Gearing Up for Visitors

We've been enjoying having a friend visit who taught with us in Taiwan. She's my youngest daughter's Godmother and although we've talked on the phone, we haven't seen her since she visited us in Brazil... so it's been a long time. She was married this summer, so I'm trying to get used to a new last name. I never changed mine, so it always seems to throw me off when I have call my friends by a different name. I still look my friend Nancy up under her old name, and my friend Laurie, and my friend Liz... the list goes on.

This past weekend was great to have visitors. The weather was terrific and we were able to visit the South Bank, watch buskers, and just people watch in general. It's always fairly crowded on a nice day, but I've certainly seen it worse. I really enjoyed the painting that you see on the left. The woman has been painting it for the past three weeks. I don't think my back could handle sitting that way for three weeks... Even caught the last performance of the National Theatre's Watch This Space season. I'll definitely look for it again in next summer.

October is filled with guests... three families booked so far. Family and friends. No overlap, but we will have one group leave and the next group come later the same day. I'm just worried about getting the sheets washed :)

So my knitting... I started a cape for the pillow girl's little brother. It's out of the same blue wool my mother-in-law gave me. It was given it by their next door neighbor when his wife died. It's old (can tell from the label), but it's certainly knitting up some nice projects. I have cape boy's initial ("E") on the back and I'm trying to knit a big Harry Potter lightning bolt through it. I botched it up a bit at the tip, but think it should work out eventually. I am proud of the way the back looks. I've been diligent about my stranded color work so it's not a horrid mess in the back. I've done the horrid mess thing in the past, but it didn't seem to matter because I was felting and lining the bag that I did it on. I'll provide a picture later.

Here's me knitting in an over-priced pub along the Thames. You know it's over priced when you order tap water and only one entrée for three to share :)

Is This a Weird Gift for an 11 Year Old?

The pillow is finished. It's sort of cute... smaller than I thought it might be, but that's okay. I started today with just the front sewn together as you can see in these pictures (and that was after staying up until almost midnight sewing on the flowers and completing the first seams). Sewed the rest up today and stuffed it. The kids really wanted to help with the stuffing, but they needed to get to bed and I wasn't close enough at that point to have them stay up to help. I may have mentioned that we were supposed to go to dinner at the "birthday" girl's house tonight, but they had to cancel, so that gave me an extra day to finish. We'll go tomorrow night and now I'll have her gift (only a month late).

The question I have is... is this a weird gift for a kid? Seems like a little old lady gift (perfect for me!) The girl knows I'm knitting her gift, and in a panic today I corned the mom and told her that she might want to tell her daughter I'm not making a sweater or anything like that. I started to think about it and realized she might be really disappointed if she has in her head she's getting a garment of some sort and I show up with a tiny pillow.

Just want to point out that those little spots on the pillow are clumps of beads... as I was looking at the picture, I couldn't tell what they were and I was the one who made the darn thing. Thought it was some lint on the pillow or a mark on my lens.

In case anyone wants to know, this pattern is a mixture of two patterns in the book Knit It! Felt It!

Finally, I just want to show you the card my daughter made for her teacher (the one who has had visa problems and is just arriving for the school year tomorrow). She used one of the flowers that I didn't use and made a pin for her teacher.

Wicked Knitting

Felting in a front loader is frustrating. Could be that I'm just not good at it or don't know the tricks. However, I'm sending the pillow squares for that gift I've been knitting through another cycle in hopes that there will be a little more felting going on the second time around. If anyone has felted using the front loader, let me know what to do. It's so easy to continue agitating the pieces in a top loader... as long as you're paying attention to the time.

So I haven't been around much recently. It's always busy with a new job at a new school. Also hard when you're trying to figure out the routine with the kids. My knitting has been boring (squares), so I haven't had much to talk about. The weather has also been nice, so I've been trying to be outside as much as possible. Once the rain starts and the weather gets cooler, I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of knitting.

Did meet up with some friends from Prague who were here on a school trip with a group of students. Went to see Wicked with them. Knitted a square in the dark... the nice thing about felting is that it's not soooo important that the piece looks perfect (although I must say, it wasn't too bad). The show was big and spectacular. One friend who came with has seen the show several times and felt this was the best she'd seen. Think I'll take my children next time.

I'm off to watch my squares spin. Wish me luck.

Four Hours Sitting in the Rain... at Least I got Knitting Done

The girls are signed up for soccer, but of course they are in different age groups so our Saturday starts at 9 a.m and gets done at 1 p.m. Public transport takes almost an hour so it's an early morning. Many events this weekend were canceled because the forecast was so bad. Soccer (football), of course, was not. It wasn't so bad the first two hours. Met some nice moms and knitted another pillow square, but it was windy, cold and gray. The second session, however, was rainy and miserable. Couldn't wait to get home to a hot cup of tea. Almost finished my last blue pillow square but ran out of yarn, so I started frogging a sweater that I was knitting for my sister-in-law's daughter. It looked great except something was weird along the neckline. I never had the patience to go back and find out what I did wrong, so I'm getting rid of it so it can be used for this pillow. Here it is in pieces. Was frogging on the tube. Would have paid to read the mind of the guy across from me... what a look on his face as he watched me.

Knitting as an Ice-Breaker

I took my youngest daughter to the park down the street after work today. She met a little girl there that she wanted to see again. That little girl wasn't there, but there was another group that were close to her age. She kept trying to get in there and make friends, but they were really into a game and she's a little shy. I sent her back over one last time and she made friends and got into the game and had a great time. So proud of her... although a little quiet, she's always good at making friends... has a sweet manner and other kids respond to her.

So what does that have to do with anything? Well, as she was making friends, I was sitting on a bench knitting and was thinking that I should probably be making friends as well. Looked to my left and there were two grandmotherly women talking to each other (not in English). They seemed to know each other well. Other moms were paired up with the moms of children the same age as their own. Since my kid should have grown out of the playground two years ago, I was sort of out of the loop. Lots of cute kids came up and gave me big grins and shy waves, but no moms in sight. Finally, a woman with two very young children stopped by to get a snack out of her stroller and she made a comment about my knitting and how she loves to knit but the last sweater she knit for her toddler took her months. The baby had on one of her creations, which was beautiful. Wish I had knit when my kids were younger. She was from Slovakia, and when she talked to her kids in Slovak, it all sounded sort of familiar even though I never learned much Czech. So my point being... knitting is often a nice way to open conversations, even if it's someone just asking what you're knitting or saying they wished they knit. It's a nice way to break the ice.

Still working on the felted pillow as a gift. Finished another square today at the park. Only six more to go.

Connected to the Outside World!

Got hooked up to Internet in our new apartment yesterday, so I can finally write (pretty sure that adding to my personal blog at a new job would be a stupid move, so I've been noticeably silent). Anyway, we've gotten moved in and the shipment came and we're slowly getting settled.

The school's welcoming committee has been great about setting up little excursions for all the new faculty. They took us to the London Eye, which I'd already been on, but much nicer when its free! Also took us to Kenilworth Castle and Stratford with other new faculty. Very beautiful and nice to get out the city for the day. Years ago I spent a lot of time in Stratford, which I love. Quite a bit of construction going on at the moment, but still beautiful. Tried to find this little fish 'n chips shop that I went to years ago. There was a bit of a big deal surrounding the shop at that time because they were still using real newsprint to wrap the food in. It was a health concern, but even so, people were reluctant to give up that tradition. Couldn't remember the location, so I went into a shop and asked the sales people if they knew of it. I think I described it as "a local favorite" and "small hole-in-the wall that's been around forever." Sure enough, they immediately came up with the name--Kingfisher. The young woman said that it's her family's favorite and the only place they get their fish 'n chips. It's away from all the tourist shops so the prices are much better. The only trouble... they're closed on Sundays. We'll just have to go back when it's open. Walked along the river in Stratford and took the foot ferry (the girls are on it in the picture to the left) and on to Trinity Church to see Shakespeare's tomb. I've seen all the other Shakespeare properties and would love for my family to see them too, but it's an all-day thing and cheaper to do when you can buy the combo ticket (at least if it's the same as in the past). We'll definitely need to go back.

On to knitting news... all that yarn that I boxed up and shipped has been unpacked but is still a big mess. Have too many projects going at the moment and nothing close to being finished... to the point where I've been frogging and re-knitting pieces, which is never fun so those things have been set aside for a little while. You can see the vest that I've been working on (Leftovers). Have the next done now, but will probably frog it as I think the stitches need to be closer together. Also have the arm trim started, but I'm stalled. I do this every time with things. I just can't finish. Did finish a tunic top for my daughter. That thing had been sitting around for six months or more, but now it's finally done. I'll get her to pose soon so I can post a picture.

Right now I'm in the middle knitting a birthday gift for a friend's daughter. Her birthday was yesterday and I'm probably at least a week away from finishing even in a perfect world, so I need to put other things aside for the moment. I'm making her a pillow for her room. Felted blue and white with flowers sewed on (at least that's what it looks like in my head). Wish me luck.

Moving Day... Sort of

We took possession of the keys today for our London flat (have to get the lingo right!) We moved a few bags over today, but will stay in the hotel one more night so we can sleep on real beds. Our shipment won't arrive for another week, so we bought a couple of air beds to avoid the hard floor. Decided that with guests and sleepovers we'll need them anyway. We'll take the bins over tomorrow and I'll finally get some wash done... four people x one week = a lot of wash.

When people leave the school, many donate items to the incoming teachers. Someone left some yarn. Didn't take too much, although I did grab some went to a friend of mine. I did take some nice 100% merino wool. There wasn't a lot, but I'm making two cases--one for an iPod and one for my husband's reading glasses. I'll try to felt it. Doesn't always work well in the front loading machine, but then again, my former cleaning lady did shrink my daughter's expensive Norwegian sweater without too much trouble. Once again, I'll have photos shortly.

I'm also still working on my leftover vest, but it's gotten too big to walk around with in my knitting bag so that's why I started the smaller projects mentioned above. I'm making it up the back of the vest at this point. It's going fine. Just hope it looks good when it's finished... a little rough at the moment. One of the yarns isn't the same quality as the others and it shows (puckers, not laying as nicely as the rest). Just hoping I'm not disappointed.