Crying Out For An LYS



I now have my new pc set up and working. It's superduper fast compared to the old one. One thing that isn't fast though, is uploading images to Blogger. I'd always assumed it was my computer being slow, but it would appear that in this case, it's Blogger. Takes ages. In fact, right now it's not actually letting me upload images at all. It pretends it is, but no image appears. How irritating.

Anyway, I haven't been doing much blogging, as you know. But I haven't done that much knitting, either. Oh, I couldn't let a whole day go by without doing any knitting at all, but I've been spreading my time between the knitting and Other Things, instead of being completely obsessed about the knitting and only the knitting. That includes the purchasing of yarn and needles, too. Some of the Other Things I have been doing are, exercising (yippee), sprouting seeds again (yippee), reading, cleaning my house and playing more with Charles, rather than mostly reading to him and looking at books. Here is a pic of my beloved sprouter.


They are very good for you but I won't bore you with the details. But I should definitely live to 1003 yrs old if I eat these sprouted mung beans, radishes and alfafas!

The photo at the top is of the socks I'm knitting. I felt the urge to knit a sort-of-lace sock with the Ja Woll yarn, and I'm pleased so far. But whether they'll fit great when they're finished is another thing. The Koigu ones I knitted are like little boats on my feet. The foot length is fine, but they're too wide. So I wear them as house socks instead of with shoes, although they were great with my walking boots yesterday, on a canal walk. Of course, you will be made aware of how they turn out!

Speaking of which, after asking for advice on seaming Celandine, I forgot to let you know what I did in the end. Well, I noticed that Louisa Harding mentioned two types of seaming in her pattern book, including backstitch. And although I know the mattress stitch is so much better, I did the backstitch. BUT the reason was that the fabric was so flimsy I knew I'd get away with it, you know, without bulking up the seams. So, that's what I did and it came out great. I would be wary of using backstitch on most items, though.

My trip to John Lewis MK.......The weekend before last, I had such bad PMT (no, honestly, it was BAD) I wasn't myself at all. OH had to get Charles and himself out of the house two days running as I was such a nutter (though not violently, you understand) and in a fit of I will do whatever I want and won't consider anyone else in the whole world, I disappeared off shopping for the afternoon (having only just realised what I'd long suspected was true - that John Lewis stock yarn). Well, I was quite excited at the prospect of being surrounded by so much real-life yarn (as excited as is possible when you feel that horrid) and, since the girl on the phone at JL had assured me that they carried too many lines of yarn to list them, well, brilliant!! But my high hopes were short-lived. Yes, yarn of all hues lined the shelves, but there were only about four shelves - all filled to the brim with Debbie Bliss, Rowan and Jaeger. Depressed? I never knew the meaning of the word....... There's nothing wrong with the aforementioned yarns, but I was nursing hopes of something, well, a bit more exotic. You know, Noro, or something. But no. Then I cast my mind back to the time I went to JL MK for some fabric, during my dressmaking phase, and it brought back horrid memories of exactly the same feeling of disappointment with their selection. Why, oh why do I have to travel so far (probably London) to find decent stuff? I mean, it's not as if Aylesbury is in the middle of nowhere, but there is nothing there and it's my local place to shop. As far as I know there isn't one dedicated LYS for miles around. I never thought I'd say this, but why can't it be more like LA, as far as LYS's are concerned? I'll stick with the internet.

Just ordered some Lorna's Laces from Get Knitted. It's the new Swirl DK. Will post photos when it arrives.

Got to go - Charles now has a nasty cold and a temperature. Really wish my friends would take heed of what I say and not visit us with bugs. OH's dad is having chemo for the next six weeks and can't afford to be ill and we see a lot of him. I'll have to start turning these people away (cripes I'm evil again).