Hello everyone! I didn't mean to be away for so very long (it's been a month!), but stuff happened. Or, mostly, my stomach happened. The last time I wrote I mentioned I was going home to my parents' for a few days, at the start of my three weeks of vacation. We went on Saturday, the 13th of July, and came home again on the following Thursday, and we didn't do much else than spend some time with family and friends. It was nice and relaxing, but when we came back to our own house my stomach decided that it didn't want to play along with me any more. Basically, I spent the following two weeks flat out on the couch, feeling terrible! Talk about a busted vacation! We hadn't planned to do anything special during our time off from work, but we had planned on getting some house stuff done. Thomas has been doing some, but I've just been too sick to help out. When last Friday came, and things hadn't started to ease up, I called my doctor, and I got to go there this past Thursday. I had to call in sick Monday-Thursday first though, which didn't feel like a great start after vacation. But I got some new meds that seem to help, so I went to work yesterday at least. And now I seem to be on the mend, even though I'm still very tired. Not a very restful vacation!
Most days I've felt too nauseous to knit, but I have managed some. At the end of July I finished my Spaced Checks socks that I made from my Doctor Who yarn from Mad Color Fiber Arts:
I knit these toe up to use up all of the yarn, and I only had about a meter left when they were done! I got a little bit fed up with the pattern at the end, as the socks are so very long, but I love the finished ones.
As I was getting ready to get back to work, I needed a new mindless project, so I started a new pair of socks the other day. I wound up my Friday Studios Saturday Base yarn that I got in the Hunger Games yarn club, in the 75th Arena colourway, and started a pair of Harvest Dew socks. Pretty soon I realized that this pattern also consisted of a bunch of elongated stitches, and I already have two pairs of socks like that in striped yarn, so I frogged them and started my own pattern instead:
Basically, I'm just knitting every other row plain stockinette and every other row in moss stitch. Or is it called seed stitch? I'm knitting k1, p1 on one row, and then on the following rows I knit the purl stitches and purl the knit stitches. I put in the waste yarn for an afterthought heel about an hour ago, so I'll probably finish the first one this week. The yarn is very, very soft and nice to work with, but the colours are possibly a little bit too pastelly for my taste. I think a baby hat or socks would probably have suited it better, but I like the socks anyway.
I also got three yarn club shipments this month. First, I got the July shipment in the 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon Sock club:
The yarn is, as usual, The Knitting Goddess sock yarn (75 % superwash merino/25 % nylon, 424 m/100 g), and the colourway is called Cut Throat. That's from Sweeny Todd (Demon Barber of Fleet Street), which is a pretty cool movie. I really, really like this colour, it's such a deep, purple-ish red!
Second, I got the first skein form Mad Color Fiber Arts Mad Geek Tour yarn, in the Into the Black theme (which is Firefly):
The yarn is Doolally (75 % superwash merino/25 % nylon, 423 m/100 g), and the colourway is called Malcolm Reynolds' Widow. It's very red, and very pretty. I like that it's a little bit more semisolid. It will go into the stash for a while to mature.
Then I got the August shipment in the Cookie A sock club:
The yarn is Miss Babs Cosmic (80 % superwash merino/20 % nylon, 366 m/100 g), and the colourway is called Inkwell. It is the perfect Tardis blue! I'm going to make a pair of Tardis socks for me from this, but that will probably not happen for a while yet.
I think I have decided to not join any more yarn clubs next year. I have enjoyed getting yarn in the mail this often, but I'm not sure I think it's really worth the money. I still haven't knit one single pattern from either the Cookie A club or the 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon club, so I think I'll just skip the club and maybe buy the patterns I like when they get available to the public. I actually find I'm a little bit disappointed in the Cookie A patterns. I used to love almost all of her patterns, but in this club yarn there has been a bit too much lace for my taste, and to few cables. I don't know, I just know that I won't join in next year.
Other than that, I've knit a little bit on my Mandala II shawl (I've finished Chart C! Only Chart D and the edging left...), but I'm up over 1000 stitches on each row now, so it's going very slowly. I can't focus on the charts when I feel to sick though, so I have only knit a little bit on it.
Oh, and I have a confession to make too. I haven't posted the prizes from the drawing yet! I'm so, so sorry, but I have just been feeling too sick. I'm going to bring it all to work on Monday and get to the post office when I finish work. I hope you're all ok with that. Once again, I'm sorry!
Ok, I think that's it for now. I really hope I find a bit of knitting mojo soon, as it seems to have left me this past month, but I'll try to be back a little bit sooner next time!
/ Jenny
