What I made, by Sharon

Our numbers go down, and our freedoms very gradually go up. We are now allowed to meet with small numbers of people, outside, in public places. Shops, restaurants and all that are still shut, so I've still got a lot of time at home for the knitting and the reading. And I read a  very good book this week, Why Birds Sing   by Nina Berkout. I got a review copy from NetGalley, but it is unreservedly one of the best books I've read recently. Focussing on an opera singer who is having career problems, it brings together a band of misfits, who help each other see what they need. It reminded me of Bennett Sawyer's The Hard Truth About Sunshine , but was less contrived. Nina Berkout handles her material well, never mawkish or overdone. I don't know a lot about opera, and that didn't detract from the book. And now I knit more than I ever thought I would about domesticated parrots. All in all, a thoughtful, at times sad, sometimes uplifting and overall very satisfying book. I...

I finished Kathy's tea cosy and blocked it and was going to post about it yesterday, but the day got away from me. We took the day off work to celebrate the all the scaffolding on our side of the building being down, so I thought I would have loads of time, but the day was somehow really busy, what with sleeping in and running and going down the street to pick up a beer, cheese and wine tasting.  The tea cosy went pretty quickl y,  once I final ly got the hang of the pattern. I finished it, and very carefully sewed up the top and bottom. I put it over one of my smaller tea pots to block, but I was quite worried. Kathy's tea pot has an odd shape: And the bottom of this was tight, so I was worried that it might fit but not stretch to get on. Eventually I pulled out the bottom seam and put a button on, so she can undo it to get it on. Knitting something to fit from pictures and dubious measurements is a little tricky, but I can adjust it when we go to see them, which w...

This week has been odd because life in general has been quite nice - good weather, COVID numbers going down, a general sense of wellbeing, but the knitting and reading is a bit shaky. Unusual. In knitting I put aside Leon's Jumper on Friday to make a tea cozy from my Mother-In-Law Kathy. I figured it would be done on the weekend. Well, it was struggletown for me. i couldn't get the stitch pattern quite right, and then I thought I had it, and it looked all right, but was not quite right, and not easy to work. I did some ripping, and re-hooked it and now it looks good and is nearly done. But I've only got the measurements she texted me, and there is not a lot of stretch in this so I'm worried it will be too small. I'm also worried Leon's jumper will be too small. i had him try it on the other day and it's quite tight. he said he likes it, and I think the swatch grew, so I guess I'll persevere. What a drag. In reading, I'm still reading John Birmingham...

It's been a good weekend, although a bit odd. It's Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and normally I would be spending time with family and friends. But I met up with Elise at the shops on Friday and we got a coffee and sat on on a bench (who would have thought that would be and feel like a privilege?) and she gave me some honey cake. Then this morning Arthur, my brother, messaged me and brought over a honey cake and some other treats. so I feel very loved. I started the weekend by dyeing some yarn for the upcoming Westknits MKAL. I'm pretty happy with how the speckles / colour ca me out. Here's what I think it my f inal c hoi ces for the shawl. H opefully it will work out well. In any case, it will be fun. I decided to  put down Leon's jumper for the weekend and crotchet my mother-in-law a tea cosy. It's  a bit nerve wracking, because her tea pot is not a standard size. I'm using this super cute pattern, and it's taken me a while to get the hang of the pa...

I finished my " Nether Garments" last week and they were one of the most fun things I have knit. Stripes, largely using my hand-dyed yarn and growing very quickly all make for a very fun project. I used (what I thought was) the Russian join , but I did it without a needle. While there was a bit of end clearing up to do it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. I think I went a bit overboard with the waist - if I was going to make these again I would definitly shorten it a bit, and I would keep the striping going throughout the waist area. The main thing is though - these are wool leggings. I wear a lot of leggings made from fancy made up fabric like "luon" and "luxtreme" and "performance"  and "embody active" and just plain old lycra. Those leggings sit very tight to the body, and then stretch enormous. Knitted yarn is different. It bags a bit, and sags a bit and drags a bit. But it's warm and comfortable and old fashioned...

The lockdown is very slowly easing easing. Now we're allowed to go for two hours exercise a day, and sitting in the park counts as exercise.  And I just got back from a run down here (masks are only off because we were running): So life feels pretty good. I started a jumper for Leon on Monday. It's just a simple top down raglan, free, from Tin Can Knits.  It's got a couple of nice details, and I dyed the yarn myself, so that's always fun. And I'm reading the first Axis of Time book, by John Birmingham. It's a time travel novel and I don't normally like time travel. If you recall I was listening to his excellent Zero Day Code series. I started reading his blog. I've always had a fondnes for John Birminham, his He Died with A Fallafel in His Hand was one of the seminal books of my youth. So when I discovered he was on Patreon , I decided to follow him there too. But he was near the end of serialising the last Zero Day Code book, and he messaged me (!)...

We have another two weeks of stage four lockdown and then a graduated release, where things only really start opening up on the 23rd of October. I'm in a very fortunate position - I like the person I'm living with, I have time consuming hobbies, both of us still have our jobs, I "see" my friends regularly through Zoom. But like everyone else, I've got a touch of lockdown fatigue. I've done all the things I wanted to ( new kitchen , new dining chairs, redecorate my living room as a tropical lagoon ). I've got great knitting projects lined up and a lot of good books to read. But everything feels really routine and blah. So this is what I'm doing to make the next 2 months fun: At the beginning of Stage four we contacted Nath, from Enfer running and got him to program a months worth of run training. Because he's Nath, he programmed to (what was meant to be) the end of stage four - today. We didn't have any actual goals, but it got me running regu...