Yesterday I broke open the terracotta air-drying clay and made some beads:

The heads are supposed to be cat heads. I’m not sure how successful I’d rate them. It’s been a long while since I worked with clay. The spirally ones are ‘reminiscent’ of cakes of wool. Well, I thought so at the time.

Both sets may be destined for macrame pot holders. It depends if I think they’re too fragile or not once they’re dry.

I haven’t been knitting as much as usual, partly due to hand pain, partly due to back pain. The latter came from spending a morning last week filling up a skip with building rubbish. And carrying bricks didn’t help the former much, either.

When I did craft, I stuck to weaving. I have three of the four lengths of green blanket done now. I’m not sure I like the idea of ending up with another blanket to sew up when I haven’t yet started sewing up Red Blanket (though I did wash the strips and work out the order to sew them in). The weaving is so fast and enjoyable, but I really dislike the sewing bit. I can imagine myself ending up with a cupboard full of woven strips that I’ve never got around to sewing into blankets.

There has been progress on the sock challenge. Last night I grafted together the first tube of the Bakerloo Socks:

And started the second tube. I have to say, you can’t mind grafting to knit these. It’s very strange to be working on straights, too. It seems like years since I used any. But it didn’t take me long to remember they make good back scratchers.

The Ripple Weave socks? No progress at all. It’s just not been a week for sitting down and concentrating on something that complicated.