Needles on the Move

Welcome to Spintelligence! I’ve wanted to run a fibre club for ages and now that my Pilates training is finished I have the time to devote to it properly. The club will run for 6 months, with three postings of gorgeous hand-dyed fibre from Indie dyers. You’ll also get spinning techniques, tips and tutorials, plus chat and advice throughout the club.

You can see all the details and prices here, Sign-ups will open at 11am today Sign-ups Open!!

P.S. Don’t you love the logo :-) Made by the fabulous Rock&Purl!

I know I’ve been in and out lately, well for the past year really, but things are settling down around here. My training is practically over and my joints are behaving enough to be able to crank up the spinning and knitting again.

I’m very keen to start up a fibre club, similar to things I’ve done in the past.
You’ll get

• exclusive hand-dyed fibre
• notes on the fibre content and dyer background
• spinning techniques, advice and guidelines
• pattern suggestions

Plus all the social gossip and chat that goes along with a club, including hopefully a real-life meet-up for each shipment as well.

I’m still considering ideas for payment models, fibre folks and delivery methods, I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please pop by the Ravelry thread and let me know what you think.

Shock! Horrer! An actual blog post…

It’s been so long since I was here that I just had to delete 1,300 spam comments. Urk.

So, news… Well, I’ve finished the bulk of my Pilates training and am searching for a job in a studio. August is a pretty dead quiet month for Pilates though, so no-one’s in a particular hurry to be hiring. There’s some stuff around though so I’m not worried. I’ve also started training for my specialisation in Low Back Pain, pretty heavy going! It’ll take roughly the rest of the year to finish, maybe a bit longer.

We’ve got some travel planned for the rest of the year: off to Prague for the August bank holiday, visiting Will and Elcin in Istanbul in October, and then Kai and Ollie in Germany in December. Neil’s talking about going somewhere warm for New Year’s, he’s never been a fan of the London winter. So you may find us in the Caribbean or something!

Last weekend was Knit Nation here in London, I booked my tickets in December on the day they were released and have been so excited about it! It’s the only fibre event I’ve managed to get to this year (and do classes and so on, I did get to shop at Unravel), and it was brilliant to catch up with everybody. So many people I haven’t seen in ages and even though I was there 2 days it wasn’t nearly enough time to properly chat with everyone.

I know you want to see swag, it’s very small though. I’m not knitting much these days, so the stash is going up rather than down at a rather alarming rate, so I’m being careful not to over-run the flat!

I bought only two (2) skeins of Wollmeise (I know, crazy right?) in Taube and Moses. I have never knitted with it, and already have one skein in my stash, so until I’ve tried it, I don’t really think I should go nuts over it. It’s one thing to love the colour, but if I don’t like knitting it, where would I be then? (What? You’ll willingly take it off my hands? Surprise surprise.) 3 skeins is plenty for now.

I bought some laceweight, alpaca/silk/cashmere from Artisan yarns - in a colour that matches my eyes :)

I also bought baby yarn for the niece-phew in roughly the same colour, I figure there’s a good chance the baby will have eyes this colour too, so it’s an obvious choice.

Cookie A was there, so it was a good time to pick up a copy of Sock Innovation, which I’ve meaning to do for a while, and get it signed!

And last but not least, a sock project bag from NicsKnots - see the wolf? I love this fabric. Next knit night may see me combining the book, yarn and project bag into one big happy KN-purchases-project. I have my eye on Sam at the moment, or maybe Bex.

I didn’t get any pictures of friends and so on at the event, which is a shame, but you can see a rather nutty picture of me here admiring Velvet’s fabulous handspun shawl! I made a few new friends too, and admired many lovely knits - lots are now in my queue. I tried on a Coraline and decided I have to knit one, so that’s going to be up soon, maybe in Rowan wool/cotton. And probably blue ;-)

I have become such a lazy blogger - even when I have multiple finished objects, and pictures of them, I don’t seem to be able to get organized to blog about them! So here they are all together, the product of my needles over the last few months.

(sorry about the slightly rubbish quality of the photos - uploads from my blackberry are playing up at the moment)

More Monkey socks

I’ve knitted this pattern three times now, and will definitely do it again. There’s just something about it that makes it the perfect balance between not-boring and not-time-consuming. I prefer them without the purl stitches though (well, makes it even quicker).

Pattern: Monkey by Cookie A
Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Corsage (I am IN LOVE with this yarn and replaced this skein 8 rows before casting off)
Mods: No purl sts, toe-up

TIny Shoes

Because I couldn’t bear to stop knitting with the Tosh Sock!

Pattern: Tiny Shoes by Ysolda
Yarn: leftovers from above
Mods: I altered the strap slightly, but otherwise as written

Endpaper Mitts

My first time knitting this pattern, and first Koigu colourwork - in LOVE (um, does that make me a bigamist?…) The fabric created is just yummy :-)

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang
Yarn: Koigu PPPM, nearly a skein of MC a bit under half of CC
Mods: I changed the thumb to a normal gusset, and added an outline MC stitch each side to make clearer stripes.

Happy-Ruth Star

This was a little present to cheer up a pal who had a rough task to endure!

Pattern: Mini-Stern Kissen by Annette Maass
Yarn: Koigu PPPM scraps
Mods: I picked up sts for the second star rather than knitting two and sewing, added buttons.

Take 1 Snow Day, 1 skein of super-squidgy handspun yarn, 1 pair chunky needles.

Cast on 64sts and go around and around in mistake rib until lunchtime.

Make a warm and cosy kedgeree for lunch, ease out the sofa-kinks in your neck and shoulders.

Go around and around some more, contemplate turning on the TV but decide that watching stitches form in perfect squidgy yarn is enough.

Decrease sharply, knit i-cord until it becomes dull.

Weave in ends, and wear to watch the snow melt the next day.

Yarn: Handspun Merino 3-ply, fibre from Oceanwind Knits, heavy worsted/aran weight.
Colour: Galvanized
Needles: 5.5mm
Pattern: round 1: k2, p2 around, round 2: k1, p2, k1 around

When I first spun this yarn (last summer maybe?) I had a big squidgy hat in mind already. It’s perfect for it. And this fibre is amazing. In fact, my first thought when I finished the last bobbin… “No more Oceanwind Knits in my stash!” :-( And now it’s knitted up it’s really all gone.

Must buy some more…

It’s been a while, but I’m sure you’ll all understand when I explain that I was busy soaking up sun, sun and more sun at home in Australia :-D

You can stop poking me now.

Here’s a picture so you can see I’m not fibbing:

And yes, of course this is what all Australians (and South Africans) do at their weddings.

We also went camping (pictures from my sister sometime I hope), and spent time at the beach house for New Year’s. I took a break from all knitting, spinning, pilates and anything else that could be construed as work. It was fabulous.

—–

At this time of year, it is traditional to look back in the archives of one’s blog and see what plans were laid out for the year and whether they were achieved or not. From 2009:

1) Finish a handspun colourwork vest (that will be the Deep-v Argyle) Ahem - no.
2) Finish a fullsized (i.e. long-sleeved) handspun sweater See above.
3) Finish (at least) one small and one large handspun shawl Large - tick, small no.
I’d also like to…
4) Knit more stash than I buy (I am in a sock club and a fibre club - so seriously, what else do I need???) Well, I have a lot less stash, but that was partly due to some judicious de-stashing. So kind of achieved.

I was kind of screwed on all of this by the issues I had with my back, so the list was doomed from the start really. But we could make a new list:

1) Train for a new career - tick
2) Set up a new business and begin to establish a client base - tick
3) Get myself back into shape physically (from a long way down, believe me!) - tick

I’m not making any promises this year, but I do have a goal… We’ve fallen into a bit too much of a cycle of going for the easy take-out or meal-from-a-jar options. This year’s challenge is to establish routines of cooking quality meals and reducing the rubbish to a minimum. This is partly financial, partly do you realise how much crap is in take-out and processed food?

I want to make more of my own bread (got a great sourdough book for Christmas!) and try interesting flours. I want to investigate the Slow Food movement more thoroughly. I will still have nights where I can’t be bothered cooking, but that’s what freezers are for. Chilli anyone? I want to entertain more, something we did all the time at home but seems to have fallen by the wayside here. I want to try more new things instead of just ‘Monday is pork chop night’. I want to visit the market occasionally and buy quality produce instead of tired supermarket imports from the other side of the world. I want to love what I’m fuelling my body with at every meal.

Here’s to a great 2010, may yours be full of friends, fun times and of course, great food!

Very often I wish I were more clever with things like websites and graphics and css and things that should be easier but seem to sneak up and make themselves go wrong just to be nasty.

And then I remember that I can do a mean Double Leg Stretch and well, you can’t be good at everything!

After much tweaking, and grumbling, and swearing, and desperate calls for help to people-who-know-more-than-me (that’s most people), I figure it out and launched the new website.

The amazing Ali did the photography for me, and Nathalie agreed to pose as a ‘client’. They turned out fab.

Come and see the rest here at Reach Pilates

Now that the madness of training is all over, I have been taking a bit of a rest period. Thinking back, I don’t think I ever switched off from Pilates from the minute I signed up for the course, I even had anatomy books with me on holiday in Turkey (my idea of fun!). Apologies to all those who were subjected to my raving on about musculature and repetitions…

The first thing I did was take off for a short holiday with Kai in Germany (well, ok, really the first thing I did was hit the pub…). We didn’t really do anything except sit on our butts and gossip and knit - it was the perfect break! I got through quite a bit of Christmas knitting and partook of the third installment of Learning Indian Cookery From Kai (yum).

Now that I’m back I’m getting stuck into business planning. The website is almost ready, I have a logo on the way and I’ve been sending out feelers to prospective employers. I’m hoping to have everything neatly in place so that I can completely relax for three weeks in Australia, then come back and get straight into working. Today I’ve been de-cluttering in a big way, prior to welcoming clients into our teeny home. This was the sum total of my entire fibre stash this morning:

It lived under my desk, on top of the kitchen cupboards, behind the sofa, and in practically every drawer in the flat. This is what it looks like now:

A pile of it is at Stash Yarns in a box marked ‘free to good home’ so if you’re swinging by there tomorrow (their last day) please grab whatever you like. I have a few things that will appear on my Rav de-stash page as well.

Next up will be the bookshelf where I keep all my equipment/bobbins/spare whorls/magazines/sewing kit… and I’m not showing you a photo of that one!

Ciao! x

Last week a parcel arrived - but I didn’t open it straight away because it had this written on it:

Yesterday, I passed my final exam at Body Control and this morning I tore off the packaging to reveal this (go look at Katy’s blog for a better picture - this doesn’t do it justice):

My friend (and now colleague!) Katy blogged about the picture here and I fell in love with it. Partly because of the imagery of launching oneself into the unknown - which this year’s training has been a little bit like - and partly because the thought of having a little part of Katy on my wall was very appealing. I am always much more likely to buy a piece of art or handcraft if I know a bit about the background of the artist. I asked if she would be willing to sell it, and it was my present to myself for finishing.

Today I’m relaxing a bit - adrenalin kept me awake last night - and tomorrow I will be handing in all my paperwork to join the Body Control Pilates Association, and then starting promoting myself ready to take on clients in the new year. My new website should be up and running in a week or so - I’ll let you know!

In the meantime, I’ve caught the skating bug badly, and this is what I look like a couple of times a week:

I asked for skates for (early) Christmas after my first trip to the rink, and have since been trying to live up to them and not fall on my butt (succeeding so far!).

There has also been knitting, but no photos of it yet - so more to come in the next post.

Ciao!

Those of you well up on your current events will be aware that things have been a little uncertain in the banking industry this year. Luckily, Neil’s job has stayed intact, but it has been far from secure and we have spent almost an entire year skipping from one one-month contract to the next and never being quite sure what was around the corner. Finally, The Bank came through with a four-month stay, enough to get us through the winter low period and relax enough to be able to finally rationalise some holiday time - yay!

Of course, the four months turned up because things were hotting up on Neil’s project, and I was also right in the middle of teaching rounds for my training, so we ended up only having a couple of days to spare for a long weekend. We recalled a long-standing invitation to visit a mate in Athens, booked flights and were off to find some sun.

We were not disappointed 8-)

Temperatures hovered around the low to mid 20s, a nice contrast to the 10 degrees or so we had in London the day we left. It was almost always sunny, and the obligatory holiday rain only lasted a few minutes on the last day.

Kon had to work Friday, so we toured ourselves around the Acropolis and other parts of ancient Athens, poring over guidebooks and reading bits of Greek history to each other in the sunshine.

Then on Saturday we took a road trip down through Corinth to Napflio, which was the first capital of Greece, and is now a lovely little port city with ancient winding streets and looming fortresses.

One thing I found a little odd about the weather was that the days were still quite short - somewhere in my brain I equate warmth with long long evenings of light, but that wasn’t the case of course. We had hoped to climb up to the main fort but it would have been thoroughly dark coming down so we just admired it from below.

On Sunday we slept latish and decided to just hang out by the waterside and polish off a final Greek coffee and a saganki or two. Then it was off to the aiport to catch our flight home, amidst plans of returning for a week in the summer to potter around some islands!

More pics here in our Flickr set.