Today is an overcast, blah sort of day in Dublin. The walk from the train station to the office found me feeling overtired and a little sorry for myself (insomnia, how I hate you) but things improved from there, I’m happy to say.
My flytrap flowered!! The office has been an insect-free zone for a while now, but it’s still doing well. If I was feeling particularly philosophical today, I’m sure I’d find a lesson in that somewhere…
The unofficial theme of today seems to be flora. Not all of it faring as well as my pot plant though.
I mean, seriously…
who doesn’t chuck out their (real) Christmas tree until it’s almost March? I can be a total lazy packrat myself, but that seems just a little excessive to me. It did give me a giggle and a WTF moment, so that’s an upside I guess.
The theme of sorting out my stash is continuing (despite little progress in the actual knitting department over the last day or so) and there are a few things that I’m at a complete loss as to a use.
Elann laceweight
This stuff, for starters.
It’s Elann baby lace merino. Wonderfully squishable. Some of my longtime readers may remember me doing a race to the finish (which I swore blind I wouldn’t let happen) to get it knitted up into wraps for my bridesmaids last year.
It was my first laceweight purchase, and I totally underestimated the huge amount of yardage you get with even one 50g ball. I have about two and a half skeins (1372m/ 1500yds, for the record) left over out of my four skein order, and I have no idea what to do with it. I contemplated the Fountain Pen Shawl from the Spring edition of Interweave Knits. Given that it’s black laceweight, I fear that I may go blind and mad if I attempt it. Am I being silly? Or is there some project out there that would be perfect in this yarn that I’ve missed?
Speaking of IK…I’ve been a subscriber for a couple of years now, and in general I find that the Fall edition is my favourite in the year, while the copy that drops through my letterbox in Spring is probably not going to contain anything that I’d knit for myself. For my personal taste, I just find that it has in the past been the weaker of the four magazines.
Not so this time! There are several patterns that I’m absolutely itching to cast on (Connie Chang Chinchio, you rock my fricking socks off) and the big colourwork piece that I normally bypass even got a proper read through.
There have been some unhappy rumblings in the IK subscriber camp for a while now, and it seems that they have really taken reader feedback on board. If only all publications did - I’m really delighted!
I’ll be flicking through my copy some more as I sit with a needle in my arm this evening. I’ve had 4 text messages from the IBTS over the last week asking for blood donors to go in urgently and to bring a friend if possible. They need 300 more donors to make their quota for this week, so if you’re an Irish reader and you are physically able to give blood, I really encourage you to think about it heading in.
After that, it’s Guinness time!
Pretty, and pretty cold all at once.
Yup…it’s another Urchin, by Ysolda Teague.
Pretty groovy, huh?
