Vagueness... tired and grumpy...

Still wrecked from flying in last night.

Haven't knit anything in a few days due to travel and general busyness.

Have given self break from ongoing scarf action and am knitting blue monkey for friend's belly boarder. Let's hope it is as cute as intended and not some freakish thing that's scary for new small people.

Am loving the whole 'vintage is in' thing and am very much wishing for rather a lot more money than I actually... well... have. Also not terribly pleased about putting on (more) weight. Want to find time to lose it, but tired and grumpy does not equate well to dieting, and too busy to work out when I can exercise (no pun intended).

Am thinking very hard that I want to celebrate my new acceptance of pink as a wardrobe colour when incorporated into girly vintage-retro thing and am considering knitting myself something pink and black edged out of my new Vintage Knits book. But. Monkey and Scarf first... :(

Then I might be able to find someone to make me the gorgette black and white polka-dotted wrap dress for work that I couldn't find today (more's the pity).

Will get psyched at some point and post actual pictures of said project lumps, but .. tired now... maybe early bed.

I am such a sad old person, I tells ya.

Meh.

I am thinking I should post, only I'm in such a funk. Work is pretty terrible, and I am stressed out to the max. I am actually considering borrowing the work laptop.

Doing work at home is pretty much the line in the sand for me previously.

I'm wearing my new stripy socks, 'cause they make me happy.

Fitzwilliam's scarf is taking all my time as I'd really like to finish it for Friday (the birthday lunch) but it probably won't happen. Near, but not near enough. *sigh* And I redid over the start of it, as I wasn't happy with it. It's at the end of the scarf, so it showed too much and I just couldn't leave it. Hence, I lost a lot of time painstakingly pulling it out (don't unravel cables, they are a nuisance) and reknitting it until I was happy.

It looks better at any rate.

Next week (sobs) I am going to Canberra again. Don't ask me why, I'll just start ranting at you and I like you well enough to not subject you to that. I'm back towards the end of the week. So, no posting after Sunday.

oh, and in slightly better news, my books arrived (Wheeee!) Very exciting. Yes, I'm a book geek as well as a gamer geek and a knit geek. And I'm fine with that. (Looks defiant)

New Knitty is up!!

You know you want to see..

Fitzwilliam gets a scarf

Well, the socks are nearly done.

I have an admission to make.

Despite good progress .... the socks are different sizes. Not hugely so, and the both fit, but the second sock is slightly larger. (It actually fits a little better I think). I think my gauge is loosening up as I get the hang of knitting continental style.

Anyway, I considered ripping something out, and redoing it. But considering the work already done, the fact I've reknit both heels twice for different stuff ups, I made an executive decision.

I DON'T CARE. They are both function, the differences are not catastrophic, and I shall live with it. I dare not get silly about it as they are, after all, socks. They will forgive me.

Since the socks are nearly done, my head turned to my next project.

Uh, that'd be Fitzwilliam's birthday present. I usually get him books. But since he's effectively giving himself half a library for his birthday, that was a bust. I considered a range of things and then gave in and did the pragmatic thing.

I asked him.

Thankfully, he seems fairly pleased with the suggestion, so that was fine.

Thus, a grey aran-type cabled scarf.

I tried out a few variations and eventually decided on one. The yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. It's got a bit of silk and cashmere mixed in with wool, and thus feels luscious. The tweed yarn is really very different in texture from the straight (no puns intended) Silkroad, which I used in the Ultra (bulky 16ply) version for my Skully jumper. Which is gorgeous.

Anyway, Fitzwilliam, being both my best mate (and in this case, effectively family) and someone who actually takes care of his clothes, gets the nice Silk/Cashmere/wool mix. Other people who may be family but less likely to appreciate and take care of things I knit get smaller stuff in machine washable blends. :)

It's turning out nicely anyway. It's actually so tweedy, I was worried the cables wouldn't show, but they seem to be coming along nicely now. Let's hope he likes it!

p.s. sorry you can't see the cables too well in the photo - you can see them fine in person :(

You know, designing web page blogs is a pain in the ass.

I tried. I think I am over it.

Despite making myself a beautiful new banner (see?).. I just can't get my head around getting the new page layout to work. It makes no sense.

My geek-dad assured me that using FrontPage would do all the work for me, but no joy.

I can see what I want in my head, but just can't figure it out. I tried templates online, tried making sense of FrontPage, but can't get it to do what I want.

Maybe I'm just tired from programming at work today. SAS programming.. meh. I thought I was done with that. But I have this problem see? It's a shocker at work too... I can't sit by and watch people take bloody forever with a half baked solution to something that I know just isn't that hard when you have a clue about what you're doing.

So now I'm being helpful and getting them sorted out so I can go back to my project.

The first sock is done by the way. No photos, the camera is away and the camera owner isn't here. You'll have to just take me at my word.

Did I mention I have books coming from Amazon?

I blame my best mate. Let's call him Fitzwilliam. Books are his pornography. And, no, not that kind of books. And no not literally...

Anyway, the great enabler that I am, I introduced him to two money chewers - Borders, and Amazon. He's a pig in mud now, honestly.

And now he's taken a turn and enabled me - he's ordering a stack of books and offerred to let me cash in on his huge order, to avoid the initial postage cost.

My list changed several times .. but now consists of:

• Scarf Style
• Knitting Without Tears
• Vintage Knits
• You Can Do It: The Merit Bage Handbook for Grown Up Girls
• Lighten Up! Free yoursle from clutter

I have a feeling I've forgotten another knit book, but I really can't recall which one. Of course, it could be one of the 5 or so I culled at the last minute when I realised I couldn't really justify quite so many books. At least not at once. I feel like a book-glutton.. ;-)

Of course, I am also counting the days til they arrive, and trying to decide if I want to wait on starting anything new until they get here...

Note to self, start something you need to get done anyway.. maybe the baby gift, yet-to-be-decided on for friend's belly-boarder....

Almost a whole sock done

No, really. I have about another half inch of ribbing and then start the next one. They are even a decent length!

See thusly.

And more here - sideways view.

And toe view.

I think I got snap happy.

I also think, in all honestly that I would do more ease (or rather, less negative ease) on my next pair. I used knitty's universal sock pattern. Except I used the Magic Cast On method, also from knitty to do the toes instead of the short row toe. Did the short roe heel though.

I have also been working on a new banner for my blog in photoshop. Who knows? By the time you're looking at this, maybe it's there already. Is it pretty? Do you like?

I also have a bunch of plans for what else I want to put on my blog, including progress bars, "things I listen to" section, a "I want to knit" list, a "I want a find a pattern for" section and a "What should I be?" section for yarns without pattern true-love... anyway might go do some now...