Knitting Continues

Bear continues to keep in touch. He's explained his coursework to me, which impressed me no end. I barely understood one word in twenty, but it was so lovely to hear his voice. Things are just happily tootling along. I'm settling down to hibernate. I've also placed a grocery delivery and I've ordered the first of the Christmas goodies. I'm using Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay for Christmas. As usual, I'm swearing that I'll get less than last year, and to be fair, I've gradually cut down. However it's November tomorrow and now I'm watching for sales on things like goodies that I can stash away until the big day. Really, I just want the men at home and for it all to be cosy. I may invest in candles - lots and lots of candles!

The next bit is a lot of knitting. You may want to skip it if you're not a knitter as it's a lot of grumbling about knitting things.

The delay since the last post is because I wanted to take a pic and I was baffled about the best way to do it. I then took the pictures and now my phone won't share them! In the end I looked for a pic of knitting on Unsplash, and when I entered 'knitting' in the search engine, it pulled up this, which is crochet. I can't crochet.

Photo by Imani on Unsplash

Which sort of sums it all up. 

Eventually I managed to coax the phone to get the pics. This is the current state of the jacket I'm knitting. 

It's just a sort of heap, because I've finished the main body, and the back and both fronts are knitted in one piece from the bottom up. The jacket is this one which is a jacket in chunky, and as I'm a larger lady with a ridiculously ample bosom, I'm knitting the largest size. Which is big. The finished length is supposed to be 36 inches or 93cm, and the bottom hem, which is all in one, is 62 inches or 157cm if I knit to size, and I have the uneasy feeling that I've knit it large. I've just started on the first sleeve. 

The instructions I have are to block the pieces before making up. As it's all in stocking stitch or stockinette, the whole thing has curled up. Apparently, I need to block a stretch of knitting that's seriously curled and nearly two yards long - and that's just the hem! There isn't a single uncurled edge. I bought a pack of blocking pins but they look somewhat inadequate and the only place I can think of that has that sort of space and that is free is bear's bed, and I'm not sure that he'd approve. 

My mother used to lightly press her knitting under a damp cloth, and I may try that. I'll have to do something as it's curling up to a ridiculous degree. After the mess I made when I dropped all the shoulder stitches, I'm not going to be wearing it outside of the house, so I think the main quality I'm looking for is 'fits over jumper and t-shirt' and from what I can see, it will do that very nicely. 

I'm not knitting it again. I found myself knitting five stitches for the neckband on a circular needle that was 150cm or 60 inches long. I spent more time trying to get the needle and yarn in position than I did knitting the row. 

Writing Stuff - today is the last day of October and my writing blog can calm down. I posted a story a day from Kane's story, most of them old but a couple of new ones. Today I posted the final story here - Not Fit - which is new and is quite a read at just under seven thousand words. I hope that if you dip in then you enjoy it. 

The stats on my writing blog are now going odd. I have no idea what's going on and I'm putting it down to bots. However, for a while I've been getting a regular hit on Invitation Accepted so I thought I had better have a look and remind myself what it was all about. I'm ashamed to say that I'd forgotten how it ended. I enjoyed the read, but I feel like a very neglectful story mother. I've added the link to ease my conscience, but I feel that perhaps I ought to have a rummage and see what I've forgotten!

Hugs and good health to all.