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Thursday 31 October 2013

NaNoWriMo is coming

In just under 3 hours it's NaNoWriMo time again and I am going to be doing it.

I tried in 2008 but got nowhere, well a few thousand words but nothing that really made sense. But this time I'm doing it again. I still haven't decided if I'm going to resurrect the 2008 story or go for something completely different. A few nights ago I had thought and characters and ideas but no plot just coming at me so perhaps I should go with that.

It'll probably come down to me just sitting and writing and seeing what comes out.


Saturday 26 October 2013

Uh Oh! It's a Boyfriend Sweater

Every knitters knows the "Sweater Curse". For those that are unaware it's the breakup that occurs when a knitter makes, then gives a hand made sweater to a significant other (usually a boy/girl friend). Sometimes the gentle click of the casting on is enough to start the knell of the relationship, othersflounder after the sweater is received.

I met Mr Glam in February 2005 and in February 2006 I went away to work for a month on North Uist in the Western Isles. He asked me to knit him a sweater, full of cables and aran and lovely and everything marvellous and I thought that this time apart would be the perfect time to make the start. I bought the best wool from ebay - 10 skeins of wonderfully soft Bluefaced Leicester. It was delivered to the house in Scotland we were staying and I didn't make a start. The wool came back down with me and went through two house moves staying in the bag it came in.

Fast forward to October 2013. That's it seven years later. I had decided to make a serious attempt to sort my stash and came across the lovely BFL at the bottom of a bin bag. Mr Glam, who knows about the Sweater Curse, wondered if I was ever going to knit him the sweater. My reasons for not are not at all connected to the worry that it will end our relationship. It's mostly because I'm lazy and easily distracted and am not great at finishing things. Starting comes easy but finishing is a completely different matter.

But started I have. It's a cabled, seamless, scoop necked sweater knit called Olwen by AndreSue Knits. Mr Glam isn't keen on things being close round his neck so I think that this is going to work. I'm going for the largest size but have also upped the needles size to 5mm for the ribbing and 5.5mm for the main part. And boy is it a fast knit. This is it after 4 days.
Yes, I know there is a mistake on the cable. Or rather there was a mistake on the cable, I just dropped down the stitches and it now flows as it's meant to.