Wot I did in October!

No knitting pictures tonight as I've lent my camera to a friend so that she can take pictures of her knitting. These cups and saucers and the sugar bowl arrived yesterday, I couldn't resist them, I love the Tara's harp design and I hadn't any other crockery with the gold inside.

As usual at the end of the month I'm reviewing my knitting achievements, it's mostly been pretty dull scarf knitting, with the odd bit of more ambitious work.

Finished this month, 6 scarves, one sock to make a pair and the back of the lime green V neck toddlers sweater. I'm half way up the back of my chunky jacket, I started the yoke this evening but only done two rows so far. I'm about 3/4s of the way to the neck of the V neck sweater and I have 3 scarves nearly finished.

I'm not sure what I'll achieve in November, but I have a schedule (or at least a cunning plan) for finishing off a few items, I can't promise too much, but the plan is to finish the lime green top, a cable tunic baby sweater that I abandoned a while ago, 3 scarves and as much of the chunky jacket as I can manage. Please don't anyone put any money on my possible success or failure - I have a terrible tendency to get distracted on cast on more things before finishing WIP's.

Quick knitting (and quick blogging)

The next fluffy scarf has grown a bit today - I managed to get some bus knitting done on both journeys today - despite my morning bus breaking down half way to work! I've entertained myself drawing up a schedule of knitting to get everything finished that I need done by Christmas, I'm not confident that I'll succeed, but I've carefull planned to do some work on projects for myself in between gifts, I'm hoping that will help to keep me motivated!

The bright green grows slowly, 35 more rows to the armhole and dividing for the V neck, the aim with this one is to reach the shaping by the weekend and do that in one great chunk. If I can do that I have hopes of getting it finished in the next week or so after that, it's planned as a Christmas gift for a friend's child, if I get it done I'll at least be able to cross one thing off my horribly long 'to do' list!

Progressing rather slowly

Despite assistance from kitten, who has also managed to knock a stool down the stairs in the middle of the night, I have managed to get some knitting done. The back of the jacket is now 2 100g balls knitted up, I have 20 of the 80 rows to go to the beginning of the yoke. It's dull knitting but good for TV watching.

The bright green has grown a little bit further, I'd hoped to get the front done this month but that just isn't going to happen. Last week was a bad knitting week, all I manages was simple scarf knitting although they at least progressed nicely and I'm whizzing my way through my stash at the moment. At this rate I'll only have yarn to last me until I'm 86 not 87 years old!

Knitting delayed

I didn't entirely stop knitting today but I had to switch to scarf knitting for a while as Hecate was sleeping soo peacefully!

How can I disturb a cat who is as contented as this? She and I have spent a day quietly together, she's been short of my attention for the last few weeks so I've been making it up to her today, as a result she has been much calmer and happier, rather unlike the toddler tantrum throwing that she's resembled this week.

I have managed to rescue my knitting for part of the day and am 3/5ths of the way to the back yoke of the jacket, I do occasionally like chunky knitting, it grows so much quicker than 4 ply!

Something for the weekend?

The purple peril is finished, and it's mine, all mine, well, it would be wouldn't it? Seeing as it is purple. It's actuually a deeper more regal purple than it looks in this light, it just has a couple of ends for me to sew in and then it's ready for the onset of winter. The pale pink wil be another Christmas gift for some unsuspecting soul.
Tonight is my TV watching night, Simon Schama on "Art" (definitely in quotes) then Steven Fry with QI kitten and I snuggle up on the settee, she sleeps and I knit. She seems to have worn herself out yarn stealing all day and is in affectionate mood tonight.

Drat

I had intended going to the Trafford Centre knitting group tonight and meet my sister, the plans came to nothing when we found out just in time that the wretched place was having it's Christmas lights turned on this evening and the place would have been a variation on purgatory. I'm disappointed though as it means I've not seen my sister after all.


The chunky jacket rib is finished and I've done a few rows of stocking stitch. It's only in cheap acrylic but it knits up quickly and I'll be able to wear it around the flat rather than put the central heating on. I know the flat never gets very cold as it's very well insulated and my downstairs neighbour has her heating on almost constantly in winter.

The colour shows up much better in this picture. I'm reckoning that even if I don't get the knitting finished before it gets colder it will keep me warm while I knit it!

Not scarves!

I thought you might all have had enough of scarves, so I'm showing you a small Arklow plate instead!


This plate is very nearly as old as me, and I'm feeling VERY old today, it's been raining very hard today and that always makes me feel tired and old!

I've been cutting back on buying yarn lately, but I couldn't resist these two balls of sock yarn, I ordered a copy of Yarn Forward at the same time but it hasn't arrived yet, I'm told it's very good so I hope it turns up soon.

Another scarf

The advantage of having a number of scarves started is that you get regular finished ones! This one will be added to the bag I'm filling up for my neighbours to choose from. I know that the eyelash yarn is drifting out of fashion but they still like them for various grand daughters and I'm steadily knitting my way throuhg the stash of cheap yarn that I bought in the spring. This must be a good thing as my stash is somewhat out of hand. I'm hardly buying anything new now unless I get a request for something that I can't shop for in the stash. One advantage of knitting scarves on fairly lareg needles or knitting chunky yarn is the speed with which the stash gets eaten up, unlike the 4 ply bright green effort or my sock yarn!

Evil

You Are 54% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?

I couldn't resist doing this quiz, I'm not sure how many of the peopple that know me would agree with this assessment of my character though!

A bit of this, a bit of that

A small dish, one I hadn't seen before arrived today, I've cut back on my collecting lately, a couple of people are bidding stupid prices on eBay at the moment so I'm contenting myself with picking off small items that they don't bother with, it's a cyclic thing really, people come shop for a while then get bored. It's been a sad day today for me, my senior manager at work retired, I'm going to miss him badly (although I knwo he reads this blog for news of Hecate so I won't be TOO gushing). Also I heard from my friend that her cat is very poorly so I'm worrying about him as well.

This scarf will be for me, it's an old discontinued colourway of Cosmic, I think Neptune, I made a scarf out of it last year and gave it away but promised myself that one day I would have one in this colour some time. The photograph is almost true to the colour, it's a bit like oil on a puddle of water, knitted up on 6mm needles it gives a loose drapey fabric that I like.


I bought kitten a new toy today, a catnip fish with a bell attached that I've attached to a door handle, she may not be friends with me but she's enjoying it!

Fluorescent green again!

It's growing, even if rather slowly, but I've done more housework, a few more rows of chunky rib and several rows of several different scarves. I've three scarves nearly 2/3rds done now, I'll have a selection for my neighbour to choose from, although a couple of them I may keep for myself.
Hecate has spent a large proportion of today on top of the bedroom door airer, she's sulking because I put a new flea collar on her yesterday, it's a nasty smelly thing but more powerful than the previous one I tried on her. She was open to bribery however, I roasted some chicken last night and she had a small amount today, she loved me then!

Some knitting and yet more kitten!

It may not look like much progress, but this is half the rib of the back of the jacket. I've been busy washing socks, cooking, cleaning and sorting through junk in my bedroom, so I haven't done very much knitting and the kitten is disgusted with the disruption.

This scarf is finished, I think I quite like it now, but it reminds me of snow which is a bit of a chilly thought for October in Manchester. Much to my disgust the local inhabitants here were setting off fireworks at 1am today, I'm not impressed, and nor is Hecate. Nest will be tiny children banging on my door yelling 'Trick or treat' or 'Penny for the guy missis', I've stopped answering my door in the evenings until after bonfire night.



Given that this cat has the choice of endless soft and comfortable places to sleep, can anyone tell me why she chose to sleep up here for an hour today?? My apologies to anyone who objects for the fact that one of these pictures show her 'rude bits' but I couldn't resist recording what seems to me to be totally bizarre behaviour!

Never enough WIPs!

Sometimes Hecate looks like this, this is the look of a cat who has decided she prefers fresh salmon to the kitten food flavoured with salmon. She's been sulking because I went to work today anyway, she took the opportunity to unwind half a ball of wool.

The top of this picture is part of yet another scarf, the bottom half is the remnants of the ball of wool after kitten played with it, this is unusual as its only acrylic and she normally ignores that.

She is capable of looking very affectionate and loving, she was purring like an ancient engine in this picture, curled up in the crook of my arm and rapidly giving me pins and needles.


Yet another part knitted scarf - I have a pile of these that sit in the drawer of my desk at home, whenever I want a break from the computer I knit a few rows, it makes knitting garter stitch scarves slightly less tedious!

This, is a sign of an unhinged mind, with all the UFO's around my flat I cast on the back of a chunky jacket from a Woman's Weekly, I even knitted a gauge swatch first - that is seriously out of character but I'm substituting yarn from my stash for yet another yarn only available by post and costing more money than I can afford. I'm not sure how quickly this will get done as I'm knitting it big and baggy deliberately, I want it to wear around my flat this winter and if it isn't finished I'll still be kept warm knitting something this big!
I have a mountain of housework to finish off this weekend, but fear not, I'm far more likely to knit than do it.
Wibbo, I wish Hecate learnt from the experience of falling in but she doesn't, at least once a month she seems to land in it. sometimes with me in there and sometimes as I get out, then she runs around the flat dripping with water and then tries to hide under my duvet.
Melissa, I think it's an occupational hazard with cats especially if they bond closely to a human, I used to have 3 cats but only 2 of them were closely bonded with me and they both used to wander around my bath and fall in.

The bath supervisor

Most of today will be pictures of Hecate - I've been meaning to post a pictorial explanation of why she falls in the bath so often and as I had a day off I took the opportunity to get a series of pictures of Hecate and the bath full of water. I've managed to rescue the scarf she pulled off my needles, at the fourth attempt I finally cast off this scarf in Zeus coloured Cosmic.

I've made a little bit of progress with this today, and a kind friend has taken some packages to the Post Office for me today, parcels with socks and sweets have winged off in different directoins. I've been engaged in cat flea destrcuctoin today, hoovering, washing bedding and spraying everywhere. It's ironic that Hecate brought them home from the vet and I've been fighting a very slow battle against them. It's meant that I've not joined in SP9 as I couldn't be sure of not sending fleas on to anyone, the recent parcels were all checked carefully and taken to work for a week before checking again and posting - I'm somewhat paranoid about this at present, I'm almost sure that the new spray will finally get rid of the last few though.

This is Hecate leaving the picture because the door bell rang and she wante dto see what was happening!

This was arriving, cup, saucer and plate to match a bowl and another saucer and plate. The rest of the pictures are Hecate supervising my bath, illustrating her fascination with water and bubbles.

Best laid plans

You should have seen a finished purple cosmic scarf here, I had a few rows to finish and the casting off (bear in mind this was the fourth knitting of the scarf as I had problems with the yarn and dropped stitches)I had to shut Hecate in the bathroom briefly to keep her indoors when my brother dropped some shopping off for me, in revenge she attacked my knitting while I was cooking tea, the scarf has bitten the dust for the fourth time and kitten is not my friend! I'm hoping that I may manage to pick the stitches up tomorrow in good light but it is most unlikely, I've failed the previous three times!
Thank you, and good night!
PS
Anyone want a kitten?

Several pictures at least!

First, we have a small shamrock bedecked cauldron, the Arklow collection grows, even if rather slowly!

Next we have 800g of pretty cheap ribbon yarn that I picked up for a work colleague, I think it's planned to become shawl type confections although I'm not 100% sure. It's safely in my back pack for travel to work tomorrow, together with a box of goodies that just need wrapping and labelling and then will travel to Germany, hopefully setting out before the weekend.

I finally finished something, a number of feet of fairy vomit scarf, I'm glad to be shot of it and will give it to my neighbour to inflict on one of her young relatives at Christmas and return to my bright red scarf - I looked it up and find the colour is Icarus, I assume in honour of his flight too near the sun definitely red hot!