Oh I do Love to be beside the Capital of Culture!

Whilst I wouldn't want to actually live in Liverpool (being too much of a country girl at heart!) it has been great being on the doorstep of this City during this year of Capital of Culture. There have been so many wonderful events that have been wonderful to watch and feel part of. My favorites have to have been the Tall Ships Race, photos of which can be found here and the 'Go Superlambananas' sculpture trail which involved over 120 Superlambanana sculptures dotted around the City (as well as Runcorn, Euston and Moel Fammau in Wales). What fun we had chasing all over the place finding them all (not sure if our feet agreed with all the walking but still!) and since we couldn't make it to Euston demands were made by Hubby to his company (who sponsored the Euston Lamb) to bring her back home to Liverpool, a fact he is mightily pleased about (even if his middle name in work is now 'Lambanana'!). And Emily has really enjoyed hunting them down too - that's her at the bottom hugging one of them!

A Selection of my favorite SuperLambananas!

And now, after the SuperLambananas have left the city a new creature has emerged, disturbed by all the renovation work Liverpool is undergoing - 'La Princesse' has arrived courtesy of 'La Machine'!!

Boy she is big! 37 tonnes and 50 foot high - so big my arachnophobia said 'Get real!' and didn't engage. DD and I spent the morning watching as she was craned down from the building where I used to work (which actually I'm glad I wasn't in as a Giant Spider crept past the window!) and on to a lorry taking her down to Albert Dock ready for this weekends excitement.

Exactly what 'La Princesse' will do is unknown, maybe she'll spin us a tale! It's all being kept secret but it will be a great extravaganza and we shall enjoy as much as we can! I will leave you with one more shot - that on the police bike that was genuinely part of her escort... co-incidence or not?! LOL!

All I want is a Tall Ship...

... And a star to steer her by.

As you may or may not know Liverpool recently played host to the Tall Ships Race which was absolutely fantastic and stirred my soul making me want to run away to sea again. Last time they were up was in 1992 and I did run away to sea as it were by signing up to sail with the Sail Training Association that August and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think maybe the family history of sailing and working at sea helps the appeal but I don't think there could have been many people who'd fail to be impressed with the ships that were berthed in Liverpool this last weekend. And there certainly were loads there to see them all too!

Anyway enough of the Capital of Culture report for now and back to our usual topic! There has been knitting, spinning and dyeing activity a plenty over the past few weeks, as the blue fingers and blue smudges over the computer keyboard will vouch for! And little Emily has been the lucky recipient for a lot of it. For her birthday this year she had a toy kitchen but she's hadn't got a lot of food to go with it so I decided to fix that by knitting her some more food and I've had a load of fun doing them too as most of them could be churned out in just one evening or less and the huge smiles on her face has been encouragement enough plus they're good little stash busters! So far she has a slice of Battenburg cake, an iced bun, an ice-cream cone, two cupcakes, a cheese sandwich and a chocolate biscuit. I must admit that my favorite is the ice-cream which is really cool, even if it's blue - which Emily chose and who am I to argue!

I almost forgot that Emily also had some new socks ready for Winter using Gilraens Micro Monkey pattern and some Garnstudio Fabel which has lovely bright colours for little feet and is reasonably priced too. A nice simple pattern to knit, the only work is making up the heel and toe numbers to fit as you go. So that's one pair down ready for Winter and more stashbusting socks to go as these only took 28g of wool and I'm sure I've plenty of leftovers for more!

Also for Miss Emily on the knitting front is a really easy knit (again busting that stash!) using just 100g (with leftovers!) of James Brett's Kool Kotton cotton blend DK yarn and a pattern I found on Ravelry here but I modified it slightly to get the ruffled edge which is really cute and girly. It was a quick knit as well and only took 8 days to finish.


Next on the needles will be for Emily as well and is a cable jumper pattern from Sirdar, can't remember which one right now so will give the details later! As for the dyeing they'll all be uploaded shortly to our etsy shop 'Mam a Mi' and boy do I wish I could keep them all!! And, if you hadn't have guessed already, one has got some luscious blues in it!!

Fireworks for Finished Objects!

Not really! I'm very lucky to have great scenery on my drive to and from my knitting group. Some people may not agree with me, especially when I say that I have to drive through Birkenhead's Dock area but it really does have lovely urban scenery and I've seen some fantastic sunsets over the docks on my way to knitting on many an occasion.
And in addition to this there is the views over the River Mersey to Liverpool which really has a great waterfront. And on Tuesday night as I was coming home from knitting I had an extra special treat. I got myself front row seats (well standing room) at a Birthday celebration. If you weren't aware the City of Liverpool is 800 years old and really celebrated '800 day' in style with one of the largest fireworks displays on the river in years. And boy was it spectacular - they even had fireworks that burst open to say '800' which I am seriously impressed with!

It also gave me a chance to test my cameras 'firework' setting and try and capture the atmosphere.

You can't really tell but the orange blur to the lower left is actually the Liver Building home to Liverpool's famous Liver Birds. It sounded like they were bombing Liverpool with all the blasts and bangs and combined with all the smoke and searchlights they had it almost felt like having gone back in time and watching a wartime air raid. Anyway, I thought I'd share this little bit of local news with you all as it really was a fun night out!

Back to the knitting I've a flurry of knitting to share with you and, sit yourself down, some more FO's. Recent ones. And another half done WIP. Yes, there has been some concentrated knitting time (OK - due to being full of cold but it's still results!)

Exhibit A - Angora Fetchings. Based on the pattern from Knitty, I used some Louisa Harding Kimono Angora and 3.75mm dpns and lenghtened them to make skinny hand versions as a (belated) birthday present for my brothers girlfriend. They've gone down well and I did promise her some mittens last Winter so at least they'll be in time for this year! She's bunny mad as well hence the angora yarn which is insanely light and fluffy. These were knitted from one 25g ball and I've got a load of left overs!

Exhibit B - Finally I've gotten round to completing my Devon Holiday socks which was a silly UFO having only about 1" to knit up before casting off for the toe. Needless to say these took next to no time to whip off the needles and near enough straight on the feet! The pattern was from 'Sensational Knitted Socks' and if I ever find where I've put the book I'll tell you exactly what pattern it was. Yarn is as usual some Colinette 4ply wool from the Mill shop sale room. You can see slight colour variations - on the right foot the toe area is a little redder than the rest and on the left the cuff is redder. I realised what was happening and switched back to another section of yarn so I could end up with mostly matching socks.

So far they're lovely and snug and cosy and was a simple lace pattern to do, even if the colours in the yarn don't really show this up much!

No sooner had I grafted the toe of these, stitches were rapidly cast on for Monkey which started zooming along, so much so that I've already finished one sock and am halfway down the next leg! Must say it's a great pattern and I'm glad to be finally knitting them and am probably the last person globally to be knitting them. I can see myself knitting more of these and I'm really pleased with how the yarn is knitting up as well. This is some of my holiday yarn namely some Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch which feels lovely and woolly and has lovely soft colour changes which don't seem to distract from the pattern. This photo is pretty accurate colour wise except just before the heel flap on the leg.

You can also see my latest lucky acquisition - my very own set of 'Tony Toes' sock blockers! I'm trying to persuade Mum's DH that he could start earning a bit of pocket money making these sock blockers to sell and have decided that he should brand them 'Tony Toes' but I'm not sure if he's convinced yet! But bless him they are great and have been a godsend recently as my DH accidentally washed a pair of my 100% wool socks. In the Washing Machine. Softly felted socks anyone? Thank goodness I can still get my foot in them and they are on the blockers being stretched. I just seem to have lost a bit of length in the leg (of the socks - not me!) and somehow managed to get a hole in them in the lace section. Thankfully I've plenty of that yarn left so I'll darn the hole and it needs be I'll knit another pair - why though does this have to happen to your favorite pair?!