- oky_katie 4 Comments

Yarn Along – A Cape Interlude

Time for another Yarn Along…

yarn along - a cape interlude

I have taken a short break from the socks (LR pulled the needle out and thus I need to sit down and sort it out *sigh*), to knit a cape for LR because it’s cold and it will be useful when we go out to pick up her brother… that is my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

This has been in my queue for AGES, and I had a suitable yarn in my stash – Katia Peru, and I was in need of a quick knit, while I got the OKY Chunky dyed up. Something that I could complete and get used. I’m 4″ from finishing the hood so it should be done in the next few days. I’m thinking chunky wooden buttons – maybe even some of the ones W and FB made, if they fit through the button holes.

You can find my Ravelry page here.

Yesterday was an awful day – probably because I am vaguely ill, though I didn’t realise that until I looked at my flushed cheeks in the middle of the afternoon and sure enough I had a bit of a temperature. Given there isn’t much I can do about it, apart from take small amounts of paracetamol and get as much rest as you can when you have two small children and another on the way, (and run you’re own business), I treated myself to All Wound Up by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, which is pure comfort reading to me. (This is high praise, I promise you!)

So right now I’m enjoying that, and trying to take things easy. Or easier. Or something. 🙂

- oky_katie 9 Comments

Yarn Along – Feet of Flames

Another Yarn Along…

feet of flames

The ‘Feet of Flames’ are progressing – or at least one of them is.  I have just turned the first heel and I’m contemplating the legs being plain. (Maybe I’m being a wimp not sticking with the cables but I want these socks off my needles and onto my feet as soon as possible and 16 little cables isn’t going to get me there particularly quickly… We will see.)

Bookwise I’m still reading Radical Homemakers – I’m past the theory and into the ‘how people actually do it’ bit. It’s interesting reading it again after two years and seeing all the progress we have made. Looking just at the decoration of the house (and the lack of change there) is actually very deceptive – to us as much as anyone! Turns out we’ve been moving towards our goals much more than I thought we had. Which is very satisfying. Especially since W and I confessed to each other this morning that we’re pretty terrified of actually getting the kitchen re-build sorted, and have been dragging our feet.

I’m also reading ‘Farmer Boy‘ to FB. It’s supposed to be his bedtime book but extra chapters seem to get read during the day too. I’ve never read it before, but we just finished Little House in the Big Wood and he’s a boy who is determined to be a farmer when he’s bigger. (Oh the plans he has for that farm!)  We’ve been showing him Tales from the Green Valley, (which I think I’ve mentioned here before?) which he absolutely adores!

 

- oky_katie 14 Comments

Yarn Along – socks and radical homemaking

Time for another Yarn Along…
Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes and wollmeise socks

I am knitting socks for the first time in about 4 years.

I don’t know why I took that long a break, but it felt right at the time. And now it feels right to be knitting socks again. So it goes.

These are wollmeise, which I have never knitted with before.  The pattern is just some little cables plugged into my usual basic sock, but the three row repeat is comforting in it’s own way.

However I am going to have to pause the sock to knit two pairs of mittens since it has got cold here. That’s ok. They shouldn’t take too long.

I am re-reading and finally finishing Radical Homemakers, which I started when I was pregnant with LR and didn’t manage to finish before she was born. It speaks very much to where I feel we are right now and is a welcome source of solidarity in the moments when I feel a bit all at sea, paddling against the mainstream.

I also just finished reading The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, which I thought was wonderful. The short version of what it’s about is a bed ridden detective, along with an American researcher at the British Museum work out whether Richard III actually killed the two young princes in the Tower of London. And while that maybe doesn’t sound like much of a page turner, it’s actually an absorbing, fascinating story that I happily gobbled up in a couple of days. And would heartily recommend to anyone. But especially teenagers whether they’re studying history or not. They’ll love it!