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.