It really seems to me that I'm getting a lot more done, now that I'm a knitting slut, than when I devoted all my energies to just the one thing at a time. I suppose it could be an illusion caused by the excitement of variation, but no, I really am making better progress. For why?

1. The easy one: socks in handbag. Obviously mobile knitting (trains, waiting rooms, bus queues) is knitting that simply wouldn't have happened when I was all about one jersey in a basket in the living room. So this almost doesn't count - it's my bit on the side. It doesn't affect what happens inside the home. But then there's

2. The desk knitting. This one's quite new, and has yet to prove itself. I decided to try the idea of having some simple knitting at hand for when I'm on hold to some evil corporation, or waiting for a slow web connection, or similar. Well, so far, I'm certainly getting some knitting done (Armin's washcloth came out in record time), but I seem to be getting less work done. I suspect a plain stocking stitch sock might be the only thing that I can bear to pick up for literally a few stitches at a time - and I'm not sure I'll ever bother with casting on a completely plain stocking stitch sock. Hm.

3. The bedroom knitting. (Ooh er!) Also newish, and working out nicely. I decided it would be nice to have something availalbe for a few calming rows before bed, perhaps while reading a little, and indeed I like this very much. However, combined with the desk and handbag knitting, this makes for a total of 3 small and simple projects required... and I'm not naturally inclined towards small and simple projects. Which, I guess, explains how my current bedside knitting is that bit of lace I showed you. Anything on 2.5mm needles is immediately disqualified as "small and simple", don't you think? Again, hm.

4. The finishing. All these small projects, once the knitting's done and they no longer serve their time-filler purpose, seem to end up on the kitchen table. Then I work on the stitching of hems and darning in of ends while, say, waiting for the cats to finish breakfast (they cannot be left alone or they will switch plates, with Disastrous Results for both the fat-kitty-on-diet and skinny-kitty-on-prescription), or for supper to finish cooking. Stealing minutes in this way does seem to mean that finishing takes an inordinately long time, but on the other hand, it doesn't interfere with Real Knitting time.

5. And on that subject. I still always have the big sweater project in front of the TV. The magical part, though, comes when I've just finished and haven't had time to set up the next one yet (gathering of yarn, needles, pattern etc). Used to be I would go NUTS at this point, trying to find everything I needed so I could do some knitting RIGHT NOW. Which drove Armin crazy, if he was trying to watch TV while I fussed, and frankly it usually didn't work out too well for me either. You need some time to mull it over, don't you? Can't just dive in there. So now, when I cross the finish line, it's easy enough for me to bring out the handbag knitting as a stopgap until I have time to plan. Brilliant!

There you have it. The case for polygamy. What about you? Are you monogamous, or do you wish you were? Do you have a UFO problem? Startitis or finishitis? (I do always seem to finish a bunch of things at around the same time. Very strange.)

Posted by Robynn at 04:54 PM | Permalink | 11 cups of tea on the table

...Mel tagged me! Better do something about that then.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Hm. Late May 1998... I may well have been trying not to cry. That would be when I was just starting my first permanent job - secretary/office manager in a small and really dysfunctional office. The first day or so was okay; the previous incumbent was still on hand to train me up (she was leaving on some world travelling thing or other). Then she got really sick and disappeared - and so did my boss, the financial director. So I was all alone in the office, and it was a pretty complicated job, and I was clueless. It got even worse when the FD came back and realised what a cock-up I was making and yelled at me. A lot. Oh, and just for added atmosphere, picture this: the office was decorated in the company's colour scheme. Yellow and black. Really, really, really bright yellow. On all the walls. Yellow.

Yeah, great memory there. Thanks. Huh.

(Yes, it did improve. Althouth not a whole lot - which is why I quit 8 months later to move to Joburg and get into newspapers. So it was for the best really.)

Five things on my to-do list for today:
Well, the list is huge, but for today specifically? Let's take a random sample.
Bookkeeping
Order yarn
Order other stuff
Blog
Watch Gilmore Girls and start new jumper

Ok, that last one may not technically be on the list. But I rather think it's going to happen. Soon, if I have anything to do with it, and I think I do.

Snacks I enjoy
In the interests of brevity, I think I'm going to have to limit this to snacks I do not (much) enjoy:
Crisps (except South African Nik Naks, those are yummy)
Peanuts
...nope, that's it. I'm a food girl. Sweet, savoury, it's all good.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Build a vast commune somewhere in Switzerland with houses (separated by respectable distances) for all my best friends. Because dammit, having everyone I love best scattered all over the world is really not working for me. I want them with me. Maybe if I bribed them with houses we could finally spend some quality time together.

Alternative plan: kidnap them all and put them on a superyacht for years of hanging around on a boat together, with cocktails and (of course) yarn, hopping from place to place. Of course, I would only be able to live with myself if the yacht were solar-powered, so some of those billions would have to go to funding R&D of really efficient renewable energy technology.

Oh, and I'd also put a lot of money into building The Ultimate Knitting Company. Gorgeous yarn cafes in the best locations around the world, stocked with our own lines of yummy handpainted yarns (I'd get to oversee the creative process, putting colours together etc, but not dealing with any of the actual messy dyeing) and perfect knitting bags and so on. I'd have a crack team of brilliant staff making the whole thing run like a well-oiled machine, so my input could be restricted to designing colourways, bags and patterns. And finding more great suppliers. And hosting events where I could meet lots of lovely customers. But not the actual running of the business, cos that's, like, way hard work, dude.

I think I might be having way too much fun with this question, seeing as I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to get those billions in the first place. Oh well. Next.

Places you have lived:
Cape Town. Sasolburg. Johannesburg. London. An awful lot of different addresses in each of those places, but it's really a pretty limited selection. Next up: Zurich!

(That's by way of signalling my intention to the universe. No real moving plans as yet, but it's a goal.)

Okay then. Who do I want to know more about? Lessee...

Jill
Huan-Hua
Wanda

I'm going to leave it at that. Most of my small blogroll seems to have been tagged already.

Posted by Robynn at 04:04 PM | Permalink

...don't bring me down at all. In fact, they're rather wonderful. A quiet, wet day, with rain against the window and coffee in the pot... bliss. Don't you think? Especially if you have knitting in your hand.

I don't, as it happens, but maybe I'll get to settle down on the couch later and spend some quality time with the Gilmore Girls. First, a little work. You know how I said I was devoting two weeks to catching up on stuff? How do you think that went? Yeah, almost that well. Not that I haven't made progress; I have. I just have to acknowledge that, like housework, there really isn't ever a point at which things are Done. Oh well. Never mind all that - let me show you something. Did you know I knit? It's true! Look, proof:

Finished at last; and with the weather still so changeable, I might yet get to wear them out before September. Hurrah!
Pattern: Susan Gutperl's Lacy Cables Knee Socks
Yarn: Indigo Moon sock yarn in Blue Spruce. This was a Christmas gift from the lovely Gabrielle and inspired me to start stocking Indigo Moon. (As it happens, this colour is from the Vancouver Series (chemical dyes) and I chose to stock her natural dyed yarns, but the Nature's Harvest would work very well in this pattern too.)
Mods: I lengthened and expanded the calf shaping to accommodate my big chunky calf muscles (I'd like to blame all that running, but in fact I was just born chunky) - an extra 3 pattern repeats vertically, plus a few extra purl stitches to maintain the usual 2st column between repeats. I also made a shallow toe, which I've decided is totally the way to go (who has such long and pointy toes as the standard sock calls for? Please!), but then this pattern's attitude to toes and heels is pretty much "eh, you know this part", so I'm not sure this counts as a mod.

I've completed a couple of other things too, recently. I made Armin a long-promised washcloth.

The browny yarn is Colinette Banyan - a cotton/viscose blend, very soft and lovely. I think it's made a great washcloth, especially in combination with the pure cotton (a hard-to-find but fabulous South African brand called Vinni's Colours). I can't quite decide whether a pure Banyan washcloth would be too soft, or utterly lovely. Someone find out for me, would you?

And I finished something that I'm rather proud of - but you'll have to wait a while to see it. Let me show you instead what I'm working on right now. There's the gorgeous Lace Ribbon Scarf, using Handmaiden's Swiss Mountain Silk Cashmere; everything about this project is a treat.

There's socks for Armin in a good, manly brown with a good, manly simple stitch pattern. Looking pretty good. (Old Maiden Aunt merino sock yarn in Black Coffee; Primavera pattern.)

There's something incubating in Indigo Moon's gorgeous wild silk - I played with this for a while, trying a few things, waiting to see what the yarn wanted to be. I think it has finally spoken. And if I'm right, this is the last you'll see of it for a while.

Same applies to this. But this one I'm pretty sure of. Interestingly, both of these New Sekrit Projekts involve my learning the same new-to-me technique (one of them with an Added Twist). Hurrah for new techniques and all, but if I decide I really hate it, that'll be two projects screwed up instead of just one. Sucker for punishment, moi?

Arguably, I shouldn't even bother showing you these secrets-in-progress. But I want to for two reasons. One, to try to convince you that I *am* a real knitter, I *do* have things on the go, even when I don't show them to you for ages. It's not all just an elaborate con to sell yarn, honest.

Two, as illustration of an idea I have. But I think I'll have to germinate that properly and share it with you tomorrow.

Posted by Robynn at 10:00 AM | Permalink | 6 cups of tea on the table

In the interests of preserving (or possibly retrieving) some base level of sanity, I've cleared my diary for a couple of weeks so that I can Catch Up on assorted admin-y and strategic tasks. This clearly shows my genetic predisposition to lunatic levels of optimism. I am not an Idjit; I know full well what generally happens in situations like this. I am prepared to face the possibility that my two weeks will end and I'll feel very little advanced on where I'm at now, if at all. (I'm already cursing at those unavoidable social engagements that are interrupting my precious Catching Up time. Friends! Pah! How dare they want to see me!) But yet, I have to believe it's possible to make progress, because, well, otherwise I'll cry.

So far, progress has been slow. Not entirely non-existent, but slow. My time and energy has naturally been distracted by such things as (1) a houseguest, (2) doing battle with The Devil (also known as Parcelforce). And of course the sun is shining, the world is looking particularly beautiful, and it does seem rather cruel that I should be stuck inside working. But there it is. I'll probably feel happier in the long run if I spend these gorgeous, golden afternoons at my desk rather than in the park.

Probably.

I am also hoping that as this "catching up" lark progresses, I may find time to catch you all up on my knitting progress. (Yes! There has been some!) No promises... but one can hope.

Meanwhile, I'm plotting a knitty picnic in Osterley for later in the summer. Not on WWKIP day (I know better than to try to compete with the draw of iKnit's scavenger hunt), but a picnic natheless. Perhaps on an Open House day - picnic first, stockroom devastation later. Sound like fun?

Posted by Robynn at 05:14 PM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

The next open house is scheduled for... well. That's the question, isn't it? In my last email I blithely said 23 May, but I actually meant Saturday 24 May. However, a couple of you have let me know that actually Friday would work quite well for you, and I had A Thought (always dangerous). Normally I will certainly pick a Saturday to throw open my doors - after all most of us are wage slaves during the week. But that's not true of everyone, or always, so maybe it would be worthwhile to try a different day just this once.

Here's the nub: since anyone who can't make the Friday will surely be able to make another Saturday party, I am not so worried about accommodating the 9-to-5ers this time; I need to hear from anyone who *would* like to come on Friday 23rd. If there turns out to be a modestly significant number, we shall make it so. If not, Saturday reclaims its title.

Your call...

Posted by Robynn at 05:49 PM | Permalink | 1 cups of tea on the table

I just got around to downloading a heap of pictures that have been accumulating on my phone for a while. Time to share...

Have you seen Ikea's new finish on the Billy range?

Jemima thinks my yarn basket would be the perfect cave, if I'd only let her tip it over for easy access.

And some snaps in Osterley Park - very near our new home, and where I now go for my morning run. Lucky me!

I was thinking that a picnic here would be a wonderful thing to do for Knit in Public Day, but that was before I heard about the iKnit treasure hunt. Still - maybe another day. What do you think?

Posted by Robynn at 10:55 AM | Permalink | 2 cups of tea on the table

Recently I was invited to talk to the lovely Sally and Justine of new podcast Miss Flip Knits. This being an opportunity to talk about me, and knitting, and me knitting, naturally I accepted with delight. It was very fun indeed. And now you can hear the results. (They also talk to Jon of Easyknits, who seems a very fine fellow.)

It's very strange hearing myself talk, I must say. Even though everybody always says it. I don't claim much originality. But it's strange. I kept thinking how much I sound like my cousin Sandra. Jill, this episode should give you plenty of accent geek enjoyment - you have slightly-South-African me, Kiwi Justine, and Sally from... I have no idea where Sally's from. But she sounds lovely.

Posted by Robynn at 05:45 PM | Permalink | 4 cups of tea on the table