Attention Diverted

Ok, I know last week I said I'd get on with Christmas knitting. Wwwwwweeeeeellllll............ That didn't really happen. 

Don't get me wrong, Christmas is on my mind, but the desire to do obligation knitting has left me. Completely. Utterly. Oh! Pants! This is bad!

Week in review - 

 

As you may gather, Christmas is on my mind. I've been making lists and checking them twice.  I've got my parents-in-law (ish) over  for Christmas dinner. My other half, Matthew, has requested goose. Sure, no problem I said! Ever since I've had a mild panic brewing. It's just like a big chicken, right? How hard can it be to cook? I've got a list for the meal - what we're having. I've got a list for what I need to buy to make the first list happen. I've got a list of when I need to achieve things by. And then there's the gift list. That list is getting checked off nicely. Well, all apart from the hand knit section obviously! 

I made a purchase this week. I had an email from Future Publishing. They put out The Knitter magazine.  I subscribed to it from issue one. After a couple of years I thought that I'm never going to knit half of these projects, my money could be better spent on yarn, so I cancelled my subscription. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful magazine, and most of the patterns are lovely and knit-able but I looked at my priorities and something had to give. The email was an advert for a new, one off title - The Pro Guide to Knitting. At £9.99 I thought I'd give it a go. 

I have to say I'm a little disappointed. There are 18 advanced technique guides and 14 patterns. Of the 14 patterns I have at least 6 that I can immediately recognise from my Knitter magazine collection. I've got a funny feeling that all of the patterns have been published previously. The advanced techniques don't strike me as being overly advanced. One of them is how to knit in the round! I'm not impressed.  

It's a lovely magazine, beautifully put together, but if you already get The Knitter, don't bother. You've got this magazine already.  

Feeling the love - 

The star anise socks where finished last week. I'm really pleased with them. They match perfectly. The only other thing I've worked on is another pair of socks. I didn't cast on the silver birch socks from Pom Pom magazine. My itch for self striping socks needed to be scratched. So I cast on a pair using Sparkle Duck. 

It's their Sparkle's stripes sock base. There isn't a colour way name and this colour isn't on their website at the moment. I bought it at this year's Woolfest. It's a beautifully saturated purple (obviously) and green. I bought one of their spirit mini skeins in the green to make the heels and toes. This Sparkle's stripes is a lovely yarn. It's soft and the stitch definition is great. 100g gives you a good 425m of yarn which it seems will give me enough yarn left over to make a little stuffie of some kind. 

Again I'm a fail at all else. I'm completely obsessed with these socks. I've spun almost nothing! 

On the horizon - 

Again, I hope to get the socks finished by knit night. Then I'm not going to cast anything else on until I've finished a gift item. Honest. HONEST!!!! I won't! Cross my heart!!

The Christmas madness will start next week at work. Double pescriptions will start to appear to cover the Christmas period. Wish me luck. It's over the next month I start to lose all my Christmas spirit. It doesn't tend to re-appear until 6pm Christmas Eve when I finish work!

Have a great week guys 

Oh, and if you have any tips on cooking goose, PLEASE comment below! I'm having nightmares! 

Ellen x