A room to myself

I'm finally back at my mum's in Farnham after my two weeks in a youth hostel in York. It was so nice to have a room all to myself last night with no one snoring, jangling keys or getting up every hour to have a swig of vodka (seriously).

I am going to have a very lazy next few days and take advantage of the time I spend with my mum and spend it knitting without Mr H frowning at me because I haven't done the washing.

I am halfway through my Opal socks. I grafted the toe on sock #1 last night and I am very happy with it. I just hope I get to go home with it as mum has taken rather a liking to it. I love the colours, they're so soft. I particularly love the sage green in the sock. It didn't really look like much on the ball and I actually nearly changed it but I'm glad I didn't. I still need to knit lots more socks so I have plenty of yarn for my blanket.

The yarn for the socks is Opal 4-ply in 1917 - Fantasie.

I am now just looking forward to getting back to Geneva and Mr H and Trinny and to getting my 16 week scan, not long now!

The sites and the course

Here are two photos to quickly show you what's going on up in York. No time to post, gotta go find Mr H...

As far as the Montessori photo goes, don't ask, or maybe you should as I have an exam next week, ohh err!

Up North

Posting has been quiet and will remain so for the next couple of weeks. I am currently up in York on my Montessori apparatus workshop. The weather here has been abysmal, it's really like autumn. It has been a bit of a shock to the system after 30 degree heat in Geneva to cold, wet and windy in York. I would have some photos to take but I seem to have left my camera cable in Geneva (I hope).

I like York, although I haven't had a chance to look in any of the shops as they're all closed when I'm not on my workshop. It's quite nice walking through the city at 8am when all the shops are getting ready to open. My youth hostel is about a 40 minute walk from where the workshop is held in town. It was interesting to walk across one of the bridges yesterday morning and to see that the river had burst its banks with lots of road, benches, trees and cars under water.

As the weather is so miserable, I felt the need to start a pair of socks. I bought a pair of Knit Picks Harmony needles and a ball of Opal sock yarn from my mum's shop before I came up to York so I cast on the socks on Sunday night. I'm only doing my generic pattern, even though I vowed I would never do so again but I think sometimes a plain sock is called for with certain self-patterning yarns.

I'm also working on a baby sweater for that little baby that you would have seen in my previous post. I'm coming up for 13 weeks now so feel that it's safe to knit. I think I cast on my first baby item on the day of week 12 after I had my scan. For all of you who want to know, I'm due on 25 February but it's more likely to be somewhere around the 1oth as I have to have an elective c-section. We're not going to find out the sex. I think it might be a girl but of course, who knows. Tell me your old wives' tales and maybe I will try some of them out if they're not too wacky!

My knitting sorted for the next few years....

Finally an FO

You may (or may not) have noticed that at the bottom of my WIP list there have been a pair of Wendy Fusion socks which have been there forever. Not anymore. Today has been rainy and horrible and I refused to leave the apartment but didn't feel like working on my regular projects, so I decided to dig out these long forgotten socks and work on them. Now, I have a pair of warm, chunky socks, yay!

I must have started working on these about a year ago. I originally knit a pair for my friend who was going back to Canada for college but ended up having to knit two pairs so they would match better as the colour changes are really long, so I ended up with one green sock and one purple sock. I got my friend's pair finished but never finished mine. I'm fairly pleased with them, although one is a bit longer than the other, but who's going to notice?

FYI, they are knit in Wendy Fusion on 5.5mm dpns over 32 stitches.

Have buttons, will travel

So, my February Lady Sweater finally has buttons. Actually, it's had buttons for a week, it's just taken until today to be able to get Mr H to take a photo of me wearing it.

I'm really pleased with it (have I mentioned that already, I think I have but I mean really pleased with it!). It was fun to knit and I love that it's all done in one piece - I hate seaming and I'm not particularly good at it either and I don't really go in for the old 'practice makes perfect', my ironing contradicts that.

The sweater took me exactly 10 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. There are a few less rows of garter stitch at the bottom than there should be as I ran out of yarn and wasn't about to go and buy another ball for the sake of a few rows. If I'd done one less pattern repeats on the body or the sleeves I'm sure it would have worked out fine but I can't predict the future. (FYI, I did 25 repeats on the body and 18 on the sleeves).

I also have a photo of my sock yarn blanket, although it's not a particularly good one. It's coming along very slowly, as I've said, due to an actual lack of sock yarn. It will be even slower now that I have frogged my Froot Loop socks due to a mistake I couldn't fix or ignore, grr.

I know it looks a bit of a mess at the moment but I'm sure that it will start to look better as it grows. I will be raiding my mum's leftover sock yarn when I'm in the UK next week, ohh, actually, it's this week I go, very exciting, apart from the bit where I have to spend two weeks in a youth hostel in York, I'm not really looking forward to that. Oh how I wish I was rich and could afford to stay in a hotel for two weeks. I am cursing not doing the London workshop, which then leads me to curse my old boss, but let's not think about him or I might scream!

Pretty Lights

Last night was the last night of the Fete de Geneve, which meant a huge firework display. We headed down to the lake to make ourselves comfortable (as comfortable as you can be with 10,000 people sitting on rock) and watched the show.
Lovely.

Work avoidance techniques

I'm on to the next Christmas present. I am knitting my brother's scarf at the moment. I'm not sure if I like knitting with Patons Zhivago or not, it's 50% acrylic, 50% Tencel but it really feels like knitting with just acrylic. I've never knit with Tencel before, so I don't know what that should feel like.

I shouldn't be knitting at all at the moment, I should be writing an assignment at the moment. I'm supposed to have had five done before I go off on my workshop in York next week but so far I've only done two. I've been told I can get away with three so I really need to get my next one done by the end of the week so it can be marked before my workshop starts on 17th. I've written one paragraph. At least it's a start. Technically, I'm not allowed to do the workshop without completing and passing the assignments. Oh dear. I seem to be having a problem with self motivation. I think I should lock away all my knitting until I've completed all my work, and block Ravelry and Facebook so I'm not distraced every five minutes by them too.

Right, I'm off button shopping and then I will sit down and write 500 words of my assignment. Promise...

Cat Mouse Mat

It just occurred to me that I never posted a picture of my Cat Mouse Mat that I knit for Trinny. I have it down as a finished object although, strictly speaking, that's not true as technically it still needs whiskers and eyes but I came to the conclusion that Trinny would be more than likely to chew both off and she seems perfectly content (if not a little over defensive) of the mat as it is!

I used Baruffa Club yarn for this, which I received in a Swap Bot swap from Diamanterosa (Secret Knitting Pal). It took approx. 4 skeins.

While I'm here, I can quickly say that I have already finished the knitting of my first Christmas present of the year, it now just needs buttons, yay. Now I can cast on my brother's scarf. I'm knitting him the Elongated Cables Scarf by Jean Nevitt in Patons Zhivago. Should be a nice one...

Need buttons

I finished the knitting on my February Lady Sweater. Best. Sweater. Ever. I love it, love it! I've never been so happy with something I knitted. All I need now is some pretty buttons to finish it off, that and for it to get chilly so I can actually wear it! I'm not sure what colour to go for, I was thinking green, brown or maybe even mother of pearl if I can get away with it. It requires quite large buttons so I will have to make sure I choose wisely, I don't want to ruin it.

I have already started my Christmas knitting! I cast on my first gift last night. I can't disclose any information though as it's a gift for my mum and I know she does read my blog from time to time so no news on that project until after Christmas. I know it seems like Christmas is ages away but I don't want a repeat of last year when I was up first thing Christmas morning grafting sock toes! Plus, I only completed half the gifts I planned on last year so some family members ended up gift-less (I figure it's OK as they live in Germany and I didn't see them anyway). I'm already over halfway through my first gift so I think everyone on my list will get their gift this year...

Mr H and I spent the day in Lausanne yesterday, I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures though. I can't believe we were there for four hours and I failed to find any of the yarn shops. I know they exist there as I went there with my mum around Christmas time and we found two without even looking. Maybe it's a sign that I need to be knitting from my stash and not buying new yarn. I do have in the region of ten miles of yarn in my stash. I find that quite satisfying.