Sometimes Fails Happen

Bless - thank you. I don't like early, but the early shopping is a good side effect. I had a lot of fun with the pictures. I haven't got the eye of some of the people who visit (including you) but I enjoy taking them. I am hoping the new blanket with the fancy yarn will be the same good size as the blue one you complimented, but, to be honest, I just cast on and hope! And thank you for your kind thoughts about the pets.

Sharon - bear is more responsible than I ever have been. He is much the calmest and most rational person in the house. I worry about how that puts me and DH - less sense than a teenager! It is hard about the pets. They are part of a family, with their own ways and their own history. I think that I'm learning from you to look for what makes me smile. Thank you.

Irune - thank you, I hope the blanket will look good. I'll share as it goes on (if I don't get too distracted).

Eileen - Thank you. It seems only right to make sure that others get a chance to have a play with the yarn.

Strictly speaking, this made me smile, but it's also a picture of a fail. I do not need more yarn, I do not need to start more projects and I definitely got the wrong yarn in the first place.

That is a brownie pan inspired by the recipe on KJ Sutcliffe's blog plus fourteen balls of sparkly scrubby yarn and a half finished washcloth. I needed none of them. But the puffy things that I use in the shower are looking desperately flat and need replacing and I saw a YouTube video about knitting dishcloths and thought - why not? Why not knit washcloths for the shower. But I don't think knitting with that yarn is going to be safe to wash with. It's sparkly with long fibres. I can see it doing some serious damage if it got in my eyes. What is worse, if I left one in the bathroom, I don't think I can rely on the men to be sensible about it. 

It's a fail but it made me smile because I think that the cloths will be fun. I think I will knit it all up to the dishcloths. Some of the ones I'm using are getting past their best, and I have a lot of cleaning to catch up with. A few extra cloths that are a little bit abrasive (but not too much) would actually be a help. I still didn't need to do it now. 

By the way, as far as I can tell from a brief experiment today, hand sanitiser is quite good at cleaning glass. I had a few smears to rub away with the stuff I used, but that sanitiser had handcare stuff in, and it wasn't worse than the commercial stuff. Vinegar is probably slightly better, but I don't wash windows often enought to make a proper comparison. I guess the cheap stuff is probably better.

I'm not commenting one way or the other on the brownie pan. And for the other thing that made me smile, see the writing stuff!

Bear has broken his backpack. I am not surprised. He keeps all his books in it, and I can't actually lift the dratted thing! He was too exhausted to visit a shop tonight (double games circuit training and field hockey) so tomorrow we will be braving somewhere that I hope sells backpacks. He wants to go to climbing straight after, so I don't think he'll tolerate too much shopping around. Wish me luck. 

Writing stuff - My next novel, King's Silver, a medieval fantasy, is available for pre-order here. Three Furies Press have done some amazing artwork as part of the publicity. I'm afraid that you are going to be sick of hearing about it in the next few weeks, and there's a little chat about it on my writing blog here. The cover looks like this.

And look at this snippet of publicity!

I haven't stopped smiling since I saw it. 

Hugs and good health to all.