Progress - knitting and healthwise - has been made!

First. Kai-mei sock.1 is complete. This proved to be a challenging pattern for me and I very nearly gave up, ripped it off the needles and flung it in the bin! Luckily I didn't. I set it aside and ignored it for weeks, even looked through my book, Sock Innovation, in an attempt to convince myself that I preferred another pattern. but. I didn't! I preferred THIS pattern!

My problem was trying to learn the technique of ML (while still being "new" to handling circulars) and attempting to understand a complicated-to-me pattern. Once I'd sat and calmed down, picked up the needles and decided to just follow the instructions instead of trying to understand them, I settled into it and resolved to just KNIT and not look at it until I'd completed the decreases for the section on "shape gussets".
Hurrah! it worked! happily I found that the panel stitching was easy-peasy too! (and NOT the most difficult combination of knitting stitches I've apparently never come across before!) and the whole foot and toe was knit with ease!



Pretty good eh? I love this pattern and plan to cast on sock.2 this afternoon in time for the Mens Singles final Wimbledon.

Which leads nicely (yum!) to .. STRAWBERRIES! and another hurrah! for homegrown strawberries and raspberries! We've done well this year, our best ever! And don't they taste much better than shop bought?

Well I shall be enjoying some yummy knitting and yummy fruit this afternoon, and elsewhere my Vintage Cardigan (Debbie Bliss) is nearly complete too! Just got the shaping to knit at the top of sleeve.2 then I shall block it and attempt to follow the instructions to crochet the buttonhole bands and neck edge!

Cast on, too, is another sock - I decided that just a plain ST ST was far too boring and now that I feel confident wielding my single circ. about a ball of wool, have decided to have a go at the pattern in Simply Knitting magazine - Luxe Lace, by Elizabeth Bagwell. Easy 4 row pattern combining both cable and lace I've called this my "Hospital sock"! yes! at LAST! it looks like progress has been made at the Hospitals! FINALLY, the Dr's have decided to stop messing about and just go for it! and take out my gallbladder!! (I've only been waiting since Sept 08!)

First I have to attend an appointment for some sort of "endoscopic ultrasound" which sounds fun (not!) on the 14th July, and then, hopefully, the following week I'm IN on the Wed and ITS out on the Thurs!


Elsewhere on the health front, although my shoulder is much more flexible (thanks to the hard work by the Physiotherapist) it is starting to ache a bit and I'm beginning to feel occasional pain again. Dr at the Ortho Hospital advises that two injections this year is the maximum and suggests painkillers if I feel I need them and is "hopeful" that the pain won't return - unless I'm very unlucky! like it did before. I'm hoping it won't return, too!
Completely fed up with this frozen shoulder and still can't believe it takes so LONG to recover from it.

I've started to "do" a bit more and think that this may be aggravating it (eg shopping, lifting stuff) but at some point I've got to just for it and carry on as "normal".

I don't have to worry about work anymore (and the heavy lifting involved) mainly because I don't have any work TO worry about! Sadly all of us around the country have been told that our services are too expensive in the current climate, and thus we're all redundant. As of 31st July. We shall all be out of a job, save for two positions retained in London. Its the end of an era and I'm very sad about it not least the fact that I'm off sick for the notice period and thus feel completely out of the loop.

One way or another I shall be rather glad to see the back of 2009.