Relocation

It's been awfully quiet round here, sorry. This is because we have moved house. It took us about a week altogether, to move all our stuff from a 3 bedroom detached house to a 2 bedroom flat, including at least half that time to carry boxes and furniture up 4 flights of stairs as the flat is on the second floor.

It's all been worth it though, we're now ensconced in a wonderful apartment in a gorgeous Georgian terrace in Bath. There are windows galore, with wonderful views of the main city landmarks and most of the surrounding hills, with the Avon rushing by our bedroom window.
There have been casualties, notably a vivienne westwood dress and two suits, but we made it in by the winter solstice and celebrated our new life together here.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to do much knitting over the last couple of weeks, being up to my eyeballs in boxes, but I've done a little bit of work on the Clapotis. Not that I need bother, however, as my rambling husband has now decided that he's not that keen on the yarn. Apparently there's too much acid green in it, which he thinks will limit what he can wear it with. Regardless of the fact that he chose this colourway after carefully narrowing down his choices from Axelle's list of colourways, and lets not even discuss the fact that its come all the way from the US specifically for him. Or that I've got almost to the end of the first skein before he makes this decision, so ripping it out and using it for something else would be such a waste of effort.
So what do I do? Do I carry on with the pattern and end up with a second cashmere clapotis for myself, do I finish it and give it to someone else (who?) or do I frog it and use the yarn for another pattern? I can't think what I could use 3 skeins of cashmere for though - its one skein too many for socks, and not enough for a cardigan or sweater... and it wouldn't really be my first choice of colour for myself either. I think I may well soldier on and keep it. I could give my old green one to my mum, she might appreciate the luridity of the colour more than RH.

I still haven't knit any more on the BSJ. I think it's the needles, I'm really not getting on with knitting it on straights, especially now I'm over half way. I think i'll swap it onto a circ, it should go fairly quickly after that.

I'm almost in the mood to do some quilting again too, but I think that may have to wait until the spare room no longer looks like a graveyard for cardboard boxes.

xx

A finished object, finally

I've finally completed Red Light Special, with additional brim extension to accommodate the recipient's head. It was so eagerly awaited that he wore it while it was still blocking - which i suppose is one way of ensuring the correct shape.
I really enjoyed the pattern, though I'm not entirely sure I did it justice with my choice of yarns or adjustments for fit.
I will try to get some pictures, the weather has been stinky here the last few days though so not a lot of natural light. The storm has pretty much cleared up now though, and i can see blue skies and little wisps of cloud left behind by the winds. I went out for a run this lunchtime and the wind is still wicked strong, it was like running on the spot a lot of the time.

Since I finished the RLS, I've cast on for the next Clapotis, which is destined for the same recipient. I think cashmere is my favourite fibre, perhaps closely followed by alpaca. Its just so easy to work, and lovely and sproingy when its knitted. I wish I could have some of every colourway that Axelle produces.
I've decided to allow myself only to cast on for another project when I've finished a current one, which means I will only ever have 3 on the go at once:

• one for knitting at home due to its size or complexity (i.e. anything with more than 2 colours of yarn)
• a sock for carrying around everywhere
  
• something mid-sized but still fairly portable for taking to group knitting sessions.

At the minute I've got the BSJ to finish, Clapotis just started, and my last Monkey of which there is the foot to complete. If I finish Monkey first I'll start another pair of socks, I've got 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces shepherd sock in the Black Purl colourway (gorgeous!). The BSJ will be replaced by a tank top with the frogged Manos from my So-Called Scarf. Then when I finally finish the Clapotis (hopefully before xmas!) I may do a neckwarmer of some sort with a couple of balls of Rowan cashsoft. I envisage getting all of this done in the next 3-4 weeks, but that may be somewhat ambitious. I am also supposed to be knitting some fingerless gloves to go with the red light special, but as they're not for me I'm not so eager. Although it would be nice to have a bit of fair isle on the go, as I do enjoy stranded knitting.

Knitting in public

At lunchtimes I like to sit in the cafe at work and do a bit of sock knitting. It's a fairly high traffic area and as I know quite a lot of people at my work, I always have 3 or 4 people stop and ask me what I'm doing.
Women are usually fascinated by all the needles and say something like "oh I tried that once and couldn't do it".
Men invariably raise their eyebrows at what they perceive as premature aging on my part, or else assume I'm pregnant - and believe me I have a sense of humour failure when anyone mentions me and pregnancy in the same breath.

Why do people have such an old-fashioned view of knitting? And why do they find it so difficult to reconcile it with their pre-conceived image of me as a rough northern biker girl with a taste for the Gin?
I ask you!

I am starting to panic about
my yule knitting. I've still got no FOs to show for the three projects on the needles right now, and haven't even started a clapotis destined for Mr Bullfinch's stocking. And there's less than 3 weeks to go. eek.

Tired birdy

I'm a sleepy birdy today as I went to the gym this morning and did lots of exercising. The rest of the time I've mostly been spending on Ravelry, which is truly glorious.

I don't usually go in for social networking sites, as I'm not really much of a joiner. I read a lot of blogs but rarely if ever comment, as I feel like I'm intruding into the life of someone I know far more about than they know about me. It feels voyeuristic somehow, uncomfortable that I know things about a person but they know nothing about me. I guess this blog is in some way aiming to redress that balance - at least I'm putting a piece of myself out there to be examined and consumed the way other bloggers do.

Anyway, Ravelry - its so much better than just a social networking site, I've already seen a number of patterns and yarns I'm itching to try out, got ideas and inspiration from the wonderful people on there and even got myself some friends! I just need to make sure I keep up my profile, keep uploading pictures to my new flickr account, and generally join in a lot. What fun!



Here is the progress on the BSJ - as you can see, I've got a long way to go...

Red Light disaster

I've had a bit of a disaster with the Red Light Special. I had to alter the pattern to increase the circumference by a couple of inches to fit O'Neill's head, but I forgot to also lengthen the chart to allow for a greater depth. So when I finally cast off and plonked it on his head, I discovered that it only came half way down his ears and exposed an alarming amount of forehead.

I didn't really want to unravel all the decreases and re-knit the top half, so I rather ambitiously decided to cast on along the bottom edge and add some length around the brim. I don't know whether it will turn out well or look crap, but I am soldiering on!