WIP Wednesday: Frosty

Brrrrrrrrrr


I thought it was cold last week, but little did I know*
Doubling up on leather gloves *and* wool mittens, fleece cowl *and* hand spun hooded scarf *and* wool hat, jeans *and* leg warmers and a comfy wool/cashmere coat, I kept unsurprisingly warm while cycling back and forth to work this past week. It's a good thing I don't have to commute by car, since that has been frozen shut (not even the locks, the doors themselves) for almost a week. Well, it's too cold to fill it up anyway...

So, inside I've been, drinking my coco, staying warm, knitting away...

I love yarn cakes. They look so pretty, don't they? Just before they collapse... And there are only two ways to make them look like that. Pull the yarn from the centre just to make it look pretty, but I prefer to pull it out and make something at the same time. Something, like a finished Damask shawl...

Seems more practical, doesn't it? It's even more gorgeous** in real life, which is a bit of a relief. I'm working on an outfit to match it, so I can show it off on Saturday Lunch With The Girls. Where else to better show off a really, really nice shawl, right?

After all that knitting, it was time for some spinning. I finished the first braid of Tardis BFL and transfered it to a bobbin I can't use on my one working spinning wheel. It looks prettier this way anyway, so that's a bonus!

Taking a break from that blue now, and had to do some serious thinking about what to do next. Such pretty spinning fibres came in the post this year. I just had to subscribe to another quarter!

Frostbite

Mixed bat

Borealis

BFL/silk

With all that, the current weather, still not sleeping enough, and oodles of knitting around, I find it very difficult to get up and dressed and out the door in the mornings. However, it does bring a little happy to the gloom of every day dragging on like nobody's business. We seem to be in the midst of another round of everyone feeling "very sorry about the situation" and needing constant explaining that nothing has changed in any direction for the last 3 years. I know I don't need to explain myself every single time someone asks, but every once in a while it does feel like I need to defend the choices we've made, so I do, vigorously. 

I do count myself lucky to be surrounded by friends and family who don't need explaining, who understand the reason for the decisions we've made, even though they don't always understand the decisions themselves. Friends who help keep me grounded and lead me back when I wander of into the deep dark forest of Maybes, pretty and treacherous as it is... So it's a great pleasure to do something back. Which leads me to the last and final (duh) picture of this post.

I'm playing with colours! Tomten the third, you're about to be cast on! In a few days, maybe... I have until April on this one, unless baby decides to arrive early, of course. 

Until next time, dear reader. Keep warm.

*More proof that I could be a weather women, just like the next person (kidding, but only if you're a meteorologist reading this)
**And I do say that myself

WIP Wednesday: Purple

Hello everyone, 

Good to see you again. Are you cold?

Light a few candles, wrap up warm in a shawl and some mitts, and have yourself a nice cup of tea. That's what I'm doing anyway. 

Gosh it got cold. I'm looking at cycling to work in the morning, when it's a balmy -12C according to some weather forecasts. Within 2 days the skin of my hands has given up on being able to handle it. Wool is my friend, my friends. A thick, long wool coat, handknit socks, cardigan, scarf, hat and mittens, none of which are colour coordinated, are part of my daily wardrobe. Right up to the moment I enter my office, where the heating system seems to think subtropical is the way forward. No wonder everyone at work is sniffling and coughing...

Last week wasn't so much busy as it was tiring, with a few things that should *give* energy surrounded by energy sink holes. Now that they're behind me, I'm still battling to keep my eyes open at work. The bottom of the pile of 'no thought required'-files is finally in sight, and soon I get to use my brain again. It's really difficult not to drift off in thoughts about plans and challenges....

On the bright side, I'm quickly catching up on podcasts I had a huge backlog of, like Hoxton Handmade, otherwise known as the Electric Sheep. While an otherwise very enjoyable and popular podcast, the adventures of the Sheep and it's band of.... I don't know what to call them... fellow... adventurers, are the best bits and make people look at me funny. A heist, a flying bathtub filled with Molotov chickens... Seriously funny. Go listen!

There has been some knitting when I wasn't working or otherwise engaged. I passed the halfway mark on my Damask (I did the numbers) so it's downhill from now on. Bottom Up shawls always take a while to get started, but the good thing is that rows only get shorter, and shorter, and shorter.... until there's nothing left! Right now, I have 7954 stitches left to go. This means I've already done 14468 of them. That's putting row 59 of 143 into the right perspective, isn't it?

Fortunately, one of the energy sink holes did allow some time for some knitting. In amongst a lot of musicians, at least a few recognised the craft of knitting... One of them asked if I planned to finish a sweater before the end of the day. I presume she has little sense of scale, since what you're looking at is the top of a bootee. A baby one. Stretchy though it is, I can't fit my freakishly small hands through them...

The young lad sitting next to me was mesmerized by the magic of the magic loop. Which was good, it's nice to show that a traditional craft can still be cool and technically interesting. Then again, the thing that impressed him most about the moment, was the very, very long sleeked back hair of the 12 year old pianist. the only thing missing from the outfit was a Count Vlad outfit. To each their own, and it takes a special kind of guts to be that young man. Power to him, I say. 

Anyway, I'm working on it, even if it isn't very fast. 

Right, I've got an hour left to knit a few swatches, so I'm going to start them now. Babyknitting for a friend's sister is fun, even though said friend can't decide on colours... This just means I have 11 of them to play with before she decides!

WIP Wednesdays: Clearance and Sales

This week, believe it or not, has been all about clearing out.

It started with liberating the 4mm needles. It all snow-balled a little from there...

I went from 1792 to a mere 814 unread e-mails, just by deleting everything from before 2010. Yeah, I know. Still working on 2010. Scanning through pages of unread newsletters, I stumbled upon a few things I forgot about, like contact information, and the wedding sermon. Sort of significant stuff, not to be lost in the deep deep cracks of the gmail account. Everything else had to go, so it went. 

Going by the amount of relief that gave me, I went through my list of tweeps. If I'm no longer following you, it's not because of you. It's because of me and my incompatibility with your tweets. I should let a few more go. I'm working on that, but for now my curiosity wins. 

To continue with this, I said goodbye to a few feeds in my reader. I don't quilt, but if I pick it up, I'm sure I'll find a few lovely people writing about it. Life blogs turning into lifestyle blogs also had to go. I just found myself not reading them, and then there's no point in letting them add up the unread numbers, is there? I wish them all the best, it seems mostly with living a blog-free life. Many of them are getting out of the blogging rat-race. Who knew?

I don't have the illusion that anyone will notice my clearing operation, other than me. But the numbers are down, and that is good for me. Me, me, me. It's me I need to pay more attention to. 

Sleep more, take care, achieve goals. Dare to fail. 

Having dealt with technofail for most of the evening, the sleeping thing means that this blog post will be published incomplete. I'll return later this week with some things that caught my attention, and explain the Sales part of the title of this post. 

Lady Gift

section 4

Tanit's Jacket

row 40

Damask

Knit-a-long

row 19

Tardis

close to 1/6th spun

I'm setting myself the goal of working on the looks of this blog. Expect some changes in the near future!