socherryknits

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All about the games...

February 15, 2013

Lately it's been all about the gaming. On a whim, to do something related to my Computing degree I went off to see the Global Game Jam a few weeks ago. This was the Glasgow Jam - one of three in Scotland. It's a 48 hours designing marathon - everyone is given a theme, and 48 hours to build a game based on this theme. With much nervousness I peered over the edge to see everyone hard at work, and summoned up the courage to go down and be social and talk to people. Doing an Open University degree in Computing is a lonely path at times. Sure I have the forums. But I never meet most of my fellow students. At most we get 3 face-to-face meetups in a 9 month course, which isn't much chat time, and at any rate it's a teaching meetup. No-one in my circle of friends has any idea what I'm talking about when I talk coding, and when I get stuck on some programming issue or another it can be incredibly frustrating not to be able to talk it out. Combined with my newbie status in t

November 23, 2012

What's been happening? Well it's been busy, and it's been emotional... In cat news, everything was so very stressful it brought on my first ever cold sore... But all is well for the moment. Injection giving has become routine, and he doesn't even notice anyway as he's wolfing down his food so voraciously! I do the morning shift, and the boy the evening shift. I've learned some important things during my trawling through the web trying to sift useful cat diabetes information from horror stories. from my friend the vet: if he seems fine in himself, don't get stressed about the numbers. from some forum, somewhere: if he's doing the 5 'P's then he's probably fine; preening playing purring pooing peeing There are quite a few people out there absolutely obsessed with blood glucose testing. I intend to do another curve soon, but for now I'm relying on the one I managed to get a couple of weeks ago and another fructosomine test from the vet in a

A busy one

November 03, 2012

Today I managed to get tma01, my second assignment for M263 handed in 23 days early. I'm trying to get ahead as much as possible before my overlapping second course starts in February. So far M263 has been like a recap of M255 that I did last year, but a quick flick through blocks 3 and 4 show that the course has a steep curve to sudden mathematical coding that looks quite in depth. In driving news I had a great day with lots of driving about successfully until the inevitable 45 minute mark where I suddenly and unexpectedly become a monstrously bad driver and have to stop. In cat news, day one hasn't gone fantastically. Insulin injection one went unnoticed by my voraciously hungry cat (he's always had that rescue cat 'must eat ALL the food' appetite). So it was a bit of a surprise when I was cleaning his litter 10 minutes later to find myself weeping. And repeat again on the way to the cinema after his evening shot... I've always been terrified of needles and ne

NaBloPoMo

November 01, 2012

NaBloPoMo ... can I? Ok I'll give it a shot.. The past few days have been an exercise in dealing with kitty cat's recent diabetes. Appointment tomorrow to get him (and me!) comfortable with the prospect of having to stab him twice a day with a needle... and learning all the things to watch for in case he has a hypo (too much insulin / too low blood sugar) or too high blood sugar (extreme thirst, hunger and weeing). In other news, I have been trying to get more coding languages under my belt. To that end I've started with C. I've found a book ... and an online compiler and I've managed to write 'Hello World!" So I'm practically finished! I also bought books for C++, and started an Amazon Christmas wishlist, and Pinterest board on useful resources for learning others, like HTML/CSS, HTML5, and the rest. I've downloaded Visual Studio 2012 (thank you Microsoft for your free resources for students!) and plan to learn .NET. So knitting then ... ? Lots o

Pet kitty

October 29, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed my wee kitty was developing a rather amazing thirst... You've probably got there as quick as me ... this is diabetes, or kidneys. I phoned my vet. My eleven year old kitten has developed diabetes. This was quite a shock to me, not least because I'm terrified of needles. Lots of positive vibes from friends and family about it being a manageable condition, and at least I still have him are only now, a week later, giving me the comfort I need. For the last week I've been going through an emotional time trying to come to terms with the simple fact that my cat is getting old. I've had him for 11 years. I've been through a lot in those 11 years. He has licked the tears off my face when I was so lonely I simply couldn't bear it. He has caused me to literally weep with laughter when he got caught out sticking his head through a carrier bag handle trying to eat forbidden rubbish. He heard the rustle of the bag and ran, giving himself a ne

October 20, 2012

A frustrating morning coding, a nice shiny new haircut and a whole afternoon at Glasgow School of Yarn in good company knitting my sparkly purple cable scarf and buying new yarn - a perfect Saturday!

Reinventing Scotland's Woollen Traditions at the Lighthouse

October 19, 2012

I had a fantastic afternoon yesterday at the Lighthouse at a knitting event held by the School of Humanities and the University of Glasgow. The public study day Reinventing Scotland's Woollen Tradition s involved ... The hordes descend on the yarn at Ripplecraft's stall ... much yarn and fleece shopping ... Trevor Pitt's "The Salon Bench Project" ... exhibits to look at, like these benches covered in knitting ... Roxane Permar, Shetland: the Mirrie Dancers Project talks about all sorts of interesting topics, like knitting lace with wool and other materials and projecting light through it ... Karina Westermann getting interviewed ... friends getting interviewed for STV News ... Karina doing her thing! ... and doing crochet and continental knitting demonstrations ... ... my beautiful wedding shawl by Old Maiden Aunt went down a storm, and I was even asked to show it off for the cameras! ... (The full article is available here for UK viewers) A view of the room fr

3 sentences, 3 exclamation points

October 12, 2012

Current progress on reversible cable kit shawl - loving knitting this! In other news, I am planning on going to this and can't wait! And I also got 100% in my first assignment!

lots and lots of things

October 11, 2012

No pictures in this blog post I'm afraid... This past week has been the juggling of many, many things, while trying to contend with a near continuous migraine that I know is caused by all the things but can't seem to shake it, or just RELAX. At the moment studying is going well, I just need to be spending more time on it. I'm enjoying it, however as I work in a University, it is a busy time of year so by the time I get home I'm shattered. I managed to get in my first assignment a week early, and am now working on the second one. The boy and I are also having to contend with plummeting house prices at a time when we got all geared up to do the house up and sell it. Due to the house prices in our street falling so very much we're having to accept that we should wait until April and re-evaluate whether we can afford it then. In the meantime we have to get the house finished. It needs a lot of work - the big jobs (bathroom and kitchen) are done, we just have to find the

Sparkly reversible cable shawl

October 04, 2012

Last night I decided that my study-fried brain (which also had a migraine to deal with) was struggling too much with the fair-isle gloves I'm making at the moment, and the rush of finish-itis has left me little else that I'm interested in. So I decided to cast on something that has been in my queue forever - Lily Chin's Reversible Rib Shawl . You can see a finished one below here on MiniLaura' s blog. (c) Mini Laura And I have just the yarn for it too! A lovely sparkly Bramble colourway from Old Maiden Aunt that I plan to make a giant snuggly scarf/shawl with. I only have 800 yards so I can either join both ends and make it into a cowl if it is too short, or ask my good friend, the old maiden aunt to dye me another skein (if she still has some of the sparkle left that is!) In other news, it is a gorgeous, crisp autumnal day today. We had to scrape the car - the perfect day to bring Pumpkin back out to play!

Studying begins once more

October 03, 2012

After a lovely long year off to get married and all the preparation that comes with going down the offbeat bride route for a wedding, it is now back to studying. This year I'm taking M263 Building Blocks of Software at the Open University. This is part of a BSc (Hons) Computing and IT that I began in 2009. I've been doing 2 modules a year, and it is getting progressively harder. This year I will have two exams as I'm starting M257 Putting Java to Work in Feb 2013. This means the knitting has slowed considerably. I tried to finish as much as possible to the point where I'm only really working on a pair of gloves at the moment, in readiness for winter. I've also taken to the roads again of late. Thoughts of moving out of Glasgow to a more village'y place with more garden and less people has been appealing to the boy and I of late. If this is to happen (crap housing market aside!) I really need to be able to drive.

The Dress and The Big Day

October 02, 2012

Finally, a few photos taken on the big day by friends and our photographer. For all the photos see our fabulous photographer Andy Allan's page . You can see the front of the dress, the length of the train and some detail of the back. No close ups, and we didn't get one of the train all spread out ... yet. My mum has plans for me putting the dress on again so we can take the train detail better. Then we'll get some more close ups. Final thoughts - would we do it again? Without my mum, no. I simply wouldn't have managed it at all on my own. Her experience, knowledge, and most importantly, calm-ness in the face of the many stressful situations we encountered was what made this dress. She put in so much time and work. And not only that she made the wedding cake too! When we started this project, the pattern was said to be relatively easy. I think it probably is - we complicated it by adding a full lace overlay, although this also was useful in hiding any mistakes. My body

Wedding dress part 8 - long overdue!

August 03, 2012

Well the wedding has been and gone and I still have a lot to update. We met again another couple of times to finalise all the bits of the dress. We discovered why all-over chantilly beaded lace wedding dresses are rare - the weight of the beads will make the lace hem drop many inches (many!). Keep it hanging for as long as possible, and don't forget that the hoop makes the hem rise so try it on with the hoop before guaging the correct trim length. Another thing we discovered was that it is better to raise the hem at the very front of the dress by an inch or more. This is because, unless you plan to spend the whole day standing straight as an arrow and never bending down, or walking, you will trip over the front of the dress. The last panic you need is to tread on the dress halfway up the aisle and go flying! We had another mini crisis when, no matter how much we tightened the bodice under the bust line, the weight of the dress just kept making the top drop down and the 'girls&#

Wedding dress part 7a - putting together the final dress

April 13, 2012

When I arrived back, we were ready to start putting the final dress pieces together. I say we, I mean my mum. I am not confident enough, and with 7 seams, even a millimetre out on each seam is 1.4cm extra or too little on the dress. So I worked on sewing the lining pieces and remaking the petticoat. I bought one from eBay after searching everywhere for one with a Lycra stretch top instead of the many many out there with a drawstring. Surely you can see a drawstring through a wedding dress?! Anyhoo, once it arrived, the net was really scratchy and strand-up-on-it's-own rigid. So I measured it and bought some replacement veil net in the softest drapiest I could find. I don't need a lot of extra volume for my dress. I also bought more Lycra to add a panel and lower where the net starts, as it was too high for my dress. I'm quite impressed with my handiwork! And now for the dress - so stunning as it currently stands.

Wedding dress post 6 - the cutting out

April 12, 2012

I went up north to see my mum for this bit, as she has much more space in her house. I had the huge roll of satin, the lace and my Singer sewing machine. We had 5 days to get as much as possible done so hit the ground running... My advice for the cutting of the fabric - imagine how long it will take and then quadruple it. Unless you are using cheap easily replaceable fabric (unlikely!), you will need to spend a lot ( a lot!) of time thinking and measuring before cutting. Also, because by the time we got to cutting the final fabric we'd made seven bodices and three skirts, I would advise always date adjustments in your notebook, and when drawing amendments on paper patterns, pick a colour and write next to your dated amendment what colour you used. Ideally once the amendments have been made, redraw new paper pattern pieces, as inevitably you will make more amendments. Don't end up like us, with multiple colours and no idea which was the most recent! We had to cut up the satin d

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