The grump

Well, believe it or not I've been too busy to do much knitting lately. I've made one boa scarf from the Rico Can-can and am knitting another from the remainder. Probably shouldn't have cut the yarn on the first one. Probably should have weighed it so that they both use exactly half the yarn weight. Hey ho, hindsight is a wonderful thing, no? Not felt up to much lately. Having some health issues which are making me moody, snappy, hypersensitive, stressed, and grumpy. I'm sure the Cog would say I'm like that all the time, but I don't think I am. Not been sleeping well - have invested in new pillows and blackout curtains. So much to do at the moment, my mind is still too busy to sleep at bedtime, which is no fun for anybody.

Saturday I attended the annual Machine Knitting Guild AGM in a tiny village called Newton Regis, near Tamworth. It was lovely to see familiar and new faces. The competition entries were on display - the one I liked the best was a garment (I think it was a cardigan?) made in sections, with free-motion embroidery over the "slashes", I presume some sort of dissolvable interfacing was used. I don't think it won though. Ann introduced me to some other Passap owners who are thinking of starting a club, they are west of Birmingham so not too far away from me to join if they do. We had an interesting talk from a PhD student who showed us lots of ganseys made for ex-boyfriends (all of which had rude names in garter stitch) and some excellent lace wall hangings she'd made on knitting frames like the ones at Ruddington. I may have accidentally bought some coned cotton from Uppinghams. It was variegated and pretty. I'm only human.

Sunday I went and did a "garage clearance" for an ex guild-member. I didn't think to ask, on the 'phone, how much they had - turned out I'd filled the car almost to bursting (couldn't fill the passenger footwell because the Cog was with me), so had to go back for the rest of it on Monday. There are four Brother knitting machines, lots of paraphernalia, two stacks of books and 11 refuse sacks of yarn (mostly acrylics), half of which are taking up space in my tiny dining room area. I need to inventory that lot tonight, because I've got company coming on Sunday and there's no way I can get four people around the table at the moment. Last night we had a major tidy up downstairs in preparation. As long as nobody looks in the office, the bedroom, or the knitting room, we look like a tidy household! I also need to get the machines at least together to be sold - the accessories are all in boxes, and the ribbers have no boxes, so not sure if everything is complete yet. I do wish people wouldn't chuck their ribber boxes - they have polystyrene inserts for everything, so you can tell at a glance if you are missing anything. Not having a box makes things so much harder to post, too. I have a fine gauge ribber at home with no box, currently out of use, and I don't like it not being stored properly, that's how brackets get bent.

Onwards and upwards through adversity!