28 inches

That’s the current ‘width’ of the skirt. I need 32 inches. I feel like I’ve been knitting all day and got nowhere, this centre straight section is the skirt equivalent of second sleeve, or second sock. Then again I keep stopping to measure it every few rows, in the vain hope that 4 rows will miraculously become 6 inches (in reality 32 rows is about 6 inches). All this stopping to measure, all the sulking because it’s not big enough before restarting the next few rows makes for very slooooow going and is eating into some good knitting time.
Sleep now.
Tomorrow I will make 32 inches and start the decreases. Or die trying. No pictures as it looks hideous in all the ones I took with my phone, and I can’t remember where I put the camera.

All Change!

I decided to update my blog theme. The other one was a wee bit boring.

I hope you like this one. I have been looking for days, the same ones over and over, with different colours, layouts levels of pinkness… There are SO many pink themes! I am not sure why.

It’s not that I am adverse to pink in general, it’s just not a colour that springs to mind when I think of myself.

In case you’re curious, all the yarn on the picture comes from the same place. It’s all  sock yarn from The Natural Dye Studio.

Ooops, it’s been a week….

Life has been interesting. My brain has been poking me and making me hibernate a little, and then the meal I ate on Friday came back to haunt me at about 3 am. Pretty sure it’s safe to eat again today, but it’s probably best if I keep it simple.

I met GoD Lady on Thursday last week, she is a cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater! She denied me my socks, but she cast on a new shawl! BAD GoD Lady!

Personally, I have barely looked at anything much this past week. I did ply those singles, and I did knit a sleeve of the stripey shrug, and I joined it at the sholders and joined the neck, with kitchener stitch I might add. My spindle has been pretty neglected though, I already had a single and need a second and to ply them before I can look at doing any of the Shetland and I have only done a tiny bit. Given I have a job application to do this week, either I will get nothing done or I will procrastinate and spin my hands off. I really want the job. I need to overhaul my CV, and write a new kick ass personal statement and covering letter. I am very out of practice and I am not very good at talking myself up so…. *looks at spindle* I’ll be submitting the application at the end of this week, so I’d appreciate you all crossing your fingers for me if you don’t mind, although if you need your fingers for something else that’s OK, I wouldn’t want anyone to have an accident.

In Denial

I was texting GoD lady this morning just to check the recipient of the Cursed Hat was still alive and well (so far she is suffering no ill effects), I told GoD Lady that I had finished Lovely Bloke’s hat and was contemplating casting on a pair of socks. She replied NO! It turns out that she thinks I should actually finish some other projects before I start a new one! UNHEARD OF! So now I am in sock denial and have cast on the first sleeve of my stripey shrug. I did have a look at the GoD, but reading the next bit of the pattern made my head hurt, it will take a few more readings before I feel strong enough to attempt it.

In other news, I managed to actually tidy my stash on Friday afternoon, my Shetland fibre arrived and I had a small attack of evil tonsils meaning I slept a large part of the rest of the weekend. Poor Lovely Bloke spent the weekend doing most of the cooking and coffee making, but I did manage to make breakfast this morning, and he is very happy his hat is finished, it’s drying right now so I will have to wait to post pictures until he’s down next weekend.

I am trying to decide if I have enough energy to ply Merino singles whilst watching Miss Marple this evening. I have 2 singles on bobbins, and a spindle full too, I’d like to free up the spindle so I can have a go at spinning some of the Shetland. I think what I really need is a nice pot of tea and to see if I can find anything edible for supper before rushing into any decisions.

Domestic Goddess Failure

I need to tidy my stash, it was OK then projects got stuffed in there, yarn got yanked out. patterns got looked for… and well it’s a mess.

I don’t have that much yarn. I *know* Ravelry says I have 54 items and I *know* that’s not all of it listed and I know there’s at least enough to make a sweater in one yarn.. or two, but really, it’s a modest amount, a mere drop in the ocean of GoD lady’s stash (she has 16 million boxes I *swear*). It’s only about 120 balls/skeins MAX.

Right now I can’t even tell what’s in there.

Today I had good intentions I picked all the bits off the floor and I vacuumed the living room and then, I stuffed all the bits off the floor on to the shelves and put away the vacuum cleaner….

Maybe if I make a pot of tea I’ll feel more like it?

Happy Summer

The weather here has been a bit rubbish this week, not very Mid-summer like at all. I’m no sun bunny, but dreich and dismal rain isn’t my thing either. I’ve mostly stayed inside and dry. It has given me the chance to do some catching up on blogs though, as well as not having written in mine for a long time until the other week, I have also not been reading others. Reading about all the fab things people have been up to inspired me to do a bit of knitting, Lovely Bloke’s hat has grown by a few inches, he was here and very excited that I was actually knitting something for him for a change. I don’t usually do a lot of crafty stuff when he’s here, I always feel like it’s a bit antisocial, but I’m so used to my hands *doing something* whilst watching tv or listening to music or reading, I felt really odd not to. Restless hands syndrome?

I’m now trying to decide what do do tonight, I have singles I could ply (and 2 stubbies of beer), I have empty spindles I could fill, or I could knit, or crochet. A world of possibilities to procrastinate over, but I guess before I do any of that I should procrastinate over making dinner. I have some bargalicious, reduced to clear, organic beef to roast. Mmmmm….

Promises and how to (kind of) keep them

A few weeks ago you will remember I posted about how I almost went blind duplicate stitching the flowers on the Gloves of Doom, I still wince. Most people would have given up at that point I feel. These, though, are special and promises had been made. You will also remember that I usually meet the Gloves of Doom Lady (the person for whom I am enduring all the suffering and who will, eventually, be the owner of the gloves) on Fridays, but that we haven’t met on Fridays for a while. The promises that were made were made on a Friday, with the full expectation that Fridays would remain our day of cake.. I mean day of knitting. We both made knitting promises; GoD Lady promised that in 2 Friday’s time she would have knitted the back of her jumper, and I promised I would have a flower duped and ready to be grafted to a wrist. Of course the intention was that that would be 2 weeks from the day we made the promises, but the things and the stuff happened and there weren’t Fridays so the promises were altered, “No”, we said, “I haven’t finished, but it’s not Friday yet, it will need to be next Friday”, but Friday never came. My flowers have languished in a bag, until today. Today is sunny.

I did think that the universe was having a bit of a laugh though. Sun was streaming in though the window, so I got up and dug out the GoD bag and plopped it on the table beside the chair in the window, the sun dimmed for a second. I went to the loo the sun brightened. I came back and sat down, the sun went behind a cloud, I got up and turned to look out of the window, the sun came out, I sat down… I ignored the sun, it stayed out and I have done most of one more petal.

So, promises can still be kept, NEXT Friday.

*excuse horribly blurry picture, I REALLY need to find the camera cable so I don’t have to use my phone.

*cough*

Soo um… January was a while ago… I was kidnapped by aliens or um the dog ate my blog posts.. or maybe… I am just a big fat lazy blog-avoiding bum….

There’s some stuff rattling around in my head, I’ll let it sit and untangle itself then I’ll put it here. No idea if anyone will be reading it, but it’s good to get it out.

Time is on your side…

except where knitting is concerned. You’d think that not working would mean I’d be a wee knitting machine, churning out miles of knitting, but..

There are the usual back-burner projects hanging about, the Coooaaaat!, and I have taken over responsibility for Tor’s mum’s Christmas cardi (my fault as she’s been trying to steal Kahlua I knitted and gave to Tor, so T decided to make one for her) since Tor was getting nowhere fast.

So where am I? The coat is almost at the shoulder/cast off for the back, and I have the back and one front of the cardi, with the second front cast on. Pretty much nowhere then. My knitting Mojo is more knitting Nojo.

Distinct lack of coat…

I am being slow.. kinda. I did knit 10ins of someone else’s cardi this week – it seemed easier to redo the back to fix the mistake, than work out where it was. I’ve had another cold, thanks to my very lovely, but germ ridden, bf, his being here and the subsequent snot filled aftermath cut into knitting time. The kitten also has to be asleep before I can knit.

So the project I’m working on, is the Riding Coat from the Big Easy by Debbie Bliss. I’m doing it in Teal, a colour I love, rather than the red of the sample and today I have the knitting bug (and less snot), but also have a ton of housework to catch up on.. yet here I am procrastinating, by blogging about it all, rather than doing any of it.

I know in my heart I won’t be able to settle to knit until I’ve at least cleaned and tidied a little, and puttiing it off won’t make it go away… guess I need to step away from the sofa and the laptop, no I will not *just check* Ravelry or Facebook one last time…