Made in Clerkenwell

Today I went to Made in Clerkenwell, a lovely craft fair, with Hoxton Handmade and Travelknitter, and we briefly ran into Estieknits too. I brought my camera, and then I didn't take photos. It was a building full of great open studios, with lots of beautiful jewelry, sadly beyond my price range, some knitwear, and some housewares that were also quite tempting. There was a bookbinder, and I did get Rog a little notebook, but that was my only purchase.



I don't mind though, because it was inspiring to be there and see all the colours and textures and shapes. Also walking up five (six? there was a -1 floor) flights of stairs provided some much needed exercise.

Since it's that time of year where all knitting is Christmas-orientated, I'm afraid I can't show you any pictures. The CPH is coming along nicely, I'm 30% done with it. The other things I'm going to knit as gifts aren't even on the needles yet. Rog's sweater is on hold as US gifts have to be knit first. I'm thinking of making a xx for my mother and some xx for my brother-in-law, Paul. We keep buying xx to include in the package for my sister, and then we keep xxing them with xx. I bought some grey and green Cascade 220 (hard to tell the difference in this photo!) to make leg warmers for my yoga teacher. (I know who's reading this and who's not)



And finally, I leave you with a portrait of rog & I doing what we do...

Still procrastinating...

But one Christmas present down...



Off to finish (yes, it's half written!) my article. And can I just add how amazing the internet is? I was vaguely remembering a quote I might want to use as an intro, from one of my favourite books, The Interpretation of Cultures, by Clifford Geertz, which I of course left in NYC along with the rest of my books. So I just googled his name and what I could remember, and there it was:

"The strange opacity of certain empirical events, the dumb senselessness of intense or inexorable pain, and the enigmatic unaccountability of gross iniquity all raise the uncomfortable suspicion that perhaps the world, and hence man's life in the world, has no genuine order at all--no empirical regularity, no emotional form, no moral coherence... The effort is not to deny the undeniable--that there are unexplained events, that life hurts, or that rain falls upon the just--but to deny that there are inexplicable events, that life is unendurable, and that justice is a mirage."

I don't think it'll work for my article though. Sigh.

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before

I am so stressed out right now. Here's what I have to do over the weekend:

1) Write an article - the writing will be easy; the getting myself to sit down and actually do it will be hard. Actual work: 1 hour. Work including procrastination: roughly 10 hours.

2) Work on a case study. Same issue as above. Actual work: 1/2 hour. With procrastination: 2 hours.

3) Come up with two diagnostic tools. This will be a little more challenging, as I'm creating them more or less from scratch. Therefore, potentially more fun as well. Actual work: hard to say. With procrastination: well, as it's not due til Tuesday, I'd say I'll start working on it Monday evening. Possibly Tuesday very early in the morning.

4) Give some concrete shape to an idea I'm thinking about. I've been procrastinating on this one for over a year now, so...

The problem is that I can't combine all the procrastinating: each project needs its own procrastinating time.

Now if I only I had something that I could procrastinate with.

Enter the lovely Christmas card I got from the PO yesterday. They informed me that any shipping to the US that I need to do must be done by 5 December, if it's to get there on time. Is it a coincidence that I found out I must knit all weekend if I'm to make this deadline?

Speaking of which, here's what I've been up to since last I wrote:

Phildar pull for me:



Cobblestone pull for rog:



Noro scarf for lily:



Some lovely shadows on my wall:

Busy, busy

I have a cold. Yuck.

We went for a walk along the thames a few days ago. The light was absolutely beautiful - because we're so far north, and the sun was setting (at around 4pm!), it was very lateral, and it gave the buildings across the thames these amazing golden highlights.

It was almost as if London were posing for a postcard:



I ran out of wool for my druid mittens, and it's knitpicks wool, and it's a colour I got years ago and they don't have it anymore. You'd think I'd have checked that before starting. So now, unless the one other person I found in Europe on ravelry who has some feels like parting with a skein, I guess I'll have to start all over again with different wool. Poor me, I will have to go and buy wool.



I had to frog the first (messed up) mitten to finish the above part of the second mitten, and I guess because I'm using such small needles, two skeins weren't enough.

Anyway, it's not like I'll have time to work on those mittens til, say, the 26th of December, because I have a lot of Christmas knitting to go. I just realised there's only 6 weeks left, and I haven't even begun!

I'm going to make the cobblestone sweater for Rog.

Any hints for how to avoid the boyfriend / sweater curse? Or does that no longer count once you get married? I still think of him as my boyfriend though.

What a relief!

All I can say is: what a relief it is that Obama won. What a relief.

Goose; golden eggs

So, it's around 9am, Saturday morning. Rog is lying in bed with a pretty bad cold, and he says, "you know, what I could really use is hint hint a really warm woolly sweater to make me feel better."

Just then, the doorbell rings, and there is a delivery. It's this:



That's right, a huge bag of wool. It's wool I ordered over a month ago from New Lanark, that seemed to have gotten lost. And I had ordered it to make Rog a sweater. Also some other christmas presents. I got quite a lot!

I'm hoping he can apply this newfound skill to other things. Like, "you know, what would really make me feel better right now is £1,000,000." I'm ready to answer the doorbell when it buzzes.

My autumn-y outfit today: