It's Sunday and I 'm alone the whole day, but I haven't gotten around much I wanted to do. Well, I did sleep a lot, and I'm not regretting that, but somehow I should start to do more and sleep less.

The weather cooled down big time, it was about 8°C during the day yesterday (no clue how cold it is now, but it's cold). I'm enjoying this weather so much! I hope it keeps getting colder, but we never really have super cold Winters, we hardly ever have snow, so I'm not having to high hopes.

Anyway, Thursday I finished a pair of socks! My train socks actually (I always have a project I keep for my train rides and the lunch breaks at work, so they usually advance rather slowly). Here they are :





Can be worn up like this ...













Or down like this one! :D






Stats : Handdeyed sock yarn from Hello Yarn, based on Autumn Leaves pattern in SocksSocksSocks. The foor is knit top down after casting on with an invisible cast on on 2.25mm circulars, and the rest of the leg is knit up on 2.5mm addi turbos. It's a k2p2 ribbing all over and I casted on 72 stitches. I LOVE them! They are snug and warm and just perfect! Maybe I would cast on a few more stitches in the future and make the foot a tiny bit longer, but other then that I'm loving them!


Having finished these I have no clue what I'll be taking on the train tomorrow. I might take the Mog-Socks to finish the foot of the first sock, or the shawl I'm working on. This one :











It's knitted in an angora blend (I think it's 70% angora or something). I'm knitting it for a patient at the clinic my mom works at. She wanted Kaki but the store didn't have any so I decided to dye up some white angora. I turned out so nice! I found the stitch pattern somewhere online and was a bit afraid how it would turn out, but it's very drapy and lovely! I'll have a hard time giving it away! I really would love to keep this for myself, but the girl will be paying me so I have to shut up. *grin* I'm almost done with the second ball, so only one more to go. Hope to finish this up soon, I have so many projects I urgently need to work on! Better get going!

I baked waffles most of the evening. Yuck, I hate it. It's boyfriends birthday today (he's out all day with his mates) and he wants to have waffles for all the people here at the business tomorrow at noon, so I had to bake them today. It's a relief to be done with them!

Ok, off now for some more knitting!




Ps.: I found a new addiction to Audiobooks. I missed reading so much and this way I can combine reading and knitting. I read the 2 books from Debbie Macomber ("A Good Yarn" and "The shop on Blossom Street"), well listened to, and I loved it as it was fairly light. I'm now downloading "The Nanny Diaries". Any suggestions for other books more then welcome! I love almost everything, but prefer thrillers and detectives, plus the light "romance" like the Macomber books. Oh, and anyone who can share the first Narnia book with me would be a sweety as I can't purchase it (don't ask me why!).

Amazon order

So today, after loosing my patience with this order, I went to the website and started reading again. Now, I must have been reading wrong, 'cause now I read that you can email them 4 days after the estimated delivery date, instead of the month I thought. Ok, so I went ahead and emailed them. Here's the reply I got :


Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk to bring this to our attention.Normally, in such circumstances we would create a replacement order for the lost item right away, to be dispatched to you as soon as possible at no additional charge.However, in this case, we were uncertain how you would like us to proceed.We would still be happy to arrange for a replacement to be sent to the same address. If this solution will not work for you, we can simply issue a refund for the item, along with the associated delivery costs.If you wish for us to send a replacement, please let us know by using the link provided at the bottom of this e-mail. If you would simply like a refund you can also inform us using the same link.We look forward to hearing from you, thank you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk


So, of course I emailed them back saying they can reship the whole order. Why would I no longer want it? And I'm pretty sure this is a mess up by the PO. If they mess up again I'm going to kick serious ass over there. This is a shipment of over €120, so that's A LOT of money. I'm already happy they want to reship without charging more.

Then, if the original package ever does show up (not that I expect that to happen) I told them I would either return it or pay for that and then sell the books or something like that. Am I supposed to do that or am I allowed to just keep that package if it ever shows up? Now I'm still hoping it will but I'm pretty sure it won't. I'm still going to go to the PO to complain about this but problem is I can't go tomorrow and I can't go on Thursday (it's closed by the time I'm home) and well, Friday just everything is closed as it's a holiday. Hmm, we'll see.

I often wonder what happens with all those lost packages. I send a package to friend at the beginning of July and it never showed up. I'm wondering who ate the candy inside it and who's playing with the toys now. I'm wondering who's having the books I'm supposed to be reading now. I mean, these huge packages surely can't just go lost, right?

I remember the story over here in Belgium about this nutty postman who had been keeping the post with him for years. There were bags and bags of mail in his attic, stuff that never made it to the owners. He was nuts though, he's now in an institute. But still, who's collecting all this stuff? Anyone has an answer? :D

The pictures

Ok, here they are, as promissed. I decided to make me a little photo corner, but of course I forgot to put my digital camera on the right stand (it was still on night-pictures) so the pictures aren't as great as I had hoped they would, but better then nothing, right?

First of all, the dreaded shawl I mentionned yesterday, here it is :

When looking at it like this it does look ok! It's still quite small, but well, I'm not using big needles either (3mm I think). I like it this way, we'll see how it turns out! (if you want to see the finished shawl, go here).

On the group there's a discussion going on about paying for the mystery pattern. I've been randomly reading messages and I agree and disagree with some. Please skip this if you are not willing to read some of my ponderings!

* I wouldn't mind paying for a pattern (it would be only about $3) if I could get a corrected finished version in PDF at the end.

* I can imagine this really is quite a lot of work for the designer, so it doesn't matter to me.

* Someone metionned getting a very tine shawl and using only half of the yarn the designer said it would need. Well, being new to lace I do know that you can knit lace with any size of needles and that will determ the size. I mean, I didn't want to use big needles and I wanted a very tight knitted shawl so this is what I'm getting and it might be smaller then I thought but that's ok! I might knit more lace with heavier weight yarn in the future. Now as for the person complaining, I thought she was pretty rude and if you don't like the mystery aspect then you should knit other lace.

* Has anyone of you any complaints/thoughts about Paypal? It's a gift for me 'cause otherwise it would be way more expensive and difficult to order stuff. But I read complaints about Paypal tracking money and all. Hmm, sometimes I feel so distant from things happening!

That's it for now, I'm not even sure if I'll keep up with the discussion, it's all so stupid. I know that the lady who designed the MysteryStole put up a perfect fit together pattern in PDF up at her site for sale. You can still get the pattern for free at the group (though she will be closing it down) but it's clearer and the sold version. It's cheap, and I really wouldn't mind paying for a pattern like that. I mean, if I start designing stuff (maybe never but well) I might ask a little bit as well. Just to get some money for my yarn addiction! :D

Next subject. Donni, here's a picture of your socks in progress! (for those now knowing, for the SET exchange organized by Rox) :

As you can see I finished the leg part of the first sock, and am dealing with the foot now. Here's a close-up of that part :

As you can see, I combined Fair Isle and a cable in this sock! :D The foot looks a bit wonky, but I'm doing the upper part in ribbing so it'll fit better, and there's one cable going on the side. I know, these socks look strange. I'm hoping Donni will like them!

And then, a package of my dear SP! I forgot to mention the previous package, which included a lovely CD and a lot of super lovely beads! But here is a picture of the last package :

It included a lovely skein of Koigu sock yarn, a letter set, my gardian angel, and some soap! Sweetie, you're spoiling me, thank you sooo much!

Then, here's some yarn I died a while ago. I was going to use it for socks for my aunt but I ended up loving it so much I just kept it for myself! :D

Died with KoolAid, the colours are like a fire burning in our wood stove, I just love it!

And then, to leave you, some pictures of my yarn room as it is now, in desperate need of some organisation. Oh, and a question : what do you all do to keep out mots, except for lavander and sandal wood?

Frustrated

Yep, really, I'm sooo frustrated right now! Let me explain ...

I joined the MysteryShawlAlongs (yes, both) quite some time ago. I wanted to start and did with the second one. I ordered yarn from this Ebay seller located in Romania (if I'm correct) which is 100% pure wool. After I ordered it someone warned me it wasn't that great. Well, it was cheap! And yeah, getting it I realized it was just too fine for my taste! It's like so fine you can weave it into very delecate stuff. Well, as it was to thin, I decided to ply 2 balls together and use it like that. I love the thikness and how it's knitting up now, but, I think knitting with 2 strands of yarn at the same time wasn't a good idea for my first big lace project!! Man, this is horrible.

Well, I'm half way through the shawl, that is, at clue 3 (out of 5) and I keep making mistakes, either picking up only one thread, or just making plain old mistakes. I'm stuck now, very frustrating, and part of me wants to fix this before I put it aside and pick up another project, another part of me tells me not to do that as it'll get me even more frustrated (and my boyfriend just came up, I don't think he wants me to be frustrated tonight). This is soooo horrible!

Other then that I really, really want to finish up a few projects! It's not going fast at any rate and I want to start a few scarfs (among things) but as long as I haven't finished something I'm not going to start any new things. Well, honestly, I started the cardigan for my grandfather but that's mostly because I needed an easy knit because I want to watch some tele tonight, and I needed to start that soon anyway.

I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow. Oh, and adding to the frustration : still no sign of my huge order at Amazon!!!! I'm ready to cry about that one! And you can't file complaint till 4 weeks after the estimated recieving date, if I understood correctly, that's 2 more weeks. Yikes!

Off now, Spiderman is on tv.



** Edit : Blogger is working again, so I can finally post this. I figured out the problem with the shawl, wanted to knit another row and just couldn't make it work. I guess I should start using lifelines, 'cause I'm not going to get this finished if I keep messing up like this! Picture tomorrow! **

Just a quick update to let you all know I'm doing ok. My boyfriend and I are still together and seem to be doing quite well these days. We are spending more quality time together and are trying to work on all our problems!

Tonight is another bad night though. I had a great 4-day weekend with lots of relaxing (and some knitting) but today was just a horrible meet up with reality. I can no longer keep doing the job I'm doing right now, it's not only boring but it's just plain horrible and my boss will never accept me for who I am. He basically hates me. I really need a kick in the ass and start applying for new jobs. There are a few I'm interested in, I'm just lacking the energy to write the letters. Oh, and I'm having a big headache tonight, so I'll be collapsing on the couch after I finish this entry, with some possible knitting.

I have no pictures, but can do a little update. I finished the back for Arisaig and casted on for the fronts (both at the same time) but I will probably start the cardigan for my grandfather first as it has to be ready by Christmas. I'm also working on the socks for Mog :D they are coming along slowly but ok. Luckily the deathline for the SET exchange has been moved to November 20th. I'm also working on the MysteryShawlAlong2 which is looking nice. It's my first actual lace scarf and I'm loving it. I might give this one to my grandmother for Christmas. I won't wear it myself - I just LOVE knitting them! - plus I wanted to knit her a shawl anyway. And I have 2 various pairs of socks on the needles, one almost finished, one just started (needed some simple socks to knit during the movie we went to Monday evening).

Projects I urgently need to start : 4 toddler hats, 2 pairs of felted slippers/Fuzzyfeet (for Christmas), the above mentionned cardigan, and a pair of fingerless gloves I have on order from someone. Oh, and a pair of fingerless gloves that reaches up to the elbow for another person. To many projects? Yeah, probably. I even forgot to mention the socks for 2 KAL that need to be finished this month. Hmm, I'll need a kick in the ass here.

Oh, I ordered a bunch of books from Amazon (UK). They chipped all books on Oct. 20. They shipped one (Knitting Vintage Socks from Nancy Bush) seperately and it arrived shortly after. The 8 or 9 other books that shipped together at the same day, didn't make it here yet and I'm really starting to get worried! For once I order a big amount of books and then this happens! :( Ugg!

Off now, to knit in front of the tele, half asleep or so!