Lou-quacious Yarns
We’ve had a little bit of snow today, but it hasn’t really settled. Which is good, because it meant that the rails and roads were OK for getting back from the Skunk Anansie gig at Brixton Academy last night. That was fantastic, by the way, and if I can find the words I’ll try to write up some kind of review.
Today, I’ve finally been working on the photo album for this site again. So, as an experiment, let’s try displaying a gallery from it on this post…
Finally, belatedly, here are the pictures and info for my “Gap Year Travels” Travelling Woman shawl.
Pattern: Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante [Ravlink]
Yarn: The Yarn Yard Bonny in Byron Bay & Art Deco solid, and Wendy Sunbeam St. Ives 4ply Sock Wool in Dark Grey.
Needles: 4mm metal circulars.
I don’t normally do this, since it isn’t Thanksgiving in the UK, but I think I will this year. So here goes: Reasons to be Cheerful, 1, 2, 3….
There are many more things I could list (music! yarn! spinning! knitting!), of course, but those are three just off the top of my head. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
It is getting cold out there – going to be below freezing tonight, and snow is on the way. I think I’m going to get snuggled under my duvet asap.
In website news, though, I think I’ve got everything sorted out that was wonky, so that’s all good. Something to sleep comfortably on!
My brother and sister-in-law brought pressies back from New Zealand! So I thought I’d show one of mine off:
The name of the colour comes from a New Zealand bird which has plumage in the colour of the yarn. Oh, and it’s a lovely 100g hank of bulky-weight mohair… I’ve been thinking about what to make with it, but I think I’ve settled on a shawl of some kind.
I thought I wasn’t going to get to post today, because the website has been down since about midnight last night, and it wasn’t looking hopeful! But then my host fixed everything (hooray), and although I had to restore a couple of posts again, at least I had a backup of my own this time. That’s right, I got cautious.
So today, while I’ve been working on the site design, I’ve only just uploaded it, and… well, a couple of things aren’t quite working yet. Ah well, try again tomorrow. I’m happy enough with most of it.
Now, I’m off to bed, as I am library-ing in the morning. Good night!
I’ve been faffing around with the design of the non-blog pages on this site today and yesterday… and I’ve made a right hash of it! That’ll teach me to try modifying someone else’s code rather than writing my own. I’m going to take a step back and do some rewriting – it’ll make more sense to me that way, and hopefully even work!
In other news, today is the start of this month’s IComLeavWe, and marks a year since I first joined that group! Maybe I’ll try for Iron Commenter status this time around. I’ll have a crack, at any rate.
IComLeavWe: Join the Conversation
Comments awaaaaaaaaaay! (If only the website will stay up; this server move seems to be taking longer than I expected… Apparently there are now some issues with SQL that’s causing database connection errors. Which temporarily eats this site! Hopefully that will be fixed soon.)
My brother and sister-in-law got home from their honeymoon today, hooray! They’ve been in New Zealand for two months, so it’s lovely to have them back and be able to see them and chat to them in person, rather than just reading about their adventures on their blog!
This afternoon we’ve been over to their place to say hi and see some of the photos they took. They met up with some NZ cousins of ours while they were there, so it was lovely to see pics of them. I think we still have some photos to see, though – there are lots and lots! :-)
I should have taken a back-up after I posted yesterday. I should have known. But silly me, I didn’t. So the entry I did post is gone, eaten I assume by the server move that’s happening with my web host at the moment. It didn’t help that I was having computer troubles the same day.
My livejournal feed did manage to grab the entry before it vanished again, so I can tell you that it was posted at 23:57, the post id is one which doesn’t exist in my current database, and the excerpt text (whyyyyy did I never change to full text feeds?!) says:
“Oh dear, my computer hasn’t been firing on all cylinders today. I’m pretty sure the problem was with my virus checker since it all started after a change to that. I’ve run a ‘repair’ thingy on it, and hopefully everything …”
… and then I continued on to say that all should work now, fingers crossed etc, the end. That LJ feed will only stay there for 10 days, I think, so it’s not a permanent record. Bah!
I hope the mods are OK with counting this for yesterday’s NaBloPoMo entry, considering I did post, but it vanished. I shall drop them a line to check, I think.
This will make more sense after reading the next chronological post, but the proper post from 18th Nov went missing. But! Here is proof that it did exist:
Having heard back from the lovely Nablopomo mod, I have the go-ahead to backdate this post so that I don’t miss out on an entry yesterday. Hooray!
Well, sort of – I said I would post pictures of the finished shawl today, and I haven’t got around to taking and uploading them yet. What I do have is a sort-of, half-finished, almost new blog design. Yeah, I know, but it’ll do for now – there will be many more adjustments to come. It’s a fork of the Thirty-ten WP child theme. Pictures by me, some things (like the Rav bars) not working yet. Maybe tomorrow.
Hooray, I’ve finished my Gap Year Travels shawl. I cast off in a different colour, which was totally a design feature and not because I ran out of yarn twice (if you believe that, etc etc), ends are sewn in, and it’s currently awaiting blocking – I’m going to leave it pinned on the table overnight, I think. I do believe I’m quite pleased. Pictures tomorrow!
Since I’m extremely tired today (I have new medication which is making me drowsy, hopefully just for the adjustment period, and every time I sit down somewhere relaxing I drop off!), I’m not going to say much again. I haven’t managed to finish the shawl yet, but just have the cast off edge to go. I’ve been setting the twist of some of my handspun:
(excuse the rubbish photo), and also marvelling over how the Xandermog can go from FULL ON PESTER mode to fast asleep, you-can’t-wake-me in under five minutes flat. Still when the result is this little face:
how can you complain?
Just two rows to go on the Gap Year Travels shawl now:
I’m planning to finish it and leave it blocking before I go to bed. Yay!
Today has been a day of variety, which has been nice! I started out by going up to the Christmas fair for Mum’s church – I got there quite late on, so I helped clear up and carry the remaining stuff back up to the church. I got a few nice cards and nick knacks for gifts, so that was a worthwhile trip. Then I walked with Mum back to her house for a drink and then a lift home.
On the way up to Mum’s place, I stopped off and did a geocache that was en route. It took me a bit longer than I’d planned due to me being disorganised with my stuff, but it was still a speedy one. Not a micro one this time, but a still small one. So not big enough to put the travelling monkey into, yet. Poor monkey! I’ll move him on soon, by hook or by crook!
After visiting at Mum’s for a while, we came back here and had dinner – stir fry followed by cupcakes! Then Mum went home and I’ve been knitting and watching Strictly Come Dancing. I’m still working on the Travelling Woman, but hopefully I’ll be done soon. Maybe tonight? Maybe tomorrow.
And then I’ve been playing with Blip.fm – I’ve put a widget linking to my account there in the sidebar, and I think it’s possible to play some tracks directly from here? I’m not sure, I’m still figuring it out. That’s not what I’m using it for, anyway. Mostly I’m listening to the songs my friends have playlisted. Is that even a word? Probably not, but I know what I mean, and I’m sure you do too. Anyway, I thought I’d put the widget up here because in the first place I can, and also because I’m trying to get all my web stuff better linked together. Integrate my web presence. Oh how pretentious. ;-)