Box bag

I've been seeing neat little box bags in funky fabrics all over the net for months, and yesterday I got curious and googled 'box bag tutorial'. That led me to this brilliant tutorial by Drago[knit]fly. This morning, I decided to use this Amy Butler fabric I had left over (from making a sunhat to wear on holiday - you can see me wearing it in the lake in yesterday's pic if you look really closely...). I used some dark blue cotton from the scrap bag for the lining, medium weight interfacing and a 12" navy zip, all from the stash. This bag cost me nothing at all! Yay! Isn't it fab?
I followed Drago[knit]fly's instructions quite closely, with a couple of mods suggested by Twenty acres and NO sheep here. These mods make it a lot easier, especially the corners, I think. This way they are easy and all the same size and straight! They almost certainly wouldn't have been otherwise, with my sewing. I can be a bit slapdash...

Just the right size for a medium-sized knitting project: my stripy noro scarf.

Speaking of the scarf, this is how it looked this afternoon / evening. The pink section turned out ok, hubby swears he can see the stripes right through. I can't quite, but don't mind it. The colours seem to be mirroring the beginning almost perfectly now, so I'm intrigued to see what they will do after I get past the orange/green section that's coming up next. Three things are surprising me about this scarf:

1. It's a really simple repetitive knit, but I'm somehow not bored.

2. It's on quite short DPNs and continually nearly falling off the ends, but this does not annoy me and I have even tried long needles and changed back to DPNs.

3. It's in rib and I'm still knitting it! My darling hubby would be the first to tell you that I hate knitting rib! I will only do it under sufferance, and get quite narky doing socks for him as he likes a good depth of ribbing - after the first half-inch I'll be asking 'Is this enough yet?' every other row, when we both know he wants about 3 inches!

Bigfoot sighting

Whilst on holiday in the south of France, I saw Bigfoot. I saw him quite often in fact, he hung around the tent with us, came to the beach, swam in the lake and even bought us croissants for breakfast... Yes, ok, the Bigfoot I'm referring to here isn't the missing link, he's my brother. He does have huge feet though... I can personally testify to this, having knitted him a pair of socks whilst on holiday. See? How long?
I can't even block them, my sock blockers aren't big enough!
I didn't do much knitting on holiday, just these and one red fish (for the neglected festive fish blanket). I was reading or playing cards most evenings and odd moments in between all the cycling, swimming, canoeing and eating cheese. Ok, so there was more of the latter than of all the other three, but never mind. Still a lot more exercise than usual. I'm going to try to use the bikes more now we're back, having decided not to bury them at the back of the shed behind the lawn mower again. They were just a nuisance to get out there. Got to tidy the garage to make room for them though.
Since returning to Blighty I have been contemplating casting on for various jumpers, but so far all that's made it onto the needles is a scarf: Two-row alternating stripes of Noro Kureyon sock in 1x1 rib. I've seen loads of them out there, and always liked the striping. I had an odd ball of this and don't think it would hold up to sock wear for more than a couple of hours, being thin singles. I cast on 40 stitches on a 3.75mm circular, but wasn't happy with the look of the fabric (messy, loose gauge) and the fact that both colours were going to line up and turn to green together.
Meh. I broke the yarn and started again on 3mm DPNs (I have no idea why DPNs, but I'm happy with it) and it's going much better....

Lovely stripes! And a much bouncier, firmer gauge. The pink section may lose stripe definition between the purple and the pink, but I think it'll be ok. The colours will change soon, and I'm fed up with fighting to keep them different. I'm going with the flow. A bit.

Willow likes it, but wonders why it's not cat-blanket sized, like the other Noro knitting?

That's better! A kitty can stretch out on this..... if she hasn't got bored and wandered off to torment chickens, that is...

Holiday!

Where have I been?

I've been here....

...doing some of this....

...and a bit of this...

...and even some of this. Legs are still pasty white though.

We took this crazy boy with us. He may be regretting this photo.
These guys got their own holiday at Mum's... (she hid behind the tree from the camera)

...and Willow went along to keep them in order.

Spoilt kitty! All these toys (and the huge tub of catnip) are new! Mum's a big softie... and Willow was strangely reluctant to come home... can't think why!

Knitting content tomorrow. Promise.

a slowly growing spiral

In fact this hasn't had a stitch knitted for about three weeks, despite still having half a ball of wool left, as I've been madly busy and preoccupied with other things. I'll talk about those another time. Meanwhile, anyone reading this from BGS should go and do their homework. Now.
No, now go back and do it properly and look the words you don't understand up in a dictionary.
There may have been wool purchases today, but I'm too tired to get the camera out to show them. I've got to get a good night's sleep, as I'm doing the race for life tomorrow in Cheltenham. I think maybe next year I should knit whilst walking... that could be fun. Pink wool, of course....
Wish me luck!

Procastination is the name of the game...

Despite the unwelcome intrusion of work into the knitting timetable, the spiral has (very nearly) reached 5 complete turns. I have three balls of Kureyon left and this should take me a while to knit, owing to two factors: this blanket is getting quite unwieldy and has therefore become strictly sofa knitting; and being term-time again, I will once again be up to my ears in work. 8 weeks till the summer hols: I have a lot to pack n to those 8 weeks and still don't know if I'll be staying at this school next year... I hope so. It's a lovely school, I feel at home there.

The portable knitting, another (quite loud) hubby sock: It is far brighter than this in person, variegated scarlet/hot pink with the yellowy-orange bits winding round in a spiral. I need to switch to yellow again now for the heel flap. It's a bit more annoying to knit contrast toes and heels with several colour changes and more darning in of ends, but I like the effect a lot. The lesson plan underneath is what I'm supposed to be thinking about. Ooops!
Hubby update: He's mending slowly, getting a little more mobile day by day. It'll be nice to have my strong tough hubby back again, but I think it'll be quite a few weeks yet.