News from Nowhere

Still here.

Still knitting.

Coughing well.

Yes, I have... a chest infection!! Just as the weather was improving :)

I wanted to show you all the ghastly pattern with which my dear friend Vicki cheered me up recently, but I'm having issues with the photo upload gremlins.

Instead, I shall leave you with this joke:

A friend of mine had to visit her doctor lately with a rather odd problem. She'd noticed that, whenever it was her turn to drive for the car pool, she got a tingling and then numbness in her hands. Even stranger, it only happened when she drove through the Tyne Tunnel - nowhere else on the journey, and on no other day of the week except that one.

The doctor told her not to worry, and diagnosed car-pool tunnel syndrome.....

At least I can blog about it

Well, the Beamish Boy is home for vacation - next term he takes his Finals and (I hope) graduates. Where did the time go? I swear, the last time I looked, he was sitting on the sofa in his pyjamas, chewing his toenails and watching 'Dangermouse'.

Oh, wait. That was this afternoon....

Well, I finshed camisole A (see a few posts back), washed it and blocked it. It looks gorgeous, it has worked just as I hoped it would, and the colours absolutely glow.

Now, before I go on with this anecdote, I have to explain a few details.

1. I don't move fast.

2. Especially when I am in bed, which is one of those snazzy electrical jobs, but moves even slower than I do.

3. I block finished items at one end of my desk, which is the other end of my bedroom from my bed.

4. My cats ignore any order I give them.

Ok, so I was on the phone with Serena (who has, incidentally, done her duty and added herself to the Frappr map. Just saying....). We were happily chatting away when I noticed Chloe lumbering up onto the desk - she's rather old and has lost her bounce, bless her.

She sniffed the camisole. I told her to get down.

She lay on the camisole. I told her to get down.

She stretched out her neck and, before I could get to her, casually chucked up a hairball onto it.

I may have deafened Serena at this point, and if I did, then I apologise.

With gritted teeth and murder in my heart, I rewashed it (thoroughly) and reblocked it. It doesn't seem to have suffered too badly. And, as I said to Serena once I started breathing again:

'At least I can blog about it...' :)

Hard sums

It is the bane of my existence as a designer that Knitting Involves Hard Sums.

I was unfortunate enough to be taught Maths in junior school by someone who didn't understand how numbers work and just taught us by rote. This state of affairs was made worse when I went to secondary school, and had to learn SMP Maths. Don't ask - I don't know the difference. I just know I don't understand it, and I passed my Maths O-level purely by dumb luck.

This means that I am as capable of solving maths problems as anyone else with a calculator - but I have no confidence in my ability to select the right bits of any problem on which to use it.

I've even been known to phone the Beamish Boy and ask him to check my answers....

Which is why I was quite ridiculously pleased today, when working out two concurrent sets of increases, to find out that one needs to increase every 4 rows, and the other every 8 rows. Nice and easy to remember - and I didn't even have to torture the numbers and fudge the tension to get them to work out :)

Don't forget the Frappr map, readers. I know there are more of you out there than there are pins on the map. If you want to use a pseudonym, or a fake email addy, feel free - I just want to see the pins. Click on the box above to add yourself...