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.