Still life, imitating art

Here's a view of the Millenium Bridge in London, with St Paul's Cathedral in the background. The picture was taken from my favourite art gallery in London, the Tate Modern. The bridge is featured at the beginning of the Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince movie, which I watched on the flight to and from London.

The boys were very bored walking round, so decided a rest was in order on one of the benches. Here you have my very first art installation "Still life, imitating art", displayed for only 25 seconds on 27th December 2009. It was a rare and fine piece.

Then the security lady asked me to stop taking photographs!

Chasing the 'birds' already......

On our previous family trip to England, Teddy was only 4. He was fascinated with all the sites of London: The Houses of Parliament, London Eye, Tower Bridge, etc, etc. He made the most wonderful scrapbook of our trip.

This trip, we got both he AND Matthew scrapbooks, Matthew being 4 now and able to appreciate the sites too.

And what did they want to do? Chase the pigeons. That's all!The boy's a blur, but you can still make out the smile of mischief.

And so to today's knitting content. I made the boys hats for Christmas (Santa got them all the good stuff). I'd been wanting to knit Koolhaas for the longest time. In fact since about a week after the magazine it was published in went off the shelves. I finally bought it on the Interweave website late last year.

I made one for Teddy's teacher for Christmas and then I made one for whichever of my boys it would fit. That would be Matthew.After finishing this sucker, I want it to be a REALLY long time before I tackle this pattern again. I managed without a cable needle for 2 of the 3(?) cables in the pattern, but I just couldn't get one of them and boy, does that slow you down.

So Teddy got this wonderfully plain ribbed hat instead.Again with the 'matchy and yet not'. While I was knitting them, I kept trying them on the boys and saying I was knitting them for other little boys - they're used to me not knitting for them, so didn't question that at all. They were so surprised and delighted with the hats when they opened their gifts at Christmas, it was really quite touching.

And just because I can, here's another pic of them both together.

The yarn used is Rowan's Cashmerino Aran. It's been in my stash forever, originally intended to make a sweater for one of the boys. Well, this is what you get for marinating boys sweater yarn while they grow so big - not enough for a sweater! I do have enough for a couple of scarves though - wide ribbed that is!

Happy Tuesday :0)

Zimmermann Babies

We flew to England on Christmas night. Our first family trip there for 2 and a half years. Thank you generous in-laws :0)

We stayed through New Year and my birthday and had a jolly good time with our friends and family. My boys all flew back a couple days before me and narrowly missed 'the snow'. Which at the time, just looked like this.....Pretty, but can only be described as a smattering at best. I managed to get to London and back for some shopping/visiting that day (Tuesday) with no travel interruptions at all.

That evening though, the snow started in earnest (well, for England that is, anyway). And by next morning it was looking more like this.....

and this.......

and this......

and it snowed for the rest of the day, closing airports and disrupting trains, etc.

I had planned on visiting some old friends in SW London, but instead, I stayed home and watched the news and the interwebs all day, wondering if I was going to be able to fly home the next day.

I did get to sled down a couple of wee hills that day....
and help Harry build a snowman....

So all was not lost :0)

The next day, Thursday, I trudged across London, no small feat, let me tell you. Those Underground stations are killers with a heavy suitcase, no lifts and a million stairs each. I managed to get to Gatwick airport with no problems though (other than a sore shoulder from bouncing my suitcase up and down those stairs!). The flight was cancelled of course, but at least I'd made it there to find that out!!!

I got straight on the train back to London and called the airline to re-arrange another flight. Marco-the-booking-agent is my new best friend. He booked me on the next flight out of Heathrow and upgraded the trans-atlantic leg to business class. Which looks a bit like this.......

Yes, peeps, my outstretched legs are still about 2 feet from the seat in front of me!!!

Anyway, I do have knitting content involved in this story, aswell as gratuitous snow footage. The friends I couldn't see because of the snow Wednesday, I got to see Thursday and stayed the night with them. Mid-last-year, they had twins. And what does the knitter do when she knows she'll be visiting babies? Why she knits for them, of course :0)

So I present to you, the long awaited, Zimmermann babies, clad in the Baby Surprise Jacket and February Baby Sweater patterns.......
Photo provided by lovely mum, Charlotte. Aren't they gorgeous? The babies AND the sweaters, I mean ;0)

Made with Dream in Color Classy, color Midnight Derby. Matchy, and yet not.

Happy New Year to everyone :0)

February Lady....

Well, it's been finished for a while now, but here are a few pics of my February Lady Sweater. Taken out back of our house, during an afternoon scooter session with Matthew :0) Close up shot......

Action shot.....

There's a great little slope down from our garage. Good for getting up just enough speed to take us over the lane and almost to the end of the opposite house. Not very lady-like, but FUN!

Yarn is Dream in Color Classy in Shiny Moss. Four skeins, all the same dyelot, but two definite different shades. Oh well, there was no way I was going to rip out that whole thing. I don't think you can tell, as I whizz by on my scooter anyway.

Thanks to Matthew and my iphone for photography :0)

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I've been SO busy lately. I started work at everyone's favourite bookstore. Just part-time during the holiday season, but that part-time is turning into 5-6 days a week.

And when I haven't been checking out your book purchases, I've been chained to my sewing machine, stocking my etsy shop with diaper bags for the little mommies of the world. I can say "of the world" now - I just got my first sale to Italy. And I passed the 50 sales mark - woot!

Check out Teddy's store too. After seeing it, his teacher commissioned some work from him, as did his Nanny. He'll be buying us dinner soon :0) He's so proud of himself for running his own business.

Happy Monday!

disco xxx

Happy Halloween 2009

Happy Halloween from Chez Disco.

;0)

Welcome back

It's been so long.

I just finished this hat, for our friend, Ollie, in England. Modelled by Matthew, both of these four year olds have big noggins, so it should fit Ollie just fine.

I love the decreases at the top of this hat. The pattern is Shedir from Knitty.com. It is rather complicated and you must pay attention to every other row - the ones with the cables. It went a little quicker once I'd worked out how to do ALL of the cabling without a needle. I had to tink back a couple of the cabling rows - pretty soul-destroying, but worth it.

The yarn is a test skein of the new Malabrigo yarn "Dos", in colourway "Pearl Ten". I picked that up from Stitches West earlier this year. I love the colour, but think I may be allergic to the yarn itself - every time I knit with it, my eyes would get itchy and watery.

In the interests of equality, here's a pic of Teddy, getting his first badge at cub scouts this week.

That wheelchair lady must've been going REALLY fast!

Covetting Cotty

Hands up all those who like an easy pattern that gives really pretty results. I know I do, and I have loved making these Cotty socks the past couple of weeks. I started them just before we left Florida and knit on sock #1 during our journey up to our new home here in the Carolinas.

Congratulations to Carrie for writing a winning pattern :0)

So, here they are, completed in Socks That Rock Mediumweight - a rare gem, that I think is quite likely "Jade". Still with the cameraphone pics, so excuse the washed out colour look. Can you spot my 'deliberate' mistake?
This pair came out a tad small for my huge hoofs, so they'll be winging their way over to England pretty soon - Hubbs has a more delicate foot than me :0)

I loved this pattern so much, and had been reading about the merino/cashmere/nylon blends that others are, or will be, using that I just had to cast on right away with another yarn from my stash. The Yarn is the Pagewood Farms Alyeska I showed you a few months ago.

Do you like how I set the swift and winder up? My usual table is covered in crap, so I had to improvise. It's actually a pretty good solution for me, as I don't have to worry about the clamps scuffing the wood.
Blurry pic of the skein wound. You get the idea. It is mostly greeny, grey-y, but every now and then there is a little fleck of pink. Pretty.

So, this is my first experience with a cashmere blend sock yarn, and boy, do I like it. The yarn is so soft as it flows through your fingers while knitting. I think if Blue Moon made a MCN blend I would never need to buy from another dyer again. Tell me they don't, please!

Here's a progress shot, so you can see how it's knitting up.