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.

Is summer finally here?

2009 has been a very long year for me and my family, and we're not even halfway through yet. The last few weeks have got even more hectic, including an exploding car (my brother, just when he was moving house!) and a runaway car (sister-in-law, it rolled down a hill and half-demolished a house... no people hurt, only metal and bricks!) and my darling hubby getting even more sick at just the time that all my exams and stress were happening at work, spending 2 more weeks in hospital with a huge raging infection in the gall bladder that I was terrified would stop him being able to have his operation as planned on the 27th. We got there in the end, but the last month we've all been strung up like wire with stress, unable to think straight or sleep and just counting the hours until this dratted thing could be cut out and got rid of. Life is somehow never that simple. The operation was apparently the longest and hardest the surgeon has had to do in the last four years... but it's done, and they did manage to do the keyhole surgery, but only just. My lovely hubby is now on the mend, slowly, full of holes and shaved in odd places, but he's here and getting better and that's what counts. I hope and pray that this is the turning point and things will now start to improve for everyone.
On the up-side, the garden is looking lovely.... I love plants that just come back and flower every year with no effort on my part. Clematis seem to love my garden. I don't know why, but it's fabulous and I'm making the most of it... I just planted the 7th one.

There has been a little knitting, although not much: these socks for my hubby were knit in fear and in hospital, in the middle of the night and on every visit, every day, and they were finished just in time for him to wear in to his op. They were supposed to be his lucky socks! The nurses wouldn't let him wear them. Miserable sods... it's not like they were operating on his feet! The colours on one pooled very strangely, all the green on one side of the leg and on the other side of the foot. The other sock spirals in stripes normally. They were knit from the same ball of wool.

Above: green foot, blue leg. Below, blue foot, green leg. He likes them.

This is the next sock... a wild firey mix of red, orange, yellow and pink with yellow cuffs, heels and toes... also for hubby. He deserves many socks this year, he's been through a lot. And yes, he picked the colours...
On Wednesday whilst he was under the knife, Mum and I had to distract ourselves by visiting a wool shop. It didn't take our minds off it for long, but I did get 6 more balls of Kureyon to continue work on the spiral blanket, and I've been working on that for the past two days, in between looking after the poorly one. It's getting to the point of being cumbersome without being big enough to be useful yet. Not portable knitting any more, definitely sofa knitting now.

Toes: model's own.

The hens are well and happy and laying profusely, and just wishing they could come out and eat all of my flowers becaiuse they look so tasty... they do get a run on the lawn every so often, but you have to watch them like a hawk as they love to eat all the little tender bedding plants I've only just put in!

And Willow? She's being herself as always, nabbing the best spot to sleep whenever I take my eye off her! Apparently cat hair is medicinal and helps the healing process. Let's hope so.

Quelle semaine!

Wow, what a week! This year just keeps on getting worse. Not a lot of time around here for knitting at the 'mo, just too busy with school and French and panicing about preparing for conducting my very first oral exam, in Italian! The rustiest of all my languages...
The spiral blanket has turned another corner and got stuck again, having run out of wool. It's now 28" by 32" at the wider point, this is 7 balls of Kureyon. It's gorgeous and I'm enjoying knitting it, but I can't afford to splurge on any more wool right now, so it's going to have to wait for a bit. Plenty more wool to knit in the meantime, just not enough time! Ask any secondary teacher, this term is the most stressful in the whole year - all the exams and everything, even if you don't have many kids going through it, the tension is contagious and the upheaval in terms of room changes and stuff affects everyone. It's hell!
So if you'll excuse me, I need to go and plan 15 lessons and mark 75 books and 36 tests and learn a two-minute presentation and 60 questions and answers in French and brush up my Italian and read up on how to conduct the exam and feed the lawn and mow the cat and stroke the chickens....

You spin me round round baby right round...

...and that's it, I'm out of daft spiral / spinning related record titles. You're safe. The blanket continues to grow, it's now 24" by 27" (at the wider end). It's fascinating knitting as I keep wanting to see how the colours come will come out and what will line up where. I've broken and spliced the yarn a cuple of times, just so that I don't get a section that's blue next to blue so similar that you can't see the spiral shape, but mostly I'm happy for the kureyon to just do its thing and change colours randomly. I keep changing my mind about which section is my favourite.
Willow can sleep anywhere, at any time. Here she is on the stairs this evening, even when there were two warm beds, tonnes of wool and two laps she could have slept on all just waiting for some cat hair...

...she does love to be on the knitting whilst in progress, though. Just to be sure she's the centre of attention.

Random Saturday

Watch this ad if you love sheep (no, not like that!)

My favourite bit was the following notes on their website:

• "The advert was shot in Wellington Station, New Zealand. Why? Because sheep in the UK don't have woolly coats in the summer.
• 40 sheep spent a month training with the sheep handler from the film 'Babe', they were taught among other things how to baa on demand, step out of taxis and read newspapers.
• Sheep will do anything for a biscuit - No computer generated imagery was used to manipulate their actions. Instead they all left the commercial with full tummies (and slightly boosted egos!)"

(I am in no way endorsing any product or service, I just like the sheep).

I just love the mental image of sheep being trained to baa on demand by some nutter waving a biscuit from behind the camera! Brilliant!