Hanging out with the Time Thief

There was a knitting crisis in my house this morning.

I had no knitting to take with me on the bus!

Everything I'm working on is at the point where I need to sit and think through the next steps, oh and there are no socks on the needles because of a serious bout of startitis. I can't find a sock pattern I'm able to settle into comfortably.

With twenty minutes before the bus arrived, Sean said, 'Start a beanie,' and I thought, yeah! Why not.

I have a couple of recipients in mind - blokes with big heads - so I rifled around in the stash, came up with a ball of 12 ply Bendigo in a kind of pale brown, cast on and before I knew it I was running for the bus with a brand new beanie on the needles and a restored sense of calm and order.

I had bus knitting.

The beanie pattern is from Canberra knitter, Taphophile, she of the Time Thief Watch Caps. I've made one before and honestly, with a ball of 12ply, you can have a beanie in next to no time at all. Just looking at how many she pumps out, week after week (mainly for charity) makes me want to applaud loudly. Taph reckons that three hours is all you need to churn out one of these marvels and she's right. I'm half way up the band in just 25 minutes of bus knitting and actually, I've made one before, a few months ago, so I speak from experience. They're fast and they look great.

If that's not instant gratifcation, I don't know what is. Thanks Taph!

Bells

The good and the bad

I haven't blogged since Wednesday. How unlike me. I've been busy.

Thursday night was SnB - a big, loud and fun night with lots of newbies. At SnB I worked out that I'd potentially screwed up Sean's second sock. I'm not even going to discuss it right now. I can't bear the thought. When I can, I'll graft the toe and see if it fits him.

This is the first bad news, knitting wise. But I'll get to the rest later.

On Friday, my sister and my nephew arrived to collect me from work at lunch time. This is their last trip to Canberra before they head to Germany for five weeks, so I took the afternoon off work to hang out with them.

We went shopping but didn't progress much past the Thomas the Tank Engine display in Big W.


He's such a groupie. Look, he's even wearing a Thomas jumper. This is the big Thomas he found that plays the theme tune over again. He played it again and again and danced a merry jig while I took photos.

I made some Gingerbread Men in anticipation of Will arriving.


Sadly, Will didn't like them, but all the grown ups did. These were made with the "Already Been Chewed" cookie cutters that Sean bought me a week or so ago. Great fun.

I had Adele and Will here for less than 24 hours so there was a lot to be fitted in. Will spent most of his time here looking cute.

A while ago I made a beanie for him which became known as his Chocolate Hat. Finally, I got photos of him wearing it. This is Will up near our back fence talking to the puppies who live behind us. We hardly ever see them, unless Will is here. He goes straight there every time to find them.


He loves his hat, which he calls his coclate hat. He's a great guy.

Steeked Jacket Update

I considered calling this post 'Let Us Not Speak of the Steeked Jacket' but I need to be upfront and say I may have screwed up.

Here is the sleeve - a few inches short of finishing.


I've worked my fingers hard to get this far in the last week. It may look ok, but there's a problem. I'm supposed to keep increasing til I have around 207 stitches. At last count I have about 130, and only two repeats to go.

Julie suggested trying it on, which I had to do by taking it off the circular needle early this morning. OK, so it fits. It's snug, which is fine by me because I never wanted this jacket to be floppy, so that's ok. But I suspect this is going to mean bad things for grafting it to the body. When you work on the percentage system, stitch counts are fairly important, I think. Julie is still to confirm.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I am not happy.

(Whining to follow)

I know I'm not the only one who has had problems with the sleeves. I know Louiz had to undo her first sleeve entirely, but both Cindy and Louiz are miles ahead of me. Cindy is almost finished. I'm embarrassingly far behind, and that's largely because I committed to knitting a lot of gifts this year, too and have been busy with those.

Today, I could just throw thing against the wall. Or in the bin. Or on the nearest bonfire. I'm not ready to face the idea of ripping the sleeve again. I'm just not. Call me sulky. Call me petulant. But today, the steeked jacket can get stuffed. I'm off to cast on some of these using this. Secret Knitting Fairy, I know I was supposed to use your gift once I'd finished the sleeve, but today I need something nice and pretty and you can see how close I am, right?

Bells

the world's slowest beanie

I swear I made the slowest beanie ever.

Not because of the pattern, but because of me.

Three weeks, people. Three weeks! Only on the bus, mind you. But still.

After raving about the wonders of swatching in the past, I got all cocky and thought I didn't need to swatch for this one.

I got it from RoseRed who got it from Claudine who wrote it as a baby pattern.

So I've only had 3 shameful attempts at this hat. Wrong gauge twice, screwed up the cables once because I was on the bus trying to remember what the pattern I'd left on the printer at work said to do.

Anyway, here is a beanie for my love.



Aren't the little cables cute? Sean loves it. It fits him much better than the pointy one he currently wears, making him look like an extra from an Irish fairytale.

It's Bendigo - Russet Tweed and I have loads left over. I think I'll make one for me!

God, that's twice Sean's appeared on the blog in less than a week. I'm surprised he's still talking to me. He grumbled significantly but it's hard to take someone's grumbling seriously when they look cute in one of your fresh hand knits!

Oh and thanks to Louise who in the comments suggested i leave the error in the jacket sleeve. I think you're absolutely right. It's not like it completely warps the pattern, does it? It's just a blip. And one I'm kind of fond of now.

Off to bed. Sleepy Bells....

I'm here. I'm knitting. Honest!

It's late Friday - the end of my first quite successful week of my new job. Not successful in that I achieved anything huge, but good nonetheless. I've arrived smack bang in the middle of a branch restructure and come Monday, my team will reside elsewhere. Everyone is up in arms about the alarming new structure that's been proposed. Means nothing to me. I wasn't attached to the old one.

So I'm in that lovely honeymoon phase where not giving a shit about work is actually possible and isn't going to get me into any trouble. I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Did a spot of late night shopping with a girlfriend tonight. We shop together well. Have done so for about 17 years now.

17 years.

We are getting old. We could tell because much of our conversation was peppered with statements like, 'Did any of us dress that badly when we were that age?' and 'God, look what passes for a hair style nowadays.'

Good grief. Did we really say those things before sitting down to a quiet meal and a glass of Pinot Gris? 17 years ago it would have been a kebab and a coke.

I also knew I was 'of a certain age' when I lectured a younger friend last week about why drinking shots just isn't as fun as it used to be. I think I said things about now enjoying, no savouring, the taste and experience of a drink, rather than slamming down and enjoying the fact I'm paying $10 a hit for drinks that aren't really drinks. God help me.

So I stayed up late to finish a beanie for my brother. Or as the friend I shopped with tonight might call it, a brain cosy. Cute.

He's got a mammoth head. It's one of those dome shaped heads that only boys can have. It's a huge beanie! Today was his birthday but I knew I didn't have to have it finished today because, being in his 20s, my little brother will be out putting away as many of those nasty shots as he can before vomiting his guts up and waking up tomorrow wondering what the hell it was all for.

As for me, because I'm practically middle aged, I'm happy to now be going to bed and listening to the sound of the rain. Yes folks, that's right, it is officially a rainy day in drought ridden Canberra. Our Prime Minister told the people of Australia he was praying for rain and we got it. Glad to know God is on his side. *snigger* I'm still not gonna vote for him.

Bells