RedScot's House of Orphans

The orphanage is one sock down.  Its friends have been sad to see it go, but Plum Crumble Jay No.1 has, after a long search through the interwebs, tv appeals, and a lifetime of waiting, found its sibling.

'jaywalkers' by grumperina in a&e 4-ply sock yarn in plum crumble

Yeah, okay, not technically an orphan, but a lovely friend up in Amsterdam wrote to ask how 'the orphans' were doing after I posted about all my single socks in the 'Drumroll' post a few weeks ago, and the name has stuck!  He also, in fact, gave meaning to the lives of all those single socks...  Oh, I have to quote him in full - it made me giggle!

"Hope all is well with you and the orphans (if you just make interracial couples of them, then there’s only one left… introduce the concept of polygamy - and you can just grab any two and wear them together… your single-sock sexual revolution may just remove the stigma of knitting one sock for good!)"

The Single-Sock Sexual Revolution may be something to look in to... later...  SSS?  NO, SSSR, baby, SSSR!

u can haz sibling

I do rather like the simplicity of this Jaywalker pattern - the 2 row pattern repeat is the perfect antidote to some of the complicated, wandering-cably, gazillion-row-repeatly, tear-your-hair-out-in-bunches tricksy patterns that I'm currently working on.  Very sooooothing, in fact.

Talking of tricksy numbers, here's a prime example.  Not soon after Plum Crumble Jay No.2 left the premises, Denim Dancer No.1 arrived at the orphanage door.

'come dancing' by laurie lee in frog hair fibers superwash merino sock in denim

Actually, the only tricksy part was the cuff - a picot edge involving knitting several rows, adding yo's on one row, folding down half and picking up inside stitches as well as current stitches.  And yes, I may have made it sound rather more difficult than it really is, but I was a tad perplexed and ended up with half the cuff looking semi-okay and the other half being twisted to hell and back again!

I must say though, that the pattern repeat is loveliness itself!  I MUST invest in a sock blocker so I can show my darlings off in a better light.

up close and personal

And the yarn... THE YARN!  So soft and smooshy and a JOY to work with.  Enough variation in colour to please the eye, but not so much that the pattern is lost.  Lovely, lovely, lovely!  But that cuff is enough to keep this little one housed at the orphanage for some time to come.

E is for...

Elephant

cake the cpaag nellyphant

(publicity shot)

I promised a post about Cake the Travelling Nellyphant many moons ago, but promptly forgot. Possibly in a fit of oo-shiny. Extremely possibly, in fact.  But today I am pleased to announce that Cake's Time Has Come. [insert suitably trumpety-trump-type fanfare here] 

Well, I suspect that a little background information may be called for...  Or possibly a lot.  How does one begin to tell the epic tale of Cake's travels around the globe?  Why, at the beginning, of course.  (Ugh - sorry about that!!)

Cake came into being at the hands of a lovely person named KnittyBe, a member of the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group on Ravelry.  She called her creation 'Cake' (after the patron-saint-like icon of the CPaAG) and saw that he was good. And cute. And small enough to fit in an envelope. And thus Cake the Travelling Nellyphant was born and was thrust out into the world of men and chocolate.

He left the US last July and arrived chez moi in August for the second leg of his Epic Journey Around The World. (The first leg being a wee jaunt down to Namibia and South Africa!)

cake in and on tour(s)

Yes indeed, Cake made himself at home very quickly and was a perfect house guest.  We spent our time together pretending to be tourists in Tours, playing 'Where's Wally Cake' in the flower market, introducing him to the joys of Nutella, exploring the wine cellars and château in Amboise, and, em... 'sampling' some local liquid produce...

hotel de ville

the american monument
yes, cake was there!

whodathunkit - multicoloured, psychedelic camouflage

hiding in a tree outside the basilica st martin

(he's sitting just above the lowest blossoms...)

come on in - the nutella's lovely

(for scale, cake is roughly 2 1/2 inches tall)

playing at door knockers on the saint hubert chapel door in amboise

examining all stages of the wine-making process

Since France, Cake has visited Denmark, Italy, India, Uruguay, the USA and Canada and there are still many more countries to go. This little guy has probably seen more of the world than most of the folks following his journey!  He was a pleasure to have around!  Even if he did finish off the Vouvray...

This post was brought to you by the letter 'E' for, erm... Nellyphant, and by the number 2 - the number of squares of chocolate I have left after typing this out!

A Wee Bit o' Luck

DS is going into hospital soon for a wee op on her sinuses and as part of a little parcel of good luck, I sent her a black cat.

rare 'jungle' breed

Yes, well spotted.  Not a live black cat.  Which is probably just as well, as I couldn't guarantee that it would:  

1. walk towards her (good luck to come)
   
2. cross in front of her from left to right (good luck),
   
3. not cross in front of her from right to left (bad luck) or indeed
   
4. cross her path at all.  

No, here you will find another example of the 'Lovable Toy' from Marion Edmund's book 'Last-Minute Knitted Gifts'.  I used the the basic overall body shape, then the rabbit head template and changed the ears from long, floppy bunny ones to triangular feline ones.  I added a little pink nose and whiskers, and cut out some cat's eyes from felt and sewed them on.  And then added the toy equivalent of a Dr Who-length scarf!

winner of the 2009 'first-to-blink-loses' staring contest

The kitty is made from Ice Yarns' Short Eyelash sparkly black yarn and the scarf and whiskers are Grignasco Tango in a charcoal marl colourway.  Yes, I know.  Fun fur.  But it does come in useful sometimes, honest!

Drumroll Please...

WOOHOO!  Thank you all for coming over and guessing in the nom-by date competition!  

Here's a list of everyone's guesses:  elin - July 20th 2009; Kristen - February 15th 2010;  Lab Cat - November 1st 2009; Jesh - September 14th 2009; Mary - February 26th 2010; Sloth-knits - August 15th 2009; Heather - 22nd March 2010; Lista - August 17th 2009; Rhionna - March 31st 2010; ZaftigWendy - July 12th 2009; ikkinlala - December 17th 2009; Kat - July 28th 2009; Iron Needles - October 1st 2009; Lorraine - December 7th 2009; itgirl - January 25th 2010 and Kelley - October 24th 2009.

30th January 2010

AND THE WINNER IS:

ITGIRL with her guess of January 25th 2010!

(and the crowd goes wild!)

Congratulations itgirl!  I'll contact you through Ravelry to get your address and then I'll post these little goodies on to you!

In other news, I seem to have developed a rather serious case of Second Sock Syndrome (or SSS to you initiates...)  You think I jest?  Think again, dear readers:

oh dear

Poor little sibling-less babies.  I feel rather cruel, now I've pulled them all out from their respective hiding-places and displayed their oneness-ness to the world.  (Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to bring these, erm... exclusive singletons together...  I think I hear mutinous mutterings of a murderous variety issuing from my living room...  I think I'll take them further away from the needle case, just to be safe.)

But to allay their fears of falling into nameless obscurity (and to maybe keep them from attempting to keel-hawl me) may I present, starting from bottom left and moving clock-wise: 'Jaywalker' by Grumperina in Angels&Elephants Hand Dyed Sock Wool, colourway Maisie; 'Crooked Cable Socks' by Sockbug in Phildar Phil. Luxe, colourway Nympheas; 'Muscari Socks' by Suzi Anvin in Angels&Elephants Hand Dyed Sock Wool, colourway Pentillie;  'Zombie Socks' by Sheryl Giles in Angels&Elephants Hand Dyed Sock Wool, colourway Maisie; and finally 'Kaibashira' by Chrissy Gardiner in King Cole ZigZag, colourway Heather.

obligatory arty-farty shot in colourway black and white

But that's not all.  I have another 4 socks on the needles, only two of which are actually a mate for any of these poor mites. And no, I couldn't tell you exactly where or what they are at the moment, either...

Oops.

D is for...

Delicious, Decadent Donations

Yeah, okay, so I really should have posted this for 'C' for 'competition', but, well, Chenonceaux kind of won that letter hands down!  But you see, I missed two important anniversaries recently: the first being my Blogoversary (my first post was on the 4th of February 2008); the second being my Ravelversary. (I received my invitation to join Ravelry.com on the 31st of January 2008.  And yes, I joined as soon as that baby arrived in my inbox!)

Now, even though I'm, erm, almost a month in arrears, I think it only fair to spread the love to you, my dear readers!  But I'm not going to give away yarn, oh no.  (And it's nothing to do with the fact that I know nothing about what's good and what's bad and what's downright evil in the yarn world.)  It's because... oh okay, it's because I know nothing about what's good and what's bad and what's downright evil in the yarn world.  BUT I do know a little about this:

chocolat - le nom

Yes indeedy!  Here, for your delectation are some delicacies to delight and divert your...  your...  :: goes to check thesaurus :: (ah, bugger) 'tastebuds' it will have to be!

Firstly, a box of French chocolates and truffles, made, if I understood correctly, in this region.  (You'll have to forgive me, but my concentration was really upon the contents of the shop, not on what la serveuse was telling me about her wares...  Oo-shiny has just found a new friend in Oo-chucklit!)  They are nom.  Erm... or so I am told.  Moving swiftly on, there are two tablets of dark chocolate, one flavoured with violet, one flavoured with rose.  And lastly there's the alcoholic chocolate.  Not French this time, but very worthy of a good nomming home, too!

Remind me why I'm giving these away again?  I mean... REALLY!  Oh, oh yes.  Anniversary Competition.  Well, now that I'm this far, I should let you know what you have to do to win this little lot of nomminess.  And, because arbitrary is the name of the game, it's going to be simple!  No need to phone a friend or ask the audience!  All I want to you to is guess the nom-by date on the back of the tablet of dark violet gorgeousness.

violet (or as my DS says, violent) yumminess

AND, because I'm not cruel, well not totally, I'll even give you dates to choose between!

SO, lovely ones, choose a date between July 19th 2009 and April 4th 2010 and let me know in a comment what you think it may be!  The competition will be open until the 7th of March, and I'll let you know who guessed the correct date, or who got the closest to it.  And I might even send the goodies to the winner, too!

Heh!

Have Train Travel Will Knit?

SO, there I was, thinking that with all the travel I was going to have to do for the rehearsals and concerts in Holland, I'd have tonnes of knitted things to share on my blog.  FAIL.  But seriously.  There were SO many hours just sitting on my behind of which I could have made use:  Tours to Paris - 1 hour;  Paris to The Hague - 3 ½ hours; then all the rehearsals - 1 ½ hours each way; The Hague to Zutphen - 2 ¾ hours each way; DH to Rotterdam was only 20 mins, (so that doesn't count as it's barely enough time to take all my winter outerwear off and put it back on again before arriving at the station) and lastly The Hague to Maastricht - 3 hours.  In all that time, I think I knitted all of 4 repeats on one sock.  I *may* have slept for the rest of the time...

BUT, there is a silver lining as after the concerts were over and before I came back to France, I used some down-time to finish these dorky babies:

noro stripy-feathery-fanny fugly socks™

No, I don't know what the hell I was thinking about, either.

The premise was promising, or so I led myself to believe...  Noro Kureyon Sock yarn in, erm, can't remember the colourway offhand.  (I got it 'cheap' from the LYS owner as she had used a teeny bit of it for display purposes and I was much too Scottish to pass up such a bargain, even if it was Noro!)  A basic stripe sock pattern that uses both ends of the ball for contrast, and a feather and fan stitch.  I could almost taste the potential.  I cast on with very high hopes and the first few inches of sock no. 1 (on the right) just flew off the needles:

undulating f&f prettiness

Of course, I was keeping an eye on the colour changing too, wondering what combination would come next, when I realised that the olive green was fast approaching on both sides.  Bugger.  Well, I have to come clean and tell you that I'd already cut out swathes of orange from the yarn, so I didn't feel I could be justified in chopping out some olive green, too, so I bit the bullet, carried on and eventually found stripes emerging once more.  To say I was apprehensive would be a gross overstatement but I was pleased to get past the glitch.  Until sock no. 2, where exactly the same thing happened at exactly the same place, just with lime green instead of the olive.  D'oh!

The Noro Gods were trifling with my highly-tuned sense of colour striping.  Either that, or they were too busy laughing at my efforts to lend a 'helping' hand.  Either way, I hope they were amused, as I can't say I was.  Particularly.

Still, I do have to admit I am fond of these two litter runts.  I can barely call them fraternal, though, seeing as they hardly look like a proper pair of socks, but maybe I can claim they share a turquoise great-grandmother somewhere down the line...

cousins, 4 times removed

C is for...

Chenonceaux

(château of...)

I know it will shock you all, but for this abc-along post, I decided to go with ponies another château...  And this time it is my absolute favourite, favourite, FAVOURITE!

The history of the château is long and convoluted, but if you would like to read about it, our kind Mr Wikipedia is again on hand to help out...

The run-up to the château is through an avenue of MASSIVE trees and it doesn't take much to imagine how grandiose it must have looked like in its hey-day...  after which you emerge into the spacious gardens and  see the château for the first time.

orange trees framing the driveway

Yes, by the way, well spotted.  Those photos were indeed not taken on the same day!  I think I've visited Chenonceaux three times so far, and only one of those days did the sun decide to stay around for any length of time.

The gardens are spectacular and are named after two of the most important mistresses (in all senses of the word) of the castle:  Diane de Poitiers (who was the mistress of Henri II and received the castle from him as a gift) and Catherine de Médicis (Henri II's queen, who expelled Diane from the castle after Henri's death.)

Diane's garden

Catherine's garden

I guess Diane de Poiters won that battle...

The interior is pretty impressive, too.  Most of the rooms are open to the public, and now any Tom Dick or RedScot can wander through the bedrooms and studies of the kings and queens and erm, mistresses of France.  I think this calls for some gratuitous bedroom shots...

you were perhaps expecting something else?

After such opulence, it is almost a relief to arrive at the newer part of the château: the galleries, which were built by Catherine de Médicis upon a bridge originally commissioned by Diane de Poitiers, that once connected the castle to the other side of the river.  I guess Ms Medici won that round...  The first floor, with its black and white tiles, was used as a ballroom...

and the second floor, of which I was sure I had a photo, but alas cannot find it, has its original wooden flooring, and is now used as a, well, as an art gallery.  Just goes to show...

Other rooms to see include the wonderful kitches, Catherine's library and the chapel, but the photos I have of these are too dark to be much use here...  No flash photography allowed...  But this year when DS and I go back to visit (because it's an addictive place) I'll be using my new camera, which has all sorts of funky functions that I haven't figured out how to use yet...  I'm sure if I fiddle with it enough I'll get some more piccies to drool over!

Oh, and I have been knitting, I promise... I may even have something to show in the next few days...

B is for...

Blois

(château de... louis xii wing)

To continue the theme of French castles for the ABC-along 2009, RedScot Inc. brings you the Château of Blois, in glorious Technicolor. 

(Although, technically, the incredible Castle at Blois is brought to you first by the Counts of Blois (from the 10th to the 13th centuries), then by Kings Louis XII and his Queen, Anne; François I; Henri III; Henri IV; Louis XIII and finally his brother, Gaston d'Orléans.   As country retreats go, it's not too shabby at all...)

The building itself can be divided into four main sections, the first being the Louis XII wing, the exterior of which is shown above.  Now, as you can probably imagine, I have many, MANY photos of this place.  The formation and stone-work especially has me drooling in architectronical* delight!

Above the main entrance-way you find an equestrian statue of Louis XII in full battle armour.  The original was sadly destroyed in the Revolution, but there's the magnificent copy from 1857 to gaze at in its place.

louis xii in ceremonial armour

So, by the time you get to this portal, you're already a tad impressed, but nothing quite prepares you for the courtyard...

unfinished classical wing of gaston d'orléans with françois i wing to the right

You enter through the Louis XII wing into a bright and very spacious courtyard to be confronted with several architectural styles: facing you is the latest (and unfinished) wing, built in the Classical style by Gaston d'Orléans. To the right is the Renaissance wing of Francois I, where a jewel of a polygonal spiral staircase adorns the façade.  It is truly, truly stunning!

i'll take two to go, please

The detail is incredible:

 maybe slightly on the draughty side, though...

:: droooooool ::

The wing on the other side of the courtyard houses the chapel, which although not particularly stunning from the outside, is beautiful inside...

bien sûr - stained-glass had to figure somewhere in this post!

I don't have so very many shots of the interior.  Well, no, to be truthful, I have lots of photos of the interior, but not of the particularly clear and focussed variety.  I do have a semi-decent one of François I's little crib, though...

restful, calm and muted colours - perfect for a good night's sleep

Once you think you've seen everything, you follow the direction for the exit, wander down a little staircase and go through a doorway, to be presented with a final wonder - the Hall of the Estates General - a massive salle with an incredible ceiling:

6,720 hand-painted gold fleur-de-lis

I don't think enough good things can be said about the restorers of the 19th and 20th centuries.  The French Revolution and then bombings in WWII led to much being damaged or destroyed, but thanks to the incredible work of these restorers, the Château of Blois is again a stunning thing to behold.  And photograph!




*architechtronical - pertaining to anything related to architecture that that can reduce the beholder to embarrassingly public shows of emotion.  (The RedScot Dictionary of Made-Up Words OUP 2018)

No Sox Please, We're British

A lie, of course!  I finally got back on track with some coverings of the podalic variety.  I name these socks 'Rock Pool Socks'.  God bless, them and all who sail in wear them.

tidal wave socks by deby lake in noro kureyon sock colourway 150

I call these 'Rock Pool' socks as the colours of this yarn remind me of the little pools to be found on the rocky beaches near my home in Scotland, complete with gentle wavelets brought in by the tide.

But oh - the colours!  The colours (actually, it was the only colourway of their sock yarn that didn't make me want to run away, shielding my eyes and whimpering for ocular salvation) are beautifully muted in shades of (working downwards, and remember, children, mummy is just a tad colour-blind and may be relying on Dulux colour cards for nomenclatural inspiration...) periwinkle, mocha, slate grey, nutmeg, amethyst, turquoise, emerald, café-au-lait, cedar, ivory and back to periwinkle. 

rainbow'r'not us

I must admit though, that I was all "UGH, this yarn is AWFUL" to start with, as the first quarter of the ball seemed to include all levels of thickness (and thinness) from cobweb/embroidery thread to DK in places.  Okay, it's NORO and it's to be expected, but I was not of the happy bunny camp and lost some of the length to chopping out the ridiculously fine stuff, after having it break too many times just at the part that was being worked on...  But further on into the ball, and further on into the pattern, it seemed to even out a wee bit.

I made a couple of mods... or at least I think there were a couple, but I can only remember one off-hand:  I changed the heel-flap to 'eye-of-partridge- stitch, as it seems to be quite a hard-wearing stitch, and with this yarn I reckoned I needed all the help I could get...

eye-of-partridge - check the unevenness of the yarn
(although it may also be my non-knitting prowess showing through...)

The stitch pattern is easy to memorise, and after the first couple of repeats you see the wave pattern emerge.  Simple but effective.

[add audio of gently lapping waves here]

I recommend this pattern very much indeed.  BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!  Oh no!  I finished another pair of socks, too!

'zombie socks' by sheryl giles in a&e 4-ply sock in maisie
'jaywalkers' by grumperina in a&e 4-ply sock in plum crumble

Hey - I didn't say they were a pair for each other, did I?!