Get your diaries out, here goes:

25-26 Feb        Unravel Farnham Maltings, Farnham, Surrey

28-29 April     Wonderwool Wales Royal Welsh Showground, Builth Wells, Powys, Wales

22-23 June     Woolfest Mitchells Lakeland Livestock Centre, near Cockermouth, Cumbria

14-15 July       Fibre-East Scald End Farm, Mill Rd, Thurleigh, Bedford

1-2 Sept           British Wool Weekend Harrogate

11-14 Oct         Knitting and Stitching Show Ally Pally, London

1-4 Nov           Knitting and Stitching Show RDS, Dublin

22-25 Nov      Knitting and Stitching Show Harrogate

I downscaled my knitting event attendance a bit in 2011 (but still made it to one or two events), so reckon it might be time to ramp it up again.   Tell me, what are you all saving your pennies for this year?

Round-up of 2011 resolutions:

• To finish 11 projects in 2011.  My emphasis in this goal is to clear out some old lurking UFOs, and I have plenty to chose from.  If I really can’t face finishing them, they need to be frogged.

Well, this didn’t happen.  I’ve still got half a dozen bags of UFOs, sitting next to my bookshelf, completely untouched.  I think I may have frogged a couple, but there are still plenty left.  I haven’t counted how many projects I’ve completed this year, but I imagine it’s somewhere around half of my goal figure.  I don’t even want to go back and count.

• To get my hand-dyed yarns up for sale.  I’ve been thinking about this for, oooh, maybe the past year or so, but if it’s here in writing, then I actually have to do it, right?  I’ve realised that I actually like playing with woolly stuff more than just knitting it, and dyeing yarn captures what I love most: texture and colour.

Hey, I actually got this one done!  I’m struggling to get much stock up in my etsy shop though (oh, the joys of photography under grey London skies) but I actually really enjoy doing markets, so I’m stocking up in preparation for another stall in the spring.

• To blog once a week.

Er, no.  I’ll say no more on that.

After the disaster that was 2011, I’m going to try a different approach for 2012:  I’ll be making resolutions about the things that I won’t be doing. I’m doing the opposite of setting SMART goals, as we’re supposed to.   This is all in aid of simplifying my life, reducing stress, so that I’ve got time and energy to spend doing the things that I want to do.  There’s nothing like health problems to make you stop and re-evaluate.

So, what I won’t be doing in 2012:

• No more extra studying.  I have two more pieces of work to hand in for my current course, including a portfolio with a final final final date of some time in February.  Once that’s done, there will be no more courses of any kind.  I have more than enough qualifications for someone on a mediocre income.  And please, my dear friends, hold me to this one.

• Closely related to this: no more long hours at work (well, not on a regular basis).  I’ve prioritised work far too much, and my body has finally called time on this.  My doctor would agree.

• No more credit card debt.  I’ve had an expensive year, but I don’t need the stress anymore.  My credit card debt will be gone by June.  (I might be living on tinned spaghetti and toast for a while, but needs must).

Things I will be doing:

• Having lots more free time.  Weekends to do whatever I want!  Spending time with friends!

• More short trips around the UK.  I love it here, and there are so many more places I want to go.

• More knitting!  This has been sorely neglected, but I’m not going to set myself any goals or challenges.

• It should therefore follow on that with my extra free time, energy, travel, and knitting, that I will blog more frequently.  However, it the interests of a stress-free year, I’m not going to set myself a deadline.

And the best thing about my 2012 non-resolutions?  They’re completely doable.

Some of you might be aware of the knitting blog and podcast known as A Playful Day (you might remember that I was interviewed for the podcast back at the Spitalfields Sheep and Wool Fayre).  It’s hosted by the lovely GreenTriangleGirl, who has put together a fantastic giveaway palooza.  There are loads of great prizes to be one, including a skein of yarn dyed by yours truly:

This is a skein of one of my favourite bases, 50% Superwash Falkland Merino/ 50% Silk.  It’s a 4-ply weight, and is beautifully soft and shiny.  Definitely recommended for the purpose of draping around the neck!  The colourway is Ruby Ruby, and I hope it cheers up someone’s grey winter day.

The competition closes on 7th January, so be sure to drop by and enter the competition here.

I’d also like to say a huge thanks to those of you who have already bought yarn from my little shop – I’ve been having so much fun sending little parcels of goodies all around the world.  I love the idea of my yarn travelling from my London flat to far flung lands!

I’d love to see photos of what people have been making with it though, so I’ve got a little promotion running: update your Ravelry with a photo of travelknitter yarn, or link to a project you’re making with it,  and I’ll send you a coupon code for a discount off your next order.  Hurrah!

For my latest trip to Australia, my usual routine was all out of sync (thank you, work-induced migraines), and I hadn’t planned a thing.  To make matters worse, it was to be my niece’s third birthday during my visit, and I hadn’t even had time to get her a pressie.

On the morning of my flight, I woke up and suddenly decided to knit my niece Sophie a polar bear.  Of course, who wouldn’t decide such a thing a few hours before travelling to the other side of the world?

I only had half a skein of suitable yarn, so I did a mad dash to my local department store.  My heart sank when the yarn was no longer on display, but I found a small stash on clearance.  Hurrah for finding the yarn at a discount!  But boo for it being discontinued by the store.

Anyway, it was a night flight, so I mostly snoozed on the plane and didn’t start knitting until the day I arrived in Australia.  It was a bit of a frantic push to get it finished in time.  I had to catch a 14 hour bus ride to visit my niece (ooh, love those Australian distances!) and I used that time to finish off the knitting.  It all went pretty smoothly.  The only difficulty was trying to do the embroidery for Otto’s face.

I mean, what do I know about embroidery?  Nothing.  I had to do some research to find out what french knots and satin stitch are, and my results weren’t brilliant.  I think my main difficulty arose from working the embroidery on a knitted, rather than woven, fabric.  One of the eyes worked really well, but for some reason I just couldn’t get the second eye to attach properly!  And poor Otto’s nose was overstitched about a zillion times, because I couldn’t figure out how to get a nice smooth edge when working with the v-shape of knitted stitches.

Luckily the end result was very cute, and no-one would ever know the difference:

Pattern: Otto by Ysolda

Yarn: Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK, less than 2 skeins.  Incredibly soft yarn, and perfect for snuggling.

Modifications:

I made very few changes to the pattern actually.  Like lots of other knitters, I found that the snout as written came out too long, so I ripped back and worked the increases every round, to get a shorter, snoutier snout.  I wasn’t overly thrilled with the design of the leg gusset, and I was left with a few gaps to sew up.  I’d use a more traditional method for the legs if I re-did the pattern.

I finished off with a garter stitch scarf made from some leftover alpaca/silk.  I added a little buttonhole and spent ages buying just the right button for it.  I got to my SIL’s place, asked to borrow a sewing needle, to be told that she doesn’t own one.  Can you believe it?  Yep, if something is torn or loses a button, she throws it out!  Clearly, we’re only related by marriage…

I solved the scarf problem by folding over one end to make a little loop to hold the scarf closed.  I mean, a polar bear surely doesn’t want to get a cold neck in a gust of wind?

Although Sophie really wasn’t all that fussed about the bear, she is clearly well-practised at being photographed, and she posed perfectly for me:

I was the only gift-giver who stayed away from things stereotypically pink and sparkly, so I’m quite happy to be the quirky aunt who gives home-made stuff.  Hopefully she’ll appreciate it one day.

In the meantime, I’d like to open up this blog to suggestions that you might have on the topics of travelling and/or knitting.  Is there anything you’d like to find out about?  Perhaps you’re interested on the thorny topic of knitting on airplanes, or you’re wondering what to pack for your next trip, or trying to decide on a location for a next crafty holiday, or maybe you’d like to know where the best button shops are.

Whatever your random queries are, please post a comment and I’ll address them all in upcoming blog posts.

And what’s one thing that’s guaranteed to make me smile?

Alpacas!

Last weekend my friend Tina encouraged me to get out of bed (thankyou!) and wen went to the open day that was held at Houghton Hall alpacas.  I’d found out about it through the Purl Alpacas blog, but it was mostly aimed at local breeders and farmers.  I wasn’t expecting to see dozens upon dozens of alpacas for sale!  It’s a good thing I only have a small hatchback car, otherwise a few would have come home with me.

Each alpaca is so incredibly different, and they certainly had their own unique personalities.  There were quite a few chatty ‘pacas who didn’t shut up the whole day!

Whilst the day was very much aimed at breeders, there were a couple of yarnies there, (including the lovely Alison from Yarnscape and Picperfic who had brought her spinning wheel) but I hadn’t intended to buy any yarn.  I did learn an interesting snippet though:  apparently alpaca yarn feels about 5 microns softer than wool.  So, 20 micron alpaca yarn will feel as soft as 15 micron wool.  Who knew?

I was absolutely shattered by the afternoon, but in terms of making me smile, the day was an absolute success.  I’ll leave you with a few photos to share the alpaca love.

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(Is it terrible to admit that I've never read any Wordsworth?)

It was one of those weekends where there was surprisingly little walking going on (probably for the best, considering the state of my lungs) but there was much laughter and hilarity.  Bring together eight women for a weekend away, and what do you expect?

no coffins needed for us this time...

I managed to fit in a tiny bit of knitting.  All I did was finish off a toe.  Here is my October Sock, overlooking a croquet lawn (!) and lush green fields:

I thought it best to save the grafting for my return home, and I’m now thinking I might re-do the toe to try a few different options.

Our walking guide commented that she’s now inspired to learn to knit, so if that’s not a successful weekend, then I don’t know what is!

I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the Herdy shop is in fact in Grasmere.  I didn’t even plan it, I promise!

They even had a knitted bench seat cover, but there was no time to sit down and knit.

We passed some smiley looking sheep in the fields…

and my new Herdy mug and gingerbread made me smile when I got home.

We were already planning our next adventures before the weekend was over.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be well enough for my “summer holiday”: a walking weekend in the Lake District.  I’m heading up next weekend, so need to get my strength back ASAP.  I’m travelling by train, and I’d postponed buying my ticket for two reasons: firstly, I wasn’t sure if I’d even be able to go, and secondly, the train costs more than driving, even getting an advance purchase ticket.  My teeny tiny hatchback car will get me there for less, but citing environmental concerns (and knitting time!), I finally bought my ticket today.

For those not familiar with buying train tickets in the UK, it’s an absolute minefield.  Different companies, different pricing structures and exorbitant prices (the most expensive in Europe) all make for a lot of confusion.  In there interests of helping out fellow travellers, I’ve put together a few hints on how to get the best deals.

• The UK rail system has been kindly chopped up and sold off to private companies, each running services to different bits of the country. Don’t worry too much about this when booking tickets, as the various sites allow you to purchase tickets on different networks too.  A good starting point to figure out routes and times is National Rail, and their website also has links to special deals and offers.

• Generally speaking, the cheapest fares become available 12 weeks in advance.  If you’re planning a trip that far ahead, I’d highly recommend signing up for an email alert for when the cheap fares are online.  Then pounce!

• Generally, off-peak tickets are cheaper.  Specific restrictions vary, but it’s usually best to avoid travel before 9.30am on a weekday.

• Cashback websites such as Quidco and TopCashBack offer cash back for purchases through particular ticketing companies.  Currently though, they don’t offer the best deals, if you factor in the meagre 1% or so cashback compared to the booking fees for the companies that are linked with them.

• Companies such as thetrainline charge a £1 booking fee, as well as a credit card fee.  These fees can be avoided by purchasing exactly the same tickets through individual company websites, such as East Coast, Virgin Trains or TransPennine Express.  (You’ll notice they even use exactly the same search and booking software).

• Generally, websites allow you to specify a seating preference (forward-facing, window/aisle) but without letting you actually select a specific seat.  Click on through and the booking will state which seat you are allocated, but that’s pretty useless without a seating plan.  Here’s where Seat 61 comes in very useful with seating plans for trains in the UK.  When booking my trip up to Cumbria I went through three different ticket bookings until I got the seat combination I wanted! (forward facing, window, but sadly the quiet carriages were mostly full).

• Apparently it can sometimes work out cheaper to split the journey, buying separate tickets for individual portions of trip, particularly where different sections are run by different franchises.  I haven’t personally had this to be the case though (but it might be especially useful if part of your journey is during peak times).

• I’ve recently discovered the network railcard, which costs £28 per year and gives a discount of a third on travel across South-East England during off-peak periods.  It doesn’t seem to be very well known, and I’d assumed that railcards were only available for particular ages or those with a disability.  Costs all gets a bit confusing in London with different prices for travelcards and Oyster tickets, but from what I can gather, it would be worth me getting one just for pootling across London on weekends.  Does anyone have any experience of these cards?

If you’ve got any more UK train travel tips, I’d love to hear them.

(As an aside, I’m purposely avoiding the topic of the London riots.  It was very very close to home, and so much has been said by so many people, I’m not sure I can add anything useful).

I’ve had a particularly crazy run of work/uni stuff, so in a sense I’ve been busy.  However it would be a great big fib to say that I couldn’t find the odd hour or so to put together a blog post, because I still manage to find the time to mooch around on Ravelry and whatnot in the evenings.  It’s rather more the case that my poor brain has been so full up with other stuff, there’s no space left to do anything that requires cognitive capacity, such as compiling a blog post.  So it’s not quite busyness, but not quite laziness either.  More like exhaustion, which has also reached the point where I haven’t been knitting, I haven’t been dyeing, so there’s also not much to blog about.

Of course, I’ve been so exhausted that immune system has now given up the ghost, and I’ve spent the past week looking rather like this:

from the hilarious Hyperbole and a Half

Well, I look like that except that I haven’t made it out of bed to even reach the couch for the past four days, but that’s a good goal to have for tomorrow methinks.  I’ve been ill now for so long that I’ve even run out of internet stuff to look at! (I am however very grateful for the large food shop that I did last week, but there’s not much left.  Not sure how to address that).

But I have good intentions, I fully visualise myself bouncing back (er, maybe next week) and carrying on with life as planned.  In the meantime though, if you wouldn’t mind sending me a new immune system in the post, or suggestions for internet sites to keep me amused, that would be great.

I’ve chosen my yarn (a skein of my own hand-dyed high twist merino) and I’ve chosen a pattern October socks by Birgitte Zuener).  All set to go.

This is where I’m stuck:  I don’t know any nice stretchy cast-ons for cuff-down socks.  My kinaesthetic intelligence is remarkably abysmal, and I’m seemingly unable to learn how to do a basic long-tail cast on.  Someone tried to teach me again yesterday, but I just sat there shaking my head, realising that I’d never grasp it.  I then spent the afternoon with a sad face, wondering what on earth I was going to do.  Really, I’m hopeless!  Goodness only knows how I learnt to knit in the first place.

So, dear knitters, please tell me your favourite stretchy cast-on – but it needs to be simple.  I need all the help I can get.