Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Yarn Comparisons

CopCar and I have been disussing, in the comments to Musings here, the difference in yarn weights between the US and the UK. It has become clear that misunderstandings have come up so I have found here a list of various yarn weights for the UK and the US (I've taken out the Australian/NZ comparisons as not germain to the subject and have had to adapt the chart as Blogger won't allow me to show it as two columns side by side). Hoping now we can both speak from the same page, so to speak ~grin~:-


Yarn thickness or weight conversion chart UK/USA
UK = USA

2 ply = light fingering
3 ply = fingering
4 ply = fingering / sport
double knitting =sport / knitting worsted
= knitting worsted
Aran =
chunky = bulky

I have to admit that on those occasons that I am following a US pattern usually, when I was following crochet patterns I would use our Aran yarn to match US's worsted and it seemed a near enough match in terms of tensions, etc.

Monday, July 10, 2006

EBay.co.uk - Real and Ongoing Difficulties

I have spent the last fortnight getting more and more frustrated with eBay.co.uk. I used to use eBay fairly regularly, buying plants, secondhand books and (new) yarns for crochet. My feedback from that time was 100% and I received comments like "Prompt payment, smooth transaction. Recommended.", "Excellent ebayer, fast payment , thank you A+++++" and "great buyer, quick payment, many thanks".

Anyway, for no particular reason I just didn't have cause to use eBay.co.uk from last October until now, so I never tried to log in. Now, of course, I am a member of the Red Hat Society and need to wear Red Hats and, guess what? Buying a new hat is expensive! So I want to buy some which have been only worn once and now, while the wedding season continues, is the time to look out for them. But eBay won't let me log in under my existing User name at all. After a while I gave up and tried to Register under a new User Name. No success either as I just didn't receive the necessary e-mail from them. Emails that I send to eBay.co.uk bounce too. So over a week I posted no less than three separate e-mails to their Customer Support website but have received no answer to any of them. I had a long and expensive telephone call to a gentleman in India who is one of my own ISP's Technical Support Services: he tested everything and finally confirmed what I had already suspected: my e-mail is working perfectly but for some reason any e-mail I send to eBay.co.uk is bouncing and presumably visa versa and I was told that the problem is clearly at eBay.co.uk's end NOT mine. So I've made two more comments to this effect to their Customer Support - no answer to either of them.

After contacting them five times and each one being ignored I have to admit that I am rapidly losing impatience in eBay and my advice to one and all is: DO NOT USE EBAY.CO.UK!

Last Week

Last week was quite busy in the end and I didn't have much time to go online.

Monday was the Stepson's birthday. 20 years old, which I find incredible as I still at times visualise him as we first met, when he was a bright 6 years old. Now he is 20, about 6ft 3 ins tall and gangly with it and very intelligent to boot. We went to a local Tapas place and had a nice meal together. We all were able to drink except for the birthday boy himself as he was borrowing his mother's car to drive to Cambridge for a party with all his friends that evening.

Tuesday was unexpectedly interesting. About 2 months ago I contacted the local Adult Education Institute for a place on their Summer School but the course I wanted, "Understanding Your Digital Camera" was full. I wasn't particularly surprised it was full as most Digital cameras, including mine, have complicated and often incomprehensible instruction manuals which make it difficult to understand how to do more than the basics. Anyway I left my details on the waiting list and on Monday I had a phone call to say someone had dropped out and that there was a vacancy for Tuesday's course, if I wanted it. I said Yes so I took the train to Brentwood to do the day course. I really enjoyed myself and while what I learny wasn't rocket science it certainly gave me more confidence to use my camera. I also now have a list of things to buy for it too, like card readers, so that I don't use up battery time by plugging the camera into my p.c. - the tutor, a professional photographer, was very emphatic about that.

Wednesday was my first real event as a member of the Red Hat Society. I went, with three other members of the local chapter, to Capel Manor Gardens at Eltham where we met up with members of other Society Chapters and went to a gospel concert. I must admit that the music isn't the sort I usually listen to, and they were clearly amateur singers but with a huge amount of enthusiasm and were clearly really enjoying themselves. I think I shall enjoy being a member of the Red Hat Society as the others seem very nice and they seem to do lots of different things. I am aware, incidentally, that I am now a member of two organisations with exactly the same acronym: RHS. So I must be careful not to mix up the Red Hat Society from the Royal Horticultural Society!

Thursday I spent pleading to my hairdresser to fit in an appointment with her - my appointment was originally on Tuesday but, of course, I did the day course on Digital Cameras then. Fortunately she kindly fit me in. It's odd about my hair, really. For all my life up to about 2 years ago my hair was very, very fine and totally straight. Now it is much thicker, even coarser, and has a distinct and natural curl. Jo, my hairdresser, thinks that the texture of my hair is down to the fact that white and grey hairs are now coming through in profusion and they tend to be thicker and coarser than "ordinary" hairs. She is, however, baffled about where the curl cmae from.

I spent all day Friday and part of Saturday with my feet up after my left foot swelled up like a balloon. I originally thought it was yet another reaction to an insect bite but my GP said that it wasn't and prescribed some anti-inflamatories which seem to have done the trick. I can wear my shoes again.

All the time the week was continuing the Husband had the bit between his teeth to produce a definitive list of all the Classical music CDs that he has. He isn't a very fast computer worker (to say the least) but so far he has reached his discs with music by Chopin. As you can guess he has someway to go! And, of course, while he using the p.c. I cannot. Oh well, abstinence is good for the soul!