Still Here!

I was going to make excuses for having been away for so long but the only one I have is that I have been so busy! It's incredible how quickly life moves sometimes and so true that you really do have to grasp it with both hands before it slips away.

My blog station called me back following a wonderful episode on the bus...

I am in the process of knitting another pair of Canal du Midi socks for my other half and as they are a secret surprise for his birthday they are my current bus knitting project. I was busily clicking away the other morning and heard, 'What are you making?' I took my earphones out and a little girl was looking at me and my knitting. 'It's a sock' I said, 'would you like to see a finished one?' I got a very enthusiastic nod in return. 'Now, you have to remember that I am making them for my boyfriend and my feet are not this big!' I got another nod.

I have to emphasise at this point that my beloved is long of leg and long of foot and his sock is therefore, well, long! Following a rummage in my knitting bag I produced the finished sock and held it up for the little lady to see. She took a look at it, looked at me, then looked at my feet! By this time the sock had garnered quite a crowd and her reaction to my work and the size of this incredible piece of knitted fabric produced an excellent comedic moment on the bus. It not only made my morning but my day.

Yep, I'm still here and still knitting.

Stitch Markers

As you may know by now I am a keen advocate of 'bus knitting'. It took a little while to get over the initial self-conciousness of knitting in such an enclosed public space but now I don't think twice about whipping my Addi turbos out!

My current bus project is the Gust scarf and today I made a mistake and desperately needed a stitch marker. I had a good rummage around the bottom of my knitting bag but to no avail, so I rummaged around my handbag hoping I could find a substitute.

This is what I came up with...


Can you guess what it is yet? Yep, it's the tear strip off my chewing gum wrapper and it worked a treat for the row I needed it for! It also seemed less snag free than the paper clip markers I caught my Mum using whilst knitting up her beautiful Habu silk cardigan!!

So, I wondered what have you used as stitch markers or other knitting notions when the correct tool isn't to hand?

Socks Are Friends

Last week was about finishing off a pair of socks I have had lurking in the bottom of my knitting bag for far too long and now they are done all I can think of is knitting more and more socks...just as well with the Tour de France KAL coming up!

I only learnt the art of sock knitting in February when I decided it was time to face my fear and attend a short course at I Knit being taught by Jane. It is true that you do catch the 'sock bug'. This pair are the outcome of Jane's gentle and patient teaching and I am so proud of them!



Before I had even finished the first pair I had chosen the yarn to knit up a pair for my beloved...



And then before before I knew it I was casting on a pair of Go With The Flow socks in lovely Yarn Yard Bonny Buxom just for me!





Socks are friends. You can take them anywhere. They don't take up a lot of room in your handbag. They are easy to squish if you need to jump off the bus in a hurry. But, what I have found most intriguing is that socks in progress encourage conversations with total strangers! It's great! I have chatted to a lady who was just curious, another lady about her cousin's generator and a man about his mother who at 90 could still knit on four needles and she was blind!