Possibly a bargain

I'm selling everything I own on ebay again because a/ I've got too much stuff and yarn breeds like Tribbles b/ I've got my eye on a pink cardigan from Boden. I've just listed a grab bag of leftovers of lace yarn which might be interesting to someone - if it goes for 99p that's only £4 (including postage) you've spent to make at least 3 shawls and possibly more! That's £1.33 a shawl! And it's still better than it sitting in my cupboard! So just in case anyone wants to make 3 shawls - and possibly more! for £1.33 a pop and doesn't mind not winding the yarn themselves (!!), this is the listing. (God isn't listing on ebay tiring! I am thinking of my empty cupboard. Thinking of my empty cupboard...)

Also, I have to have a root canal replaced on Tuesday (I know. Just don't). Last night I dreamt that I went to the appointment and the dentist tried to turn me into a vampire. Is this a prophetic dream and a warning? It is only recently that I drew the Death card in tarot. Perhaps I should be worried...

Window decorations

This is a window between where I work and the Norfolk Street Deli, which is where I go to get my sandwich at lunchtime.

How shall we make our house look attractive? I know...

In many ways I think it is admirable that the people who live in this house have made a little display for people to admire who walk past. In other ways I secretly feel that spider will escape its case (and escape the fact that it is dead), jump through the glass, and get me by the throat. I still walk past to get my falafel. But I will not pretend I am not secretly nervous...

Go me not buying wool!

Also, you remember in the last post I was not buying any more wool? Doing great there.

The joys of giving up

For reasons I don't entirely understand and despite my questionable past, they have promoted me at work. It is very exciting. I carefully highlight actions in green on the project plan when we have done them and I chair meetings and look at people beadily.

Also, I have bought a suit. In fact, I have a tip for you, and it is the following. For years I have worn carefully co-ordinated and accessorised outfits to work where I have taken into account this season's trends, my body shape etc. Well, what a waste of time that was. You can buy office wear on ebay for 99p + postage and then you just get up every morning and think, hmm, shall I wear my grey suit or my navy suit and you have more room to think about other things, like, shall I buy a pecan and maple plait on my way to work, why, certainly. So in one sense I have given up, but in another sense it is easier. And as in dressing, so in craft.

Tea, crochet, computer. Dan rang up then and Partner passed me the phone saying to him 'it's alright Dan, she's not busy. She's just sitting staring at things'. I'm crocheting! I'm drinking tea! I'm blogging! I'm looking for hat patterns for Dan for Christmas! Partner does not see these things

I have thought about the things I like knitting/ crocheting. I like crocheting mad blankets, I like knitting lace, and I like knitting colourwork. Other things - not so much, however much I may feel I ought to be the kind of person who creates jumpers so alluring they are essentially Woolly Sex. So this is what I am doing.

And do you know what? I'm never going to iron that duvet. It's enough that I wash it occasionally. Every two months, regular as clockwork whether it needs it or not. (I jest)

And I like boring squares patchwork where no-one engages with paper piecing and it is a nice mish mash of patterns. I like it, so I do it. I have given up on self-improvement and looking through Kaffe Fassett books to find complex patterns and then failing to complete them.

I love this candlestick. The fabric for the back of the cushion is from Ray Stitch in Islington. Last time I was in I sent a small ceramic dish of buttons flying and they were very nice about it.

And I like that candlestick even though it is too wide for a spell candle and cost more money than you would think. I like it, so I keep it. I am simplifying. It is nice. All I have to do now is never buy any more wool or fabric and use the wool and fabric I have got. How hard can that be? Wait...

Mid routine

CIMG4161, a photo by uselessbeauty2 on Flickr.

And this is me in the middle of my routine. You will be excited to learn that, although I didn't win, I did receive useful and detailed feedback from the judges. I am a confident performer with a lovely smile but next time I must point my toes consistently and engage with the spinny pole. Oh no not the spinny pole which gives me vertigo! I suppose needs must.

After the pole competition

Photo on 27-07-2013 at 19.24 #2, a photo by uselessbeauty2 on Flickr.

I know this was a while ago but just to show you some photos via Flickr which I can no longer understand since they changed it. This is me afterwards in full makeup still with rhinestones. Why can't you wear rhinestones everyday for work? It is incomprehensible. (I suppose it depends on the kind of work you do...)

Just while I'm on a roll

I'll show you my scarf/ wrap thing I finished recently, too:

If you ignore the manky drainpipe on the left and look at the red thing, that is the rose round my kitchen window

It's Echo Beach by Kieran Foley.

I thought it was a great, inventive pattern and the end result is very effective: but gosh was it boring to knit. In my ongoing quest to achieve Zen, which I have to say to you I am not sure is succeeding (especially after the time at yoga where they made me meditate for half an hour holding someone's hand and I thought I might punch someone), I am trying to be a process knitter and not a product one as I am trying to Be In The Moment. Finishing this thing was the wrong time, however, to decide to Be In The Moment, as it is made of Noro Sekku, which, as I have indicated before, is a yarn spun by the Devil and all his little Minions in the Fiery Pits of Hell. So I cannot pretend to you that this thing made me a process knitter. It did not. I may even have thought at one point, hmm, you can buy wraps on the market...

I consulted with Partner about whether I should bind off early or continue to suffer and he said, cast that thing off. So I did, so it is a bit short but fine, and I am sticking to Blue Faced Leicester laceweight for the moment and knitting something by Boo Knits which is a lot more fun. Indeed, it is so much fun that when I have finished it I am giving it to Christine at work and she is going to auction it in a way I do not entirely understand and the money will go to the Teenage Cancer Trust. And if it only makes 50p I shall obviously be furious and then I shall go and start threads on Ravelry called things like, My Knitting Has Been Undervalued!

Sekku. I swore at every stitch

Anyway. Echo Beach by Kieran Foley (2 dropped-stitch version) and I do love his patterns - a modern reinterpretation of lace - so I am sure I will be taking up the yoke again at some point.

(Completely ridiculous that we get the first hot day for 4 years and I spend it sitting inside crocheting and blogging and drinking tea. Anyway. At least I am able to do it in a vest!)

Trapped in a loop

A while ago I went mad and made a batch of acrylic granny squares which I have arranged and rearranged into various permutations and not known what to do with. At one point I started making the most astonishing wrap you have ever seen, before I decided that even I would not wear such a wrap, and decided the best thing to do was to hide the granny squares in a cupboard where they could do no harm. However, as I cannot ever let anything just lie, I have dug them out again and I am making a blanket.

Draped attractively on the beanbag

Hooray, you may think. A sensible, functional blanket which will get a lot of use, and the white slightly tones down all those garish colours so it is not even all that ugly. What an excellent idea and now a line can be drawn under the whole granny square débacle.

Unfortunately not. Readers, I hate joining granny squares so much that I just left the ugliest ones out and didn't put them in. So there are (the ugliest!!) granny squares left over. No matter! I thought. After I have finished the white blanket, what I can do, is, I can group them in fours and do some kind of a pink border and get a blanket from that.

I wish to state again that I did not choose that carpet

Do you see how you get sucked in? Because then I will have to buy more acrylic to finish off the new blanket, and then I will have ends of acrylic left over, and I will think, gosh, what I should do is crochet some granny squares. As well as training for a 10K and having a social life and occasionally saying a word to Partner and being in the UKAPP thing. Indeed, I no longer realistically envision a life which does not have granny squares in it.

But wait, you say. There is a solution! Just stop. Do not crochet any more after the hideous pink joining-in-fours item. Throw the acrylic away or donate it to the cat shelter as the bags of acrylic you have got in your cupboard, even though it is soft and you like it very much, are not worth more than £1.49 all told: is there not a 12 Step programme for people like you, where you can admit your powerlessness in the face of using up bits? Well, if you were to say this, of course you would be right. I can stop. I can pledge never to crochet a granny square again. But unfortunately, even after the second blanket, I will have one left. One.

Currently kept in check by Mr Gonk. But he has to sleep sometimes, you know

And I do not trust it not to breed like a tribble. What can I do? Take it to the bank and put it in a vault? Throw it in the Cam? Frame it? I must work on my boundaries and my self-control!

(++ last night I ran 5km. 5km!!! Past every pub and drunk person in Cambridge, wearing a tie-dye tshirt and listening to Dolly Parton. I don't think they'll be inviting me onto the cover of Runner's World quite yet).