And some more knitting

Hello universe! It's me!  Among the many things going on recently I finally got round to doing a bit of knitting with my plant-dyed yarns - about time really, I've been saying all along that I'd like to try some Fair Isle with my own colours. It's just a sample to try out the way the colours work together - the yellow (dyed with marigolds) turned out to be a bit strong and dominant really, and I think it probably would have a bit better with the horsetail yellow that's the yellow skein at the top in the picture above. However it was fun to knit - fun just to do a sample actually, knitting for the pleasure of knitting rather than to make a specific thing.

And the reverse is always kind of fun too!

It was an absolute pain in the bum to knit flat though - I've always knitted Fair Isle in the round, but couldn't find my DPNs, and the circ I found was too long for looping so I just thought I'd knit flat. The main area was irritating but do-able, but knitting the rib was so frustrating! I'm always astonished to see Fair Isle knitting patterns that are knitted flat - it's just making it harder for yourself. Yes, if you've never knitted in the round before it means you have to learn that first, but it's not difficult and so worth it when you come to do Fair Isle - you get to see the pattern growing before your eyes, and most importantly, you spot almost immediately when you've miscounted/been distracted by Doctor Who, and can rectify it straight away.

In other news, the Boy has just finished his Nat5 exams, which is a huge relief as they seemed to last forever and he'd got to the point where he couldn't see or even imagine beyond them (remember that feeling?). His last exam was yesterday and today was his last day of study leave, so although I was working this morning we were able to celebrate by watching two episodes of Doctor Who that he vaguely remembered but that I had Never Seen - how can that even have happened?!

Oh, look - it's some knitting!

It feels like forever since I last blogged about knitting! So here's my current work-in-progress - a razorshell lace scarf in the same wool I made a hat in last winter, so I will be matching!  I did one of these scarves a few years ago - it was one of my early attempts at lace and it took me f-o-r-e-v-e-r, partly because it used 4-ply (this one's in aran), and partly because I hadn't done a lot of lace knitting and although it's a simple pattern I had to concentrate. It shows how much of knitting is just down to practice and becoming familiar with a technique, because the latest scarf seems amazingly easy compared with the old one. I can pretty much knit it without paying attention and if I do go blank for a moment it's easy to 'read' what I should be doing. So it's very nearly mindless knitting that I can do while watching telly - currently we are watching Bones which we managed never to see while it was on (yep, we missed 12 whole seasons).

Anyway, enough knitting - look what Miss M sewed! The Great British Sewing Bee is back and Miss M felt inspired by it, so she sat down and made a needle-case yesterday!

Isn't it fab?

She's very proud of it because it's the first time she's sewn with 'actual fabric' rather than 'tea-towels and old curtains'. She's made a few things using tea-towels as the fabric (her swimming-bag for example) and I gave her the lining from an old pair of curtains to mess around with and practice her 'driving' on the sewing-machine. I should really do that myself - I'm not very good at sewing curves on a sewing machine!

Calm January

My aim for January was for it to be relatively calm. It hasn't really been calm of course - life tends towards busy after all, but after the frenzy that was December it was nice to calm down a bit.

It was very cold today, by the standards of this neck of the woods - my car said it was -7°C, and it felt it. But it was (mostly) clear and bright and it was my day off so I went for a quick walk, and the colours were lovely. Very soothing. It's a funny thing, but the difference between -1 or -2 and chillier numbers like -6 or -7 seems really palpable. Freezing, is well, freezing, but in a sort of 'hat and gloves will sort it' kind of way, whereas today was definitely 'could be doing with thermals under my clothes, oh my god my thighs have gone numb' kind of weather. In fact I got a bit chilled trying to get one of the cats back in this evening and have been wearing a bobble-hat and scarf ever since...

I read something yesterday about enjoying January and appreciating the calmer colours after the glitter/tinsel/fairy-lights of December, and thought that perhaps I approach January in the wrong way, trying to plough through it. I always try to enjoy what I can but maybe I should try to appreciate its inherent Januaryness in some way. Still, a bit late now - a thought for next year maybe!