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!

Stingray, Stingray, dudda der da der da

I have now watched 35 episodes of Stingray on lovefilm. This has resulted in my Titan hat and also my fascination with how they make the non-human life forms look 'alien' by gluing 70s ric rac type embellishments to them. Take these ones for instance. Silver lampshade fringe. Awesome.

I've also really enjoyed how some of the episodes have been described in the little bit of blurb that accompanies each one.

God knows where that came from. In fact Titan kidnapped Marina. But their description sounds much more exciting.

Yesterday I made dinner for pooch and sian and decided the time was right to try the jam doughnut muffins I posted a link to a while back and for which the recipe is here.

Oh yeah. Warm - these are divine. Cold - they're just very good. Heartily recommend them and they are amazingly simple to make.

The only hard thing is waiting for them to cool down before eating. Burnt my tongue on the jam with my first one. And they're not the only good thing I ate yesterday. Love Hearts by post!

I can definitely recommend doughdough for munchies by post. And for helium balloons I'd recommend Balloon Monkey. There are few occasions that a helium balloon by post isn't suitable for. Possibly not funerals though.

Yesterday also saw alphabet stitchmarkers.

I'm getting ready to try some of Cat Bordhi's socks and I understand you only need A-F but I thought - why stop there? I think I went up to 'I'.

Today was actually a very exciting day because I finally got to see the specialist. Pooch hobbled me down to a taxi and off we went together. He poked me a bit and then confirmed what the physio had said and sent me for an MRI. He insisted it had to be that day and so all of a sudden I'm in an MRI tube in a backless gown listening to sixties classics in a pair of headphones. I'm back to the specialist tomorrow and keyhole surgery is on the horizon. All happening very quickly now.

Since I was actually out of the flat I did a tiny bit of shopping - 2 notebooks for which I have plans, a cherry patch and some more embroidery threads. I'm thinking of doing embroidered pants for christmas presents.

I love embroidery cotton - like crafty jewels.

Kauni Kauni Kauni!

I've been sitting on the kauni yarn since I bought it for myself as a birthday present in July 2008. I swatched last year and have been hesitating ever since about which motif to use and whether to go top down, bottom up, raglan, round yoke yadda yadda. But finally I've cast on.

Everything you've heard about this stuff is true. Watching the colours change is highly addictive making this the most "just one more row" object I've knit so far. At the same time I've got about 280 stitches cast on and this is 3-ply on 3mm needles with a 32 stitch pattern repeat and fairisle on every single row - so this is not going to be done in a week.

This is the first day of my week of holiday from work. Actually holiday, not being signed off. I had planned to do loads of london museums and galleries and to make the Amy Butler Weekender bag. Now none of that is going to happen. On the plus side I retuned the digi box thing at the weekend and we now have a new channel called 'Quest' which is full of TJ Hooker, Mission Impossible and other choice moments of 70s drama. I have been watching a LOT of tv recently because I can't move about much. So new stuff is always welcome. There's only so many times you can watch the lopped repeats of poirot on itv3.

On the subject of tv this woman was doing the weather last night. (Taking pictures of the television is a sign of excellent mental health btw)

Don;t those look like balls of yarn around the edges of her cardi? I suspect they were intended to be roses or something but still, gives one furiously to think, as poirot would say.

And now for some Dihydrocodeine Tartrate!

Going to the doctors yesterday was the single most painful journey I've ever undertaken in my life. Getting to the bus stop was bad enough. How the hell do disabled people manage in london? The bus was a nightmare. Must look into what I can do to support modification of transport once the pain dies down.

I suspect yesterday is what has caused the pain to be worse than ever today. Pooch and I had a bust up this morning because the doc had prescribed 30mg of the pills (one pill) and it didn't do anything. So I looked it up online and saw the max dose was 150mg and so took another one. Pooch doesn't think I ought to take more than was prescribed and he's obviously right, but if the pain is worse than when is was prescribed and it is safe then I think it's justified. He's also worried I'll get addicted to painkillers but at this point if it stopped the pain I'd drink bleach so it's not a major consideration. Even with two pills it's still agonising.

Fortunately though I am able to stay positive because I've finished my Titan Hat. This hat is the business.

That's me doing my evil-underwater-ruler pose. The back bit isn't standing up as much as I'd hoped. I'm pondering interfacing or possibly wire.

Top is good too. Am wearing it now. So it can be used other than in Stingray situations. Which is good.

Another reason to stay positive is the arrival of Kerplunk in the byrne/whittaker residence. Pooch asked me what the balls were for.

His childhood recollection seems to have not involved balls - just pulling the straws out and whoever pulled out the last one won. It's a rather zen version of the game but I suppose feasible as long as no one knows how many sticks there are.

Wanna hat

I think I may be entering a hat phase. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Stingray. I recently discovered that as part of my lovefilm subscription I can watch loads of stuff free online. So 22 episodes of Stingray later I want Titan's hat.

I'm thinking - knit flat in garter stitch and do mitre type decreases over the top of the head and then shape the edges and decrease the sides before casting off and then folding the cast off to form the back spine of the hat. Would mean cast on went round face. See what I mean? Maybe not. Not sure how would get it to stay on though. Maybe sellotape.

Finding it quite hard to stay positive at the moment. Sleeping is not going well and the pain in the mornings is just indescribable. Back to doc tomorrow to ask for stronger painkillers. Phoned NHS Direct for advice this morning but was told it would be 5 hours befor they could call me back. And this is before budget cuts. I know it's been said a lot before but why spend billions on private businesses who have got themselves into trouble and then cut public services to pay for it? I don't even think it is Labour particularly - this would have happened under the Tories too. End of this public service broadcast.

Been 5 days now since I left the flat

Meh. Leg is still bad. Sleep really hard as can't get comfy. Tired. Meh.

Positive mental attitude - that is the only way forward. My mug helps.

It's still a week til the specialist so must really on happy thoughts til then. God bless anti-d's.

The enforced sitting still has upped knitting output but that's putting a strain on my shoulders so I may have to ease off. But having said that Mum's cardi is progressing nicely.

The final purple is very subtle - probably too near the grey really, but I like it and I know she will so I'm going with it.

Much praise to the Pooch - he's only been grumpy once in the last 24 hours despite looking after me so much and having to do all the chores. He stood in front of his wardrobe full of clothes and declared he had nothing to wear. Bless him. He was very excited this morning because he told me he'd caught one of the enormous silverfish he claims live in the bathroom. Once I'd got upright, knocked back the painkillers and had a bit of a cry about how much it hurt, I staggered to the bathroom for the official unveiling. He lifted up the glass and....there was nothing there. He swears they're enormous and that they eat wool, but I don't know. Maybe the pressure is getting to him.

Roo-ting Tooting Secret Pal

A second parcel from the wonderful Roo.

There's three balls of dale of norway baby ull for the twist collective pattern, postwar mittens. And she's also sent me the pattern. Hoorah! Then there is the most menacing looking dark green posh sock yarn which really wants to be something terribly gothic. A large bag of mixed buttons, not 1, not 2 but 3 60's Stitchcraft magazines AND a big bar of chocolate, which has now gone to a better place. It's good timing because yesterday I just finished the socks with the first sock yarn she sent me.

It's a picture I came to regret. I had very carefully lifted my right lef up to take it, and on lifting it down added a new pain to me repetoire. As well as the numb foot, aching calf and painful hamstring, I now have a jabbing pain behind the knee. Life just doesn't get any more interesting than this.

Pooch has been very good about helping me hobble about. The flat was tidyish above waist height but below that it was looking pretty messy. I just can't bend down to reach the floor. So this morning I sat on the edge of the bed and pointed at stuff and told him where it should go. Was suprisingly effective and so in 10 mins it was all looking tonnes better.

In another burst of startitus I began the fairisle cardi I promised Mum. I've got this far...

...but I just don't like it. The top down thing isn't working. The pattern is nice but I don;t think it's working properly with the colours and because of the steek I can't try it on to see how it is looking. So I'm ripping and am going to go bottom up using this drops pattern. Using my DK the guage is about perfect and it will be so much easier to follow a pattern. Lazy, but easier. I've also started another pair of socks in a slip stitch pattern and a ripple cardi, although I'm having doubts about that too. I'm just so frustrated at my lack of movement that I'm getting impatient with other things as well. Mind you, in the last couple of weeks I've finished several pairs of socks, made a scarf, a ballaclava and a shawl and started and frogged several other things so I've certainly been getting enough knitting done. I suppose it is the one upside to so much enforced sitting about.

To finish on a positive...My secret pal has just received her final parcel so I'm about to send my 'reveal' email. She is An Odd Assortment - a crafty australian - and her blog is definitely worth a read. She's a brilliant photographer as well as baking and knitting and goodness knows what else. It's been a pleasure to spoil her!

Knit Yourself Thin

Why hasn't anyone written a book with this title? Even if that was the title and the subtitle was "(not)" that would be fine. It would still give us hope. Why is it that knitting doesn't make you thin. Imagine how skeletal we'd all be if it did.

I was thinking about this while I looked amongst my (possibly) several hundred knitting books for the one book I needed for a fairisle chart. I've had this book close at hand for about a year and have been planning this project all that time. Last night I cast on the collar and did the nexk shaping for my first ever steeked cardigan. I reached out for the book and....it's not there. I can't find it. WTF? Where is this fricking book? It's been in exactly the same place forever and now it's not there.

Possible explanations:
1. Pooch has moved it. Unlikely. It was in the bookcase and he only tends to move things that are on 'his' chair.
2. Cleaner has stolen it. Unlikely. It's an old book, not rare, quite specialist and she's never shown any sign of this before.
3. The aliens who arrive nightly to make my sciatica/back/neck worse took it. Unlikely. Their activities have surely been concentrated in my bedroom while I sleep and on the mothership. Doubt they'd do into the front room unless the driver wanted to relax while the others got to it.
4. I've moved it. Highly likely. The codeine has made me really wacked out and I am forgetting all sorts of things. But where would I have put it? I've looked everywhere I'd normally put a knitting book. I admit that is practically everywhere though but really I have looked (and have twice had to remind myself what I was looking for) and I can't find it.

Bugger.

Before I go any further I must say that Secret Pal Roo has sent me an amazing second parcel. I will post photos tomorrow, as long as I can remember where I've put the camera.

In the meantime here are some photos of my latest FO which I took before I lost it. (The camera, not the shawl.) It is the Trinity Shawlette which is a P/Hop pattern. Great pattern.

I wanted something where I could wear the point at the front and wrap the ends around. It's a bit too triangular for that but still work pretty well. Love the yarn too - Araucania that I got at the Ravelry Day in the summer. Or was it spring. Meh.

This is actually my first lace shawl. I've done a scarf and some lace as parts of other things but never something all lace like this. I loved the blocking. You can see the kids floor mat thing son the table in the back of that photo. Genius whoever first thought of using those. I love the way blocking makes the edges pointy too.

Pointy!

I went back to the doctor this morning and got some more painkillers. She's advised working from home as much as possible to avoid the stress of the tube. It's not so much the tube itself as the getting to and from the station and getting between platforms. You really appreciate how rubbish disabled access is on the Tube when something like this happens. The Jubillee line is pretty good but the rest are just dire.