Week event pile-up

Sometimes things just pile upon you. I'm not talking necessarily bad things, but just how you happily coast along quiet weeks when nothing happens, and then suddenly all the events and occurrences of the month happen in the same week. I am in one of those weeks, and I find myself almost wishing that it was next Monday (Monday, people, Monday!), as that marks the beginning of what will hopefully be a normal, quiet week.


I have been squeezing some knitting time, in a (probably misguided and futile) attempt at keeping me sane. Most of this knitting time has happened during my work commute, but as a result, my Pluto for Planet Woodland Shawl (ignore the silly name) is coming on. I probably knit about half a pattern repeat when I took it with me on holidays, but now it's finally starting to prosper.

I have also been doing some crochet: I've finally carried on with my GIR, after deciding that I wanted to start with 6 stitches instead of 8, and I've reawaken the tachikoma, which I'm making up all on my own. Smithers was a big fan of tachikomas, so I figured it was about time I continued with it. Even if he can't see it now.

ABC-along catch-up: R & S

I'm not very good at this regular blogging business, right? I'm trying to catch up on the abc-along, and then hopefully there will be some real posts. I haven't done a lot of knitting lately, mainly reading (and then repairing my computer when it crashed and needed a completely brain wipe, then a new graphics card), but I'm back on track.

R is for rug

I know most of you have seen my old living room rug, because I take a lot of knitting pictures on it! It was a nice cheap rug from IKEA, which served us well, but we wanted to replace it with something on which the spilled wine wouldn't show as much.
And now I have a new rug!

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S is for Seafood soup

Continuing on the food theme, S is for seafood soup.
Ingredients (serves 2)
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1/2 tin of chopped tomatoes
- ~250 g mixed seafood
- 100 g fish (we use the "fish pie mix")
- 1/2 pint chicken stock
- ~75 ml white wine
- butter
- herbs (basil, thyme, marjoram, oregano)

Melt some butter in a pot, and slowly heat the onions and garlic until softened.
Add the tomatoes, stock, a small glass of water, the wine and herbs, and simmer for ~ 25 minutes.

Add the seafood and fish, heat up, then simmer for 6-8 more minutes
     
Serve with nice bread and enjoy!

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Finally, S is accidentally on time for Smithers. Smithers was one of my friends from university, who died this week after being hit by a bus. He was knocked unconscious immediately, so at least he did not suffer.
Smithers was a very kind and gentle person, incredibly intelligent, and with the type of enthusiasm that is contagious and actually makes things happen. We are all a bit more poor with this loss. I have accepted his death on an intellectual level, but I haven't yet truly understood what it really means. The concept of Smithers is no longer alive is too surreal to understand.

In the last week or so, I...

- went to the Last Night of the Proms, and it was a lot of fun
- spent some very nice days in Lille, eating an awful lot of melted cheese and drinking wine
- have barely knit anything, but read lots
- rested a lot, and feel almost human (hurrah for 10 hrs of sleep a day!)
- started therapy again, but I can't tell how it's going yet
- managed to badly crash my desktop
- have moved onto my very old, very wine-stained laptop
- am about to go see District 9
- have become even more insane and plan to finish my Hanami stole in two weeks (did I mention I'm only a bit past the half-way point?)

The blog silence continues

Tiredness sucks. And makes everything worse. I'm sure with time it will get better, but for now going to the gym (40 min gentle exercise) leaves me even more exhausted for 2-3 days after each visit.

I'm starting this evening (in 20 min!) my much-deserved holidays, so hopefully a lot of rest and nice things will recharge my batteries. There will be pictures when I come back!

Bluerose socks (FO)

Yesterday I went to the local CFS clinic. This was a very scary trip for me; I've been very tired for the last 15 months for no obvious reason, and while I really want to know why, I did not want to have CFS.
Turns out that I don't (I don't fulfil enough of the criteria for it), which simply means we still don't know what is wrong with me, but I needed all my strength, and wore my Bluerose Socks to my appointment.
Let's talk about socks now!

Technical details
Ravelry project page
Pattern: Blackrose socks (Knitty|Ravelry)
Yarn: Organic Cotton Sock yarn, by YarnAddict Anni
Needles: 2.5mm dpns
Notes: Very quick pattern, and very easy repeat. I really enjoyed making these socks. The heel was fun to turn.
The yarn is an absolute dream, unbelievably soft. It does shed, though, and my toes were fuzzy and blue when I finally took the socks off. But it doesn't matter. I want to fill a bathtub with this yarn and bathe in it.

I used a modified version of Under Dutch Skies' Anatomically correct toes, but without actually tracing my feet. I decreased 1 stitch every other row on the pinky side until I had done a quarter of the decreases, and then decreased 1 stitch every other row on the big toe, and 1 stitch every row on the pinky. There were some adjustments on the decreases to make all the decreases fit nicely on the length of the toe, but that was the jest of it.
     


My socks and I are ready to go to work!