Rebooting

Ok, so anyone wondering how the Eat The World Cup (last post over 2 years ago), it didn't. Life, as always, got in the way. I did watch more football, we went to Oxford for a few days because it was my 33^rd birthday and there was a Tolkien exhibition on (10 points for getting the significance). Visited lots of pubs, most of which claimed to be the oldest, but were all very pleasant. So pleasant in fact that we took the FIL last year because he briefly lived there when he was 18 and hadn't been back since.

So why after 2 years am I back? Well, if you're a knitter you probably know about the changes at Ravelry and I want to move away from the platform, and if you're not a knitter its drama that would take too long to explain, I'm probably not the person to explain as I'm not personally affected and there are people out there who could do a better job I would anyway. Just it turns out our inclusive knitting platform is not very inclusive after all. So I hope this will be the place I share what I've been making and that my project notes and pictures will be of use to anyone that needs them.

I was in a really good place on Friday, everything I needed to do at work slotted together like clockwork with out me turning into a stress head and I even managed to come up with a post-Rav plan.

1. New email so I can sign up to all my favourite designers newsletters and have them all go to one tidy place. - Check.

2. Revive blog. - Check. Even managed to change the default email to match the new one I created.

3. Create database on Airtable to replace Rav. - This is work in progress. Lots of data entry luckily just the sort of mindless task I'm quite good at, helped enormously by the template from here. Still getting used to the set up, and the order patterns/projects/library need to be loaded but I'll get there.

4. Download Library from Rav. - this one feels a bit daunting but someone posted a video of how do to it with Downthemall. Also the bonus of creating a new email is that I have more cloud space so I can try and fit all the files in one place and not the three I think I have them at the minute.

So there we go, I have a plan, what could possibly go wrong.

So what am I working on at the minute?

Knitting:

Starflanket  by Stephen West. If you don't know Stephen West then he is a designer who loves shape, colour and texture and designs things in ways you probably wouldn't think of. And his favourite colour is probably neon. I've made one of this designs before, Spectre which is a spiral shaped scarf, but have plenty more in my queue. This is a DK weight blanket and I've tried to use lots of scraps to make mine, in either left over DK or fingering held double. I'm currently on a brioche section which I can't decide if it's working or if I'm doing something wrong. I put in a life line before I started so if it is wrong I can safely, and sadly, rip it back. It's over 3m in circumference now so each row takes a long time to do. I've been recording how much yarn I use for each section which I'll put in a blog post when I'm finally finished.

Reading:

I'm on GoodReads if anyone wanted to see what I want to read or have read.

I've just finished reading Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages by Tom Holt. Not a recent release, just something I found on my bookshelf, but I needed something silly and comforting last weekend and I didn't have time to read all of Discworld. I always enjoy Tom Holt's books, they're all silly and funny modern fantasy.

Also reading The PhilosophyQueens which is a book I funded on Unbound. If you don't know about Unbound it's kind of publishing via crowdfunding, the funding target covers the first print run and costs of setting up a book. The premise of the book is to highlight the overlooked women in the field of philosophy, from Ancient Greeks to modern day. I've never had much to do with philosophy other than what Chidi from The Good Place managed to impart, but this has been an interesting book, if a little heavy going for bed time reading some days.

Hubs also had a book published this year, also by Unbounders, so in case you need 100 mostly helpful robots, Small Robots might be of interest to you. He's also on Twitter @smolrobots.

Garden:

Oh my Gourd!

So it turns out I'm a very lazy gardener. If you look back at posts on here you'll see past me being very hopeful and enthusiastic with plans. This year I can't even get at the veg beds because the brambles have taken over. The border I put in last year is a bit more successful, it looks very chaotic, and I did set some veg in when I realised the raised beds would not be ready so I've had some courgettes, which have done better in the border than they did in the proper beds. I've also got some Uchiki Kuri squash, which I did not realise were climbers and at this point are trying to take over.                

Food:

 Just adding this quickly at the bottom because I've just had the most amazing sandwich from my home-made bread. I know with lock-down everyone started getting into sour dough but, and I'm going totally millennial hipster here, I started November last year after a really enjoyable talk by James Morton of GBBO fame. The local book shop, Toppings, organises a lot of talks, I've seen the Hairy Bikers, Brian Blessed, Neil Gaiman and others, and was excited to listen to James. Fantastic bit of marketing as he bought sour dough starter with him so you could get started almost immediately. I really enjoy the book (Super Sour Dough) and have made quite a few bits from it, banana pancakes are made quite regularly, the spelt batons I made a few weeks ago were delicious and this weekends seeded sandwich loaf is stunning. The only real failure I had was the epic buns, more or less chelsea buns, but I think that was my fault rather than the recipe and now I've a bit more experience should give it another bash. 

Got papped by OH meeting a famous.