Comfort knitting

It's cold out, and grey and damp (we had some snow for a day or two, but now it's gone), and I need something to sustain myself through these short January days. So I've got me a bit of comfort knitting, it's very plain and simple. 

I'm going round and round on a circular needle, with 100g of sock yarn. It's meditative and sort of slow, because you can't see it growing.  Before you ask, it's that famous brand can't remember, in the colourway no idea. 

I'm knitting a loooong tube  - and will just keep going until I run out of yarn (I weighed things this morning, there was still 46g of yarn left in the ball). When I do run out, I'll graft the two ends of the tube together to make a soft and purpley cowl. Yum. 

 

Christmas Socks (FO)

2013 is proving to be fairly productive, and there is another FO to show even before the first month is ended! (2012 what *were* you doing?)

Some socks - for me. This yarn was a Christmas gift from my MIL, (although the labels got a bit muddled and my son ended up opening it...), and I thought it would make good winter/boot socks, so I rattled some off.

Pattern: generic top down socks

Yarn: Wendy Roam Fusion 4 ply (about 60g) in 'Heath'

Time taken: started and finished January 2013

The colour is truest in the bottom photo, a pleasant pinky, orangey-yellow heathered yarn. I've worn them already, and can report a pleasant squashy and warm experience just right for snowy January days. it's noticeable how much thicker and bouncier these new socks are compared to the rest of my (handknit) sock collection. Then again, I notice that I made this pair - the oldest socks in my current collection - in 2007! No wonder they are getting a bit thin (but still no holes). 

Snow on snow on snow...

After what seemed to be a very brief autumn, winter arrived with a vengeance. It is now almost 2 weeks since the first snows fell - and although the temperatures are now just above freezing again, there is still a thick layer of snow covering the city. Edinburgh is a dry city, close to the sea and snow of this magnitude is really unheard of. We have at least 18 inches of accumulated snow in our garden, and I cannot remember such deep snow since I was a child. [It makes you feel really old when you start to reminisce about hard winters 30 years ago when you were a 'girl'!]

Anyway, although I love, love, love snow - the realities of getting to work, covering/arranging childcare when buses are not running, and being stuck at home with two small children are beginning to take the edge off my delight at the snowy vistas outside my windows each morning. It hasnt been a good week overall: DH slithered into the back of a lorry on Monday morning and dented the car quite a lot (although noone hurt, the car was driveable and he didnt get stuck for hours and hours on the gridlocked motorways of the central belt); on Tuesday I managed to kill my mobile phone by washing it in the washing machine and yesterday our boiler froze up. We've been there before with the boiler, so knew immediately what to do to restore the situation and our friendly plumber is coming this evening to check things over. I hope that's the end of the bad stuff for this week, and things get better from here!

On the plus side all this time at home has been good for some things. I have managed to finish a few little projects, details coming soon...