laugh 'til you puke

Had a little photoshoot at work today during my coffee break. Wanted a not-too-horrific photo for my Ravelry avatar - nearly ended up with a laughter induced hernia.

and they say librarians are sane.

Lots of knitting on the cards - and the needles. We're talking Wicked, Branching Out, Malabrigo collars, christmas decorations.......Photo-rich posts to follow. Yeah, I know. It's been an empty promise before, but this time will be different.

Probably.

red

I'll explain the title of this post in a minute. meanwhile, here's a quick shot of a bundle of random squares - can you guess what it is yet? kind of self-explanatory, this one. still, he's cute isn't he? and this is the only time he's sat still for more than ten seconds at a time in his entire life, so the occasion needed to be marked.
new socks. and these ones will not be felted. are you listening, Scott? ankle sock pattern from socks, socks, socks. I swear I will insert something sharp in my husband if he felts another pair of handknitted socks.
another pic. of the mystery squares, looking less mysterious and more baby-blankety. for a lovely girl in the library who's expecting her first baby and knit by around ten of us at work. EZ's heart elbow patch pattern, so you know it must be good!

Now I've finally given you eye-candy, I can tell you about how I've lived up to the unexpected part of this blog's name this week.

Thursday, I got my hair cut at a recently re-modelled salon in town - I only mention this 'cos it means I can tell you they now have chairs with magic fingers that massage you as you get your hair washed. Good idea, but it kind of reminded me of all the irritating buggers who sit behind you in the cinema, rolling their knees down your back through your chair. Anyhow, I hated the way the girl 'styled' my hair into a nice, neat, turned-under brown helmet, so I went straight to the chemist and an hour later I was the proud owner of a crop of bright red hair.

Bright red. Not copper, or titian or rust. Bright red. Yay!

Must have been something in the air that day since I also bought and wore a bright yellow cardigan in the Monsoon sale. I've never to my knowledge worn yellow. Ever.

I like being unexpected. It's one of my favourite words and favourite things to be.

I'll post a pic. of the hair once I've re-done the dye-job, since it's fading already!

It's a disgustingly rainy day and I'm off work since Rhia's school is striking so I'll have to go and force myself to knit all day and watch the Olympics. Shame. Don't you feel sorry for me?

Alive

It's what I officially am.

Working hard - the contract as a service development librarian has been extended to next March so that's good. That's very good so far as Christmas and the putting of presents into stockings is concerned. The folk I share an office with are really cool and I'm having a great time as part of this team, so no worries there - or not until early March next year, anyhow.

Knitting not so hard - my mojo's all out of sorts. I lift and lay... lift and lay.... start and rip..... start and rip. At one point last weekend I actually thought it was a do-able reasonable plan to start threading outsized rainbow-coloured sequins onto a ball of bright pink mohair yarn and make a scarf with zany panels of sequins at either end. Yeah, that would have been fun; scraping sequins along yard after yard of hairy, shedding yarn knitting a scarf that nobody with half a fashion-recognising brain would ever wear.

If I'm knitting less than normal, I've still got multiple things on the go. Maybe that's the problem; as soon as I take up the ankle sock, the mitered squares start calling me and then there's the two balls of laceweight mohair I bought in Oban a few weeks ago - what the hell are they going to be, exactly? The internet must be browsed - the truth (in the form of the perfect pattern for whatever) is out there!

I need a good kick. And a glass of wine. A big one.

What exactly do you knit when your head is up your arse? I'm open to suggestions.


"I'm like a coo with a gun."
(Expression used by workmate to describe how uneasy she feels when handed a newborn.)

shaking the margarine tub of life

I should probably explain.

When I was little, we had a fridge (yes I came from a priveledged background, what of it?) and inside this fridge at any one time would be on average five or six identical margarine tubs. My mum would use them to store leftovers, so any time you wanted to spread some delicious margarine on a piece of toast say, you had to pick up and shake a few tubs before you hit paydirt. A heavy slosh meant tinned peaches, a slow slump meant tinned beans and as for a dry rattly shake, take my word for it and don't open this one - it'll only be maggots for your brother's weekend fishing trip. Yeah, that one still haunts me.

I'm realising as I age how much like my mother I am. Now I'm the one who won't throw away leftovers and won't mark freezer boxes so that what you think is tomato soup you're defrosting for lunch? Yeah, that'll be the strawberry/rhubarb puree I froze months ago.

I'm like this with my stash too. Half or quarter balls are kept - hell, balls that a dealer would give out as freebies are still kept for that rainy day project where they'll be indispensable.

But I've found a project to use up all of those micro balls of sock yarn at least. The Sock Yarn Blanket by Shelley Kang. Have a look at www.shellykang.com or search for sock yarn blanket on Ravelry. I promise it's worth a look.


"It's like fighting a battle of wills with an unarmed man."
overheard this week at work.

wwf knitting

Don't deny it - I know you're trying to work out if wwf is code for something obscene! No, I didn't mean to post wtf, although I have had a few of those kind of moments in the past wee while - the past 34 years or so being the worst. I'm referring to the knitting I did this weekend. You see, my requested copy of Mason Dixon Knitting came in to work on Thursday, so this weekend was spent raiding drawers and charity shop bags for t-shirts to cut up and slipknot together to make one ginormous rag ball. It's not nearly as big as the 8lb one in the book, but my butt was numb from sitting on the floor cutting t-shirts into calamari loops for so long and I was impatient to get going with it.

We ended up with a ball of mixed blues, reds, greys, reds and black which weighed in at 2 1/2 lbs. Only thing is, while the t-shirt cotton is nice and soft, you're knitting with a doubled thickness and at some points we might have strayed away from the guideling of 1" thickness, so some of the strips have to be wrestled onto and off the needles. My wrists are a bit achey this morning from all that hard work and I think it'll be a project where you can physically only manage a couple of rows at a time. You know, before your hands actually fall off. Marines couldn't knit fast with this stuff. But, I have to say, putting the yarn together was completely absorbing - even for my 11yr old who has the attention span of a cheese sandwich.

Need longer number 10 circulars, though. At the moment, it's so squashed up on the needles and so stiff you could wear it as a native American head dress. Actually, there's an idea.........

Mason Dixon Knitting is a great book, though. I'm already picturing a purply/pink lace curtain at the daughter's window and cream linen ones at our bedroom window. There are 6 dining chairs crying out for a padded knitted cushion and I have some single ply pure wool left over from a cardigan that would make a killer felted box.

If only work and eating and sleeping didn't clutter up and waste so much time.

new job, new me, new knitting

I'm not going to apologise for my absence. No-one comes here but me anyway so I'd just be talking to myself and I try to keep that to a minimum.

Lots to report since last post. Firstly, I've got a secondment as a Service Development Librarian (and yes, I do need the capitals) until the end of August this year. It's a fantastic opportunity and I'm really enjoying getting stuck in and making the most of it. It's made me appreciate that I absolutely did made the right decision to do Librarianship in the first place and also made me determined to drag every last bloody person in Fife into their local library if I have to go into their homes, make their breakfast, tuck their feet into their shoes and hustle them out the door myself!

Thought I'd have no time for knitting once I was working full-time but I clearly underestimated the scale of my obsession there! I've finished more things than you could shake a stick at recently and I'll post pics of each and every one of them asap. I'm going to try to make use of Ravelry's fantasticness in this respect. I've been bowled over by how logical and organised that site is! The librarian in me approves.

hope wednesday is good to you.
christine

sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it to graw through the leather straps.....
Emo Phillips