Lou-quacious Yarns
Happy New Year everyone. I’m having a quiet but good one – I was going to be visiting Mum, but she’s feeling under the weather so I’ve stayed at home instead. So I thought I’d just jot a quick post down to wish everyone a fabulous 2011.
See you next year ;-)
I’m in the middle of getting everything ready for Christmas. Actually, I feel that I’m doing quite well. I’ve done all my shopping except for a couple of small things (and I know what those are and where I’ll get them). Now I’m just waiting on a couple of deliveries, and of course finishing the things that I’m making myself. I think I’m doing alright on those too, luckily, so there shouldn’t be any last minute panics. Hooray!
Because all I’ve been working on recently are the Christmas things, I don’t have any pictures to post in case someone comes across this. Well, maybe this one:
And now I’m going back to the Christmas crafting. TTFN!
I took a day off of blogging yesterday, but I’m going to see if I can now do the rest of December as well. If not, no big worry. I actually ventured out yesterday, and I’m glad I did, even though the pavements down the hill were icy:
Today, it’s a tad snowier than it was yesterday, and it’s snowing again now. No buses are running, and there’s very little traffic in general. My brother’s friend was mostly OK in his Jeep, but I wouldn’t want to drive in this weather. It’s a bit deep on my road, and we’re not likely to get gritted:
Brrr!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaay, I won! Well, I passed the finishing line, having posted every day this month – and this time without a meme to help me along. Woohoo! I am ver’ ver’ proud of myself.
Thank you very much.
In weather news, it snowed. Luckily it didn’t start laying on the ground until I was back home again today, but now there’s a good covering out there. Brrrr!
Well, the snow is definitely here now – when I woke up yesterday there was a white blanket of it outside, and although it did melt up at my Mum’s house, it hasn’t done here yet, and we’ve had more since then. I think there’s going to be more still over the next 24 hours – the BBC weather page seems to think so:
I hope I can make it to the library tomorrow! I’ll get up early and check the bus info page. Which means, I think, it’s time for a cosy early night under my nice warm duvet! Goodnight, internet.
I don’t normally do this, since it isn’t Thanksgiving in the UK, but I think I will this year. So here goes: Reasons to be Cheerful, 1, 2, 3….
There are many more things I could list (music! yarn! spinning! knitting!), of course, but those are three just off the top of my head. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
I’ve been faffing around with the design of the non-blog pages on this site today and yesterday… and I’ve made a right hash of it! That’ll teach me to try modifying someone else’s code rather than writing my own. I’m going to take a step back and do some rewriting – it’ll make more sense to me that way, and hopefully even work!
In other news, today is the start of this month’s IComLeavWe, and marks a year since I first joined that group! Maybe I’ll try for Iron Commenter status this time around. I’ll have a crack, at any rate.
IComLeavWe: Join the Conversation
Comments awaaaaaaaaaay! (If only the website will stay up; this server move seems to be taking longer than I expected… Apparently there are now some issues with SQL that’s causing database connection errors. Which temporarily eats this site! Hopefully that will be fixed soon.)
My brother and sister-in-law got home from their honeymoon today, hooray! They’ve been in New Zealand for two months, so it’s lovely to have them back and be able to see them and chat to them in person, rather than just reading about their adventures on their blog!
This afternoon we’ve been over to their place to say hi and see some of the photos they took. They met up with some NZ cousins of ours while they were there, so it was lovely to see pics of them. I think we still have some photos to see, though – there are lots and lots! :-)
I have no blogging inspiration today, so let’s have a meme instead! I’m going to fall back on the Friday 5, which is always fun when I remember to do it!
I have no time to make a the post I’d planned tonight (knitting & spinning related)… although it serves me right for leaving it so late. I’d planned to have a nice bath, then post and be off to bed. But no, fate intervened. Or my Downstairs Neighbour did, by hitting the fire alarm for the second night in a row and setting it off (then hiding in his flat until the rest of us banged repeatedly on his door). Luckily I was just out of the bath and decent again! However, now I’ve had to get out of my PJs and dressed again because in all the drama, our neighbour from the garden flat is locked out – he was asleep when the alarm went off, and left his keys in the inside of his front door. Downstairs Neighbour didn’t hit the alarm on purpose, btw – he’d probably had a few and made a mistake. But there’s a £40 call out charge to get the thing fixed. Luckily we had a glass panel so could do it ourselves this time, but… argh! I really hope he doesn’t do it again. But now I must get back downstairs and see what progress has been made Garden Flat Neighbour getting back into his place…
[Half an hour passes]
… Yay, go us! Thanks to a group effort, Garden Flat Neighbour is now back indoors. As are we all, warm and dry out of the pouring rain. It took my ladder, Upstairs Neighbour’s Son#1 (to wriggle through GFNs bathroom window), and GFNs torchlight and assistance in getting Son#1 over the garden wall. And now I’m going to dry my hair, and get myself to bed.
I’m nicking this idea from Welshmillie – I also did this back in May ’07, so it’s fun to see what changes there are since then.
The meme says: “Edit the list, bold for stuff you’ve done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you’re not planning on doing.” I am also adding bold & italic for things I planned to do previously and have now done, and bold and underlined for things I’ve done now that I hadn’t planned to do before. Oh, and italic & underlined for things I’m planning on now that I wasn’t before.
Afghan/Blanket
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockingette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn [O.o – I still haven’t come across this]
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch pattern
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn [but I have spun with merino/soy fibre!]
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colours
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards [OK, I know what this means now! Maybe one day!]
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewellery
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO [Is this on or off? I’ve done a tubular cast off…]
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair [But I knew a woman who did]
Hair accessories
Knitting in public
I don’t know if that’s much of an indication of my knitting progress or not. I suspect how well I’ve knitted things is more to the point. But then again, this meme is about trying techniques. There must have been some that are left off of it, though. I just can’t think of them.
No really though, where did September and October go? I really had had every intention of posting, if not every day, then most days during these last two months. The NaBloPoMo theme for Sept was Art, and I had relevant stuff to talk about on that subject… but it just didn’t happen. However, maybe I’ll fit some of that in anyway. As for the plan to do one necessary and one fun thing per day during Oct… Er. I think I did? It’s probably balanced out over all.
Anyway, now it’s November, which is the ‘big’ blog-every-day month. Maybe one day I’ll try NaNoWriMo again, or even NaKniSweMo, but for now I’m sticking with the blogging.
Alright, so I said I’d make sure I was doing at least one necessary thing and one thing for fun every day… how’ve I been doing so far?
Monday: Cleaned the bathroom and kitchen thoroughly; knitted and listened to podcasts.
Tuesday: Did my library volunteering (this doesn’t really count as a chore, but it’s a commitment, so I’ll count it!); went out to lunch and then round the Old Town with my Mum and visiting aunt and uncle.
Wednesday: Made a whole slew of necessary phone calls; went out for the day to Rye with Mum, aunt and uncle, and later to KnitJam.
Thursday: Waited in for a parcel and did housework; went to knit & natter at C House, took it easy in front of the telly (and caught up on Holby).
Friday: Did housework, sorted some paperwork; watched TV and knitted.
Saturday: Went to the vet, the chemist, the cash machine, the local shop and the post office (whew!); went geocaching along the seafront and found six caches, watched SCD then had a massively early night!
Sunday (today): Filled out a health cost help form (must remember to book my eye-test when/if that comes back), cleaned the kitchen; done a bit of knitting and listening to podcasts, and might pop out to do a geocache in a mo.
IComLeavWe has rolled around again, so hi to anyone who drops by from that :-) I’m going to be a little late in starting this month, because I’m going to be out for most of tomorrow (technically today already, eek), and I might be sleeeeeepy when I get home. In fact, I should be in bed and sleeping now, so I’d better get going. I may get a chance to jump online when I get in tomorrow, but if not, it’ll have to wait until Sunday. I can do double then.
