Progress! And Socks!

Hello my darlings, I hope that all is well with you?

It's been a little longer than I would have liked since my last update, but not as long as I worried it might be, so I guess it's not too bad.  I've also made a lot of actual progress!

I'm remarkably chipper right now, all considered.  Perhaps because I've had a particularly productive weekend.  However, health has been an issue - my own health, dad's health, and Stephen's health.  I'm not going to go into too much detail, but suffice to say, life is busier now than I'm entirely comfortable with.

However, there has been good news about dad!  His most recent scan results show that the cancer is being kept at bay.  While it hasn't shrunk very much, it is shrinking, and there is no sigh of the metastatic tumours reappearing.  So he has started his 4th round of 6 chemo sessions.  His oncologist was very impressed, because apparently when dad completes this round, he will be the first patient his oncologist is aware of who has survived 24 rounds of this particular chemo! His chemo is due to finish at the end of November, so I'm looking forward to another Christmas with my daddy :)

FO's

So, on with the regulars: 

I promised last time that I'd show a picture of this sweater once I'd properly finished it.  I could pretend that I finished it very soon after my last post, but I'd be lying!  In fact, I wore it for the first time today, having sewn on the buttons, and blocked it last weekend.  The sudden arrival of autumn, along with more typical British weather, finally gave me the kick up the arse that I needed to put the finishing touches to a knit that I actually finished months ago!

The pattern for this is Smart and Stylish Sweater, by Pat Menchini, published in the October 2017 issue of Let's Knit magazine.  And the yarn is King Cole Luxury Merino DK, in the colourway "Mildew".

Daddy's socks.  Can you spot the deliberate mistake?  Of course you can!  It's glaringly obvious that the toe of one sock is made of an entirely different yarn!  I lost at Yarn Chicken :(  Being used to the sister-yarn (crazy Zauberball) of this one, which is sold in 100g balls, and is plenty to make a pair of socks, even for someone with quite large feet, I hadn't considered that this 50g ball might not be quite enough.  Because it's a rather light 3-ply yarn, that 50g was almost enough.  Almost, but not quite.  I searched my stash for a green 3-ply sock yarn to finish the toe of the second sock, and the only one I could find was a much lighter shade of green, with orange splashes in it.  Not ideal, but as Dad pointed out, nobody is going to see the toe, it's inside his shoe, and he assures me that he can't feel the join, or the difference between the 2 yarns, so I guess that's ok.

As usual, I didn't use a pattern for these, I simply adapted my own internal sock pattern for smaller needles, and finer yarn.  The yarn in question is Schoppel-Wolle Edition 6.0, in the colourway "Waschtag".

This was a bit of a "spare time" project that I only worked on when at Stephen's house, and when in between other projects.  It started off as a handful of blanket squares that were intended to be sent up to Shetland to join squares made by others, in a number of blankets to be given to the charity organisation From Shetland with Love.  However, my enquiries as to whether it would be ok for me to post my squares, rather than deliver them in person during Shetland Wool Week, were never answered.  So in the end I decided to slowly create enough squares on my own to make a small blanket, and then give that blanket to a local charity.  I will probably donate this to one of the local animal rescue shelters, to comfort a cat, or small dog.

There is no pattern, it's simply 12 squares, roughly the same size, in a variety of different stitch patterns, sewn together, and a simple crochet border.  All of the yarns are double knit, acrylic, or acrylic/wool blends, and all left over from other projects.

Yasmin has commented a few times now that she would like me to make some socks for her.  She is a knitter herself, but she tends to end up making gifts for babies, and doesn't have the time to make very much of her own.  So I asked her for her foot measurements, and made these for her.  She was very pleased to find that "they fit like they were made for me!"

As usual, my internal sock pattern, adapted for Yaz's tiny feet and ankles.  The yarn is King Cole ZigZag, in the colourway "Waves".

No, it's not a yarn or fibrecraft.  When I'm staying with dad, we spend Tuesdays at Ashington Woods, where my dad teaches a green woodworking group.  Often when I'm there I knit, or crochet, rather than join in with the carving, but sometimes I try my hand at carving as well.  This is a spoon that I finished recently, with the pocket tissues for scale.

This is how most of the things I carve start.  Just a plain chunk of wood.

This is my most recent carving project, and you'll have to use the stitching on the arm of my dad's chair to get an idea of scale.  My dad has carved a number of very tiny spoons, just as an exercise in technique really.  I thought I'd give it a go myself.  This spoon is about 6cm long, and unfortunately I do think that I carved it a bit too thin at one point.  If you hold it up to the light, you can see through a small patch in the bowl of the spoon, and the grain of the wood is coarse enough that it's possible the spoon would not hold water.  I haven't actually tested it yet though, and it is really only meant to be decorative.

WIPs

About 4 years ago I started making crochet squares out of left over cotton, or wool, double knit.  This was a long-term project, intended to use up little bits of really nice yarn that weren't big enough to make anything useful with.  Over time it has become more than that, as I've visited various yarn shops on my travels, but haven't always had enough money to buy enough yarn for a full project, instead I would buy a single ball of a very pretty dk.  This yarn then becomes a memory of that trip, or holiday, that will be crocheted into the blanket.

The intention is to make 100 squares in total, then crochet them all together with a plain black yarn.  I took this photo 3 days ago, and the square on the hook was number 31.  I'm currently working on number 34.  This is a bit of an unusual spike in progress on this particular project, brought about because all the sock knitting I've been doing was making my left thumb try to dislocate.  Crochet is a different series of movements, and different pressures, so I've been able to continue crafting, while resting that left thumb.  Unfortunately, too much crochet makes my right thumb try to dislocate!  So I'll be back to knitting again soon!

This is my pitiful progress on the lace shawl that I cast on during my birthday holiday.  Even though this section is basically just stockinette, the pattern of increases is worked on both knit and purl rows, over 4 rows.  So in order to keep track of where I'm up to, I have to be able to complete a multiple of 4 rows at any time I pick it up.  I can't always guarantee that I'll be settled without distraction for long enough to do that, so this project is not progressing very quickly.  I have however decided to add beads when I get to the lace section, and I've got the beads, and the tiny crochet hook all ready.

The pattern is Hazy Daze, by Boo Knits, and the yarn is Penguin Soup's Tuxedo Lace, in the colourway "April Showers".

I only cast this project on today.  This will be the latest pair of socks for Gemma, because she's always so lovely about telling me how much she likes the socks that I've made for her, which makes me want to make her more :)  She likes grey and purple,  my stash has no shortage of these colours, I enjoy knitting socks, so this seems like a winning combination.

In addition, these socks will be my first entry into a Knit-a-long set up by Corner of Craft called "StashmasKAL2018".  The aim being to knit as much as possible from stash between September 1st, and December 31st this year.  I think it's also intended to get people started on their Christmas knitting, but I know for a fact that I won't wait until Christmas to give these socks to Gemma!

Pattern from my own head, as per, and the yarn is Regia Design Line Jazz Colour, by Erika Knight, in the colourway "Somethin' else".

Stash acquisition

I freely admit that this section is missing some entries that really should be included, because I bought them some time ago.  However, I evidently forgot to take photographs at the time, and I've left them at home, while I am currently at Stephen's house.  So they will have to be belatedly included in my next update.

There is no lack of yarn porn though:

This is another yarn box by Yorkshire Dales Yarns, at Homespun Wonders.  Well, it's most of it, because before taking this photo I had already taken out one of the items and started using it regularly:

Homespun Wonders do these gorgeous themed yarn boxes.  This time there was a choice of mystical creatures, and I chose Faery.  The themed boxes always contain yarn (usually you chose the weight of the yarn, and if you'd like 1 or 2 skeins), some sweet treats, stitch markers, and a selection of little gifts related to the theme. I know that Katie is my friend, but I'm honestly not exaggerating when I say that these boxes are extraordinarily good value for money!  Literally the perfect gift for any yarn lover in your life (including yourself!)

I always choose 4-ply, because it's my favourite weight of yarn to work with, and I usually choose to receive 2 skeins.  As you can see, my box contained 2 beautiful pinky-purpley skeins of yarn, some yummy heart-shaped chocolates, a little faery stitch marker that can be used either as a needle marker or a clip marker, a very shiny trinket box (I have a minor obsession with trinket boxes, I actually have a small collection of them, so I was especially pleased with this!) a scented candle, a ceramic re-useable coffee cup, and a very large and sturdy tote bag.

Yes, I've been back to Ring-a-rosie's!  What can I say?  I love that place, I love the lady who runs it, and I love the yarn that she dyes!  Plus, she has a habit of putting a fresh batch of one-of-a-kind colourways out just before I head north for a visit!  

This time it was the mini-skeins that really caught my eye.  I may not have actually done any work on my mitred square blanket for a while, but I'm still thinking, and planning, and preparing for when I do!  I saw this little bundle, with that bright pop of pink, and the pale speckles, next to my usual purple, green, and turquoise, and thought that this was a perfect opportunity to force myself to use some colours that I wouldn't usually choose, which will make the finished article look that much more vibrant.

There'd been a fresh re-stock of all colourways of Crazy Zauberball too, which is definitely one of my favourite commercial sock yarns, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a couple of the colourways that always seem to disappear quickest.

Of course, I couldn't leave without having at least a little look at the full-sized skeins too, and with the arrival of autumnal weather, I couldn't resist this skein that reminds me of a photograph my dad took when my sister and I were really little, looking out over the West Allen Valley in Northumberland.  Every tree was a different colour, with all of the usual autumnal shades from palest green, through to deep, russet reds, but there was also one tree that had gone dark purple.

When I was chatting, and finding my debit card, Barbara must have snuck in a little free gift as well, beautifully wrapped in a Peter rabbit pouch was the final speckled turquoise mini-skein :)

We had a very busy day that Saturday up north.  Starting with the trip to Ring-a-Rosie's, then meeting dad at Pegswood, where he was teaching a group of Young Rangers about green woodworking, then driving up to Felton, where we had lunch with dad at the Northumberland Arms, then taking a slow walk across the river Coquet to Fine Fettle Fibres, which is where I bought this little haul.

I was hoping to be able to get some of the fabled Northumbrian Rose yarn that I'd read about, but sadly it has all sold out, and can't be re-stocked until the mill can spin some more.  However, I did know that this place stocks Triskelion yarns, which I absolutely love, but who don't come to any of the fibre shows that I'm able to get to these days.  So of course, the first skein I chose was this gorgeous green sock yarn from Triskelion. 

I'm not usually a fan of single-spun yarn, but this Marina yarn by Manos del Uruguay is such a beautiful colour, and has such a lovely sheen to it, that I decided to give it a go.  I do have to admit that single-spun yarn does tend to feel much softer against the skin than most plied yarns, but it biases terribly in garments, and is prone to weakness if you have to frog it and re-knit it.  This one just begs to be a super soft and luxurious shawl though, so I'll just have to be careful, and use lots of life-lines!  The bias problem shouldn't be an issue for a shawl.

This bright orange though!  Orange is so not my colour!  But this one called to me, looking like spun fire.  It's by Ginger Twist Studio, who if I'm being honest, I'd never heard of before, and it's called "Melon Balls On Fire".  How awesome is that?!?

Finally, the book - Cast On, Bind Off - has been on my Amazon wish list (Officially the cheekiest link I've ever made!) for ages.  I figure that I'm a fairly accomplished knitter, and I do know a reasonable number of different ways to cast on, and bind off.  But I nearly always use the same 2 or 3 techniques, because they're the ones that I'm most comfortable with.  I really want to be able to do more, things like making my cast on, and bound off edges look the same, or finding a really stretchy ribbed bind off that doesn't create a "frilly" finish.  This book will help me do that.

Another book

Something that I forgot to photograph, so couldn't include in my last update (happens too much!) was this funny little book:

The dust cover has already become a little tatty, because this sits in the cubby by my nest at home, where I can read little bits of it at random.  Some of it is useful, some of it is funny, some of it is educational, most of it is interesting.  It was entirely an impulse buy, because when I have mood wobbles, sometimes I fix them by buying stuff that I probably shouldn't.

Penguins!

It's getting to that time of year again... The "C" word has been used in my knitting magazines, in the YouTube videos that I watch, even in this very blog... And we all know what that means!  Penguin tat is creeping onto the supermarket shelves!

These things are not tat at all!  These were my birthday present from Liz.  A sweet little penguin keyring, that I'm using to make gripping the zip on one of my project bags easier, and this marvellous penguin pen, that now lives in my holographic organiser, and gets used nearly every day :)

Look at him!  Isn't he brilliant!?!  My goddaughter hand sewed him herself, especially for me!

Our strawberry plants are getting a bit out of control, and have produced loads of creeper shoots.  So we went to buy another pot to plant the shoots into, so that next year we will have even more strawberry plants.  While we were being all adulty, comparing the relative merits of different types of plant pot, Stephen spotted this garden ornament, then the garden ornament found it's way to the checkout with us, and now he lives among our strawberry plants.

I don't know how well you can see what this actually is, because I didn't want to climb out from under it to take the photo.  It's so soft, and snuggly, and it has penguins on it, and it's big enough that both Stephen and I can sit on the sofa underneath it.  We saw this blanket on a top shelf in the "seasonal" aisle at Asda (during our most recent trip north, when it felt like we spent so much time at Asda that we could get our post re-directed there).  Anyway, when we looked, the label on the shelf said "spare stock", and these blankets were not to be found on any other shelf.  I departed a sad and deflated penguinophile.

A couple of days later, on a day when I found myself at Asda alone (Sunday? I might have been looking for sage and onion stuffing to go with our Sunday roast) I just happened to find myself on the same aisle (you have sage and onion stuffing at Christmas!  It's totally a seasonal item, and could totally have been on that aisle!) and there were the blankets, available for sale!

Just a little thing that I added to my cart when I was buying the next thing.  You might think this is a penguin, but it's actually hand cream.  I use a lot of hand cream, because my skin is crappy and delicate, and because dry skin snags on my yarn.  This is supposed to be lavender scented, which is debatable.

When I bought the hand cream, I was actually really buying this, and I only bought this as a cheap way to find out what this colour really looks like.  Which is red.  I mean, it's not just me right?  This colour is indisputably red, right?  It looks red in the pictures on the website that I bought it from too.  But it's called Pink.  I actually want to buy a backpack from the same collection as this (you can't use shoulder bags with crutches, really, you just can't.) but the price of the backpack made me think twice about ordering it if when it arrived it was going to turn out to actually be magenta, which is very Not Me.  But this smaller bag was very affordable, so I thought I'd order one and see what the colour is like, and what the construction quality is like (I overload my bags a lot, if they aren't sturdily constructed, they don't last long).  I actually love it.  It has many, many pockets (to make up for the fact that the Patriarchy are controlling women by not putting pockets in our clothes).  It is large enough to contain all of the myriad items that I routinely carry around with me, including purse, meds, hair brush, makeup, diary, sunglasses, hand cream, house keys for 5 different houses, car keys for 2 different cars... and still have plenty of space for a knitting project too.  I am pleased.  I shall be buying the backpack.

Right, it's exactly 2am now.  In 6 hours I have to get up, because Stephen and I are going to York.  So I'm going to bed now.  Sweet dreams my dears!

I can't even...

Sooo... Hello again everyone.  Apparently it's July.  I'm not even sure how that happened.

Yesterday was my birthday, this is why I'm pretty sure it's July.  I'm a bit confused, because it's been relentlessly hot and dry for over a month now, and I live in the UK.  We don't get summer.  What usually passes for "summer" here is one randomly lovely week in April that get's everyone's hopes up, followed by a lot of rain, then 2 oppressively hot and humid weeks in August, then some more rain.

When I last updated this blog it was still snowing.  But then it continued to snow until well into April, but by the time we reached May, we already had the sunshine.  It's messing with my brain.

Anyway, I am still alive, and I am still going to be blogging, but I have to apologise for how infrequent it is/has been.  There have been several reasons for this: my health, dad's health, my small laptop needing a reinstall, my gaming laptop being too big to carry up and down the country, most of my knitting energy going into just one big project, and hardly doing any yarn shopping, so I had nothing new to post about, sorting out the garden, being too hot to think...

But! I'm alive now!  The weather has cooled down a bit.  I haven't heard anything at all from the DWP in months, so I'm just hoping that they haven't lost my PIP appeal paperwork (I have been told that it might take several months for an appeal date to be set). I have a shiny new gaming laptop that is light enough to travel with, at least a little bit, and I have recently been awarded a little bit of money from a claim for mis-sold loan insurance.  So of course I've spent this on yarn.  And a new laptop.

FO's

I'm going to include the sweater here as finished.  I have in fact been putting off writing this blog for almost a month longer than I should have, because I finished the sweater, except for blocking, and sewing on 2 decorative buttons.  I still haven't blocked it, or sewn on the buttons.  However, I have decided that if I don't do this post now, it might never get done, so here is the (almost) completed sweater:

I will try to put a better photo in a future post, once I've blocked it and sewn on the buttons.  I don't know when that will actually happen though!

This is the Smart and Stylish Sweater, by Pat Menchini, published in Let's Knit! Magazine, issue 123, from October 2017, and the yarn is King Cole Luxury Merino DK, in the colourway "mildew".

I wasn't going to bother including this, but it is a thing that I made, so I may as well.  Using some of the left over yarn from the sweater, I knit this simple cylinder, to protect my fingers (or my dads, as he's back on the chemo, and it makes him sensitive to the cold) from freezing cold cans, fresh out of his over-zealous fridge.

These are socks for me.  I finished them while sat in the park enjoying the sunshine. The first sock is perfect, the second sock has a number of mistakes, mostly where I accidentally missed out cables in a few places.  They're for me, and only I am ever likely to notice, so I decided not to bother ripping back to fix the mistakes.

As usual, these are knit according to my own internal sock pattern, adapted to fit my feet, and in this case with cables, rather than plain 3&1 rib.  I've been thinking, and I might actually write up my sock pattern, and some instructions on how I adapt it for different sizes of foot and ankle.  If I ever get the time and energy at the same time.

The yarn for these is Shoppel-Wolle Crazy Zauberball, in the colourway "Indisch rosa".

Remember that I said we'd been working on sorting the garden out?  Well this is part of that.  The photo shows the framework of the lovely gazebo, and garden table and chairs, on our lovely new deck.  Hurricane Hector came along and destroyed this gazebo 3 days after we built it.  We have built a new one.  The project however, is this little crocheted peg bag, because finally I have a washing line outdoors for drying our laundry!  Yes, I'm middle-aged, I get excited by things like this.

I didn't use a pattern, this is just a simple granny square of individual doubles, to make a fairly tight fabric.  3 rows from the end I made a chain to form the base of the stitches above this on the next row, and rejoined the row leaving a large enough gap to put my hand in, and this became the hole to put the pegs in.  The back of the bag is a square made of straight rows, and the 2 squares were sewn together, leaving a small gap for the hanging hook to go through.

The yarn for this is Lana Grossa Cotone, in the colourways 108, and 308.

Most recently completed are these socks for Gemma.  She has temporarily misplaced the last socks that I made for her (she has 2 small sons, a cat, and a crazy dog, any one of them could be responsible for the missing socks!) and she was distraught, as apparently these are the best socks that she has for keeping her feet warm in winter, and cool in summer.  So I thought she should have some more, especially as she is one of the leaders of a scout camp this weekend, when decent socks are a must have item.

I did have one issue with these socks, and it wasn't in the knitting itself, it was the yarn.  This yarn has the longest self-patterning repeat of any yarn I've ever come across.  I finished the first sock without encountering a pattern repeat at all, so I had come to the conclusion, that like the crazy zauberball, this yarn has no repeat.  So I started knitting the second sock, only to finally find the beginnings of a colour repeat after knitting about 2 inches.  On my own socks I don't care if both socks are a perfect match, but when I'm knitting for someone else, I prefer to make them match if I can.  So I ripped back to the start of the colour repeat, and started the second sock again.  I've kept the little bit of sock that I'd started knitting, because I can join some other scraps of yarn to it at a later date, and make ugly scrappy socks.

As usual, my own sock pattern was used, and the yarn is Schoppel-Wolle Admiral R Druck, in the colourway "Magic".

WIP's

I've been working on only 2 projects, other than those that I've finished.  The first is the blanket that I started for my youngest niece almost a year ago.  I reported in October last year that I'd made a mistake in the sewing up, and the project was set aside in disgust for a while.  I have now repaired that mistake, but I promise you that knitting, and sewing up, a large blanket in persistent temperatures around 30°C, with high humidity, is not a fun task.  This is also not a convenient project for carrying around, so progress continues to be slow, but at least it is progressing again, and will hopefully be ready by the time it gets cold enough for my niece to need it.

This is the project that I'm working on whenever I have to travel anywhere.  This is a pair of socks for my dad that I cast on before Christmas, but they were set aside while I worked on knitting presents.  

I'll be honest, they've been picked up again partly because last week daddy gave us a major scare.  As I mentioned earlier, he's back on the chemo.  His scan results in June showed that the cancer had begun to grow again, but as he was still otherwise fit and healthy, they decided to put him straight back onto the 3 drug regime that had been successful before.  We were warned that it might not be as effective this time, and that the side-effects might be more severe.  We don't yet know how effective it is, but certainly the side-effects have been worse.  Although it is also possible that there were other contributing factors, last week dad was exceptionally ill.  He couldn't keep any food down, he became very weak, and lethargic, he was nauseous all the time, and was having great difficulty just taking his regular medication, he visibly lost weight in the space of just a couple of weeks.  It terrified all of us, as we worried that he'd re-started the chemo too late, and that this might be the final decline caused by the cancer.  I am absolutely NOT ready for that yet!  (I probably never will be). However, it seems that dad isn't ready for that either, as after a bunch of medical appointments, including rescheduling his next chemo, to give him a bit of time to recover from this dip, and altering the dosages of several of his medications, including the chemo, he's back to normal, and working his ticket at full strength again.

However, seeing him so poorly made me decide that I wanted to get these socks finished as soon as possible, because the yarn is so soft! He needs to get plenty of opportunity to wear them! 

This is my usual sock pattern, but adapted for finer yarn, and smaller needles, as well as to fit dad's feet.  The yarn is Shoppel-Wolle Edition 6.0, in the colourway Waschtag.

Stash Acquisition

Until a few weeks ago I had literally bought no new yarn since February.  Then I received the payment from my mis-sold loan insurance, and the first thing I did was go yarn shopping!  I should also say that I haven't been totally frivolous with this unexpected windfall, I have spent a fair bit of it on things for the garden, I've put a significant chunk of it into savings, and I've bought my new laptop, which while not essential right now, is something that I would be looking at replacing within the next 12 months anyway.

The lighting in this photo absolutely does not do justice to the colours of these yarns.  

On the left are 4 skeins of Fyberspates Vivacious in the colourway "Plum Imps", and I actually have a plan for these.  I intend to turn them into a nice summer cardigan/shrug/bolero for myself.

Then we have 1 full sized skein, and 6 mini-skeins by Ring-a-Rosie, all in one-of-a-kind colourways.  The full sized skein is a 4-ply Donegal with colourful neps, the mini-skeins are all 4-ply high twist merino.

You may recall that in July last year I bought myself a birthday present from Homespun Wonders, as they were doing a monthly box themed around birth stones. This year they are doing the same, but the theme is birth flowers.  I didn't know what the July birth flower is, but I decided to buy myself a birthday yarn box anyway. It turns out that my birth flower is Delphinium, and so I received this gorgeous tonal purple yarn, and box of goodies, which does of course include seeds to grow my own flowers, as well as buttons, stitch markers, sweeties, a decorative candle, a beautiful necklace, and this:

I love this butterfly ornament for our garden!  Stephen loves it too, but a bit less than me, because he is tall enough that he walks into it quite often!

Miscellaneous

We all know that the internet spies on us, collects all of our data, and builds up a profile of us.  We assume that this could be for some dark and nefarious purpose, but actually it's just so that retailers can target their adverts at the people most likely to want to purchase their product.  Knowing this should make me less susceptible to their wiles.  Mostly it does, I think, but not when what they're selling is this:

A dog paw print, yarn and knitting needles, and a cup of tea!  It could only be more perfect if it also had a penguin on it!

Penguins

Speaking of penguins, I actually have very few of those to show you too, penguin products are less prolific in summertime.

Contrary to popular opinion, this is NOT a sex toy.  This was a gift from Kelly, and if you pull the head off, it's a container designed to contain toothbrush and toothpaste, keeping them safe from bathroom dust and germs.  So it appeals to my neat-freak side, as well as my penguin obsession.

While Knitting and Penguins are definitely my top 2 obsessions, I have several others too - puppers, and tea have both been mentioned, but I also have a mild (non-sexual) stationary fetish.  Obviously I've included this photo because it has the penguin themed sticky notes, but I do love my holographic organiser, and rainbow pompom pen!

That's all for now my dears, hopefully it will be less than 4 months before I post again!

Socks, Sweaters, Nail Art, and PIP

Hello everybody, I am not dead.

I am sorry that I've abandoned you all for so long, but I have felt like I've basically achieved so little that it was barely worth writing a post about.  But then there's penguins, so I'll at least update those...

FO's

I have finished a total of 3 projects so far this year.  Yes, we're well into March, and only 3 finished objects.

You might remember these.  I was making them for Gemma over Christmas.  I am really quite pleased with them, because they fit well, Gemma reports that they keep her feet toasty warm, and because I managed to get the patterns from the self-patterning yarn to match perfectly on both socks!

The yarn is Rico Design Superba tweed 4-ply, in the colourway 011, and the pattern is my standard 3&1 rib, heel-flap construction, off the top of my head sock pattern, only adapted to fit Gemma rather than me.

As usual, after knitting socks, I needed to take a break from the teeny tiny needles, and knit something a bit less intense on the fingers.  So I decided to try brioche knitting for the first time.  This is the most amazingly smooshy, stretchy, slouchy, and comfortable hat I've ever made.  It's also horribly messy and wrong at the crown, because decreases in brioche confuse me, and I managed to get them out of sync, so half of the crown is made of lovely spiraling decreases, and the other half is a big mish-mash of random decreases.  I don't care.  It was a learning experience, and it's super comfy to wear.

The yarn for this is Rosie's Moments merino silk DK, in the colourway Stormy Seas, and the pattern is loosely based on Caterpillar Slouch, by Woolly Wormhead, but using a true brioche stitch instead of the faux brioche given in the pattern.

When the girls at Spoilt for Choice saw Gemma's socks, a few of them considered commissioning some for themselves.  One of them actually did, and her preference in colours was "girly and pink".  I'm just as pleased with this pair, as not only did I succeed in getting them to match perfectly, I also managed to make them fit perfectly using only measurements, never having even seen Cheryl's feet!

The yarn for these is Stylecraft Head over Heels Boho, in colourway 3127, and again, the pattern is my usual 3&1 rib, heel-flap construction, off the top of my head socks, adapted for Cheryl's measurements.

WIPs

There's only 1 WIP that I've been actively working on for the last couple of months, and it's my challenge project for 2018.  In the past I have started a number of sweaters for myself, and I very rarely finish them, or if I do it takes several years of them being put into hibernation for several months, or even years at a time before I finally complete them.  So this year I have set myself the challenge of starting, and finishing, a selfish sweater, without getting distracted.  

So far, it's looking like I might even manage it:

I saw this pattern in Let's Knit magazine last September, and decided that I'd like to make it.  It calls for a 100% merino DK, and, serendipitously I thought, King Cole released a new 100% merino DK that same month, and Knit Nottingham were debuting it at their birthday party.  It was clearly meant to be.

The pattern is Smart and Stylish Sweater, by Pat Menchini, and the yarn is King Cole luxury merino DK in the colourway "mildew".  I'm making it in size 24-26.

Stash Acquisition

I'm not exactly going "cold sheep" this year, but I have decided to be a bit more reserved in my yarn purchases, so even though it's been almost 3 months since my last update, there's not a lot to show you in this section.

Not a lot, but there is some!  This was a gift from Dominey, because I couldn't make it to the Nottingham Yarn Expo back in November (I don't get out much, it was February I think before we managed to arrange a knitters meet up when Dominey could give this to me).  It's by Jellybeans Yarns, in the colourway "Gothic".  Plus there was penguin chocolate :)  Dominey is a very lovely person :D

With a marvelous sense of timing, Barbara at Ring-a-rosie's released a huge pile of new yarns that she'd been dying since Christmas, on dad's birthday, when obviously I was up in Newcastle.  So of course I had to pop in and pick a few for myself.  I was so determined to get the best choices that I was actually the first customer through the door that day who was looking for hand dyed yarn (there was one before me, but she was asking for knitting advice).  This is 2 skeins of Marvelous high-twist sock yarn, 4 4-ply mini-skeins, and a crazy Zauberball in the colourway "Indisch Rosa".  I also bought the Stylecraft head over heels boho that I used for Cheryl's socks when I bought these, but somehow deleted the photo that I took of everything together before I cast on with the boho.  Barbara doesn't name very many of her colourways, and most of them are One-Of-A-Kind, so if you do visit Ring-a-rosie then you may not be able to find these exact colourways, but she does usually have a wide choice of beautiful and unique skeins.

Miscellaneous

The Beast from the East hit on a day that I was travelling from Sheffield to Newcastle.  Much stress, and much pretty ensued, but I did make it up there eventually.  Once the worst of it had passed, and the A1 north of Newcastle was finally re-opened, we decided to do a day trip to Alnwick, and visit Barter Books.  I had never been before.  The visit involved driving past 2 metre high snow drifts on either side of the A1, almost getting stuck in the snow down a side street that hadn't been cleared, because I picked the wrong turning when trying to direct us to a park where we could walk Sybil-the-cutest-black-pug, and narrowly avoiding an avalanche that slid off the roof of Barter books just before we pulled out of the carpark.  It was all absolutely worth it.

If you're even slightly a bibliophile, as most of my family are, then you will love this place:

Now this needed to be shared anyway, but even more so because while we were there my dad found this:

It's a history of wool, and the wool industry, and it has that amazing old book smell, and it's brilliant!

Penguins

I feel certain that I've missed some new colony members, so please forgive me if you have sent a penguin for me to adopt, and I don't mention him, and do feel free to remind me, so that I can thank you in a future post!

Gel nails are my new thing.  After having mine done at the salon a few times, I decided to buy some of the basics for doing my own at home, and I've been practicing some simple nail art too.  Which of course includes penguin nails!

My sister found this while Christmas shopping.  I still haven't decided if it should be an ornament, or if I should actually use it to eat my crumpets off.  I love it either way.

Krissy and her kids chose these for me for Christmas :)  Having recently had the bathroom done, I was looking at bathroom storage ideas online, and I noticed that they almost all show a nice neat pyramid of carefully rolled, pristine white towels in the top cubby of any shelving unit.  Well ours has penguin bath toys, and a rubber dragon.

Flu season arrived. But I'd had my jab, like a good chronically ill person, so I just got tonsillitis instead.  I went to the pharmacist for throat pastilles, and came out with a small cuddly penguin, and a microwavable dragon for Stephen.

PIP

I realise that I had intended for my first post of the year to include some plans and goals for 2018, and that aside from the sweater, and a little bit about reducing my number of yarn purchases, I haven't really done that at all.  This is because I am currently feeling very much as though I'm just bobbing along on the the current, and haven't the mental or physical energy to plan, or aim for very much at all.  I don't know if this is a bad thing or not, but it's certainly unusual for me.  I like to have a plan, even if I have to adapt it and change it as circumstance dictates later on, I feel better when I have a plan.  For now though, my plan is simply "survive".

I blame this mindset on having applied for PIP (for people outside the UK, PIP = Personal Independence Payment, and it's a benefit for people with disabilities to help with the additional costs involved when trying to live an independent life while disabled), which took all of my planning capabilities, and not a small amount of help from my friends (Thank you Dave!)  Then having been refused it, I feel deflated, afraid, and like I can't possibly have what it takes to appeal the decision, but I know that I must, because over the last couple of years my health and mobility have dramatically declined to the point where I am effectively a prisoner in my house.  My world revolves around places that other people can take me, or places within a 5 minute, slow and painful walk of my house.  

Without my knitting I would have succumbed to cabin fever long ago, and even that is slowing down as my hands and wrists become weaker and more painful.  I don't think that the persistent cold weather is helping either, so let's hope that spring shows up soon!

Take care my darlings!