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Woolfest 2011 – photos

June 25, 2011 by cat

Just a few photos from yesterday at WoolFest 2011.

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WoolFest 2011 – Shopping

June 25, 2011 by cat

Yesterday I went to WoolFest 2011, up in Cockermouth.

It involved 5hours of driving, parking in a field and coming home to hungry cats, but it was fantastic!

From Krafty Koala I bought a new roll for my Double Point needles (owl themed), owl stitch markers, “Ash Cloud” Sparkle sock yarn, “Lilac Dreams” 4ply, “Gail” shawl pattern and “Scroll lace scarf” pattern.

From Yarn Addict Anni (the designer of the Trinity shawl) I got Twinkletoes sock yarn, “Elegance scarf” pattern and “Fame handwarmers” pattern.

From Laughing Hens I got some baby alpaca 4ply.

From Toft I got a wrist warmers kit (awaiting the pattern – she’d sold out of it by late lunch on day one!).

From Wingham Wool Works I picked up 3 500g hanks of Guernsey 5-ply.

From DT Craft and Design I got a Kool Aid dyeing kit.

I also got a Woolfest 2011 Project bag. Surprisingly this holds all of the above!

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Shawling it up

June 23, 2011 by cat

In recent weeks I’ve been mostly knitting shawls. One for my wedding outfit (white and fluffy) and two for general use (red/blue and sturdy). I have learnt many things from doing them – how to read lace patterns, blocking shawls (different to blocking toy/clothes parts), the effects of yarn forwards and back (and not to do the wrong one!)…

The Trinity Shawls by Anniken Allis.

Sirdar Balmoral in Banquet Red and Buckingham Blue.

This is a very simple pattern that makes such a beautiful shawl when complete! These took about 3-4 days of on and off knitting to make, then 2 days to dry with blocking. I was seen to be knitting these while I was stewarding for DigitFest a couple of weekends ago. I wore the red one to the Big Chip Awards 2011 last week – it went wonderfully with my corset and skirt combo!

Near White Sweetwater Wrap

This will be worn with my wedding dress on the “big day”. It has taken me since the beginning of April to knit this. I’ve never knitted such fine yarn and I also managed to knit one half of it completely wrong(yarn backwards, rather than forwards – it’s very time consuming trying to keep that extra twist in there)! It is currently blocking (drying under tension) on the living room floor. I’ve had to use thread woven through the edge stitches and those are then used to pin out to get the tension even throughout.

I have found that, yes, blocking is vitally important to the finished shawl. You need to pull those yarn overs and decreases out so that you can see the full pattern and make it wearable. As you can see with the photo of the red shawl, when first knitted in DK they seem rather small (only measuring 22-24″ on the longest edge compared to 55″ when blocked). In the blue shawl you can also see that the pattern is prone to being bumpy when left to its own devices, these are all resolved with blocking.

All in all these have been wonderful exercises in patience, especially the Sweetwater Wrap. All are worth the time and effort I have put in. Great lessons learnt.

A very big thank you to Anni and Ruth at The Little Knitting Company for the help and wonderful patterns.

(I’m going to try to get some better modelled photographs of these over the next week or 2.)

Category Knitting, wedding | Tags: | 1 Comment

Work and Workflow – Accounts

June 22, 2011 by cat

It’s that time of year again here at Tentacle Towers – time for me to finish the accounts for year end.

I’m a massive fan of FreeAgent. It is user friendly, sensible and web hosted so can be dived into on client site/home/pub/mum’s (yes, this is a benefit!). Orange Tentacle’s affiliate url – sign up with that and we both get a discount.

Google mail – I can look back through Kian’s email for the whole time the company has been incorporated, with labelled mail for invoices/bills/expenses without much fuss. With a small amount of effort on Kian’s part (labelling stuff as he buys it mainly – although last year I had to go through and do the backlog of labelling!).

CutePDF – This has saved me hours of fuss trying to get digital copies of emailed invoices to put against records in FreeAgent. There have been times I’ve had to print an email to then scan it in for the digital copy! With CutePDF has meant that I can send stuff to print from gmail, input to FA and then when I have finished I just have a pile of PDFs to send to print (via built in windows support).

Be Broadband – having the full archive of all bills, downloadable as pdfs make me exceedingly happy. Just wish that it wasn’t so buggy(after downloading on pdf you need to do a hard refresh to get the next month’s pdf to generate).

I love companies that send out pre-generated pdf receipts. I’m looking at you Hetzner.

On the paper receipt side of things I find VueScan (its my general scanning software and fantastic for scanning negatives). It is great in combination with Adobe Bridge/CutePDF.

In the bad books

T-mobile – However great it is that they put your bills online, you can only get 12 months worth and have to go through so many (slow to load) pages to get it the pdfs. I’ve come close to demanding paper copies and make my own pdfs – it would be quicker!

Now I had better get back to it..

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Geek Up Preston

June 21, 2011 by cat

Just a few photos from last night’s GeekUp in Preston.

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DigitFest 2011

June 15, 2011 by cat

(click to enlarge)

Last weekend was DigitFest 2011. I was there as a steward – helping to cat herding visitors to various events and joining in activities that I would never have done without it.

I drew on iPads. I painted with light (well I’ve done that before..). I saw Holotronica. I enjoyed beatboxing. I danced. I laughed. I met new people.

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Wedding rings

May 3, 2011 by cat

Well many of you may have noticed – I’m getting married to Kian Ryan later in the year. In the last few weeks we have been looking at the details, dress, venue, rings, food, guest list. Yesterday I went through Etsy – these are a few of the rings I looked at that I found interesting..

(All images should click through to the listing)

Carbon Fiber and Gold and Sterling inlay Titanium Band

Titanium Ring Basket Weave Set Textured Bands Made to Any Sizing and Finish 3-22

Mens wedding band in sterling silver

Smoky and Offset

Diamond Tentacle Ring

Orange LEGO LOVE Ring sterling silver band size 8

2 Franc double sided coin ring Size 7-12

Although none of these are quite what Kian or I were looking for – I rather like them for one reason or another. Many I would like just to wear randomly, not what I’d want to wear from now onward.

Myself I’m looking for something that fits with my engagement ring. It needs to be a z shaped ring and have a pleasant design that wouldn’t snag on anything and may be changed in size at a later date (arthritis may change what size I take over time – which has been known in the family..). Beyond that I’m not too sure what I’m looking for..

(Other random wedding stuff – my dress has been dispatched.. Meep!)

Category wedding | Tags: | 1 Comment

Walnut

April 6, 2011 by cat

A few weeks ago Walnut was being somewhat distant after I took a series of photographs of her in a box (she likes being in boxes and seemed to enjoy it while it was going on). She goes through phases of liking me or not, same with Kian, but on this day I went from being loved to She Who Must Not Be Named. Well I rather liked these – especially since she normally rolls around and makes it terribly difficult to take photographs of her..

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Mitch Benn Revisited

April 6, 2011 by cat

This is another from the series I took at Mitch Benn’s Ninjagig from a couple of weekends ago. Just thought I’d share it. Found it while looking through trying to cheer myself up (currently a little unwell).

Category Event, Portraits | Tags: , #ninjagig, black&white, comedy, event, mitch benn, music, portraits | No Comments

Mitch Benn – #ninjamitch

March 27, 2011 by cat

This afternoon I couldn’t get tickets to see Mitch Benn playing while in Manchester. This was the third time he would have come to Manchester and I would have missed him. I, well, tweeted about my sulkiness about it.

Mitch tweeted back to Kian re:our lack of tickets offering to do a gig in our living room before his gig this evening. So, it was on. We started phoning around and tweeting about a gig at our house. Eventually it was confirmed at being put on at King’s Arms in Salford at 8pm.

Grabbed a little brother and friends. Got some dinner and headed on a Salford direction.

Once we arrived we had a chin wag with Mitch. Many, many friends arrived and got a few drinks, then the silliness and fun began.