Monday, January 28, 2008

Progress of sorts

Not much happened on the tidying front this weekend, despite my best intentions being very much in the foreground. Yes, housework got done - so it isn't any messier or more cluttered at home - but that was about it, mostly due to other commitments on Saturday and the vagarities of fate on Friday night which saw our DVD player give its last cough before kicking its little legs up in the air after Alias and then stubbornly dying on us rather than suffer another episode of My Name is Earl.

There was nothing for it but to head out on Sunday to buy a replacement, but since our VCR is also slowly dying I thought I'd better replace it as well. We have lots of video tapes, but barely watch them and so I decided to get a DVD/hard disk recorder instead. The one stumbling block was the lack of a digital signal in our area, but it turned out that you can get analogue hard disk recorders for about the same money as a digital recorder these days. Cue me spending yesterday afternoon getting the hard disk recorder working and testing it to my satisfaction.

Saturday saw us both head up to Ripley so that Dave could play in a wargame in a friend's shop (Chimera). Richard kindly collected Dave so I could do some housework and then follow them up at lunchtime. Dave's side won (just) and I spent the afternoon looking at fabric - which I didn't buy - and then whiled away a couple of hours with Frizbe before we all went out to be sociable over a meal in a pub.

Frizbe's four year old had done some very pretty abstract artwork for us, which went down very well. We particularly liked the design she did for Dave and both are now on display in our living room as the fridge needs more magnets.

While I was in Ripley, I worked away on a sock which I'd cast on last week. It looks a little different to this picture now, as I've turned the heel and the gusset is nearly done, so I'm about ready to start working down the foot. This sock is in a manly brown, especially for Dave and I'm hoping the sturdy heel I've put in will make them able to stand up to his feet.


I also found time to photograph Dave's scarf, which I finished last weekend.

This scarf has taken me a while. I started it the weekend before Christmas and at first I was having a lot of problems with the pattern. Not that the pattern is wrong or bad, it's just that I kept making silly mistakes in the moss stitch and they showed. This led to frequent ripping back and much muttering under my breath.


Fortunately, I finally got the hang of it and it does look very effective.

The pattern for those interested is "His (Birthday) Scarf" and it was knit on 4mm needles in Jaeger Merino Matchmaker DK. The Jaeger was very easy to work with and other than the silly finger problems, the pattern worked up easily even if it did seem to take forever.

(As always click on the images to see bigger versions)

4 comments:

RichT said...

I fondled Dave's Scarf and I can confirm its a scarf to be proud of, non of that multi colour nonsense a good colour, with strong pattern.
As too the sock all I can say is Dave will have need to walk barefoot on heals to wear them out, but perhaps that what he does do?.
I got abstract art too, but not sure what to do with it.

Anonymous said...

The scarf looks great!! And loving the sock yarn - what nice browns (Mmmm - more temptation!!).

Frizbe said...

Keep the abstract art, its an early Leach ;-) she may well be worth something in a year or two! Loving the scarf, have nicked the link for my blog :-)

shelly said...

i am knitting the same scarf, but in two colors. deep brown for seed stitch. baby blue for patterm. my question is: in your scarf shown, is the criss cross right side? i think that appears on the wrong side of my pattern..or is the scarf reversible?