Further adventures in knitting

The green floofy jumper is finished, but not yet blocked - I'm trying to figure out how I'll manage that.  In the meantime I dug out some more partially knitted projects (and a couple of crochet ones too) with the intention of finishing them, or at the very least deciding whether to finish or frog. So the next project to complete are these Christmassy socks, which had been abandoned partway through the gusset of the first sock. I got all that sorted and rocketed through it all as far as the toe shaping. However when I got down to approximately six stitches per needle I realised that in fact the numbers were wrong, and looking back I realised I'd dropped a stitch way, way back. That's it in the picture, on the left of the pink section. 

Curses, drat.

So I've ripped it all back and here we go again!

I'll end with a photo from a walk the other day - I needed some air and some headspace so I went brambling, then made a crumble with the brambles and some apples from my brother's tree. The nice side about it feeling autumnal!

In which I am a complete idiot

 

I really shouldn't knit while watching a Norwegian comedy-drama. I got too caught up in it and I didn't notice that I'd somehow turned my knitting around and was knitting back the way I came in a completely accidental short-row. Or not-so-short row in this case - it looks as if I've done about half a round which amounts to umpty-squillion stitches in somewhat grippy yarn to be taken back. Sigh.

In my defence I'm on the rib at the bottom of the body, and long rounds of 1x1 rib is so deeply boring that I have to entertain myself while doing it. Perhaps doing so while reading subtitles wasn't the best idea though. Ah well, back I go.

Hello again

 It's been.. quite a long time.

I was just sitting on the bed knitting and browsing things on my tablet, and thought 'Why not go back to the blog?'. Why not indeed. Not that I have much of interest to say (did I ever?)

I am, for once, knitting an actual garment. I'm very nearly finished in fact - a couple more rows and I'll be casting off the second sleeve, and then I'll go back to the body and finish that off - I wasn't sure how much wool I'd need so, following the wise words of a fellow Icelandic-volcano enthusiast who I know from Discord, I switched to the sleeves before the body was finished because a jumper with a slightly-too-short body is less of a problem than one with one-and-a-half sleeves 😁.

The pattern is PetiteKnit's Novice Sweater, with a few tweaks, as I'm not actually a novice. I don't like a neckline as high as that, so that's reduced and I've made the sleeves longer with thumbholes in the cuffs to keep my creaky wrists warm. It's a nice clear pattern, and top-down which I'd never done before but like a lot.  

Once I've finished this (in what passes for sweltering heat in Scotland - it was 26° today which is too bloody hot for the likes of me), it might encourage me to dig out the half-knitted jumper I cast on in the first Lockdown in the year that we don't talk about. It was an Ysolda Teague Icelandic-style thing whose pattern name escapes me just now - really nice pattern, bottom-up and in the round, and I was getting on fine and onto the first sleeve but it had sleeve shaping and my yarn was a dark charcoal, slightly fluffy. I lost track of where I was in the shaping, couldn't see what I was doing and stalled. For five years. In the second lockdown I'd gone into a Fair Isle hat frenzy, which was so much fun, and more or less forgot the jumper (Strokkur! Just remembered!), and that was that. I'll probably have to rip that sleeve back because my eyesight hasn't got any better - I'm now long-sighted as well as short-sighted, so if I'm wearing my contact lenses I also need reading glasses for close work. As an aside (one of many), I should probably update my profile picture if I'm going to continue with this blog, as the one I have is from 16 years ago and I'm not that girl any more!

Anyway, I could either rip back that Strokkur sleeve and reknit it as the pattern says or do it as a straight sleeve. We will see. I strongly suspect that if I attempt the shaping again, exactly the same thing will happen - I'll get interrupted, lose track and be unable to see where I am. It's a metaphor for life.

Apologies for any confusing typos - my tablet has an eccentric approach to predictive text/autocorrect and I don't know how to switch it off. I think I've caught everything, but maybe not.

A Hogmanay post

The rest of the family are watching The Mandalorian. I watched a bit but was really only interested in the fish people's knitwear, so I have wandered back upstairs and tried to do my Top Nine of Instagram posts. However the Top Nine app says it's 'housekeeping' so I'm assuming that much of the planet is doing the same thing. I'll try again tomorrow. 

I woke up this morning to more snow* - snow that was falling in big fluffy flakes, and as I am very much a child when it comes to snow (unlike my actual children who can take it or leave it) I immediately got dressed and went for a walk, taking loads of pictures both on my phone and my compact camera. The ones on my compact camera are much better but as using those on this post would require me to use my actual computer which is in the room where The Mandalorian is happening, I'm using the less good ones on my phone. Also I can't seem to move them about on my phone which is why they're stuck at the top instead of scattered through as I usually do!

My walk was blissful - hardly anybody about apart from a few dog walkers, and their dogs obviously. I saw one dog going absolutely delirious with joy at chasing tennis balls in the snow - 'tennis balls! snow! Life doesn't get better than this when you're a dog!' Its hard to resist that much enthusiasm.  

The rest of the day has been fairly idle - an excellent video call with my brother, some reading, watching the New Year special of the Great British Sewing Bee (inconveniently not shown on BBC Scotland, but somebody on Instagram kindly pointed out that you can change the region setting on iPlayer) which was brilliant, and now I have the theme tune to Black Beauty in my head. Talking of sewing, I actually meant to sew another mask today but didn't get round to it. Mañana.

I've seen a lot of reviews of the year, but it feels a little pointless to me. We didn't go anywhere or do anything much. I learned to darn but did not make sourdough loaves - my husband has been working from home at the kitchen table since March so it has not been a year for pottering in the kitchen. Apart from the general worry that we've all had it hasn't been a bad year for us, but it's certainly been a cramped year.

11.29pm - they've given up on tv for the night, I'm on the pc, and I can't be bothered rewriting what I've already written so have some more pics! (Actually now that I see the phone pics on a decent-sized screen they're better than I thought - always a nice surprise!)

See? Bliss!

Happy Whatever, Everybody!

 

xxx

* Just enough to feel like snow rather than the dusting of the last few days.

Nollaig Chridheil! God Jul! Merry Midwinter Eating & Drinking Festival! And so forth..

 

The Boy and I went for a walk today to take advantage of daylight and stuff (I went for a walk yesterday, during 'daylight' hours but it was cloudy, wet and windy so the daylight was somewhat notional), and it was lovely - cold, bright, fresh, crisp, all those wintry words that frequently don't apply during a Scottish winter. Well, cold does, but often it's wind-chill rather than actual cold.  It snowed a little over night, just a sprinkling, and some areas had melted where the sun had been shining, in other patches it hung on in the shade, and it was quite icy in places.  So, vitamin D topped up, exercise achieved.  Then back home to veg out some more!

Vegging out involves a certain amount of curling up with a coffee, a chocolate orange, and a book. These are my Christmas books this year - one knitting book (thank you, dear brother!), and three books on historic clothing (thank you dear parents and husband!). All gorgeous and fascinating!  As mentioned before, clothing history is something I've got back into this year, and these books are just full of information and pictures of details and absolute gorgeousness. My own style is scruffy -  very much jeans, t-shirt, jumper (sweater, that is, for the North Americans) or cardi/hoody if it's cool - so worlds away from the clothes I'm looking at and admiring, but it's not about fancying myself a Disney princess (howling with laughter at the very thought..), it's about how stuff was made, the work and skill and talent that went into it.  I'll stop enthusing now, but honestly these books are just amazing. 

So I'm going to wander off and make another coffee now - I hope everyone's having a peaceful time and staying safe!

Socks!

Woohoo!  

This was before they were washed - they're on the radiator, almost dry now. Oh wow, though, they make me so happy! (It's the little things - which is just as well really.) And I've still got loads of the wool left - what shall I do with it? 

As a reminder to myself for next time, the best grafting YouTube video. I think I almost have it memorised now, but just in case...

Tiniest Secret Agents or Min.Spies

Or mince pies. Your choice. 

Bad puns, I love'em. I'm not a huge fan of pastry to be honest, but sometimes the occasion calls for mince pies - just trying to feel festive! They're only shop-bought but I may make some later in the month.

Still no sock progress - there's never as much time available at the weekends as I think there's going to be, though I did get to sleep in on both days, which probably explains it. Tonight our television went bust - thank the entertainment gods that this did not happen during I'm A Celebrity...  I don't actually watch a lot of telly (except in Nov/early Dec) and there's a lot of stuff I can watch on my phone so it's not the end of the world at all. I'd rather that than the cooker (which did happen one Christmas day!) or the heating or something. 

 

The Elder Child and I went for a quick walk this afternoon (so, sunset) - it was still frosty and the paths were quite slippery in places but it was good to get out in sort-of-daylight. Beautiful skies anyway. I'm trying to plan this week a bit (sounds like one of those productivity things - 'what do I want to get out of this week?'). We'll see how it goes!

Stuff & nonsense

Didn't manage any knitting so no sock progress, but I fixed the wonky drawer in the bedroom so I can actually extract some socks without having to jam my hand in and and grope for them (it's like a Bushtucker Trial minus the creepy-crawlies), so big success!

I'm watching the I'm A Celebrity final with Miss M so that'll be my last gratuitous  bugs'n'critters mention of the year... I've loved it this year - it's been the best kind of escapism in a rubbish year!   (It's just finished, won't spoiler it, but lovely ending).  

I can't think of anything else to write about now. Ooh! Yes! I've been reading up a lot on clothing history recently - it's something I've been interested in since I was quite young, though with the emphasis on history since I have zero interest in modern fashion. Apart from reading a lot I've been watching YouTube videos by various historical costume enthusiasts, Living History types, and so on, and yesterday I watched a most excellent video discussing the attention to detail and authenticity in.... A Muppet Christmas Carol! Now I love that film anyway, but I'd never really noticed the costumes and they're amazing. Link to the YouTube thing here - actually,  no there isn't as I can't figure it out and my mobile is almost out of charge so I'll add it tomorrow. In the meantime the YouTuber is Abby Cox and the video is called something like 'The costume designers for A Muppet Christmas Carol deserve an Oscar'. I will never sing along to the mice in the wall again ('no cheeses for us meeces') without admiring their costumes!

Good night! 

(Edit two days later - still failing with that link. Will add it sometime!)

 

(next edit - the link!)

Feasgar Math!

And that's good afternoon/evening in Gaelic, because I needed a post title and sometimes it's easier to follow a theme.

Chilly evening in fact - I went for a very quick walk to get some air earlier. It was frosty and foggy, and there was a sprinkling of snow last night, so I wasn't out for long. There was however that brilliant crunch crunch you get walking on a thin layer of snow that's frozen harder. 

The sock did not get finished. It took a bit longer to get to the toe shaping than I had anticipated, but it should go a bit more quickly tomorrow if I get the opportunity.

So close...

 According to my phone I started these socks five years ago, so it's about time really! I'm looking forward to wearing them, it's definitely woolly socks weather just now. I have noticed there's an annoying gap at the side of the heel flap. I always seem to get that no matter how hard I try not to. I don't know if that's just my quirk but I suspect it's a common problem.

Right, it's late, I must sleep. But look three days posts in a row - pretty good!

Noswaith dda!

 (And they say you can't learn anything from reality tv*)

I am so ready for my bed! I don't even know why I'm so tired today - I think I slept alright last night, though I did that annoying thing of waking up half an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off. So I'm at least half an hour short!

Nothing of import to impart - have a picture of a Zombie Apocalypse: 

Town centre, three weeks before Christmas. Lights and decorations up, hardly anybody around, most things shut. I was down there to go the Post Office and it was eerie walking through the centre. Ah well, hopefully things will change on the 11th, though I feel a bit superstitious even thinking it. In the meantime I have a sock to finish. Well, lots of other things to do as well obviously, but I have a second sock that is almost almost at the toe shaping. Maybe tomorrow's post (look at me, committing to another post..) will be a Pair of Socks!

* It's Welsh for 'good evening'. Ant and Dec taught me that.

Let's see

I had  this mad idea that I'd get back to blogging in December - and I just remembered at ten past ten while watching IACGMOOH!  So here we go..

Still binge-knitting Fair Isle hats! 

We're in level 4 restrictions where I am which is sort of lockdown again so I'm furloughed again, though hopefully only until the 11th. Silly telly has perked me up recently - Bake Off, I'm a Celebrity, and Strictly overlapped briefly, truly a golden age! And then there is the non-silly televisual bliss that is The Repair Shop. Honestly I haven't watched this much tv in years! 

The Elder Offspring (now really too old to be the Boychild) and I went for a walk this evening to have a look at everybody's festive lights. Turns out our street is the best for outdoor lights in our immediate area - largely due to the lovely Retired Contingent scattered around the street who are big kids when it comes to Christmas lights, and it's not all because they have grandchildren! No inflatable Santas or Snowmen thankfully - they creep me out a bit... It all looks lovely - it's earlier than normal but I think we were in need of some twinkliness in the gloom.

Wandering back

I didn't really mean to have a whole year's break from blogging. It was partly technical - most of my photos are on my phone these days, and getting them from phone to computer has been a bit of a faff, but the other day Miss M (now an actual teenager! Teenager!) discovered how to transfer pics an easier way, so that's good. I'm actually writing this from my phone at the moment as I can't get to my pc just now, but it's difficult to type and to see what I'm typing in fact. Anyway, that's neither here nor there..

What have I been up to since I last posted? Well, a lot of Fair Isle knitting - that square I did with my plant-dyed wool set me off again, and then the Shetland MRI Scanner appeal released the fund-raising Harriet's Hat pattern (followed by Harriet's Headband, Harriet's Cowl and I think mittens and gloves patterns too), so I knitted one and then another, and then a headband, and so on. And so it came to pass that I had a ridiculous number of items of headwear. 

Looking back on my blog I can see that a few years ago I actually said something along the lines of 'but there's only so many hats I can reasonably wear'! Apparently I forgot that. Equally apparently I was completely wrong! 😀

In other news, just before New Year our smallcat Hester, lover of fine knitwear,  died having been diagnosed with lymphoma in December, which broke my heart. And then 2020 has happened and we all know how flippin' marvellous that's been don't we? Through it all I've been knitting this and that, mostly Fair Isle, and designing a bit, so I should try to get that written up properly and into pdf format. 

Last weekend I did a bit of dyeing, using an iron modifier for the first time - that's the results in the pic up there somewhere (pointing vaguely upwards) - so that was a positive. The dyestuff was sage leaves I have loads in the garden), so at least it smelled delicious.  It would be good to do a bit more, but although I'm currently furloughed and ostensibly have the time, it's space I'm short of with us all here, so any dyeing will be when it fits in with everybody else. 

Oh, and although I may have only have Boycat available for sitting-on-knitting duties now, you'll be glad to hear he takes his responsibilities seriously and has extended his remit to cover sitting-on-knitters'-graph-paper-while-it's-in-use. That's my boy... Hester would have been proud. 

So if anybody still reads this, hello, hope you're well! 

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!

Just some rambling

I made my Christmas cake today, for the first time in several years actually. And it's a full-size one because I couldn't find my notes on the ingredients for the slightly smaller cake I made last time, and I really couldn't be bothered doing all the arithmetic again! It's such a faff when you're basing calculations around the number of eggs while simultaneously tweaking the ingredients (omitting mixed peel and glace cherries, that kind of thing). But it's done now and it smells nice. 

I also went for another very quick walk to get a dose of sunlight and fresh air. It was pretty chilly and some of the puddles still had ice around the edge. I like ice patterns, there's so much variety.

Not a very good picture - I thought had a better one than that but it might be on my actual camera rather than my phone. I'm trying to get into the habit of carrying my camera with me regularly again.

Red sticks in the sun (not exactly poetry)

A clear, bright day on December is a wonderful thing. I'm trying to make the most of what daylight there is and get out as much as possible, even if it's only a 20 minute walk. I love low sunlight in winter - all the colours look so rich, especially that red dogwood.

Once again I'm blogging from my phone and finding it quite tricky to be honest - aside from apparently having huge clumsy fingertips, I seem to have a really short attention span and forget what I'm trying to type if I can't see it all at once. I was actually going somewhere with this. Nope, gone. Perhaps I should compose blog posts in haiku form.

Right, I'm boring myself now, I'll leave off boring the world at large and go back to trying to find out about SQL as the Boy has just muttered something about it.

Today's adventure

I'm experimenting with blogging from my 'phone. It's like trying to write a letter while pushing it through the letterbox. That is not today's adventure.

Technically Miss M's adventure rather than mine, but as I have my own concert band past, I rather enjoyed it.  It was the regional heat of the Scottish Concert Band Festival, and their school band got a Gold Plus, which automatically sends them to the final in Perth in the spring (I say spring but I am familiar with Perth in March, it could easily be snowing).  Miss M is very excited. I've got to say, they played beautifully. I'm really impressed with the quality of music at her school! So it was worth getting up at dark&gloomy o'clock, to get her there on time, having had another rubbish night's sleep due to my annoying cough. Still, there are worse ways to spend a morning than listening to live music and chatting to friends.  Ha, sounds like quite a hipster morning!

I had this plan..

.. to get back to regular blogging. I actually have loads of things I could ramble on about. Can I remember them? Not a chance!

I have a cold - nothing major, sore throat, cough, the usual, but I'm feeling rough.  I've spent a fair amount of today in bed - reading, sleeping, or catching up on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here on my tablet.  The cuddly boy cat has been my companion for most of the day:

I can't remember where I was going with this. He's lovely though, isn't he?

No longer having a child at primary school means I'm no longer on the PTA, and though I miss aspects of it, I've noticed how much time and energy I must have been putting into it because normally by the 1st of December I'd be stressing out big-time and this year I'm not. Not yet anyway.  I'm still busy but in different ways (ways that don't involve epic battles with a photocopier) - early start tomorrow, for example, as Miss M's in the school concert band and they have a thing on tomorrow morning. And the Boychild has his prelims (mock exams) soon so he gets me to help him revise. This is frequently comical, given that the last time I did chemistry was about 1985...

waking up

Sleepy Sheep

Oh dear, it's been a long time. But now it's a Saturday morning, the Boy and I are awake and pottering around (actually he's waiting for Small Cat to move so that he can get to his computer), and I have some peace and a bit of time at my computer. It has been a busy few months one way or another. Miss M finished primary school and has started high school, so now we're all getting used to the new routine - in some ways easier because at least they're both at the same school. The Boy has his National 5's (exams) this year, but seems quite placid about it. He's likes all his subjects so that helps.

Now that I'm blogging of course I can't think of a single thing to say. It's always the way of it. So I'll tell you about the pictures.

The sheep one is from a day last month when we went for a longish walk at the windfarm nearby (Whitelee). We were walking there one day last year and noticed an oddly-shaped hill just beyond the edge of the windfarm, past the end of one of the tracks leading to a turbine. It was unusually flat-topped so I googled it when I got home and found out that the unusual shape of Dunwan Hill is thought to be the remains of a hill-fort,"occupied probably in later prehistory between around 1200 BC and AD 400" (more details on Historic Environment Scotland's page on it). So when we went again last month we decided to climb it - it's not high, and there's a footpath from the edge of the windfarm land but the previous time we'd gone there had been sheep by the gate and we didn't want to disturb them. This time the sheep were further up and pretty much unbothered by us, and even posed nicely for me. I do like a good sheep picture. They were lounging around just outside the lower rampart, enjoying the sunshine.

Dunwan Hill

Roses on the kitchen windowsill

The roses - every now and then I buy myself flowers and put them in a vase on the kitchen windowsill where they catch the sunlight, if there is any. The kitchen is generally quite a bright room if there's even a hint of sunlight. And then I take a photo for looking at in January, just to remind myself that the sun will be back.

Sleepy cat; dignity optional

And finally Small Cat, this morning, looking very relaxed. Lazy weekend lounging, though to be honest the cats do lazy weekend lounging on any day of the week.

So that's all for know. If I get round to blocking my latest knitting project and adding a pompom, I'll blog about that too!