Saturday 4 April – Random Witterings from Home #5

Good things that have happened so far this month:

1.       I tried out a new running route and discovered new things surprisingly close to home. As well as finding that one of our local roads has a ford (with an adjacent pedestrian bridge, so no need for wet feet), I found three more chunks of forest with permissive access. With the current lack of traffic, it was a good route. I intend to enjoy it again tomorrow.

Not a flood but a ford

2.       I managed to turn one of the beds in the garden from this:

Taken just after I’d started digging. Judging by the amount of long grass that had grown into the bed I suspect I didn’t clear it last year.

to this:

3.       After 14 days of Mick putting together educational quiz papers for the grandchildren, we had a bit of fun to end with the week by putting together a real-life (i.e. no photo editing software) ‘Spot the Difference’. There are eleven deliberate differences between these two photos:

4.       After seven years of our functioning basin plug sitting on the bathroom window sill, and having a non-functioning plug sitting on the end of the chain attached to the basin, I finally got around to removing the old and fitting the new. It took approximately 2 minutes. By my reckoning that’s a procrasti-ratio* of around 1,840,000:1. I wonder if there are any other lingering jobs around the house that can beat that?

I take snaps of some really dull things! 

5.       I had a smile as I clocked these chaps as I trotted along one of the nearby roads this morning:

I also spent an unreasonable amount of time this week searching Ravelry.com for a knitting pattern for a cardigan that would suit Mick’s mum, having decided that it would cheer up her current situation of complete isolation to receive something that has been knitted especially for her. All those hours on t’internet and (with Mick’s assistance) we finally selected one that I already had in my pattern pile.

Where patterns are written to cover a range of sizes, and particularly where there are cross-references back and forth, I like to write the whole thing out, only covering the size I’m going to make, in a way that I find easier to follow. Because I prefer to knit in the round (in this case just the sleeves, because I don’t feel like this is the time to experiment with steeking**), writing out a pattern can also involve having to read every other row backwards and writing down the opposite of what it tells you to do. Of course, having done all that, some proof reading is needed. I very much appreciate Mick’s assistance at this final stage, even though he looks thoroughly bemused when faced with something like this:

I cast-on a couple of days ago and after finishing the bottom ribbing, I excelled myself by completing without error the row that increased the stitches from 95 to 150. My triumph was short-lived, when I realised I’d done the increases a row to early. Thought was given to fudging it, but I did the right and proper thing: I tinked (unknitted) the entire row, did one more row of ribbing … and then realised it had been right the first time. The extra row was thus tinked and the increase row re-done. An hour and a half later and I was back to where I’d started. I’ll post a photo later in the week once the pattern starts to emerge.

I think I need this mug!

^{(*Procrasti-ratio: a term coined by a friend of mine, meaning the ratio of the time spent procrastinating on a job to the time taken to complete the job.
**Steeking is where you knit a cardigan in the round then cut it down the middle.)}