Posted on Leave a comment

Here We Go Again

I’ve just re-read my post from this time last year. On Dec 22nd 2020 we had been told that non-essential shops were closing (again), and most people’s plans for Christmas had been curtailed, cancelled or, at the very least, altered in some way. Fast forward to today and we are in an exhaustingly similar position, but with Covid case numbers at a point I never imagined they would actually reach. I will be surprised if they don’t go over 100,000 cases a day this week. Ronnie (pictured) is clearly feeling it too.

So, I’m even more grateful to have had my booster jab last Tuesday. Side effects were one afternoon of being really cold and a couple of days of being foggy-headed (I forgot to go to the hair-dressers – and only remembered seven hours after the appointment!), which is fine by me considering what it might help me avoid. My lovely wife has managed to get hers as well. Thank you NHS Wales.

On a more creative note, I’ve been swatching like mad for my new design idea – I keep wanting to try out tweaks and different combinations of colours. I managed to get my responses to the tech edit that came in last week done, though it did involve a few more hours of number crunching. Fortunately the foggy head was wearing off by then!

The socks are so *very* nearly finished. Here they are. Just one toe to go, right?

A pair of almost completed hand knit socks on a wooden desk. The upper sock has needles in still and the toe is not yet made. The yarn is self-striping in yellow, blue, purple, red, green and pink, although the two socks do not start with the same colour.

Actually, no. I got the recipient (my lovely wife, of course!) to try the first one on, and the toe was a couple of rounds short. Not loads, but enough to feel a little tight. This would no doubt consign them to the back of the sock drawer, which is not the aim of knitting socks – they need to be worn and worn out with joy and comfort. So, once I have completed the second sock (later today), I will be undoing the first sock toe and re-knitting it to match. They’ll still be done in time.

I got some spinning in this morning for the first time in a week or so.

An overhead view of a spinning wheel with a half-filled bobbin of singles. The yarn is two shades of purple, with a more bluey shade in the top quarter of the bobbin. A chunk of grey-purple fibre rests on top of the wheel, on the band.

I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s happened to stop me spinning so regularly of late, but maybe it’s something to do with the big pile of knitting project bags by the sofa? It’s daft though, because I set the timer for 20 minutes on my phone this morning and got a good chunk of fibre spun up. It’s much more productive than spending the same amount of time playing games on your phone and that is SO easy to do (and then some).

There was a request for dystopian sci-fi recommendations on Twitter recently and I remembered a book called Wool, by Hugh Howey that stayed with me long after I had read it. Having recommended it I then looked it up as an audiobook and I’m right back in that world, just over halfway through. Quite why listening to dystopian fiction seems appropriate right now I couldn’t tell you, but maybe it’s something to do with the national mood?

I’m hoping to be with mum over Christmas as long as the lateral flow tests keep showing negative and we don’t get told we can’t travel. Whatever you’re planning, I hope you enjoy it and stay safe at the same time.

See you on the other side – my next blog post will be Jan 4th 2022, when it will be marmalade making season again! Kx

Posted on Leave a comment

Cabin Fever

In a rather unexpected twist, I currently have something in common with Prince William (!), in that my wife is self-isolating after being a contact of a positive Covid-19 case. So until next week that means separate rooms for sleeping, no hugs, staying 2m away from each other when we are in the same room and all the windows open – even when it’s teeming with rain outside. I’m rather keeping my fingers crossed that her PCR test comes back negative tomorrow otherwise I will have to isolate as well…

I have to say Sue is coping well with working from home at the moment, especially since the help of the lovely ICT chap linking her up to the school network. It is strange for me though. I’ve been self-employed now for nearly three years, and have been working from home since the pandemic began as all pop-up shops, craft fairs and workshops stopped. I’ve got used to being in the house on my own on weekdays and pottering around to my own (sometimes eccentric) timetable. I’m just not used to someone else being here between 7am and 6pm – even though that someone is my favourite person in the world. Does that make me a bad person? I really hope not.

Because of this spanner in the works to everyday life, I’ve also cancelled my trip this week to visit my mum as I can’t risk even the slightly chance of passing Covid to her. I was supposed to be making my first ever batch of chutney there today – the apples, garlic and onions are waiting patiently at Mum’s for when I can go down, and the vinegar, sugar, jars and other assorted items are sitting here.

One bonus to these changes of plan (apart from seeing my lovely wife for more hours than usual) is that I’ve had more time to get to grips with Excel. What on earth does *that* have to do with knitting design, you may think? Well, the rather excellent course on grading designs that I’m currently taking (have I told you about that?) is teaching me some whizzy Excel tricks. I now know how to use (some!) formulae, lock a particular cell into a formula and I’m gradually getting to grips with CONCATENATE, which is one of the fiddliest things I’ve come across, but which could prove to be one of the most useful. Geeking out over spreadsheets is not something I imagined myself doing as a knitting designer, but it’s so satisfying when it works! See that little line of “TRUE”s along the bottom? That means I’ve got what I was working out right, for each of the ten sizes.

There’s been a really lovely response to the launch of Into the Vortex. Lots of happy knitters, some sharing their progress on social media and some by message. The colour combinations are all beautiful and I’m really looking forward to seeing what they make of Part Two this Friday.

It’s stopped raining, so I think I might venture into the garden now and see how the courgettes are getting on. I’ll report back next week.

Stay safe and keep knitting, K x