baby knits – Enchilada Sunrise

An Actual Knitting Post

No, really!

I haven’t done a lot of knitting (or spinning, and certainly not crochet) lately. And by lately, I mean… the last 18 months. Or thereabouts. But in the last week or two I’ve picked up a couple of projects that’ve been languishing and started work on them again.

First of all there’s a hat for Miss RA. Whether or not she’ll wear it is another matter. She doesn’t seem too keen on keeping hats on! Anyway, this is it so far:

And the other thing I’ve picked up again are the mittens for Mum’s shoebox project. I didn’t finish them for last year’s box, so I figure if I do them now then I can be ahead of the curve for this autumn.

I’ve been thinking I should also get at least one of the jumpers that are laying around in bits finally sewn up. Yeahhh. I’ll get right on that.

The Good, The Sad, and the Dusty

I know, I know. It’s been ages. Again. I won’t try to update on everything that I’ve been up to, so here are five things: three good, one sad, and one dusty.

The Good.

1. I have a new blog! What on earth for, when I hardly ever post in this one, you may ask? Well, this one has kind of got too unwieldy for me, so I’m taking out the ‘Review’ categories that I never use, and narrowing the focus of this blog to be… well, what I actually do post about, which is knitting and bipolar, for the most part. So no real changes, except to how I think about it. Never mind, it helps in my weird brain. So the new blog, Frozensoul.net, is my review blog. So far it’s all book reviews, but it’s for whatever I feel like reviewing. TV, movies, music, podcasts, gigs, events, stuuuuuff. I’ll probably go back to posting general life stuff and fandom rambling at Dreamwidth / Livejournal, as well. There may be some crossover there, though.

2. I’m going to be an auntie! My brother and sister-in-law are expecting a little girl this summer. Yes, I am knitting. Mwahahaha!

3. The doctor (psychiatrist) reckons I’m well enough to start back to work gradually! So I’m going to be looking into the Permitted Work scheme, and speaking to the Bridge-builders worker at Together, as she has info about all of that. So far, the vague plan is to get back to freelance web design part time, and see how that goes. Fingers crossed!

The Sad.

My lovely fuzzy Xandermog has moved on to hog the big sofa in the sky. He was really ill last year, and he never completely got back to full health, although he was happy and active and pesty up until he got ill again last month. It was all very quick, and he went peacefully – lovely Adam the Vet did the necessary while I was stroking Xander. It’s very strange and quiet to be mogless, even though he wasn’t a noisy cat most of the time. But I’d had him for over 11 years, so I spose I was used to his presence. I shall probably find a new furry dictator to arrange my life fairly soon.

The Dusty.

I’ve been spring-cleaning. Or really, I spose it’s getting on towards summer cleaning by now! It’s an ongoing project. My allergies aren’t impressed, but I’m sure they’ll be happier with the final result. I’ve sorted out a whole load of things that I was hanging on to for no good reason – hairbands and scrunchies when I’ve had my hair short for over a year with no intention of growing it again, and so on. Old make-up, random bits of paper and fabric… so much clutter! I seem to have all manner of things that I’ve stashed away “just in case” they might come in handy some mythical day. But no! I need to get rid so that I can do the re-organisation of my living room that I’ve been planning for months. I will get it done!

Project 365 #9, Days 68-82: 17th – 31st March

Back to the catching up! Here are days 68 to 82 of my Project 365 photos. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album. Or for the most up-to-date version, try my Flickr set.
On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):

Continue reading “Project 365 #9, Days 68-82: 17th – 31st March”

Alive, alive-oh

D’oh, I zoned out for a while there. I wish that would stop happening. My next psych appt isn’t until July, either. It was s’posed to be April or early May, but it got put back. :-/ Still, I can phone them if need be, so it’s not that bad.

Anyway, I haven’t been completely unproductive (read: asleep) over the last few weeks. I’ve been reading (I keep meaning to write reviews… I really will do that. Eventually), and knitting, which I shall talk about a bit more in a moment, and doing a bit of work on a fannish website project with Sann. And over the last couple of days I’ve been gradually putting some knitting / crochet books and some more yarn up for sale on eBay. I might even get the non-knitting things I have to clear out up there, if I can get around to taking photos and working out postage. I need a better pair of scales!

Actually, talking of scales, I may or may not have lost weight recently, but I have been eating more healthily. And without having to think about it too hard, either – it’s becoming more of a habit, which is really good. As well as that, I’m going to start doing more exercise again. I had meant to before, but I as part of the whole zoning out thing I was mainly stuck indoors. However, this morning I’m planning to either go for a walk in the park if I can get hold of Ally in time, or go to aquafit and then either the gym or just stay in the pool for a swim. I’ve got to get back into a routine where I’ve got something to get going for in the morning, and having something that I need to leave the house for is better. Otherwise I’m likely to faff around at the computer in my pyjamas until lunchtime! Quite possibly doing something productive, but still – I need that routine of being really “up and about”, and being actually dressed is part of that.

Back to the knitting, anyhow. Let’s see… looking back at those goals I set myself at the beginning of May, I’m afraid I still haven’t finished Mum’s present (I’m going to go and do some work on that in just a mo!). But as I said, I did finish the baby bootees, and I’ve also finished my second pair of socks – the Berlin Muster pattern – for the Sock Knitter’s Pentathlon. I hit my personal targets as well: I wanted to finish in the first 100, and to improve my sock knitting time. Which I did: I finished as number 68, on 23rd May, so it took me exactly 3 weeks to knit them, doing an average of an hour or two a day. :-) Since then, as well as Mum’s pressie I’ve been working on my Fireworks socks, and I’ve now finished the first one after a bit of a hiccup with the garter stitch toe the first go around (it ended up about twice as long as it should have been!). The second one of those is cast on and I’ll now be slowly making my way down the leg whenever I want to work on a project that requires very little concentration for the most part. I don’t have any pictures of that just yet, anyway, but I do have some of the finished objects. Want to see?….

Continue reading “Alive, alive-oh”

Progress from last week.

Last week, I bribed myself by setting a list of goals to achieve before I could have my “carrot” of casting on a lovely new pair of socks. Sooooooo, how did I do?

– Finish unpicking the cast off of the second Jacobean sock and re-do it with a tubular bind-off (first sock already successfully done, yay);
— Done! And oh, I love them. They’re scrummy and squishy and now fit perfectly. LOVE!
– Finish one repeat of the WFS edging;
— I now have several repeats done, which is sort of good. But not ideal, since I passed my deadline for finishing the thing. D’oh! I’m still plugging away and enjoying it, though.
– Do the finishing for the two pairs of baby bootees (which honestly isn’t going to take long! I’ve just been procrastinating), which means: seam up the flat knit pair, make knitted buttons for both and attach them, make the button loops, sew in any ends;
— DONE. Why do I make such drama in my own mind over things that really aren’t that terrible (such as sewing up one tiny bootee)? Dear self: stop it!! I’ll make another post soon with some pictures.
– Stop mentally flailing over which yarn I should use for the next Pentathlon project because really, I can’t choose properly until I see what the pattern is (although I’m sure I will be posting a short list of my possible choices here like I did last time);
— I’ve pretty much managed this. In fact, I’m not even going to post a short list. I think I’m going to use some YY sock in bright red “Shelter”, since the guidelines say that a solid or semi-solid is best, and light – medium and/or bright colours are suggested. Plus, I already have that one wound into a yarn cake ;-) I’ll make my final decision when the pattern comes online late tonight.

And my prize? Wheeee, I’ve cast on for the lovely Bracket Fungus socks. My version are the Bracket Fungoths, because I’m using YY Hot Pink Goth yarn as the multi colour and I never can resist a good (bad) pun. As I promised myself, I’ve only done the cuff so far because the WFS has to take priority for now, but here’s how it’s looking so far:

Yay!

Bargaining with myself

Even though I have…

Mum’s birthday present to finish;
Nine other things in progress in one way or another;
The next round of the Pentathlon starting in two weeks (and I need to choose a yarn… hmm…);
And, ugh, housework and shopping to do

I’m still really wanting to cast on a new pair of socks. Specifically, Jane’s Bracket Fungus socks [Ravlink]. I have everything ready to go for them, and I have done for ages. Yarn balled up, pattern printed out and tucked into a plastic sleeve, and all popped in a project bag with the needles and a row counter. But I have all the other things to do first, and now they’re starting to feel like chores because I want to jump to the new and exciting thing.

So, here is my bargain with myself. The carrot I’m dangling in front of my unmotivated nose! If I can…

Finish unpicking the cast off of the second Jacobean sock and re-do it with a tubular bind-off (first sock already successfully done, yay);
Finish one repeat of the WFS edging;
Do the finishing for the two pairs of baby bootees (which honestly isn’t going to take long! I’ve just been procrastinating), which means: seam up the flat knit pair, make knitted buttons for both and attach them, make the button loops, sew in any ends;
Stop mentally flailing over which yarn I should use for the next Pentathlon project because really, I can’t choose properly until I see what the pattern is (although I’m sure I will be posting a short list of my possible choices here like I did last time);

Then I am allowed to cast on for the Bracket Fungus socks and knit up to the first bit of the leg, before I should go back to Mum’s birthday present.

Although, I should probably go shopping at some point as well. Heh. I’ve sold some of my yarn and a Rowan mag, so I’m going to be taking those down to the post office. And didn’t I also need some of that… what’s it called…. oh yes! Food. I’d better write a list.