Lucy has nominated me for an award!

I confess I’m really rubbish at giving shortlists of people whose blogs I love. So instead, I’ll cheat and just nominate all the blogs in my sidebar because I read them all.

I was going to write a jaunty little post about yarn and beads today, but I’ve just read on Cairi’s blog that John is currently in hospital after having chest pains. So I’m sending lots of love to my lovely wizardy friend instead.

Click here!

Please do post on the Inside Loop blog with your thoughts on this issue as well. All feedback is appreciated.

I’ve been eager to get my fluffy little paws on the Fall issue of Vogue Knitting for some time. There are so many lovely patterns in this issue that caught my eye in the preview:

And even if it’s a year or two until I get around to knitting them, I wanted the patterns! But I had problems getting this issue. My usual online sources didn’t have it, and I was wary of paying huge amounts of postage to get it sent from the US. Then I picked up a copy of the new Verena magazine in WHSmith. I should write a review of that, really as it has some nice stuff in it. Though I find it ironic that it’s a European magazine but we Brits have to wait til it’s published in the US before we get hold of it..!

Anyway, there was a price sticker on the front of Verena, with a website address for Magazine Café. And they have Vogue! I ordered the magazine on Tuesday, and it arrived this morning - free postage, as well. Eagerly I opened the wrapper and then had an “oh crap!” moment, because I thought they had sent the wrong issue:

But this is actually the Fall 2008 issue of Vogue Knitting. Just for some bizarre reason, it has an entirely different cover. The inside even refers to the green mitten cover photo. Maybe this is a rare and collectible magazine that I should wrap in plastic in case it increases in value. But more likely that someone just cocked up somewhere along the line.

So I’m off for a cuppa, a read of the magazine and to plan my knitting for next two years!

Other than the magical blocking, yesterday we popped along to WHSmith to buy Captain Underpants and Astrosaurs books and the fixings for a brilliant (but unoriginal) idea I had.

Although I have a set of Denise interchangeable circulars, they only start at 3.75mm. I knit a lot of projects with needles smaller than that, e.g. shawls, so I have a fair collection of circulars in different lengths. Until now I’ve always kept them in their packets in a shoe box (men’s shoes come in the best size shoe boxes, so I always steal Mr B’s!), along with all my dpns (except for the sock-size ones, which have pride of place in the Piddleloop dpn holder that Cairi gave me for Christmas last year).

This was fine as I knew where they were, but I’m slack and untidy and would just shove the circs back in the shoebox when I was done with them, without finding the packet for them. Occasionally I’d have a tidying session, but mainly I didn’t, meaning I was getting an unruly tangle of cords and having to fish around for a needle gauge each time I wanted to find a needle.

So I’d been looking around for some other way of storing them that didn’t cost a fortune (I’ve been using a shoebox for storage, after all!) but did the job. Plus it had to accommodate a lot of needles. All the pretty fabric needle holders I’ve seen on Etsy hold maybe 10 circs at the most. And there’s no way of labelling the sizes.

Anyway, I’d read about people using cd binders (the ones with the little plastic pockets) but they always seemed a bit small and I wanted something slightly bigger so that the needle cords didn’t get too curly. Then I found A5 size plastic pockets. And an A5 binder. Add some stickers, and the job’s done!

It’s not perfect. I’d like to find a bigger binder, like a lever-arch, because this one is already full and there’s every chance that I’ll buy more needles… And it still relies on me tidying them up properly, though I only have to find the pocket I need, rather than rifling through the shoebox. And I’ve yet to find needles that tidy themselves away after use. But each size and length is in a different pocket, labelled with the sizing, so all I have to do is flip through until I get to the right one A lot quicker than rifling through a shoe box to find the packet I need. And then find that the packet is empty…

My dpns are still in a shoe box, but as they’re all sizes I don’t need very often (i.e. larger than sock size) it’ll do until I can think up an equally Blue Peter-esque solution.

If you decide to block a large shawl in your bedroom in order to avoid it being trodden on by two small people, make sure that you leave yourself enough space to actually get out of the room without performing a strange, tippy-toe dance around the edges of the carpet to dodge all the pins.

Secret knitting #2 is done! I’ll finally have some finished projects to share. I’m planning a to finish off a couple of pairs of socks now, as well as planning a new project which has to take priority over Christmas knitting. A certain wizard is getting married and I am knitting a shawl to go with The Dress (which I’ve been given a sneaky peak of, and it is gorgeous; makes me want to get married all over again!).

This is the first time I’ve designed something for a particular person. I mean, I’ve knitted gifts, but this is designing from scratch. So that means my bedtime reading pile currently looks like this:

I already have a fair idea of what I want to do. The only request is that it is rectangular, and with the yarn on its way, I can start swatching very soon!

The spare ball of yarn, my squishy and soft alpaca saviour, has arrived.

And two small people are currently not arguing but playing their new PS2 game. Things don’t get much better than this.