I made this new resolution on Tuesday to spend at least 6 hours a day (weekdays!) studying. I was getting a bit too into the crafting and complacent that I was ahead on reading when by that point I wasn’t really. So here are some of my incentives :)

My amazon order just came. All of these are school books, except for the Sew U one. I just glanced through it, and I think I’m in love. It has taken the things I like about my vintage sewing books’ approach and updated it so that I can understand it. Haha. It has patterns too. I can’t wait to make something. I bought some lino cutting supplies yesterday, because I’ve been wanting to try printing with something larger than little erasers. I got some lovely thick watercolour paper and I’m going to make some thankyou cards to send out with my etsy packages.

I finished my reading socks (in the stripy pictures below) and started a new one. I wrote this pattern for my sock kit swap pal, but didn’t want to post it here until I’d made them. I did make a little sample sock that was all toes and heels and cuffs to test the pattern though before sending it to her. The yarn is from germany, thanks sp8 angel :)

Here’s a closeup of my slip-stitch-spiralling-socks. Say that fast!

That pattern while super simple, unfortunately isn’t so great for knitting while reading, it might be because I keep looking at the pretty colours. So I’m making some opera gloves while I read. These are a comission, with the stipulation that the yarn is soft and dark purple. Nice dark purple is hard to find, and this was by far the best colour. It’s patons diploma gold and although it’s only 55% wool this self-confessed yarn snob is quite liking it. I don’t think I’d make a jumper with it for myself but only because I hate acrylic clothing. Knitting with it is pretty enjoyable though, so I think this might be my go to yarn for basic gift hats and stuff.
The pattern, my, my, why is it so unclear? Seriously, I have no idea but I think v.2 is in order. I added some shaping to the arm part too and I’ll probably include that. But, I didn’t follow the directions for the wrist thumb gusset part because I have no idea why I made it so complex. I’m sure it made sense at the time. Anyway, apologies to anyone who has struggled with that pattern. I’m a pretty good person to test knit my own patterns after a long enough time lapse to forget what I was trying to do. I’m hopeless at following patterns. So I try to write ones I could follow. An update of the opera gloves pattern that even I could follow is coming :)

Thankyou for all your great suggestions in response to my last post. I’ve got some new things to try :) I do like the Dresden Dolls, I’ve seen them live once and last summer I saw Amanda (she toured Scotland on her own) performing as part of a caberet show with Regina Spektor among other people which was ace. I haven’t heard their last album though. I really should get a copy though if for no other reason than that there is a photo of my friend Katie that my friend Sheena took in the album artwork - Sheena’s livejournal post about it. Now though I’m going to do some laundry and go to the library.