Quiet day at home being doorwoman

Robert is at May Pageant (which sadly I've begged off, because I'm just not feeling up to being 'on' for SCA and the public, particularly as a fencer).

It's spitting rain and very windy in NW London, so I suspect the same conditions apply on the edge of Epping Forest. Sigh.

Haggis is shamelessly taking advantage of the door services.

Q: How many Pelicans does it take to get a catflap installed?

A: Two, apparently, plus a glazier who returns calls.

We now have all the components, and the glazier has visited to measure our window... nearly a week ago.

At this rate we could learn glassblowing and make our own window glass faster than it's taken to do the classic British 'have a man in' to do the work.

Yarny research and shopping

My first big order from Shetland wool brokers arrived this week, necessitating finding the right post office for picking up oversize packages.

A half-kilo of yarn and half-kilo of unspun stuffing, plus a couple of sample skeins of different 'heritage' yarns don't fit throught he mailslot, no way, no how.

Cue a 'missing Hackney' moment, where our nearest depot was a 5 minute walk; the Hyde depot for NW London is either a treacherous 20 min cycle uphill, or a 5 min bus + 20 min walk, plus n mins standing in line behind people who are waiting anxiously on packages they have to collect before their flights...

The 2ply jumper weight is finer than I thought, but it's spun assuming you're making fair isle sweaters that carry 2 strands at a time, thus doubling the thickness of the sweater.

I'll be using most of it for Elizabethan or Tudor flat fulled hats, following xrian's pattern, though I may try one in the reverse direction, starting at the brim not the peak. There was a recent weekend session w/ a historic knitter who taught brim-to-peak method, based on MoL collections, and that's Sally Pointer's preference too, and she knits a lot.

These types are fulled, though I'll use the lazy modern method of washing machine and hot dryer rather than recreating the medieval washerwoman with lye-damaged hands, as charming as it sounds.

At the same time I'm browsing for potential yarns for multicolour jumpers that are not all-wool, that are blends that might be more washable. I now have a file on DK, 4ply and sport weight yarns that knit on 3mm needles to 25+ st/inch, that won't break either the planet or the bank.

I'm open to suggestions from knowledgable knitters and fibre folk for favourite yarns for multicolour jumper knitting, either washable or hand-wash only.

I'm fighting the temptation to abandon my current project which is getting dull (1/2 hour per row!) in favour of knitting swatches to test the newly arrived yarn for fulling...must not...must...nottttttt...no more than 2 projects at once, already at maxiumum...m-u-s-t-n-o-t-y-i-e-l-d...

Hadn't realised....

just how crap Star Wars II is.

Very, very glad that I saw the original canon in the theatres.