Space Craft

Pushkin - RIP

Sad news my friends, my Pushkin has gone. I can't write much right now, I'm still too upset but such is the modern world that it's easier to tell people here quickly rather than lots of calls etc.

I'm not sure what happened to him, the person who found him thought he'd been hit by a car. He looks beautiful still though, just like he's napping.

Work were great and let me leave early and the bf has finished his work early to come and be with me.

It's really weird though because I'd seen a friend's kitten - she'd had problems finding a home for it - on Saturday and had fallen in love with him. I'd had these ideas that Pushkin would teach him to hunt, but it's not to be. I'm still going to have the kitten - he's going to be called Oscar - but I'll still miss my Push.

Pushkin snoozing on my daybed back in 2007

Urgh :(

I've been feeling unwell since Wednesday and have some sort of nasty cold thing. It started off as a bad stomach which kept me up at night and was then followed by a cough. The cough has become worse and I'm now in the streaming nose, head jarring mode and I want it to be over pronto!

I have too many things to get done, people to see etc. I already had to cancel going out for drinks tonight with friends I haven't seen in ages. I just want to be rid of this thing so that I can get my energy back. Cooking dinner took about an hour and a half today - one hour of which was spent trying to get enough energy to go downstairs to the kitchen and cook it :(

Roll on better health before Christmas please!

I have been knitting, honest! Oh, and new edition of KnitCast on way :)

I've not done a great deal of knitting this year at all really. A lot of things went on hold while I was packing and moving house, plus for a while I couldn't actually find anything! Actually, I still have trouble finding things. The craft room is full of boxes.

I went to Stitch & Bitch on Thursday and while I found a project in progress to work on - Top down raglan by Cosmicpluto Knits! in Blackforest Naturwolle #73 Magma with a seed stitch border - I was very nearly out of yarn. I found another skein but couldn't find my umbrella swift. I did find my ball winder but not the clamp that fixes it to a table edge so I had to wind a ball with a skein around a back of a chair while balancing the ball winder on my knee. As you can imagine, it wasn't that successful and I had to stop and rewind the ball halfway through. The ball isn't the tidiest wound but it's ok.

I got a bit bored knitting though. It's something that often happens while knitting something top down. I love the practice - and 95% of my garments are knit this way - but I do get bored halfway through. Jeni finished her February Lady Sweater, also a top down raglan, a few days earlier, and I fell in love in with it when I saw it. I'm now desperate to knit one. Maybe I can force myself to knit some of the seed stitch one in reward for knitting some of the FLS? I think that may be an old ChicKnits trick.

Before I forget, there's a new KnitCast on the way. It's all done, I just need to upload it which will involve plenty of swearing since me and RSS don't get on. But it'll happen sometime over the weekend.

Oh, I'm also on Ravelry as KnitCast and am addicted already!

 

How long does it take to unpack a house?

A lot longer than you'd think, or, at least, a lot longer than I thought.

I had assumed, maybe that should be presumed, that it would perhaps take a few weeks but I hadn't counted on two factors. One being just how much assorted crap I had managed to accumulate, two being laziness. You see upon being faced with the enormity of the task in hand I found myself opting for the "do anything else" or "unpack only what I really need" options and watching the telly!

In other news, the downstairs of my house is relatively unpacked now since I had some visitors last weekend who needed space so that they could sleep. However, upstairs is jam packed now with boxes and other crap :(

In further news my dental crown came out Tuesday night thanks to a toffee. If I'm really unlucky dentist says it'll cost £300 to put right :( I'm hoping the alternative cheaper options will work. I currently have what feels like Polyfiller type putty blocking the "enormous hole", that's a direct quote from my dentist, that the crown was filling.

Good news - I will be going to the Knitting & Stitching Show next week :) And, I'll be recording some interviews for KnitCast. No, really, it really is returning to the podways. So that means I'll be curing RSS feeds all over again! Oh joy...

House Moving Stress!

I'm moving house tomorrow which is a combination of excitement and extreme terror. I feel woefully unprepared and there have been some things at the new place which have needed/will need fixing.

On the plus side, the new neighbours seem nice! And there should be room for all the yarn!

I get internet access back on Wednesday hopefully.

2008 update & the return of KnitCast

A little update on what I've been up to so far in 2008.

I spent some time going back and forth to Scotland this year because I was seeing a guy up there but that fizzled out. All the while I was also still looking at houses in Cardiff. I had started to look at the area in which I grew up because I had a better chance of affording a house with room for all my yarn there ;)

But then a few weeks ago after several reports about the fall in house prices I decided to look again at houses in the part of Cardiff where I've lived for the past fifteen years. I thought I'd have a better chance of being able to afford one there now with the market being so bad and my not being in a chain. So one week I started looking at houses and on the Friday of that week I saw a house I liked. A week later I looked at it again. Last week I put in an offer which was accepted. Now of course it's early days still because mortgages take a while to come through and it may not work out. But I'm trying to remain positive while still being realistic. And also while planning how I'm going to decorate!

KnitCast news now - the podcast will return in July and it'll be the edition that I recorded in New York last July. I figure that gives me enough time to settle in the new place and get into some kind of routine.

I've also been struggling with a nasty cold bug this week. I started feeling unwell about a week ago and then was very ill over the weekend. I was supposed to be grocery shopping etc. and see some friends on Sunday but I was just too ill. Even the thought of shopping couldn't tempt me! I'm still not a hundred per cent and also have a nasty cough but I hope I'll start feeling better soon. I think I've just been especially run down and that the stress of buying a house hasn't helped at all.

And so far I've hardly even mentioned knitting. That's because I just haven't been knitting recently. I do want to cast on again soon though. There's a ball of Kyoto by Art Fibers in Orchid on my coffee table that keeps calling out to me so I hope to knit that soon. I'll be casting my eye for patterns for summery cardis with cropped and short sleeves I think.

Back & Barcelona

Not the most original title but I am hopefully now back to blogging more regularly than I have been in a long time,  plus I am back from a trip to Barcelona!

Pics from my phone of la Sagrada Familia

Our hotel was only about ten minutes walk from Gaudi's famous church which after over a hundred years is still under construction, and which some say may never be completed!

It was only a short trip but it was still great to get away. It was my second visit there, the first time was over twelve years ago, and I saw more of the city this time. We took the open top bus trip which I'd recommend to anyone wanting to see the city since it's good value at 19 euros for one day or 24 for two days. But don't make our mistake and think that you have to buy the tickets before you can get on the bus and then spend ages looking for somewhere to buy the tickets! You can buy them right on the bus.  There are three routes, we took the red line first and went to Park Guell where I made my only purchase during the trip, aside from some duty free, a model of the famous mosaic dragon that greets you at the park entrance.

We also spent a long time in the Museu Picasso.

This was also one of the first times since I began to knit that I've been abroad and haven't bought any yarn. This was for a couple of reasons - number one being that I don't actually need any more yarn really and number two being that since we only had one real day there there just wasn't enough time. Maybe next time.

I'm serious about the no yarn buying though, these days unless it's for a particular special project, I rarely buy yarn unless it's really special. In particular the experience of moving house over a year ago taught me that I have a lot of stuff! I'm not going to cease buying yarn altogether of course, don't be silly!, but I do have to do some destashing.

Yes, I'm Ok! Really!

In response to a recent comment left for me, I'm fine just really, really busy! I still have things in my old house which I've not moved over yet, my house hunting plans are on hold because of the current market climate so I have no room to put anything! This means decluttering! And I'm a hoarder so that takes a long time!

I recently set a deadline of trying to get it all done by September. But a few days illness last week have held that up and in addition to that of course there's my day job, trying to fit in seeing friends and my beau of course. So all in all I'm very busy! I don't know when the KnitCast NYC special will be finished, I'm hoping next month but my packing takes precedence and I'm sure you're all understand :)

Back in Old Blighty

This is a bit of a whoops post, since I forgot to blog that I was back home! I arrived back in the UK on Saturday morning and have spent the weekend, Monday and today readjusting to British Summer Time. Tomorrow I'm back in work, ahhh the joy of the first day back after vacation!

I do have yarn to photograph and post, I just need to borrow a camera for the task.

More blogging soon plus an NYC edition of KnitCast in about two weeks time, possibly earlier depending on how I'm set.

Oh and I've finally updated my age in the sidebar! Had my 35th birthday on June 16th and yes I did have a yarn present! :)

Oh My, NY

Well it's my final night in NYC and I've had a fab time! far too much to write about right now since I have to pack my cases, but I've met some fab knitters and made some great friends.

This trip was quite a big deal for me since for one thing it was a much needed vacation, but it was also the first time I'd ever travelled abroad on my own.

Tomorrow is my last day in the city and I fly back in the evening arriving back in the UK early Saturday. I still hope to get some shopping done tomorrow though :) including another visit to the Japanese bakery that Stacey introduced me to. I have to pick up some chocolate covered green tea cakes...