Dragon Rambles

I haven’t had a lot of time for knitting and stitching this month, but I’m finally moving forward on the shawl again.  Since restarting the border I knitted 17 rows before I discovered I had to go back 6 rows (not fun) but I’m back up to 22 rows into the pattern.  I’ll try to take a photo this weekend and post it here.  No stitching has been happening though.

This weekend is my last chance to enjoy my flat on my own for a while as I have someone moving in with me.  She’s just moving to Cardiff and needs a place to stay while getting settled so will probably only be here for 3 or 4 months.  That helps me out financially at the moment (duck races and trips to the other side of the world being very expensive) and I can decide if I want to get someone in again in the new year.

Stress levels are getting back under control, I’m really looking forward to the visit back to Australia and NZ in Sept/Oct and making plans for when I get back, and all is going well.  Things could always be better, but I’m not complaining and just moving forward one day at a time.

Hugs to all.

Ever get the feeling that you’re just spinning your wheels?  The last two weeks have been like that for me.

The rewrite of our data analysis program at work that I thought would just take a week has had me going round in circles.  I think I finally know what I need to do to get all the bits working now, but I think I still have a few days of solid work to do to get it there.

And with that lovely shawl I was knitting – I’m back to where I was two weeks ago.  I started stitching the borders one at a time (flat knitting) but the sides with all the yarn overs were too messy and I didn’t think it would look very nice once it was stitched together so I undid what I’d done on the first side and picked up all the stitches around the sides to stitch in the round.  Of course that makes rows of 472 stitches!  What does that mean?  Well when I stuff up, I have that much more to undo.  And yes, I’ve undone a lot… repeatedly.  Broken the yarn, had the join unravel one or two rows later which caused more unknitting.  Then when I think I finally have that sorted I find I’m two stitches short in one section an end up unknitting the whole lot back to the start of the border.  And of course all this has thinned the already thin wool so much that I’ve know joined a new ball at the beginning of the border, but at least this means I shouldn’t have to join one again.  Fingers crossed it gets better from here and that in two weeks I have some border to show you all.

On the plus side (progress in something), I’ve been up ridiculously early for the last 3 mornings to attend business meetings to try and get takers for corporate ducks for the duck race and have now got some great contacts for my yearly duck races.  From next year will be great, here’s hoping this year’s one isn’t too bad.  I’ve got to get up at 4.30 tomorrow for one last one (yes I know how crazy that sounds), here’s hoping it goes as well as I’ve been told to expect.

So summing up the last two weeks, lots of time spent getting nothing much done.  Hopefully that’ll change and I’ll have some updates soon.