Byrne on Health

Pooch has flu again - the third time in a year. Now Pooch takes care to exercise and eat vegetables. He drinks berocca and consumes fruit for pleasure. I, on the other hand, mainline chocolate and pepsi max like they're about to start rationing and avoid unnecessary fruit and veg unless I have a hankering for some. I have not had flu the whole year. The only real health problem I've had in the last 12 months has been my back and that couldn't have been prevented however many forests of broccolly I had consumed.

So, to summarise my conclusions on this subject:

• The human body is a sophisticated machine. It needs gentle maintenance. Suddenly exercising, especially outside when it is cold, is not gentle. You're going to freak out your body.
• You are self-aware. Your body sends you messages when it's hungry, thirsty, tired etc. And sometimes it tells you it needs fruit or vegetables. Forcing these things on yourself when your body isn't asking for them isn't necessary.
• If you eat something toxic your body freaks out and tries to get rid of it. If you can consume large quantities of pepsi max and chocolate and not feel ill it's a sign it's not hurting you.

Now while I strongly believe all these things I am also aware that I am only feeling the short-term effects of my lifestyle. It could be in a year or two's time I'll have a baby with no head or drop dead because my arteries are blocked solid. But for now...I'm not the one with flu.
Looking after Pooch has at least taken my mind off an outrage I suffered at the hands of Ellery Queen. Look at this book cover.

If you are intending to read this book, skip over this next paragraph.
Wouldn't that cover suggest to you that the murderer is male? It uses two male pronouns. The whole point of the book is on page 177 you are challenged to solve the crime. I'd discounted the women because of the cover. And as you'll already have guessed...it was a woman.
Bah. At least Mum's cardi is continuing nicely.

I've also started wondeirng about what knitting to take to the in-laws at xmas. Going to be lots of time for it but just not sure. I'm only knitting from stash at the moment and god knows I have enough but I just can't decide what to do.

So in conclusion

I have come to a conclusion about several things I've been thinking about recently. Here is one.

Byrne on Infidelity

Once someone in a relationship has cheated, that relationship is over. If both parties are willing to try, and the cheater is really lucky, they can build a new relationship. But if nothing changes after the cheating it's like being diagnosed with a major disease and not seeking treatment. That relationship is inevitably going to die.

One of the both good and bad sides of being on sick leave is that you get a lot of time alone. This can be good for thinking but it can also be bad in the same way. I feel like I've had a good chance to think things through but at the same time I know my limited communication skills have got worse. I suppose this is because I've had the majority of my conversations with myself and as my sister recently said "It's ok for you, you don't care about that kind of thing." and so I've got clumsy when chatting to people about potentially sensitive topics. Plus I'm doing a lot more of that what's-the-word type of thing when talking to others. I guess my internal monologues must have only been using simplistic words.

A-n-y-w-a-y...my other conclusion concerns crushes. But I haven't thought of a concise way to explain it. And maybe I won;t since I am rapidly getting back to proper hours at the workplace of doom. I'll do 4.5 hours on 4 days next week which will include sending out exam results to 120+ people and receiving at least 20 loads of abuse and, if I'm lucky, one brief email of thanks. There's no denying working does use up way too much of my time. I don;t know how I'm going to be able to keep up my knitting output having to work all these hours. How much longer, I keep asking him, is Pooch going to take to get to a point where I can sit about at home and knit all day? Respect to feminism but let's not forget a woman's right to choose and I'm happy to choose to sit and knit full time while someone else earns my chocolate money.

Knitting output is already down as since I finished the Kauni I've only found time to make a pair of socks (xmas present so not blogged), a pair of D(uc)K Feet, a hat and finalise the design and start my Mum's cardi. The hat is something of a dilemma. Here it is.

It's nice and everything, but I'm not sure it's suitable. You see, I got my Chief Exec in the secret santa swap. It's only a £5 one so no one's expecting gold but I'm not really sure it's him. The blue is noro iroha and the variegated is a 50/50 wool mix. The pattern is a free Brooklyn Tweed one I found on ravelry as being specifically 'for men'.

Something I'm happier about is Mum's cardi. It's already been through at least 2 abortive starts and this time I've stuck with the DROPS pattern but changed to just the one purple and added beads instead.

I'm using the crochet bead method where you don't string them onto the yarn but add them to each stitch as you go. It's much more time consuming but looks a tonne better. Unfortunately I seem to have sustained a knitting related shoulder injury which is slowing progress but meh, what can you do. I must knit on.

D(uc)K Feet

Duck feet booties in DK yarn. Holla.

Yarn: 40g DK yellow. I used Patons Fairytale but anything would do.
Tension: 5 st to 1 inch in stockinette
Needle: 3.75mm circ/dpns or whatever you need to get guage.
Also need: 1 stitch marker.

I did these as magic loop but you could do 2 circs or dpns. If using dpns then will be easier to use 5 rather than 4.

• Cast on 32st using your favourite stretchy cast on. Join to work in round and place marker to show beginning of round.
• Knit 18 rows in 2x2 rib

Now we're going to do a short row heel over the first 16 stitches. You can change this to a different heel if you want and just pick up the instructions later on. A tutorial on a short row heel can be found here.

• Knit to 2nd to last st, wrap and turn
• Purl back to 2nd to last st, wrap and turn
• K to stitch before last wrapped st, wrap and turn
• P to stitch before last wrapped st, wrap and turn
• Continue til 6 stitches wrapped on each side

You'll just have done your last wrap and turn on the purl side. You'll next be doing a knit row starting in the middle of the heel.

• Knit across and knit the wraps and stitches together a la the tutorial.
• Knit across the other 16 stitches
• Knit across the first half of the heel - knitting the stitches and wraps together - then knit across other side of heel.
• Place marker. This is your new beginning of the round.

So for magic loop I've now got two batches of sticthes - 16 stitches each. The first is the top of the foot and the second is the bottom. If you're using dpns you may need to do some shuffling at this point.

• Knit 12 rounds in stockinette (knitting every row) This will give you a foot length of about 2 inches.
• Increase round: *k1, make 1, k14, make 1, k1* twice (This is the only increase)
• Continue over the 36 stitches you now have in stockinette until the foot measures 4 inches.

Now you need to close the 'toe' of your bootie. I turned the sock inside out and used a three needle bind off. You could also graft or crochet it closed.
Sew in ends and repeat for the other bootie.
They fit a Kermit's feet very well.

Knitting, only knitting.

I have....a Kauni!!!

Those robot buttons really are the business and make it look extra special. It's been an epic journey but I am so thrilled with the result. It's definitely my finest knitting achievement to date.

I went to Greenwich today and I treated myself to a little haul from the button stand in the antique market by the Rivington. Ooooooo.

They were between 45p and £3 per card. These were the cheapest and probably my faves.

Beautiful pale blue with knitted texture. So twee!

I also scored some beautiful trimmings. The middle one is silk and amazingly beautiful. The one on the right is quite wide and really really lovely.

It's all things a woman at the market has had in storage for ever since her mum did a lot of sewing and knitting. Another gem was this, still in its original packaging.

A freebie from an ancient woman's weekly. It's for hanging a ball of yarn from your wrist. At 50p I couldn't leave it forlornly on the stall!

Back to work

My first day back at work was yesterday and it all went pretty well! I didn't manage to get much done because the boys had stuck pictures of a very hairy beer belly over just about everything on my desk and so it took a while to get around that. They'd also stuck my handset to the base of the phone and put a poster of the bionic woman up on the wall with my face on it. Bless them. I think they missed me! It was certainly nice to see them and have some human interaction again. I've promised krispy kremes for tomorrow! It looks like Team Wank are really kicking up a right royal fuss about my project and are going to open a can of whooppee at the AGM but you never know. No point worrying about it yet.

Finishing the Kauni didn't quite happen but I now only need to finish the collar and then sew down the collar steek. Then the last act will be to black and sew on the buttons. I had got some lovely vintage dark turquoise ones picked out but then when I got to work I picked up my Jimmy Beams parcel. Not only did it contain these two:

But also this gorgeous set of buttons.

They were crazily expensive but anyone who is married to a Pooch and loves buttons will appreciate why they had to be mine. But then I looked at them with the kauni and all of a sudden I started thinking....what if?

See what I mean? It's tempting.

Having finished practically everything I've been left with a small pile of steek trimmings.

They look so pretty it seems a shame to chuck them. I wondered about felting them into a ball or something but then what would I do with that?

2 days til deadline

I wanted to get my kauni cardigan finished by the time i went back to work. Well, that is happening on tuesday and lo and behold, it's actually almost done. I finished the sleeves yesterday.

I did them both togther in the round with steeks between them. I sewed and cut the steeks, hemmed the sleeves and sewed them into the armholes today. It's all given me a massive headache so I'm resting on my laurels and leaving the sewing down of the steeks, the button band and the collar until tomorrow. I may not meet the deadline, because it's definitely going to need blocking, but I think all the structural stuff will have been done. I haven't decided buttons yet but I am sure something in my vast collection will do the job. Here it is as it stands tonight.

The Kauni has definitely not been a portable project so here are some jaywalkers I've been working on on-and-off for a few months now. The yarn is from The Knittery and ws a gift from a past round of secret pal. It is gorgeous - quite thick and spongy. I'm really happy with them.

Also finished this weekend is Pooch's tea caddy. He requested one a few weeks ago and having looked at very posh or horrible options I bought a plain wooden chest on ebay and have painted it with acrylic.

Pooch himself demanded the 'poison' drawer so freak out my sister. I've filled it with Nettle tea bags. Yuck. They taste so bad they can't possibly be good for you.

Pretzel = epic fail

In a way I'm surprised I haven't been blogging more frequently since I've certainly had more time to do my own things. But then apart from endlessly knitting the Kauni and the occasional outing I haven't really been actually doing that much. But today has been a day of high achievement, so pin back your ears.

The day started with the eternal Kauni. Despite having spent hours on it in the last week I still seem to be only just up to the elbows which is where I am sure I was a week ago. Eventually I'll finish those sleeves - but it's going to be hard to stick with it. Getting a bit samey now.

After an hour of Kauni and a Mission Impossible I moved to making pretzels. This is part of my bread fetish which I've developed recently. So far it's been going pretty well but I cna not honestly claim the pretzals were a success. Judge for yourself...

The back left one was ok looking and they don't taste *too* bad but...nah. I tried them about 10 years ago with similar results. These were an improvement but the dough was too wet this time. Third time lucky I guess.

So having knit and baked there was only one thing left to do - embroider. And this was juuuuust riiiight. (This is a goldilocks reference - suspect it only really came across in my head though.) I got some Sublime Stitching transfers in the post last week and combining these with some others I give you my nephew's xmas present (or part of it).

One is the blue bird of happiness, which is a Kurt Halsey design. The other is a rocket which is my favourite of the SS designs and which a lucky few will discover emblazened on my own pants.
Back-wise I saw my physio yesterday and I am making "excellent progress" - which is nice. Sadly this means there's no reason for me not to go back to work so today marks the start of my final week on sick leave. I can't complain and in a way will be strangely happy to go back. I haven't missed 90% of it but the interaction with people on a daily basis is definitely something I'm looking forward to.

Sadly I had a catch up call with my boss yesterday and she mentioned that my area is the latest target for Team Wank, or the BatShitCrazies as I've previously described them. I told Pooch and he asked me how I felt about that. I find that I just don't care. It will be irritating in that it will cause extra work and stress my boss who tends to pass these things on. But ultimately - if they did cancel my main project area - I honestly wouldn't give a monkies. I've been watching Alain de Botton's "Status Anxiety" on dvd and must go and read the book again. It's really made me think about who I'm trying to please in life and what I work for and why I go shopping and...everything. If you haven't ever read any of his stuff I would very strongly recommend it. It's modern philosophy but not hard to read or patronising and it's very relevant.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy

Ever since the op my sleep patterns have gone completely out the window. I obviously haven't been as active as I would normally be but even on the days when I'm out a lot and moving about I still don;t sleep until about 1am and often later - and I used to be a strictly 10.30pm girl. I've been waking up at 8 each morning in an attempt to get into a routine but it doesn't help and although I do get up then I get up feeling exhausted. Except this morning. This morning I apparently slept through Pooch getting up and going to work, slept through my alarm at 8, slept through the 9am community bus that beeps on the road outside promptly at 9am every weekday, and only woke up at 10.15. And I actually felt like I'd been asleep and was waking up feeling refreshed. Bliss. Of course now I won;t get to sleep til 3am. I wonder if I should just give in and move to a 3am-11am sleep cycle but then I am going to start back at work in 10 days so it's not a good option.

I went to the physio on monday and he reported I was in excellent shape all things considered. He then disappointed me and made me wear a pair of shorts while he rubbed KY into my thigh. It wasn't as sexy as it sounds and it hurt a lot because the nerve is something or other - short or something like that. Meh. Ah well. As usual he ripped the piss out of my knitting and I tried to explain steeking to him while he jabbed his elbow into my arse. He just doesn't get it. He is definitely one of those people who would say "What just one?" when you tell them you're knitting a sock. And then go on about how you can get 5 pairs for a pound.

I will rise above all this. I would like to finish the Kauni before I go back to work but I'm not sure it's going to happen. I also suspect I might need another ball to get the colours to match. It's annoying that sometimes it seems to be ABCABC and other times it goes ABCBA. I'm trying to keep it ABCABC all the way but we'll see. I'm up to about the elbow on the sleeves so must keep going on those, whack them into place, and do the button bands and cuff. Bleh.

Despite wanting to finish that I did fall for a hat in the Saturday Times magazine. The hat was listed at £255. Yeah right.

So I broke out some Cascade Quatro I'd had for years and using a free ravelry pattern got going. It came out massive and I couldn't believe it would felt down to the right size....

But...it did. Two goes int he machine and it was almost there so I added the embroidery with some dark blue tapestry wool halved and voila.

It's been in the machine again and is just drying. The crown has obviously cocked up but I am happy with it overall. This does seem to be a season of hats for me.

Invincible

That's it. I've done a steek. I've now done everything in knitting. Maybe. I've done lace, cables, knitting backwards, steeking, fairisle, intarsia, socks, jumpers, blankets, hats. Any suggestions for what I've missed?

The steeking went well although I did get butterflies when actually cutting the knitting. I just kept thinking of how many hours of work had gone into it. I used both the Knitty article and the pages on it in Alice Starmore's repinted book.

Having steeked and sewn the shoulders we have....

I may still redo the neckline at the front as it is a bit high, but apart from that it looks like the size and fit is pretty good! I've cast on the sleeves

Taking the eek out of steek

The body of my Kauni cardi is now done. There are 4 steeks all together - the big front one, one at each armhole and the neckline one.

Being a champion bodger there are live stitches on holders in random places too waiting to be 3-needle-bound-off and so on. But first the steeking needs to be done to open up the body and create some room for manouvering.

Slowly but surely

My recovery from the op is progressing nicely, if a bit stop and startish. I think this is my own fault though. It's proving difficult to regulate my activity level. I went out for dinner with friends on friday. Then on sat I was a wreck so hardly did anything, but then couldn't get to sleep til 3am. There's no pain - just exhaustion. I did the same thing last night and couldn't get to sleep so I'm planning an outing this afternoon despite feeling like a chewed up dog toy.

Fortunately the Pooch is now back from japan and arrived bearing gifts. I really am a lucky person. Although it does beg the question - what do you do with lace weight mohair?

The colours don't really come across in the photo. There is a very pale almost grey green, a pale green and a dark green. 40g of the first two and 20g of the third. He also came back with some terribly sweet porcelin polka dot cats and two little discs which we think must be chopstick rests.

So cute!

While Pooch was away I was busy knitting, sewing, embroidering and finishing dyeing my denise needles. I added orange, red and green to the blue ones I had already done. I've done all the needles and my crochet hooks too.

I'm very happy with them and have been knitting with them since and the colours are colourfast.

Lastly, because blogger is being really annoying about inserting images and life is too short, I give you....bread! I'm getting quite into bread now. This one is mostly gone already as we had it with beef and stout soup last night. So domestic!

Aunty Alex and Uncle Grumpy!

Pooch and I are now aunt and uncle to Alife Thomas Coward. Here he is with possibly the proudest grandmother in the whole world!

It all happened on friday night so he's home with his mum and dad now and looking even more gorgeous than in that photo. I'm just annoyed I can't go and visit yet. My stamina is increasing but I am still exhausted after an hour of moving about. However, every cloud has a silver lining and all this sitting is increasing my output. Here is the polka dot bag I started a few days ago, drying out after felting.

It's based on one I queued when I first joined Ravelry - more than 2 years ago. It's perfect for a small shoulder bag and is exactly what I wanted.

The bag was knitted and the dots were crocheted and sewn on before felting. Yarn was doubled for the icord handles.

I've also got back on with the secret wedding afghan, which is no longer a secret. The recipients, who got married in, ahem, august, came round a few days ago and I showed it to them. Since then I've finished another square.

Says it all really!

A few days ago I was pondering an excursion when I saw this man doing his leaf blowing thing.

So bloody noisy. I looked at him and remembered the William Shatner song "I can't get behind that" which contains the line "The leaf blowers - is there anything more futile?". Here's the rest of the photo.

That's a lot of leaves.

Steeks

I know that steeks are to some the pinnacle of knitting. It's not something I'ver ever done before but now I'm doing two fairisle cardigans at once and so suddenly they are a large part of my life. I am fairly sure though that if the finest steekers happened to chance across these cardigans or this blog in the future they would need a sit down and a stiff nip before they could continue with whatever they were doing. You see not having steeked before and being by nature a bodger I have applied Byrne Logic to the issue. For instance, I know that steeked armholes are normally straight cuts and you pop the sleeve in the hole to give a square kind of shape. I know this, but I don;t agree with it. So I decided to do steeks with a set in sleeve. I realised that it would be a bit like trying to sew a curved hem (something I also bodge) and that one simple cut wouldn't work with this sleeve type. So this is what I've ended up with.

That is the bottom of the armhole. I cast off the first cast off row and then cast on again on the next round to start the steek. Then as other stitches needed to be cast off I've moved the stitch marker that far into the garment and tried to decrease the same number of stitches in the middle of the steek. Confused? Me too - especially when I realised I'd been reading the wrong numbers and had to lose an extra 40 stitches suddenly (never go back, especially where it's fairisle with sticky wool). Has anyone else ever done something like this? Is it normal?!

Whatever has been happening with the steeks it's all looking rather nice, although a lot stripier than I thought it would.

I would have got further on this if I hadn't been alternating with bargello and embroidery. The bargello from the Doodle Zine is done and I adore it.

It's about 6" square. Will take it to be framed once I am mobile. Plus of course there have been more pants. Some for my sister and these for me!

This embroidery has made me revisit embroidery transfers on Flickr. There are thousands! And loads of other images that aren't them but could be. If you're interested set aside an hour and start here. Then see where all the links take you. It's all free and when you find one you like just add it to your faves for later.

Back (literally)

I'm back home after a really rather nice few days in hospital. Praise be for company healthcare. This was my room.

Ensuite bathroom with wet room type shower. Room service (seriously - room service). Deluxe dining with lots of choices of things like guinea fowl or sea bass plus puddings. There was a wine menu too but I left that alone. Seriously, there was. The staff were lovely and my care was excellent. The operation itself went perfectly and I was standing up within an hour of coming back from the recovery room. Baby steps but am fine pottering around. Journey home this morning was a bit hardcore - only 30 mins in a taxi but conked out as soon as got home for a 90 min nap. Bed rest with occasional pottering for the next week then stitches out and a few longer walks.

I did look pretty bionic while in hospital. I had this very funky watch thing that let me control my pain killers.

I just pressed the black button on the left whenever it started hurting or I was planning to get up. 5-10 mins later eveything was rosy again. Very clever and it has a little brake on it so you can't overdose.

Despite all the devices plugged into me I have been able to get a move on with my Kauni and it is now a very nice 13 inches so time to be thinking about arms. There are some options....
1. Even though am going bottom up do arms top down. This means you start with the right colour combo even though it may diverge towards the cuff so you get nearly but not quite the same ones.
2. Do arms as one piece of fabric but do a steek between them so once you're done you cut them in two lengthwise and have two sleeves, which them need to be stitched into position. If done top down then should still start with roughly the right colours.
3. Do arms as would normally for a bottom up raglan (if indeed it is a raglan). Cast on cuff, knit arm, do second, then join two arms and body in the round and bodge the colour combo where they meet. Maybe with some icord or something.

I think I like option 3 least. I would prefer the colours to match at the armholes. If I were to do option 1, which I think I prefer, then I'd have to be careful as knitting down on the stitches would throw the pattern off by half a stitch or something. I seem to remember reading this in an EZ book. I'll need to experiment. Option 2 would really only seem to be a good idea with a drop shoulder jumper and I'm not anal about colours matching everywhere so I think I'll see what I can do with 1.

I had some great visitors come and see my in hospital but it is nice to be back. Gifts like flowers and chocolate were very welcome but it was the ones where people had really put a lot of thought into it that counted. So when I saw what Mead and Dann had brought me as a get well present I knew I had to share.

I must look like someone who would wear this kind of thing since my colleagues want to get me a 'nobody knows I'm a lesbian' t-shirt in the same style. Aren't they all thoughtful! I can wear it in bed. And yes, Pooch does sleep on my left.

Speaking of the Poochnurser, he is well. He has been working from home today to make sure I was ok. He was muttering about his monitor not being big enough for what he was doing and sure enough, after some thumps and scraping of furniture, I found him like this.

That's a 42" tv he's using as a monitor. Insane. But then he's been lovely since this whole back thing kicked off and is very pleased to have me back so I guess if he wants to be mental then who am I to stop him?

Snippety Snip

The specialist tells me that on a scale of small, medium and large, the bulge on my disc is enormous. So it's an operation on Tuesday and I'll be in hospital until Friday. Then it's 6 weeks to recover enough to get back to work. Hardcore. I am teeny weeny bit nervous but it will be so much better not to be in constant pain.

Meanwhile there is lots to prepare. I'm not going to be able to move about much so I've prepared some 'project bags' with everything I need in them for projects like embroidery and knitting. Then I can just station them strategically near the sick bed and pick them up as I want them. The same with reading books, ipod, phone etc.

In between little bouts of slow moving preparation I'm working away at my Kauni. I've finished the first thistle. Although I think they look more like lillies than thistles.

I absolutely love it, especially the colour combinations. The blue and orange are like goldfish in water, the red and green are like geraniums. I'm looking forward to yellow and purple - I've always liked them together.

I should have time to blog again before the chop. If not I'll get back to it in a week or so!