Time to relax

 

Being at home for the winter break with truly terrible weather can be quite relaxing. No real work to think about, apart from keeping the house reasonably clean, no major projects planned, no big travels ongoing, so I can do a bit more complicated knitting. I am making a cardigan for M, some stranded colourwork of an own design. It requires just some attention, so good for days like these. I am enjoying myself, hope you are too finding time for some relaxing things….

The yarn is Onion Nettle Sock yarn, a fine fingering yarn with 70% super wash wool and 30% nettles. It has a very nice sheen and great drape. It behaves quite a bit like linen but it is much softer. It comes in a range of muted colours that just called out to me… It is more spring like, but in a way that is good too for this time of year.

Yule berry

 

I am not a big shawl wearer but I do have this dress and really it could do with some cover when it is a bit colder. A cardigan would of course work, but sometimes one ones something just a little bit dressier, a little bit more festive. So a shawl would be it, but just not too go too much in dainty territory, a shawl in worsted wool. I had the yarn reserved for this project for quite some time, a nice rustic tweed ( Brooklyn Tweed Shelter) and the pattern is the Juneberry Triangle. A nice thing about knitting lace with worsted weight is that it is very very fast to knit it. I started last week, I had the luck to have to attend a 2-hours audio-only telephone conference for work, and I just could knit away during that exercise. So in less than a week, ready for Christmas, my Yuleberry...

The colour is hard to catch, it is closer to the colour in the photo below, a purple with hints of red and a bit of white. Some subtle buds and a very nice border finish this one.

 I could make some time for making some photos, in between the baking that is on-going in our kitchen. The youngest made lussekatter yesterday, the oldest is making a Chestnut-Flavoured Cheesecake for dessert, mmmm

And yes we did another Christmassy thing yesterday, we went to see Star Wars… I never saw the original trio in the cinema, instead there was one year during my PhD that we hired all three (good old-fashioned videos)  and watched them all within a day or so… Ever since that Star Wars is for me linked to Christmas, even with my own children we saw the first three during a Christmas break… so going to the cinema last night was real good fun!

But still, at heart I am a Star Trekkie, those I did watch ( & rewatch) as a child, I guess first impressions have a life-long hold….

Hat On

 

Sometimes a small project can be so rewarding. This hat is such a project, soft yarn, a good colour and a nice cable pattern. Just the project for these dark days.

The pattern is Kathleen, the yarn some Malabrigo merino worsted in Jewel Blue.

Rollercoaster

I am having one of the strangest weeks of my life...

To start somewhere, my workplace is moving. In itself not a big thing, but my workplace is this big laboratory which gives researchers from all over the world (literally) access to highly advanced instruments. It has been doing that for 30 years and I have been attached with it for now 15. We are building a brand new laboratory so that the old one closes is not strange or overly sad, the last couple of months have been hard as things were old and misfunctioning and one was fighting an up-hill struggle. So on Sunday we had this huge party to celebrate the lab, it 30 years existence and in a way its funeral as we switched the machine off and we were happy, real real happy. It was one of those parties that one will not forget. Now a couple of days later when we are actually dissecting the lab, it just feels strange. We need to separate things we want to  take and things to go to the dump, it is chaos and hectic and I just sometimes don’t know where to start… Coming to the new lab, with my shiny new office with a lovely view, is of course good, but it feels still a bit un-known, it is not “mine” yet, so I am kind of drifting. I know it will be OK, plenty to do and look forward too ( a new machine, new instruments and toys and lots of possibilities for research), but just now I have bouts of melancholy… 

The main part is however that one of my cats, who was born during the first summer we came here stopped slowly with eating. In the beginning he just got picky and switching food made him eat again, but during the weekend he just stopped eating, so on Monday we called the vet and on Tuesday came the verdict, intestinal cancer… This morning we let him go… we had a nice evening with him yesterday, as he came to me and sat next to me on my chair at the kitchen table. This was our thing, he sat next to me at the kitchen table. He was a gently and nice red cat who sometimes could bite me gently to tell me that I should pet him. I will miss him and I know we had to let him go, but right now I am just very very sad.

So yes it is Wednesday today and I feel this week has been a month….