My computer is very poorly, maybe even dead. This means my only ‘net access is at work and I can’t really use it for non-work purposes so if I’m AWOL for a while then that would be why. In the meantime there should be much knitting to fill the time so watch this space!!

This week’s been a bit of a doozy (and mostly not for the reasons expressed in the past – those of you who know the reason will understand and those of you who don’t, well it’s not something I’m going to discuss publicly on my blog) and I booked today off as annual leave because I knew I wouldn’t be up for putting on a brave face for the sake of other people.

I got a bit of a lie-in, didn’t do much for the general exhaustion I’ve been feeling for the past few months but it was nice to wake up at my own pace. Then, knowing that I had to get out of the house for a bit, I drove to Get Knitted in Bristol (I’d had the foresight to check they had some Malabrigo sock in Caribeño colourway) to get the Malabrigo, one more skein of the Peru Naturals (luckily they still had skeins from the same dye lot as last time), Knit Pros for a colleague and some darning needles in a handle case seeing as my last one seems to have been lost somewhere between Swindon and Cambridge.

Now I have my Malabrigo, there is one thing I have to stick to:

Yarn therapy, for the most part, comes from knitting as I find the process calming (the exception to this is lace). After lunch at one of my favourite eateries in Swindon, Bottelinos, I headed home and within an hour all electricity along the street went out. Now, this was annoying as I had been talking to a friend online at the time and the house gets very cold without any heating on. However, it was probably just what I needed because I traipsed downstairs with my duvet, blanket and knitting and curled up on the settee to knit. Even when the electricity came on again, I decided to sit with my knitting as it helped me feel less miserable.

The outcome of this afternoon, therefore, has been that my Peekaboo mittens have had their ends sewn in and the Beret which is a gift for a friend has been completed in two days. Pictures will be forthcoming as I have to wait for daylight.

All in all, I think the yarn therapy has worked for today, at least.

On a slightly different note, my Christmas present from my brother turned up at work yesterday (well, it’s technically for my brother; I’ve told him he can pay me back for it once his finances are looking a bit healthier):

I’m absolutely thrilled with the Kromski niddy noddy – it’s so pretty. I have been doing a little bit of spinning lately, but more on that in a later post. For now I’m going to try to decide on a sock pattern to try out next (I’m getting a bit obsessed with having more handknit socks) and which skein in my current stash I should cast on with. The only problem I really seem to have is to decide whether or not to decide upon the yarn first and choose the pattern accordingly or vice versa…

I always find it astounding that sometimes it seems as though a knitting project is going to keep going for ever and then, in a matter of days and after a knitting marathon, it’s all finished quite suddenly.

I finally have a new pair of socks. Having fallen in love with the Malabrigo sock yarn in Stonechat, I knew that only a classy pattern would do and I have to say, my chosen pattern works so well with the colourway: