New socks, new medal

I must admit I'm not getting much knitting done during the Ravelympics as I'm a winter sports geek. I was watching the moguls while trying to finish my socks and was so captivated by the men's and women's events that I had to put my knitting down. But finish my socks I did.

They are the Vinnland pattern by Becca Compton and are fun to knit. I used the pattern chart plus my favourite toe up Evil Genius sock pattern from Yarmando.

The yarn is Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball in Cranberries (1963)and is good to work with unless you need to frog. The single ply nature of the yarn makes it quite "sticky", though the stitch definition is good. The colour variations don't show up too well in indoor lighting but I think I'll have to wait til about April to get any decent natural light. You'll just have to take my work for it that they look good.

I started these just before I went in to hospital for knee surgery last May. I got quite a lot of knitting done despite being groggy from a general anaesthetic and remember having conversations with the nursing team at 3am about knitting and telling them all about Ravelry. I'm still amazed when I meet knitters who don't know about Ravelry. It seems quite timely that I finish these now as I hopefully finish my physiotherapy and treatment for my broken knee over the next few weeks, just in time to get back on the ski slopes. I doubt I'll win any medals there so I better get on with my knitting.

Comments

We have a winner...

Check out my pea seedling, how intact and un-nibbled it is. My mysterious object, as correctly guessed by Madmurdock and Montyknits, is a gastropod guard. It seems to be working. I'd heard that slugs and snails don't like slithering over hair. I tried using hair clippings a few years ago as a barrier. It worked for a few days, til I found chewed, leafless stems and on further inspection a guilty slug covered in ginger hair. Hopefully the fleecy barrier will stay in place and mean I get a good late crop of peas. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who took part.

Unravelling the NHS

If you follow me on twitter you'll already know I have a healthy interest in politics. Our current government is slowly and steadily dismantling our beloved NHS (National Health Service) from one with full public accountability to one which is more dependent on profit margins rather than evidence based medicine. THIS MAKES ME VERY ANGRY. There's a lot of despair at the moment, many of us feel our government is not listening to us, the people, or experts in the field such as the British Medical Association or the Royal College of Nurses. Yesterday our unelected second house, the house of Lords, voted through the government's ill-advised health reform bill. We all felt hopeless, then I read this blog post . You should read it too. Many of us are working out what to do. How can we reverse this disastrous decision when essentially the democratic process is failing us. "The NHS reforms did not appear in either the Conservative or Liberal ...

TOTOROOOOOOOO!

I finally handed over the Totoro hooded top to it's two year old recipient today. It also fits his four year old sister which is good as she likes Totoro too. They both looked very cute in it. We met up at the Wellcome Collection which has a lovely airy cafe and free exhibitions. The Totoro kids mum is a fellow scientist so we went round the Exquisite Bodies exhibition explaining why calves are sometimes born with two heads, how babies are made (the four year olds current interest) and lots of other science fun to the kids. If you visit the Wellcome centre with kids ask about their young investigators pack. It's really cool (I was disappointed I didn't get one) and it's free. Brilliant. The staff were really helpful and pleasantly surprised at seeing young kids enjoying a strange exhibition, rather than being freaked out by it. Personally, I did enough human dissection as part of my degree to make me not want to see another cadaver ever again, although the models wer...

Ginger Knits UK

Search This Blog