Thursday 28 June 2012

Things I knit to

Given that I spend so much time knitting, I really have to fill in the empty voids. Now I've mentioned this before, but I love to watch wrestling.




Every week I look forward to watching Raw, and now it's been given a 3 hour time slot, that leaves me with 3 blissful, uninterrupted hours of knitting time whilst I cheer on my favourite guys, and boo my far-from-favourites, bloody hell I alliterated! Plus a few choice expletives here and there. Then there's Smackdown, NXT and Superstars to watch, so plenty there.

Commentary is always fun, and the storyline segments are really entertaining. Then there's the whole physical aspect, those moves are beautiful! I think they're far more enjoyable to watch than a gymnast.

Hey, I don't judge you guys for watching reality television, and it's the only sport I like.



Music's always a good one too, so I took a screenshot of my itunes player, to give you a general idea. I generally just stick on one of my playlists, depending on my mood.

I love to stick on a season [or two] of one of my favourite shows, Doctor Who is always good or Heroes or Sherlock or Supernatural,  I have to think whilst watching Lost, even though it's concluded so that's a no go for me.

Or a long movie, now I don't mean one that seems to drag, but a long one, or a series of movies, such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Batman or the Marvel movies.

Last night I worked on my colour affection whilst watching Jane Eyre, oh Michael Fassbender, how I admire thee.


I'm ending this post now, less typing means more knitting, right?

Laters!

Monday 25 June 2012

Squares and Affection

Squares




I have a chair in my room which I love to sit in, put my feet up and knit. As this chair is cream of all colours, I have a throw on it. This throw is now getting a little threadbare, but I love this it!

I bought it from IKEA a couple of years ago, from the bargain corner, so it had a hole in it already. I didn't care, think I paid about £3 for it. All I did was knit a ribbed square and sew it on over the hole.

Fast forward to now, and I'm at the height of my yarn collecting. I'm knitting things all over the shop and I have odd balls of yarn. I figure, why not use them up and save something I love? I can practice different square knitting methods, learn something new, it's fun!

As you can see I have kept the squares to a natural-ish pallet, using 5.5mm needles for aran weights and 4.5mm needles for the bulky. This keeps the squares at the same sizes


Affection




And by affection I mean the ever popular Colour [Color] Affection. 

I've chosen grey, yellow and green as my colour scheme, ooh they look so tasty together, don't you think? Craig bought me the yarn, it's Stylecraft Life 4ply in Silver Grey, Zest and Fern.

Everyone appears to love knitting this, so I'll give it a go. I'm going to start with the grey.

Best get started then! I'm off to watch Revenge, laters!

Thursday 21 June 2012

Are we insulting our athletes?

Well I'm certainly not the first person to post about this, and after a little rant on Twitter I felt that I should compose myself and write this post, to highlight issues that I've seen and perhaps use my sparkling wit to raise a smile.

Other effective posts on the subject have been written by KnitPurlGurl, Joyuna and Bromiskelly (a volunteer for the London Olympics this year).

The offending article can be read here, and I suggest you do read it before I start de-constructing it and adding my own opinions.

Forewarning, I am likely to swear. I am certainly likely to use internet memes. I'm also likely to copy and paste my tweets, so if you follow me on Twitter, you're likely to be reading points again. Ok? Let's go.

For anyone who doesn't know, Ravelry is a social networking site for knitters and crocheters, here you will find 2million+ members who have formed friendships and been united because of their love of the craft, as well as an extensive pattern library.

To coincide with past Olympics, users of Ravelry participated in the Ravlympics, games in which you could partake in whilst you watch the Olympic games on the television. Just a bit of fun, to connect Rav. members from all across the globe.

Being a younger knitter I have felt some scorn at my chosen craft, people have actually laughed in my face, so I did not miss the condescending of the article I have linked you to.
"knitting social network Ravelry—yes, this exists and is surprisingly popular—"

Just one of the quips I had picked up on in the article itself.

Unlike the National Olympic Committees of many other countries, the USOC does not rely on federal funding to support all of its efforts. Therefore, in order to fulfill our responsibilities without the need for federal funding, Congress granted the USOC the exclusive right to use and control the commercial use of the word OLYMPIC a and any simulation or combination thereof in the United States, as well as the OLYMPIC SYMBOL.
United States? Wait, am I in the right country? Rain, the M6, the highstreet. No, I'm still in England. Interesting though,  "commercial use of the word OLYMPIC". I can only gather that this means they want  money.
The USOC primarily relies on legitimate sponsorship fees and licensing revenues to support U.S. Olympic athletes and finance this country's participation in the Olympic Games. Other companies, like Nike and Ralph Lauren, have paid substantial sums for the right to use Olympic-related marks, and through their sponsorships support the U.S. Olympic Team. 
 "Support the U.S. Olympic Team"  is all I'm seeing there. Not all members of Rav. would be supporting the USA in these games. There's been no anguish on the parts of any other Olympic committee.

Nike and Ralph Lauren may have paid to advertise using your "marks" but only for their own advantage;
This brand supports the Olympics? Oh, I'll so buy their product.

Thus, Ravelry.com's unauthorized use of the mark OLYMPIC or derivations thereof, such as RAVELYMPICS, may constitute trademark infringement, unfair competition and dilution of our famous trademarks.

This interested me most. Surely the way in which USOC markets the Olympics would be dilution of it's very origin? Where in Ancient Greece, athletes would compete for the favour of their God Zeus, who lived upon Mt. Olympus. Ancient Greece doesn't sound very American to me.



The USOC would like to settle this matter on an amicable basis. However, we must request the following actions be taken.
1. Changing the name of the event, the "Ravelympics."

This is a fair request in my eyes, it is what follows that has pissed off the knitting community.
We believe using the name "Ravelympics" for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games. In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country's finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work.

Firstly I would like to point out that the majority of the 'afghan marathons' I have seen on Rav. have been for charity, not profit, charity. Charity towards fellow man, in what way is this a black mark on the Olympics or the athletes?

And to quote myself here; "Who has made special cushions for the Olympic Village? Knitters." 

I am of course talking about the Woolsack project, in which cushions are knitted and given as welcome gifts to the Olympic and Paralympic athletes due to take part.

I do not see how knitters are being disrespectful here. It's about sharing the spirit of the games, joining in the competition, commemorating the event.

Imagine, in years to come, an acquaintance inquiring about your scarf, in which you can look down at it and say; "I knitted this during the Olympics". Or the athletes who didn't win a medal, but can look at their hand knit cushion and say; "I was there and this is my memento."

The name Ravelympics is clearly derived from the terms "Ravelry" (the name of your website) and OLYMPICS, making RAVELYMPICS


Oh my, clearly a true linguistic detective. 


1. Removal of Olympic Symbols in patterns, projects, etc. As stated before, the USOC receives no funding from the government to support this country's Olympic athletes. The USOC relies upon official licensing and sponsorship fees to raise the funds necessary to fulfill its mission

These are non-profit patterns, they're free. Free publicity for your event. Free publicity so you can draw in 'the big guns'. They show support for your athletes, perhaps if your merchandise was a higher calibre, we wouldn't resort to creating our own.

I can only assume that certain colour combinations are also a no go area.

I honestly think this is pathetic, there was no need to insult a world wide community in such a manner, they should have just stuck to the asking nicely, because in the end, we're knitters, we're good, kind people and we'd comply.

In the end you insulted many people who use pointy sticks, and possibly your own family members, given that 1 in 3 Americans knit.

I hadn't planned to watch anyway, and due to my nature I feel even more compelled not to.




Tuesday 12 June 2012

My Little Jubilee Monster

We all know that The Big Book of Knitted Monsters by Rebecca Danger has been so popular in the knitting community, since it's release, and I have coveted this book ever since then.

I have said many times that I have an amazing FiancĂ©, and him buying me this book, after knowing how long I've wanted it, just proves my point.

Plus he'd bought me the Jubilee colour-way of King Cole Zigzag 4ply, which was released for our Queen's Diamond Jubilee, which I think is my favourite Royal memorabilia ever.

So I decided, that instead of buying one of those somewhat tacky commemorative mugs that seem to be everywhere, I would knit one of the monsters from my lovely new knitting book in my lovely Jubilee yarn to mark the occasion.

Thus, the concept for Jubilee was born.

I chose to knit the Geet the Garage Monster pattern, and given the thin yarn I used 2.75mm DPNs as I don't know how to do the magic loop method yet.

The only reason the project took a week was due to me waiting for the safety eyes to be delivered because of the Bank Holiday postal delay.

Such a fun little knit. I shall certainly be knitting up more monsters in the future, they're just too much fun.




Thursday 7 June 2012

Guess who's featured?

*points at the blog title* Go on people, guess!

ME! Muahahahaha!


Well, I say "me", I mean my socks. My socks have been featured on the pattern page and I feel so bloody proud. See them at the bottom of the printscreen?  My lovely little red and green sockies. Oh little Sockies, I am so proud of you.


Lace-Panel Socks by Ali Green knit with King Cole Zig Zag 4ply in Rustic.