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!