else would have had to make way for it. Honorable mentions also go to Coronado by Dennis Lehane (which contains one of my alltime favourite short stories), and to the Emperor series by Conn Iggulden, all of which I managed to squeeze in this year.

So now we come to the thorny subject of my least favourite books of the year. I've read (or at least tried to read) some truly awful books this year.

The Fiat Punto Award for Book Hurled into the Backseat with most Venom goes to.... The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld.

The Friends of the Earth Please Save More Trees by Not Publishing Any More award goes to ..... Shadowman by Cody McFadyen.

The "Christ, I Can't Believe I Actually Paid Good Money for This" award goes to..... Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid.

The Sheila Quigley Award for Most Irritating Regional Accent in a Book goes to.... Sheila Quigley.

So, what am I looking forward to this year? Well, I'm hoping to read some better crime fiction than some of the stuff that passed over my desk this year. Perhaps I need to get over my aversion to Scandinavian translated crime and give it another go. There are new novels from John Connolly and Michael Connelly to look forward to. The second part of Ann Cleeve's quartet set in Shetland should be out in April. PJ Tracy and Karin Slaughter both have new novels due this year too.

I'm hoping that I will find a new author to savour in amongst the proofs and review copies. And I'm hoping not to have to read anything involving Edinburgh or lawyers and particularly Edinburgh lawyers for as long as I can possibly hold off. 100 points deducted from the first publishing house to send me such a book for review!!

Bonus points this week go to Faber & Faber who have sent me a couple of proofs set in St Petersburg, one a modern thriller and the other a historical crime novel featuring Petrovich from Crime & Punishment. So that puts them first in the pile for reviews this year. I don't think I've read any crime set in St Petersburg before - has to be better than Edinburgh. More details on the books when I get to them.

My good friend Helen asked me if I had any writing resolutions for this year and I have to admit that I don't. It seems to be tempting fate too much to set myself any writing goals this year, given my abysmal showing during NaNoWriMo. I shall just try and get some writing done as and when time allows and will keep blogging as regularly as I can.

Christmas Goodies

So, yesterday I promised you a look at all the lovely knitterly presents that came my way at Christmas.

There were lots of books -

There's Knitting Yarns and Spinning Tales which is full of great stories from and about knitters; Yarn Stash Wonders - 101 great patterns for all those odd balls from the stash (more about this later); Folk Style by Mags Kandis which has lots of great stylish patterns; The Best of Interweave Knits which has some great stuff in it including the Icarus shawl which I am intending to knit this year; Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan - beautiful organic designs and clever knits from one of favourite designers and Knit Knit - Profiles and Projects from Knitting's New Wave - cool patterns and inspirational interviews. That's a whole lot of really fantastic books to help keep me inspired and knitting.

Also in my stocking were these - Beautiful Lantern Moon rosewood needles - just lovely to knit with and currently sporting the Twisted Spiral Neckscarf from One Skein Wonders, using an odd ball of Noro Kureyon that was in my stash.

Best of all there was this -

An Ashford Knitters Loom. This was a total surprise and I was really chuffed. Pete had done some research and sourced it himself and got it delivered, all without me suspecting a thing. It's lovely and just what I wanted. It folds up so it takes up hardly any space (this is important in our house where I am already taking over with boxes of wool and the spinning wheel and dyeing materials and fleeces and allsorts of other bits and bobs.) It comes with its own carrybag and is very portable. Draped artfully across it is the scarf I wove on it on Boxing Day using some unidentified brown wool and some beige boucle that was in the stash. I've since bought some silk and some mohair from Texere and will be starting something a little more ambitious this week.

I've been knitting too. Here is the beginning of some Lapland Mittens from Folk Mittens by Marcia Lewandowski.

This is the second attempt at them as I wasn't getting the right gauge on the first attempt. I'm using some slightly thicker yarn now and slightly bigger needles. The yarn I'm using is some cream Guernsey, some reddish Jaeger DK Merino which I hand-dyed last year, and some green hand-spun hand-dyed unspecified British Wool.

It's the time of year for reviewing what I've done in the last year and setting some goals for the next. I think my favourite knitting project of the last year was the Luna Moth Shawl. I wear it all the time and it's had many compliments.

So my knitting ambitions for this year are to knit an Icarus Shawl (I have some laceweight in the stash for this purpose but be prepared for some swearing), to knit more of my handspun and to try and become a better, more accomplished knitter this year. I might even try and finish some of the socks that are on the needles too.

Tomorrow - my favourite and least-favourite books of last year, what I'm looking forward to this year bookwise and my reading resolutions.

Just one of those weeks

I was full of good intentions to get back to regular blogging and to get you all up to speed with what I'd been reading and knitting over Christmas....

......and everything conspired to stop me doing just that. I went to photograph the knitting and the Christmas goodies but the batteries in the camera were dead and the spare set was nowhere to be found.

Then we had a problem with our broadband connection, which is hopefully now rectified.

And it's been dark when I've gone to work and dark when I've got home so the taking of photographs with the now fully recharged camera has been just impossible.

Is that enough excuses yet?

I am off for 2 days now so there should be a period of daylight tomorrow during which I can take photos for you.

In the meantime here's a round up of what I've been reading.

I finished the proof of The Crystal Skull by Manda Scott - it was absolutely great. A cracking story, with believable characters, convincing historical details and a bit of mysticism thrown in. You know I was banging on about how poor some of the fiction I had read recently was - well this was the antidote to all that. A great plot, well written and throughly absorbing. It even had me, shameless old cynic that I am, believing in all the prophetic stuff, at least for the duration of the novel. Highly recommended.

While huddled under the duvet feeling cr*p last week I read The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower. This was also very good. A great historical novel with a riveting plot and very informative about the Bayeaux Tapestry and the whole 1066 period and its aftermath, about which I knew absolutely nothing. Strangely, Scottish schools don't labour much on The Battle of Hastings in history.

Then I picked up an absulote gem - Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. I don't usually read translated fiction (it was originally written in German) as I always think it loses something along the way. But this was a treasure. A murder mystery in which the crime is solved by a flock of sheep, told from the point of view of those sheep. I wasn't sure how it would read but it was totally wonderful.

Not sure what I will read now. I picked up a proof of The Reincarnationist by M J Rose and stuck it in my bag to read at lunchtime. 50 pages was quite enough to decide that this one was not for me. Not particularly well written and with a very irritating habit of jumping from one time period to another in the space of a sentence. The narrative voice was grating too. Not a good start. So, back to the groaning shelves to choose something else then......hmmmmm.

I promise I will try and get some photos up tomorrow.

Out with the Old!!!!!!!

OK, so I've been really bad at posting for the last month or so. I'm sorry. I will try to do better in this New Year.

I have been afflicted all over the festive season by a hideous virus which started out as general aches and pains and lethargy, bloomed into nasty back pain and stiff knees and today has finally burst out into a full-blown snot-ridden cold.

As soon as I have written this post I am going to bed with a hot drink and The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bowers. This was recommended most highly by that esteemed blogger dovegreyreader so I am looking forward to it.

I finally got around to typing up my review of The Crystal Skull by Manda Scott but I've not emailed it over to Eurocrime yet as Pete had a look and suggested that I might want to check the spelling, and the grammar and the fact that some of it was complete gibberish, before I emailed it. Seems that this virus also affects the ability to think straight. Anyway I shall sort it out later before I (hopefully) go off reading group for the first time in ages. The problem is that Crime Reading Group clashes with my evening class in knitting, spinning and weaving so I've not been able to go for months. I've really missed it, so I'm hoping that by spending the afternoon in bed I will feel up to being sociable later.

I've done very little knitting as I've been feeling so crap, but there are one or two FOs that got done during the mega-movie feast that was Christmas Eve. Details and photos of these tomorrow or as soon as I can get my act together.

I've also read Broken Skin by Stuart McBride. I believe that this may not have been quite as good as the previous two in the series, but that may just have been the fact that my brain was mush. Anyway it was still better than the average (and sooo not set in Edinburgh).

Coming soon.....my review of 2007 for both books and knitting, and a round up of the lovely knitterly goodies that came my way at Christmas.

If you need me I'll be under the duvet.