Good news / Bad news

Bad news... my car appears to be dead. It began to emit strange steam and make peculiar noises as we set out from Clare for lunch at the George in Cavendish, Suffolk on Saturday. We decided to pass the pub and look for a garage. The garage we found was shut, and the car gave up the ghost in their forecourt. So instead of a nice afternoon having lunch, swatching, etc, we spent the afternoon waiting for various men to come along and shake their heads in despair as the sight of my engine. We then sadly waved the car off as it went back to London & we got a taxi back to Clare, where I cheered myself up with a real fire, sparkling wine & Strictly Come Dancing. Did the entire length of the Central line from Epping to Ealing Broadway today, as this seemed to be by far the cheapest option for getting home from Clare without a car.

On the plus side, whilst on the tube I finished some socks for David from yarn I dyed myself in Turmeric and Paprika - Spicy Socks - and I also managed to take some pics in the field opposite the house in Clare of the now-finished Black Beacon hat.

Inspiration from the banks of the Danube

I've just got back from a weekend in Budapest, which is a beautiful, civilized and seemingly safe & clean city, bestriding the Danube with gorgeous fairy-tale spired buildings, interspersed by the odd outrageously ugly 1980s hotel. A little strange, but fully of colourful inspiration for the knitter.

For instance, the Basilika of St. Stephen has a slightly macabre chapel of the saint's thousand year old right hand, decorated by the most splendid Art Nouveau stained glass windows, showing Hungary's most important saints in glittering colour:

Imagine this as a Kaffe Fassett throw...

And of course when I saw the roof of St. Matthias, I cooed, "Look, a Fair Isle church!"

 

I knitted on the plane on the way out, as I am now fairly confident I can get my Brittany birch sock needles through Heathrow security, but banished them to the hold on the way back.

 

If only international airports could get themselves together to have a coherent published policy on needles...

Beacon in progress

Thought this would be a quick knit but got quite a long way through my first go only to realise it was too big (even on my enormous bonce) and that the way I'd done the knit/purl stripes just didn't work. So I'm back on try 2 which seems a more civilized size but I'm still not 100% happy with the clapboard effect. On the plus side I think I have worked out how to do the planned matching scarf.

Have also got to do swatches for the next Knit Now subs call - and finally finish the Fyberspates jumper I am knitting myself as I keep wanting to wear it then realising I haven't finished it yet...