Another month where time passed quite a bit quicker than I sensed.
Between the exercise classes, choir and taking time out to relax, it wasn't until the last three days, where I've forced myself to take it easy, I've discovered it's almost been a month since my last post.
Nevermind.
I'm doing mon-wed exercise (Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi) then thursday is choir, and I spend the next three days shopping, catching up on paying bills, laundry (I go out to a laundrette, since I've no space for either a washer/dryer), cleaning and knitting. If I'm lucky, I get a day to relax.
Due to a minor amount of stress, a cold sore started this last wed. night, and a chest-cold/cough/sore throat started on the following night. So, I've forced myself to take a couple days of rest and do nothing but be a (moderate) couch potato and do my standard cold-busting routine:
(hot as possible showers, hot/spicy soup to make me sweat, hot herbal teas, daily echinacea/goldenseal/zinc/1g vit-c tablets and honey and vinegar gargles (I swallow them, as I think they'll kill the virus in my gut) once-a-day. really, it's all a bit of a pain, but I think it works to busting the cold a day quicker. It worked on the last one I had.
So, within the last couple weeks I've been knitting on a couple new projects - a kindle cozy (I now have a kindle, all ready with stuff downloaded from among stuff pre-found and downloaded to my netbook) and a new shawl I'm knitting along to WendyKnits' (user name on Ravelry) spring/summer shawlette Ravelry knitalong.
The two shawls I mentioned in the last post are two copies of Lankakomero's "Growing Leaves" shawl. One is in a softened camo-coloured sock yarn, and I then started another one in a solid medium green sock yarn. I'm trying to work on both equally, but I'm finding myself working more on the solid green one. If I'm honest, it's prettier to me.
I've still not found a pattern that jumps out to use the Manos silk blend on, and I've taken a break from the Mermaid Jacket for a month.
I still love it, but the miles of garter stitch were finally getting a bit boring. I want to be happy to work on it, so I thought a rest was needed. It's working well so far. I've had two weeks of rest, I see it and I want to work on it. Two more weeks to go and then it's back to it.
I've started planning winter knitting:
Besides starting work on the Muir Wrap in october, sometime before winter snows strike (I'm thinking I'll start in September), I'll knit a hooded scarf for the winter snows. as the last two we had had days of blizzard-like conditions, and I want a combined scarf-hood item I can roll up the scarf over the bottom of the hood (if you can visualize what I mean) and use it to cover my nose and mouth without worrying about it falling down in the wind. I hope that the design I've picked from the available ravelry pattern choices will work - the final choice won't be revealed until I'm more than half-way through.
I now have a couple new knitting books I've been hoping for the last three years:
The quartet of Barbara Walker pattern books,
Elisabeth Zimmermann's "Knitting Workshop" and
Alison Jeppson Hyde's "Wrapped in Comfort".
The last book is the one I'm a bit happier than usual to receive, since it went out of print a while ago. It was bought for me via a phone call to the Purlessence store. I wouldn't have received it otherwise.
Anyway, I'm off to rest a bit and . . .
*sigh*
. . . cough up things out of my lungs.
yum.....
