I've been very remiss about keeping you up-to-date with the ospreys. A lot has happened. The female has stuck with the new male who turned up, and he has been a dab hand at turning up with fish. She laid three eggs, which is the usual osprey clutch, and they have all hatched.
The dad was seen with a length of fishing line attached to him, about 40 feet of it, which caused some anxiety for a while, but it seems to have fallen off and he is back on maximum fish duty. There's lots of feeding going on, and lots of chirping.The chicks are growing stronger by the day, visibly, and things appear at the moment to be going well.
When I was watching this last year, I was optimistic and possibly a little casual about it all, but none of last year's chicks made it - one died in the nest with a fair amount of help from the family, one disappeared over the ocean on the way to Africa, and the last one disappeared just as she was about to return earlier this year - so this year I am a bit more on edge.
Knitting I was thinking that the pain I had in my right hand was down to excessive mousing, but I realized on Monday that it was probably down to excessive lace knitting, so I tore myself away, with considerable difficulty, from the off-blog project and have picked up the Silk Garden Lara again. This means I have a great heavy pile of mohair and lambswool on my lap during the hottest days of the year, but then that's what knitting is all about, isn't it?
I am doing the decreases using Fiona's method for getting smooth edges instead of steps. I saw it last year when she posted it, bookmarked it, and was able to find it again when I needed it, amazingly enough. It is absolutely brilliant.
A kind friend gave me a couple more balls of the yarn for my birthday and I think this may see it to the end, or to within about half an inch of the end if my luck is as usual. The colours really are gorgeous, and the greens are even brighter than they look here. And yes, one of the dark blues does match my nail polish, how did you know?
Politics And to finish, the current theme song of the UK House of Commons -
Knitting I finished the latest Shag. There was a lighter flash at the end of the second ball which placed itself very effectively at one end of the scarf. Every time I walk past it, I think of black and white films. I do find the yarn (Rowan Tapestry) a tiny bit scratchy, but not so much that I can't wear it.
And I've started yet another repeat project, this time another Pinwheel Blanket. One of my friends is due this week ('I'm due to be sectioned on 9th April,' she said in a text, which is quite a good joke in British English) and it's a boy, so I'm doing this one in shades of blue All Seasons Cotton. I started it with this very clever circular cast on from Theresa's blog which makes a nice neat start.
After wrestling for hours with the beginning of my first Pinwheel, I now start these by knitting backwards and forwards for the first few rows - knitting five stitches on four needles doesn't do anything for my temper - and sew up the hole afterwards.
Theresa also shows how to do Norwegian purl, which allows you to do ribbing or moss stitch without eternally taking the yarn backwards and forwards and is one of the cleverest things I know. I haven't perfected doing it yet, but I practise from time to time and intend one day to do a piece of moss stitch that isn't horribly slack.
Since I snapped this, I've started on the third colour, which is a vivid turquoise.
Something New I am however in the planning stages of a new project which will use a pattern I haven't done before, and a new-to-me yarn too, so things should brighten up soon. The yarn is on its way from Canada; another essential ingredient will soon be on its way New Jersey; and then swatching can begin. I have a horrible feeing that I'm cruising for a fall and it will all, as my aunt says, 'come a box of eggs', but let's hope not.
It's called Little Luxury Knits, and isn't to be confused with Knitting Little Luxuries, which came out at the end of 2007. Why do they do that? Don't they know I'm confused enough already? The first one brought out my inner Presbyterian, who can be quite a powerful force - she's the one who didn't want me to buy the iPod Touch before my birthday. She did a lot of harumphing about why would you need a pattern to knit a thing like that? and so on, so I didn't buy it, but this one has brought out my inner butterfly and I've been cooing over it pretty steadily since I got it home. Haven't cast on anything yet.
I've also fallen very heavily for Kim Hargreaves' new collection, Breeze, but I haven't bought it yet. It appears that having been fairly successful in stopping buying yarn, I am now buying pattern books instead. It reminds me of when my father saw a hypnotherapist to see if he (the hypnotist) could stop him (my father) smoking: after examining him and learning how long he had been smoking and how much, the hypnotist said that he could, but he didn't know what he might start doing instead.
Ospreys Exciting news from the ospreys' nest: a suitor has arrived. He isn't ringed so they don't know where he's from, and they've called him Odin. Her name is EJ, from her leg ring, but I like to think that it stands for Elizabeth Jane or something - given the Scottish angle, maybe Elspeth Janet. There's still time for another man to show up, but this one has been bringing her fish and generally doing his best to impress her.
Knitting I bought a couple of balls of Rowan's Tapestry some time ago, and could never decide what to do with it. Too fine for this, too thick for that. Then I was wandering round Ravelry last week when I came across this (hi, Judith!), the wonderful Shag pattern from Knitting New Scarves, knitted in that very yarn. It's not stealing if you steal from the best, so I cast on right away.
I'm nearly half-way through the second skein now and this time I'm managing without a row counter thingy and am counting the purl ridges instead. It's got three of my favourite colours - light grey, mid grey and dark grey - and I love it. I think it's the sixth of these I've knitted.
I did another little coat for my new friend, in Debbie Bliss Pure Cashmere - before you faint, it was the leftovers from my Felicity Hat.
I've picked up Lara again and she's looking beautiful. All the colours have settled the way I wanted them in the collar, no huge swathes of loud green near my face, which was entirely down to good luck. I did change the order of the colours one night when I was knitting in a bad light, but I ripped it the next morning and put it back the way it would have been if I hadn't interfered. The Noro colour master, he knows best.
I've made a jigsaw of this - lots of stripes in the floor and in the colours - see the sidebar.
It occurs to me that everything I've got on the needles just now is something I've knitted before - Shag, Lara and a Forest Canopy Shawl. I must do something about this soon.
Graham Norton Show If you follow the Yarn Harlot, you'll know that she (or at least her voice) was on the Graham Norton Show recently, when Greg Kinnear was a guest. Then last week, or it might have been the week before - I record it and watch it later - Graham was talking about the German knitting grannies at NetGranny (they're Swiss, but I think he said they were German) and he spoke to one of them, this one. And, I remember a while ago he had Carol Meldrum on the show - not as a guest, but in the front row of the audience. It was when her Knitted Icons book came out and she showed some of them. So, and sorry if I've been a long time getting here, there must be a researcher on the show who's really into knitting. Who will we see next, I wonder?
Photo Blogs When I'm not peering at other people's knitting, I sometimes peer at their photographs. I discovered the Big Picture earlier this year and have been stunned at regular intervals since. Click on this one to see it full size.
A U.S. Marine patrols with an opium poppy flower on his helmet on March 19, 2009 near Baqwa in Farah province of southwest Afghanistan. (John Moore/Getty Images)
This is from a recent selection on Signs of Spring, and have a look at these for Earth Hour: you can turn the lights on and off in the photos. Cool.
Fuzzarelly, who has a fibre blog, also has a photo blog called Back Roads of Harrison County. All her pictures can be embiggened and some of them have a lovely, lost quality, sort of Andrew Wyeth-y.
Ospreys The osprey mum is back at the nest. You can see her on the webcam. No, really, you can sometimes. I saw her yesterday, honest. They don't seem to have the sound turned on; I used to like listening to the wind, but maybe they'll turn it on if and when there are chicks to listen to.
It's so exciting: I saw one of the osprey chicks take off and flap a couple of feet above the nest this morning, and stay there for quite a while. The chicks are a boy and a girl (like Angelina's twins) and I can't tell them apart, although a lot of viewers of the webcam can, and viewers have been placing bets on who would be first to fly, and when. When I say placing bets, I don't think any money's been changing hands except perhaps in donations to the RSPB. Most imaginary money has been on the girl, who is called Nethy or more prosaically, AY. AY is the name on her leg ring so that she can be identified when she arrives in Africa or anywhere she chooses to stop off, and 'Nethy' is the name she's been given by the wardens: it's the name of one of the local primary schools. The boy is AZ and Deshar.
This clip is from the week before last, and shows Mum arriving, and then Dad arriving with a fish. .......................................................................... Whooooosh!
They've pulled back the webcam, or switched to a different one, so that we can see the whole nest now. I can't get over nests: how do birds do that? I couldn't build a nest, and I've got opposable thumbs. The present camera is further away and hence we can't hear the chirping and shrieking, which is a relief sometimes and disappointing at others.
Anyway, knitting. The above is not entirely a diversionary tactic, as you might have suspected; there has been knitting. I re-did the first front shaping on Chrissy and started on the second: then I ripped them both and started all over again. I won't bore you with the details, but I will give you a piece of advice. Always check your stitch count before you divide for the front neck. But I expect you knew that already. I watched another couple of epsiodes of Law and Order while I did that. On the Hallmark Channel, Lennie Briscoe is alive and well. I've picked up the stitches for the neck and am progressing round and round with that, although I am sort of thinking of ripping it and changing to a 3 x 1 rib, instead of the 3 x 3.
I wound another skein of the handspun and did a few more repeats of the baby shawl. It's very comforting knitting. I hope Baby finds it comforting to wear; although the mother-to-be has mentioned that it's high summer in Queensland in October, I think they have air con so the little mite will probably need a warm shawl after all.
And there has been dyeing. I had another go at the hank I did before and strengthened all the colours. I felt a lot more confident this time so I really worked it and I had also realized that the dye is actually attracted by the yarn and leaves the water very rapidly, so I made use of that. Although the yarn is Knitpicks' Bare and is intended for dyeing, it is superwash and some nylon so it's not going to take the colours very richly, but I'm happier with the results than I ever expected to be. They're bright in a springlike way, rather than a totally garish way. If I knitted socks, I'd be perfectly happy to haVe a pair of socks made from it. But I don't knit socks.
When I visited Jean this week, I sneaked a peek at the Princess, which is awe-inspiring. I can see why she's itching to get back to it even although the idea of tackling such a project makes me feel faint and panicky.
This is more my speed. Yes, it's another Forest Canopy Shawl, folks. A friend was round the other evening when I had some balls of Kidsilk Haze scattered about and she was very taken with this shade, which is Meadow, 581. It's a very soft green, which always makes me think of Spring. It's the colour I used for the Scaruffle. So I decided to knit her a little froth to wear around her neck. It's like knitting with whispers, and amazingly quick. I did this bit last night while catching up on last week's Midsomer Murder. I'm using bamboo Addi circs, 4 mm or size 6. Addi bamboos are varnished so they're not as sticky as plain bamboo, but they're not as slippy as metal and it's zipping along.
I'm glad everybody was so taken with Italian for Beginners. I have to confess I've never read anything by Maeve Binchy, but it hadn't occurred to me that the setting was at all un-Danish... whatever that might mean. Apparently it's the highest grossing Danish film ever, because it took off in the U.S.
I can relate to your seeing it in Florence, Joan - in Danish with Italian subtitles - because once when I was in Amsterdam I went to see a film called Made in U.S.A., which turned out to be a Jean-Luc Godard film which even his fans say is 'not too accessible', in French with Dutch subtitles. It was in the days when you went in at the beginning of the film and stayed there until it was finished. My comprehension of written French isn't bad, but I can't follow the simplest conversation so I was totally lost - I probably would have been all right if it had had French subtitles, but of course it didn't.
Judith, since you obviously record the same films as I do from BBC4, have you watched The Poisoner yet? It's absolutely staggering. I'll do a post about it later, because there are things I must do this afternoon.
Where about in Tollcross is your flat, Mcknitus? I could have a look next time I'm in the area. I used to be up that way when visiting HK Handknit of blessed memory; I don't have much cause now but it's not that far away.
My new pc crashed on Sunday. A fullblown megadeath crash, with everything lost and a full system restore required. I'm lucky that in 20 years of spending hours a day at a pc, at work or at home, I've never actually lost data (smug, moi?), but on Sunday night I didn't feel very lucky. When I ran the backup, the system told me I didn't have the right to access my photos, or my music, or anything else, but after several cups of tea and a large glass of wine I managed to find a workaround - I copied the files I wanted to access to a different location and when the system asked me to give myself permission to do this, I did. Ha. It's always satisfying when human ingenuity outwits computer logic, although I can't say it happens very often.
I don't think it was the new pc's fault, by the way; I think the culprit was the dreaded Microsoft Update, which I might eschew from now on. So all the tweaking and downloading that I did on my new pc a few weeks ago to make it my very own has had to be redone, sigh. And have I copied all my music and photos to an external drive now? You bet your sweet patootie I have.
Anyway, before all that, I got the Swallowtail blocked. I did the last couple of rows and the cast-off in the darker yarn again and I don't think it was a terrible mistake. But however impressed I am with myself for having done the Lily of the Valley pattern - and I am - go on, click - I don't feel any great love for this item. I would quite happily give it to the milkman, if I had one.
The handspun merino / bfl has arrived from Heike and is heavenly. But before I get on with the Forest Canopy Shawl for the baby, I'm doing a quick bow-tied bolero for the little pink person. It's the one from Debbie Bliss's Special Knits. I knitted this for her twice when she was tiny, in finger-breaking cotton and in stripes, but this time I'm using the prescibed yarn, Baby Cashmerino. I love this book, in spite of the fact that I am driven mad by its lack of schematics, but I'm not so keen on the yarn. Given that it contains merino wool, acrylic and cashmere, it really ought to be softer.
I think it's going to be too big, but at least that way it'll fit her someday: I started off on 3mm needles and ripped that as it came out too small and too stiff a fabric: I'm quite a tight knitter. I've done the back and one front. She doesn't like buttons, so the ties should go down well. I'm knitting it in the same colour as the book photo shown above, although I didn't realize that until after the yarn arrived.
One of my favourite websites at the moment is this webcam at Loch Garten which shows the ospreys' nest with three chicks. It's so close that you don't really get a sense of the scale; you could be forgiven for thinking that the mother is about the size of a chicken when in fact an adult osprey is, well, enormous, and can have a six-foot wingspan. It's got live sound too, so you can hear everyone chirping. I thought the pc was making a funny noise the other day, but it was just the ospreys - not often you can say that.
To celebrate the arrival of the handspun, I've added a new jigsaw in the sidebar, which is a picture of the beginnings of the shawl. I think it might be rather a difficult one.
I learnt to knit at school and took it up again in my late twenties, and then again later, and it got squeezed out both times by changes in my life.
Now I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which leaves me sitting on the couch an awful lot. Some days I can’t knit anything too complicated because of what is politely called ‘brain fog’, other days I can knit lace. Some days I think I can do lace and then realize the next day that I couldn’t.
