Bubbles make me feel better

So after a looooooooong soak in the bath and a couple of days of not doing anything I am starting to feel a little bit more like myself. My knitting is still on stand-by though I have come with a fab little idea for something to make for my swap partner in the Travelling Scarf Group on Ravelry. I can't share it with you for about another 5 months so I'll try not to mention it again.
Talking of the TS group I feel compelled to mention just how great it is- in fact, it's awesome. Everybody that I have met via this group is just amazingly nice. One of members is real sick at the moment (much love going out there) so what do you think has happened? They've started a collection to buy her a laptop thats what because she keeps on insisting on crawling to her computer just to look after the group. How wonderful is that? It's so wonderful to see the outpouring of emotion and love that is being sent to her to say thank you for all the support she has given us. I've hardly been in the group any time at all and I already feel happy in my new found family.
The swap that the group has been working on has been going real well so far though I have a couple of potential problems in my group. I'm trying not to mention it to anyone at the moment as it's a bit too early to panic. Oops, maybe I shouldn't be saying anything here?- ah well, it really is too early to worry about them so it doesn't matter. Anyway, I'm off this evening to the shops to hunt down the necessary item for completeing this months gift for my swap buddy and then I can get it in the post next week. I really hope I've pitched it right- her main interest is in something that I know very little about so I hope that I'm on the right track. Of course the main problem with all this is the amount of time I have to spend snooping around the internet looking things up. I keep finding stuff that I want all the time. The thing that I now want most of all in the whole world is one of those little sticks and chart kits for working out wpi of yarns. Many of the patterns that I love turn out to be american and say things like 'sport' or 'worsted' weight on them which confuses me once I get into the shops to buy yarn.
Ah, it's that age old problem of shopping isn't it girls?

Can't beat the feeling?

Then join it. I had another frustrating day yesterday where I seemed to spend all my time flipping back and forth between one job and another and not really accomplishing anything. My house is littered with bits of knitting and projects, my office looks like a hurricane passed through it and me?, well I'm starting to think that someone new has been put in charge of the brain controls and they are just fiddling round with all the dials and switches to see what happens.
So today I'm taking a new approach. I figure that if I'm feeling a bit dysfunctional at the moment then instead of fighting it and getting stressed out I'm just going to have to quite literally press the reboot button. So this evening I intend to go home, run a hot bubble bath and sink into it. I'm not going to touch my knitting, think about how much work still needs doing in my house with regards to painting and decorating or how much cleaning there is that could be done. In fact I'm not going to do anything other than lie there until the water gets cold and then I'm going to go to bed. Everything that needs doing to going to go on pause and I'm not going to feel guilty about it at all.
I will probably be thinking of knitting though. The next travelling scarf has arrived and is going to take some thinking about (although not much as it's quite a simple one really), I have to work out what I'm going to get for my swap buddy as her final gift. I have figured out most of it but not what I'm going to get as the final gift that is to be sent in March as it has to be something a bit special. I also have to work out what I'm going to do about gifting the organiser of the swap who has been working tirelessly behind the scenes on our behalf. I have to send some other stuff to her anyway as she has also been running all the competitions and sending out prizes but I think she deserves a little something for herself. The only problem is that she's been getting a lot of RAKs recently so I think that she's going to be stocked up on soaps, candles and yarn for a while.
So there's a few things for me to muse on. I think the important thing will be not to expect to get anything done and then I can't feel bad about my indecision. Hopefully this will drown the meh out.

Gratuitous linking to get extra competition entry

Go here for a chance to win a copy of the sequel to 'Friday Night Knitting Club'. It's a put your name in the hat competition and just requires you to leave a post. Don't say that they didn't make it easy enough for you :)

Meh

Harumph, harooo, am feeling a bit meh. I have had an extraordinarily long day at work and now I am tired and feed up and can't decide what to do with myself. Unfortunately this is not a state of mind precipitated by my day at work, it is something that has followed me since yesterday. For the first time in ages I had a whole day where I didn't have anything to do. No plans, no commitments, no nothing. And so what did I do? I sat around on the sofa watching House whilst being plagued by indecision. Nothing I started seemed to keep my interest for more than five minutes. I couldn't get comfy, I couldn't decide if I was thirsty or hungry, or if I was, what it was that I wanted. I tried reading, playing cards, three different knitting projects and still I could make my mind up and before I knew it it was six in the evening and I had wasted the whole day feeling bad about not doing anything whilst not getting anything done. If only I could have decided not to do anything to begin with then anything I did do would have felt like an achievement but no, that would have been too easy.
Instead I wasted a day, felt bad and then carried on with it today- though I did kinda get good stuff done today but in a very slow, boring, cold way that very few people would appreciate if I told them. What I want is a big, warm, furry project that has loud, brash results that give me the instant gratification and feelings of fulfilment and success. I am fed up with feeling meh but can't do anything but sit here and go meh at the thought of doing anything. A paradoxical situation me thinks but when the meh has got you then there's nothing that can be done but to try and find the reboot button.
Where, oh where did I leave that thing this time? If anyone finds it out there could you give it a good prod for me please? Even my knitting is failing to inspire me at the moment which must mean that its a serious case. Oh well, for this evening I will just have to hope that chocolate has all the answers.

In knitting news

Gosh, for a knitting based blog I seem to have been wandering away from the subject quite a lot recently. So in knitting news: I am working on my pa's socks and a third pair of spirogyras for Christmas gifts. These have kinda not been going anywhere recently as I had to first finish off my Pratghan square for October. The first month was for the book The Colour of Magic and I go a trifle carried away with it all I can tell you. The basic square was very easy to make- I knitted it out of thick black yarn and added in some hand spun octarine wool. This was the first time I had attempted to spin yarn so the results are a bit lumpy but I was pretty pleased with it by the time I had finished.I needle felted the skull on and then embroidered the rest. There are little links to the book all over the square- the octarine is knitted into a octagon shape, there are eight tentacles, the dice add up to eight, I worked snake eyes onto two of them as a sign of bad luck, finally the little symbols stand for Rincewind (wizzards hat), the luggage (check out the tiny pink feet) and two flowers for Twoflower. I am immensely pleased with way it turned out and can't seem to stop gloating to anyone who will listen.
The next book is the Light Fantastic and I have already picked out what I am going to be doing for that one- in fact I knew that before I started this one. I got the yarn for it out of the knitting groups box the other day so I am all set to cast on this weekend.
The other thing that is slowing me up is this scarf:

I got the pattern for this from the Ravelry group 'Almost Knitty' which hosts patterns that were rejected by Knitty for on reason or another. To be honest I'm not sure why I cast on for this as I have so many other things to be doing right now. I guess it was because I thought it would look nice in this yarn I had in my stash and one of my friends from knitting group said she was drawn to grey wool at the moment and it all kinda happened from there really. I've been enjoying knitting it. It is just complicated enough to keep me interested whilst be easy enough that I can memorise the pattern. The only thing I don't like is that it has an obvious front and back- normally I would refuse to knit a scarf with such a blatant error in it but I really liked the finish look and I knew that it would be going to a friend. It is quite a short scarf as well, more the sort you tuck into a coat than the ones that I usually wear that are super super long even after you've wrapped them round your neck three times so she should be able to wear it right side up without any problem. I'm about half way through and have been steadily adding three or four inches a night. Really I should be working on the last of the Christmas gifts but I can't seem to find the enthusiasm for them at the moment. Hmmm, the wips are building up again.
Sigh
Better do some knitting then hadn't I? ;)

Still on catch up

Can't believe how busy this week has been. I think it comes from volunteering myself to help out with the swap that the Travelling Scarf group is doing on Ravelry. I've had sooo much fun and have met so many nice people from doing it but it does mean that I've become totally addicted to checking my rav page every five minutes. I really want my swap group to have fun and for all of it to go really smoothly for them so I've been putting in a lot of time to keep up with e-mails and correspond with people. I'm gonna have to kind of rein my enthusiasm in a bit this weekend though as I need to attend to my own swap buddy and get her first gift sorted out. I have it planned but I need to go buy something from town before putting it into action. I shall say no more...
Anyway, in an effort to finally catch up with myself from over a week ago I want to share just how wonderful my pumpkins were for Halloween this year.

This is Hoshi enjoying a scratch. I was trying to get her to sit next to the pumpkins to pretty the picture up and provide some kind of size reference but she kept trying to get me to stroke her so this was the best that I could do. Both of these pumpkins are home grown. The one on the right is mine. My husbands pumpkin died so technically I win the pumpkin competition but I did say he could have the one on the left after the other snuffed it so he's arguing he won. The massive pumpkin was rejected by both of us as being too weedy- guess we don't know a thing about pumpkins then.
This is what my husband cut out of his pumpkin- a big Red Sox 'B'. My mum found a pumpkin carving kit for him via the internet that has stick on stencils and the most awesome little carving saw with a handle in the shape of a skeleton.

And this is what I did with my pumpkin. You can't see it terribly well (I was taking arty photos at this point) but I carved a quote from Funny Bones on it- it says 'on a dark dark night' round the top and then I attempted to carve a wood, a road and a town with street lights.


Finally, my best friend had given me the cutest smallest pumpkin I had ever seen when I visited Cambridge the other weekend. I decided to go with a more traditional approach for this one and I think it probably ended up being my favourite. It took an entire ten minutes to cut, scoop, carve and get a candle into.

Boosh, boosh, stronger than a moose!

Thursday last the husband and I drove over to Bristol to see the Mighty Boosh live at the Hippodrome. It was a bit of a rush as we had to leave straight from work and drive flat out to get there in time. We almost managed it- just 5 mins late so missed the first few lines of banter between Howard and Vince (aka Julian and Noel). The show was really good- both of us enjoyed it immensely. It didn't really have so much of a plot as their first theatre tour (which we saw on DVD) but it did have some hysterical linkages throughout the show.Some of the best bits were where things went wrong though- Tony Harrison nearly fell through the chair that he was sat on, Howard lost his beard and Rich Fulcher came out with a classic (and very rude) line that reduced the cast to giggles.
For those of you that have not yet come across the comic genius that is the Mighty Boosh then I suggest that you jolly well get yourselves on the case and find out now. Its worth reading the wiki link but you really want start with the first episode, first series and sit down to do some serious watching. Just so that you know the Iceflow song is one of my favourite bits from the first series.
Friday was spent painting, cleaning the house and hosting friends for dinner (after a quick nip round to a Halloween party that one of my friends was throwing). I trucked out all my knitting for them to see whether they liked it or not- mainly my Pratghan square though as I knew one of them was a massive Terry Pratchett fan as well. We had a highly amusing game of Munchkin that I won!!! but only because the husband let me apparently. Munchkin is rapidly becoming one of my favourite games as it is possible to win after having lost nearly everything you have with regards to equipment and bonus points. I am still an amateur player and haven't quite figured out all the nuances of the cards yet (it doesn't help that I usually have a glass of wine nearby when playing) but I can see this becoming a well practiced game in our household.
Saturday we drove to Hereford to see some friends and on the way back stopped off in Hartpury to see the Bee Shelter. It was a last minute visit as we only found out about it via roadside signs. It was freezing cold day but it was well worth the short stroll from the car to see it. I spent the rest of the day enthusing over bees and making zubbbzubb noises.

Miscellaneous items

Let me fill you in on a variety of other fun things that happened before I start on the really good stuff :)
Monday my brother came to visit me which was a bit of a shock but he obviously felt that it was time for his biannual visitation. We had a nice day out looking round the shops and touring the most horrible parts of the town centre (that was accidental- we needed somewhere to park the car and ended up at the edge of the hellmouth). What was most useful though was that it allowed an exchange of stuff. My mum sent things for me and I sent things for her. Unfortunately for my bro there wasn’t anything for him but I bought him a milkshake and took him to Krispy Kreme* for doughnuts, both things that you can’t do when living out in the sticks. Hopefully this made up for being a shuttle service for the women in our family.
I feel utterly compelled to tell you about one of the gifts that my mother sent me. In fact let me show you in picture format:

Ain't it cute? Apparently these where all the rage in the 70's. You just HAD to have a siamese cat climbing up the side of your brandy glass and a little mouse at the bottom. I can't imagine how anyone actually drank from them so they must have been an ornamental thing. Apparently the cats come indifferent sizes and colours which makes them more collectable. My mum showed me a picture of one a few months back and I must have squeed over it so much she decided to buy me one. This is now taking pride of place on my sideboard.
Despite being ill Tuesday (as I have previously mentioned at great length as I take headaches as a personal attack and not just a process of nature) I eventually struggled into work late in the day to find a surprise present from my upstream raveller (Travelling scarf group). Apparently she had been over visiting a family member and thought to drop off a little something for me where I work-


I was a) extremely surprised and b) chuffed to pieces with this gift. How sweet is that? (No pun intended). I’m not going to mention her by name here as it’s a policy of mine never to name anyone without permission and getting permission seems to be too much of a hassle for me BUT if you are reading this then THANK YOU! once again with extra glitter and gold stars for being wonderful. I’m still hugely pleased with it all especially as I love jam. Mmmmmm.


*BTW I feel that I should point out that Krispy Kreme has only just made it to the UK. I think that there are about 15 stores in the entire country and the nearest one to my brother is over 100 miles away hence his excitement at being able to actually visit a store with inhouse doughnut making technology :)

First of many catch up posts

I have already mentioned this but I have to start at the beginning of the past (which is the furthest away point rather than the nearest as most beginnings are) to be able to make any sense of anything in my own head, let alone yours. So, two weekends ago I was in Cambridge to see my best friend as it was her birthday. Because I love her so much I left work on Friday and climbed onto the grim, grim Oxford to Cambridge bus that travels via Milton Keynes and Bedford (also grim in my opinion but then I do only ever see the bus stations) and takes 4 hours. The buses are old, rattly and have a disturbing habit of smelling of burnt plastic. I managed to entertain myself reading and knitting socks for most of the journey and was feeling only mildly psychotic by the time I reached Cambridge. I had wanted to nap for the last hour or so (looooong day at work) as I knew I'd be up late and didn't want to flake out but there were a couple of people sat near me who had taken the cramped bus conditions as an opportunity to strike up a conversation. The fact that everyone else had to listen to it for over three hours didn't seem to bother them.
Anyway, this was all quickly overtaken by the fact that I had arrived and I was on the way to the pub. I met up with the best friend, was introduced to her friends and work colleagues, handed out her presents that I then forced her to open in the pub and went to the bar. The kinky stockings I had bought her went down a storm (teehee) as did her gloves that I had knitted for her. Unfortunately I was enough of a bonehead to forget to photograph them so I can't show y'all the mystery project that I was working on. I was very pleased to see that they fit and everyone made nice appreciative noises and admired them which made me smile. We had a great night out and as predicted, didn't make it to bed until very late. Saturday we wombled around the shops, stopping tea and hot chocolate wherever we could. We dropped in to a craft event where people were selling handmade clothes and jewellery. The Cambridge knitters where also there and if I had taken my knitting along I might have felt brave enough to go over and say hello but I suffering from a lack of sleep so decided to lurch in another direction. I got to meet some of the roller derby team which was nice though I was mostly asleep on my feet so they probably thought I was mute or maybe just plain weird. We spent Saturday night huddled on the sofa knitting and watching movies. The best friend is working on a wonderful jumper that is made from yarn that she bought from Shilasdair when we visited Skye at Easter. It is soooo pretty and I felt compelled to steal it for a quick fondle when she wasn't looking. Sunday we just lazed around talking shop about yarns, books and TV. I was treated to hot pink milk for the first time in my life and it was wonderful. I couldn't believe I had been missing out all this time!
The only other thing of note is that I bought the wool for making my husband a pair of baseball socks. They are going to be red and blue with little Bostons 'B's down the sides in stripes. The pattern looks a bit complicated but it involves learning a new technique called festive knitting. Having read the instructions I think I have an idea of how it works. Its just putting it into practice that is the hard bit. I haven't started the socks yet as I want to knit them in secret as a Xmas gift but as soon as I have made any progress I'll get some pictures up as the construction really is quite interesting for any geeky knitters out there.

An unplanned absence

Apologies people for my prolonged and unusual absence from this blog. I was a trifle unwell last week though it was not the snot demons that got me I hasten to add, but the migraine monster. I am prone to getting headaches as I have a bad back and neck so changes of bed (for instance) cause all my muscles to shift around and spasm. This then leads to severe headaches or migraines and I got caught out after a jaunt to Cambridge two weekends ago. The bed I was sleeping on was fine for the first night but on the second I was joined by my husband and I was forced to sleep on about 4 inches of mattress. I managed two nights before things went pear shaped- I woke up in agony Tuesday morning. This led to a couple of days of nonsense on my part before things got really busy and I was unable to be ill anymore due to having too much stuff to do (last week was half term in our county which meant that the husband was at home hence the hectic week). It does mean that I have a ton of stuff to tell y'all and pictures to prove it as well. Despite the awful headache I managed to do everything I had planned and enjoy it all. We've done lots of travelling to see friends, been to a gig and eaten enormous quantities of food. I also managed to get some knitting done in amongst everything else so have some updates there as well. In fact I have so much to say that I'm not sure where to start but you can be expecting a higher than normal number of posts over the next two days to make up for my enforced break. Hope you didn't miss me too much ;)