A stitch in time...something something...

It seems that Ruth, one of the SnB group, hates seaming almost as much as I do. I don't feel so bad that it has taken about 10 times the number of hours spent knitting to seam up the baby shrug. In fairness, most of those were spent procrastinating.



It is rather cute though. Especially when I get it ready for posting with the hat and booties.



Well I'm rather chuffed anyway. It's the first lot of baby clothes I've ever knitted. Darling mother keeps making comments about it being "good practice" for the future.




So as a reward to myself for getting the seaming well under way, I allowed myself to cast on a Calorimetry. I finished seaming yesterday, and sewed the button on to the calori. I think it balances out. I think future projects involving seaming should be partnered with some form of instant gratification project. Or another calori.




I spotted the button in my fab LYS before I cast off. It's made from coconut shell, and it rocks my socks. I love ivy and vines. My advise to anyone who hasn't started a calori yet and is thinking of it - don't buy your buttons til you've cast off. You don't make any buttonholes in the calori, as the holes from turning the short rows suffices. This is quite a large button and I really thought that it wasn't going to work in the end.

Plus, it's an excuse to go to your LYS with an FO, and pick up something shiny for your next project while you're there!

My "bad day swap" package is in the post. Yay.
Postage really is mentally expensive. Still, it's worth it, and I hope my swap partner likes the goodies that eventually wing her way.

Other news today, it being one of those days...the wedding is being postponed til the Spring. We thought that we'd get away with it being this year, but I'd rather have my dad be less rushed and better able for it. I'd have liked December, but it would put too much pressure on people both in terms of time and finance. We have lots of friends who are still studying, and it's exam time for them.

This makes me feel much better about having frogged incarnation 3 of the wedding wraps.

Yes, I am a bad, bad person.

I just fricking hate this yarn. It feels nice, but is a nightmare to knit with. I was almost tempted to substitute the lurid pink baby acrylic, but thought that might be noticed. Also, 10mm needles? Rather heavy when you've been knitting with them a while. They do double as nunchucks though, which is handy when you're wip'ing on the bus in a bad neighbourhood.

OH is downstairs hoovering and sorting laundry. Bless.
He is still sans emploi, as they say. The case of the butthead boss is getting more interesting by the day. Can't say much, just in case, but we are looking forward to his next letter to see how many times he contradicts his previous letters in it.
At least he knows where the washing machine is, and no longer whinges when I tell him that he has to clean up if I cook and work all day.

It's amazing how fast he can run through a whole list of chores when he knows a trip to see Transformers is on the cards this evening!

Precision planning.

Tomorrow, I make my weekly trek to Cork to spend the weekend. Sunday I'll be back to Dublin, where I'll be staying for a week. Partly this is so that I can get some archiving and stuff done at work, and partly because I have to be measured for my wedding dress.

I'm dreading it. I've been comfort eating bigtime since dad was diagnosed, and the few pounds I've lost have all come back with a vengence. The joy of a corset though - even if I don't manage to get down to my proper weight again, I'll have the possibility of being sucked in by a couple of inches. Though at that point, my cleavage may have to be registered as a WMD.

This evening I have to pack. Usually I just bring my laptop rucksack with my work stuff, and my rather large handbag with everything else. Not this time.
With a week of knitting to plan, what should I bring?

It's not like I don't have enough projects to work on. There's the baby shrug, but I can't bring that as mother or MIL will make those "oh dear" noises that translate as "would it not be easier to buy one at this stage?".

There's no way in hell I'm bringing the black mohair stole on public transport. One bump in the wrong direction, and I'll be needing valium with my overpriced and underbrewed train-tea. As I type, it's staring at me from its perch on top of some folded laundry.



The taunting!!!! I just can't take it anymore!!!!!




*ahem*

This is always the option of the second teal sock. It's a couple of inches off the heel-turning stage, and I could really use the time on it. I don't have second sock syndrome or anything, it's just that I have 2 skeins of Shepherd Sock which I am dying to cast on. So far I'm being strong though.

Option 3 is to take this along this lovely...er....square



Those of you who read on a regular basis (ha! I have subscribers now! wahoo!) will possibly recognise the yarn in question. This square is none other than Sleevie One from the neverending moss stitch cardigan. I'm reckoning I could easily get sleeve one finished by tomorrow evening. Then I'd most likely run out of yarn...

Which brings me to option 4, baby hat/bannister warmer number two. This one in a shade that actually matches the now frogged (sob!) baby shrug. Again, it's something that I could have finished over the weekend, once I don't just snore my way through 6 hours of train time.

Do you want to know the really funny thing? I'm so busy trying to decide what/which project(s) to bring and leave, that I missed the fact that I was outbid on a skein of Opal sock yarn in a colourway I've been lusting after for a year.
I'll have plenty of yarn next week, but not enough clean socks - I'm down to 3 pairs - as the weather has been wet, I don't have a drier, and there are only so many surfaces in a house that laundry can be safely hung on.

Maybe I could justify casting on with the shepherd sock if I got them done in less than a week....hrm....

Those long lazy days of "what do I do now"?

The house is very quiet today. It's a bank holiday in Ireland, but not the U.K. so I have the day off while the boys have to work. Sucks to be them, I guess. Except that I'm having a can't keep still day.

The plan was to catch up on some of the massive amounts of sleep that I've been missing...I lasted til 9am before I got up out of boredom. I proceeded to clean most of the house, put on multiple loads of laundry and do some shopping.

I resisted the lure of Jeans, though it called to me. Multiple times, as I kept forgetting things and had to walk past it about 5 times.

So aside from checking out the shops, and pottering about, I've been doing some knitting. What a shocker!
The cardigan is being slightly ignored today. I've only got one front piece and sleeves to do, so I reckon I deserve a slight distraction, especially as Fathers Day is looming.
So over the weekend, I started on this

My first sock :)
Actually, first sock mark 2. I had progressed to this point already and had to frog back to the start. Why? Because knitting when sleepy is stupid, and stitches always run in huge and messy ways when I don't have a crochet hook, needle, toothpick or hair pin that I can rescue the situation with. Still, now that I've got the knack of magic loop knitting, there will be socks for everyone for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas..you name it! This also ties in nicely with the justification of yarn purchases if it's for making gifts. Wonderful!

The shawl has been left in Dublin, because I'm a genius....
I did manage to snap a picture though, so I don't feel quite so bad. Hey, blogging the wrap is the same as knitting it, right?

That proverbial silver lining

Before I even get into the madness that is going to be my end of month..

I got a phonecall from my mother a few minutes ago, to say that my father had opened his eyes. Just for a few seconds, but still.

To most people, even those seriously ill in hospital, the act of opening eyes is second nature. For my dad, however, it's the equivilant of climbing Everest. It's the first time in almost 6 weeks that we've seen him open his eyes. He's finally starting to come around. I don't know whether I want to cry and throw up, or run out into the street and hug every-damn-person in the world.

The next few days are gonna be interesting, and exhausting. I'm heading to Cork this evening, and will be back in Dublin on Sunday. Then, dear readers, the move is on!
This girl is heading to Belfast!

Sure, it's only for 3 days this week, and I'll be going up at the crack of dawn with a couple of changes of clothing, my laptop and some yarn, but still.
Oh, and did I mention that my house is a leisurely stroll from Jean's Wool Shop? I managed to connect with the Stitch N Bitchers over the last week as well, so in a couple of weeks, I'll be heading to a meetup.

There shall be many, many, many photos and so much yarn porn that your google will block me! Or that's the plan.

In spite of going to vote last night, and the vast amounts of stress I found myself under in general, I still managed to get the first repeat on my wrap done. It's a very simple design, but I think it will look well.

For once, I exercised some restraint when getting into something new (A lacework shawl? In mohair?!) so didn't go for some of the more challenging patterns. I do have to make 2 of these after all, and quite quickly, so the chances of me being reduced to a sobbing wreck need to be kept to a minimum.

Ok, next post will have lots of photo's, I promise!
Please don't get too bored with me in the meantime!


Have a great weekend everyone, wherever it takes you.

Politics and yarn

Went out for a rather casual dinner last night after work with a friend. Good food, good wine, good company. The kind of thing that life is all about.

It being a schoolnight, though, I was in my pajamas (or Thundercats tshirt, in my case) at 11pm. I flicked off the light, and lay there in the dark. I turned and twisted and tried to get comfy and settle down, but after about 10 minutes of being a complete fidget, I gave up. 11.30pm last night found me propped up in bed...casting on.

Yup, there's no cure for having busy fingers and a busy head like starting a new lace project! I broke out the baggies of Sirdar blur, and cast on. It's a rather nice yarn to knit with. It's a mohair/acrylic blend, so it's soft and silky, but if you need to frog a few lines you don't need a vodka and a vallium to get through it.

Knitting, to me, is incredibly theraputic. Ok, so I only got through the garter stitch lines that comprise the wrap set up, but by the end, I was feeling relaxed and calm enough to settle down for the night. Counting stitches is far superior to counting sheep, in my experience.

Today is voting day in Ireland. It's a general election, as opposed to just local election. I didn't get to vote in the last one, as I wasn't on the register. I was deleted off it. Apparently students don't bother or need to bother with pesky things like politics. I moved to Dublin nearly 3 years ago, and was again deleted at some point during this time. The difference being that I was well aware of their crap admin, and sent in my paperwork in November, so a polling card came for me last week.
(It's not just me. 100,000 people were "accidently" deleted off the register last year. Sounds a bit too like dimpled chads for my liking.)

This evening, I shall be exercising my constitutional right, and doing some ticking of boxes. Me, I'll be voting for who I consider to be the lesser of several dozen charlatans. I'm hoping for balance, in the end. I'd like to see people in charge who have the best interests of their constituents in mind, and not just their golf/rugby/chess buddies. Someone who can balance environmental and social causes, and not run the country into the ground financially at the same time. Someone who realises that total seperation of church and state is the way forward, and is not just "anti-Christian".

A very tall order, I realise, but I live in hope.

Some days, hope is all we have.

Mission accomplished

Wahoo! Scarf done!

I'll see what I can do about getting some pics up tonight or tomorrow.
I think it looks rather funky, but I may be slightly biased.

This means that I'm back to one on-the-needles project, which is the cardigan.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm still as enthusiastic as ever about the wonderfulness of Twilleys yarn, and the pattern is something that even I can manage without too much trouble.

I was actually doing really well with it until I ran out of yarn and cast on the scarf.
I love the cardigan, even though it involves endless rows of moss stitch, the sloooooowest stitch in the world, ever. I don't mind that it's going to be weeks upon weeks before I get it done, because it's going to be really nice - I hope.
The thing is that the scarf was just so damn fast (once I actually got some knitting time sorted)!! Probably 10 hours from cast on to finished product, including weaving in the ends. It's ginormous, and shiny, and I now have "completed project buzz". If I had a caramel machiato right now, things would be pretty perfect.

I guess the poor cardigan is destined to be on the back burner for a bit, destined to be ignored apart from weekends and train journeys and other times when I have a couple of hours of potentially uninterrupted knitting time available. It's just too damn big for carrying around in my handbag like other projects, waiting for me to do a few lines while I'm on the bus, having coffee or waiting for a movie to start.

Next up then should, if I use the rational part of my brain (as opposed to the bit that makes the squeeeeee noise around yarn) is to get the first of the wedding wraps cast on.

This is the yarn I have for them, except they'll be black. The whole lot is currently in two ziploc bags in my knitting "tidy". I can't remember whether the pattern calls for 5mm or 5.5mm needles. I don't think it matters that much, it being a wrap and all, but I'm sure my lack of 5's would be the perfect procrastination tool. Should I be so inclined....and stuff....

Apart from ordering the rings, I haven't been doing anything wedding-related of late. I'm not consiously avoiding things, I just always seem to find something else to do instead. I guess there's just a little part of me that's completely terrified that my dad won't be able to walk me up the aisle come autumn.

So should I remain in denial (it's not just a river in Egypt, folks!) and possibly end up blocking the wraps the day before the wedding, and start on something else now, or should I get over it and start them, hoping that by the time I get them done that all will be right with the world once more?

I have to admit, that "something else" is looking awfully tempting right about now.