Despite my general need to go into the guts of my phone and turn off whatever I turned on that started date stamping my photos, it’s kinda useful to have it here, since it’s proof (of sorts) that it *is* in fact August, despite needed my walking boots and an umbrella just to go into town.

But anyways it’s good for the veggies (apart from the tomatoes which are likely to start blighting pretty soon. But even that means we’ll just have more green tomato pickle for the winter. So really there isn’t much of a downside, if you look hard enough.

Yeah, so the bump is pretty damn big now. 🙂

Anyways… KNITTING!

Currently on my needles is a version of Something Red by Knit and Tonic mixed with the visual style of Gloria from Noro (Ravelry link).

The stripes are half Jo Sharp Silk Road DK tweed, which I originally used to make the Picovoli Jumper a couple of years ago (and then ripped because I loved the yarn, and never wore the jumper. I’m fearless like that.) and half the wensleydale Handspun that I have been working on. Despite W’s protests, like with the Gloria cardigan, the body of this cardigan is reverse stocking stitch, since I’m not big on stripes going the width of my body. Plus I love the dottiness of it.

Then, instead of 2×2 rib for the body, which I think might be a bit harsh so soon after giving birth, given I’m planning to wear this this coming winter, I changed it to lovely mistake rib, which gives a similar – but softer – effect.

Oh and I’ll probably make the sleeves full length.

(Aside – I wish places in the UK stocked Silkroad tweed, since it’s wonderful stuff.)

Spinning Alpaca is scary.

This might be because I am spinning straight from shawn fibre, rather that carded fibre. But I’m a bit scared that plying it is just going to make it fall apart.

That said, I guess that’s not the end of the world, since I could just card it, and have another go.

But still. Scary.

ETA: Ok maybe not so scary. Plying was fine. Totally fine.

Now let me share a hideous photograph that I took with my phone camera in the grey light of a generally wet afternoon:

And while we’re at it, a much much better photo of the fibre in question before spinning:

Much better.

(Written, not as an entrant to Bowerbird’s Contest, but because what she was asking of people struck a chord with me, and made me want to write something. )

What I am planning (or at least hoping) to do to challenge myself creatively in the next year:

Well, in two months (to the day, though due days come and go I hear), our first child is going arrive into the outside world, which I’m well aware is going to bring a million and one changes to our lives, and is going to turn my creative life upside down for a fair while, so my first plan is to ‘carry on being creative’ in whatever way I can. Including parenting.

Especially parenting.

I want to carry on being a good partner to W, and try to carve out some time, just him and I.  I don’t want us to forget why we like each other – especially after the amazing most recent couple of years we’ve made for ourselves.

I want to keep my two businesses afloat. I like them both. They make me happy, and they have the potential to grow (a bit) and establish (a bit) and hopefully turn into something more lasting.

(By the way, don’t read ‘how to start your business’ books. They are very scary.  Start businesses that can be started with very little money, and grown quite slowly, where possible. Mind you I’m not in this to make a million, or even 50,000. I like being little.)

I’m pretty sure it will be a major challenge to sort out the time to get some work done – no I don’t expect to get much done while the baby sleeps. I think I’m going to have to become an expert in eatting the elephant one tiny piece at a time.

Actually I’m going to put that right up there:

Next year, I’m going to learn how to eat the elephant one tiny piece at a time.

The knitting and the spinning (yes – and there are posts in the wings), are luckily things that can also be split to fit into tiny snatches of time, so it would be useful to keep a project on me, ready for a row or a round in a spare minute or two. (Like Elizabeth Zimmermann on the back of Gaffer’s motorbike.) They are likely to continue to grow – I keep finding things I want to do, make, and learn. So hopefully I’ll do, make and learn in whatever time I can find.

But specifics?

I want to spin up one bag of the alpaca roving into 2ply during the Olympic Games. (I want  to spin the rest too, but I’m not sure I can spin 900g in 16 days, and get sleep, and work done.)

I want to spin half the yarn for a striped jumper for W. (I might even dye the roving…)

I want to dye the yarn for the baby blanket and get that all knit up.

I want to knit myself a useful cardigan or two for my post-pregnancy self.

The rest I don’t know about, because it hasn’t lit a fire under me yet. But it will. It usually does.

Most of all I want to keep looking for joy. To keep breathing, and smiling, and moving. I want to keep my sense of hope, and smile and nod at all the bullshit, and let it pass me by…

Oh and take baby-h to some track cycling before the end of the season, since that’s something I’ve been thinking about for the last four years.