Update of sorts

The last eight months or so has been stressful. First my mother's cancer got worse very very fast. She died late March, 61 years (not) old. My sister got home from Australia just hours before Mum slid into unconsiousness and she passed away two days later. Then there were grief and funeral planning and funeral and all the administration needed. Plus all the usual work and kids and activities.

Then we stumbled upon a new house. A very nice new house, larger that our old one, with rooms for everyone (including a third floor studio space for me!) and a rather smaller garden. We had originally planned to extend our old house with an extra bedroom and office but after much agonising we decided to move instead. So the summer was filled with putting our old house on the market (which includes a lot of cleaning and removing of clutter and stuff), showing it to prospective buyers and finally selling it. Hiring a contractor to finish the two rooms plus storage that wasn't finished in teh new house. And planning for the move. The actual move took place mid-September, about five weeks ago. We finalised the sale of the old house two weeks ago. It feels So Good to be done with it! Now we can concentrate our efforts on the new house.

My father has been a tremendous help through all this. I think it has been a help for him to have things to do, he's mostly retired, and suddenly a widower with too much free time. Picking up the kids at daycare and school and activities when DH and I didn't have time. Fixing and mending stuff in the old house. Transporting loads of crap to recycling. Housing a room full of boxes that we suddenly didn't have room for. Being handyman in the new house, fixing this and that, installing things and building things. He's still at it, because of course we are not done. I don't know what we'll do when he takes of for almost three months in Australia on 1 December! He won't get much of a vacation though, my sister has a long list of what she'd like him to help with down there...

Stress has taken its toll though. I have been ill twice this autumn already, and I'm never ill usually. Now I've had tonsillitis requiring anitbiotics a few weeks ago, and now DH and E and me have all been down with some sort of flu. I'm at home today too with a sore throat and general tiredness. Bleh. The younger kids have been ok though.

There has been knitting through it all! My sanity saver, really. Mostly smaller things, socks, fingerless mittens, a few simple shawls. I have finished my Must-Have cardigan and I love it. It was a bit on the tight side when done, but it has grown slightly with wearing and I'm so happy with it. The only negative thing with it is that I have a tendency to be cold at the upper chest, so a v-neck isn't the best option for me. But I can always put on a backwards shawl! I haven't had time for much picture taking either, so I have no nice pics of anything lately. Must make DH work a bit for his socks (that I also finished :-)

Right now I'm working on Through The Loop's Socktober mystery sock. The last clue (the toe) is due on Thursday, I may be on track then. right now the foot is done on sock number one and the gusset decreases are just started on sock number two. It has been a very enjoyable mystery pattern, varied and nice looking too.
There is also a Baby Surprise Jacket for SIL who is expecting her first baby in March. I'm using one strand of Drops Fabel sock yarn in green, blue, orange, yellow and one strand of Drops Alpaca in a light green. That will be gender neutral enough I think. I will probably make matching Djevellue if I have enough yarn, I think I do.
I had to start the learning sock from Cat Bordhi's new book Personal Footprints. I must say that I'm a bit dubiuos about this method, It looks very complicated to me, and a new learning sock is needed for each gauge. Hmm. I absolutely love her previous sock book though so I'm giving it a try.
There are also a few simple bus projects, a sock and a sock yarn hat.

I have missed blogging, sometimes I write posts in my head but there has been simply no time. I have very few knitting friends (and I have managed to be ill for the last two kntting groups as well) so blogging is a way to "talk" about knitting. I try to keep my projects up to date on Ravelry though, so take a look there if you like.

Because blog posts are more fun with pictures, here are our tiny bare garden with our newly planted fruit trees (apple in the front, pear at back left, cherry at back right):

And my (very messy and only halfway unpacked) studio: