Managed to finish Jessamy's scarf right before she moved to Edinburgh (I'll be joining her soon). It was nice for once to do a quick, mindless project. She wanted a long scarf, so she made two short panels of ribbed stripes, and I made one long one (good public transport project) then I weaved in the never ending ends, grafted the panels together (had to take out the cast on rows for two of the panels, if I were doing it again I would do a provisional) and there you go!

The News

Last week I said I had some news.

Well, it's official. Today J got her contract for her first paid post-graduate job!

And, it's in Edinburgh, my favorite city!

It's a contract job, for ten months, which is a pretty decent chunk of time. I'm moving there in January, after my trip home for Christmas.

And I've heard there's a great yarn store there! Yay!

Girly socks?

What do you think?

I'm going to knit some socks for my brother for Christmas, and I showed him this pattern as an example of cables, and he said he liked the pattern.

Soooo. Do you think it would be too girly if I used this yarn?



It's one of the ones I dyed with black bean.

So far two nice twitter folks said no, one said it wouldn't be "too girly". Hmmm.

Swirly hat

I decided to take a break from the gloves and work on a simple project, the swirly hat. Might not have gotten a great picture of the hat, but at east it's an interesting picture.

Where are all the feminist Romantic Comedies?

J and I watched the movie Wedding Planner last night (nothing else was on) and despite some big news (which I'll share about soon ...) it was all I could think of this morning. Despite the two main characters being together in the end (big surprise), it's not actually a happy ending. The J.Lo character is a nice person, the M.M. character is not.

So instead of trying to go back to sleep this morning, I was analyzing the love interest's faults, which goes as follows (hope you're not going to see the movie as I'm going to spoil it):
1. He's wasteful. He throws out all the MnMs, except the brown ones.
2. Not only does he throw them out, but he throws them on the ground, in technical terms, he litters.
3. When he met the lead character (and nearly kissed her) he was already engaged.
4. He didn't tell his fiance about his near-cheating.
5. He cancelled his wedding on the day of the wedding, and didn't tell any of the guests, which makes him a total coward.

The J.Lo character also has a history of falling for men who cheat on her.

And I'm supposed to be happy that they're together? Noooooo. I am most definitely not happy, I'm actually really bothered about the whole movie. When there's a happy ending, I want some actual happy closure to the movie. Not an ending which leaves me feeling like the main character is going to have her heart broken and an emotional breakdown in just six months. Where's a feminist Romantic Comedies when you need one?

From sock to glove

Way back in September I had started a sock from Cookie A's Sock Innovation book. It's a 37 pattern repeat, but I had been amused by it for the few hours I had managed to actually work on it. It being a sock, I had decided to skip the gauge swatch and just start knitting. Everything was looking good, the two times J tried it on, it fit. And then, the inevitable happened. 5.5 inches from the cuff I handed the sock to her to try it on again ... it was too small.

So, instead of socks, she's getting gloves.

Now, this actually happened two weeks ago, and ever since then I've been trying to figure out how to actually make them into a glove.

I've been ripping out because I've been increasing too much for the thumb or ripping because I've increased too little. And just yesterday, after I took this picture, I tinked at least an inch because my suddenly switching into reverse stockinette for three of the four cables panels on the hand just looked weird.

There's no walking today (gale force winds were predicted today) so I'm hoping to devote some uninterrupted time for the glove today.

Holy Island

No, not I'm talking about England in general.

Yesterday we went to Holy Island, a small island just off of the eastern coast. It's famous for a few things, one being that St. Cuthbert, one of the most celebrated saints in England, lived there. It's also where the Lindisfarne Gospels were written, the island's causeway is only open during certain hours of the day, resulting in the occasional news story about unfortunate people getting stuck in the water after they try to cross at the wrong time, and they manufacture mead (yes, we did buy some).

Here is J and our roommate on our way to the "castle." The castle was built during Henry the blahblahblah's time (ok, so I wasn't paying that much attention) as a fortified building for soldiers (they were worried about attacks from the Scottish at that time). By the 19th century that threat had long past and the castle had fallen into ruin. The owner of the magazine country life bought it and hired an architect to transform it into a home. Now it's open to the public.



In the castle, where cannons once stood. Now there's a bench.

There were lots of photographers and bird watchers on the island. It was surprisingly hard to tell from a distance who has taking a picture and who was just watching for winged creatures.

This is part of the priory, now in ruins.




Mead! I can assure you my hair wasn't messy because I had already started drinking my purchase, but after an otherwise beautiful and sunny day (rare at this time of year) it had gotten a little windy at that point.

This is taken form the bus, on the way back through the causeway. As you can see, just directly next to the road there are puddles. In just a few hours the road would be completely covered with water.