socherryknits

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...

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!

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...

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!

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...

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!

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.

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 ...

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...

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.

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...

This was a 4 day sewing-fest to make up a practice dress from the donated duchess satin. Mum came down to Glasgow to spend time here and had made a 2nd practice dress in cotton fabric, based on the blue one I had made and tried on whilst up north, and a whole bunch of measurements we'd taken. It was a perfect fit around the hips and skirt area, so we used it to draw over the existing paper pattern pieces and make new paper pieces to cut out the satin. But first, we decided to make the bodice fit better and get some practice using all the layers. The bodice requires an underlining (which is made up of iron-on interfacing and lining pieces), the main fabric (which is made up of lining and satin pieces, although we used some cotton instead of satin for this run) and finally the lace. So all in all, we had to cut out each bodice piece (of which there are 7) five times! All for that teeny tiny result below. So (heavily cropped to preserve some modesty!) my mum put all this together. The...