Flibbertygibbet

Feed a cold

Cut a small butternut squash in half. Scrape out the seeds.

Drizzle with olive oil, bake  in the oven until soft.  (I find putting it on at 100 degrees then forgetting about it while watching ER for an hour and a half works well...)

If the squash isn't quite cooked, turn the oven up on high while you chop bacon and fry it.

That's better.  Carbon adds flavour.

Lob the squash into a saucepan and cover with stock, then puree in the pan if you have a hand-held blender as I do.  Transfer to serving bowl, add the bacon and serve.

Feel warmer.

* also good with roasted garlic pureed into it

A tale of two kitties

If you don't have cats - or more to the point, don't "get" cats, then dear god,  just look away now.  For your own sake.

Right.

You know how you're supposed to love all your children equally?  Um... yeah.  I don't have any children but I have acquired two cats.

Unofficially, Twiggy, aka Twiggle, Twigetha, Twig-Twog, or Wiggle, the black and white mog, is 'mine'.  Shrimp, the black one is XH's.  Twig is much more passive and it's rare for her to come looking for affection.  Though when she does, drop everything.  She'll mewl until you do.  Plus she's as soft as an angora bunny, a wonderful feline hot-water bottle to snuggle up beside you on the sofa.

Shrimp, [Shrimple, Shrimpington, Shrimpey or her full name of Shrimpton] on the other hand, may in fact be a dog. 

She answers to her name, begs on her hind paws and comes when called.  But recently she has also developed a very cat-like prediliction...

for YARNICIDE!!

CSI* photo 1:  the wip glove, mauled and hauled down out of the knitting bag, and caught on the chair.  Luckily for the glove.

Because to find the ball...(btw she's a discerning cat - she prefers angora)...

CSI photo 2:  follow the thin red [pink] line down the hallway...

CSI Photo 3:  and keep following....

CSI photo 4:  the culprit was actually found at the scene of the crime, crying because she couldn't get the wool any further. Presumably the goal was out through the cat flap and into the garden.  What you don't see in these photos is how much of the ball she managed to unravel too.

I was kind of hoping it was an isolated incident but today she's also stolen a hat knitted from kimono ribbon and savaged a ball of extra fine merino.  Like I said, discerning.  And her transgression rate is rising so I'm scared to think what's coming next - probably nicking the entire bag of sock yarn.

"Mmmmmm, wooooooool" - better keep an eye on this one... a potential partner in crime.

'Just pretending to sleep... now where's that Lux I saw earlier?'

*Cat Scene Investigation

A houseproud burgular?

Every time I walk into the kitchen, I wonder 'where is all the stuff gone?'

The Ethel fabric is now boxed and put away upstairs.  (That room also needs to be cleared out but seriously, I'm not feeling up to that just yet...)  In its place: all my paper patterns. Skirts, trousers, bags, tops - all on the to-do list.  Which should keep me busy until about 2011.  The red and white WIP that you may have caught a glimpse of last time is finished and ready to post - but as usual I forgot to photograph it.

Even the craft press was tidied - mind you, so was my ribbon box yesterday, which amused Helen no end.  Wow, I really do have too much time on my hands.  And yes, this qualifies as 'tidy' in my house.

Yesterday at knitting I suspected I was coming down with something - it's struck.  Achey muscles and a cheese grater cough.  I'm off to feel sorry for myself.  Mostly I'm peeved that I don't feel up to going out tonight.  And I'm even reluctant to knit, because I'm likely to foul it up even more - gaagh. 

Just to remind you...

The next round of the Flibbertygibbet Fabric Swap is coming up again shortly - we've got some veterans returning, and lots of newbies.  Here's the updated blogroll*...

Jennifer
Helen
Helen
Jade
Kahne
Sheila
Abi
Annabelle
Anna
Arwen
Dawn
Amanda
Evelyn
Heidi
Renee
Eren
Paula
Evelyn
Catherine
Mika
Ann
Justine
Kristen
Diane

* have I left anyone off the list? sorry for continual updating - links dropping out...

Bloggly stuff

Love this embroidery - hedgehogs!

A tutorial for beautiful brooches.

Such delicate sensibility of the time of year that's in it.

Well, you can't say the seller didn't warn you - scroll down to the T&Cs

And look - my new stationery. 

Welcome to my world

Firstly, hello to the so very many people who've found their way over here from Rebecca's lovely blog, come on in.  Don't be scared now (or at the end of this lengthy post).

Having slightly underestimated the time I'd need to do The Freelancing Job From Hell this week, there hasn't been much extra time for blogging - or knitting.  I mean, WTF...

I'm trying very hard to justify two things today:   (1) going to Knitflicks at the Ritzy.  I've never managed to make it and it's starting to have a Brigadoon feeling to it.  Does it really exist?  (2)  heading out here for a couple of these tonight.

So what's stopping me?  Put simply, time and money.  Firstly, the FJFH is still ongoing.  The joy of it is, of course, that doing the freelancing is what pays for the fun stuff, but payday is a long way off and the scarlet numbers of my bank account are weighing ever heavier on my conscience.  Plus you don't get paid until you're finished (and you've invoiced.  And waited a month.  And mentally and in reality spent the money thrice over).

I'm also feeling the need to declutter a little (also known as "making room for more, newer stuff" ). Yesterday I spent more money found some storage solutions at our favourite Scandi retailer.    Small storage, medium storage.  Let me introduce you to a corner of my house. 

The top of the sideboard.   A couple of gifts to be delivered,  but mostly everything is in its place.

But wait - what's that?
Yeah, look, down there, what's that in the corner?

Is it...could it be... yes, it's a basket regurgitating some of the fabric staaaaaash!  Dammit, it's time to get that sort of stuff cleared up.  Particularly as every once in a while, one of the mogs thinks "ooh, I'll just feck some of this stuff out and have a little snooze in here.  Ahhhhh, comfeeeeeeeeeeee"...

Now you might think that I'm overreacting a little.  (Moi? as my heroine would say)  But when you turn around you get the fuller picture (cue 'Reeh-Reeh-Reeh' horror flick music)

Two sewing machines, a laptop, 'real' work, accumulated clutter... it's kind of got to stop.  Once the FJFH is done, all of this has to go away.  Hey, I have the Ikea boxes to do it!  Well, once I've assembled them.  Damn, hope XH didn't take his toolbox when he moved out.  (Unlikely.)

Then I can be getting along with the WIPs*!  Here's a couple of blurry previews to intrigue you.

Plus there's the haul from my brother's escapades in Boulder!


He chose a lot of fabrics with a black background because "babies see contrast".  He's too bloody clever.  His best friend is about to become a dad soon so that's where a lot of these fabrics will be going, into a quilt for Eric's baby. 

Ok, time to knuckle down to the work for the day.  I'm going to try to shuffle enough stuff around to go out tonight, as the architect of tonight's amusement is off to forrin' parts for the foreseeable future - this can be a bon voyage drink...

* oh, and finding a real job too

What have my big feet got me into this time?

Today I put in an online entry for this lottery.  Rather than providing the means for a spending spree, winning it would involve me spending my own money, but very willingly.

It's not for quite a long time, but preparations need to start now, as I won't know if I'm in or not until June. But can't be wasting all this time now. Plus it will get me out there pounding the pavements. Or the treadmill belt, at the moment.

There's a couple of people who should feel responsible for this:

• Pauline, for nonchalantly saying I should head off to NY for a weekend, though I think you meant sooner than November.
• Helen, because you've done it.  We talked about it at knitting the other day and I went online the next day - and lo and behold, found that it was time for the ballot. Serendipitous. 

Anyone know a good podiatrist?  Or have floor space in Manhattan come November? Ah ah ha ha ha haha ha ha... nervous giggles...

I feel I think too much.

It’s Sunday morning. In my case, an extremely lazy Sunday morning.  I woke about eight, because the sun was doing an admirable job of penetrating the black-out blinds – I must put up GALMI* to put up the effing curtains so that I don’t feel interrogated by nature every morning.

Well, every morning that there’s a suggestion of natural light out there.  The skies have darkened considerably and it’s all just damp.  Damp is not good (with the sole of exception of Nigella’s ‘Dense Damp Chocolate Loaf Cake’ in How to Eat which vies for the accolade of World’s Most Superlative Baked Creation with the ‘Quadruple Chocolate Cake in Feast) because let’s face it, it’s the merest step away from that odious word ‘moist’. Makes my skin crawl even typing it.

So, I’m propped up in bed, cocooned from the greyness, with laptop and books and writing materials, wearing the spotty dressing gown, and I’ve just had fish food for breakfast.  Oh alright, before you go putting in a call to St Gobnait’s Home for Bewildered Youngish Ladies, I did feed the cats first, and I’m not on their Whiskas.  It was Phish food for me.  Now that you understand that I had chocolate ice cream, swirled with marshmallow and liberally studded with dinky ickle chocolate fishes, you feel so relieved, don’t you?
I have decided (bear with me here) that it’s time to do whatever feels best for me.  Including having chocolate for breakfast and lounging about in bed until half-past lunchtime.  Perhaps that sounds somewhat selfish, but I don’t feel that I am generally an overly self-indulgent or selfish person, though my moment in that sun may be coming. If anything, I’ve rather taken some mantras too much to heart (“It’s Nice to be Nice”, ‘If You Can’t Say Anything Nice, Don’t Say Anything At All” “Nobody likes a Show-Off”) and that’s put me at a definite disadvantage – in relationships, in my career and in terms of realising my hopes and dreams for myself.  I have spent far, far too much time in pursuit of “shoulds” and “would be best ifs” and “I’d betters” and gazing lazily and longingly at others' achievements and exuberances, beating myself up a little more each time.   It’s time for “Guess what?!s” and “I’m so excited abouts” and “I shouldn’t buts”.  I don’t want to keep looking back at my life – even though I’m only a shade away from a mere thirty-three, and keep saying if, if only.  So brace yourselves. It's bound to show up here in some shape or form.

I talked to an intriguingly interesting and challenging counsellor woman on Friday, as part of the whole ‘I Will Not Allow This To Make Me Mad[der]’ campaign and she was asking me how I felt about what’s happening, how it had made me feel and I realised as the hour drifted on, that with an almost pathological though undeliberate obstinacy, I started each answer with ‘I think’ – even ‘I think I felt…’ which partly accounts for “how well I’ve been handling” the separation, to quote others.  The fact was that I retreated into crafting and creative pursuits – good; making connections with new friends and renewing links with old friends – good; and only paid lip-service to the notion that I’d had my heart broken and felt thrown on the scrap heap.  Not in the usual ‘heaps of stash scraps for making wonderful creations out of virtually nothing’ sense either. 
Right now I need to accept that pending legal solutions and indeed dissolutions,  I have a Phantom Husband, a little like a phantom limb: though the actual appendage is gone, I still feel the pain. I will allow myself to feel it, rather than over-analysing it as a way of denying it, and it will stop being part of my identity as more positive things take its place.   Because soon it will be gone, and I will have recovered fully from the amputation.  Fighting fit, as they say…

* Get A Little Man In – from a old sitcom many years ago, it has evolved into a family saw.  A bit like “Enter fairy through gap in hedge,”, “Charge” and “MFT”.

This post was brought to you by the Over-Arching Influence of Capital Letters, the Heady Intoxication of the Wide Open Blog Page, and the Power of Sugar.

Conversion

Ok, I'm not saying I won't ever go back to top-down, particularly as I've only knit one toe so far, but thanks to Helen and Sara I have discovered the Figure Eight cast on and with one darnable, forgiveable exception, it's going pretty well. I didn't get the hang of the crochet cast on, and made things rather difficult for myself.  But this is so much easier.  Just watch me become a sock geek  even more of a sock geek.

XH is moving out today - or moving a percentage of his possessions somewhere else, at any rate.  He isn't calling it moving out. Well, whatever works for him, I guess.

Off to do a workshop tomorrow, at this wonderful place with this very talented lady, you may have seen her cushion contribution to the Guardian Craft supplement last week.  As we'll be refashioning shirts into cushions tomorrow, she suggested I might like to take one of XH's favourites and use that. Damn, he's packed them all already.    

Oh the weather outside

is delightful.  Particularly when viewed from the sofa, inside a warm house with no obligations to venture out, though that does mean missing my local knitting group - ah, the hardship.  But I decided I had to get out and have a bit of a walk.  Fortified with homemade mocha.  There's something so satisfying about the velvet crunch of first footsteps on fresh snow.  And it's a little territorial, too.  My park. Mine.

I have slightly given up on the toe-up socks.  Just for the time being!  Will try again in the future but they were looking like this picture, right,  and then I realised they were supposed to look like this.  I had managed the crochet cast on but kept making mistakes during the wrapping of stitches as I wasn't concentrating enough, which is a bit of a lesson in itself. In the past I might just have soldiered on, because they were 'only for me', but now I want them to be right.