Ta-da!

Ta-doh :-(
Never knit when you're tired. Something went horribly wrong near the top of this between bedtime on Friday night and Saturday afternoon at mum's, so I spent all last night pulling out and re-knitting. Just when I thought I'd sorted it out, I noticed that the second and third rhs triangles (up from the rib and next to the lacy bits) didn't go to a proper point, like the first one. So now I've pulled out two thirds of the work above. Grr. Perfectionism is a curse.

Makes you wonder though, maybe Penelope wasn't doing her best to remain faithful to Odysseus, maybe she was just a neurotic weaver.

I'm so excited!

I 've just received an appointment for a transthoracic echocardiogram on 2nd March!

moth-er feckers

I've just had to sew up three holes in my favourite cardigan. Three!

knitting is the new valium!

I know this because I lasted until 21:15 at mum's tonight quite happily! If you're concentrating on K1, sl 1, psso, you can't also be thinking oh no, not that story again, this is the fifth time in twenty minutes, I'm so bored, when can I go home etc., etc. Result - I get to smile and nod, mum gets an appreciative audience to hang around for longer so remains in a good mood and the knitting itself generates new topics of conversation. Of course this probably means I'm going to have to find the knitting equivalent of painting the Forth Bridge to prevent relapse. Hmm.

Bumhug

Got the results of my chest x-ray yesterday. Apparently everything looked normal. Feh. The 'good' news put me on a downer for the rest of the day. What the hell IS wrong with me? I'm still knackered etc. but with no definite explanation yet. If the cardiologist doesn't find something, don't know what I'll do. I have wondered about depression but surely the Prozac is treating that? It's certainly getting me through the mum minefield without meltdown. And then there's the loud heart murmur which must be due to something amiss.

Maybe its all in the mind. Maybe I'm sick of looking after everyone else and just want to be cosseted for a while myself. Maybe I want to escape to a hospital bed and do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL without feeling guilty about it. Its 08:57. Maybe I should go to work now.

its not easy, this knitting lark

I'd nearly finished the back rib when I noticed some major mistakes so had to pull it all out and start again. Now I've finished the rib and 2 rows of the beginning of the pattern and will have to work out and write down how the rest of it goes before I can complete the back - why don't patterns tell you row by row what to do, instead of a couple of cryptic lines about repeating a, most of b and miss out c? If I get stuck, I may just have to scan the pattern instructions and put them up here, for all you experts out there to interpret for me!

It snowed last night! There's a 2" blanket of snow everywhere and it has just started snowing again, very small flakes so far. Yeay!

One day later........

Back to the drawing board. I misunderstood the pattern just as I'd managed an impressive few inches of perfect fancy panels and had to pull it all out again because I couldn't work out which stitches to save. I'm writing the pattern out again, row by row, so it will be easier to follow. Sigh.

new leaf

Right. I have given myself a proper talking to and am going to stop feeling sorry for myself. Well until there's something to feel sorry about anyway. If! I meant if!

I have bought a pattern, wool and needles and I am going to knit myself a raspberry red waistcoat (for work). I haven't knitted anything since the children were small so that's at least a quarter of a century ago! I'm hoping it will turn out all right as I have a grand plan - to become competent enough at knitting that I can do justice to some of Annie's beautiful fibre. It will also give me something to do at mum's while she's off on one, must just remember to stick corks on the end of the needles.

Here's a funny thing, for the first hour or so of knitting, the thumb, index and middle finger on my left hand (I'm right-handed) went all numb/tingly. Seems to have stopped now. Weird.