Back to work

I left you nearly a month ago with the revelation of having discovered mattress stitch and going off to sew together the sweater for my son’s birthday. I haven’t really been sewing seams all that time, although it did take about four days worth of knitting time.

Here is the result:

And here he is wearing it post-shrinking (deliberately) in the wash.

My son’s birthday took up a lot of time. He’s been really good (on the whole) with coping with having a little sister, plus this is the first year he’s really had a good handle on what a birthday is and what it means to wait for it, so we decided to spoil him. We hired the church hall, put a bouncy castle in it and invited all his friends. There was cake (or rather cakes – I had help with the decorating from an artistic friend), and biscuits made in the shape of the number 4.

Then I took him over to York to see all the engines at Railfest. I was particularly pleased to be reunited with the locomotive Princess Elizabeth. My first identifiable memory involves seeing this engine steaming through Shrewsbury station. She was only in light steam, but we got to go up onto the footplate and have a good look.

The day after his birthday, I went back to work. I love my job, and I’m really enjoying being back, but I’d forgotten how emotionally draining it is having the split focus of family and work, as well as how tiring it is getting up and ready at specific times. We’ll get used to it, but it does mean that my knitting time has been radically reduced.

The purple socks are coming along, although there is still only one of them. The pattern is Calable.

The lack of second sock is because Tour de Sock has started. I’m not competing to win, but just enjoying knitting some of the patterns. I loved the lace sock that was round one and I have almost finished two legs. I’m hoping to finish the round one socks before the end of round two and then knit either round three or four. I’ve found that I prefer knitting socks with only one sock on the needles at once, but swapping them over every so often. I knit the first leg, then the second. I’ll do the heel-flaps together, then the gussets separately, then probably the feet together. I’m impressed with the addi turbo needles. I’ve had to go down to a 2.25mm needle for sock knitting because my tension has relaxed so much in the last year.

I love this yarn (Knit Witch Witches Brew in Heritage Rainbow) so much. It looks pretty however you arrange it! Waiting for the next colour to arrive makes the knitting just that bit more enjoyable as well.