igfest

It's not knitting, it's not pop but igfest was FANTASTIC!!!

I spent the whole weekend playing games round, through and in Bristol city centre - I am totally shattered, sunburnt, have lost my voice and may have broken two of my toes but oh my god, it was worth it... I had to crawl up the stairs to bed on Friday and Saturday night because I just could not walk any further.

It kicked off Firday night with Journey to the Middle of the Night - a chase across the city centre with people trying to catch us and stop us. I was so, so, so excited about this and have been for weeks now & suddenly for it to be here, I was scared that it couldn't possibly live up to my expectations. How wrong could I be? It was outstanding! We were emailed a secret location to start from and that was it - so nearly 200 of us set off from near Temple Meads towards Castle Park, where we found a nun telling us to find coins in the sand there and the evening just got better from there. I did get caught almost straight away but made up for it by catching 17 people - 7% of the runners on my own before joining up with the lovely Rhys for Team Turncoat!! We finished near the Ostrich pub about midnight & it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other as I had spent the night sprinting around Bristol, across roads, up hills...

After dragging myself out of bed on Saturday, I managed a full day of games - The Comfort of Strangers, Bad Taste Party, Rainbow Rain (that's me wiping a strange man's face!), Sneaks & Blaggers & the igparty. I could spend hours talking about all of these & pages of this - it was so much fun!! So briefly, Comfort of Strangers was a game using an bluetooth device to pick up other players - your team gave you life & the other team removed it - eerie in a crowd! Bad Taste Party - fashion police gave chase across Broadmead (!) to players wearing bad taste clothes - pretty risky in the centre as there were so many people with bad taste anyway!! Rainbow Rain - coloured water fight that descended into chaos when we were given powder paint to throw at each other :) Sneaks & Blaggers - snakes & ladders in a multi storey car park, sort of. Again I staggered home & into bed.

Not to be beaten, I went back Sunday morning for more playing - The Lost Sport of Olympia, Congestion Zone & Korean Lazer Ball. I had a lovely morning in Castle Park playing the first two games which were relatively laid and easy to enjoy. Then in the afternoon I met the lovely Rhys again who invited me to join Team Hat for the Lazer Ball contest - that's right we all had hats on - I looked very fetching in a NYPD hat!! The aim of this game is to score points by directing a laser into a circle on the wall - sounds simple, eh?? We were nearly beaten in the first round but made a massive comeback to win our first game & we were very popular with the crowd!! Alas in the semi finals we couldn't find our mojo & were beaten by the eventual winners!!

What a weekend - fantastic! Play, go & play more! If you see street games, go & take part, you'll love it...

Oh & if you want to see quite how mad we all looked - check out flickr!!

Taking over the world

Our knitting group seems to be going from strength to strength - we used to meet monthly with maybe 7 of us, then we started meeting bi-monthly. Now we meet every Weds in Bristol city centre and last night there were 17 of us in the Watershed - check us out taking up 5 (!) tables. If you want to come along, here's the website with our future meeting dates on.






And there's Nina with a really cool frog and Katherine with the most fantastically coloured baby blanket in a beautiful star pattern. I have to say I really love my knitters - kisses to them all!!

Oh, and igfest is coming.....

i Knit London

Crikey! It's been a busy weekend with I Knit 2008 & the River Cottage Autumn Festival!

So, yesterday Sarah & I went up to London to the I Knit Day & it was fantastic!! There were knitters & crocheters galore, there was yarn to fondle & buy & there was, wait for it, the Yarn Harlot!! She was absolutely brilliant - funny, intelligent & natural. We had such a fun day! I got to meet up with folks from the interwebs & KCG - hello there interweb friends *waves*

Then today we whizzed off down the M5 to see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at the River Cottage Fair. I have to say it was very very muddy - just look at Mr Setters, doesn't he just look like a city boy?? Of course, I knitted both days but forgot to take a pic of me knitting in London so got a pic of me knitting in a much more rural environment.

Great American Adventure

So it's been nearly 2 months since I typed anything - that's a sure sign of the rest of my life.... That is I've had been too darn busy to put anything up and we were away for 3 weeks.

We spent 3 weeks driving around the Applachian Mountains in south east America, travelling just under 2500 miles (which is 2.5 times the length of the UK!!) in about 10 days. We started in Washington DC & ended up in Memphis, passing through Virginia, Tenessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri & Mississippi. I mean we did end up finally in Boston which is in Massachusetts but we didn't drive through it.

During our travels we met the most fantastic people & saw things I never, ever imagined that I would see - fireflies, Graceland & a real live rodeo are the first to spring to mind.

Anyway - a little less conversation, a little more action as the King would say, so here's some pics.

Kittie fights

It's been a hectic weekend here in the Setters household - Mr was away Thursday night, we were in London Friday watching the mighty Morrisey and then I was at the Knitting & Crochet Guild AGM in Winchester Saturday. On top of that Alan decided to go missing...!

He went out Tuesday and finally came back in about 3am Friday morning - just in time for us arriving back from London. He was limping and by Saturday morning his leg has swollen up and we couldn't get him to the vet. So this is what he looked like as he was biting his leg & making it really sore.

Yep - that's right, he's got a bandage on. He managed to bite so much fur off that he might need a skin graft!! What a simple cat!!

It seems that there's a new kittie on the block who has taken a dislike to both of mine as Millie was bitten a couple of weeks ago & her foot swelled up as well. So, I'm watching the back garden like a hawk to chase off any new comers.

The great reveal....

What can I say but I LOVE it!!!

Broken nail

Yeah, yeah - I know this doesn't sound very exciting but sometimes life just is!! And today I'm sporting a war wound, it's not knitting related but stupidly slipping whilst opening a car door - doh!!

My nails have been going mentally over the past few weeks & so I've been sporting lovely summery colours but this will have to stop for a couple of weeks until the break grows out. You can see from the fuzzy picture on the left that my nail was quite long but broken almost halfway down (ouch!) & then on the right - the morning after, no nail varnish, much less fingernail.

Life will go on as usual though & you won't hear me complain as it's been superglued together to stop me ripping the rest of my nail off....

I have been knitting as well. I've nearly finished my Central Park Hoodie & am on my first sleeve so I will have it finished in time for the winter definately. And below is a picture of my Greta - a moss stitch turban from Let's Knit magazine.


It's a very quick knit even though it's quite long but look at the difference in the pieces!! They were knitted from the same pattern & I thought I'd knitted them identically!! Obviously not!! Never mind, as I've sewn up the seam & it looks okay although I am going to add some more rows to the ends.

Weirdo

We went to see The Charlatans last night at Bristol Academy, which is a fab venue as it's fairly small & the stage runs horizontally long rather than deep so you feel near the front pretty much wherever you are. This is a major bonus if you're 5'2"!!

The Charlatans were fab as usual - I think I've seen them about 10 times, I know that sounds like a lot but they play the Academy on every tour, so it's not that hard to manage to get down to the centre to see them. Tim Burgess looked good, like he'd lost weight which sounds mean but he had little hip bumps which put me off my dancing!

It was a funny gig because it hadn't sold out & so it kind of felt like a school disco as there was plenty of space to dance around in.

I don't have any photos or clips because I know I was there & don't need a crappy mobile picture to remind that I was or prove to anyone that I was but I'm sure there'll be clips on YouTube as there seemed to be a forest of mobiles.

Good news on the kitty front!

Hurrah - both the kitties are feeling much, much better! Millie is back to her usual self, which means walking round the house, shouting for attention & Alan's nose is healing nicely although he's going to have a wicked scar.

Let's have a lovely tulip pic to celebrate, which I actually grew as well.

Poorly cats

Both my cats are poorly & we don't really know why or what's happened!

Alan, who is a simple, timid boy has come in with what looks like a burn on his nose. Honestly, he is scared of his own shadow so I don't think anyone has burnt his nose but maybe he's sniffed something & got burnt. Although it looks awful he seems okay in himself.

Millie on the other hand is definately unwell. So that meant a trip to the vet & she's lost about a third of her body weight & has ulcers on her tongue so isn't eating. She's just sleeping & drooling & as her tongue is sore, she can't wash herself so you can imagine she's feeling really sorry for herself.

We think that they both might have got some concrete or lime or something on themselves & then licked it or something. I'm sure they'll both be fine so watch this space....

All change

Before I really start I'm going to say that I love my scooter - it's the absolutely best thing in the world. I've had a scooter now for about 9 years & it's fabulous for getting around in Bristol as traffic here is a nightmare.

This is my scooter & very lovely it is too! It's a 200cc Vespa so I actually do have my full bike licence even if my bike is automatic.

But today I took it in to be resprayed. I am so excited about it because I have to say that this dark grey really isn't me but because I bought it when the GTs where first released there weren't many colours, at least it's slightly metallic...

It also means that these stupid little dints & scrapes will be gone. I'm not going to say what colour it's going to be, you'll just have to wait & see! Oh yeah, the other one's my husband's!

Happy St George's Day

So a little part of Bishopston is feeling proud to be English today!!

Euromillionaire!

I won on EuroMillions last night!!

Alas it was not the £44 million top prize (what, you actually think I'd be blogging now if I had!!) but a massive £5.50!! It was a profit on the cost of my ticket so I cam very, very pleased.

Where did the year go??!!

Wow - where has the year gone? It's already April & I've been a bit rubbish at updating my blog although I have actually been doing things without telling you about them.

So, I'll start with the knitting that I'm doing at the moment. I've been working on my Central Park Hoodie with James C Brett Aran with Wool, it's going well. The pattern is fairly straight forward & the yarn is lovely to knit with.

I've started & finished a pair of socks for my husband. These were knitted in Kaffe Fassett's designs for Regia Sock Yarn in Mirage Fog. They have a unique 'design feature' - for some reason I put the decreases for the gusset in the wrong place. It seems that it's okay & has worked as I just couldn't bear to rip them back.

And this shows them half finished & I think shows my tattoo off nicely...

My Pomatomus' are resting as I've had a bit of a disaster with them - I did have to rip back about 20 rows as I was losing stitches somewhere. So a brief hiatus for them, back after the CPH I think.

Next post, I'll update you on the other things happening in my life.

Lazy pancakes

Well, it was Shrove Tuesday yesterday & I made pancakes. But not just any old pancakes, how lazy as you like pancakes.

I found this in the supermarket, I mean c'mon how hard is it to mix together some flour, eggs & milk!! But you guessed it, I bought it, obviously for market research purposes.

And it made very nice pancakes, which I ate with lemon juice & sugar!!

January Blahs

Every January I feel blah and that's the only way I can describe it. It's not really the weather or taking down the Christmas decorations or the fact that it's my birthday but it probably is a combination of all of these.

I always dislike taking down the Christmas tree & lights & feel that everything looks really dreary when they're gone. I suppose I could put up less decorations so that I miss them less but I really doubt that will happen.

And I thnk with regard to my birthday that I feel blah as it's the end of my year & the start of a new one. I think that maybe your energy cycle relates to that so by next week I'll be back to my normal jolly self!!

I have however been keeping busy - we went to see AvP-R yesterday which was much, much better than the first AVP, I enjoyed it & have always been an Alien/Predator fan.

I've finished an baby jacket for a friend. It's a Debbie Bliss pattern, in Patons Washed Haze with the cutest button from House of Fraser.

Auspicious start to the year

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a fab New Year's Eve, we had some great fireworks & we might have seen some aliens or maybe they were flares that someone else had let off - who knows??

Today hasn't been the best start to the year as I woke myself up during the night moving my dressing table across the room, I vaguely remember searching for something behind it. Then my alarm clock went off an hour early except it wasn't an hour early because I'd managed to put the time an hour forward during the night. I guess the rest of the year is going to be an improvement on that & let's be honest if that's the worst my year gets, I'm very lucky :)

I've been organising my stash over the past couple of days & updating my Ravelry profile to show my stash, so if you're on Ravelry, take a look.

I seem to have got a bit carried away with the purpley shades, so I'm probably going to exchange the Denim Aran for a more bluey-grey shade.