mumblings

I’ve managed to get on with some Norovember knitting which is super. This multi-directional scarf is a super pattern which really shows off the self-striping elements of Noro. I’m ever so pleased with it. Thanks again to Robin for sending me the pattern – I can understand how knitting these can be addictive.

I’ve also been busy with some Noro Kureyon socks. The colours are so bright I think I’d better get my sunglasses out of hibernation. I’m trying to matchy-matchy these so fingers crossed that there isn’t one of the random colour breaks that sometimes happen in Noro skeins. I could have rolled on and had a look but it is more fun this way.

I realised that there haven’t many photos of the cats on the blog lately. So in best blog-torment mode, I approached them to model the scarf.

Phoebe is the best model because she sits there and puts up with whatever I come up to her with.

Ophelia is also a nice calm model. The colour really suits her

Ariel isn’t as well behaved but I figured it would keep the bald patch on her neck warm.

Is it me or is that a look of complete and utter contempt on Perdita’s face?

I think Merlin may have been communicating with Chaos as he started to run away when he saw me coming towards me with the scarf.

So I had to get my able assistant to hold onto him!

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Just two and a half pairs of socks were knit in Socktober but my excuse is that all my free time has been used up working on the chapter, being ill and being busy busy. The highlighter socks as I’ve named them were great fun as they attracted a lot of attention!

I’ve called these Quantum of Socks because I finished this one in the cinema watching Quantum of Solace on Friday. I’m putting them aside for the moment so I can knit up some Noro Kureyon sock in honour of Norovember.

My other Norovember project is a multi-directional scarf which Robin kindly sent me the directions for after I admired the ones she had knit on her blog. It is a wonderful, addictive quick knit. I still have a lot of editing to do on the chapter before it has to be in so Norovember may end up the way of Socktober but it’ll all be over next week.

Ariel is doing really well at the moment with her concoction of tablets although she is really hungry. We can only give her one pouch of cat food a day because any more would put strain on her heart so it is heartbreaking when she cries for me food which we can’t give her. Apart from that she seems to have put on weight and is most definitely allergic to tuna so that explained why her fur was falling out. Thanks to Jeanne for mentioning allergies to chicken and tuna to me. The photo is from earlier in the summer before she got so ill.

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I’ve had a couple of UFOs hanging around and I had every intention back in January to get on and participate in the UFO Resurrection challenge but after the first couple and with moving and all, I didn’t manage it.

Now Norovember has come around again, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to finish off the Forsa scarf I started last November.

I also started a lovely Casablanca sweater last year also in November which I worked on a whole lot more in June but had to leave to one side as I didn’t have enough yarn to sew up and attach an arm. I knew there was another ball of yarn but I had carefully stashed it away somewhere – too carefully so time went on and we flew off to the US and the sweater was forgotten.

Whilst digging around to see if I could find some waste yarn almost the right colour to finish the thing off, I found the lost ball!

Hooray, it has arms!

I also started a baby bib in September but put it away because it had lots of ends to weave in.
So I got that out and wove them all in.

None of these jobs took very long but it was very satisfying to get them finished off. I am definitely starting to feel a bit better but I know I need to rest up more so I’m off to bed again!

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Thank you so much for your kind words about pao’s op yesterday. If you are curious (and are not squeamish), you can go and read his version of events.

I’m going to post more pictures from our US trip in the next few days but I thought I’d catch up on knitting before that as I finished a whole hat yesterday which was just in time because it was freezing this morning when I went out to work.

This is just the most soft and gorgeous hat. It is made using GGH Bel Air which I got when I called in at Loop last Saturday. The pattern was written by my lovely friend Obsidian Kitten. I love the colour and the lovely lightweight yarn – I’d like to make some gloves out of the leftover yarn.

Thank goodness that it is too big for the monkee!

I think I’m slightly addicted to stripey at the moment. Here is the Kaffe Fassett Regia sock yarn which Robin sent me as part of the Knitter’s Tea Swap 4 all knit up into socks. Thank you so much, Robin!

Last but not least are my Norovember socks. I finished those on Saturday and they are made from Noro Silk Garden Lite. I really enjoyed knitting these and they are beautifully warm.

I am back in London to give a paper about some of my work at a conference in just under a month which I’m very excited about as I have never been asked to give a paper before so I’m planning a celebratory/commiseratory trip to Loop and iKnit depending on how it goes!

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I thought I was on the home straight with the Forsa scarf but as I was on the last 10 rows of the pattern I realised that there was something wrong. I was about two stitches adrift of the pattern. I was awfully tired but I could still see that the ribbing was wrong. I found an odd stitch which seemed out of place at th bottom of the start and thought I could easily weave that in with the aid of a crochet needle. Pah. It just looks wrong – like not right wrong.

I’ve tried to pull out the extra stitches but they are pretty tightly knit so I think my next option is to frog quite a lot. If I have to do that then I might just choose a different pattern to knit. It’s quite frustrating having knit up 2 balls of Noro plus a couple of halves leftover from the mittens. I don’t know if it was knitting on the circs which caused me knitting dyslexia or its being so tired at the moment. Maybe I’ll frog back and try it again on some straight needles as I found the circs were making my hands tired.

Well, the tiredness is getting worse and worse. I had to leave work early (before lunchtime early) on Friday and skip out on helping at graduation on Friday night because I was feeling extremely dizzy and my ability to concentrate was at zero but what really frightened me into going home was the feeling like I was going to pass out as I was wavering a bit. My memory, concentration and energy levels have taken a huge nosedive in the last couple of weeks.

It’s awful because I felt ever so much better by the evening in Friday that I decided to go to Bruges yesterday but today I’m like a great big pale zombie again. Bruges was nice though and I made some new friends from Mexico whom I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I actually felt fine yesterday – I just don’t understand it!

I think I’m going to have to stick to simple stuff at the moment because counting seems to be hard to focus on. I wanted to try to make some Fetching but I’m just not with it enough for those at the moment

I think I’m turning into a cat – they are tired a lot.

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A bit of a jumble this evening. Throat infection is giving me trouble today so I’ve been feeling very grotty since this afternoon. I can’t find the dispersible aspirin I was told to gargle by the doctor after doing lots of tidying on Saturday so will have to sit and suffer until I can get to a pharmacy or pao gets fed up with me moaning and walks up to the local supermarket.

Thank you for all your kind comments on pao’s eye. He seems much better and the pain has eased a lot. Unfortunately, he has been the victim of some sort of hospital mix-up so he is not seeing the consultant on Thursday because the consultant is actually on holiday this week. If pao hadn’t rung up today, he might have never known. I was going to have Thursday afternoon off to go up with him but I probably will cancel that now as there is no point.

pao has built us a fileserver so I can listen to audiobooks and music on this very laptop! Wow! We’ve got mirrored disks and everything

Kathy has been a great Norovember hostess/encourager so far. She has given me some great pointers on where I came acropper on the the Forsa mittens so I’ve decided that I’m going to try the pattern again with another colour. After all, I must need more than one pair of mittens, right? I’m working on the Forsa scarf now but being me, I’m going to work in the leftovers from the mittens as well so it will be interesting to see what I end up with.

Chris encouraged us to show off our favourite FOs. Here are mine:

I made these around Easter time. They are made of Hip Knits cashmere and they are soft and very warm. I like the lacey pattern and they were a quick knit.

Don’t these cats look deprived. You’d think that the sofa is their own!

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It’s getting very very cold here at the moment and I hate it when my hands are cold so when pao urged me to choose some Noro last week, I thought mittens would fit the bill. I have been working on the Forsa Mittens in the Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Book 2.

I sought advice from Ariel – she already has some lovely mittens of her own. I admit I got a bit lost around the thumb area so I made it up as I went along after that.

I finished the first mitten very quickly.

And the second today.

I used Noro Silk Garden in colour 225. It has some lovely greens and purples in it as well as the blues and reds. I knitted from the centre of the skein so I didn’t get as far as the greens and purples. My next project is the Forsa scarf to go with my mittens so I’ll be able to see the lovely greens and purples in that. I confess I am a little puzzled by the instruction “ggr” in the pattern – any one know what that means? I did look in the glossary and the knitting help that Chris sent but haven’t googled yet…

I just love the colours of these mittens – autumn is really beautiful here at the moment. I took this photo on Thursday morning of a tree on the campus where we work. I am waiting for the weather to get a whole lot colder before I try out these mittens as they are very warm

If you needed any more proof that it was getting more than a mite chilly over here – this is what I arrived home to find on Friday evening! The cats might deign to allow us on the sofa if they can sit on our laps to keep warm Even Jasper has started to appear regularly on the chair under the stairs when I get up in the morning and occasionally during the day so it must be chillly!

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I am so extremely lucky to be married to a pao who took me into John Lewis in Kingston (by far my most favourite store because you can get practically anything you’d need in there including yarn) on Saturday afternoon and forced me to pick out enough Noro for some mittens. He then insisted that I buy enough to make a matching scarf. He even bought me the Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton book so I had a pattern. Now I’ve just got to wait for the size 8 DPNs to arrive so I can make a start on the mittens

I also have some beautiful Noro which I traded the lovely Peevish for so I’m all set for Norovember

I wonder if Debbie Bliss December will follow Norovember? I do have some lovely cashmere silk mix….

I’ve had a headache almost all morning which came back with a vengeance this afternoon (painkillers seem to do nothing for it) so I’m going off now to consider the insides of my eyelids rather than organise my trip photos tonight.

I forgot to mention on Friday as I was dashing out the door and being traumatised by last-minute packing/pao being locked in the lavvy that it was Lynne’s mumble birthday. If you haven’t done so already, go and wish her a belated happy birthday and check out some of her loot Happy Birthday, Lynne!!! Hope you had a nice time.

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