Last weekend was very busy for me and, with the relentless post-flu cough still refusing to go away, I’m exhausted. The weekend sort of started on Friday and took me into the city every day. There wasn’t much knitterly about it. I did drop into the city store of Martas for the closing down sale and bought some bamboo dpns and Knitting With Wire by Nancie M. Wiseman. I also dropped into Cleggs and Lindcraft looking for buttons for the Squares Jacket, but the only buttons I liked were $2.40 each and I need nine buttons!

I also spent a few hours at the Melbourne Art Fair, where I saw giant letters covered in green knitted fragments spelling out the word “LOVE”, and a full size knitted policeman.

But little actual knitting got done, as the convention I attended was too dark and dingy.

I can report that I gave in and started knitting a scarf out of the handspun alpaca. I say ‘gave in’ because I really don’t need another scarf, but I can’t think what else I could make out of a small ball of fragile but beautiful thin alpaca wool. I tried a lace pattern called ‘rabbit tracks’ first, though it’s not reversable and I don’t like scarves that have a right and wrong side. After knitting 9cm I took it to the post office and weighed it and the ball, and calculated it would end up 90 cm long. A bit short.

So I frogged it and looked for another stitch pattern, finding a simple yo k2tog mesh to try. And ‘it’ happened: that moment when, as the result of the stitch pattern begins to become apparent, you know it’s Right. I really have to face it: I’m not a lace girl. This simple drapey mesh is more ‘me’.

What else… oh! That’s right. I tried to post on Friday but my internet connection kept dropping out, so I couldn’t announce the most exciting event of the week…

I finished the first Pomatomus sock! I love this pattern. It may demand concentration, but the result is a wonderfully stretchy, pretty sock. I still think a less contrasty varigated would show off the ‘scales’ much better. Like maybe the Lisa Souza Wild Things colourway in my stash. Hmm.

I have a photo to post, but it’s on the main computer. I’ve got the laptop set up in the lounge room today, because with the work going on at the back of the house it’s freezing in my office. I suppose I can add it to this post later.

Otherwise… I really, really, really, REALLY wish this cough would go away. I’ve been day-dreaming about flying north to some place where the air is warm and I can just lie on a beach until I can’t even remember what coughing feels like any more. I’ve even been dreaming about joining a gym just so I can have a sauna – and I hate saunas! I love cold crisp winters. I hate that this cough is spoiling this lovely cold crisp winter.

There, that’s my winge for the day.