So it turned out a little big.

yellow hat # 1

I can't get over how adorable these tiny bamboo needles are!!

Dear Diary, spent the afternoon taking artistic photos of yarn...
















Odd hobby.

So excited with this new yarn! The yellow is a skein of cascade 220 that I'd had around for a while. I picked it up without knowing what I had in mind for it, but I think a hat is in order. The desire to start a hat today led me to the yarn store to get the right size circs, which led me to spy that sock yarn, which is just perfect for the socks I've had in mind. Meanwhile, while the nice yarn store lady was winding those two skeins into balls for me, I spied that beautiful aqua yarn, which is just the colour I had been dreaming of to make a hat out of, before I thought of the yellow. And it was the last skein in that colour! Obvs, I had to have it.

Must go knit now... pictures of f.o.'s hopefully soon to come!

My latest activities

I have been up to a lot of cooking lately. I finished work a week and a half ago and am just now getting into the swing of being off. Today I made these lemon scones, and earlier this week a plum cake:





This was my dinner last night, a pile of boiled potatoes topped with steamed spinach and a poached egg, topped with more Swiss cheese. Delicious! I got the idea from The New Laurel's Kitchen.



Speaking of which, I do miss the regular Laurel's Kitchen. It is in Montreal somewhere with my friend Lea. Rats!

And somewhere in there I finished those socks for my grandmother:



And tried them on, of course. I have also knitted a ways up the back of my stiped sweater, but have no pictures of it as yet.

Progress report

 

Work on my sock continues! I have just turned the heel of the second one. This sock is turning out much better than the first one. I figured out what I was doing wrong with my "YO"s and why the right-hand YO of every pattern I've knit never turns out properly. Well! What a learning experience. I suppose a dilligent crafter would tear out the first sock and do it again properly. What you call thorough, I call crazy. After all, they are just for feet. And an old lady's feet at that, I really doubt she's going to notice the missing holes. Although she might find one foot consistently feels warmer than the other.

I took this photo with my roommate's camera. If I use hers any more often, I'm not going to be able to stand my own anymore. It just doesn't take good photographs, especially of the things I like to take, namely, small objects close up. The clincher was when I set up a shot, and took the exact same photo with my camera and hers. The difference was brutal. I'd better start saving!

Today was a lazy sunday. Dropped some books back at the library, Instead of Education by John Holt and Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander. I had the last one on hold at the library and waited a few months for it, definitely worth the wait. Really hilarious. And Instead of Education was probably my favourite Holt book that I've read so far. He makes so many good points. I don't have any children of my own, but I have seen in the children of a family friend, that as soon as they started going to school, their personalities changed drastically. Do we really want to train ourselves for a life of fear, and competition, and subservience to some self-appointed leaders? The book itself is about schooling, of course, but it applies to most jobs I have known, as well.

Sock in progress, or, Returning to Making Things

My granny's birthday is coming up in July. Last year I knitted socks for my mother and aunts, and she was very interested in them. She knits, but has never knit socks. I thought she'd like her own pair, and her favourite colour is purple. So here they are in progress:



The pattern is Hedera from Knitty. Hopefully the lace will become clear once they are being worn (does one block socks?) but this is as it looks right now, stretched out over my fingers:



I haven't knit or sewn or done much of anything in the past few months. Often I would be sitting around feeling that my hands really ought to be doing somthing. It's amazing how much better I have felt since starting these socks. I bought the yarn Monday afternoon and started them as soon as I got home. The next day I was already thinking of more projects I ought to start, feeling creative and lively again. I hadn't felt like that in quite some time.

You know I just love Brenda Ueland. And she always says that creativity is like a tap. The more you turn it, the stronger it comes. And it's so true. Just start something and it keeps flowing!