annarella | handmade : beaded stitch markers and original hand knits, london

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thursday, 26 april 2007

Pictures are worth a thousand words...

aka: I haven't got the time to write anything at the moment, so some photos taken in the last few days (...and hijacked from Mum's camera) talk...

Anna + Mum

Anna + Mum again

Mum wearing (mini) Ella from Knitty

Me in a... uhm... coffee shop (...dejavu, anybody?)

Phone boxes

Pretty little building in Hyde Park

Flowers in Hyde Park

wednesday, 25 april 2007

Why, oh why?

Rant totally unrelated to knitting, so skip this post if not interested in hearing me going on about something that ticked me off immensely yesterday...

Let me set the scene: yesterday evening, after a long day's work (read: completely and utterly shattered and so not in the mood to be confronted by brainless cretins) I was in a crammed shop on Oxford Street (yep, reason must have abandoned me there for a minute...) and had picked up a few items of clothing I wanted to try on (please allow me to go off on a tangent here, and say how much I envy those people capable of buying clothes which fit, just by looking at them... sadly, I'm not one of them...), so off I proceeded towards the changing rooms, only to find an endless queue of flustered women equally weighed down by baskets of clothes. When I say an endless queue, believe you me, I'm not just having a moan, as you do, there must have been at least twenty-five other people in front of me.

Now, I don't normally jump queues, man, I won't think twice about telling somebody off whenever they try and ignore me be funny and walk in front of me. BUT, in a shop of a least two floors (I didn't investigate further, there could have been even more, I shall never know...) I thought it perfectly reasonable to raise the innocent question as to whether there might be additional changing rooms... See? An altogether legitimate query, not exactly rocket science, hence I would have expected a simple, short YES or NO. Wasn't being too demanding now, was I? Right... so I spotted a sales assistant (and here I'm being extremely generous using the word "assistant") nearby, naturally I approached her and the conversation went as follows:

Me: Hi!
Her: Hello!
Me: Are there any more changing rooms upstairs?
Her: Are you looking for women's or men's?
Me: Would I be allowed in the men's?
Her: No, you wouldn't.
(At this point I resisted the urge of asking whether she perhaps thought I was a hybrid)
Me: So women's, then.
Her: Uhm.....
Me: So, are there any?
Her: There should be...
Me: Are there or aren't there?
Her: I think so...
Me: So, if I now left this queue, gave up my place and walked upstairs, would I find women's changing rooms?
Her: Well, upstairs they (please, oh please do note the use of the pronoun they as if she had nothing to do with the shop she worked for!) sell shoes, so I doubt whether they would let you in because... you have, well, clothes...
Me: ?????
Me: So, just answer me this: can women try on clothes upstairs, yes or no?
Her: That's not my department really, I work down here... I don't know, you'll have to ask upstairs...
Me: Thanks, you've been very helpful.

How did that end? Cos I'm such a sucker, I did queue, tried on all the stuff, found that NOTHING fit (!) and left without buying anything! I tell a lie, I did buy a scarf-type-thingy and a pair of socks, neither of which required trying on.

I sooooo detest idiotic jokes of nature shop assistants...god bless Internet shopping! The least interaction with humans, the better!

(Disclaimer: and before I get any hate mail from shop assistants cum knitter readers, I hasten to point out that I did use to be one in my previous life... but most times I did have a clue about what was going on around me...)

tuesday, 24 april 2007

Not so much weirdness as tardiness...

...I've just found out that The Forbidden Knitter tagged me back in January (!)... not one to leave such requests to fall on deaf ears, here I am, late, granted, but here none the less. So, let's do this:

The rules: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

Off the top of my head...

• I will always blow my nose immediately after having brushed my teeth... it doesn't matter whether I've blown it right before, I still have to afterwards - and whilst we're on the subject, I'm rather shy at blowing my nose in public, or even in the presence of another human being. If there's somebody else in the room, I'll either ask them to turn around and not look or I'll go elsewhere if at all possible.
• When choosing on which escalator to walk up or down, on the Tube, I'll always pick the one to the utmost left.
• I have a pretty disturbed relationship with food - I go through phases of craving (no, not that kind of craving, mother! Put the bubbly back in the fridge, pleeeese!) a particular food and eating it in unhealthy quantities only to go off it once the phase has passed. Past obsessions have included: dried dates (whole and stoned, not chopped), plain chocolate digestive biscuits, parsnips and sweet potato crisps, to mention some... The food of the moment is cashew nuts.
• I can't stand wearing socks in bed even when it's blo*dy freezing. For that matter, I can't stand a messy set of duvet and blanket when I'm sleeping. If I wake up and they're not perfectly aligned, I will have to tidy it all up before I can resume sleeping.
• I can't hold a tune to save my life, but I love singing!
• I've always slept with the light on, and WILL wake up if you turn it off as a joke in the middle of the night, whilst I'm sleeping. Not funny. Don't do it!

As this meme has done the rounds extensively in blog-land at the beginning of the year, I'm not going to tag anybody - chances are they'll have been tagged by somebody already. Just join in if you wanna :)

Edited to add: just thought of a few more random stuff, ok... am technically over six things... but I doubt the meme police will come knocking on my door for breaking the rules... oh, sod it, I like to live dangerously...

• I loooove strawberries, but detest strawberry flavoured yogurt, sweets, cakes, drinks, etc.
• I can't drink plain water out of a mug... give me a glass or a bottle any time, jeez, I'll even drink straight from under the tap, but hold the mug if you will. I know, it makes no difference whatsoever to the drink... but if it's in a mug I can't drink it.

monday, 23 april 2007

Thank youuuuuu!

For all the birthday wishes you've sent - and the goodies toooooo :) A special hug+snog goes to Jenn who totally blew me away when she sent yarny goodies - I really wasn't being serious in my previous post, imagine my surprise when I opened the parcel!!! Pics will follow as soon as I can, the yarn is divine! Thanks so much Jenn, you're an absolute star!!!!

friday, 20 april 2007

Update on the Clap

There's officially not a chance in hell of me finishing it for when mum arrives... I have not knitted one single stitch on the Clap since my last post... Bu*ger!

wednesday, 18 april 2007

Picture-less

All bets are on... Mum's coming over on Saturday (yep, this Sat... YAY!!!! Which coincidentally is also my birthday - hint hint - gifts are not required, although if you want to throw some yarny goodies my way, who am I to stop you*? But good wishes ARE!) and I would really really love to be able to hand her the infamous Clap, coz it's getting a bit ridiculous, given that I started it back in October (yep, the shame...) and intended to give it to her as a Xmas pressie... but... question now is... will I finish it in time?? Uhm... yes... cos it's still not completed... I just finished the straight rows repeats last night, now got the decreases to plough through... AND then washing AND then blocking... (will it dry??) and there's 3 days to go... and I've still got the small matter of work to go to in the mean time (after almost a week off sick last week, I don't believe they'd take too well to my requesting extra time off for some last minute rush knitting... do you?!?)

I've got my serious doubts that it'll be ready... but, you know, stranger things have happened ;)

On a slightly different, but not entirely distant note, I simply cannot wait for this, cos pub knitting stinks! Went to AngelKnits last night, and by god, does my soul smell of smoke now!! I don't know what it is... it never used to bother me this much before, perhaps the stench wasn't as strong, perhaps ciggies are just smellier now, but fact is, the Clap is foul with fag smoke, the clothes I wore last night went straight into the incinerator wash with the exception of my jacket which I have on today, and is making me gag... Don't get me wrong, far from wanting to turn this post into a rant on smoking, but... I just can't help but ponder over how much fun the aftermath takes away from enjoying a nice eve in the pub... do I sound like your granny? Well I don't care, whenever I want to smell so badly, I simply stop washing, I certainly don't need the extra help from cigarettes. Ok, end of rant!

Last but not least, Happy Birthday Ferdie!

* mailing address available upon request ;)

saturday, 14 april 2007

You're the only ones who can understand...

...so I just want to get it off my chest, 'fess up... and admit to having started Crinkle from Rowan 39. I've had this little cutie on my "to knit" list since I received the mag last year and had been meaning to start it as soon as I had made some progress with the exponentially growing number of my WIPs, which are now way out of control... then the other day I thought life was too short to try and do the right thing all the time, so I threw caution to the wind and cast on...

Crinkle from Rowan 39 - A sleeve in progress

I'm making it in Debbie Bliss Cotton Cashmere snatched up at Coldspring Mills last year when they were having their Debbie Bliss 1p/1g sale... It's a "mauve meets lavander meets antique rose" sort of colourway... admittedly not my typical choice, but I think it's going to look very pretty worn with a dark chocolate tank underneath and the sand linen trousers I hoarded yesterday (well a girl needs a little pick me up once in a while...) ;)

Right then, I'm off to knit some more. Hope you're all having a great weekend xx

saturday, 14 april 2007

A little FO

I fell in love with this yarn a good two years ago... (gosh...doesn't time fly?!!) at John Lewis, and as at the time I couldn't afford any more, I just picked up the odd ball, popped it in my stash, admired it every now and then and then did nothing with it, except stroke it when I happened to walk past...

...that was till I got the urge, the other day, to see it knitted up in a hurry... and when I say urge, I do mean an uncontrollable frenzy to do something with it now!... so of course, I turned it into a hat, what else? ;)

Firefly hat - more shots here

Then my friend Ste saw it when I was still knitting it and immediately claimed it as hers... I say "claimed it" in the loosest possible sense, a more accurate account would be: she screamed at the top of her lungs "It's mine, it's mine!"... fair enough, I thought... so off it went...

Firefly hat - more shots here

And now I don't have the beautiful lonely ball stagnating in my stash anymore, and I don't have anything to show for it either... I should have left it well alone... yes I know that now... ;)

PS: Red is a bitch to photograph... arghhhh!

saturday, 14 april 2007

Knit your stash 2007

I came across this and thought I could really do with get rid of reduce my stash... I shall definitely give it a shot... but I'm making no promises...

monday, 09 april 2007

Cutting it short

I have another FO!! Yey for quick, instant satisfaction knits :) But talk about cutting it short...this is all that I have left from the 2 50g balls I was working with...just about managed to cast off...phewwwww...thank god I made it!

Cutting it short

Now...this is one of those classic cases of it seemed like a good idea at the time...double cables (well, not quite sure what you call these cables) with thick'n'thin heavily patterned yarn...? Mmmm...I think not...oh well...perhaps I'll try again with a plainer yarn at some point?

Here is where you should see some cables.... - more shots here

saturday, 07 april 2007

And no one says I've not been knitting now...

Because I've been wanting to post these photographs for a few days and then something always gets in the way, I'll just pop them here quickly* and go back to feeling cold and miserable**.

Blue orchid neck warmer - more shots here

Blue orchid neck warmer - more shots here

Some stuff

More of the same

Strawberry baby hat - more shots here

Orange baby hat - more shots here

The never ending Clapotis - more shots here

It's summer! Well, it was for a whole 30 seconds! :)

* I officially hate my FTP program, it's systematically crashed every single time I've uploaded a file, meaning that a 5 minute job has turned into a half hour...arghhhhh!

** Had something flu-like no doubt gifted to me by too generous a colleague...really I have no words to thank her for the perfect timing...!

tuesday, 03 april 2007

Hey all...

Just a quickie to say that I'm still off the radar, but AM around and fitting in the odd spot of knitting too... :) In fact, I'll have you know that although I seem to have gone AWOL on you all, I've actually churned out a few hats lately which I so want to show you, but can you peeps tell me how do you find the time to take pics and update your blogs AND hold down a full time job as well? Cos that must be one of life's unresolved mysteries... for the life of me, I've been wanting to post for ages, but even downloading some photos I took the other day from my camera is proving to be an impossible task... in fact, let me rephrase that a tad more accurately: finding the time to look for the cable to stick into my camera is a no-go... am hoping this long weekend will see me getting round to all those odds'n'ends I've been meaning to deal with for yonks (like... paying some bills, for instance...? Doh...)

Meanwhile, I came across this nifty little site and wanted to share. It's absolutely kewl... got a few things I'd send in myself (!) - go look & enjoy!

Spk later xx