First Sock of the Year!

So it turns out that my first sock of the year wasn't any of the four that I mentioned previously. I had been determined that Twisted was going to be my first pair for the year but since the gauge disaster i decided that I should wait until my sock needles arrive as I think they'll be easier on my hands.

One of the KALs I joined is one that is making its way through Cookie A's book Knit Sock Love. The first sock on the menu is Hedera. The first sock has come together wonderfully quickly and I'm looking forward to making its pair in the next couple of days.



I've also been trying to keep a bit active while I've been knitting so I've also managed to drag my sorry self to the gym and used FitFu on my phone to remind me to get up once every 45 minutes.

Not much else to report other than having made it through The Pacific and two seasons of Spooks and looking forward to several more as I complete the socks.

Looking Forward to a Year of Socks

I feel a little bad about abandoning my blog last year but there's not a great deal I can do about it now except attempt to write more often this year. It was a pretty incredible year which saw my Dad getting remarried and three new family members as a result. Here's hoping they'll actually be able to join us in Oz on a more permanent basis soon!

Otherwise I spent a lot of time looking after myself as I'd gotten run down. This meant baking, lots of tea, some knitting and the rediscovery of sketching and jewellery making. So I have many reasons to look forward and now seems as good a time as any to start moving ahead with some projects.

2011 is being touted as the "year of legs". So in celebration of that I've decided to make it a year of sock knitting. So far so good!
I cast on the left sock of Twisted on Christmas day using a skein of my stashed Araucania Ranco Solid yarn in green which is looking gorgeous so far. The tiny 2mm needles have been proving a bit hard on my hands so it's been slow going. I've just gotten to the heel flap which I made a slight error on due to misreading the pattern but having solved that I seem to have discovered that I need to start over anyhow as the sock is a little too tight. ARGH!

Dad's Thuja socks, also cast on on Christmas day, are flying along. The 4mm needles are bliss to work with and Panda Magnum Soft is truly as it's named (soft that is, not a panda). Just turned the heel of the first sock and am a quarter of the way through the foot.

I also found the socks I had started to knit out of my pretty yarn from Norway. For the last two years they showed up around the house, I'd look at them, think how pretty they were and then lament the loss of the pattern and the broken needle. Finally the day after Boxing Day last year I decided that I could reverse engineer the pattern from what I had done already. After all I had one completed sock and 13 years of knitting experience. Armed with a stitch book and a new set of needles it took me a grand total of half an hour to work out the chevron pattern.

The final sock pattern that I currently have on the go is the Adirondack Socks which are my current crochet project. I'm making this out of a ball of Moda Vera Noir that's been in my stash as well.

Phew, that is a lot of socks! I do like working on several though as I find it easier on my hands and my interest levels. at this point I'm working on a different pair/pattern each day and it's entertaining me marvelously. I'm also really looking forward to making socks with Fi as we embark on some KALs this year.

Here's hoping I have a wonderful collection of socks by this time next year!

Two months in a nutshell

As seems to be the case far more often than I'd like it to be, I've had good intentions of writing but failed to put those intentions in to practice.

April in Brisbane passed fairly quickly and uneventfully after I worked out how to ring the bell on the bus.

My "silver jubilee" was pleasantly quiet and spent doing grocery shopping, laundry and studying French. Just what I wanted really. A normal day catching up on things that I wouldn't otherwise get done during the week.

I've read far less in the last few weeks than I had when I initially arrived. Big crocheting projects like blankets and jumpers saw me spending much more time in front of the television. I'm still very much in chick flick viewing mode but I am hoping to move into arthouse again some time during the week.

A few weeks ago I was in Melbourne visiting Mum & Dad and it was sooooo good to see them. There was much excitement in the house. I've never seen the dogs run around quite like that when there isn't food involved! It was a short visit as I had to head back to work but I'm glad I went down to see them anyhow.

There's a bit of traveling about coming up next month with hi-jinx in Sydney, and another trip to see my folks before the crazy festival life takes over till mid-August.

I had planned to write more but I'm going to save that for another day when there's more to tell.

Today's post is brought to you by the numbers 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2

0.75 is the number of hours sleep I've had in the last 32 hours. I sense my nocturnal habits may be at an end.

1 is the number of days I've worked this week. It's good to be working again, even if it's just an orientation.

1.5 is the number of cards I ended up writing yesterday before being distracted by the arrival of the Schoeller & Stahl Zermatt yarn that Dad bought Mum & I for Christmas. I am now knitting a sweater despite the summery weather in the vague hope I'll finish it in time for Autumn/Winter 2008.

2 is the number of chapters I've read of The Ghost's Child. Since my last post I've discovered that The Pleasure of my Company doesn't actually have chapters. As a result I'm having a lot of trouble not finishing it in one deliciously indulgent reading. I'm trying to pace myself.

Midnight Cakes

Not only am I nocturnal, I'm beginning to make a habit of baking cakes at midnight. This is of course totally in line with Dad's nocturnal habits but I'm sure it's not good for us!

Tonight's cake was a simple pound cake made with a recipe that I've altered a bit and am still tweaking. Perhaps a little less egg but otherwise a delicious cake that will be perfect with my morning (ha!) coffee.

Speaking of coffee I don't think I've mentioned how in love I am with our new espresso machine, which in all honesty isn't that new any more as we've had it for almost a month... Purchased the day after the dishwasher caught fire which I also seem to have failed to mention. I guess that's what happens when I write while I should be asleep.

I have had a fairly productive day today despite only making it out of bed at 13:00. I've achieved 80% of what I wanted to do.

Tomorrow I'm aiming to:
- do at least one load of washing
- clean the bathroom
- head to the post office and post my international mail
- head to the supermarket to pick up some supplies for further baking adventures
- have a cup of coffee with a slice of tonight's cake
- read another chapter of The Pleasure of my Company and one of The Ghost's Child (apparently children's fiction and literature have captured my attention from the stack of sci-fi/fantasy that's sitting by my bed
- write a few more cards
- finish the entrelac scarf that I've been making out of Noro's Silk Garden yarn.

We'll see how I go... first I need to get out of bed before noon! Excellent practice for Tuesday when I have to be at work at 09:00. Wish me luck!

Small Amusements

I've been hhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifaving a little trouble getting to sleep lately. So I've taken comfort in the vast resource of entertainment that is the Internet.

From the evil laugh activated hand drier to the Death Star-esque building proposed in the UAE, there are hours of entertainment to be had.

Other current internet haunts include:
LibraryThing - where I'm in the slow process of cataloging my books
TwitterLit - First lines of books
The Anticraft - somewhat alternative craft... probably not something to show your folks!
Wired Magazine
Knitty - if only to be indecisive over my next potential knitting project

Tomorrow I'm thinking of heading to the Leica Gallery in Collingwood to check out the Qatar Migrant Workers photographic exhibition. I think I recognised a couple of the guys we worked with in Doha...

We'll see how that pans out when I eventually crawl out of bed.

Staples & Yarns

Today started as many do with Mum & I on the couch knitting & crocheting. Admittedly mine started much later than hers did as I was attempting to catch up on the sleep I didn't get over the weekend.

After a quick lunch we headed back to the hospital to catch up with the surgeon for the latest round of results. Oh and to get the staples/stitches removed. Having never seen staples being removed from a wound (or surgical staples in general) it was interesting and odd all at the same time. I think the removal of stitches was more painful to watch and I'm not sure why...

So the important news is that the results are looking pretty good. Fairly normal in fact. There are still a few cells that they're concerned about but it's looking relatively good. They'll do another biopsy and try to get a few more cells but if the results are still inconclusive I think they'll just monitor the tumour. So far there's no treatment required. Mum's pretty happy about that part!

Staples removed we hit the shopping centre to pick up some wool (because clearly we needed more). I'd accidentally bought the one ball of the wrong wool for a blanket that I'm crocheting and as I'm halfway through... I've also started working on the Sudoku throw rug that Mum and I are making for the couch. Photos soon I promise!

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie

Yesterday was Gene's birthday. I was not as prepared for celebrations as I'd planned to be as it's been a big week at home. (I keep saying that but the weeks seem growing exponentially).

I started and have already failed my attempt for 1 photo per day. No matter it's the quality over quantity thing I say! I will share two photos though.

The view from my window:


Dad's first finger-knitting experience:


Dad learnt how to finger knit earlier this week and what you're seeing in the picture is a headband he made for Mum.

Further finger-knitting explorations have been put on hold as Mum went into hospital on Friday. Turns out she has a lesion or tumour on the head of her pancreas (might not be diabetic after all). So she went in for surgery on Friday where they removed her gall bladder (neither of my parents have gall bladders now) and bypassed the ducts that had been blocked by the growth. Sadly they couldn't remove it as there were too many surrounding blood vessels. So they took a biopsy and we'll know the results today or tomorrow. It's looking like she'll go for radiotherapy when she's better. Mum's still in hospital, probably till the end of the week but she's recovering well with her sense of humour well in tact.

While I'm sure other things happened this week I can't recall them. Priorities and all!

So it was Gene's birthday yesterday and I was unprepared. The space invader socks have proven far more time-consuming than I had bargained for and I had to start again with finer wool and less time. The short-row knitted beanie that I'd started for him was gigantic. It was looking a bit disastrous. I had to resort to plan B - making it up as I went along. In the end there was a large cookie cake (think two cake sized cookies with chocolate-cream-cheese icing) and a crocheted beanie. Why the cookie-cake? When I was at uni in Ballarat in one of my end of semester assessment interviews the topic of Gene came up and one of my lecturers said that Gene was a smart cookie (I was a good fish apparently). As for the beanie it was crocheted quickly in Gene colours as he said he'd lost his Barcelona beanie.

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie! I hope you still had fun even though you had to work last night!

Restless

It's been almost a week since I posted and it feels longer and shorter than that at the same time.

I keep meaning to post about things that have been happening. New projects (knitting related of course) and general news but I can barely sit still at the moment. Proverbial goldfish-esque attention span.

Definitely time to get some work. Just something temporary and casual to help fund my future travel plans (Europe again in November with any luck). Something to stop me from feeling like I'm going quietly insane.

At the moment I'm knitting Gene a pair of Space Invader Socks which is taking much longer than anticipated. I'm glad that I decided to start early because it took me about five hours to make it through the 10 rows of the cuff (usually only a 30-40 minute task in front of the TV for anyone who hasn't had my sock knitting inflicted on them). It's also allowing me to do two colour stranding in my knitting (new technique I'm learning) which involves me knitting with a strand of yarn in each hand. Continental (a.k.a. left-handed) and English knitting (normal technique). I'm loving it but when my brain is ready to explode I move onto a pair of lacy socks that I'm making for myself.

Still going strong on the cooking front. More so as our family move to a healthier diet. Anything involving mushrooms and baby spinach is a favourite at the moment. Less baking happening on my part but Dad made a delicious banana cake last night. His first if I'm not mistaken. A proud moment as he got to use our cake mixer and blender last night. Pictures to follow.

I'm so wrapped up in my thoughts at the moment that I'm sure it's not good for me. So far the most exciting thing thats not space-invader-sock-related is my drive to label and catalog things. I spent the better part of Tuesday labeling all 253 posts in this blog. I then spent much of the wee hours of Wednesday starting to catalog my book collection at LibraryThing.

Yeah rock on I say!

Wooly Days

The last two days could best be described as wooly. I've felt a little wool in the head but it's what happens when I slow down again.

There's also been much wool shopping (oh the retail therapy) lately after speeding through my current partial stash of yarns to try and make a scarf that Naomi could take to Europe. The speeding through my partial stash comment is a little inaccurate as I still have quite a few random balls of yarn...

It's just that I can't walk past a well priced ball of lovely yarn and K-Marché and Spotlight were having sales...

So Mum and I have spent a couple of days of QT trawling through bargain yarn bins together. Mum scoring record deals like 40c for twenty balls of baby yarn while I lashed out on $24 dollars worth of mohair/wool for a long cross-over wrap. I still have a bit to learn about saving...

We've since been inspired (or possibly it's the guilt of having so much yarn) into holding a stall at the end of the month. That way we can continue to knit and crochet to our hearts content while not filling the house with millions of scarves, socks and other items.

Having finished our knitted socks for our boys (Gene & Dad) we've moved on to making scarves. I started two today... one with a pretty shell pattern (it's a peachy pink) and the other with an open-work pattern that I'm in the process of designing (making it up as I go) that's based on a crocheted block.

Knitting socks is fun but incredibly addictive. Even though it can be exasperating at times once you've made a pair of socks you just want to dive into another sock pattern. There are quite a few I want to try at the moment. One's a lacy stocking-sock from a leaflet Mum got the other day, then there's a crocheted sock... not to mention the space invaders socks that I want to make for Gene... On top of all of this we got some great self-patterning sock yarns that we can make basic socks with pretty patterns!

So many socks, so little time!

Things Beginning With the Letter "s"

Festival Fina closed on Sunday with some delightful weather and crowds after a wet and windy start. Definite favourites for the festival were (in no particular order) Quidams - Herbert's Dream, Group F, Guo Yue, ERTH Dinosaur Petting Zoo, Ulik and Le Snob and the memorable installation of Méchanique Vivante's Song of the Sirens. It was great to see all the performances run smoothly and even better to see people showing up in the Melbourne weather. Yay for Nick and Nomi coming to say hi!

I must say that's one thing I love about Melbourne. Weather is no barrier for the arts/festival loving people. They just bring their umbrellas, jackets and rugs and huddle together to enjoy the show. It's great and very much appreciated when you're totally soaked to the skin and still have at least 8 hours of your shift to go.

After a swift load-out of the bulk of the festival life's been slipping back to craft heaven for me. Mingled of course with large doses of Final Fantasy XII and season 1 of Buffy.

This Sunday we'll be getting ready to farewell Naomi with a lovely picnic and what was going to be some blues dancing that I was very much looking forward to...

Sadly I slipped down the bottom half of the stairs yesterday and landed (well but painfully) on my knee and ankle. It all happened a bit quickly and involved the dog stepping on the back of my pants causing the fall as I was holding my laptop... Laptop is in tact but my leg is still a little sore when I put weight on it. I may have to take a rain check on the dancing for a bit.

So I've decided to spend my restful time making scarves to bring to the picnic on Sunday in the hopes that they might find a good home. I'm slowly making my way through my stash of pretty yarns that have been hoarded over the years. It's good for me :)

I've also almost completed Gene's socks which he's happy about... Just having some troubles with the heel (namely I misread the pattern when I made the first one and now have to decide what to do with the second one). Yeah, post-festival life is complicated.

I'm sure I'll live though.

Efficiency

It would seem that Gene and I have been rather efficient over the last few days. Since my last post we've:
- watched all of season 1 of Love My Way which we both really enjoyed and even got Mum interested in. After we watched the first episode we watched the remaining nine the next day.
- headed to our first day of work where we proceeded to finished two days of work in just under one

Okay so that's not the greatest list of achievements in the world but it makes me think that we've at least done something!

I've also finished one of my socks and have started the second sock. After this I've promised myself that I'll start on Lisa's socks again which I started on while I was in Doha (complete with tailored design) then proceeded to lose the pattern traipsing around Europe. Typical! Anyhow, I've found a prettier variegated cotton yarn to make them from instead of the angora/cotton/wool blend which would have been bulky.

In terms of my location for the near future I have no set plans still. At this stage I'm not heading to Darwin (didn't get the job and due to poor timing on my part realised that it was good job but not what I wanted to do. Worked out well for both parties I think!) Still really keen to head overseas though. Shall have to look into this a bit more I think.

Well I'm off for a girly day of haircuts and manicures, just have to go and wake Mum up first...

Back to Baking

Happy birthday everyone. It's the seventh day of Chinese New Year today, also known as everybody's birthday (birthday of humans). I must say it's one of my favourite days of the CNY celebrations as it's the day that we feast on yu sang which is a raw fish salad. The raw fish is eaten to bring sucess through the year Aside from my love of sashimi I love this dish because it's a lot of fun to to eat. Before the salad is eaten everyone gets their chopsticks and tosses the salad together. The aim of this is to toss the salad the highest as it's meant to be luckier the higher you manage to toss it. This can get a little messy but most of the salad usually ends up back in the bowl! You're also supposed to eat noodles for longevity.

It's been a good day today. I've made progress on the sock that I started from the funky sock yarn that Gene bought me in Norway.

Sadly I am out of form with my knitting so my hand started to ache after a mere 24 rows of sock knitting.

Having been inspired by the cookie baking that occurred in Stranger Than Fiction, which we watched with Matt on Thursday, I started baking again. Gosh it's good to have an oven again!

Trundling

Eight days to go until the Closing Ceremony and I can't believe how much rain has fallen. After all we are in the desert... we're only meant to have half an inch of rain this month according to the averages. We had that alone on the 1st & 2nd December! The forecast for the next week is looking much the same. Hopefully it will clear up by the end of the week!

Life is trundling along. The usual work, with reduced hours for the next few days before we do it all over again. There have been some lovely gatherings which have meant better quality sleep but less of it. Can't win them all eh?

My copy of the Stardust audio book (narrated by the author and unabridged) arrived the day before yesterday which was wonderful. I love hearing authors read their own work because you get to hear their inflections on their words. I guess I imagine it's like hearing how it should go in their mind. Love it! Nick's copy of Fragile Things arrived with it but I haven't managed to catch him to give it to him. Belated birthday/early Christmas pressie.

Nothing is new aside from that! Getting ready to start knitting again. After all the weather is perfect for it. Planning to make Lisa a pair of socks. Hopefully that will go faster than the pair I'm making for Mum. (One sock's complete though Mum, I'm getting there!).

Okay going to go be productive now. Or dance in the rain. It's hard to tell...

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Gene should have touched down in Doha now. I feel like it's Christmas day and I'm waiting for everyone else to get up so we can do presents.

Spent much of yesterday asleep as I may have mentioned but have gotten a fair way through my book. Also more than halfway through Mum's sock (literally a sock, not a pair yet).

Argh! Impatient much!

Oh and it's hazy today. Giving the impression of possible rain without the likelyhood of it ever happening. Most of the drivers don't remember the last time it rained and they've been here on average 10-11 years.

Done and Doing

While I was planning on tidying paperwork today, I have instead completed a futher 10 rows of my Mum's sock instead. It's currently looking like she'll have one hand-knit sock to see her through to the new year at this rate.

Preparations for the upcoming trip are travelling well, if a little slowly, as I spent today purchasing more modest, loose fitting, natural fibre clothing with Mum. I now have an excellent selection of shirts, mainly white to help with the heat and a new pair of jeans to replace the pair that died in Brisbane.

My itinerary is likely to arrive some time tonight to give me a rough idea of what time to show up at the airport on Friday which is great. More details when I receive it.

Still can't quite believe I'll be in another country in four days time. It's a little mind boggling. I guess that's why I'm having trouble with the preparations today.

All that's left to do is:
- pack
- travel insurance
- osteo if possible
- tetanus shot (icky)
- notify the embassy
- procure a non-dodgy-looking hat for modesty
- leave contact details for friends/family

So far I've achieved:
- certified copies of my passport
- adding a pair of clocks to my blog so that I can see the time in Doha and Melbourne
- read the Qatar & culture sections in the Lonely Planet Guide
- added a blog subscription service so that people can still get email updates of my blog without necessarily having to check blogger regularly (if anyone does read this regularly)
- getting a conservative haircut/colour to fit in

Other good news is that Gene's joining me in two weeks time! Yay!
Okay must go make lists of things not to forget on my palm.

Ahhhh! :)

Glow-In-The-Dark Mini Golf - Bad

So we probably should have realised that glow-in-the-dark mini golf was going to be a bit lacking... Call us optimistic!

Wednesday night saw us swing dancing in Glen Waverley. It was funny because we had been talking (and trying to dance our way through) the two moves we knew in tandem Charleston and the class was about tandem Charleston and we worked on those two moves! We also knew the instructor from the Shim Sham workshop we did last year. Now there's a fun dance! Originated from tap dancing I believe, the Shim Sham is a bit of a swing/tap line dance that breaks into a mad frenzy of partner-finding for the last third of the song. Fun for all involved! Anyhow, when we get back from Bris Vegas we're planning to go back to swing dancing and pick up our level 2 classes again to try and master the Lindy Hop. I think I'm going to give leading a shot at our next class too... although I definitely need to keep up the work on following.

Anyhoo, we decided to give glow-in-the-dark mini golf a shot after a bland dinner as a relaxing end to the night. Gene won by one shot so he's one up on the Melbourne Mini-Golf competition between the two of us. It was all in all a bit horrible though. The girl at the counter was, unsurprisingly, not thrilled to be there. When we tried to query the opening hours (the website said from 18:00-22:00 while the sign at the place said 10:00-22:00) she got all condescending and chose to express her displeasure by pointing out the first "tee" three times to us... It was also incredibly hard to see in their (so you couldn't actually see the holes sometimes. It should have been fun but they managed to make it rather lacking. Moral of the story? No glow-in-the-dark mini golf, got it? Okay, as long as that's clear...

Yesterday was a quiet day where we started to try and get ourselves ready for Monday's 09:00 start at Brisbane Festival. So the alarm went off at 08:38 (I like setting it for non-half-hour increments) and we got out of bed at 08:58. The first few hours of the day saw me knitting (I'm almost through Dad's scarf) and then we headed into the city to have lunch with Gene's Mum. We stopped off to buy me a new Palm (PDA) case and it's sooooo pretty! Surprise surprise, it's black! Aluminum with a belt clip. I was mainly after something black with belt clip so it works out well. Only thing I don't like is that there a widget that sticks out when you take it off the belt clip so it doesn't sit flat on a table unless you unscrew the widget and then it's likely to get lost. Poor design but pretty nonetheless. Gram, Gene's car, had a bit of a hissy fit as we were trying to find a park in town which was a bit of a pain, but she got us there and back so it's all good.

For the evening we went on our date to the Red Salmon in Knox and it was quite lovely. The service was a tad interesting (we asked for a dessert menu and instead of giving us a menu she told us that we had to pay at the counter) but not terrible. Food was okay, not the best in the world but pleasant to eat. After that we played a game of pool and a game of Time Crisis 2 at the cinema before heading over to good ol' Time Zone to pass our last half hour before the movie. We played on our old favourite, the rifle game where you shoot targets to make stuff move, and also tried a dodgy bowling game. A few games later and the half hour was gone so we went to the counter to redeem our e-tickets, apparently you don't get to watch the zillions of tickets print at the game anymore, its' all networked. We returned triumphant with a plastic yo-yo, a tub of putty in a toilet, a black bangle and two of those things that throw a ball in the air when you press the trigger and you have to try and catch it in the basket. All worth the $10 no doubt. Pirates was perfectly indulgent. It was all the cheese and humour that I loved about the first one with some nicely placed references. Same ridiculous and fantastic style and well, Johnny Depp. Mmmmm. I liked it. I liked it lots. It was fun and pretty good for a sequel to a film based on a ride. Yay!

Today is cleaning day. Time to re-box our stuff for the month in Brisbane and pack what we need because we're leaving tomorrow! Last minute purchases required include insect repellant, a bike light and some sunscreen. Tommorrow? Well we'll just have to wait and see.

Frogging

Lisa's beret is almost finished. Just a couple of minor additions to finish it off. About 9 hours of knitting but happily no frogging (knitting/crochet lingo for undoing the knitting).

My crocheted top however is not doing anywhere near as well. I just can't seem to get the fabric to look right. I've unpicked the waist section three times since yesterday and it's a little frustrating. I could go on but then I'd have to live with knowing and being able to see the faults in the top everytime I wore it and that would drive the perfectionist in me nuts. I'm getting good at frogging.

I'm currently armed with the 2006 edition of the Lonely Planet's Europe on a Shoestring book and I've almost made it through the "A" countries. Favourite so far is Andorra which seems like a cool mix between France and Spain. I also think we'd be able to afford some time there which is even cooler.

You see the way I figure it, if I can keep the excitement of travel in the foreground of my mind then I'm more likely to be able to save. If it's tangible then I'll save better. It's worth a try right?

Lessons learnt at 02:00

I wasn't planning on watching the soccer tonight. Gene's switching to nocturnal mode to prepare for overnight work tomorrow. I offered to stay up with him and here I am.

Pretty exciting match. I think Australia played well and it was an unfortunate end to the match. I am basing this entirely on my lack of knowledge of the game. Still as a non-soccer person I enjoyed watching it.

I even learnt a few things while watching the match. I learnt a bit about the rules of soccer. I also learnt that I can't knit complicated cabled scarves which require me to read charts backwards & forwards while interpreting the symbols differently depending on whether it is an odd or even row at 02:00.

So we've only got another hour and a half to go before it's bedtime.

Not sure why I decided to ramble on in my blog right now. I think it's just something I do when I'm not sure what to do.

Weird.

My name is Sarah and...

... I'm a yarnaholic. That's not to say that I love to talk a lot, which I do, but I have well and truly developed a serious yarn buying addiction having moved back in with my folks. It's the lack of having rent to meet... not to mention the stocktake sales - damn you Spotlight and your 20% off everything for one day only...

So my day started off in the usual sleepy way. I slept in on my nice new comfy Memory Foam pillow. I bought a pair of these pillows on the high recommendation from my Mum & my osteo that this would provide me with better quality sleep and less neck & back problems. One of the best purchases of the year so far to be honest! Much too easy to sleep in on though. Also entertaining for the easily amused as you can watch the foam spring back up after you mush it into funny shapes. :)

I woke up and found Mum doing some pattern editing on the computer and showed her how to instert a table in Word without any gridlines which made her happy and then trotted downstairs with full intentions of starting a velvet beret for Lisa (it's in a red wine kind of colour) as soon as I checked my email. Not a good move it seems.

In my mail box was an email from Spotlight that advised me they were having the aforementioned one day sale. Hmmm... interesting... I thought. I don't have any cotton to make that top that I like in the Happy Hooker book that I bought... or that bolero that I like either... I'd also really like to make Dad & Gene some socks... HEY MUM! We need to go out!. Thus began the trip to the shops where I got some gorgeous cotton/alpaca yarn to make my top & bolero, wool to felt into slippers, machine washable wool to make socks for the boys and some to make socks for the girls (Mum & I).

Luckily I'm making my way at great speed through my yarn stash. Last night I finished a hat for Jo, think 1920's cloche decorated with a treble clef that I designed because according to Gene she's a muso. I'm halfway through a moebius wrap for me in blue-purple varigated yarn. I've got a cabled scarf on the go and this new top from the book. Large variety of projects would usually reflect nothing but my fear of commiting to things, but it's actually got more to do with my RSI and carpal tunnel issues. Too much knitting makes my left arm hurt (it was rather swollen two days ago) and too much crochet makes my right arm hurt. So on advice from the experts plenty of projects to keep you moving.

So having spent up I declared two things. Firstly, I'm not going to a yarn shop in the near future. Secondly I needed to start applying for work. Happily the guilt from the yarn shopping prompted me to cautiously check my email again where I got the job list from Arts Hub and started to apply for work. Does anyone else hate writing application letters as much as I do? Anyway it's all done now and I'm still keeping my eye out.

Nothing else is new really so I'm going to crawl back to the couch with my Baileys and watch Gene play Final Fantasy X while crocheting happily into the wee hours of the morning.