Apologies for not posting for over a week - we took a short holiday in Lincolnshire for which I do not seem to have taken any photos! There was a brief trip to the beach (Mablethorpe and Cleethorpes), and some wandering around Louth and Market Rasen, and a short visit to a castle and an aviation museum. On Wednesday the Cog was informed he had a new 12 week contract, to start that Monday (!), so on Friday we went to Warwick to pick up IT equipment, and this weekend, this happened to my craft room:
Yes, that IS my sewing table. Oh dear. Oh well. I'm pleased he's got work, but not so pleased that he doesn't leave the craft room most nights before 7 (and on one occasion, half 9!). It's probably best he's in there and not I - I would find being surrounded by crafting tools very distracting.
So anyway, I've been having a bit of a sort out in that room, and came across the "One Hour Raglan" pattern - I think I must have had an early version as a freebie because the current version is in more sizes and my copy has a few typos. The idea is that you knit an entire garment, sideways, from centre back to centre back, creating raglans with short rowing and inserting waste yarn between various parts. Always one for a challenge, I decided to knit it, without a swatch, in a fluffy yarn, on the one machine I own that doesn't really do short-rowing (the Passap E6000). The first attempt went well, except for my rather too tight join down the middle, which made a garment that would not fit over anyone's head unless they could remove it like a doll....
Unpicked that and replaced it with garter stitch borders - possibly hard to see in this pic:
It probably took about three hours, repairing all the dropped stitches, joining the sleeve edges by hand, then unpicking and reknitting the front edges.
Second attempt, halving the figures and working on the chunky machine, went a lot better:
This just needs some edging added to be complete.
I also thought I'd make some socks for a friend and my sister, everyone needs a bit of cheering up at the moment:
As for myself, I'll admit I'm a bit down in the dumps at the moment. Some knitting books I ordered apparently got delivered to the office by mistake, and duly disappeared. A camera magazine I subscribed to owes me a free gift, which has not arrived (the magazine did). Today I'm grappling with the vagaries of the new Blogger which has been fashioned to suit smartphone users - I've no idea how I'd post more than a few lines from a smartphone, so I'm none too impressed today! I think it's a step backwards, especially as now I have to tweak the layout in both HTML and compose views.
I actually found myself perusing penpal sites last night - I'm down to one penpal these days as other penpals sprogged, moved on, got too busy. Yes, lockdown has given me a foretaste of my life in retirement, and although the crafting is fun, socially it's dull, dull, dull. If we ever get back to any kind of normal I intend to do something about that... not entirely sure what though!
Oh well. Friday tomorrow, the weather indicates a mini-heatwave, and himself has promised a vegan barbecque... I continue to drag myself out of bed every day, despite not having the motivation for it.
thoughtful and glum
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