tired and slow

What is it with the clocks going back? - I got an extra hour in bed and the effect lasted one day! It is now even harder to get out of bed in the morning.

I've been having a horrible couple of weeks at work - I am leaving my job soon and finding it hard to muster up enthusiasm for projects I will never see the end of and being helpful to certain clients is more draining that usual.

After a grim day yesterday my lovely friend Jake cooked me dinner and bought me a bunch of flowers - such a sweet guy. It was thanks for giving him a snowboard - I didn't need it, I have far too many and he would be able to make much more use of it to learn on. Anyway if anybody is single and looking for love, Jake is your man - he is fun, quite handsome and in search of a proper relationship! I hear you ask what is wrong with him - he's actually a little too attractive and all of us suspicious women think that he naturally is a player and will not touch him with a barge pole.

I digress from knitting - Sarah (my new colleague) and I visited the knitting hut today - she is old friends with Sue who runs the shop. I managed to only buy 1 ball of yarn - I really want to make the koolhaas hat, I'd love the yak yarn that the pattern calls and I don't mind the $30 odd the yarn costs but I strongly object to paying more for the postage than the yarn costs and then import tax when it gets here grrrrr!

I bought some lovely pale blue silk/merino type yarn, not sure I have enough, since I had a dim moment a bought the one ball, only to look at the pattern and realise that it should be 100g ball not the 50g that I had bought - oh well can always buy another one! I really love the pattern and want to see if I can convert it into a sock too.

My Amazon habit is bad - I have a wish list that keeps growing and a budget that doesn't, but I did order a book today - Inspired Fair Isle Knits - I love love love colour work, I used to use my Mormor (Danish grandmothers) method of knitting with two strands, continental in one hand using different finger to lift the yarn in use up, but you end up with really long floats - they get caught up on things. Then I took a really good class with Debbie Abrahams last year and now knit with my usual continental in the left hand and English with my right - wrapping the floats makes for much neater knitting. I might teach my Mormor when she visits for Christmas - her knitting never ceases to amaze me, so fast and she can knit a whole Fair Isle jumper or cardie without a pattern in the round, she 'simply' sews it on the machine and steeks it! She has had a lot of practice I suppose.

Knittytastic weekend

Wow - what a great day I had on Saturday. I went to a class at the lovely Loop in Islington with the great Amy Singer of Knitty fame. The class was to help us to work on our lace knitting skills and started the Tuscany shawl from the no sheep for you book. It was also Amy's birthday - so happy birthday Amy and thank you for spending the day teaching!

I had some lush silk yarn that I purchased at Ally Pally - deep royal purple, it was much thicker than everybody else's - they were all using seasilk. I had bought some seasilk in periwinkle but for some reason decided to be different - Amy did liken it to drawing with big crayons, which I thought was rather apt and totally agree with. I really wanted some of the silken that was used in the book, but couldn't get any in time - pretty please someone in the UK, can you stock this! I also asked the wonderful Dee at Posh yarn if she had any of her silk left, but sadly she didn't - so chunky crayons for me. Actually it was great because the shawl grew really quickly and it was really easy to see any cock-ups.

The other people in the class were really fun - it was great to meet so many interesting knitters. Hello to all the lovely people I met! They were all really inspiring in their own way, particularly in giving me a good kick up the arse to get my blog sorted out and to put all my stuff onto Ravely!

I spent Sunday knitting and went to boarders for coffee with friends. I'm making a baby jacket - for my new godson - I can't believe I have been asked to be a godmother - I am really honored and excited. I am now busy sewing it all together, I actually really enjoy the making up process, I know lots of people can't stand it but I love making those neat seams and sewing in the ends (Although I do everything possible to reduce the number of ends!) good finishing can be the difference between homemade and handcrafted.

I'm trying to be good at the moment and not spend too much but I couldn't resist some cashmere yarn at Loop from Knitting Goddess.

Also this from Sunday's yarn at Posh yarn goodies - it's called Victoria and is an aran weight 50% cashmere 50% silk - I am finally going to make a clapotis!