Monkey, monkey, monkey, monkey, you!

All non-Eddie fans will probably not understand that reference. An alternative title for 'the Origin of Species'. In any case, it's inaccurate, as I have only one purple monkey sock here. I've knitted 4 pairs of these so far, for presents and for swaps, and never made a pair for me. Now these are my purple monkeys! They make me think of Ribena and blackcurrant jam. Yum.
What I'm really supposed to be knitting is this: a red and brown chullo hat for my brother to take out to his friend in Italy next week... better get a move on, need to take it up to bro in Blackpool on Wednesday!This is what I'm copying: I knit this blue one for the brother last year, and it's the most practical of the silly ski hats.

So I suppose I'd better stop knitting socks and get on with hatting ASAP! Good job it's the hols, I'll finish it tomorrow.

The three remaining hens seem to be getting along fine, which I was a little worried about, as Nugget and Elsie only joined the other two about a year ago, and I thought the two older gingers might bully Nugget on her own. Fortunately she's a lot bigger now and more feisty.

And they're all laying like champions, more eggs than we can possibly eat! I keep giving dozens to Mum but I may have to start baking to use them up.

The garden is all waking up and getting springlike - onions and garlic....

Rhubarb... even the spuds are just starting to poke through the soil a tiny bit.

It's really hard to blog when someone won't take no for an answer....

Bagpuss and mad puss

It's finally the holidays!!!!!!! Time to relax and recuperate from the last 12 weeks of madness, time to prepare for the next 12 weeks of madness, and above all, time to knit! These were actually finished last week, having been knit largely whilst visiting the patient in hospital. He was released on Tuesday and delivered safely home by my parents whilst I was stuck in meetings after school. Mum has been very supportive while I've been running around like a headless chicken (ooops, sorry Nugget, bad simile to use!) and I though she deserved a prezzie. Ta dah!!
Here is the little parcel I wrapped up: the pink and white striped socks, which are even more like Bagpuss up close, plus the foot scrub, foot soak and foot butter that came with this wool in my first sock parcel from Socktopus... the second one arrivede this morning, pics to follow.
Mumsie modelling her Bagpuss socks with matching Amaryllis. How clever!
Willow's contribution to the last few weeks of chaos has been to catch up on all the sleep I've missed, on my behalf. This is very kind of her, of course...... but I do sometimes wonder about her choice of sleeping arrangements....
...especially when I'm trying to do some marking.......
... I mean really, how could this possibly be comfortable? Strange kitty.....

What a week!

I'm fed up with 2009, can I skip to next year please?
There hasn't been time for a lot of knitting here chez knittingsheep - Hubby is back in hospital again, my cold has turned into a chest infection and I'm now on antibiotics, and to cap it all when I went to clean out the chickens this morning I found that Nugget had died in the night. Poor little white chicken - she's always been a bit sickly, so it's not a huge surprise, but still not a nice end to a very hard week! So as well as trying to clean the house and do the washing and sort out my lessons for next week and visit Hubby in hospital I also spent this morning scrubbing the whole henhouse with Poultryshield, just to reassure myself that it's clean and the other chickens will be ok.
2009 count for my family so far:
2 people hospitalised (repeatedly) with gallstones, now both awaiting surgery.
1 person made redundant
1 person's marriage on the rocks
1 person struggling to impress in a new job with several colds, sick husband, and an ofsted inspection (me!)
1 dead chicken.
Willow was sick all over the house the other day, too. Is it all over yet please? I don't think I can take any more!

darn it, I feel rough...

Pardon the blog silence, I have been stupidly busy at school. Like marking 450 4-part tests, writing 100 reports and conducting a parents' evening busy. What with an Ofsted visit and lots of trips to hospital, I've been having a pretty mad time of it since January. Turns out though that my body has got fed up with the strain and has imposed its own way of making me rest - I've totally lost my voice. Ever tried teaching 34 reluctant, chatty 13-year-olds in a whisper? Yeah, that doesn't work so well. So this afternoon I found work that 150 kids (5 lessons) can do without me, and then came home to bed. I will be spending tomorrow with my mouth zipped firmly shut taking lots of cold medicines and trying to get better by Thursday. Why Thursday? Because I wouldn't wish my tutor group on anyone else for a whole morning of PSE. No, I do love them really. Sometimes.
In between all that work, there has of course been time for a little knitting:

My very first knee-high sock. It fits like a dream, thanks to very careful toe-up construction with many tryings-on. I'm really rather proud of it. The worrying thing is just how hard the second sock syndrome is going to hit....!

On the subject of socks, there has been a worrying tendency chez knittingsheep for them all to develop holes at once... Don't ask me why my socks all hole underneath the middle of my foot, it makes no sense to me. My Mum's go at the heel:

and she lately patched this one in an interesting way. She picked up stitches across the back of the heel, knitted a little patch and then sewed it down.

It looks quite neat, doesn't it? Luckily when I knit socks I always keep the oddments of wool in a bag, so manding is easy. I'll be interested to see how well this patch wears. As for mine, I've been darning: I have done this before on an old wooden last that I have sitting on a shelf, but last weekend I finally went out and bought a mushroom to make it easier. The way I darn looks like this, I think it's fairly standard:(except that on this one I forgot to turn it inside-out! Whoops!) Weave across the hole, going well into the strong fabric either side...

Then weave back the other way, packing the threads nice and tight to try to make a strong patch. It's not too messy on the outside, but looks better when I remember to do it on the inside of the sock. Keeps my lovely toasty handknitted socks hanging on a little longer. I can't bear to just chuck them out.

And to try to minimise future darning, I am trying a new tactic: on this sock I have knitted a polyester thread in with the sock yarn for the heel area - these are meant for Mum. The thread I'm using was described as 'all-purpose' sewing thread - it's thicker than normal sewing thread but thinner than topstitching thread. We'll see how well it works! You can just see the flecks of white thread in the pink patches. Hardly shows on this yarn. Fingers crossed!

A good weekend

There was shopping, knitting, and tea. Lots and lots of tea. Oh, and a new ski hat. What do you think? Sssssssssssssssuper, no?