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!!!

Beginning at home

Supah Mario sock is coming along well.

It's very odd to be using 2.5mm needles again, after the 8mm pointy sticks stipulated by my last object. (The mohair shawl. Nope, still not blocked.) I am at a fork in the road though. Do I keep knitting, and get to the heel turning today, or do I cast on something else that I can bring to the cinema tonight? MmmmmMattDamon....nope, no chance of heel turning while watching that.

My so-called scarf is ready to be started, but I don't want to bring 35mm straights with me again, having poked myself in the arm so often last time.

Wow...the deep thoughts that fill my day....


At some point in the past, I may have mentioned the Great Destashing. One of my mothers friends knitted for all her grandkids, and as they grew up, she gave up knitting. Or, at least, knitting teeny little cardigans that she would never get to wear herself. The majority was acrylic yarn that came in either baby colours or school-jumper colours, as demonstrated below.




This morning, I had my eureka moment.

In my estimation, I have just over 3kg (or nearly 7lbs) of acrylic that I'm never, ever going to use. As of this morning, I have an empty cardboard box in our spare room/home office, and over the next few months I'm going to fill it with booties, hats and other items to be sent to various charity groups catering for babies/preemies. Just about all of these ask specifically for acrylic and acrylic blends, as they're totally machine washable and dryable.

Considering how fast little things knit up, I have little to no chance of getting bored of a pattern. I get my instant gratification projects, a warm fuzzy feeling inside, and a little head gets something cute to put on it.

Does anyone else do charity knitting? I know things like Afghans for Afghans and the Duulan project were huge in the States, but I wasn't keen on the vast amounts of airmiles that anything I would send would clock up. Anyone have any stories they'd like to tell?

Faraway hills

Ok, I've been quieter than usual over the last week or so, but there has been a lot going on.

The Saturday before last, my uncle lost his battle with cancer. He was diagnosed at the same time as my Dad, in April, and fought it right til the end. He could be the worlds biggest pain in the butt at times, but he sure will be missed.

On the Friday of that same weekend, one of my friends from home passed away. He was due to have surgery on the Wednesday, having been admitted to the same ward as my dad (coincidence much?!) the weekend before. Unfortunately, by the time Wednesday rolled around he was on life support in intensive care, and there was nothing that could be done. His wife is a widow at 26, and not only is she 6 months pregnant, but she has 3 more little ones at home all under the age of 4. Life truly sucks sometimes.

My usual weekend trip to Cork was slightly different this time around. I headed down on Thursday, helped my mother with the packing and cleaning, and on Friday we followed the ambulance back home. Dad's now in the hospital in my hometown, having lots of physio to get him back on his feet. It's pretty much a pit stop til we can get a space at the national rehab hospital, but it's still a step.

I managed to photo another section of my stash for Ravelry this weekend, as well as take a few other pics, and then being teh blonde, left my camera back home. This will be a photo-free week, as a result.

The lovely Trish, AKA Belle7171 finally got my "bad day swap" package. It went down well, which I'm rather chuffed about. I can't wait for my one to arrive. It shall not be kept, until a suitable moment of Zen though. Nope, it shall be ripped open on the spot. I may even manage to close the door on the postman and get past the hall to do so.

Rainy day scarf is going well. Except for the bit I repeated too often last night while watching season one of Rome, and have to frog. Ah well.
Maybe when I get finished with the Rainy day scarf, the rainy days will cease, and we can have some summer, instead of the 6-month-long spring we're currently going through. Even the trees are confused. Many of them have changed colour and started dropping leaves already!

Going to the moooooovies tonight. Ice cream cookies rock.

Robots in disguise

Last night we went to Transformers, and it did rock verily.
We even got a little knitting in.










Note to self: in future, when planning to knit at the cinema, break out the addi's and leave the 35cm straight needles at home. Constantly poking myself in the right bicep was less than a barrel of laughs.

The snot nosed teenagers behind us were also less fun then said barrel.
They talked loudly through the whole film, kept swapping seats and playing with mobile phones. OH said a few choice words to them, as did most of our row and the row behind them. Mouthy feckers. They ran out the door in record time as soon as the credits started rolling though! I have their faces branded into my brain, so if I ever see them again, I'll ask for them to be removed before the film even starts.

Harumph!

Calori two is well under way on this wet and miserable Wednesday. I'm just glad I managed to get the duvet cover off the washing line before it started.

Summer? Hello? You seem to have gone and gotten yourself a tad lost on us!
Please come baaaaack! All is forgiven!

Eureka!!

I quizzed OH about the mythical camera cables yesterday afternoon, and he denied all knowledge. Or gave me the brush off. Technically the same thing. Last night I got home at 11.30pm, and decided to rip apart the box room, just so I could have the pleasure of saying "They're not here so you must have them. Please search" and after about 20 minutes of scrabbling around on the floor, I found them, chucked under the bed.

Now I'm not saying that he hid them for the purpose of making me dump/pack stuff, but lets just say that last time I saw them, they were firmly attached to the usb port at the front of the pc.

So there shall be piccies of a vaguely productive and entertaining nature tomorrow.
Huzzah.

Got absolutely zero knitting done in the last 48 hours, due to work being all-consuming (with this ickle break for updating) and going to see The Lives of Others last night. Very good movie, though not really one I'd recommend if you're in the mood for some brain candy. Funnily enough, I've started reading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas this morning, as it was next on the stack.

Oh, and I was a bit blonde the other day with my scarf yarn info. It's not Tivoli, it's Wendy Fusion, and the colourway is Allspice. What spices are blue and purple, I don't know, but who am I to argue.
Mine seems to have massive amounts more mustard than anticipated, which was actually zero. The outside of the ball was a dark red and purply-blue. I didn't poke at the inside, which I really should have, because in the course of working my way through the ball I realized that it's mustard. Very, very mustard.
I have learned my lesson. Variagated yarn shall be poked from this point on.