Regular readers will know I used to suffer terribly from startitis, every spring. Well, it's been late this year and absent in previous years due to my getting older, getting slower at finishing things, and general SAD type issues. When sleep is hard to obtain, inspiration for creating new things falls way down my list of priorities. Anyway, I've decided to just look at what's in the stash and try and make something (anything) with it, instead of "procrasti-planning" items in my head that I never get around to. So the leftover cone of sienna coloured boucle (Christine shawl nightmare, but this is just one end) might become a simple scarf, if it's not also moth-eaten and too fragile. Having said that, I've swatched T6, 7 and 8 in a yarn I hope to make into a sweater. The pattern's at T9, wouldn't ya know it? So another swatch is needed or a lot of maths, never a strong suit!
Work's been pretty busy thus stressful. I suspect part of it is my age - I'm irritable and grumpy and getting tired of dealing with unfixed bugs and general downgrading of the creativity I once was able to bring to the task at hand. Let's face it, designing conveyor systems isn't a dream job for someone who loves colour and creativity, but it's close enough and is at least a marketable skill I suppose, until AI takes that away from me for good.
I'm delighted to be running a small two day machineknitting "retreat" which is already fully booked (the venue is quite small). If it goes well, I might run a single-day one. We'll see. I've got to check my machine "stable" and think about where we're all going to go. That's tomorrow's job.
I've been starting to catalogue my books; it's a big job, and so far I've completed crochet, and partially done machine knitting, hand-knitting and weaving, and I'm getting rid of a few I'll never use in the process. I've been amazed at what I've bought, flipped through, and then presumably hoped would stay in my brain by process of some weird osmosis! Anyway, in the vein of "use what I have to learn something", I'm teaching myself how to work tunisian cables. Now, a cable to me, in the purest sense, is when stitches appear to lean one way or the other, and under another set of stitches, to create a cabled pattern. So crochet cables (back post / front post) aren't quite cables in the strictest sense, as they are worked AROUND preceding stitches and not INTO them. Tunisian cables are much more like knitted cables in that they are worked into the stitches below. I purchased an Annie's Crochet book some time ago on the subject, and had leant it to a relative. When I got it back I thought it was about time I had a go.
This is my second attempt. Whilst flipping through another book, which gives 3-4 samplers of various crochet techniques, I discovered I was doing my work too tight because the hook needs to stay on top of the work and not to the front... once I made my loops looser (and figured out the tunisian purl they are using, my first attempt was incorrect), it went a lot better. I'm ignoring how they instruct to work the cable though, I am cabling like I would in knitting. The book states I should rearrange all my loops and put them back onto the needle (an extra chain is worked between each cable "strand"). I'm just letting the loops hang off onto a cable needle and putting them back onto the loop when it's time to work them. It just works better for me!
If I get far enough (I have to work 28 twists and then two more strips of this) it will be a scarf. The twists happen every 6 rows. Because I'm still learning how to "read" my work, I'm using stitch markers. No, I do not need any more scarves, but someone might! And yes, for the eagle-eyed, that last cross is wrong, it has been fixed!
Oh, and I've taken up netball, after a 40 year gap. Week one (taster week) there was one sprained ankle, and one momentarily dislocated shoulder. The first match week, one of our team members fell straight backwards during practice (ball to the face, she's short, and no, I did NOT throw it!) and cracked a vertebra. I may have lost my mind if that sort of thing keeps happening, and my knees did complain a bit the following day. Mid-life crisis? I hated sport at school until later on, because I was short and sturdy. Watch this space! :D
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