Tuesday Ten

Ten Things I Have To Do This Week

1. Give a presentation to all the AG&T parents tomorrow. Eek. I hate speaking to large groups of people.
2. Get travel shots for Malaysia. I thought I needed Typhoid, Hep-A and Tetanus. The nurse has added Polio and Diphtheria and wants to talk about Malaria. Yikes.
3. Get to bed before 10.30pm one night. I'm being attacked by a cold, I will not give in. If I can think of seven more things quickly, that night will be tonight.
4. Meet with the AG&T year 11s and ask them what they want to do for their weekend away this year. One of them caught me in the playground to ask me if it was happening and when I said yes, she and her friend actually jumped for joy. I love it when the kids are geeks.
5. Do something with that beetroot I cooked on Sunday and haven't done anything with.
6. ...but generally, eat less. I ate too much today. By-product of being tired and under attack from germs.
7. Add five repeats to Jo's scarf by the end of Friday.
8. Take my car into the garage. Henry's knocking on the side where the suspension broke in February. He's also getting a little rusty, the cradle for the spare is broken, he needs a new rear wiper blade, and the clock has started randomly going backwards on occasion.
There goes the extra money from the payrise this month...
9. Book an appointment with the beautician for Saturday.
10. And maybe the hairdresser. I will decide that when I get the bill for my car.


Also, I totally finished the tea cosy tonight:



Pattern: Debbie Bliss 24 Tea Cosy/Mug cosies
Needle: 4mm bamboo straights
Yarn: Cascade 220

Took a week. It might have been less, but I have a lot of other projects OTNs, in case you hadn't noticed.

One WIP down, six to go. Oh yeah. I am going to be all fresh and ready for brand new projects in November, you mark my words!

October's For Finishing

I made October a finishing month.

I did set myself up carefully, though, by starting a small project on the last day of September - I am so over big projects at the moment and wanted something easily finishable, so I cast on for the tea cosy.

Tonight, I gathered up all my WIPs - healthy and delinquent - and photographed them. Here's my wishlist for October (in the reverse order they were cast on) -

1. Tea Cosy



This would have been finished tonight, but I am very tired and was only in the mood for staring blankly, until I had a shower, which re-energised me enough to make this post. I intend to finish it tomorrow. Much knitting during the lunch break and then some more in the evening ought to do it. But, I want to line it with a bit of purple fleece I have lying around to make it snugger, so it might take a few days to actually finish after it's OTNs.
Chances of finishing in October: Very high


2. Stripey Candy cardigan



I put a few more rows on at the weekend. I need to start the sleeves, really, which count as little projects (sort of) and so will be cast on after the tes cosy is finished.
Chances of finishing in October: High


3. Jo's lace scarf



I added two more pattern repeats at the weekend. I intended to be very, very strict with myself and add a pattern repeat a day, plus a few extra at weekends - at which pace, I'd be ready to add the border in the half term. I haven't added anything to it yet, though.
Chances of finishing in October: I want to say High, but I think I should say Medium-high.


4. Endpaper Mitts



Good to have hanging around when I need something quick, but not an urgent knit.
Chances of finishing in October: Low Medium


5. Bamboo top



When I hauled this out I remembered that I messed up the folded edging but couldn't rip, because the yarn looks nubby after ripping. I need to get over this. I think it will even out in blocking - and even if it doesn't, it's at the back. I'm highly motivated to complete this ready for Malaysia in November.
Chances of finishing in October: Medium High - as long as I can talk myself out of hating my shoddy folded edging.


6. Red cardigan



I am going to knit the fronts of this a needle size down from the back, and hope I can fudge the back together with the fronts without having to rip the whole thing.
Chances of finishing in October: Medium high, as long as the back will fit with the rest of the pieces (which will be at correct gauge).
Otherwise, slim to none. Will become plane knitting.


7. Breeze on a sea air cardi



I love it so much. It was such a labour of love. I'm so worried it's going to be massively too big. It's so complicated, and I haven't put a stitch on it in over a year, and didn't mark the pattern when I stopped.
Chances of finishing in October: Slim to none. I might even have lost my incredibly complex colour-coded home made chart. But, with an extra year's experience under my belt, I bet it's not as complicated as I remember.



Gratuitous extra picture. This post took 10 minutes to write, and 25 to populate with pictures. Bloody Blogger. Bloody internet connection. Bloody something!


I'm nothing, if not optimistic.


Note to self: Today, I needed my coat (which I didn't take) and I wanted to put the heating on. I managed to get the heater on in my room, because I can't bear the incessant whining, but have resisted at home.

Subconscious colour selection

During our holiday we went to Hot August Nights, a vintage car show in Reno. Mr Z spent a lot of time wandering around looking at the cars and taking arty pictures, while I spent a lot of time taking pictures of my reflection in the cars...

...and admiring the colours. My favourite was this Skylark.

The picture doesn't do it justice. I loved the turquoise, of course - that drew me to the car in the first place - but then the engine parts in bright pink and purple just sealed the deal for me. Love. I decided I loved it so much, I would come up with a knit - maybe a stripey jumper - in the same colour combo, at some point.

(I also loved that it was a Skylark, mainly because the only time I have ever come across this type of car before is in My Cousin Vinny when Marisa Tomei is talking about it on the stand and I can hear her accent in my head, which makes me grin.)

Several days later, I went to Jimmy Beans armed with a shopping list which included Lorna's Laces Worsted in Wisteria colourway. They didn't have it, so I came away with four skeins in Uptown, which sang to me from its shelf hook and which I dithered over for quite a long time before finally giving in.

It wasn't until I got home and wound it that I realised....

It's my Skylark!

The funny thing is, I went to try and find a picture of the colourway online because I figured it would be a truer colour representation than what I could photograph, and it seems like this colourway usually has quite a lot of royal blue in it too. Not this dyelot. It's just a lot of turquoise and some pink and purple in there too.

I've had a look for Rav projects in this colour and the only one with any notes says, "I HATE these colours! Good thing the scarf's not for me..." *gasp* sacrilege! I am loving it. I'm designing a kimono-type sweater with it, in the hopes that it won't be too hot for me to wear. And it's the first thing I've cast on for since getting back, in spite of the fact I have the yarn and pattern all ready to go on two other projects, and a lace scarf in dire need of special attention.

For those of you with sharp eyes - yes, that's a properly wound cake of yarn, from a ball winder. Mr Z bought me one at Jimmy Beans for my birthday. It is so much quicker than going by hand - in fact, I had the swift whizzing at such a pace I thought it was going to break up.

2008 - A Knitting Review

Hmmm. I like blue, don't I?

In 2008...

• I finished my first sweater - the Central Park Hoody.
• I knitted 24 hats, and gave 23 of them away.
• I caught the bug for viral knitting, and completed a Clapotis, a pair of Saartje's booties and the Drops Swing Jacket.
• I thrummed for the first time and made mittens.
• I cabled a pair of wrist warmers.
• I knitted a pair of earrings with wire and beads, on the day the pattern was published (3rd project on Ravelry, and one was the designer's!)
• I finished two scarves - one skinny, which took months; one chunky, which was started and finished on Christmas day.
• I knitted a corset top out of soy silk - favourite FO ever.
• I knitted a shawl, from one skein of LE Lion & Lamb.
• I STARTED a bag, my first attempt at lace with a mohair cardi, a digestive system for the science department and a scarf for Mr Z - which all lie languishing in the UFO pile.

I am quite disappointed I didn't even manage to knit one bag, in spite of joining the Knittabaggamonth group, but I'm pleased I managed three full sized garments. I've put a moratorium on knitting garments for the moment, since I am doing quite well with the old weight loss thing and I don't want to end up wasting yarn on something I won't be able to wear for longer than a few months.

That said, I cast on for a fishtail lace boob tube yesterday (no pattern link - it appears I was just in time because the link is dead!) I am knitting it from allhemp6, with a halter instead of a straight edge, and I hope to have it finished by my holiday in a month...we'll see. The hemp's quite hard on the hands and it's looking a bit crazy right now, but hopefully after 3 repeats of the lace pattern it will start to take shape; and a good blocking should get it looking shipshape. I am knitting to a different gauge and at 2 inches negative ease, so I am really crossing my fingers!

Light at the end of the tunnel

It's been a long old year.

It's been almost a whole one since I got my promotion, and one in which I don't think I've done as well as I could. I've felt more and more wretched at my lack of innovation in G&T since I got the job, and as time has gone on it's just got worse and worse. Trying to juggle that with the Aim Higher stuff, and teaching, and the ski trip, has been an impossible task. I was so happy to be giving up the Aim Higher and delaying the ski trip by a couple of months.

But this weekend, as I scribbled down idea after idea for G&T next year, I realised that I had been too hard on myself. I never allowed for the fact that it might take me a while to get going. I couldn't pick it up and be amazing from day 1. I really feel now that I've got a good understanding of the expectations and rigours of the job, and I can actually start getting on with it.

Yeyyyy!

Serious part over. Fun part beginning. The weekend is a good example of that fun. We went on the annual Murder Mystery weekend with 36 key stage three pupils, and they were lovely. Lovely, lovely children. Didn't stop making an effort for the whole weekend, and coped very well with the changes to the program we had to make, thanks to the weather.

If only the same could be said for all the staff (return to the not so fun bit). They were, in the vast majority, as enthusiastic and hard-working as the kids. Unfortunately, one in particular seemed to be unhappy with pretty much everything we did. On one point her complaints were valid, though she went about complaining about them in a very over-the-top way - really throwing her weight about and not giving me a great deal of opportunity to explain that she was basing a lot of her complaints upon something that wasn't true. I stayed calm and didn't argue back. No point. I was even more pleased I'd taken this course when, after that was over, that evening she had another row about not understanding what was going on or who she was supposed to be. Since she wrote the bloody story, with me and another, this came as something of a shock, and I don't think it was strictly the case. She also complained that our costumes were rubbish - when she'd been delegated to collect the costumes from our resident wardrobe mistress, and had said the day before that she'd kept forgetting. Le sigh.

I'm trying to remind myself that she had a very stresseful week, and hasn't been very well, and then I found out she was at a very low ebb on Friday afternoon, and it didn't help that I was poorly organised with the paperwork. Still, I think there are ways and ways of dealing with stress, and taking it out on your colleagues, who are giving up a weekend of their time to do an enrichment activity, is a bit low.

It makes me sad. Normally, the end of the Murder Mystery is a really happy, positive time - and I can look at it like that, if I think about the kids and how well they got on and enjoyed it. But it's left a bad taste in my mouth, and I hope I don't have to invite her next year. I can really do without that sort of negativity.

Onto more pleasant things, like my newest knitting project. I found a pattern for a knitted digestive system some time ago and Phillipa (head of science) commissioned me to knit on, so I got that started on Saturday afternoon at the Murder Mystery. It was a fiendishly difficult beginning - a provisional cast on and join in the round. I'd never done provisional cast on before, and with only 10 stitches it was difficult to keep my needles in the stitches and get it into a circle. In the end I did it on a circular and pulled the thread very tightly as I knitted it onto DPNs. Since the end of the knitting is turned inwards to make a nice puckered anus (there are three words bound to get my blog googled as a porn site...) it didn't really matter that I didn't do a great job of it. It's looking good so far, but knitting 15 feet of small intestine might get old quickly.

I have been wearing my CPH all over the place. It is warm and lovely and I get lots of nice comments. It isn't strictly finished yet (ssshhh!) because I wanted to wear it, and I know it will take me ages an ages to make myself pick up the stitches for a button band, or get a zip for it. It desn't look too shabby without either, but I am going to make myself do it in the summer, when it's too hot to wear it. I did the hood with a three-needle bind off and carried the cable up the back, and because I messed with the stitch pattern I have two little points on the hood, but I am not particularly fussed - I think they make a nice feature.

I have several knitting irons in the fire now, since the CPH is off the needles for present. I am all ready to cast on for Annie Modesitt's Corset Top - I have some royal blue soy silk that's just the thing. I swatched it two weeks ago and then, in spite of advice given to me at knitting club, washed it and let it dry - thank goodness I did! The swatch stretched to almost double its original width, and if I'd made the top it would have come out too big even for me. I don't know what to do now though - I want to drop from 4mm needles to 3.5mms without swatching again and hope it'll be alright, because I'm too lazy to swatch again and too impatient to let it dry - I want to make a good start with it over Easter weekend because I'd like to wear it to a wedding in May.

I don't know why I'm saying this - I know I'll swatch it again. I'm not a rebel, really.

In addition to this, I have yarn for a Noni Cherry Blossom Bag, and for Dahlia from Knitty, and a couple of skeins of chunky to knit some headwear with. I don't know what headwear yet, but I am aware that March is drawing rapidly to a close and I have yet to knit a hat. Shock horror! That's no good for knittahattamonth. I will have to cast on the bag instead, so at least I've done something for knittabaggamonth.

Then, next month, I'm going to knit a tricorner hat for felting - because next year's Murder Mystery theme is pirates, and I'd like to get ahead *grin*

More quickies

I am barrelling along with my Central Park Hoody and managed to finish my first ball of wool on a trip to London a couple of weeks back, but then it occurred to me that Christmas was almost upon me and I should get on with some gift knitting.

So here it all is....

A cupcake for Pam at work for secret Santa...Pam is the staffroom mummy and always nagging us to bring in cakes for Friday breaktime, so I knitted her this. Well, I knitted her another one after this because I made several fairly serious mistakes with my first attempt (pictured) and I wasn't happy.

In the course of this, I discovered that the local Poundland stocks soft acrylic in DK and a wide range of colours, for only £1 per 100g. How exciting! This means I can buy some pale lemon balls to knit Mother Hand a sweater she wants and can't find to buy.

Then, I bought some suede lacing and made my friend Kath a whip...


...it's not quite finished because I needed cable ties and I only just got some. This was really fun to make and super easy; the 30m I bought made 2 with a bit leftover, although that doesn't really add up because the tails account for 12m and then there's a knitted bit, and with 7m left over....well, you don't have to be great at maths to work out that perhaps Jillybead sent me too much.



Finally, I knitted Ali a beaded cuff bracelet...

SO. Pretty. I love it! It was really fiddly to start with, and I couldn't do the tapered end I wanted to, but happily the project takes to shaping and wiring together at the end, so I was happy with it in the end.

I have now cast on for Mr Z's binary scarf: I was putting it off, since I've never done Fairisle and have no desire to. But I think it will be OK. I'd like to finish Binary and CPH over the Christmas break; you never know. I also need to find something for friend Jo, who I don't want to feel excluded when I dole out knitted gifts to Ali and Kath. I think I will make her some reusable facial pads and a little mesh bag to wash them in. Time is running out, though.

It's the last day of term for the kids today. We finish in about 1 hour and 19 minutes. Roughly. It can't come quick enough. Last night I took my tutor group out on a trip, where I was almost thwarted at every turn by incompetents at both Pizza Hut and Bowlplex (if only I could find the time/energy to write a letter of complaint), and spent much of my time trying to prevent the boys from feeding all their money into the fruit machines. Now they're back. I will come back and add to this later today, after I've consumed a bottle of chenin blanc in the bath.

Edit: I was in such a hurry I forgot to add the pictures, even!

When I got home, I had a 2 hour bath and a 3 hour nap, and I'm now coddled in a duvet watching Die Hard and thinking every day should be like this one. I have been feeling positively inhuman for the past couple of weeks; to quote Bilbo Baggins, "Like butter spread over too much bread." I couldn't catch up on everything by the end of term and this put me in an even worse mood. Plus, on Monday I had to drive down to Calshot for a one-hour course to refresh my knowledge of ski bindings. This utterly pointless waste of time involved a 4-hour round trip and when I arrived and the instructor said, "Wow! You've come along way - do you have to come all the way down here?" I had to restrain myself. I tell you, sometimes it feels like I've had more training in the name of this damn ski trip than I did to become a teacher. Hopefully it will all be worth it, and I won't end up having 2 weeks off with an ear infection afterwards, like last year. With 6 staff members to 32 kids we should have enough leeway for some evenings off.

Anyway. Tomorrow is TD day and I managed to avoid fire extinguisher training (the story goes, that the head didn't put anybody in History on that list because we're in mobiles and they'll go up so quickly if they catch alight that we won't be able to use an extinguisher; how comforting) and first aid training, so I have an entire day of faculty time stretching ahead of me, a prospect that I find disturbingly thrilling. Ian doesn't seem to have a great deal planned, so I am hoping to get some reports written and some marking done, and then slope off a little early to the Limpley Stoke hotel for the Christmas party. I'm even more thrilled at this. For the first time, I'll be stopping over in the hotel, and not even driving home the next day. I feel a very drunken night coming on.

Also tomorrow, in my absence, we can expect the arrival of Mother Hand's latest silly purchase. Now, I don't really think it's silly - I just think she is. When I went to see her in London for her birthday a couple of weeks back (note to self: never again - London on a Saturday in December = NOT FUN) she handed me an envelope wrapped in wedding paper and was barely able to contain herself as I opened it to reveal....delivery instructions fo a pink Smeg fridge freezer. I'm rarely speechless, but on this occasion, I didn't know what to say. How exciting! We've been putting off doing the kitchen since we got married, but may have to move on that soon, since the new fridge freezer will not fit neatly into the space left by the old one.

Antifreeze. DONE.

And none too soon, although thankfully I don't live in the eastern counties, where it's currently snowing apparently.

This is a stick up. Give me all your yarn.

Let's try and do this properly...
Pattern: Antifreeze (Knitty, winter 2006)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Merino DK
Needles: Addi circs, 3.75mm and 4mm
Pattern Mods: I don't crochet, ever. So when I got to the cast off, I knit 3 more rows as directed, in the CC. But I still wasn't happy - the opening still did not seem small enough. So I knit another round, and then I knit a round of K2,K2tog and then another round, and then I was kind of OK with it but figured I wouldn't know for sure until I cast off, so I did that.

But it's not great. If I pull it down and up so just my eyes are showing like it's pictured in the pattern, it doesn't look quite right.

I'm thinking wide-mouthed frog.

Really I should unpick the casting off and knit a serious decrease on the sides whilst adding rows to the top and bottom....but let's be realistic about this...

It fits with my ski goggles, so that will do. This may be the most technically difficult pattern I've done to date, so I'm not going to sweat it. I'm not even going to mention the couple of little holes where I obviously didn't do the w&t on the short rows quite right. I'm just going to revel in how warm it is, how cute the ponytail slots are, how that ribbing is right on my face actually isn't it....yargh. I had the right horizontal gauge, but I cast on for this so long ago I can't remember if I measured the vertical gauge as well. I am wondering whether that wasn't quite right.

Anyway. Onto bigger and better things. I am still pondering what to tackle next. Meanwhile I dragged this out...


The world's most useless bag. It was my first cable project....first big project, really. I remember thinking it was very extravagant because the yarn cost me nearly £20. If only I'd known. It is meant to be a yoga bag, knit in Sirdar denim chunky, from a pattern in a 2006 issue of Simply Knitting. Unfortunately, I was not about to knit the mat to go with it, since I don't do yoga, and it is much too stretchy to make it in life as a normal bag. So I have unpicked the component parts, and now have a strap knit in herringbone tweed (a stitch I love and must use again soon) and a big cabled rectangle. I quite fancy transforming it into some sort of knit skirt (to be worn over a slip, natch) but it is not quite big enough....I'd need to knit some sort of triangle to graft in so that it became a-line and not a garment that exacerbates my addiciton to cakes.

This week, I will be mostly concerning myself with that conundrum.

Getting my knitting mojo back

It's been a long time since I updated. I meant to write more about our trip, bt we were too busy enjoying it to spend time writing about it! And, I was using this kaleidescope of a diario more and more to write about my new knitting obsession, but I totally lost interest over the summer. I was still plugging away at Ester, but when it got up to 200+ stitches and took me 20 minutes a row, I couldn't face it. Ester travelled 6000 miles to the US, 2500 miles round the US and 6000 miles back without havin a single stitch added. How embarrassing.

Well, I decided this half term was the half term to finish it. I am just entering the final 25 rows of ribbing. I'll be posting picture in the next couple of days, hopefully of the finished article! I am now worried it'll come up a little small, but I can always block it a bit bigger. The pattern says to wet block, but the No Sheep For You book says not to wet block silk....so that will be an adventure in itself.

Meanwhile, I am also trying to knit another Hexed for a friend...and I am still buying yarn...so I had better keep knitting this time. I am slowly turning the spare room into a little snug where I can read and knit and generally hang out without the distraction of the TV. I just need to decide what colours to paint it now.

Current obsessions

Knitting books
I bought two last month and have pored over them endlessly. One is Stitch'n'Bitch Nation, which has at least a dozen patterns in it that I want to knit, and the other is No Sheep For You which has taught me a lot about non-woollen fibres and been quite helpful in the knitting of Ester. I have added at least another three to my wishlist. This is pointless - I already have more patterns than I can ever knit. I feel I am just using knitting to justify the augmentation of my library.

Knitting
I am exactly halfway through Ester. I lazily decided against buying a circular needle today since it involved a car trip, but I realised today I can't continue without the circ. Boo. It will have to wait until next week now, I expect, only I am so into it now that I don't want to stop and I may find myself driving over to John Lewis tomorrow to buy one, even though I don't have enough petrol to get to work on Monday, let alone fork out for knitting supplies.
Here are some pictures, anyway -















Above, the whole thing in beautiful lustrous silk, and to the left, a close up of that beautiful cable work.

Yes, I'm a knitting geek at the moment. I'm loving it.

20 Minutes a Day
I managed to stick to my 20 minutes of exercise a day for a whole 13 days in a row. Unfortunately I slipped up yesterday - I was so tired after my first week back at work I went to bed at 7pm. Now I have a new challenge - trying to beat 13 days in a row. It is very motivating to know I don't have to do longer than 20 minutes.

Being green
Today, I walked up the 'wood (thus reducing fuel emissions), went to the green grocer (supporting local businesses), bought mostly British/local food (cutting food miles), put them into string bags (reducing the amount of waste), and walked home. I was so smug, because this included my 20 minutes as well. I am trying to work out the cheapest way to buy a bike, too, because I have discovered there is a train from the nearest station that I could take to work. It would cost almost double what the petrol costs, but once in a while it might be a nice change. I really want a bike with a basket on the front, so I can carry the mitten around in it with a bunch of flowers and a baguette, or something. I'm sure she'd love that, and wouldn't at all try to jump out and commit suicide under the front wheel just to escape the indignity of being such a shameless cliche.

Nice weather
It's been utterly gawjus this week. Apparently it's going to be 23 degrees tomorrow. There may be much hammock-dwelling, ahead of the rain predicted for next week.

Holidays are almost gone

Gutted for myself :-(

Mother Hand is here. She has come to sort out my garden, though I have a feel she is going to sow some seeds in a hanging basket, repot my desperately over-crowded aloe vera and then leave, with all the weeds still intact. She has hurt her wrist, so I may let her off. And she did bring me a magnolia.

I've done some good exercising. I went to circuits last night, I swear it was easier, I worked my arse off and felt I was able to put in more than usual, so either I am slightly fitter or that cold was slowing me down more than I thought.

Tonight, back to Step with the incredibly camp instructor (ICI, from now on). I found the routine a lot easier this time round, muscle memory or something, and he commented on it at the end - how it had really clicked for me. Not so the two teens who sneaked in 5 minutes late and had their steps way too close to the back wall. You could tell they weren't going to make it - one wasn't wearing a sports bra and she really needed it - a particularly energetic 3-knee repeater and she'd have knocked herself out, with 2 black eyes to show for her efforts. She managed about 45 minutes and then sat the rest out. They had no grasp on the routine at all.

Ali was also much happier this time although still finding it hard, and we cackled to each other all the way through and shouted to each other over the music and were generally loud and obnoxious (there were only 8 people there) but had a blast. At one point, ICI, shouted, "Have you got that?" and I was there, stepping away, giving a big grin and thumbs up in an overly-cheerful, if-I-stop-I'll-fall-over way, whilst Ali shouted, "NO!" and waved her hands about. ICI jumped off his step and advanced several paces, cocked his hips and put his hands on them, screwed up his eyes and cooed, "Oooohhhh, you have REALLY!" at which point, I would have rolled on the floor laughing if I'd had enough breath. He is such excellent value for money, even without the amazing exercise.

My arse hurts like buggery now, though. Oh....that's maybe not a good simile. But still. Between the endless leg lifts at circuits and tonight's mega-step, I'm sure my posterior must be at least 2 inches higher and an inch tighter now.

Ali wanted to do circuits tomorrow but Mother Hand will still be here - just as well or that would have been 4 days in a row at the leisure centre. I must sort out a membership, it'll save me a fortune.

I have finished marking one whole coursework studdy. Huzzah! The boring one is done - now, the tedious one. Maybe I will do that at the weekend, in between the 50 reports and 85 assessments. I am so crap at time management. I am wishing this blog had smileys.

I am nearly halfway on Ester, and now that the cable repeat has had some time to, well, repeat, I am LOVING it. So much, I may not even dye it when I'm done. It suits the undyed look. I reckon one more repeat of the cable pattern and I'll be ready to cast on for the top part, at which point I'll have to go out and buy a 4.5mm circ, because I have managed on straight needles until now, but the number of stitches is going to double, or maybe triple, I forget. So, even though I hate back-and-forthing on a circ, I may have no choice. I am tempted to buy 2 circs...but that's just crazy talk. What a waste of money I don't have. I really want to get the first part finished by Saturday, though, so I can cast on before going back to work. It's so much easier to pick up a nice cable pattern for a couple of rows than it is to spend an hour casting on and picking up stitches.

I found this cartoon. Laughed a lot. Enjoy.

The polka dot obsession continues

I was stood behind a man in the queue at Tesco Express this evening. He was wearing a black shirt with white polka dots. He wasn't particularly hot or anything - in fact, kind of had an aging lothario thing going on, as if the shirt should have been stained with tanning oil, and unbuttoned to the navel over a hairy, medallion-adorned chest. Still, I couldn't stop staring at his amazing shirt. At one point I actually raised my hand to pull the collar out so I could see where it was from, before I remembered it was being worn by a person with whom I might prefer not to have physical/verbal contact.

Seriously, need to get over the polka dots.

I have been a TOTAL domestic goddess today. Mr Z is still off playing pirates and I intended to hoover the lounge and put clean sheets on the bed so I can really enjoy having it all to myself tonight. But in the end, I did the following...
* Cleared out the corner of the dining room which has been piled with clutter for at least a year, hoovered it, dusted it, recycled/chucked half the stuff, reallocated half of what was left and tidied the rest into a neat stack
* Done pretty much the same for under the stairs
* Cleared off and polished the piano
* Washed up EVERYTHING, including all the stuff Mr Z doesn't bother to do when he washes up
* Cleaned out the grill pan (note to self: do not put hot grease into a yogurt pot)
* Changed and washed the bed linen
* Washed the tea towels
* Washed the blankets we keep on the sofa for snuggling
* Hoovered all of downstairs
* Dusted the TV and its surroundings
* Cleaned the inside of all the downstairs windows
* Washed the kitchen bin
* Put all the washing away

I am SO SMUG. The mitten doesn't know what's going on - she's wandering around sniffing bits of floor that haven't been exposed to the air for months. Earlier, she stood in front of the piano and balanced on her back legs to see what was on top of it now that it was clear, and repeated this all the way along its length. It was hilarious. She spent most of the day keeping out of the way and practising being long.



The other thing I have been doing is knitting, since it is the holidays and I have a shedload of work to ignore. I am currently working on this very cute little shruggy cardigan thing which will be an excellent warming something to throw on over the boob tubes this summer. I am knitting it in recycled sari silk I bought off ebay with a skirt in mind, only it is too coarse for skirt-knitting; it is deliciously soft and quite slubby, so the fabric is coming up shiny, sheeny, bumpy and irregular, and it looks great. I am not certain that I love it yet, but this may have something to do with the fact that I totally messed up the ribbing when I started. So I spent a painstaking hour and a half last night dropping the stitches and pulling them up the right way with a tiny cable needle (the picture to the left was taken about halfway through the process - I literally had to fix every 2nd and 3rd row for two-thirds of the width of the fabric - thank god for Stitch'n'Bitch or it would have just had to look crappy forever). I'm also slightly concerned that the fabric will be too heavy to support the cables on the back, but I guess I'll just have to try - there's no way this yarn will take frogging, so if I don't like it, I'll have to give it away =D

So, it's 11pm. I promised myself I would mark 5 pieces of coursework and do a Davina workout today. Lucky I slept in this morning, it won't matter if I am up superlate not doing either of those things.