Knitting – Page 4 – Enchilada Sunrise

Friday 5 for April 3: More Questions about Food and Drink

Here we go, my answers for this week’s Friday 5:

What is your favourite fizzy, bubbly drink?
Pepsi! Or Coca-cola as a second – I don’t like the diet versions (unfortunately!), and I’m not keen on the non-branded ones either. They just don’t taste the same. Picky, picky me.
What is your favourite deep-fried food?
Um. I don’t really eat deep fried food. Oh, except for crisps I spose. So, crisps? And sometimes chips, but not if they’re too greasy.
What is your favourite hot beverage?
Hot lemon squash. Weird, I know, but I don’t drink tea or coffee, and although I do like hot chocolate I only have it as the occasional cold-weather treat. It’s too thick / sweet for a regular drink for me.
What is your favourite really messy food?
Depends what you call messy! Spag bol, maybe? Or maybe tortilla chips and dip because you’re bound to get dip on you at some point.
What is your favourite recipe for a blended or mixed beverage?
Not really sure what this means! Like a cocktail? Or a smoothie? If we’re talking alcoholic beverages, I like Archers, vodka and orange juice. If not, then banana smoothies are probably my favourite. The recipe for that when I make my own is one banana (chopped up into smallish pieces), either (a) a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or (b) a tablespoon or so of natural yoghurt (depends what I have), and about half a pint of milk… or maybe more than that, I’m not sure! I generally go by ‘feel’. Then I whizz it all together with the whizzing device. Add a bit more milk if need be to taste, whizz again, etc. Serve with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Nom!

In other news, an actual knitting post should be coming soon! I’ve just cast on for the second SKP09 pattern, which is a pair of entrelac socks. There’s a new challenge right there – I’m just about to start the actual entrelac part and it’s all very exciting. And nerve wracking! Photos will be forthcoming… assuming I can make it all work.

Fibrey goodness

Recently, I’ve been spinning as much as knitting. Jo has lent me her spare spinning wheel which is an Ashford Kiwi and I’ve been having lots of fun with it. I still need lots of practice, and so far I’m using some of the fibre that came with my drop spindle. There’s no fear of me running out of stuff to spin, though: even before Jo lent me her wheel, I had some of the yummy fibre from her Etsy shop. I now have six 100g-ish braids of hers, and I’ll post some pics here soon. Not right now though, because I’m about to upgrade my photo gallery as a prelude to the whole site upgrade – which should be quite soon now! I’ve got some really gorgeous colours in BFL and Merino, and the Merino/Tencel is even more delicious, but you’ll just have to take my word for it until the upgrade is all done and dusted.

In other Etsy news, my friend Rae has opened her Etsy shop, Angel Rae Arts. She’s selling some very cool (and cute) fridge magnets. I love the buried treasure one (which is from a photo taken when she was visiting me a few years ago!), and also the caffeinated cat one (painted) which really reminds me of the Xandermog. *g* The original one’s been sold already, but she’s done some more that aren’t identical, but very similar. Yay!

A bit of a catch up

Oops again: I managed not to blog for yet another whole month, and missed my 8-year Blogoversary in the bargain (thanks for the ‘versary wishes!). So what have I been doing?

Well, I’ve done a couple of websites for my brother and another group in his year at uni, for one of their group projects (no, I wasn’t doing the work for them! They’re allowed to ’employ’ people for various jobs that they can’t cover themselves in the group). Gave me a chance to do something new-ish with embedding streaming video and audio, and play with some CSS3 as well. Hooray!

Talking of websites… I still haven’t got the redesign for this one sorted out. Really must buckle down and do that. I had to delete the (MT) search script for the blog because it was being hammered with spam and overloading the server… hopefully when I switch over to WP I won’t have that problem. However, I want to get the new design done before I change over (so I don’t have to faff around turning this one into a wp theme as well), especially since I’m going to be running the whole site apart from the photo album through it.

Other than that, I have got some knitting done: I finished Em’s mittens, and I’ve even managed to blitz through the rest of the WFS [RavLink], which is actually Mum’s birthday present… from last year. Ahem. But it’s done now! All except a bit of weaving in, and the all-important blocking, that is. I’m thinking I’m going to evict the cat from the bedroom tomorrow, clear off the bed, and use that for blocking it on. If it doesn’t get dry in time, I can always sleep on the sofabed for one night. I’ve actually been quite organised with my knitting so far this year: I still have several unfinished projects, but I’ve put most of them to one side and worked on just two or three… which has meant I’m finishing, or getting towards finishing things! My final pair of SKP08 socks, and the gloves I’ve had hanging around for ages with just one done are both well on their way. No pictures today, though. Site redesign first! Off I go again to work on that :-)

Oh, hi, Happy New Year!

And…. oops! I completely gave in to the Dreaded Lurgy, and failed to keep up with my BloPoMo challenge. D’oh! I did make 22 entries (23 including this one) though, so that’s ¾ of it achieved at least. Yep, let’s look on the positive side of things! Also on the positive, I’m pretty much over said Dreaded Lurgy and can now speak (and breathe) again. Well, I think that’s a good thing ;-)

I didn’t do much for New Year – mainly I was huddling indoors keeping warm! But that’s fine, I didn’t have any big plans that I had to cancel through feeling grotty, so I was quite happy with watching the Hootenanny and drinking hot chocolate.

I haven’t done much knitting since Christmas, either. I’ve done a bit on the second sock for the fifth Pentathlon pair, but I didn’t get them finished (obviously) by the 31st December deadline so I’ve slacked off on those again. And I’ve cast on for E’s second mitten now that I’m no longer coughing all the time. But that’s pretty much it! I have had some post-knitting-gratification, however: I’ve found out that both the hat that I made for little H, and the fingerless mitts I made for my brother are getting lots of use and are very much appreciated and liked. Wheee :-D

Anyway. Since this is now the Twelfth Day of Christmas, even though I didn’t manage to finish the challenge, I now declare my BloPoMo officially over! I am going to make a new blogging resolution, though: to blog, um, more often. I think I should probably be more specific about that, but I shall have a think about what’s reasonable and likely for me to maintain. I could say three times a week, or I could pick specific days of the week with the option to swap if I had something specific to say. Not sure which would work best. Hmm. What to do, what to do?

How many voices, now?

Huh, yeah… you remember how I was babbling about different voices. Or ranges / registers in your voice, I suppose. Well, my chest voice is now still about as much use as it was the other day, but my head voice has taken itself off as well. D’oh! I probably sound rather silly. However, I feel quite a lot better, so yaaaaay! I haven’t gone back to knitting anything because I don’t want to cough over it and make it all germified… although I spose if I do my Pentathlon sock it won’t matter since that’s only for me anyway and the needles should be perfectly washable.

Anyway, here’s what I did get done for Christmas:

Some fingerless mittens as a surprise for my brother, since their flat is really cold! He also thinks they’ll be good for when he’s on his bike. [RavLink]

And some rather less finished….

… mittens for my sister-in-law-to-be (I have got to find a snappier way of phrasing that, but “brother’s financee” is almost as long to type!). I did actually finish this one, but I forgot to take a photo. D’oh. Anyway, I gave her that one as an “IOU”, and as soon as I’ve stopped being all yuck, I’ll get the other one done. At least I now do know that I had the sizing right! [RavLink]

I think they both liked them – I wasn’t quite sure what my brother would think about a (*gasp*) hand-made present, but he actually seemed pretty pleased :-)

Seasonal socialising

Whew – today I’ve been round to A’s for pre-Christmas… um… muffins! And company and chat and stuuuuff. It was fun :-) I even have photos of little H wearing the hat I made him back in the summer – hee! I’ll download those off the camera and post them here at some point.

Now though, I’m off back to the sofa and that last-minute knitting! Aaaaaaah!!!

Passing post

Can’t spend long at the computer, because I need to be sitting with my feet elevated. D’oh. Still, I’m to stop taking the new meds, so hopefully I’ll be back to normal (ahem) soon. I am quite pleased with myself that I’m managing to keep this BloPoMo thing going, though. Even if it’s with boring posts like this…

Oh well, back to reclining on the sofa and knitting it is. Oh, it’s a hard life!

The amazing expanding feet :-/

It’s looking like I’m experiencing a side-effect from the new medication I started a couple of weeks ago: oedema. My feet and legs have swollen up, and I think my arms have a bit as well. My skin feels too tight. Oh yay fun. This happened to me a few years ago, quite severely. It was in the summer, so I thought it was because of the heat or something and I ended up having to go to hospital for a few days for tests-and-boredom. I’d rather like to avoid that this time, so I shall give the doctor / CMHT a call in the morning. This time of year, I don’t really want to get to the point where I can’t fit any of my shoes on!

In other news, I’ve been knitting away – and in fact I’m going to go back to that now, with my feet up on the sofa (should help the oversized feet problem a bit!) and podcasts in my mp3 player. Aaaah :-)

However, before I go back to that, I just wanted to mention that I’ve now downloaded and watched Strictly (ILU iPlayer) …. and woohoo! What an awesome finale! I’m sorry it’s over for another year now though, cos it’s so sparkly and feelgood! Still, there’s the Christmas special to watch. Yay!

Casting off and on again

I’ve been working away on Christmas presents again today, and I got to the casting off part. Only I managed to do it too tightly the first time. D’oh! So I dug out some online tutorials to help me decide which technique was going to be easiest to use instead. Ta-daa:

Knit Wiki: Binding Off Techniques (text instructions)

Techniques with Teresa: Binding Off at Knitty – various techniques for flexible bind offs, including the sewn bind off. (Instructions with photos)
Techniques with Teresa: Binding Off, Pt 2 at Knitty – decorative bind offs. (Instructions with photos)

Tubular Bind-Off in K1 P1 rib (Instructions with photos)

k1p1 invisible bind-off tutorial – a lovely flexible bind off that I’ve used for toe-up socks when I’ve done them. Has similarities to the Tubular bind off. (Instructions with photos)

In the end I went with the sewn bind-off, and it came out perfectly. Plus, it’s dead easy – always a bonus.

Now to go and cast on the next thing…

Knit Jamming at Aardvark

Got back from Knit Jam a short while ago. Hi Jo! Hi Lesley! Hi Leila! Hi everyone else! And there are lots and lots of everyone elses now that we’re meeting at Aardvark. I suspect the scrummy cake has something to do with it! I really hope it carries on with this many people in the new year :-)

Anywho, I got a good chunk of knitting done, but there’s still more to go, so I’m off to slave over some pointy needles for a little while more before I go to bed. Not for long though: I’m tiiiired!

No time to type!

I need my fingers for knitting! Can’t even show you a photo of what, since it’s a Christmas present. I shouldn’t have spent so much time fiddling around starting to get WordPress to work exactly how I want yesterday. (In case you’re wondering, the installation is lurking in a password-protected directory on the server until it’s ready to be moved across to the site root and go live.) Anyhow, back to the knitting I go….

Pentathlon sock #5

Since most of what I’m knitting right now is shhhhh, secret, here: have a photo of something I can show you! It’s my fifth and final pair for the sock knitters’ pentathlon. Currently on temporary hold while I finish the presents I have to do, but I should get it done by the end of the month with no problem.

Photo of Sock Pentathlon pair #5 in progress

Pattern: Summer Olympics Medals Socks 2008 by FrauHugs [Ravlink]
Yarn: Posh Yarn Lei in Drizzle
Needles: 2.5mm, 80cm circulars (Addi Turbo)
Ravelry Project Page: Pentathlon Pair #5

(Almost) too… tired…. to…. blog

If I hadn’t decided to do this BloPoMo personal challenge, I wouldn’t be blogging right now. I’d probably be sleeeeeeeeeeeping. But if I gave in and let myself have a break ‘just for today’, then I most likely wouldn’t post again tomorrow either, and so on. So I’m cracking the mental whip! I can take 15 minutes to write something… even if it’s not very coherent. *g*

I’ve actually been pretty tired all day today… but I did manage to remember not to dawdle on the internets, and I got a reasonable amount of Christmas knitting done. Which I can’t talk about, you know, just in case. But I spose I can say that two of the things are relatively small and hopefully quick knits (or they won’t get done in time!) that I’ve actually only swatched for so far, and the third is a much larger and more fiddly project that I’ve been working on for some time… but again also might not be finished in time. Ah well. As far as that one’s concerned, if it takes a bit longer, then it takes longer. I’m getting there at least.

Plan for tomorrow: write cards, post cards, have lunch at C House, knit, knit, knit!

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”

Project 365 #8, Days 52-67: 1st – 16th March

Stiiiiiiiill catching up: here are days 52 to 67 of my Project 365 photos – the first half of March. I’m going to post them in chunks of half a month at a time until I get caught up, now. 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 #8, Days 52-67: 1st – 16th March”