Monthly Quote: December

I'm late I'm late I'm late, and so sorry. Better late than never, though!

I now work in a place where I'm on the computer for a lot of the day, and that limits my need for computer based activites to checking Ravelry and Netflixing... sorry! But I really want to carry on with the monthly quotes, they've  helped shape the way I approach each month, and it sets the tone nicely. This month I've decided that listening to my body is the most important, and to not let the things I can't do anything about upset me so much. I'm a queen of worrying and being upset about things that are really out of my hands. So - forwards and onwards on the path of letting that stuff go is a motto this month.

  Alasdair and I are still painting, still working hard to get the house liveable. The next room after the dining room/library, is the kitchen! It's probably the room I'm most excited about of all the rooms in the house. The ceiling in this room was also just wood like the walls you see in the photo, but it had been treated with some sort of varnish which made it look really blotchy, dirty and not nice at all. There's patina, and then there's patina...The top photo is of the ceiling mostly unpainted, but it doesn't actually show how bad it looked in real life. Anyway, we decided fairly early on that this room needs a total paint-job, from top to bottom, and now that the base coat and first coat of paint is on the ceiling, we don't regret this decision at all. It's so motivating to work on now that we see how nice it's getting in there.The ceiling seems to be breathing again, and the room's atmosphere has been transformed - from a dungeon-like room, to an airy space which feels inviting. It really helped putting in a large window, too, the previous window was very small. 

I'm not really painting that much, or at all yet, but I'm tidying, cleaning and hoovering in between, to keep things neat around us while we work. I also have the task of reading to Alasdair while he paints. I'm the entertainer - and right now we're reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. It keeps him entertained while doing the hard work, and I feel useful for it. Win-win situation! 

This weekend I'm planning on doing my first little bit of painting in over a month - I'm both excited and nervous about how my arms will cope, but I've decided to really check how I feel on Saturday, and if I'm in doubt about whether it'll hurt or not, I'll wait a bit longer. There's no rush. My arms are doing a lot better, and I can knit and embroider a bit these days, but I'm not sure how painting'll be, but time will show. 

Enough about this, and on to the quote of the month, if you've stuck with me so far... 

"I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself."

- Michel de Montaigne 

 

As always, go visit Vibeke and Ruth for more inspirational quotes, they were the ones who inspired me to join in! 

 

Have a good December everyone! 

- Elise

Epistropheid

First project finished (and begun) in 2015:

An Epistropheid hat for my dear boyfriend, Alasdair.



It's knitted in Pickles's Tweedy,  a nice, worsted/aran-y yarn (don't actually know what I'm talking about here, but hopefully you'll get an idea of the thickness), which leaves the knitted fabric with lovely little specks of unexpected colours dotted all over it. While I loved the yarn in the ball, I'm not so sure about how I feel after knitting with it. I think it had something to do with the gauge I knitted this hat in, and not actually the yarn itself. Although the hat ended up fitting Alasdair surprisingly well (especially considering I skipped the oh-so-important gauge swatch this time around), it doesn't drape. At all. Which means that this hat, while looking great on Alasdair, looks funny (a.k.a. ridiculous) when worn by yours truly, as in standing up oddly, kinda sortof like a fez... Which is good for Alasdair, but not for me, since I had a cunning plan involving me using this hat as much as him. But! The pattern was an absolute treat to follow and knit, so it won't really be much of a bother to knit another one, hooray!



Like any hat pattern by Kate Davies, the crown stands out as a masterpiece (especially to a novice pattern "creator" like myself). I'm especially pleased that I managed to knit the decreases smoothly - practice makes one better at knitting, apparently..



And after all this I'm left with a chuffed BF, who's not going to have to walk around with a cold head in the Norwegian winter, which sometimes lasts for a very long time indeed. (Also, the warm and cozy looking cowl he is wearing in this photo is none other than the Calimero I test knit for Elizabeth Brassard a year and a half ago!!)