Prepare yourself for a lot of pictures (more can be found here) and a lot of fangirling.

So last night was the Duran Duran concert which was in Birmingham. We got there in good time, despite getting confused and taking a back route into the city center. Got parking, got in and bypassed the merchandise stand with a right good will. (I have a sweatshirt already. Even if they had sparkley shirts.)

The opening act was The Duke Spirit who were added in at the last minute because someone in The Long Blondes had broken a leg. The Duke Spirit were really good, sort of a vocal mix of Bjork, Siouxsie and Esthero over some pretty decent rock with hints of Depeche Mode and The Killers.

And then…

Wait! There’s more.

Seeing a band in it’s hometown is always a great thing. But when that band is Duran Duran… well, what can you say? It was AWESOME. Even if it was my first concert in a wheelchair. Even if I wasn’t allowed to bring my proper camera and so it was between J. and I trying to get decent pictures on our little point and shoots (these photos are a mix of his and mine). Even if we were quite a way from the stage and no one around us knew any of the stuff off the new album. For the record, J. and I LOVE the new album and I was singing along so loudly that I lost my voice. That’s always the mark of a great show.

It was a great night. Until we started back. We got lost (again) and every single freeway between here and Birmingham was being resurfaced. We had to take a detour out into the middle of the country. And English country roads in the pitch black are kinda creepy.

But overall, I send heartfelt thanks and big squishy hugs to Simon, John, Nick and Roger. Y’all are awesome. And sexy to boot!

How was you weekend?

Late night blogging, I don’t recommend it.

Hope everyone had a great 4th. Mine was about the same as last year. Only with more Starbucks.

Lots of Big Things brewing at the moment and there’s some icky health stuff going on too. And insomnia too. However, my creative block seems to be easing just slightly. Which is a good thing. In short, not a lot to blog about.

Tonight’s random thought: Can I be Samantha Stevens when I grow up? (I’m watching Bewitched, having given up on Buffy. J. will watch it though, he rather liked it.) She’s so… well, she’s just awesome.

And now the weekly thing since I forgot it yesterday.

Things I Am Loving This Week:

• For everyone who was wondering what I’d like in exchange for Brompton? A moop Market Bag would be just the ticket. I especially like this one but at the moment I don’t have enough on paypal to buy it because I had to buy lip stuff, shampoo, soap and shaving stuff. Because I am very sensitive to so many chemical products, I have to buy non-mainstream stuff that is not available in stores here. I stock up every six months or so and I’ve just run out of about everything. Shampoo wins out over bags. In my perfect world you will never have to pay for the stuff you need.
• this hat and wrist warmer pattern. So cute!
• this blog entry from Simon Le Bon. We see them Monday! Yay!
• espresso. It makes everything better.

Something Good: Um… Espresso. Duran Duran. Knitting. Knitbloggers. We saw a mother duck and about eight ducklings following her around today. Very cute.

Knitting: Seraphim, another Chevron Scarf and my first pair of toe-up socks. So far? I like the fit on the foot and hate the heel. So.

Reading: The Emily series by LM Montgomery. I’m on book 2 currently.

Writing/Crafting: Nada thing. But as I said, the block is dissolving. Slowly.

This Week’s Plan: More dentist wrangling. Doctor appointment scheduling. Duran Duran concerting. Lots and lots of resting. And hopefully, writing. I have a story plot brewing.

Have a good ‘un.

I’m going to put a time limit on Brompton, since I don’t want it to go on indefinitely. I want the cardigan gone, whether frogged or to someone else. Since it’s a long weekend coming up for me (and all the Americans), we’ll say Brompton will be available until July 7. So if you want it, let me know!

Knitting Content:

I’ve sort of come to the realization that I am not really a sweater wearer. Well, not in this country anyway. Here there is no such thing as sweater weather. It’s all about light layers and jackets, not sweaters. I have an autumn cardigan and a spring cardigan. I have a winter sweater. Beyond a sweater and cardigan I want to knit just because I like them (Tree Jacket and Coraline) and the Fair Isle Cardigan I have been wanting to wear yet afraid of knitting for years (steeks, ick), I think I’m ok. Until something gives out anyway. Which is why I am destashing some Felted Tweed (Rav link) at the moment. I have to face facts that alpaca itches and I will never knit the Tangled Yoke Cardigan.

J. needs a sweater or two. And I find that a bunch of shawls aren’t actually as pointless as I used to think. In California shawls are for weddings and parties and scarves are for going to the mountains. Here they are sort of a daily necessity. At least for me. I’m still Californian enough to think that 70 degrees is not tank top and shorts weather. Plus, my neck and shoulder muscles are the worst for tightening up in the cold (fibro related) so anything that stops that is a good thing

That is not why I frogged Favorite Yoke, however. I really liked the fabric that was knitting up. But I pulled it off the needles to correct a mistake and noticed that it was rather large. Huge in fact. Big enough for at least two of me. Yes, I got gauge and no, I have no idea what happened. But we’re talking about 85 inches around here. I am not that big.

Instead I am making Seraphim. And so far? LOVE. Serious, undeniable love.

I also got back to doing the Rainbow Socks. Here’s my offering for Orange, hand dyed by Adriana in a colorway I named Venice Beach. (Which is much brighter than the pictures let on.)

They’re my first toe up socks and I’m using this… unpattern.

Random Pretty:

This guy is hanging out on the ceiling right now. He looks just like a crinkled dead leaf. Very cool.

Hope your day is a good one. I get to spend mine figuring how to use my button machine. Wish me luck!

You might not know this, but we all have relationships with what we knit. Some things we love, some we hate. Some live forever in heirloom preserved bliss, others are pilly manky worn messes in no time at all. Sometimes we are willfully misled. We are promised things that the relationship just cannot deliver. And when the honeymoon period is over, we’re left with this item we really would never have knit had we only known.

The time has come for Brompton and I to separate. Promises were delivered that were never kept. Late nights with soothing wool have come to a disgruntled cardigan who just stares with guilty fibers when I pass over it for something a little more… me. I feel guilty even now, I brought Brompton into the world, I should do the proper thing and give it new life as something else. But somehow I think that Brompton deserves to be loved as I could never love it.

So, who wants a hand knit cardigan?

Dramatic anthropomorphizing aside, I am completely serious. Logistically there’s a few snags, I can’t sell this (and wouldn’t know what to charge anyway) and I don’t want to give it away for free. I’ve done that before and I didn’t like the experience. Indeed, I’ll frog it and destash the yarn before I do that. And also, I don’t expect anyone to actually go for this but I really wish someone would! There’s nothing wrong with Brompton except it doesn’t suit me at all.

The Info:

• Pattern: Brompton by Alice Bell
• Size: 44″
• Yarn: Araucania Nature Wool in Sky Blue, approx 5 skeins
• Needles: Knit Picks Harmony Options US 4 and 6
• Mods: Did half the waist shaping as called for. I think the cardigan is just too relaxed to make waist shaping even a necessity. The whole feel of the cardigan is baggy and unstructured and waist shaping feels like tacking on some sort of rigidity that just doesn’t fit.
• Notes: I don’t like the inelasticity of the k2tog cast on. I should have used a plain one, I can control the tension better that way.

The Pictures:

The Facts:

Color truest in first picture. Cardigan only worn for pictures. This is quite a baggy and relaxed sweater. The sleeves are quite long but intended to be folded back.

The Exchange:

So what do I want in return? I’d like a linen cardigan because I can’t knit with linen but I don’t expect to get that. Otherwise, yarn, I suppose. There’s the wishlist but I’m open to other ideas. Email me at pfeknitsAT gmail.com if you’re interested.

The Unpleasant:

Having been swaplifted quite a few times recently, I will not send the cardigan until I receive the swap package. So if that’s going to deter you, you now know. The good thing about gift certificates to places is that there’s no package to mail. If that helps any.

But yes, anyone? Bueller?

I always maintain that Sundays are for preparing for the coming week and can’t really be counted as a whole weekend day. J. maintains that Mondays are for preparing for the coming week. I seem to have slipped into his viewpoint. All I did the latter half of Sunday was watch the football, two episodes of Buffy (J. likes it a lot) and episodes of both Scrapheap Challenge and Top Gear. Not very preparatory, is it?

Knitting Content:

Favorite Yoke needs fiddling with. I decided to add some gentle shaping… and miscalculated the length of the shaping section. Thankfully I only added the increases too soon so I get to frog back and fix that. Next time I get the keen idea to knit a sweater on 3.25mm needles, someone stop me please? (Ignoring the fact that the Tangled Yoke Cardigan is sitting in my queue as well…)

WIP Smackdown:

I made the deadline (excepting FY, of course) but not in the way I expected. I finished Shetland Triangle and thanks to everyone for their comments on it too! I have decided I want to knit about 100 shawls in Sea Silk. I frogged the Cloudberry Socks and have given up all attempts of making anything out of that darn Baby Bamboo. I have about the equivalent of 5 balls left and I just want it out of the stash already. I had one of those moments where I realized I was agonizing over what to knit. Knitting, the hobby that I took up for relaxation and pleasure, has become one of those unpleasant job/chore things. My stash has become a few miles long to-do list. So that’s also become something that needs addressing. If my hobbies start becoming as angsty as work, there’s something WRONG.

So I’ve got two projects on the needles (with a pair of socks hovering, I just don’t know what I want to do with the yarn yet) and I’m going to try and stick to about that. Favorite Yoke is going to take ages, I’m aware of that. The other project? Another Chevron Scarf. I know, I know. But can you blame me?

That’s Koigu and The Plucky Knitter in Hippie Chick. (I didn’t think so.) I think I might be entering a green phase… I want everything to be green!

re: Blogging:

Future plans for this here blog include a possible contest (I’m working out the logistics at the moment) and a changeable forecast for posting (I expect it to be sporadic but watch me be contrary and go to a fixed schedule). And some more FKS. I think. The fact is, I have been getting people asking me why there isn’t new FKS stuff going up. And I admit to being slightly at a loss over that. Is it just being keen? Do they want hints on when the next stuff is going to go up? Do they look at FKS as their own personal knitting factory? Is it concern for me (ie: if that’s the only page of the blog they look at) or is it just a plain ol’ sense of entitlement? I have a few things planned for FKS but after that… I don’t know. The people who I wouldn’t mind asking for things rarely do and the people who are here only for the free stuff always seem to be here. If I stopped offering free stuff, would they go away?

What’s your opinion?

Shetland Triangle is blocked!

(Gucci sunglasses, £10. Ebay. Black shirt which attracts fuzz like whoa not included.)

• Name: Arctic Triangle
• Pattern: Shetland Triangle by Evelyn A. Clark
• Yarn: Handmaiden Sea Silk in Glacier, 1 skein
• Needles: Denise Interchangeable Needles US 6
• Notes: I did ten body repeats and decided against the border. I probably could have eked out another repeat but I wanted it done already.

These pictures taken at the cemetery. Because we strive to be The Munsters.

I adore that back corner where the sun is seeping through.

And our local Starbucks is open again. Hooray!

That’s yarn from Sahara still. I’m determined to get rid of it.

I also have my first ever secret knitting project on the go. All I can say is that I adore STR MW and the pattern? It is ADDICTIVE. I was up until stupid o’clock seeing where it went next.

And because it’s Saturday, here’s a rare sight.

The elusive J. and Phoe, hamming it up in a cemetery.

Oh my god, we ARE The Munsters!

Can you believe it’s the end of June already? I don’t know what’s happened to this year. It seems to stretch on forever and to have lasted only a heartbeat. I’m glad I’m taking this summer off but there’s still some stuff that needs sorting and I just feel to blahed out today to do it. That’s what tomorrows are for, I think.

Things I Am Loving This Week:

• J. Yesterday as I was pinning out the Shetland Triangle, I twitted him with my hand. He was holding a measuring stick and so brandished that. I went “Right!” and picked up my new sword. J. said “Ok then” and held up his pen, clicking it to illustrate his point. And I fell to giggles.
• outdoor showers. Not necessary in this part of England, especially without a pool but still.
• Liesl. I was unsure on it until I saw the awesome pictures Laura took of Amy in it. Alas, I cannot knit in cotton. And I think it just wants to be a cotton cardigan.
• people who are moving. We hope to move this year from a place that really is hellish in the extreme (some of you know just HOW hellish) and seeing people I love move into better places gives me hope. Hope it good.
• This Stephanie’s strawberry shortcake and this Stephanie’s humor.
• Lemon cookies with extra lemon (recipe here):

Something Good: This week hasn’t been all that good, actually. It being over isn’t fantastic either. So… lemon cookies?

Knitting: Favorite Yoke (still), Cloudberry Socks (have until Monday to finish them in time for the end of WIP Smackdown), a poncho in Baby Bamboo. I thought it would be more useful than a scarf. And the Shetland Triangle has been blocked.

Reading: Anne’s House of Dreams by LM Montgomery.

Writing/Crafting: Writing: meet my block. Crafting: this necklace for ‘Song’s Blogathon Auction

This Week’s Plan: Sunday there’s a trip planned to the Rose Cottage and I want to get some pictures of the finished Shetland Triangle. Friday - Glastonbury. Next Monday: Duran Duran!

Have a good weekend.

The Plan:

“I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study.” So says Marianne Dashwood in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. This summer I am taking a real true summer break for the first time in a very long time. I’m going to work and play and hopefully find autumn easier for it. My summer companions will be Anne, Emily and if I can find her, Laura. Things have been really rough lately and I just need to work on being happier and more hopeful. Not to mention my imagination seems to have gone into hiding and I really need to find it. Life has shown me that some simple pleasures are beyond me now and I need to find new ones. Wheelchair racing anyone?

Contrary Fangirling:

J. heard of my odd craving for Buffy and since he’s never watched it (but he really liked Hex), he found the entire collection on ebay for way cheap. That’s a whole lot of Buffy. Have I mentioned that I always professed hatred for the show?

After a lifetime of preferring Simon, I find myself more drawn to John now. I mean I would snog Simon in a heartbeat. But to sit down and have a conversation? John. And then the snogging. Oh hell. I’d snog the lot of them. Wouldn’t you?

Knitting Content:

Shetland Triangle? Never. Ending. I knew I didn’t like the border so I was just going to knit the body section until I ran out of yarn. After ten repeats, I called it quits. Needs blocking, of course. But still, it’s done!

The String Bag. Quick, useful and very very stretchy.

This is the Lace Ribbon Scarf but I’m not entirely sold on it in this yarn. It’s either this or a poncho though, so which is worse?

And now, some actual summer:

And a fat cat:

Happy Wednesday.

In a word: awful. Totally one of those things where you did it once and now you need never ever EVER do it again. Granted, I heard from a lot of people that this year was just total ass for some reason and that it isn’t normally that manic.

Do not attempt to go if you are not completely able bodied and up to the 1km hike. The disabled taxi service meant waiting in the pouring rain for an hour. And while most people were really good about getting out of the way, some people just got run over for standing there (not my fault, J. was driving the wheelchair). Still, wheelchairs don’t shrink just because you don’t feel like moving!

Do not assume that just because it’s summer, it will be warm. Or dry. I was warm enough (thanks to the Squirc Hat, Clapotis and some snazzy Endpaper Mitts from Adriana.) But I was soaked through four layers.

Do not forget that mass (drunken) humanity is an ugly, ugly thing. The amount of trash strewn across the ground was incredible. Which I don’t get. No one would walk into the Vatican and leave cigarette butts, beer cans and more plastic bags that you can imagine lying about.

Still, there were good things. The people who were really into it and not self important neo-druids or the drunken festival goers. The woman who wished me a Happy Solstice. The disabled taxi service driver who put up with sheer mud stupidity for twelve hours straight and didn’t kill anyone.

And the aforementioned Endpaper Mitts that arrived as a total surprise in the mail yesterday and kept my hands warm. A hundred million thanks, Adriana!

I’m recovering now and I have caught a bit of a chill. I think some warm food and some Starbucks is in order, don’t you?

(And I’m not even Jewish.)

1. Is it impossible to find sport weight merino in a blue red? There are orange and pink reds out the wazoo but no blue red. I’m a winter here people. Need the BLUE RED.

2. I have to knit Hestia. It has to be red. For why? I don’t know.

3. I have also been hankering to watch Buffy, which I have NEVER been a fan of. Although I have watched lots of it and even have a favorite character (Tara, although Spike is a close second.) Go figure.

4. I am on the quest for a purse/shoulder bag. It is a perilous quest. Alas, I am feeling more like Brave Sir Robin than Sir Galahad. Meh.

And now here’s the weekly thing.

Thing I Am Loving This Week:

John Taylor. He wants you to vote for Obama. Also, it’s his birthday. Happy Birthday John!

Something Good: John Taylor. (It’s been one of those weeks.)

Knitting: See Wednesday’s post.

Reading: Finished Love in A Cold Climate and Cold Comfort Farm. Currently reading the Anne of Green Gables series. I love Anne, don’t you?

Writing/Crafting: I have been asked to donate an item for ‘Song’s Blogathon auction. I had to order the beads though so I can’t begin until then. Writing? As if.

This Week’s Plan: Go to Glastonbury on Monday and picked up some smudge sticks at Star Child. Visit the Chalice Well. Eat crepes.

Blessed Solstice and Happy Summer. We’re going off to Stonehenge to sit out the sunrise. There will be pictures, hopefully.

And that’s the lot. Have a good weekend.