Fibre as a drug?

I've been thinking more and more that fibre really is a drug. I know there are lots of 'crack silk haze' jokes around the blogosphere, but I've begun to seriously think that this is certainly, at some level, true for me.

For a start - fibre really f***s my body up. I would not have had such bad RSI in 2006 to the extent that I was essentially crippled for most of the year without fibre, and would not now be in a state of 'pain management' if I gave it up totally.

I'm trying not to think of what my joints will be like in the future - I think I'm depending on scientific breakthroughs occurring within my lifetime (and sooner rather than later ;) ).

And I certainly have the addiction that obsession brings. Thankfully I've learnt my lession over SABLE (Stash Acquirement Beyond Life Expectancy) in the past with a different obsession (which proved to be a rather nice money-spinner on ebay over the past couple of years as I got rid ;) ), so I do deliberately attempt to not go overboard with fibre purchases.

But I do think I get withdrawal symptoms. Or rather, that working with fibre relaxes me to the extent that most other things don't tend to. Case in point: I have been working 7 days a week, all hours that I'm not sleeping (yes; I've been overdoing it), over the past month or so. I admit, I have been a tad stressed. The closest I've got to knitting was looking at buttons for my Fairly Easy, and taking my Swallowtail to university on Friday, knitting 8 stitches, then tinking them and putting it away as although my 'free time' is Friday afternoon when I help run a common room, there's slightly too much chatting going on to be in the complicated P5tog lace knitting mindset.

This week has been less stressful: importantly, I realised that I can't do everything, that I'm trying to do way too much, and to cut down. And I also made time (admittedly at the expense of other things which I hope won't turn round and bite me) for spinning. I spun 3 bobbins up over the weekend - one on Friday, one on Saturday and one yesterday.

I feel so relaxed! Importantly - although I let things slide over the weekend to spin instead, I don't feel ridiculously worried now that I 'wasted' that time and will never catch up (which I did last weekend when we went to the cinema and I cried on the way there that I was wasting valuable reading time and the world was quite clearly going to end).

I've been working with some fibre from Woolfest, it's very pretty:



I don't know what it's going to be. I made absolutely no attempt to pay much attention to my spinning - as long as it wasn't too thick or too thin and was holding together. It's definitely got a loooooot of slubs in, but I wasn't aiming for consistency. I initially thought it could be singles, but after filling one bobbin I realised I still had about 75g left (out of about 100g), so I'm going to go for two skeins of 2 ply I think.

Let's just say, I'm aiming for a surprise ;)

Do knitters dream of, erm, sheep?

I've been having really weird dreams, just before I wake up, for the past couple of weeks. Most have been along similar lines, but this morning's was a bit bonkers, even by my standards:

I was knitting the first clue of the Secret of Chrysopolis stole (which BTW I haven't started) and was using a striping varigated yarn in various pastel + orange shades (you know me - this would be unlikely)... and instead of beads (which SoC does not call for anyway) I was using small pieces of breaded mozzarella cheese.

Yes, I was knitting cheese into my stole.

I was then worried that when I nibbled all the cheese off the stole (like those sweetie necklaces one can buy) I'd be left with gaps, and I'd have to find some sort of snap-style bead that I could fit into the strand instead.

Um.

Hats at Midnight

My pledge has just closed! We have 39 signers, which means a minimum of 44 hats for Innocent! And since I've made 10 hats (I pledged 5) I hope there'll be a lot more to add to the hatometer!



(I hope the title of this post excuses the rubbishness of this photo!)

For anyone who has made a hat, you need to get it in the post ASAP so that it gets to Innocent by October 22nd. Write the number of hats on the outside of the envelope and send your hats to:

The Big Knit
innocent
3 The Goldhawk Estate
Brackenbury Road
London
W6 0BA

Other pledgers have sent me photos of their hats too, and I'll post those up on my blog soon to share the glory!

Tired now...

Where did all the time go?! - refrain

I have had absolutely zero time for blogging recently. I've basically had zero time for pretty much everything, but luckily have managed to squeeze in enough time (during mandatory breaks) for some mini-hat knitting. I do have some posts in mind, some updates, some mythical photos... ;)

However, in the brief break I've found today between preparing tea*, putting it in the oven and waiting for the buzzer to ping, I checked my email and discovered my ravelry invite has finally arrived! I'm not planning to list everything - certainly not in the next few weeks! - but I may use the 'queue' feature.

I've not used any 'social networking' site before, so I'm not entirely au fait with the whole concept, but my name on there is (unsurprisingly) 'TheKnittingBee', so feel free to find me, if that's what one does!


* ie., evening meal. Were I simply making a hot beverage, I would have much less 'free' time.