Another year older and deeper in debt

...or another year older and deeper in yarn. Probably more accurate.

The Supah Mario socks are fully finished, and modelled while hanging upside down off the sofa. They're just that damn exciting, it seems!


Universal toe-up socks in Opal Hundertwassers

I'm quite chuffed with them. Also with the fact that I made fraternal twins, and am not itching to frog them because the stripes don't line up. The very enthusiastic receiver loves them that he has pledged to wear them as house socks so that he doesn't wear them out. Aww bless.

Considering that mens socks take for-bloody-ever to knit, this may not be a bad plan, at least til I can get around to making him a second pair. I only realised yesterday just how slow they were, when I cast on a sock for myself, and turned the heel while watching BSG last night.


More universal toe-ups, in Knitpicks Essential Volcano Twist

If I keep going at this rate, I might have a pair done in a week! Pretty good, seeing as I've had to sacrifice my daytime knitting to end of month reports and cold fingers.

Today, I'm not feeling any bit more mature. My hair looks like the proverbial haystack, I'm drinking tea from a Nightmare Before Christmas mug, and trying to skive off work. It's just not right for someones birthday to also be the day for submitting end of month reports. Bah and humbug!

Things aren't all bad though.
My mam and dad sent me a card, and I got the new Jamie Oliver cookbook, and some sterling to buy myself a winter coat with. Huzzah! My dad actually managed to hold a pen long enough to make a vaguely "Dad" shaped squiggle on my card...I nearly started crying.

My godmother (I mistyped that as "gothmother" the first time, for some bizarre reason) and my mams best friend gave me some euros, which will be spent on my other obsession, shoes.

This morning was utterly squee-worthy:




I've had the wonderous Nintendo DS for a month, as he couldn't go without giving it to me. I currently have FF3 in it. I shall now be brain trained as well. A birthday isn't a birthday without books and chocolate, which are well represented, and the dvd's of wonderfulness are My Neighbour Totoro (I am obsessed with Studio Ghibli) and the Hammer box set!!! 21 movies in a box!!!!!

I shall now be endlessly entertained on my travels every weekends.

Sensibly, he didn't get me anything yarny. The Knitting and Stitching Show is coming up, after all!

Right, need to go shower and tame the mane, so that I can drip dry before heading to down.

Shoppingshoppingshoppingshopping!!!

Slip slidin' away

Well.....it has been a while, hasn't it?

To be honest, I didn't realise quite how long. Bad blogger. No cookie.

Work night out passed off well, and much food and booze was had by all.
Here we are!



One of the steaks was the stuff of legend

Knife included for a little perspective. This wasn't even the largest one on the menu. Cos, ya know, we could all do with having a pound of steak for dinner bleurgh

The evening went really well though. It was nice to have an actual night out. There haven't been many of those at all this year.

Supah Mario sock one was completed last week


Don't be fooled by the cast off edge into thinking that this sock is finished though. Oh no. It seems that even though I translated Pook's request for "one inch longer" into "3 inches longer please", the not-finished sock here is still about an inch too short. Easily fixed though. Easily fixed, on Monday, that is.

I applied, and had approved, my holidays for the end of the year this week. I'll be finishing for Christmas on Friday the 22nd December, and won't be back at work til January 9th. Rockin! The best bit is that I also booked our flights.

Myself and Pook shall be invading NYC on December 28th, doing some sight seeing, shopping, hitting a show, yarn crawling, and eating far too much food before departing again on January 6th. Wahoo!!!! doesn't even come close to covering it. It will be Pooks first trip outside of Europe as well (awwww!) and he's incredibly excited about going. That, and freaking out about the flight, thanks to those incompetant people at KLM giving him a flight to remember. In a bad way.

So, filled with online-shoppers buzz, we hit the town yesterday after work. I even wore my favourite socks


I do love long striped socks.

We managed to pick up some feather pillows at last. I really don't like microfibre pillows, and they're impossible to avoid these days. Now we have lovely squishy ones. We had some Starbucks (mmmmcinnamon) and pondered whether a shop with a sign outside it like this:

could be considered guilty of false advertising (or at the very least, misleading hapless knitters) when not only does it not sell spinning wheels, it isn't even a yarn shop! Nope, this place with the promising name sells curtains, pillows, duvets and craptacular bed linen at knockdown prices.

Craptacular. I do like that word.

Poor Pav finally lost his battle with cancer yesterday as well. He's the first opera singer I ever really liked, and he was just amazing. Won't be replaced any time soon, that's for sure.

Must go and get some actual work done now. Yes, I too would like to claim that sitting in front of my laptop surfing through Ravelry counts as work, but my inbox states otherwise.

Back down home this evening. At least I have my so called scarf to keep me busy. That, and my birthday prezzie from Pook, which I got early. That shall be blogged after the weekend. If I can pull myself away from it, that is.

Have a great weekend everyone.