Odd Socks

These are the latest things to come from the big box of boucle :) A pair of odd-ish socks, that will drive the bf mad since he likes everything to match exactly. Not quite to an OCD level, but close enough that these will drive him nuts every time I put them on. Insert evil grin here ;)

I made a plain yellow sock from some acrylic DK from the box, but went a bit mad and made the cuff 8 inches long, which meant that I didn't have enough left to make another sock the same size. I weighed the yarn and everything to make sure, but I think I would only have enough left for a cuff, and I didn't want to knit that much and then have to rip out again. Luckily, there was some baby green/blue yarn in the box that was the same weight, and there was enough of that for a full sock.

Making two completely different coloured socks would just drive the bf into full blown loony land, and I figured it was a bit too much for me too, even though according to an 8 year old boy I know, odd socks are super-fashionable ;) But I figured I could make a half of each sock yellow and the other half green/blue and they would match. But by the time I figured this out, I was kind of sold on the idea of different coloured socks (again, evil grin), so then I came up with the idea of different halves of the socks being those colours.

I snipped the yellow sock just above the cuff (kind of wish I'd got a photo of the plain yellow sock now), picked up stitches from the cuff, and knit another foot in the green/blue. Then I picked up the stitches from the top of the yellow foot, and am now knitting up in 2x2 rib for the cuff. I'm going to do a sewn bind-off a la Elizabeth Zimmerman (from "knitting without tears" book) so that the tops of each sock will look the same. Even though one is a cast on and one will be a bind off, they'll match :)

I was a bit weirded out by these socks at first when knitting the green/blue foot. I thought they were going to be too strange even for me. But now that I'm further up the green/blue cuffs, I think they're going to look pretty funky when they're finished. I'll still have a little of each yarn left, but I already have plans for it. The ugly yarn stash is decreasing steadily!!

The Big Box of Boucle

Back to knitting!

Most of my yarn is organized (hah!) on a couple of bookshelves in the spare room, where I can see it, and it's all nice and lovely. However, I have this box at the bottom of the shelves, which I have been up till now trying to ignore.



This is all yarn that I bought around 2004/2005 when I restarted knitting. I had no yarn in my house, so I apparently bought any I could find! I bought any random yarn from charity shops, just to have something to knit with (this was before I knew about all the yarn stores near me, and wasn't sure if you could even buy such a thing as nice yarn in Scotland! :D I've since found out, of course, that you most definitely can!!!)

It's mostly boucle, all in pale pastel baby colours. It's been sitting in that box for years now, since I organized all my yarn and couldn't think of a section to put this into, and just threw it into the box and threw the box in the corner :)

But recently, without even a conscious effort, I've been using it! In fact, that is the box now, after another tidy up, untangling of a huge mess of yarn ends, and with some of the yarn gone. Seriously, I couldn't even close the box before! It was bad. Very bad. Run away and hide in the cupboard bad.

But like I said, I must have gone through an unconscious clearing up phase in my head. I was a bit stuck for things to knit. The summer seriously knocked my knitting mojo, and I haven't been interested in it for a while. Or I'd start a project, get a bit through it, and then put it aside, not wanting to to look at it again.

So the first thing I did was to untangle the ends. The mess was in a big chunk the diameter of which was the size of both my hands laid out flat beside each other. It didn't actually take that long to sort out though. I thought I'd just have to cut the ends and throw the chunk away, but it all came untangled in less than an hour. Then I looked at the box.

I was sick of this yarn. I still am, a bit. It's really annoying to me to have yarn with no idea of what it could be used for. Even if it's a vague knitting fantasy dream to be done some time in the far off future, that's still a plan for the yarn, to me. So I picked up a ball, looked at it, and thought, what could possibly be done with this? A scarf? I might not wear it, though. The colours are so not me.

But, I was bored. The bf was playing a video game, and I couldn't think of anything to watch, play, read or anything. So I cast on some stitches, and started knitting a moss stitch rectangle.

It didn't turn out long enough for a scarf, but it was long enough to sew both ends together and make a cowl!!



And I actually like it! It's warm, and the colours look fab with my black winter coat. I used it as my project for the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup, Potions class (something warm to represent the pepper-up potion).

I then went to task with some mustard coloured acrylic that looks like it came straight from the 70s. Heck, it may well have!!




I cast on 30 sts, and knit in 2x2 rib for as long as the yarn lasted. I figured at least I'd be doing something with it. If I didn't like it, well, Christmas is coming up. Or there are plenty charity shops around to donate it to. But I like it! Another thing that will look fab with my black winter coat. And it's super warm, being made out of chunky weight yarn.

It's really surprising to me how these "ugly" yarns turned into something not really that bad. I was all set for throwing them into a charity shop bag, and now I have two scarfs that I will actually wear this winter. Amazing! I've also picked out a pale baby yellow acrylic DK from the box, and have cast on for a pair of 2x2 rib socks on large needles (3mm, large for socks!) It's going fast, and it looks like they'll be a nice warm, thick pair of socks for winter. I'm not sure about the colour, but I'm ignoring that just now. I just need something easy and fast to knit, and like I said, Christmas is coming up (I'm getting a weekly count down from the MIL, lol!)

Now I just need to think of what else to use all those other balls of yarn for!!!

Question - Should I Post A Video?

OK, I have a video of me dancing my drum solo. It's not at the local hafla that I helped organise, but it's from another hafla a week later. It's not professional quality or anything, it's just my camera stuck on a table at the front of the seating area, and I wander out of shot a couple of time. And I am by no means a professional type dancer. I think I did well, but I'm not one of the Bellydance Superstars just yet!

Should I post it?????

I'm a bit scared, cos it's like, putting myself out there. But it'd be interesting, I suppose, to show y'all that I do actually dance :D

Maybe I should put it up for a short time, just to show people, then take it down again later? I don't know.

Also, for people who've uploaded vids to youtube, can you disable comments on that site? I've stopped reading comments over there, because no matter what video I watch, there are people at the bottom saying "you suck!" Seriously, I don't scroll down past the video part at the top any more. I hate Youtube commenters, hiding behind "anonymity" to be cruel and nasty to people. Or is there anywhere with less traffic that people would recommend posting a video to? Thanks :)

How The Hafla Went

It's been ages since the hafla, and I'm only just getting around to writing about it! I'm sorry for the delay, but my mind has really been a bit scattered the past few weeks. I've been doing hardly any knitting until very recently, I haven't even been queueing patterns on Ravelry!!! (I'll have to get back to that soon, lol) I think I'm starting to get back to normal now, so I'm updating everything, including this blog :)

The hafla went really well! It was a really good night, with lots of fab dancing. No hiccups of any kind, everything went totally smoothly, and it seems everyone had a good time. Yay!!!

We got to the hall a couple of hours early to set up. I had thought we wouldn't need the time, but we did! A couple of friends very graciously offered to help decorate the hall, and it wouldn't have been half as lovely without those ladies helping. I've been thanking them over and over every time I see them because they did such a great job, and were total life-savers! Here's a shot of how the hall was decorated:



They put up veils and saris and hip belts on the walls of the hall, and it really made the place feel cozy and inviting.

I took the job of checking and selling tickets, which was very social for me! I had to rope another friend into selling raffle tickets though, because it was all getting a bit confusing. It was good to have someone there to talk to during quiet bits when no-one was coming in :)

I had made up the running order of dancers pretty much at random, then tweaked it a bit to make sure solos weren't next to any group performances the dancer might be in to give them time to change. Surprisingly, it all ran very well together. The music flowed well from one track to another, and there was a good mix of dance styles.

We had people doing sword dances (one with my tribal teacher doing double swords!!), bollywood, Tribal Style fans, Celtic fusion, and of course straight-forward bellydance. We started off with a follow along to get things going, had one before the break to encourage people to get up and dance, and another one at the end.

And I did my very first drum solo!





I was shaking before I went on, I don't know if I've ever been so nervous! but it went very well, I got lots of lovely compliments (I'm such an attention whore lol). I did forget a bit right at the beginning, and was just panicing in my head thinking "Oh my God, I'm going to have to improvise this whole drum solo!" Thankfully the music I'd chosen (Groove Sanctuary by Hossam Ramzy) has lots of clearly defined sections, so the next one came up, and I knew where I was. Phew!

The part that I was stressing most about the night was the socialising. I am by no means a social butterfly, and get very nervous having to talk to people. But I made an effort to go round and talk to everyone, and that part went quite well too. I must be coming out of my shell a little, lol! It's only taken 30 years!

All in all, it went very, very well. There was a lot of help from people around us, of course, which made it all go very smoothly. These people were invaluable, and so much help!! **bowing down at their awesomeness** And we raised £400 for charity! I totally want to have another one now, but we'll wait till next year, I think!

OMG It's TONIGHT!!!!!

OK, the hafla is on tonight, and I am officially ______ myself (insert your own verb in the blank, I think you know what I mean!) I don't think it's so much because things need organised - they don't. Me and my friend (the main organisers) have had so much help from people around us. People have been incredibly generous with their time and energy, it's surprised me just how lovely people can be! I'm more nervous because it's a social event that I will have to be social at. (i can haz soshul ishoos!) Normally, I'm not stressed about haflas because someone else is doing all the organising and I just have to sit there and enjoy myself. Tonight, I'm sure I'll be running around like a headless chicken doing stuff :)

We went to the house of the people we're borrowing the sound system off, and they were very reassuring. They've organised tons of events, and have lots of practice at this sort of thing, so they had lots of ideas to help.

Getting all the dancers and the sound system seems to have been the easy parts, it's all the little things. It's a "BOYB" event, but we're putting out little bowls of bombay mix (we were going to put out nuts, but didn't want to set off anyone with an allergy), and candles on the tables, little decorations like that. We're getting a bunch of veils and saris and putting them on the wall, so it doesn't look like a bare hall.

I had to get all the music and short intros for each of the dancers, so that was a challenge for me. I opened my inbox the other day and there was all these emails from REAL PEOPLE! Not just the crap I've signed up to to make myself feel popular! So I had to read them all and answer them all, and that's one of my social issues, is that I tend to put off that kind of thing. But I made myself do it that night instead of closing firefox like I wanted to, and I'm very proud of myself for that! It's a small thing, but for me, it's quite an achievement! :)

We've learned a bunch of things from organsiing this first hafla. First, the end of summer is maybe not the best time cos everyone's off class and hard to get hold of! We just thought that nobody has one in August, so that's when we'd have ours. :) Also, next time (if there is one!) we'd invite more classes to dance as groups. We've got a lot of solos and duets, but only a few groups. I made up the running order too, and it's quite hard deciding who to put where. Especially the very first act! We're going to have a follow along dance for that, to an upbeat song, to get things going. I just couldn't decide who would want to be on first!!

(To any other hafla organisers, what kinds of acts do you put on first? Solos, duets, groups? It's something I had never even noticed when going to haflas, but it's really quite important to setting up the whole night)

We're going along to the hall early to set up. I thought at first that it would be too much time (1.5 hours before start) but now I'm thinking it's probably about right. I need to practice my drum solo before I go as well, and make up little fliers for the tables with the running order. Oh, and have a bath and do my hair :) Leaving everything to the last minute as usual!

Update On The Hafla

There has been a lot of organising going on to do with the hafla (which is now less than 2 weeks away, eek!). Me, and two friends in particular, have been busy little bees, but we've emlisted help from lots of other people, which has made it much easier.

We've got all of our dancers booked (around 15 acts). This was actually the easy part, just walk up to people at class or wherever and ask "do you want to dance at our hafla?" Worked amazingly well ;) We have a nice mix of new and experienced dancers, which will be good to see. We emhpasised the casualness of the hafla, so that newer people, or people who haven't performed so often, wouldn't feel intimidated. I like to encourage new people to perform. It's good to see different dancers, and I get such a buzz from it myself, that I just want everyone to feel that way :)

We've got a sound system, lights and MC, all from the same source, yay! As we're having the hafla in a church hall, the lighting that is there already isn't great for performances, just flourescent light strips on the ceiling. So we've arranged for some standing lights. Just need to find out where all the plug sockets are in the hall, lol!

We've got an idea of how it's going to be laid out with the tables and chairs etc, and have made sure they're in the hall and available for the night. It's going to be an informal night, bring your own food and drinks, so it's nice to have tables for everyone to sit at, instead of just rows of chairs.

We went to Glasgow last weekend to get raffle prizes, lots of sparklies and goodies! And we've put the word out that we're looking for donations, so hopefully there'll be lots of stuff for people to win.

My friend made up fantastic fliers and tickets! We've been distributing fliers locally, and now the main thing we have to do before the night is sell all the tickets. That seems to be the hardest part in a way, pinning everyone down and getting them to commit to coming, and obtaining their tickets! But there seems to be enthusiasm for it, it's just pinning everyone down, like I said.

The proceeds are all going to a charity run by our dance teacher - confidance for life. It's about encouraging self esteem through dance, and building confidence. Belly dance really is amazing for building confidence, I'm a very, very shy person at heart, but over the past five years, I've really come into my own (if I do say so myself), because I feel more comfortable in my body and myself, and I have a way to express myself now. I'm a bit rubbish at expressing how I feel verbally, so it's wonderful to have a way to do that without having to speak :) And really, five years ago, would I have been so involved in organising anything like this? No, I would not! I'd have been hiding in my room, trying to think of an excuse not to go, because I wouldn't have been able to face all those people. But recently I've had to talk to people to organise things, and it's not been that bad, actually! So, if belly dance has been so good for me, I'd like to encourage other people, and that's why the proceeds are going to this charity.

So yeah, mostly just selling tickets to go. Oh, and we have to get everyone's music off them so we can prepare as much as possible before the night. But the main organising seems to be done. Yay! I'm getting very excited about it now :)

A Whole Month With No Posts :/

I wish I could say that I've been having a wonderful summer holiday somewhere, lazing on the beach, swimming in the sea, and generally travelling around all sorts of wonderful places, but . . . no, I haven't. I've been lazing in my house, starting many projects and not finishing many of them. The hafla we're organizing is getting a bit further along (only 2.5 weeks now!), but I'll write another post about that.

Honestly, this past month has been taken up with startitis (not just knitting, all sorts of projects and hairbrained schemes!). I just haven't been able to concentrate on anything. I have three (!) patterns on the go that I want to publish, I just have to write them up, lol! And take pictures. But the samples are finished. :)

There is another pattern which is probably to blame for my lack of concentration - a design I was working on till it kicked my ass! Here's a sneak peek of a part of it



The design seemed simple enough in my head, but working it out has been an ordeal! It's currently sitting on the table at the side of the couch just now, where I'm trying to ignore it, and pretend it doesn't exist. The three other patterns are completely different from this, and that's the only reason they're finished, lol!

Even my Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup projects this month were quite uninspiring. I made wrist cuffs for Potions (something sparkly to show the use of Felix Felicis (lucky potion))



and more for Charms (to represent the workings of a duplication charm)





Oh, sign ups for the new term of the HPKCHC are open now, if anyone wants to go over and join in the fun! Rav page here: http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/hp-knitting-crochet-house-cup/755049/1-25

I made a pair of Glynis socks (from Cookie A's book Sock Innovation)




It's just a random yarn from my stash. I'm not even sure if it's a washable wool or acylic, it seems to have tendancies of both. I got a big bag of it from a charity shop ages ago, and was lookng for something to make with it. I still have enough for another 2 pairs of socks, lol!

So, I guess I have actually been doing stuff. I also have a bunch of WIPS on the go, which I'll write about later. I think it must just be the heat and that dratted design which made me unable to concentrate, even to notice that I was doing things, lol!