Wibbo's Words

Knitted gifts

Now that January has got into its stride, here's a look at gifts I made for Christmas.

Fingerless mittens for Liz in hand dyed high twist merino; my own design using a stitch pattern from a Japanese stitch dictionary.

Elise shawls for Kris and her mum in hand dyed BFL sock.

Long crochet scarf with fringe for Julie; my own design in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.

On the what's-on-the-needles-now front, not much. Huldran is progressing slowly (lovely, lovely Wollmeise) and there are a couple of pairs of plain vanilla socks on the go. I think I'd better go cast something else on! 

It's the end of the month

Well, here we are at the end of November and NaBloPoMo. A big pat on the back to myself for posting here every day, as well as on Archive and Hove Daily Photo.

November's been a fairly productive month at Wibbo Towers. I'm almost ready for the Craftaganza Craft Market, most of my Christmas shopping is done/ordered  and I have a couple of things on the needles for me.

I'll leave you with this Groucho Marx quote: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."

Knitting in the sunshine

Looking through a box of old photographs for images to post on Archive, I found this elegant lady knitting in the sunshine. I love her hat and shoes.

Slightly running out of steam

Day 22 and the post title says it all. Maybe that's just how I'm feeling today! This NaBloPoMo thing is a good way of getting back to more regular blog posting though and I'll probably struggle on to the end of the month...

One thing occurs to me today after posting this photograph on one of my other blogs. Written on the back are the children's names and ages - this means that I can date the photograph pretty accurately by looking the names up on census and BMD registers. I'm not related to this family but it's nice to know who they are and when they lived. Without the information written on the back I could only guess.

If you have old family photographs, try and find out who the people are, how they're related to each other and when/where the photograph was taken. Write the details on the back - you might already know the information yourself, but no-one will in the future unless you write it down. 

Switch it off

If you're a regular blog reader, you've probably noticed that Blogger-hosted blogs now display blog photographs in a new way. It's called "Lightbox" and photos appear against a black overlay accompanied by thumbnails; the images are smaller that they used to be and there's no longer the extra click-to-enlarge-even-more facility. Irritating? Along with many other bloggers including My Ancestors and Me, I think it is.

If your blog is hosted by Blogger, it's easy enough to switch Lightbox off and revert to Blogger's previous way of displaying images. From the Blogger dashboard, click on the Settings tab. From the Settings page, click on Formatting then cursor down to Show images with Lightbox, change the box alongside to read No. Click on Save Settings at the bottom of the page and you're done.

I've switched Lightbox off on both of my Blogger blogs - Hove Daily Photo and Archive - much better!

 

Ticking over

Nothing much of note going on today apart from a little gentle knitting at Hove Library with Emma followed by lunch at Ethel's. Back at Wibbo Towers now, sewing and listening to an excellent reading of The Woman in White. 

Lickley-Dunlop Victorian Family Album

I'm fascinated by vintage photographs and I'm gradually uploading some of my collection to one of my blogs, Archive, along with postcards, documents and other ephemera. 

There's a huge amount of information about vintage photographs online as well as hundreds of images. I found the link to the wonderful Lickley-Dunlop Victorian Family Album on What's That Picture? and thought I'd share it.

Photograph   All rights reserved by Don Lickley

One thousand and eighty

That's the number of photos I've posted on Hove Daily Photo so far - one a day since December 2nd 2008. I originally thought I'd keep HDP going for a year (along the lines of Project 365) but it's gradually become part of daily life and I'm still wandering round Brighton & Hove taking photos.

There are hundreds of other City Daily Photo blogs round the world; you can check out thumbnails of the latest photos at City Daily Photo Portal.

Don't spend it all at once, Wibbo

That's the £7.30 I won on last night's EuroMillions Lottery draw. Anything is better than nothing, I suppose, but a few extra noughts in there would have been rather good.

There's a lovely sky this morning and the sun is shining. I'm out later to meet friends here (great coffee) and hope the weather holds.

And so we begin...

Well, here we are on the first day of NaBloPoMo. So far, over 700 bloggers have signed up to write a post a day on their blogs throughout November; sign-ups end on November 5 so there's still time to add your blog to the blogroll if you fancy having a go.

One post down, 29 to go ;o)

It's that time of year again

Blackwork Carnations

New free download at Tom Pudding Designs.

Snigger...

20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends

I rather fancy taking part in this

How about you?

Details over on Eskimimi Knits.

The politics of snow...

This made me laugh, particularly the photo caption.

I couldn't agree more

Copying is the lowest, stinkiest form of flattery, IMHO.

Christmas crafting

If you're bogged down with knitting, sewing and other crafty makes for the festive season, do yourself a favour and read this.

Christmas Knitting

This does make me laugh! It's by Franklin Habit of The Panopticon.

That's the parsley done for

Although not covered with snow like Emma's herbs, the below-freezing weather has done for my parsley. I'll chop it down later today and sow more seeds next year. Rosemary and sage look fine though.

ETA: It's warmer today (Sunday) and the poorly parsley's recovered :o)

This and that

It's really cold this morning; no snow as yet but maybe it's time to break out the thermals. Just in case. I'd like to go out for a brisk walk and take some new pics for Hove Daily Photo but can't because I'm stuck in waiting for a delivery. 

The main computer is busy having a technical malfunction this morning (switches on but refuses to boot up) and I'm writing this on my old snail machine laptop. It might be old but at least it still works. Slow but sure.

This is off the needles and ready for blocking. I've run out of steam with a couple of things that are still on the needles; a little gentle frogging may be called for. I rather like frogging. Once I've got to the stage of questioning whether I like something that I'm knitting, it means that I'll never finish it. Thank goodness for ball winders :o)