Knitty love and Crochet hell

I can't believe it's been a fortnight since my last post.Various things have kept me away; Blogger, the camera, lack of writerly mood, the lack of excitement in photographing Icarus - stunning, and so exciting, but at the moment it's really just a clump of lace knitting on circs.

But mainly my hand has been giving me trouble. It's been tingling, and 'nerve-jumping' for a while, causing me problems with knitting [gah!], keeping in touch with friends [email & texts] and gaming. All of which has made me blue. Honestly, I don't know how people can just veg out in front of the TV and do nothing - tried it, and turned into a crabby person within 2 hours.

I mentioned my plan to restrict my knitting/gaming at work. My colleague said 'yeah, don't knit for a week or so, that should help'. I meant I wasn't going to knit for 24 hours. A week! A full entire endless week with no knitting *shudder* Not possible.

So I did everything else. Swapped my mouse over, adjusted seat, monitor etc. a-la University workplace guidelines, stopped slouching and sat up in my seat. I've walked lots [over 12000 steps the day I walked to K1 Yarns after work] in attempt to 'fix' the twinge in my back which is probably causing the hand strain.

Everything is feeling a bit better now - I haven't felt the tingling for a few days. Clearly my sedentry hobbies are not helping. The fear of being unable to knit or game appears to have motivated me to take exercise where every other motivational tool has failed. I don't care about floppy muscles or an inability to run to catch the bus.

I DO care VERY MUCH about being unable to knit though...



Thought I'd try my hand at crochet ... the top attempt began as a rectangle and ended up 'freeform' to get used to the crochet actions.

My second rectangle - a pair of lips! ... I started using stripes in a vain attempt to ensure I was using the correct 'v's with my hook. My 'v's are drunken and slope off to one side - I have no idea why this is so. Trying to work it out caused me to flip a bit though... I tried to demonstrate to the boy how knitting is the art of giving one pointy stick a stitch with another pointy stick, whereas crochet seems to be jamming the bluntest part of a hook directly into the fabric causing much yarn splittage and expletives.

The inability of the boy to understand and help led to further rage and a call to my mum; who offered to show me next time I visit [I'm sure she can't wait!] When I can't grasp something I tend to get all rage-ful, stressed and cross, which doesn't help. I learned knitting via the medium of rage, and it seems to have worked though ...

The thing that makes me cross is that this is my great-granny's hobby. And she was brilliant at it. So I feel like it should be built into my genes somehow in the way that knitting is. Hopefully soon I will be able to present an actual rectangle, that I can read and see the rows and stitches in, rather than a wooly mess.

I have been in the land of pattern-reading of late, since I wasn't able to actually knit much. So I bought a few mags, browsed the web and found some lovely patterns to add to the catalogue of Works in the Queue.

Toe-up sock pattern from Interweave Knits...

Summertime Tunic, also from Interweave Knits. You know the patterns you look at and just 'know' - like Central Park Hoodie? Well this is one of those - and there's even a KAL. Whoop! Love it. Love the simplicity of the pattern - this is a meetup pattern for sure.

Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton's funky Colinette jumper from Vogue Knitting - I adore this so much. Priced it at Colinette - £74!! Perhaps this will just stay as a picture then ...

In Oxfam I found this total gem of a Patons pattern book from the seventies;

I really want to make the jumper in Christmas green with white and red reindeer. I'm thinking Home Alone - the American Christmas with everything festive and themed - I need a Christmas jumper. The hat and mittens are a bit overkill though - esp. on a beach in summer....

This intarsia pattern is delicious - it was a man's jumper that was so vile Blogger probably would have rejected the image so I cropped it so that it wouldn't detract from the beauty of the pattern.

I love this librarian-type 3-quarter sleeve top - too cute!

Look at her retro serene-ness - the sleeves are fabulous!

And a final shot of the area where I live [next to Hampden Park, Glasgow] during the UEFA cup final. Both Spanish teams had to come to Glasgow to this weather, poor things.