February Lady Sweater Completed

After being in the black hole of never ending knitting last week, this week I managed to get the body of the sweater finished by Monday. I then picked up stitches on the first sleeve and thanks to much drama at the school on Tuesday and Wednesday managed to finished the first sleeve. Thursday not much done on the sweater because it was now too bulky to take on the train or come travelling with me. I had done some major castonitis during the last week and I managed to find one of the cables and make a start of a Saskia narrow scarf.

Thanks to some delays with the train system I managed to get a couple of repeats done. When I finally made it home I picked up the stitches on the second sleeve of the Lady Sweater and that was about it before I conked out. Work has been a little mad and on Friday I had the knitting with me all day but did not get a chance once to pick up the sticks. After working today I came home and set myself a goal to knit and finish the sleeve in one night. Whoo Hoo I have knit the lace pattern for that long without going to sleep. All that there has to be done with this now is buttons, blocking and wrapping up for under the Xmas tree.

ETA Photo as requested:

What to knit now?

For someone who has multiple projects around her at all times it was very strange not to know what my next project was. I have a Christmas list and of course I am limited on time but looking at the stash and the list it was a real case of MEH nothing really interested me. I looked at the current lace KAL and went nice but why bother.

Then the daughter came down and did a flounce about her clothes and how nothing in the shops fitting her. I was going to do a dress for her but she has been mucking me about for months now about colour and style so I decided to put that project in time out about 5 months ago. But the last time I had done some dying I had autumn colours and a whole lot of greens. During my deliberation about trying to work out what my next project would be I started winding some of the skeins I had lying around including starting to de-tangle some of the skeins that the animals had tangled into a mess which takes hours to sort. After only getting through one detangle job it was time to find some knitting cause I was getting desperate.

I did not want seams again cause I had been put off after seaming J's waistcoat. Like J, the daughter -Ry is a long stretch in the body. She has broken the 6' mark so we know she is long. Daughter is a size 4-6 but needs the length to cover her belly. Yes we are talking long tall and very skinny. So what is girly, can be knit in the round on circs, not miles of stockingette and has an xxsmall version in the pattern directions. After a trawl through ravelry I found lots of pretty girly patterns, not miles of stockingette but Nope I am not going to do seams again for a long while. Then whoo hoo I found a pattern, it has directions in xxsmall, and it would be simple for me to make it longer to suit the body dimensions of the blonde stretch. So I knit up a tension swatch , check. Count the balls of wool I have , check. Made sure I had read all the pattern directions and cast on the start of a February Lady sweeter for the daughter last Sunday night.

I got the yoke section done the first night if I can keep up to my half a ball a night I will be able to knock this one off pretty quickly so I thought. Monday night started on the lace pattern after a few hickups I start to get the four line pattern sorted in that thick head of mine. Tuesday I skived a little from work and went out to a knitters lunch. The sweater went with me but I did not get anything done on it cause I reckon we talk to much. Then tootled down to Prescot and had a look in the wool shop. Nothing really grasped me there. Hang on shesh I have to do some Secret Santa knitting OMG I had not done the order with Chris... Give a call to Chris ayah home do you want to take some money off me... Well Secret Santa yarn purchased and some for a special item for me. That's my Christmas present to myself sorted. At knit night I think I got more gossiping done thank knitting but a couple of rows got done.

Wednesday did a few rows at work and then when I got home I could not face it all. So what do you do then you cast on another project. That did not hold me. So I cast on another project and then another. But here is the kicker it was not my Secret Santa task or even my own xmas present. Nope I have no real idea what I was casting on but I think that one of them is a thin Sasika scarf and if I do any more on it can be another stocking filler.

So feeling guilty on Thursday I say to myself if you knit 1/2 a ball on the daughter's sweater you can do some work on something else. I did not even get a row done before I fell asleep. Friday again I am thinking do a row and another row when I get a chance. Did a row here and a row there and still not finished 1/2 a ball before throwing it down in a heap. Ok tomorrow you are going to be hanging around at work a bit thanks to the Open day so take the sodding thing with you. A row here a row there and eventually you will break the hold of this black hole were you dont seem to be progressing very far. After knitting in the wind were the breeze was blowing the knitting away from me at 90 degrees and I was so glad of my circular needles I still feel that I had not progressed. Spent the afternoon on the couch but I was snoozing not knitting. This pattern is putting me to sleep.

Everyone comes home from the movies to my snoozing form on the couch and I think ok now you really have to crack on with some knitting. Join a new ball and before bed tonight you need to get 1/2 way. After 2 movies and now on the start of the third movie I am still only a quarter way through this ball. The knit is getting heavier and heavier and I keep dozing off due to the pattern. I am starting to wonder if I will ever get this sweater finished I am not even near the waist yet and I have to get it down to her hips.

Finished Objects

As the coughing subsided the knitting resumed. I managed to finish off the Sasika KAL from the Ravelry Beginners Lace Knitters October KAL whoo hoo another item of the Xmas list. So while on a roll let work on getting another item of the Xmas list. After some lace feast that I have seemed to be on for the last couple of months I was looking for a change.

Ok no lace what do I have on the list - a  waist coat for J the husbeast/silverback gorilla. Yeap I need to start it soon cause it is going to be a long slog any sort of knitting for J is going to be a long hard slog cause of the dimensions of that man. People forget that even with the false legs his body is still the size of man who would have been 6'8" tall. That means we are talking a whopping 72cm from shoulder to waist, sodding gorilla knuckle scrapping length arms and the knowledge that when ever you knit for him it will take a while.

So I cast on the back well we getting along and we are cruising along. If I can get a half a ball done a day well I might have a hope in hades chance to get it done. Surprise Surprise waiting around for kids and soccer match later I am getting along and starting to make progress on the back. Back down. Ok 1/2 done 1/2 way to go. Wont be so bad it will be in 2 halves not so heavy and easy to transport. The downside has been the amount of additional material that seems to be in the Rowan Summer Tweed. For a 80% silk and 20% cotton mix there appears to be a lot of sodding extra material for a commercial yarn. This product also snaps off very very easily and so I have lots of ends to weave in.

But in about 2 weeks I had finished the sucker, if he does not wear it I will probably never knit for him ever again. The last front panel probably took the longest. I took it to work, I took it to school , I took it to xray, and I took it to the doctors. If I could get another row done every time I was waiting round or sitting round I could get nearer to that mythical finish line.

This pattern definitely had a section between the waist band and the armcycle were I thought I was in a black hole and not progressing anywhere at all anywhere and still had a long way to go.

Now what am I going to do next. Does that mean I have to make a decision?

Still Breathing

After getting the lergy from hell and ending up with pneumonia I would like to say I am on the mend. Ok I cant walk very far and I get breathless in my own lounge chair but I am no longer doing that thing where I think that potential of never ever breathing again is a definite possible outcome of the latest coughing fit. I am still sleeping in propped at almost 90 degrees but it means that I get sleep, something I was sorely lacking at several stages during the last couple of weeks. I have been prodded and poked by the quacks and their offsiders to be thoroughly sick and tired of medical personnel. Daughter never share give your mother your lergy the extreme virus from hell with legs on it which knocked her for six again. We share good things but keep a illness to ourselves in future! Yes! A good idea.

Thanks to the lergy which rugby tackled me to the ground I ended up giving up on knitting. Yeap you heard right I gave up trying to knit. But I found that I was

1. coughing so hard that I was dropping stiches of my October lace KAL scarf
2. so weak that I could not do a full row without at rest or two or three.
3. could not walk more than 2 meters without a rest and therefore could not get the next ball to finish of some Auntie knitting
4. was so sick I had to have almost 2 weeks off from paid work which is not good for stash.
5. was still so sick I had to cancel a dye day.....

So at this stage I have not done very much knitting in the last month. I am so far behind on the KAL knitting and I am wondering if I have to order another skein of yarn from Chris so I can finish it. The Saskia is supposed to help with my Christmas Present list.

I feel so guilty about all the sessions I have missed with Students but I really was not up to it. I was silly enough to try and go into work one day towards the end of last week, blame it on the steroids making me think I could do it. After a 1 hour session with a student I went to sleep in the chair at work. Someone finally said to me - We know you are really sick you should go home. I did crawl back into my bed and almost died of embarrassment. How could I fall asleep in a chair at work?

I am now on yet another course of steroids, horse tablet size antibiotics, pain killers and a cough medicine that is so foul that you only want to take it if will soothe your inflamed tissues. During the last two week I even gave up driving , yeap that's how bad I was. Husband shuttle service has been in action and he reckons the x-ray department must know all my details by now. But they have to ask these questions before taking yet another image of the completely crappy lungs.

I am actually thinking about going into work on Monday. It will be 1/2 day but I have to get back on the horse which bucked me and also I want some yarn for my stash so I have to earn some money. Strange concept work = money.

It has also been half term here so I am ready and counting the hours until the children return to school. I think that they are too. It has not been much fun for them having me home and not well but I think karma is great at making an individual pay back. Ry and Rh have both been ill with the lergy and mother duly nursed them through the crotchets and temper tantrums. So looking after mother during half term total karmic pay back.