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| Finished projects 2002 (with links to archives with picis) |
| Socks (6 pairs): Variegated welly socks Pastel variegated Brown wool Lime green cotton Red variegated Light blue cabled, Cream gansey yarn. |
| Other items (3): Black jacket Red scarf Project Linus Stripy blanket |
| Anne's work on needles |
| Project Linus blanket 2 Pale blue domino squares (à la Vivian Hoxbro), plain border, every other inner square has coloured corners. |
| Greeny-blue socks German 4ply sock yarn. Twisted 1x1 rib all the way down the ankle and continuing across the instep and heel. Sole in stocking stitch, toe back in twisted rib. Very ribby... |
| Fantastic sites for sock knitters |
| Socknitters homepage An amazing site including cyberclasses in sock knitting, patterns, tips, technical help and masses of inspiration. |
| Toe index Different types of sock toes to knit. |
Katherine DeMoure-Aldrich
An amzing, inspirational sock knitter. |
| Software for designers |
| Knitware Design The best programme I have found, and excellent value. |
| Moran software Fantastic sock knitting software for any foot size (shape!), any pattern toe up or top down |
Threadbear Fiberarts - Web-based business in Bloomington IN, run by Matt and Rob. Beautiful yarns selected by those friendly, enthusiastic, creative, experienced knitters. 
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I mentioned that I had had a touch of RSI from knitting (too many hours...). Well, I have been doing some massage / Pilates exercises to help, and help it does. Most numbness and tingling in the wrist and fingers originates in fact from tightened muscles over and on the shoulder blades - not in the carpal tunnel area at all. This can be sorted out by seeing a good massage practitioner who can show you what to do yourself. I also found these two websites which have exercises I would recommend: http://home.earthlink.net/~connieg/carpal.html This one has good exercises, but assumes that the problem is carpal tunnel. It may not be! DON'T find a good surgeon until you have used a good remedial massage practitioner. My Daily Yoga All these exercises, with the possible exception of the first, are safe and highly recommended. (Go easy with the first if you have back ache. It can put more pressure on joints). 2 - 14 are excellent for hand and wrist problems, even if they seem to stretch places nowhere near where the pain is. 30th March 2003 Project Linus blankie is done!!! Yippeeeeeeeee!   This is knitted in the domino style according to Vivan Hoxbro. Every other square has a different coloured corner, and all the outer squares are plain. Here it is modelled by Montague again. The colours experiment: this is getting addictive. I'm up to six different squares of paper, and I feel the sides of the book I lay them out on so I know roughly where to hover. I don't think I can tell the colours just from handling them and shuffling them - I make it happen too quickly for that. It takes about 10 seconds to recognize the easy ones and about two minutes for the difficult ones. On the one hand I fully expect to be right each time I hover, on the other hand, I'm gobsmacked each time I get it fully right (i.e. 6/6). I *always* get the black, red, yellow and pale blue. I sometimes get the duck-egg blue mixed up with the grassy green. There's a 'shimmer' to the grass which I don't always pick up. Also, because I am a massage practitioner, I try to be bilateral, but I have to admit that when push comes to shove and I have a client with a really tricky challenge for palpation on the table, my right hand does the bulk of the work. I have to get it right, so there is no room for left-handed practice there. This is happening with the colours, too. I can't quite trust myself to go by what my left hand picks up, although its track record is as good as the right hand. Daft! 29th March 2003 Couldn't upload yesterday for some reason. However, blankie update is 76/81. Clémence has posted some yummy pictures of Regia sock yarn on her site. Oviously another addict :) Check out her progress on Elizabeth I too. That article? I spent most of the latter half of the 1970s trying to drum into both my family *and* the local university feminists (Sussex) the true meaning and implication of the principle of choice. That means choice to do or think whatever I wanted to do or think. My choice. Not my choice from a list of approved activities, belief systems or principles, but my choice from my own, home grown thought processes. Ye gods did it take some doing before it finally dawned on them (bless!) that accepting that someone has the right to exercise choice means also accepting that they have the right to exercise a choice that you may not have taken yourself. And that that is OK. Is Tonya a throw-back to the seventies? I really don't want to have to fight that battle again. Thanks to Chicknits for flagging up the article. 28th March 2003 Project Linus blankie update: 74/81 squares. Knitting garter stitch all the time is giving me a little RSI. I need the return purl row to reverse the action for my right wrist to feel happy. Colours test update. It's a synch. I started with deep scarlet and very pale blue. They feel totally different. When I was certain I could always tell the difference, 100% of the time, I went on to add black, first just with the red. That was more tricky as the signatures are both a little rough. Learned with practice, though. Then I added bright yellow. That has been the hardest to distinguish from pale blue. So when I had the four in my hands and laid them out (without looking - what's the point otherwise?) - I could divide them into black and red on the one hand and pale blue and yellow on the other, almost immediately. It only took about ten minutes practice, and I identified all four correctly every time. I now have a whole load of other colours, starting with strong green, orange and purple, which I shall add tonight, then it's on to shades of blue, green, pink, etc. The diappearance of Haloscan is creating unbelievable load times for my page. I may have to abort comments for a while until they get themselves back on track. 27th March 2003  Here is my current stash of German sock yarn. Note the little orangey lurex number snuggling in there top left. And the Tiger Socks yarn underneath. Chris (DS) has bagsed the Mexico, bottom right. The cream and grey are cottons. Ordering the cottons was a strategic move, as I wanted to find out how they would fare as a 4ply version of Rowans's wool and cotton. The yarn is 45% cotton, 42% superwash wool and 13% polyamid. It feels quite soft, but not as gorgeous as Rowan. However, I wouldn't want to use the Rowan for socks! If it knits up nicely I shall look to this for a 4ply Marion Foales number.
And on your right, at last: the pici of Mike's Opal socks in a dark blue fleck.Spent quite a bit of time yesterday changing this page around, not that you would immediately notice it, but on adding Threadbear Fiberarts Studio (it is soooo difficult to spell fibre fiber and not fibre) I decided that the right hand column was far too long and the left hand one needed to bear a little more weight. So the online shops I like and use have moved to the left, as has the software I like. That means that the blog list has moved up a little. Hardly a great difference, but more balance. 
And here is the promised pici of Tozzie's beanie: she wore it whilst skiing in Bulgaria, and to my knowledge it didn't slip down over her nose once.
In case you were wondering, the research project looking into whether I can tell a colour by its energy signature rather than by looking at it is coming on apace. i.e. I have printed out loads of 2 inch coloured squares and am in the process of cutting them all out. Tonight I shall have a go at shuffling them face down, turning one up, working out what colour it feels like, then checking. I have been running my hand over anything of one colour and am convinced colours feel different to me. Call me nuts, I'm on the trail. 25th March 2003 Sock yarn has arrived from Martina in Germany. It's gorgeous! The camera is recharging, then I shall show you. I now have yarn for 16 pairs of socks. Oh dear. No more Project Linus blankies for a while until I get some more socks done. I daren't quite think it, but I am under the increasingly optimistic impression that the book is done, edited, finished, and any day now I shall receive a copy through the post. Oh joy and relief in the coming. I don't think I can cope with any more alterations. If I weren't trying to knit and type at the same time, I would be crossing my fingers. I've decided to post a list of the books I'm reading at the moment, as I tend to be entirely mesmerized with curiosity at what other people are reading. I've also decided to be really strict with myself and try not to have more than, say, 5 or 6 books on the go at the same time. That doesn't include knitting books or technique books (knitting OR bodywork). If I can be arsed, I'll put up links to amazon.co.uk for them as well. 24th March 2003 Have a look at the leftover sock knitted by Jo at "Der kleine Strickhaus" (yes, I know, it's 'das Haus', I didn't make the name up. It's probably a regional variation. Or bloodymindedness). This is some sock, implying by its very existence a host of other fine socks, probably less randomly coloured. Then click on "Gallerie: Socken die schon fertig sind" (in the left hand column - means 'socks which have already been finished', implying several dozen more to come!), for picis of those very socks. And I 've just discovered Matt at Crowing Ram. Oh my god, he's funny.  He didn't pay me to say that - really! I've never met the chap before I came across his blog today - but I proposed a liaison along the lines of a link swap and he's not only consented, but made me a button! Thank you, Matt!
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March 17-23 2003
March 01-16 2003 February 23-28 2003 February 10-22 2003 February 01-09 2003 January 19-31 2003 January 01-19 2003 Knitting Archives 2002 
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 Explore a quality, original, independent web site here: The Flat at the Top of the Stairs Commentary from Scotland. |
| Reading now: Meditations for tranquility - Suzanne Marbrook Psychic Discoveries - the Iron Curtain Lifted - Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder The Client - John Grisham A Short History of Modern Philosophy - Roger Scruton |
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| The best knitting publications in association with amazon.co.uk. Click on the title for information and to order today |
 The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques Nancie M. Wiseman Indispensible techniques for finishing your knitware professionally US shoppers click here: The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques |