Work on the Tribal Scarf

I haven't posted for a few days due to a number of reasons. I've had a horrible cold, so haven't had much concentration power, and there's also this:




What feels like miles and miles of moss stitch. For some reason I thought this would grow quickly. I obviously hadn't realised that 2 ply on 2mm needles DOES NOT grow quickly. That's about a week's work there, and I've still got ages to go. It's going to be a tribal hip scarf, either the size it is, or folded in half, I'll have to finish and look at the fabric to decide. It'll be fringed all round the bottom, and the bottom will have seed beads on it. I'm thinking I'm going to have to crochet the fringe, cos the yarn is so thin. I don't want to breaking as I tug it around my hips. Ugh, I thought this was going to be an easy project, that would just speed along. Still, it'll be nice when it's finished, and I can show it off to all the people in my tribal class when we go back in September. It might be finished then. :)

Oh, I almost forgot! My latest charity shop find!


Teeny tiny crochet hooks! There's so small, you can hardly see the hooky bit at all! I saw them sitting there in a cup beside all the dpns, and thought they looked a bit weird, so I picked one up. If I hadn't been listening to old Cast On episodes, and the one where Quirky Nomad talks about minature crochet, I don't know if I'd have known what they were. As it was, I looked at the tiny ends, and thought Ah, that's what she was talking about! They range in size from 1.5 mm to only 0.75 mm. I usually crochet on a 4mm, so they seem really small. I don't know if I'll ever do much minature crochet, my eyes hurt enough looking at this tiny moss stitch I'm doing, but I just had to have them. I'm thinkning maybe I'll use one of them to crochet the fringe for the scarf, then I can crochet the beads in and they'll be more secure when I'm dancing. This scarf is going to take so long, I just know it, but I'm sure it will be worth it. I haven't felt the urge to just rip it all out anyway, and that's got to be good.

Lorna Gow at Morocco Restaurant

On Thursday night me and some friends went to Morocco in Edinburgh to see Lorna performing. Morocco is a restaurant that has live bellydancers most nights of the week, and when we heard Lorna was coming back over from Cairo (where she seems to be building her career and having a great time - I'm so jealous!), we just had to go. This was the first time I'd ever been, and I only wish I'd had enough money to go back yesterday and see her.

She was amazing!!!! Honestly, all the time watching her, all I could think was wow! I mean, she was good before, well great before, but since going to Cairo, she's just got . . . . well, wow! Her shimmies went on forever, she has amazing stomach muscle control, she's sooooo snaky . . . I could go on forever about how great she is. Her dancing is so beautful, and inspiring. I want to practice all day every day now, just to get to a fraction of how good she is. She'll be at Raqs Britannia doing a workshop - if you ever get the chance to go see her, whether at Raqs Britannia or elsewhere, then do so!

The food was great too, but I'm glad I ate before Lorna came on, otherwise the food would have just sat there while I stared open-mouthed at her. Even now, two days later, I'm still open-mouthed at the memory of her dancing. I'm so glad I went to see her. Lol, first time ever, the food is secondary to my thoughts!

I'd better stop now, otherwise this post will just turn into a big hyperpole-fest, and that wouldn't do justice to Lorna at all! I'm off to practice dancing!

The Stash . . . and my attempts to stop it from growing

I've been tidying.






I put all my yarn on shelves


OK, it's not much compared to other people's stash, but it makes me feel kinda guilty when I see it all spread out like that. (and yes, those bags in the corner are full of more yarn!). So far, having it there seems to stop me buying more, but it has only been there for a couple of days.

But on a more positive note, I have been toying with some ideas for using it up, even odd balls. Tribal scarfs! I suddenly realised (nicking the idea from one of my friend's costumes on Wednesday, which had a fringed scarf made from a door curtain!), that I could make fringed, even beaded hip scarves to wear when I do my tribal dancing. I'm making one just now, basically a moss stitch rectangle which I'm going to fringe later, but I can see there's so many possibilities with this, for decorative hip scarfs. They could have lace, cables, fringes, beads . . . my imagination is going overtime with this. If only my hands could keep up! But I can see once the summer is over and dance classes start back up, I'm going to have some very interesting pieces!

I've finished the front, back and both sleeves of Rogue now, but I've gone onto the hip scarf because I have a stinking cold, and a very sore throat. I just couldn't concentrate on cables just now. So a moss stitch hip scarf it is! It's being made with very fine wool, 2 ply, purely because it was there to be used up, so it'll take a while, but it's something relatively mindless to make while I sit sniffing and feeling ill.

But despite all these efforts to use to stash and stop myself feeling guilty, the postman brought this the other day:



300g of varigated laceweight merino. It's so soft! I just keep rubbing it against my cheek, amazed at how soft it is! I don't think it'll be knitted up for a while, it's definitely a comfort yarn just now!

I Have A Question . . .

Do other bloggers out there find that some days they have nothing to write about, then suddenly there's like 3 different subjects vying for attention, wanting to be written about? I've noticed I have that problem a few times, and either have to drop a subject or end up with a very confused post. Today, I'm just going to have to drop a subject or two, and concentrate on the one thing, I think. I'll post either later or tomorrow, or another day with the other topics. If they're that important, they will appear.

I think the problem is that I'm writing about my two loves - knitting and dancing. I don't like to mix them in a post though - I'm going to have to try to keep them seperate, at least that far. I'll just have to get better at tagging posts - I've been a bit lax about that recently.

Anyway, I've had a few interesting dance experiences recently. I danced at the show for the place where I dance on a Saturday. I did a Tribal routine, and a Belly Dance routine, with the other women in my classes. They put the wrong music on for the Belly Dance routine - I didn't know what to do! It was just as well our teacher was dancing with us - she just stayed put and signalled that it wasn't the right music. I think if I'd been dancing alone, I'd have totally paniced. I'd either have had to make something up on the spot, or just run off stage!

I was very nervous about the tribal dance. I've only really performed tribal with my group once before, and it was all choreographed (even though it's not supposed to be, we cheated! It was our first time!). So in this one, the first half was choreographed, and the second half was improvised. I hid at the back for the second half. :) I had a place in the front group for the first half though, so I felt like I did something. But I seriously need more practice making up tribal dances on the spot. I'm just not comfortable with it at all.

Then yesterday, my other class went to perform for the WI, in a nearby village. That was great fun. The women there were fantastic - mostly older ladies, as is often the case in the WI, but they were really up for having a go along with us after we'd performed our routines. Our teacher lent them coin belts, and they really went for it! It was amazing, and great fun. I've danced for the WI before, in a different area, with a smaller group, and they were a bit more reserved. This group seemed really into it. Maybe some of them will come to the class next term - I hope so! And they served a brilliant tea afterwards! Tons of sandwiches, cakes, tarts, and as much tea as we could drink. They were soooo nice!

But that's it for classes for the summer, unfortunately :( We're going to try to keep the hall on a Thursday, but there will be no Saturday classes, no belly, bolly or tribal. And I'm not even sure if there will be a bollywood class when I go back! My teacher was training to be a doctor as well, and now she's got a job, so she'll be too busy to teach dance. I hope they get someone else to do the class! I'll really miss it if it stops!

EDIT: Oops! Got the wrong link for the WI, that's for the English one. The Scottish one is the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes. Just as well I actually read the WI page after I linked to it!

Rogue, Dancing and Cotton (and Merino, but you've not to notice that!)

I've had a busy few days.

On Saturday I went to a friend's birthday party, which was more like a hafla. Me and my other friend did a bollywood routine at it, and there were other bellydancers, african drummers, and tribal style dancers. It was so much fun! All of the other dancers were amazing, and it was fun to dance along to the live drumming. There was a great buffet (always one for the food, me!), and there was a great atmosphere. The people there were mixed - some dancers, some not, probably about half and half. There was one little girl who wanted to join in with the dancing, and got right up in the group on stage at one point. And she was getting the moves! It was so cute! She was even getting our bollywood moves, but she'd been moved back by her parents by that point so she was dancing away between the tables.

Then I had a rehersal yesterday. The place where I do dance classes on a Saturday is having their end-of-year show tomorrow, so there was a technical rehersal yesterday. It was just as well I went to it, cos I wasn't at class on Saturday, so there were a couple of bits that I didn't know, or had changed. It should go alright tomorrow though. Fingers crossed!

I'm still working on Rogue just now. I've done the front and back, but have changed the knitting order and am doing the sleeves before I do the hood. I always get a definite case of sleeve syndrome, not even second sleeve syndrome, just first sleeve, and I wanted to get them out the way first, and have the hood to look forward to making. I'm about half way through the first sleeve. It's taken ages cos I had to keep ripping it out cos I made mistakes with the row count, and the increases. That's why I hate making sleeves, I always get the increases wrong. I actually got more than half way through this first sleeve at one point, then realised I'd messed it up, way back at the beginning. I was going to just leave it, and I knit a few more rows, but I realised I couldn't leave it like that. So I ripped the sleeve. This was the second time I'd ripped it, cos I'd messed up the row count somehow before that. Now, though, I think I've got it. I'm back to where I was this morning when I started - I've been knitting all day, with nothing to show :( But at least now it's right, even the cables look better, so I'll be more pleased with it when it's finished.

And now for a picture:


My cotton arrived! I'm quite pleased with it. It looks thinner on the ball than I'd expected, but I haven't tried swatching or anything with it yet. I think it'll make a nice jumper or cardi. I haven't decided yet. I've got so many things lined up that I want to make, I just wish I had some sort of time stopping device, so I could make them all at the one time. And I also kind of bought some laceweight merino off ebay as well, but that hasn't arrived yet.

Notice how I left that confession till last? It was hardly noticeable at all, was it?

Rogue Progress

Rogue has been positively zooming along. I do have a picture, but blogger's being stoopid. Today I've knitted from the top of the pocket, to finishing the back. (I didn't have anything else to do today, so spent all my time knitting). I love this pattern. It's so much fun, and so well written. I'll probably do Eris as well, by the same designer, but I've got about five things lined up after Rogue. I'll be repeating the blueberry sweater next, for my MIL. That should go pretty fast, since I've already done it once. I also want to do loads of other patterns, from sites, magazines, books . . . I'm going to be very busy. If I listed all the patterns I want to make here - well, I could do it, but it'd take too long, and I'd probably spend all my time updating and changing it. So I'm only really thinking about what I'm doing now and next, not letting myself think about anything else. Well, not much, anyway. It's hard though, when I keep looking at yarn and imagining what I could make with it!

Anyway, back I go to Rogue. I can't keep myself away from it. Did I mention that I love this pattern?

I am so bad!!!

Uh oh. I just bought 1000gms of cotton aran off ebay. I'm not supposed to be allowed any more yarn. Erk. But it's 1000gms!! Of 100% cotton!! And aran weight!! How often does that come up? Answer - never. So it was my duty to buy it, yeah? I couldn't pass it up, even if I have been banned from allowing any more yarn into the house.

My bf is going to be very upset :(

But I'll have yarn, so that's good :)

I should just ban myself from ebay, it's too tempting.