Still here, surviving!

Wow, these last couple of months have been hard work. Why do I want to be a teacher again? Oh yeah, 3 reasons. Summer, Easter, Christmas. Feels particularly true at the moment, nearing the end of the hardest year's work in my life. 2 more assignments, 4 weeks of teaching a reduced timetable (6 hours a week! Woo hoo!!!) and I'm free till September. I just need to find a job! Anyone need a German teacher in the south west of england? Eager to start up knitting clubs at school?

Knitting has been accomplished in odd moments, but I seem to have fallen prey to the dreaded SSS: count them: SEVEN single socks are haunting my knitting basket. the really shameful thing is I've worn a couple of them once or twice as an odd pair!

I really have to crack on with some second socks or my knitting karma will be well and truly shot. It's not quite as bad as all that, though: I took this photo 2 days ago, and since then I have finished one pair! this sock:

had become known as the cursed sock, or the bad karma sock: for some reason I kept getting bored with it, and the poor thing got abandoned five or six times as other projects took over. Not only did I finish it this week, but i decided that to balance out the karma in the pair, so they didn't end up as unlucky socks, i cast on for the second one immediately. And it's done!
Ta dah!! Hopefully now these are a good karma pair of socks. Koigu KPPPM (mmmmmm... Koigu...), generic top-down heel flap pattern. Now there are just 6 single socks to rescue!

Chick sock one is done!

Woo hoo! Now for me, that is speedy knitting! I have already charted designs for pecking chickens, rows of little chicks and a cat.... shall I do two matching socks, or slightly different ones? The agony of choice!

Big catch-up blog post! lots of pics!

I just signed up to sockapalooza 4!! he he.... an excuse (as if I need one) to knit more socks!!

Wow, so much has been going on lately that i just haven't had a spare second to blog! School was just insane in the run-up to easter, I had a big presentation to give to my SPT (senior professional tutor) which counted for a fifth of my course in terms of written assessment - they also observe us teaching and stuff, but i can't really quantify that in terms of how much of the assessment that is - in one way it's everything really, since if you can't teach a class, writing good essays will not make you a teacher! But we do have to pass all the essays too! Then there was a formal observation from my uni tutor, and a week of fundraising for comic relief - we did the Big Knit (of course!) myself and Claire, the librarian at school, teaching kids to knit and joining loads of scraps of their knitting together to make a giant Dr Who scarf - it was over 6m long! (might not sound like much, but from 15-20 beginner knitters in about 2 1/2 hours that's a lot of knitting! Sadly I can't post pics here, although I have some fabulous ones, as they all have the kids in, and I don't have their parents' permission to post pics of them on the internet. You'll just have to believe me that it was great!

I've managed to squeeze in a few bits of knitting here and there:

Hat for the not-quite-sister-in-law, finished and gifted at last - her birthday was in January! I did manage to get it to her before she went skiing last week! Simple beanie pattern, silk/wool mix yarn, can't remember what now. Heaven to knit with, though. Could it be Lorna's Laces?

The three socks I started all together - two done (I even naughtily wore them as a non-matching pair!), one has succumbed to project infidelity... here are some new knits:

Hat to keep my ears warm on the allotment - oh yeah, we got an allotment! Yippee! We've been on the waiting list for a year. In case this is a weird british phenomenon that nobody else understands, an allotment is a small square of land (say 50ft by 30ft) that you rent from the local council to grow vegetables in, in a field with lots of allotments, usually on the edge of town. Or where the edge of town used to be. Mad, but fun. we're having a great time. i'll take a picture next time we're there. Anyway, it's a bit windy, hence the hat. Closeup:

My homespun. I'm quite proud of it! I've been spinning maybe 2 or 3 years now? I don't get a lot of time for it, though.

Totally loud and zany rainbow cardi in lamb's pride bulky. I've discovered spit-slicing with this and it works wonders. No ends to darn in! For that price I can stand my Mum going 'eurgh!' every time she sees me do it! Also for the allotment, cold breezes. It'll be high summer before I finish either of them, won't it? Oh well. Winter is fairly sure to arrive again next year!

Ta dah!!!!! Chicken socks!!! Ethel and Attila have been immortalised in wool. Not totally accurate, though, as they're not fighting over corn...
This is just for the idiocy of having chickeny socks. I'm really enjoying it! Knit in alpaca (dark blue) and my own homespun merino turquoise/ green.
Love the barberpoley stripes!

Other spinning: this was my second skein for my Spin to Knit secret pal, Barbe. I'll write all about the Spin to Knit swap another time. I wasn't that impressed with the swap as it was organised, to be honest. Although I did enjoy being a secret pal and making the yarn for Barbe! Other crafty news: 3 bias skirts sewn (only pics of 2 as I'm wearing the third). 1: turquoise silk. (gorgeous!) 2: dark grey wool with flowers embroidered on it. 3: (not pictured) sage green needlecord.

Huge sense of achievement with not much sewing. Hooray!

And lastly, thanks to these little rascals,

we've been chickenproofing half of the garden to allow the grass and flowers some chance of recovery! Drastic situations call for drastic measures! We had practically no grass left! I've taken the opportunity to plant some new pretty flowers in this fenced-off bit, as the girls peck and scratch anything that isn't tough as old boots into oblivion within minutes! maybe I should have listened to my mother's warnings about chickens....?

Random pics

Amaryllis. My brother buys me, Mum and two of my mad Aunties an amaryllis bulb in a pot each for Christmas and we have a growing competition. Every time i talk to my Mum she says hers is bigger than mine. Now she's seen mine and I haven't seen hers, so the big question is... is she fibbing?
I don't get to sit on my new office chair. Willow has claimed it as a comfy place. We're gradually coming to an arrangement: if I need to sit down, I can pick her up but I have to cuddle and stroke her, so I can't actually do anything else with my hands. We're working on it.
Cuteness personified. Don't leave an open box of fleece lying around if you don't want a cat in it.

I promised I wouldn't, but....

...I couldn't help going past the heel of one sock while the others languish back up there on the leg. Naughty Lucy. Gorgeous sock though.
Having difficulty posting pics to blogger tonight (expletive deleted) so will leave it at the one. I have Willow pics that I'll try to do tomorrow. Just enjoy the sock porn. Mmmm.... Koigu....