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.

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!

spawn, spring, other words beginning with sp* (*probably not really)

The frogs have spawned again! My Beloved's response to this was 'That's brave of them - the forecast isn't good' (apparently there is to be more snow, depending on which forecast you look at). I'm not sure if he thinks the frogs consult the weather forecast before embarking on following their reproductive instincts. In any case, frog spawn is pretty robust stuff.

However, delighted as I am to see evidence of new life in our garden, I'm back to the annual worry about tadpole welfare. Our pond is tiny and is currently pretty much filled with frogspawn and not much water, as despite various batches of snow we haven't had much actual rain recently, and I suspect the pond 'liner', a plastic tub, may be leaking. So I find myself hoping for plentiful April showers so that they eventual taddies have somewhere to actually swim, and considering installing another tiny pond. Maybe eventually I'll have a chain of tiny ponds across the garden. Actually this wouldn't take long. I bought a magazine the other day that had a supplement called something like 'tips for small gardens' and on opening it could only conclude that their idea of small gardens and mine do not even feature on the same Venn diagram, let alone overlap.

In knitting news, I finished the green hat I started in January, and also the camera pouch.

And now I'm knitting a shawl (the Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief) from some Malabrigo Rios which I got a while back. I have reached the stage of eternally long rows but I want it to be a proper shawl rather than a kerchief (not that I'm clear what a kerchief is, but it sounds small) so I'm adding at least one extra repeat, so there is some way to go. Good telly knitting though!

Talking of which, in the interest of doing things as a family, even if it's only watching telly together, we are currently working our way through all the episodes of Scrapheap Challenge available on All4. Miss M is mechanically minded and the Boy is keen on science in general, and we'd watched all the Mythbusters and White Rabbit Project episodes available on Netflix so we were really pleased to find Scrapheap as well. Inspired by all this we finally got round to trying the Diet Coke/Mentos thing last week - we completely forgot to take pictures, but they would have been rubbish anyway as we were falling about laughing!

Hairy legs and hairy string

I'll start with hairy string:

It's jute gardening twine actually. I bought a large roll yesterday because I always need string in the garden, and anyway a ball of string is so aesthetically pleasing...

And then, naturally, I wondered what it would be like to knit with. Not that great, if I'm honest, as there's no give to it at all, but I like a challenge. Obviously it's not suitable for, y'know, a garment or anything, but I'm making a coaster kind of thing to put under a plant pot that's on my windowsill. I'm hoping it'll be a bit absorbent if there's any leaking from the pot. After that maybe I'll knit little jute hats for the outside plants. (Or not).

Anyway, hairy legs:

Miss M's school had their Scottish afternoon on Friday (the day after Burns Night). As you can see the younger kids had decorated the school hall rather fabulously.  In January they all learn Scots poetry and songs, and if they feel like it and are good enough three or four from each class are chosen to stand up in front of the whole school and a whole lot of parents at Scottish afternoon and recite a poem (the Boychild avoided this like the plague when he was at primary school). This year Miss M was one of the ones chosen. Her class had a large chunk of Tam o'Shanter to recite. This chunk in fact:

But to our tale:- Ae market-night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither--
They had been fou for weeks thegither!
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter
And ay the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
wi' favours secret, sweet and precious
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. 

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himsel' amang the nappy!
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious.
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious! 

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.--
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil had business on his hand. 

(Spell-check isn't really keen on Burns! Translation here)

I don't know how she memorised that lot. But she did and she performed it really well, without going blank or throwing up or anything (I may be projecting slightly). It is a competition, but she knew she had no chance of winning because two of the boys in her class are excellent at this sort of thing and have represented their class in it almost every year (and in fact one of them was over-all winner for the school this year). But she was just so pleased that she did it at all. And I was so proud. I also wondered how she did it as neither her father nor I would ever have done such a thing! 

Bright and woolly

The thing that I am knitting, photographed in a moment of sunlight this afternoon. I have five colours of leftover Drops Nepal and had originally intended to do random stripes in all the colours, but then I thought it might be too much, so with Miss M's help I chose these - warm woodland colours with a splash of pink. I am not a pink person at all but I think this looks okay. And it's squishy. It's been a bit of a hectic week one way or another, so it's nice to have some comfort knitting.

I'm still pondering and plotting what else I can do with my various green wools. And I've just remembered that I have a half-completed (see how glass-half-full I'm being there!) Kirkja shawl tucked away somewhere - as I recall I stalled on it because one of the cats got into the wool and it's a tangled mass, but I quite like untangling wool if I'm in the right mood so that might be a project for the weekend! I have a cold and stuffed up sinuses at the moment so my plan for the weekend is to do pretty much bugger all, now with a little yarn untangling on the side. Perhaps I can find an interesting podcast to listen to while I untangle. It'll be very zen.             
Until the cats discover what I'm up to.

Supposed to be knitting

Today I took a whole load of pictures of the thing I am knitting, and they were all blurry! Guess the light wasn't as bright as it seemed.

So here's a picture from this morning.

Anyway, the thing I am knitting is a pouch for my compact camera. I do have a case for it but it's quite bulky with space for spare memory cards and stuff, and all I really need for day-to-day use is something to protect it from bumps, pointy things and leaking ballpoints in my handbag. And I wanted a small piece of fairly mindless knitting. So I'm using leftover bits of Drops Nepal in various colours - stripes, bit of Fair Isle, whatever I feel like really. It's looking quite nice so far, I think! But you'll have to take my word for it until I can take a decent picture.

January! Not usually green but will be if I have anything to do with it!

I nearly finished my hat this evening - just the pompom to go. It occurred to me while I've been knitting it that I really like green, and then it occurred to me that I have other green wool languishing in my stash. So I'm going to knit green this January. As you see from the picture there are various yarns of various thicknesses (and actually I can see there's more green in another box on top of the bookcase) so goodness knows what I'll end up knitting.

Apologies for the drabness of the photo incidentally - it's hours past dark and everything looked washed out with the lighting in here so I used the flash which isn't much better. Somewhere in the house is my mobile on which is the photo that actually prodded me into seeking out the green stash this evening, that being a photo of mossy grass. I think I instagrammed it, but I'm too dozey to figure out how to get a picture from Instagram onto here, but this might be a link to it.

Edit: lol, that picture's even worse than I thought, nothing looks green. I'll redo that in daylight tomorrow!

January - part two. Knitting!

I did cast on my hat on Hogmanay - well, started. I cast on 20 stitches at twenty to midnight, and then Cat1 started throwing up - on the windowsill. He wolfed his dry food too fast again, that part is obvious. Why he choose the windowsill as a suitable venue is less obvious. Oh well. In any case I spent the remaining minutes of 2017 cleaning up cat-sick. Oh, and posting on Facebook about it of course, because when you lead a life as glamorous as mine you like to spread the sparkle a bit. Or alternatively I know my friends will be mildly amused by it.

But yesterday I finished casting on and did the rib, and today I got onto the cable bit. Actually I'm well past the cable bit now, as the picture is from several hours ago when there was daylight. I love it. The yarn is so squishy (wool for texture, alpaca for softness) and the colour so rich and the pattern is fun and.. it's all good!

The pattern is Jesse's Christmas hat (by Elspeth Kursh) again, the one I made for my mother-in-law.

In other news, this morning we finally watched yesterday's Great Festive Bake Off and I laughed myself silly at their East 17 pastiche. Apparently it was also used as the trailer but as I watch very little actual television I hadn't seen it, so it was completely out of the blue. The kids of course didn't get it, 'Stay Another Day' being well before their time, but I laughed!

A Hogmanay Post

Boxing Day landscape

Hello, happy New Year, or whatever! Hogmanay is proceeding in its usual way - we're sitting in the house not doing much! Occasionally we hear the odd firework (it's only 9.13 pm as I type this so they're a bit early) but the cats are completely unconcerned thankfully. My brother came over for a bit earlier and when I dropped him off at the railway station a while back we saw crowds of young people all glammed up and ready to head into Glasgow for an epic night out. One girl had the most incredible dress of giant sequins, the kind of thing I wish I'd worn when I was twenty-ish, though I'd also have to wish I was outgoing enough when I was twenty-ish to wear that kind of thing  - I wasn't, but I still think it was a fab dress!

Christmas was quiet and nice, and we had snow on Boxing Day, just enough to brighten things up. I've been for loads of walks this week, and might actually go out for another in a bit as it's a mild night. The snow melted last night when it was windy and it feels much warmer today.

My only piece of Christmas knitting this year was a hat for my mother-in-law. The pattern is called Jesse's Christmas Hat and I found it on Ravelry - it's lovely and quick. The cables give it a bit of interest but there's only a few rows to the cable section so it doesn't take ages. I'm going to make another for myself, in two shades of green (olive green with a pistachio border and pompom) - in fact my plan for this evening is to cast it on. Miss M (now eleven) wants to stay up until 'the bells' so I'll need to do something to keep me going! The yarn is Drops Nepal, a wool/alpaca mix and it's very soft and lovely. I made the pompom the old-fashioned way with the two rings of cardboard, partly because I enjoy it and partly because the plastic pompom maker I had was rubbish, but funnily enough my mother-in-law then gave Miss M a set of rather better pompom makers so she's been making pompoms ever since! I've got to admit they're much quicker, though I think they look a bit sparser than the ones made with cardboard.

The final picture is from one of my evening walks because I didn't want all my pictures to be ones I'd already used on Instagram! That was a chilly night. Right I'm off to put the kettle on and then find my needles to cast on my green hat. All the best for 2018 everyone!

A bit of knitting

I'm posting this from my mobile, and I can't figure out how to rearrange my pictures, so here's an out of order knitting photostory.

Once upon a time there was half-knitted hat. The wool was Noro Cash Island which I bought years ago, cheap I think because it was being discontinued. Which was a bit of a shame really because knitting with it is a real tactile pleasure.

Then the hat was finished (this afternoon) and the colours look quite different in different light.

And finally I cast it on. This was only a few days ago - it's been a very fast knit for me! Especially given that it was quite a busy week one way or another. 

This used to be a knitting blog; occasionally it still is!

We're getting there

 Things keeping me going in January are:

A little bit of snow last week. I even have snowballing pictures but the kids wouldn't like it if I made them public. But it was great seeing them have fun in the snow!

The first daffodils in the shops

My new diary insert (by Morgan Le Fae's Trinkets - I love these; this particular layout suits me perfectly).  This took a random route from the Netherlands and I thought it had got irretrievably lost. Monique had posted it well before Christmas so goodness knows where it went on its travels!

Winding more wool.

And today I watched Rams (Hrútar) which I'd been meaning to watch for ages, and loved it. I even knitted while I watched, though it was only a sample to check how the variegated wool knitted up. I was meaning to make a hat with it but all my circular needles seem to have vanished. I must have put them somewhere particularly safe...

We're all more or less recovered from our various lurgies now, and although the first couple of weeks were pretty awful even by January standards, I think settling back into the normal routine has helped.

A Hogmanay post. Contains wool.

 From this...

 .. to this..

..via this!

Thanks to my parents, who gave me some money for Christmas, my new toy is a ball-winder! (I'm sure I've spent Hogmanay winding wool before; slight deja vu here.) I have a nostepinne but I can never wind a ball evenly, so the ball-winder is fantastic! And so quick.... Plus it entertained the kids. And the little cat was fascinated too.. No pouncing though, thank goodness.The bigger cat is more inclined to pounce on things like that but he's asleep upstairs.

We're at home for New Year this year, for the first time in about seven years I think. It feels a bit strange. In fact I don't even know what happens at midnight here though we've heard a few fireworks so I'm expecting more later on. We're usually in the Highlands staying with my parents (watching the village's organised firework display from the upstairs landing at midnight), but I left it too late booking the cattery, so here we are. However as I've had a chest infection and Miss M has a cough it's possibly just as well.  We've spent the last few days generally doing as little as possible, which has been nice but I've been losing track of the days a bit. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I have no idea what I'll knit with that newly-wound ball of wool. I picked the skein from my stash more or less at random (it's Malabrigo Sock in Primavera) just to test-drive the ball-winder, but it's so lovely and soft I kind of want to cast on now. I have a cowl to finish first though, so I think I'll go on with that this evening. The kids are deciding whether they want to stay up until 'the bells' (it's 9.55pm now, past their usual bedtime, though not necessarily their usual sleep time). To be honest I'm pretty tired myself so I'm not that fussed about it. But happy 2017 to everyone!

Of pumpkins and turnips

Hallowe'en has been and gone, and this year I carved two neepie lanterns, although I don't seem to have a photo of them together, and knitted a pumpkin. The pumpkin pattern was one I saw in a magazine, just when I fancied a quick, easy knit. The wool is Wendy Ramsdale, which I'd never used before, and is absolutely gorgeous.

Neepie lantern dribbling wax

I hung one lantern up outside the house and the kids took the other with them when they went guising:

Neepie lantern in action

When I took the lantern down from outside the house I managed to spill candle wax all over my hoodie so I've learned how to remove candle wax from clothes now! Actually I knew in theory how to do it but had never had cause to try, and now I know that ironing the item between layers of brown paper does actually work! Well, up to a point anyway - it got most of it out and I've just put the hoodie through a wash to see if the rest comes out.  See, you're never too old to learn something! Talking of which...

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

I graduated on Saturday! BA(Hons) in Humanities with Literature, and a very lovely graduation ceremony it was too.

Open University graduates are of all ages and, as was pointed out in one of the speeches, have almost all been studying under awkward circumstances - while working, while bringing up children, while caring for someone - so there was a real sense of achievement. I graduated from a traditional university 22 years ago having had a traditional student experience  - study, party, study, kid myself that sitting on the beach with my notes meant I was studying, beach party, study, repeat... As a young student I had a great time, learned a lot (not all from the studying part of it), and wouldn't have missed it for the world, and I did have a sense of achievement then. But really my only responsibility then was to remember to feed myself - and I wasn't even very good at that! Studying when you have actual responsibilities is a different kettle of fish entirely and I was taken by surprise at how amazing it felt to graduate with all these other people who had squeezed studying in here and there, fitting it in around families and commitments and responsibilities. So, it was a really nice, happy day!

Ooh post!

Yay, the Shetland wool week annual arrived - time to sit back with a mug of coffee and a chocolate biscuit!

The Stealth shawl

Large, triangular and almost invisible.  Which just goes to show how lush my garden was looking yesterday afternoon!

So this is my Boneyardish shawl, which started off as a Boneyard shawl, but I completely forgot the garter ridges until way too late. I don't think it matters though. The wool is Colorimetry (dyed by my friend Purplejen) and I'm pretty sure it's 'Shetland Jumper'. Although I have a number of her hand-dyed wools I actually got this from another friend who wound it all into very neat little cakes (I really must get a ballwinder) and then decided the colours weren't really her after all. They are however very me, so that worked out well!

Miss M modelling again, because I'm rubbish at selfies. And really because she's a much better model than me.

This was a very quick summer project, an easy knit-until-the-wool-runs-out effort, which I actually finished while we were in St. Andrews so when I'm wearing it in the middle of winter I'll have some sunny, summery memories associated with it. I'll probably wear it neckerchief-style with the point at the front when I'm wearing my stupidly v-necked winter coat. Not going to think about winter now though, the sun is still shining, just!

creeping back in

St. Andrews  - East Sands, pier and cathedral

That's been a long break - almost five months..

Things have been hectic and there have been family (and cat) illnesses, and blogging just fell by the wayside. Luckily things are calming down now, so here's the update!

I've finished my Open University degree and will be graduating at the end of October. I got a 2.1 (Upper Second). Again. I already have a 2.1 in Social Anthropology from the Olden Days of my youth. I was very close to getting a First with the OU degree but not quite. And if I hadn't taken that pesky Literature in the Modern World course partway through, maybe I'd have got it, but it turns out I hate 20th century literature. I blame Mrs Dalloway. I'm sure I'm not the first to say that. I am, of course, very happy with a 2.1, but I admit to being just slightly wistful about not getting that First.

The kids are back at school now but we had a pleasant summer - a week in St. Andrews again, a few days in the Highlands visiting Mum and Dad, a lot of lazing around reading.

St.Andrews - North Street at sunset

Falls of Pattack, near Loch Laggan

I started knitting again! I did hardly any knitting over the winter, probably because I was studying a lot, but as soon as I submitted my last assignment at the end of May I picked up the needles again to knit a present for a teacher at Miss M's school who was retiring after 40 years at that school. She's a lovely person who's done so much for the school and the kids, and taught both my children, so I wanted to make her something special. But as she announced her retirement quite suddenly we were all a bit taken by surprise and there wasn't much time! Luckily I'd come across the pattern for this shawlette (Sunburnt by Nidhi Kansal) which is quite quick and straightforward to knit up, even for me. I think I only messed up the lace section once, which is pretty good going for me!

Cat assistance

Modelled by Miss M

I was really pleased with how it turned out, so the next time I'm at the Yarn Cake I'll get some more of the yarn (DROPS Alpaca) in another colour and start one for myself. I also knitted another Boneyard shawl over the summer but I've totally failed to get a photograph of that. Actually it's more Boneyard-esque - I used yarn-overs instead of the left- and right-leaning increases and I completely forgot about the garter ridges.

Okay, none of that sounds very exciting! But the main thing is that everybody is healthy again. 

On this day in history..

.. And by history I mean my own history:

8/1/10

Six years ago today. That was a chilly winter.

This morning there was a frost and there are sleet showers predicted for later, but that's all - a normal grey, dreich January day, brightened up by a bunch of daffodils on my kitchen window-sill:

I am still recovering from whatever lurgy I had over Christmas - that's been over two weeks now so I wonder if it was actually some form of flu. I still feel very drained. Normally on a Friday morning I'd go to a Zumba class but that's still out of the question. However I do have a bit more energy today and have managed to get the kids to school, go to the supermarket (briefly), do laundry, clean out the cat tray and do the washing-up without having to go for a lie down between each one. I slept through most of yesterday so you can see that's a big improvement!

I've just realised this is my first post of January and it's not a very positive one! I don't really do New Year's Resolutions or anything like that, apart from the usual entirely sensible desire to get back into a normal routine after the Christmas break. This year however I do want to start knitting again, having had 2 or 3 months without knitting at all, which is most unlike me, so I'm on the hunt for something relatively simple and soothing to knit. I have some DK alpaca that I was going to make a hat from but I couldn't find a pattern that I liked enough and didn't require a gazillion different needle sizes, so I think I might possibly make a cowl instead as it doesn't require much thought or arithmetic to invent a pattern.

Time for a coffee I think.

lurching into winter

It snowed on Friday night. The snow didn't last beyond Saturday evening but it proved that autumn has definitely gone. It had lingered longer than usual really, being quite a dry and mild autumn, but we had gales last week and suddenly the trees are bare. So these pictures are my final fling of autumn, all taken in mid-October when we were visiting my parents.

 Looking at them now I'm realising how much warmth is in them!

I'm having a bit of trouble blogging because my knitting mojo is AWOL and I'm feeling essentially boring - how sad is that? I want to knit but I want it to be something soothing and easy. I have wool, I have needles, but can't make up my mind about a pattern!  As for being boring, well, I've been studying. Bit behind at the moment but life happens sometimes! I did my first assignment for this course a couple of weeks ago and got 84% for it which was a relief as this course is quite a step up from the one I did last year and it was all feeling a bit alarming. The first assignment is always an emotional hurdle I think.

I'd better stop now - Cat 1 is knocking things over, a sure sign that it's time the cats were fed and that I go to bed! I'll try to be (even) more fascinating in the next post.