SP12 – Q' of the week! (23 June 2008)

What is (are) your favourite place(s) to knit?
Gosh, that’s tough. I guess the most social place I knit is in a local pub every other Tuesday with the York Stitch n Bitch. There are usually a handful of us there, and the pub we go to (Brigantes) serve lovely fruit beer!
Otherwise, I like to knit in front of the TV, or in bed! I knit anywhere that I’m comfortable really.
If the weather was better I would like to sit outside in the sun to do some knitting too.

What supplies (besides yarn & needles) make the setting perfect for knitting?
I like to have a cup of tea, though if I get engrossed I end up with a cold cup of tea! Generally I have a nice blanket (sorry – not one I’ve knit, yet!) and something mindless on telly so I can concentrate enough on the knitting. I have the box-set of Sharpe which OH bought me for Christmas that I’m working through, but anything which can be “watched” without actually having to watch is good. On a warm day I might replace the tea with a gin-and-tonic, but only the one!


So, more knitting news, I’ve been continuing the monkey sock. I’m part way through turning the heel now. I still love the yarn and the pattern! I have been writing down ideas for another self-designed sock pattern, but I don’t know when I’ll have time to knit it, or what yarn I will use. Perhaps when I have a go at the Kool Aid dying I will use some of that. Before I do that I want a niddy noddy though. And I probably need to clean the kitchen.

I have also finished the back of the Urban Vest. Well, the stitches are on hold as it calls for the three needle bind off. Also, it has me cast off the neck part and then pick up stitches for the collar. This seems silly to me, so I’m leaving them live like I did on manly. I think it will be fine (though I don’t think I can do that around the V at the front, which would be easier, wouldn’t it? Sadly, some of it is vertical – no stitches to leave live) though I am playing with the idea of not using casting off as my method of decrease at the V. I think that the pattern calls for me to cast off one stitch at the v edge every so many rows. I was wondering whether it might look nicer if, once I’ve divided for the neck, I simply decreased with a left leaning decrease on the left side of the V and a right leaning decrease on the right side (as you look at it). That way I could slip stitches along the neckline for picking up, which might be neater. Also, then I can decrease on the same rows either side of the neck.

I’m off to the gym tonight. I’m feeling pretty good about the gym-going at the moment. I have accepted the fact that I’m not going to get any lighter if I’m building muscle. I am instead measuring myself with my tape measure. Before I began at the gym I wrote down in a notebook my hip, waist and bust measurements. Each time I complete one of the phases I will write down the new measurements. As I’m not making it to the gym 3 times a week (I think we average about 5 times a fortnight, which isn’t bad) that’s not too often to get measured. I do think that I’m still eating too much, and too much rubbish too. I tend to have a chocolate bar or crisps which I think is my main downfall. I have weetabix in a morning with a good helping of fresh fruit at the moment (strawberries, raspberries, now blueberries and blackcurrants, all from the UK!) and I have sandwiches at lunchtime (two rounds of seed-crammed bread, usually meat, often salad) and we have reasonable sized dinners. Either my idea of a reasonable dinner is actually unreasonable or there’s something funny going on.