Hot!

What better way to manage the heat than to make the baby wear the hottest hat in the world made from (very bulky) handspun. This kid has a serious headwear fetish. It started when she put her toy hippo on her head by mistake one day, and she caught herself in the mirror and thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Now, everything goes on her head, to her great delight.



And now some proof that my spinning is getting better. This is on my new spindle from
Spinsanity. It's lovely and small, 0.8 oz. It seems obvious to me now that it's easier to spin finer yarn on a lighter spindle. I've got about 100yds of 2-ply kind of lace weight. I'm very taken with my new book Victorian Lace Today. I realise I'm very behind the curve on this one, but there are a few projects that have caught my eye.



I'm luxuriating an a morning without the children. R heard my plea for peace and quiet yesterday, so he's disappeared for a few hours with them. It's giving me time to catch up on a few little projects that have been languishing in the nearly finished pile. I'm going to crack on and see how it goes. i may update later.

My Guilty Little (Not really) Secret

So a few weeks ago, I went over to the dark side and bought myself a beginning spindle kit from Ashford. I've been taking my time teaching my hands what to do, and I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it. A while ago I managed to spin my first kind of usable yarn, so I decided to make this:



It's a little scarf, with a very simple stitch pattern, but I feel so proud of it. I was so taken with it, that I immediately began another project with some other stuff I managed to crank out. This was older, and therefore much more uneven (and trust me, the scarf yarn is still pretty thick and thin), but it was the first two-ply I ever made. It going to be the warmest hat in the world for A. I don't know if I even have enough to finish, but it's fun to try. Photos will come later, if I manage to finish it today.

Heart Attack

If you want to cause yourself a heart-stopping moment, just start messing with the html of your blog without any clue (and I mean, no idea at all) about what you are doing. Unfortunately, I think I've managed to somehow absorb my husband's hacker mentality, without the technical skills. I have a feeling I'll discover that all those bits of code I deleted were actually quite useful.

New projects

I'm writing this to the dulcet tones of fireworks booming overhead. Unsurprising, really, considering it's the 4th of July. R has taken F out to the High School to see them. I'm staying behind with a (hopefully) sleeping A.

I thought I'd update on some new projects.

Firstly, there's the ongoing project, Moving: The International Edition. It looks like we're going home in September, as our tenants will be leaving then. We've been organised enough to get A her American passport, and we're currently waiting on her UK one. Flights are extortionate. Shipping is extortionate. As we can't do anything about the price of flights, we're having to cut back on shipping costs. Which of course means that we're having to dispose of the vast majority of our things again. Last time was very traumatic - I was immediately post-partum and we got rid of a lot of things I wish we had found a way to keep. This time I'm ahead of the game, because I didn't buy too many things while we were here with the intention of keeping them. Still, it's very unsettling to go through the whole rigmarole again. We start in earnest this weekend when the Great Cleansing of the Garage begins. Did I mention that we're moving from a three-bedroomed detached house with garden to a one-bedroomed flat above a pub and a (not quite legit) massage parlour? With two adults and two kids.

Happier things. This is a quickie. I took up the drop spindle a few weeks ago. I finally managed to produce some yarn I thought I could do something with. So I'm starting a scarf.



It doesn't look like much now, but hopefully, it'll get better with length and blocking.

And then there's the new blanket, which is galloping along.




R and F have just returned. My brave and fearless four-year old from the County Fair has morphed back into his more timid incarnation. The fireworks were too loud for him, and he wanted to come home. He wouldn't even come outside and watch from our front garden (which is two miles away). God help him when we're back in Edinburgh - we live right at the bottom of the Castle and the fireworks..well... lets just say we get a grand view of them, but it's a bit noisy!

County Fair

R had a bonus day off work yesterday (he really has a lovely employer), so we decided to make a trip to the County Fair. You Americans are very lucky to have such a venerable institution. I don't think I can adequately describe such an event to an outsider, because there really is no frame of reference for the rest of the world. Of course, I've only ever been to the LA and SD County Fairs, so I may not be speaking of the experience for the whole of America, but wow, they're really something special.

If I describe the day, it'll give an idea of the full scope of the festivities.

Firstly, there was the traditional line of traffic waiting to get into the truly vast parking. After our escapades last year (don't ask, but it involved an emergency trip to the hospital) we decided to park close by. That was our first nine dollars spent. We got there at lunchtime, so our first stop was the enormous food section. F got a hot dog, R and I got roast beef sandwiches. Then it was off to the animal section via the Monster Trucks for F. Wait a minute, I skipped an important part of the day when this happened



F got a ribbon for his participation in the squash toss - chucking a crookneck squash into a bucket in front of an audience.

On the way to the Monster Trucks and animals, I went to see some alpacas from a farm in Ramona. There was nobody there to ask anything of, so, well, I saw some alpacas and that was that. The animal barn was packed, so I waited outside with the pushchair while R took F and A around to look at the cows. Poor little A was a bit unimpressed with them, but the gigantic fans in the ceiling of the barn did it for her. We backtracked a bit to let A see some kitties that were up for adoption (she adores soft fluffy animals).

Then it was off to the kiddie fun fair. F did us proud - the little daredevil- as he threw himself onto some pretty scary rides. After that it was time for a quick snack of onion rings (battered of course). We made a quick trip to the Kids Best of Show tent. Inside was a truly amazing array of work that kids throughout the county had done - art, projects, models, collections. Really impressive. We had a quick stop for F to bounce around on some inflatable toys, then it was on to the next thing.

We went for a trip around the fine art section. Hmmm. Again, an impressive collection of work, some of it more impressive than others. Mostly it was just kind of stressful trying to keep F from destroying bits and pieces of sculpture, gourds, that sort of thing.

By this time we were definitely being moved by the Fair spirit. It was time for dinner. A got fruit from the one and only fruit stand (although it was smothered in syrup). I got deep fried battered zucchini (!), F and R got corn dogs. The zucchini transported me back to Scottish chippies, although I'm not sure the Scots would think of wasting good batter on actual vegetables. I ate only about a quarter of my portion, and believe me, that was enough.

It was getting dark, so we went for a walk through the grown-up fun fair.There were flashing lights, loud noises, and our own little four-year old desperately trying to persuade us that he was big enough to go on the gigantic vertical drop ride, or even the big wheel, but it was no use, he was too small.



On the way outside, we passed hundreds of people just arriving for the big concert that evening, but our two little fair-goers were exhausted and it was definitely time to go.

Oh, and these, they got third place! One and two were really nice Koigu efforts, so I felt a little ashamed. Still, now I can do entrelac, which was the purpose of the exercise, and it was nice to get a free exhibitors ticket.

DOH

I am without doubt the stupidest person in the known universe at times. Of course, at other times I marvel at my great intelligence (hmmm...). Last night I attempted to start another hemlock ring blanket for my mother-in-law this time. It's her 60th birthday in September. Anyway, having already done one of these I felt I would be an old pro at it. Hah. For some reason, Round 14 totally threw me. I just couldn't get it to work, no matter what I did. So this morning I tried again. Same problem. It's only this afternoon that I realised I was trying to overthink the directions, and that the pattern contains instructions for something I was already doing automatically. I was trying to increase and then add extra stitches because I wasn't thinking about the pattern properly. I'm off to start (yet) again.

It really is the season of socks.



I came clean to my mum about the sock yarn scarf of the last post, and she expressed an interest in it, so off to Scotland it goes.

Kureyon sock scarf

Kureyon sock scarf
Originally uploaded by Macknitus

What a thrifty person I can be (sometimes). My mum likes short socks, so I had tons of yarn leftover from her socks. I managed to eke it out into a 6 foot long scarf that should brighten up those grey Edinburgh winter days.