Knitting (finally!)

And, yes, finally I'll blog about knitting! I ended up staying in Lincoln with Mum for longer than anticipated (almost 3 weeks after the op.) after both of us caught a tummy bug from my nephews. Which was really pleasant 10 days after a tonsillectomy! Anyway, I'm on the mend now thank goodness and actually felt human yesterday for the first time in weeks. Thank you for all the comments, emails, prayers, fluffy vibes etc etc!

Anyway, someone at least had fun whilst we were at Mum's:
I got most of Noa made whilst waiting in the hospital and finished her off at home, but forgot to take a photo before I lent my camera out!

This is Devan blocking:
This is the 1-2 year size but has come out bigger than the measurements in the pattern! I did do a gauge square too! Weird. The blocking mat is a table-top ironing mat with elephants on that I got from Lakeland Limited to take with me to uni. And before anyone wonders why I took an ironing mat to uni, I was really quite weird (especially during my first degree!) and did do quite a lot of ironing until I realised that there were more fun and interesting things to do.

I chose some buttons from Mum's button collection. These are all recycled and have come from clothing that was too worn to be mended or to go to the charity shop.

This is Devan finished.

And the back view! The yarn is all Opal 4ply - the patterned one is a Rodeo colourway.
It was on 2.5 and 3mm needles. I did the gauge swatch on the 3mm needles (the pattern wasn't very clear) but think it might have been better on the 2.5mm! Still, Dylan will grow into it at some point! It felt like a quick knit as I didn't seem to have it on the needles for very long, but bear in mind that I wasn't really doing anything other than sitting and knitting in front of DVDs at the time!

I'd enjoyed making the Mermaid sock for myself (see earlier post) so decided to make some for my SIL for Christmas. (My pair is now on hold!). One Christmas one is now complete and the other is halfway there. I thought the yarn was quite in-yer-face so did the heel with the plain blue used for Devan!
The yarn is Regia Stretch Colour 4ply in "Fantasie" colourway. Mostly knitted on 2.5mm needles with 2mm ones used for the heel. The pattern is from Lucy Neatby's "Cool Socks Warm Feet"


And, I've been thinking about taking a blog break for a while now. I've actually quite enjoyed having time off when I was in Lincoln and couldn't post regularly. Blogging is starting to feel like a chore, and it's meant to be fun, and I seem to have read quite a few blogs recently from people who are thinking about taking a break or stopping blogging altogether because the same thing has happened. Looking back, it's quite encouraging how much my life has changed since I started blogging about 18 months ago. Then, I was only working 1-2 days a week (from home) and finishing my MA. Now the MA is done and dusted and I'm working full-time and away from home most of the time. I'm finding that my time is more limited (not in a bad way, as I'm doing loads of things now that I enjoy doing, and I love my job, whereas before I was sat around at home all the time), I've got a full-size house to look after (rather than a tiny flat!) and friends I want to spend time with, as well as knitting to do, books to read and things I want to cook. And I use my laptop at work, I don't want to be sitting in front of it in my spare time too!

Soooooooo, I don't want to stop altogether, and I don't want to set a date and say that I'm not going to blog until then. I'm just going to blog when I feel like it, and sometimes it'll be short and sometimes long and woffly. So, I'd suggest, that if you're really that keen to read my wofflings and don't want to keep checking back here, it might be an idea to add this blog to your Bloglines or Blogrolling sub!