Skip to main content

Knitted for Life

Due to my new upstairs neighbour playing music at 5:30am (why? WHY?) I arrived bleary eyed at the Race/Knit for life. I'm grumpy enough as it is after four hours sleep but seeing a sea of lurid pink t-shirts and hearing overly cheerful pop music didn't help, I'm not good at enforced joviality.

And why pink? I know the Race for Life is a female only event (and I have my own views on that but anything that raises money for cancer research is good) but the mass of pink t-shirts was reminiscent of an enormous tumour. I was pleased to see that the rest of the Stitch London team ignored the pink thing too (unless they chose pink because it suits them - I do not have a problem with that). Anyway, enough of my grumpiness, after some much needed caffeine and an expensive fruit salad I was ready to go.

Knit for Life with Stich London

We were knitting Batternburg cake squares for cushions which will go to Bart's Hospital. We somehow started off in the runners lane but managed to get to the back. I walked most of the course with Jenny, who I've met at various Stitch London events and shares my love of travel. We nattered all the way around the course so I'm not too sure where I went but we did go past St Pauls cathedral.


Knit for Life with Stich London

We waited at the 500m marker for the rest of the team to catch up. I wish I'd raised an extra £10 every time someone said "You making me a jumper?" or "You better be finished by the end". We did get loads of good feedback including a race marshal who stared slack jawed at us and a woman doing the race in a wheelchair who said she couldn't knit and walk at the same time which made me feel awkward.

Knit for Life with Stitch London

We stopped for a team photo outside the Lord RAGLAN pub...

Knit for Life with Stitch London

.. and knitted together to the finish line.

Knit for Life with Stitch London

One of the knitters brought a delicious home made banana cake with her which went down very well

Knit for Life with Stitch London

The funniest part was when the race had finished and we'd eaten cake we all carried on knitting.

Knit for Life with Stitch London

I did eventually leave and carried on knitting my cushion on the bus home and on the sofa for the rest of the day while watching the World Cup. It was a really fun way to spend a Sunday morning and raise some money to kick cancer up the arse.

....................................................................................
As well as being a good walking project the Cake Makes it Better Cushion is a good mindless TV watching project, the pattern can be found here, just remember to donate to cancer research or a charity of your choice for it.

PS: If you would like to sponsor me click here. Thank you very much.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lashing and lashings...

As well as talk of Clementine Cake on twitter there has been talk of brewing Ginger Beer. Ginger beer is my drink of choice and I'm always in search of a good one. I find many commercial ones too sweet. Once on holiday in Brasil I had a ginger beer made with freshly squeezed ginger which is the gold standard at the moment and a tough act to live up to. @eskimimi (who has a lovely blog ) linked to this River Cottage recipe last week . I had to hunt around for brewers yeast as the brewer's yeast you can buy in chemists and health food shops is deactivated so won't work for brewing, despite the name. (trade descriptions act anyone?). I ended up buying my yeast online after consulting my brewing guru Bioniclaura . As well as knitting Laura brews her own beer, which I got sample when I stayed with her and her lovely dog and husband in Dublin when I went over at the end of October. More on that later. I couldn't wait to get started but had to wait til we returned from Hasti

We have a winner...

Check out my pea seedling, how intact and un-nibbled it is. My mysterious object, as correctly guessed by Madmurdock and Montyknits, is a gastropod guard. It seems to be working. I'd heard that slugs and snails don't like slithering over hair. I tried using hair clippings a few years ago as a barrier. It worked for a few days, til I found chewed, leafless stems and on further inspection a guilty slug covered in ginger hair. Hopefully the fleecy barrier will stay in place and mean I get a good late crop of peas. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who took part.

Ceilings

Over Easter we went to Istanbul. It's one of those cities that's been lurking in the corners of my mind, from tales of Roman Constantinople, to bordering Europe and Asia with its dreaming mosque minarets. So I booked a bargain of a city break two days before we left, chucked some clothes in a bag, picked up a guidebook and off we went. There are more blog posts and photos on the way, as we had an excellent time there, but as you can see I was quite taken with ceilings and spent most of our four days there looking up.