All Fingers and Thumbs

So if we can get a drum roll please, I am delighted to announce the winners of the third blogiversary yarn drawings from All Fingers and Thumbs. For the the Piccolo iiiiiiitttttttssssssss.... Lori , for the Manos our hedgehog loving friend... Kelly and last but not least for the Plaid... Fiona. If the the three lucky ladies could be in touch with addresses by email or PM to Thumbelina on Ravelry I'll get this yarn in the mail; Fiona: Blogger didn't capture any of your details so I hope you see this here :o) Thank you to everyone who joined in and for all the compliments you left me for my blogging, enough to keep me going for at least enough another three years I think! Here are some winners of another kind, a pair of lovely socks, a finished object I do believe. Something not seen in these parts for quite some time! These are the Socktober Mystery socks finished just in time for the prize draw - quite an incentive to focus! I'd done well at keeping up with the clues until...

Why is it that some crafty techniques are easy and some difficult? Why are some easy for one and difficult for another? Who owns the scale that says what is easy and what is not? When I was on holiday I finally got around to cabling without a cable needle. I've often read of people learning to do this but never quite had the impetus to take what felt like it would be a plunge myself. I thought it was an advanced technique and one that I wasn't sure I would ever bother with. I'm not the world's speediest knitter and have never really minded the extra time involved in using a cable needle. While travelling my main project was the Over the Knee Stockings from Handknit Holidays which has one fiddly cable every ten rows as part of the gorgeous seam that runs up the back of the leg. Part of my getting my knitting on the plane strategy is to avoid taking metal needles in the hand luggage and I thought I could just use a spare DPN as my cable needle, which I did for a while, ...

It's a magic number. My blog is three years old today. I can't quite think whether it feels like I've had a blog for three minutes or if I always had one. Do you ever feel that way about time? Somehow that first post is forever ago and also yesterday. Anyway it wouldn't be a good blogiversary without some prizes for t'dear readers would it now? Three years means three prizes in my book and as my destashing efforts have been hurt by my yarn tourism I think I'd better share some stash as prizes and redress the balance a bit. These are all yarns that I'm just not sure what to do with so I hope your imaginations are better than mine. Excuse the photos from the archives, weathery gloom means these are the best we can get. 1) There are fifteen skeins of this Lana Grossa Piccolo Print, which gives you just under 900 metres of it. It was a gift to me and I've never quite had the vision of what it wants to be. 2) Three skeins of Rowan Plaid, I think this colourwa...

Oh there was yarn shopping a plenty on this trip; I knew to look for yarn stores in Portland and Seattle but even Cannon Beach has its own beautiful store. My pre-trip target was just some Raven Clan Socks that Rock as the perfect local souvenir. Howeve it's rare stuff even in the Pacific Northwest and I didn't find any until the last store I visited and it just seemed impossible not to collect a little something from each shop. It has to be said that I am a dreadful yarn shop yarn shopper - so indecisive - I like to check EVERYTHING out maybe three times and in the end tend to go for a safe skein of sock yarn I know I'll use. Free WIFI or use of networked PC would be such a great addition to any bricks and mortar store. I hinted to see if the assistant would look something up for me in one place but I think I was too subtle! Aaaanyways, I digress - here's the haul: As well as being too shy to ask outright for use of the internet I am also too shy to take photos in st...

Today at work I had that "it's as if I never had a holiday" feeling. Definitely time to pick out a sample of the over 300 (!) photos I managed to take in Seattle to share with you and remind myself how fun it was. Oh it was such fun, such a great trip all round. We got the train from Portland up to Seattle, fabulously comfy knitting opportunity ahoy. We stayed right by Pike Place Market which is a maze of little shops and stalls, quite focused on the tourists but fun nonetheless. The views from the roof of our hotel out over Puget Sound were wonderful. I may have become a little obsessed with the view across to the port and the cranes which look to me like some sort of prehistoric monsters standing waiting to feed on the container ships. I think I could stare at this view forever and never tire of it as it changes so much. We did our normal walking, walking, walking around. Loved the sculpture park. Had to visit perhaps the most famous public library in the knitting worl...