Cowling in fear...

OK, that last blog got a bit more attention on twitter than I expected!

I'm glad so many people found it helpful/ interesting, but I might just huddle down here for a minute while I process the fact so many people read what I wrote! So please forgive me while I distract myself by going back to the subject of this blog... Knitting!

A few weeks ago I made the 'Treads' fingerless gloves (see a few blogs ago for the pattern). I had a skein of the lovely yarn left after I finished, and as such decided to try and make a matching cowl. I'm quite pleased with the result, as such I thought I'd jot the pattern down here for others to find.


Complimentary Treads Cowl.

Materials: 
75 meters of worsted weight yarn.(I used Mirasol Miski)
size 5.5mm needles.
Stitch marker and tapestry needle.

Pattern: 
c/o 100 stitches in long tail cast on,
Join in the round and place stitch marker to note the start of the round
Rib K2, P2 for 1.5 inches,

Knit 1 round of Lateral Braid. (instructions on how in italic if you need them)

To begin, m1r and then replace this newly made st onto the lh needle.   
* Bring yarn to back. From the back, knit into the back of the 2nd st (the one to the left of the newly made st), and then, keeping that st on the needle and yarn at back of work, bring needle around to front, and knit into the front of the first st.  
Slip both of these first and second sts off the lh needle.  You should have 2 newly made sts on your rh needle, replace the leftmost st back onto the lh needle. 
Repeat from * for the rest of rnd. When rnd is complete, slip the first st of the next rnd back onto the rh needle point ** and pass the last st of the rnd over that st (as you would do a bind off).    
Replace the first st of the rnd onto the lh needle point.  

Knit 4 rnds,

Begin Linen Ridge stitch:

Row 1: purl
Row 2: *(wyib sl1, p1), repeat from *
Row 3: purl
Row 4: *(p1, wyib sl1), repeat from *
Knit 2 repeats of rows 1 to 4 of the Linen Ridge Stitch,  then repeat rows 1 to 3 of the Linen Ridge Stitch, ending with a purl row.

Knit 4 rounds,

Knit 1 round of Lateral Braid,

Rib K2, P2 for 1.5 inches,

Bind off.

The finished cowl comes to 5.5 inches. If you've got more yarn to play with than me, then I would suggest ribbing for 2 inches.

You could also make the cowl longer by adding more knit rounds in, or having two bands of linen stitch separated by 2 rows of knit stitch.

But it's that simple, matches the gloves nicely and looks great.

Here's the cowl.










Here's the cowl with the gloves

And here's the Other Half modelling them to check the fit, the cowl does also work as a headband, but he won't let me take a photo of that! ;)

Looking for the positive...

Recently I've been thinking a lot about mental health, the work/ life balance and how to get the most out of my life.

I've realised that I'm very blessed in that I am generally a positive person. I'm also a planner, and a do-er, these are all great attributes at work and have helped me do well in my career, but they are also things that can help me at home. 

At the moment, whilst I love my job, I have a horrid commute. A while ago this was really getting me down, and left me feeling drained, and pretty cranky at home.

I'm lucky enough to be on a career development programme at work, and so I discussed how I was feeling with my peer group and got given some ideas on how to make things better.

The first solution was 'Stop doing the commute, find another job'. Simple in theory, not in practice. So there were some other suggestions for the meantime, until another job comes along. The first two were both eminently obvious and practical...

1. Have a proper breakfast, and eat lunch. I was skipping breakfast or eating a cereal bar on the go, and quite often working through my lunch. Not good, it was making me feel more drained as my body was burning up my energy reserves instead of food. So yes, I've stopped doing that. (Ok I'm still working through lunch sometimes, but not ALL the time, and I am at least making sure I eat my lunch while I work). And I definitely have more energy during the day, and am usually in a better mood once I get home.

2. Relax on my day off. I don’t work Fridays, I tend to do about 40 hours + on my 4 days in, so originally this was my day with The Boy, but now he's at school I was tending to work even on my days off, checking emails, taking phone calls or analysing the next weeks work to try and get a head start on it. This meant I was never properly relaxed. 
Stopped that. Unless it’s an emergency I've stopped working on my days off, I now try and exercise or relax by knitting etc. on my day off. Much better. 

But the third thing a peer suggested really made me stop and think.

Cut out negativity in your life.

Now as I said I'm a positive person, and on face value I wouldn't say there are many negative things in my life. But actually the more I thought about it, the more I realised how draining things around us can be. Especially the media; both main stream and social.

So much on TV at the moment is negative or depressing, and I don't just mean the news. So many TV shows are just depressing, fantasy shows about people disappearing, or the apocalypse happening; crime shows about kidnappings and death. Gotham is a great example of this for me, now obviously given the source material it was never going to be the most uplifting show, but it was just so 'grim'. It was just getting me down.

Social media is also really good at surrounding us with negative, depressing stories. There are some people out there who only seem to post negative things. I realised that on twitter especially I tended to be more negative than I naturally am (especially when it comes to complaining about my commute!)

So actually this suggestion to cut out 'negative things' had merit.

As such I've cut out ALL depressing TV shows. No more Gotham, no more the Walking Dead etc.... 
I've also started checking ng social media less, not stopping, but stepping back. I've also unfollowed or muted people who ONLY seemed to post negative things. Perhaps that sounds harsh, but hey, sometimes we have to be selfish especially when it comes to our health! 
I've also stopped checking the news several times a day, no more reading stories on Facebook that are obviously going depress me, and no more constantly checking my emails etc...

Now obviously I can't cut out every negative thing. Friends go through bad times and I'm certainly not going to mute them just because they're down! Nor can I ignore all the news out there. World events are important; Negative things will still happen; things will still go wrong every day.  But I can look for the little things more.

One tip I got told was to try and find 5 little things (or big things) that made you happy, or were positive a day. And it really does help. It helps you start to see the good things, and stops you dwelling on the bad.

So please, people of the internet, try to find 5 good things a day, and cut out as much negative stuff as you can. It won't solve all your problems, or banish your black dog, but it might just help you cope a little bit.

And knit more, it's relaxing (most of the time)...  ;)

3 down, 1 to go...

So its now December, which means Christmas is edging ever closer. 

We stuck on some festive music and put our Christmas tree up yesterday. Which means I have officially declared it Christmas in our house!

Unfortunately the Boy is now asking daily if today is Christmas Night (I'm guessing he means Eve) so I keep having to disappoint him. Tonight after he goes to bed, we're planning on getting our wrapping done. At the moment our house looks a bit like an Amazon warehouse.

Anyway, I now have 3 of my knitted presents done, and only one to go. Phew! Present number 3 was definitely the trickiest of the lot, as the gloves featured a new stitch for me, but I'm rather pleased with them.

Here's the pattern if anyone fancies having a go! 

http://oftherain.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/treads-a-tipless-gloves-pattern/

ALL THE KNITTING

Today I've had the day off, the Boy has been at school and the other half has been being domestic. As such I have used the day to knit.

I finally got the Neverending shawl finished and it's now blocking on the board.

I've now cast on some fingerless gloves for my mum's boyfriend, he's currently repairing a boat and it tends to get cold, so I thought some fingerless gloves would be useful.

The pattern I'm using is lovely and features a stitch I've never used before, the lateral braid which is cool and I'm really happy with how it turned out for my first attempt!

Choices choices

You know it's been really hard to choose between Oshun and Blackwood Sugar, thery are both gorgeous perfumes.

I've spent the last few days alternating between the two trying to choose. 

Although they both have slightly spicy under notes (both containing clove & cinnamon) the top notes differ. The amber in Oshun gives it the scent of a deep and exotic incense, as you would expect to find burning on the alter of a goddess (or Orisha) of love and beauty. While the sugar and ginger in Blackwood Sugar makes it smell like the ingredients for a spicy, warming and tasty cake. 

I've finally decided that Blackwood Sugar is my favourite of the two, and will be my 3rd perfume.

So that's Blackwood Sugar, Cherry Kiss and Cinnamon Bird. 

On the knitting front, I have now named the shawl, the never ending shawl. Honestly it just goes on and on. Although, I am actually really near the end now, thank the gods. It's because its a bottom up shawl, each row is bigger than the last! 

It's the right house baby I was sorted this way!

So today I have been wearing Honey Badger again, and it's been interesting. I definitely picked up more on the musk scents this time, the musk was actually quite strong first thing, before it calmed down at which point you could pick up the honeycomb and the chocolate. It's actually quite a feminine scent.

I do like it, but I'm not sure it'll be a good counterbalance to Cinnamon Bird.

So, this one stays firm at 7/10

However, it does give me chance to say I was sorted this way!

Seriously, if you haven't checked out Not Literally go do it. You can thank me later.

Decisions decisions

So I shall definitely be ordering a big bottle of Cinnamon Bird,

And a small bottle of Cherry Kiss to wear for Christmas.

But I also want a third bottle to alternate with Cinnamon Bird... And I don't know which to pick. So I'm going to re-wear my top picks over the next few days and pick my last choice.

The three I want to try again are Blackwood Sugar, Honey Badger and Oshun,

Although Pumpkin Nuit and Caramel Chai both also scored high, Pumpkin Nuit really was perfect for Samhain but not one I'd probably get a lot of wear from, and Caramel Chai, although gorgeous faded too quickly.

I've spent the day baking, cooking and knitting... very domestic! But I desperately need to get this bloomin' shawl finished!!!