katzenfrau

One owl sock completed; will I finish the second before I see the fourth Harry Potter movie? Maybe not, if the workload doesn't let up a little...

Besides working, my other leisure activity yesterday was (hurk!) planting all of the flower bulbs I ordered from Breck's waybackwhen. I had my knee pads and my gardening gloves, so I thought I was all set to go. I got down on my hands and knees and had at it. I'd gotten through bluebells, iris, muscari, poppies, and hyancinths when my thumbs started to swell up.

Had that ever happened to you? Your thumbs start to swell? It doesn't hurt, you can just feel that the skin over them is tight, and they're bigger than they should be, and when you press one on something hard it feels like there's a water balloon inside it.

My new theory is that it has to do with making a very firm grip on something for a very long time--past instances mostly support this hypothesis. It is not just hand strain, because gosh knows I knit and type enough and it never happens then. No, it's something about gripping too tightly.

So I gave up and went in, leaving two batches of snowdrops unplanted. This morning, my legs and rear end hurt as if I'd been beaten up, and it rained on the unplanted bulbs and my gardening gloves all night, and I just realized--one probably shouldn't expect ornamental flowers to grow in places where not even weeds will grow. And I think I put a lot of the bulbs in upside down.

What is your all time favourite yarn to knit with?
Very hard to decide. Something soft and lovely... perhaps KnitPicks Andean Silk, or KnitPicks Sock Garden, or Debbie Bliss Cashmerino.

Your favourite needles?
I am not picky, as long as they are metal or coated metal. Inox, maybe.

The worst thing you've ever knit?
That dreadful bolero from the summer Vogue Knitting. It can make good service as a bed jacket but nothing else.

Your most favourite knit pattern? (maybe you don't like wearing it...but it was the most fun to knit)
Amelia Raitee's Elfine socks.

Most valuable knitting technique?
Eastern European cast on for socks.

Best knit book or magazine?
Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.

Your favourite knit-a-long?
The Blue Blog's Harry Potter knit-along.

Your favourite knitblogs?
The Blue Blog, Wendyknits, Yarn Harlot, Yarnstorm, My Fashionable Life.

Your favourite knitwear designer?
Debbie Bliss.

The knit item you wear the most? (how about a picture of it!)
Oh, any of my socks.

I declare the word of the day to be "slubberingly." As in today's portion of Pepys Diary:

"... afeard of my candle’s going out, which makes me write thus slubberingly."

Tomorrow's word? "Afeard."