I'm not usually one for the passing round of quizzes etc eetc, but this, from one of the Yahoo groups I am on seemed worthy of making an exception.

Stash Siren Song
by Janine Tinklenberg

I'm fluffy, I'm springy, I'm lovely to see,
As soon as you can, don't you want to knit me?
Knit me, oh, knit me, I'm waiting in line,
Just think of the wonderful sweater divine
That my strands would turn into if only you would!
Oh, knit me, oh knit me, you know that you should!
Forget that old thing you are working on now!
As soon as you wear it, you'll look like a cow!
But in the sweater I'll make, you'll look thin as can be!
Oh, knit me, oh knit me, oh won't you knit me?
For all of this time I've been down in your stash,
For me you paid lots of your good hard earned cash,
It's a shame that I'm here just a wastin' away
When you could be knitting me every day!
Forget that old scarf, throw that dishcloth aside,
That vest is a dozer, it looks like it died!
You don't like the color, it ain't the right size!
But by knitting with me you would prove yourself wise!
Just think of the fun, just think of the glee,
If you knit me, oh knit me, oh won't you knit me?
And if you knit me, oh, I swear that's not all,
There won't be a knot in the whole gol durned ball!
The sweater won't pill, it won't shrink in the wash,
What more could you ask, oh what more, oh my gosh!
My color won't crock, it won't bleed on your shirt,
And though you fall in the mud, it won't show any dirt!
And if you should die when it you are wearing,
You will go straight to heaven, your needles a-bearing,
Because, up in heaven, the angels all knit,
And if you knit me, then with them you will sit!
Just think of the heavenly welcome there'll be!
Oh, knit me, oh knit me, oh won't you knit me?

Isn't it always the way?  I was just about to come and do an entry on Friday when the ****** ISP decided to cut off my internet connection and it has taken me until now to get back up and running.  That was irritating enough, but to have to spend over 3 hours on help lines, some of which were premium rate did nothing for my blood pressure.  So, a change of e-mail address later - here I am!  First of all - sorry Nancy, but I dont  have pics yet.  I've been trying to clear the dustbunnies and ironing from the spare bed so that I can pin the DNA scarf out.  I'm starting to see the light of day, so I'll try and get something for you soon.  Love your Halloween header BTW!  I used Lion Brand's sportweight Woolease for the scarf - and easily got the scarf out of one ball.  I must admit I didnt worry too much about gauge(hangs head in shame) - I liked how it was coming out, and a  few extra inches on a scarf didnt do anyone any harm. 

The lack of internet time over the weekend did do wonders for the knitting time and Frida is progressing well.  I found that for the Rowan Summer Tweed I was using I needed 4 skeins for wach rectangle and I'm half way through the second rectangle.  Not sure about the yarn requirement on Magknits - I'm not familiar with the Tess Designer Yarns yarn, but the yardage does suggest that amount may be a little out.  I have got some exciting news though - I'm meeting Kerrie and her gorgeous children tomorrow!  She's just moved into the area and though I'm sure that she is way out of my league knitting wise it'll be good to have another knitter in the area.  Perhaps there's even stitch n bitch potential!  We'll have to see. 

I was joking when I said that next time I would have a finished DNA scarf to report.  Honest.  But it seemed to provide me with the incentive to keep going - and I cast it off last night.  However I'm not going to show it to you just yet as I want to get it blocked, see if that will show the design off a little more.  You'll just have to be patient!

Isnt that always the way?  You wait ages for pictures, then three come along at once.  Yes, I finally got the memory card in the same position as the computer and got the two to talk to each other so I can share some WIPS and FOs.  Seems sensible to start with the FOs first, so here we go.

First we have an angel made for a secret pal who I dont think reads this.  It's using one of Frugal Haus's patterns and is meant to sit on top of a toilet roll - though I thought I'd leave the final decision to her!  The yarn is some Bernat's Cottontots that I was gifted by an earlier secret pal.

Closely following on behind we have a duck from one of Jean Greenhowe's patterns.  This was made for a friend that has her own ceramic painting business - and a fascination for ducks.  Devotees of JG will know that there is also a dad and two ducklings - guess what is planned for Christmas?  If anyone pops onto the other website, DD did a lot of the samples pictured, particularly the Christmas ones.

Moving on to my first knitalong which is proceeding apace.  I'm on the second of five repeats of the DNA helix, so hope to have it finished before I start my placement in mid October.The only problem I came across was forgetting the selvedge stitches in the ribbing - it really is a problem with this pattern calling information from so many different areas just to knit a row, though once you get in the swing of things it becomes a lot easier.  I'm a bit disappointed with the pic of this - the helix really is a whole lot clearer in real life.  Finally we have Frida from Magknits using Rowan Summer Tweed. 

Hope that was enough pics to keep you going, who knows, perhaps next time I'll have a completed DNA scarf for you?  Till next time.....

Both the projects I mentioned last time took a little time to get up and running - stitch counts seemed to be conspiring against me like never before, and I spent more time than I'd like to admit to in the frog pond.  I had hoped to have some pics to share of them both by now, but while the pics have been taken they're sat inside the digital camera right now.  Rather than leave it forever before posting and losing any sort of track of where I was, I thought I'd save the pics till next time and just report in like this. 

Where shall I start?  There has been most progress on the DNA scarf, which is my first ever pattern done from a chart.  I was very apprehensive about that - charts over here in the UK are so rarely done that I had only ever used them for intarsia.  It did take some getting used to, and it didnt help that you have to remember to pull stitches from four seperate parts of the pattern in order to make up the full stitch count  - selvedge, seed stitch, mock cable and main panel but I found that I eventually got confident with the pattern as written and only neded to follow the chart.  I am now most of the way through the neck ribbing and hope to start the other half of the cable pattern soon.  Lets just hope that it gets itself set  up easier than it did on the first side!  And charts?  Dont think I am totally convinced - they take a heck of a lot of concentration before the pattern is established, but I wont chicken out of using them in the future.

Frida also took some setting up until the pattern is established.  It didnt help that I started her late at night after I'd coaxed the skein into a ball, but I took some time to realise exactly which part of the pattern was what and needless to say I gave up trying to correct the first attemp I made.  After a quick rip, and the decision to check stitch count each row until I realised what was happening with the pattern, things went a whole lot smoother.  If you're planning on doing Frida though  - just a heads up - the pattern stitches dont always stay the same.  Yes, I know that is on the pattern, but I just thought I'd mention it.  So far I have got the first repetition done - now to see if she speeds up a whole lot once I get more familiar with the pattern.

In other news I went to my pre placement meeting at the new school I will be working at next month.  I like what I see - they seem a whole lot more motivated for this than the last place I was at, and I think I can gain a lot working with these people.  Although the school has some bright pupils the way it was explained to me was that there is a long tail, so it should be challenging, but what's life without a challenge or two?  (Hope I dont have cause to regret that!)

I know its a shock me getting back to you this side of October - but hey I seem to have hit a vein of enthusiasm.  Enjoy it while it lasts!

Told you it was a bad day for me and technology - dont know why those last few lines turned yellow.  I'll try and fix them at the end of this post.  I even struggled printing out the pattern for the DNA scarf - kept getting messages about memory problems which were not what I wanted.  Working on the basis of turn it off and forget about it I did just that and this morning the pattern was a pussycat.  SO - it hs been read through and we should be all systems go.  I think I'm going to use a larger needle than might have been expected from the pattern - the recipient isnt one for stiff scarves so I am planning on trying either a 4mm or 4.5mm.    I think I'll need to be wide awake when I start - some of the instructions did leave me a little confused, and it is my first charted pattern, but I normally find that things just fall into place.*keeps fingers crossed*.  So today, in between the studying I've been doing a dishcloth fom the Leisure Arts booklet that my SKP sent me  - C will love it as it has hearts all over it!  SHe is such a girlie girl!

The other news is that I struck it lucky with Ebay and won some Rowan Summer Tweed this evening.  I have been longing to jump on the bandwagon and do a poncho, and when I saw Frida in Magknits I figured that'd  be the one.  FOr a change I thought I'd actually try and use the yarn that they recommended - so I have been lurking on ebay for a couple of days.  It's not the yarn the sample was made in but it is one of the suggested substitutions so that's nearly as good.  Pics when it arrives!

Well, I was going to report on one of those Quizilla quizzes, but for some reason all I get when I publish is a load of HTML.  Anyway, I'm turbo needles.  And noone was more surprised than me!

Technology has been letting me down a lot today - in fact I dont know why I dont just quit now rather than trying to post.  I was going to join my first knit-along and make the DNA scarf  as they are doing here - I wasn't sure whether  I would have anyone to gift it to this Christmas, till I took stock and realised I had one retired GP and one police officer to give to - and one Scenes of Crime officer.  Guess the scarf could be a major feature in my life.  I have the yarn - some Lions Brand Woolease sports weight that my former SKP on the Yahoo Weluvknitting list gave me, but when I tried to print out the pattern all I got was a loud raspberry from my printer.  I've printed PDFs before, but this time it really did not want to  play ball and kepot telling me that there was a memory problem.  I'm going to leave it a couple of days, then try again  - and if the worst comes to the worst see whether the MIL can try and priint it for me.  THen all  I have to do is try and make sense of my first charted pattern.  Gulp - we just dont have these things in the UK.  Still I guess I could put the button in my bar.

A friend showed me an intersting pattern for a small circular scrubbing cloth.  Apparently its based on a cloth popular in Japan called a Tawashi.  It turned out far too small for my liking, although it probably didn't help that I used a thinner cotton and thus thinner needles than the pattern called for.  However the final construction I  thought was different, and I may try again, but aiming for a larger size. 

I  just added one of the guestmaps to the sidebar - please take the time to drop a pin and say where you are right now!  There's something a little wrong with the HTML but it's a little late to worry about that now.  I'll check it in the morning.

Dont get me wrong!  C is a good kid, and it hasn't all been hard work this summer.  But I am delighted that she is going back to school tomorrow - she has been bored stiff for the last few weeks, with the exception of our fantastic holiday in Austria and a bored kid takes a lot of looking after.  Her concentration levels seem to have plummeted - friends tell me that that is normal, but when that was always one of her strengths.....  It does also mean that I can get back to studying at a sensible time of day - having promised DH that doing the PGCE will not affect him or C at all I have  been limited to working after 10pm - and before we went away I needed matchsticks to keep my eyes open.  You never know I might get back to blogging more regularly as well!

OKC - I bought Gerdine Strong's Angels - a Knitters dozen as a pressie for a friend.  That was a Very Bad Move - the designs are first class and I fell madly in love with the book.  I've made one of the designs - and have plans for  more for Christmas presents.  For those who dont know the book the angels are lace and the idea is that they are then equipped with suitable accessories for the recipient.  The book has 13 angels all doing various fibre arts, but they are suitably scaled so that the dolls house extras will be right.  Massive potential there I reckon! 

A couple of sites of interested for those who collect URLs - Kerrie has the latest magknits out as of yesterday, and for those who like dishcloths or afghan squares, how about this site?  Although limited to the US at the moment my spies tell me that the Canadian provinces and the UK are all being planned.  Yes, FWIW - I think she's mad as well!

A massive thanks to Annie who held a blog competition to win a skein of the Laughing lizard yarn from Knit Happens.  It came yesterday and is divine!  I havent got any pictures yet, but if you look back in Annies blog you'll find a pic in her June 29th entry. Now to find the project that deserves it!