This week I are bin mostly...

It’s raining, cold and miserable. Ick.
And I haven’t blogged in ages. Sorry about that.
I don’t really have an excuse. I got half-way through writing a post about something or other, but got way-laid. So, here I am.
This weekend, being one with nothing “booked” in it was scheduled to be Christmas shopping. But, I booked into the hairdressers first, and that took longer than anticipated. However, we got some prezzie shopping done. I still have to think of something for my mum and sister, and for Leon. I’ve bought two things for him so far, well – three if you count the thing he knows about!
I usually enjoy Christmas shopping, though town was even busier than normal. And we were paying a darned fortune for parking! I decided to pay using my mobile, you just text vast amounts of information to this number and they debit your bank account. It’s quite a good method, except that they cheekily charged extra! Poo.
The good bit, though, is that they text you when your parking is about to run out, and if you reply you can extend it; which is handy if you’re in the middle of having a cuppa at the time!

Anyway, other than getting a new hair-do (->) and a bit of Christmas shopping, I also bought some yarn. I bought seven balls of beautiful praline coloured rowan pure wool aran. Okay, it’s brown. It’s for the “Manly Sweater” for Leon. I thought that I had enough of the contrasting colours (Ivory and Sage) but it turns out that I need two balls of the ivory, so to make sure that they’re the same dye-lot (it’s very slightly off white) I’ve had to order two more. Still, I’m sure I can think of something to do with a ball of almost-white pure wool aran weight yarn! :)

I know, I am not meant to be buying any yarn until the S&C in Harrogate, but I do like to have the yarn I want for a project. I’m planning on casting on my Urban Vest as soon as I finish the last of my Christmas knits (although I really should go back to Gypsy Socks first) I’m also inspired to knit more gloves.
My sister asked for gloves rather than mittens for Christmas, (she’s the only person who has asked for specific knitted items!) and so she’s getting some. They’re in a really funky colour (I’ll be updating the finished items blog en-masse after Christmas with all the gifts I’ve been making!)(If you’re on ravelry you can see the yarn already) and I’ve used the pattern for Web Generated Hand Knit Gloves by the Knitting Fiend - she also does socks and the like. Anyway, I am really enjoying knitting the gloves - I’m up to the index finger on the first glove (so I have not just four dpns but also three stitch holders and a stitch marker in play - I’m considering an extra stitch marker too to mark the beginning of the round on my 9-stitch finger!) I’ve been intermittently trying them on (no pun intended) and they’re slightly too big for me - by only a teensy bit. I figure that’s good though, as my sister has slightly bigger hands than me. The cuff is big on me too, but I have unnaturally skinny wrists! So, I’m confident that they’ll fit; I like the simplicity of the pattern and I am seriously considering making a full hat-scarf-glove set for myself, if i can find some suitable yarn!
I’m currently lovingRowan Tapestry, it’s 70% Wool and 30% Soybean Protein Fibre. You get 120m per 50g ball and its tension is 22sts and 30 rows to 10cm on 4mm needles – so I guess it’s basically DK. All the balls look so nice, and I think would make lovely gloves. I’d think about doing the Argosy scarf from knitty. They did it in Noro, but I think that it would work in Rowan Tapestry. However, the gloves are plain old stocking stitch, so a posh scarf might be a bit much – but all that in just stst would be sooooo boring! Hmm. I guess I could add a cable or something to the gloves, and then add the same cable to the scarf and hat. – eek, we’re back into design-it-yourself type territory! But I do enjoy that, hopefully the Gypsy Socks will be a testament to whether I’m any good at making up my own patterns (sort of) or not. Taking a basic pattern and embellishing it is not really designing, is it?

Well, those of you not into yarn will probably be bored stiff by now.
In other news… umm. I do have more craft news, but I guess I’ll save that for now.

We went back to the gym yesterday. I now ache. Anyway, it was actually not bad. My cardio sucked, but then we haven’t been to the gym for a month! (Except for Pilates) I plan to go either Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

Thursday this week is the bi-annual Pub Treasure Hunt! Woo! Bad Data will once again be competing in rounds of dressing up, drinking, answering questions on random topics, and collecting treasure. We usually score about mid-table, though we have in the past won the fancy dress part of it. Depending on the organising team we could end up carrying large fruit items, balloons or eggs and have to find monkeys, light bulbs, photos and the like. The theme this time is “stereotypes”. One could argue that any dressing up contest is usually about stereotypes.
In the past, Bad Data have dressed as:
Batman Villains
Pop Idol Judges
Captain Scarlet
Wacky Races
Dukes of Hazzard
Witches and Wizards
Highwaymen
And now… The French.

I was hoping for a more interesting theme, but still… sadly “geeks” had already been taken before we entered. Shame, how could any team make better geeks than programmers? Oh well, I bet the team doing geeks will accidentally end up dressing as nerds – haha, then we’ll laugh. Ahem.
Really though, we’re being the French. Complete with berets and striped tops. I haven’t yet decided whether I’m going to wear the ‘tache or whether I’m going to try to do “la resistance” a là ‘Allo ‘Allo.
But, I will be taking the camera, so look out for the pictures!