Doldrums

I'm somewhat in the knitting doldrums at the moment. I finished an MK project and it didn't turn out great (and I'm out of yarn to fix it, not to mention it's unpickable now it's been washed). The simple jumper has got the back but not the front (it's knitted in the round). I need to try it on because I suspect it'll be too short on me, so I'm debating putting the body aside and starting the sleeves and making them short ones, so I know how much yarn is left. The spiral sock is tedious although I have made it to the heel - it keeps falling off the needle. Oh, and the lace shawl is finished and is awaiting blocking. I was on a 4 day training course last week and then had a short break in Bath where no knitting was done because I forgot to pack any! Shock horror! 

The weaving continues slowly. I've discovered it looks a bit "loosey goosey" until it's moved down about an inch - then it seems to settle down and look better - I don't think this happened on the weaving course, but the shed on this loom is almost 2". I set it up for twill (10 epi) not tabby (8 epi) which means I can't weave any tabby because it's too tight and looks dreadful. Lesson learnt. I put my 24" Ashford Rigid Heddle up for sale on Ravelry, no takers so far. I'd really rather not put it on Ebay because that'd require my packing it for postage and it's really quite big. 

I started to teach myself Design-A-Knit 7 yesterday, it's ok although the manual isn't great. I figured out how to design a jumper and then turn the whole thing sideways. Joining parts is a bit temperamental though - if you do it wrong, the pattern pieces turn into a straight line which is most annoying. Looks like a very versatile program though. I also had a play with stitch design, I found the manual a bit baffling here so will have to read a bit more closely. 

Bath was lovely, of course - I went there a few times but only for drinking purposes so did not see it in daylight. Full of tourists, of course, and on the saturday we got turned away from 3 restaurants (yes, I was getting quite stroppy as well as hungry) but that did mean we ended up eating at a little French place that did tapas-type stuff which was lovely. We visited the Thermae spa and had a massage (expensive but nice!) and also visited the roman baths which were very interesting. We don't tend to be organised enough to book weekend breaks on holiday weekends so it made a nice change, and as we travelled down the Fosse way (old Roman road) we missed the misery of the M5 too. Sunday night we walked into town (as the buses stop most annoyingly after half five), some 45 minutes, for a meal at our favourite indian and a few glasses of Belgian beer at the Merchants Inn. Happy days!