stupid contagions

What is it with Spring?
Something about all the flowers, the greens, the cool nights and warm days, the sweet-smelling breezes and longer daytime... everyone around me gets hay fever and I come down with Startitis. There seems to be a bit of this going around.
I had been doing so well. Was really quite faithful to the black-shrug-o-doom. Had to frog back cause I realised the pattern was be-cucked and decided it was going to be way easier if I altered the gauge a little and just worked from the chart for the lace... and worked the rest out for myself. So I am much happier with the project but was still deluding myself a week ago that I could finish it for, err, today. On about Tuesday my hands started to cramp up from being too faithful to one needle size and... I admitted defeat. To be fair, Taph had reached the conclusion that I couldn't do it in time a lot earlier, but was graceful as always.
So... the sensible thing to do would be to finish it, right? get it out of the way? keep plugging away at a sensible rate?
Fortunately, I have never been accused of being sensible. "Completely barking" is the way it's usually phrased, I believe (bitches bark too, y'know).
So, flush from the "release" from a deadline... I've been covetting many projects. I tried to restrain myself, knitting only my bus socks and my Casablanca top (started 3 weeks ago when we were going on a car trip and I couldnt face the socks and didnt want to get coastal grit in my cashmere). And I did quite well. For me. Finished one sock and got halfway down the leg of the second. Got about halfway down the bodice of Casablanca....

And then I cast on this. I could kick myself if I wasn't enjoying it so much! It's the Starburst Sweater from styledbykristin in Patons Jet (yes, I'm knitting alpaca blend in warm weather - give me a kick!)
I at least have faith that once the funky lace patterned back bit is finished I'll probably lose interest for a while. But for now, I'm rather enjoying myself.

If i can just focus on these four projects and not cast on the other 40 I want to... I might actually finish something before Christmas!
Oh, and stop spinning...
Happy weekend!
Peace out,
Ms Spider xo

assorted nonsense

Well, in a round about sort of way, I spent my weekend cleaning and drinking.

After the week back at school, Friday afternoon started with a few rounds of drinks at Tilley's with my co-workers... and sort of went from there. Monkey came and collected me, plied me with gluten-free treats from Deeks and then took me home to imbibe some more. Foolish child has still to work out the physiology of this Spider and was rather dismayed when one took oneself off to sleep at about 8pm. (Sleep was somewhat disrupted nonetheless, due to morons next door having very loud, drunken and boring conversations at the crack).

On Saturday we voted. YAWN. Then Monkey went off to work and I started to prebble*. The prebble became a full-blown clean and took up pretty much the whole day (I may be avoiding doing some marking). Beautiful friends and pseudo-relatives came around at about 6 and an evening of food, wine, board games and fibre-fun ensued. Much better explanation here.

Sunday was spent in a slovenly state after a very rude youthful magpie went "miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss" out in our garden at about 5.30 (and yes, strangely like one of my students) until I gave up on sleep and got up and... cleaned up the mess from the night before.

We also moved a few shelves around so the bunnies can be housed inside from now on. There are some neighbourhood cats that have been hassling them and Monty in particular gets very grumpy about it. They are still getting used to the new set-up but it is so far successful.

And I sorted out my earring collection yesterday. I think it's the teacher thing for me. Being relatively young, it's kind of hard to wear age-appropriate clothing that is not too revealing or innapropriate. a lot of the time I wonder if i look like lamb dressed as mutton, if you know what I mean. So... I guess I get my unconservatism on via my ear-wear.I'm rather proud of my collection, I only got my ears pierced when I was 17. I really like them to BE things, like fruit or animals or objects... there has been a good deal of recent movement, I blame etsy. I now have cats, rabbits, hello kitty, grapes, cherries, toadstools, watermelon slices, pea-pods, pears, upside-down flower pots, teapots, plums, strawberries, apples, daffodils, lady-birds, flowers, birds, 8-balls and cue-balls, fish, butterflies, buttons etc. It's rather nice.

Now I have exposed yet another side of my crazy to the world. Soon there will be nothing left! just a jumble of yarn and earrings.

Peace out,
Ms Spider xo

*prebble : a word my late grandmother used all the time, meaning to clean 'lightly' or superficially. Shoving all your toys under your bed so your mum would let you watch tv.... that sort of thing.

slight lapse in concentration

Well, I go back to work tomorrow. I don't think I will ever get over the shock of how fast a holiday disappears, I am amazed every time.
As usual, I did not get half of what I wanted to get done, but have decided to think about the time passed in terms of achievements.
In no particular order:

• I finally managed to buy some new clothes that a) fit and b) don't make me look uncannily like a pig in a wig (I have still to find a bikini that doesn't make me resemble an egg with two rubber bands around it, but one step at a time). I now have more than one pair of trousers that fit and a couple more tops. This is a yay.
• I 'accidentally' joined facebook. Was not pleased with myself but have now managed to track down some people I haven't seen for years, so there's a silver lining. And not just people I have deliberately not seen for years!
• I spun a lot of yarn. I finished the laceweight Merino/Silk in Octopus' Garden. This is a 2-ply, 1200 metres to 130g, with the glow you only get from silk. Yes, I don't mind admitting I am disgustingly pleased with myself over this one. Took forever, and I think it will become this year's summer lace project. This is some BFL/Soy worsted weight 2ply (colourway name long forgotten, it was a fibre-club installment, anyone remember?). And some Optim/Bamboo Navajo aran weight, Bilgola. Oh, and some Merino/Angora (95/5) aran weight, navajo again, Big Top. And some more BFL/Soy navajo, this is about an 8ply, Boutique Skies 2. Let's just sum up by saying that the new wheel Crispin (thanks again, Naomi) is getting plenty of action, as it were. All fibre, care of the lovely Mandie at EGMTK.
• Some knitting happened. The Merino/Angora Big Top became a hat very quickly. It's the scallop-edged hat from 101 one-skein wonders - very cute pattern! Nothing else worth flashing really, and the black-lace-shrug-o-doom got partially frogged and re-worked. We're not thinking about deadlines over here, ok?
• The olds returned from Europe this morning and, far from being shattered from jetlag, are actually quite perky and about to show up on my doorstep. Odd really, the day before they left I dyed my hair red and now, 6 weeks later, i have almost an inch of regrowth and barely any colour left. (Is that rapid hair growth, btw?).
• My skin went to Hell in a handbasket. No explanations for that one, might be a reaction to a new, gluten-free diet?
  
• TSS had her gorgeous opening of Playing House yesterday and managed to look remarkably serene through the whole palarva. I do not know if this was genuine serenity or the kind of punch-drunk serenity that sometimes comes over one when one is secretly convinced that there is nothing bad left to happen, but either way I was impressed. The houses were too. The whole event was faSHinating.

Monkey, the buns and I are quite well.
Hope the last two weeks have been enjoyed by all.

Peace out,
Ms Spider xo

PS. Monty says "Hi. Are you food?"