Planning

Sometimes I hit a run of being organised. The first three weeks in the new job for example, I was super organised in terms of food. I had menu plans, I had shopping lists, everything was sorted. We shopped at the weekends, we soaked and cooked beans, we made use of extra time at the weekends to freeze things. I had a list of jobs that needed to be done each night to make sure that dinner was on the table with a minimum of fuss.
It should be noted here that I have a pretty long commute, as does Ben.

Week four, I relaxed about it. What happened? Stress, eating more junk than usual, takeout and a total unwillingness to get on the scale first thing this morning.

So while utterly not logging my food or eating well this weekend (the haggis and cheese sandwich on Saturday lunchtime was a revelation, I must say) we made a menu plan.

I'll admit that I hoard cookery books. I love them, but when I don't menu plan, I get all my recipes from blogs or the internet. Then the cookery books just feel like they are taking up space and gathering dust. Not ideal.
My favourite cookbook at the moment has to be this:
 (picture stolen from amazon, hence the look inside bumf)

I love that vegan food makes me eat more vegetables. I love the recipes from this book that I've tried (my favourite being 40 clove chickpeas and broccoli which sounds odd but tastes amazing). I'd also recommend this woman's website post punk kitchen as there are some awesome recipes there. I love the broccoli udon curry.

When we menu plan we save money and reduce waste. This week one recipe needed lemon zest, so we factored in another recipe that needs lemon juice. That kind of using stuff up frugality makes me deeply happy. It also reduces my stress. There is a horrid feeling when I'm sitting at work worrying about what to have for dinner, what's in the cupboards, what's healthy, and on and on.

Having a plan frees up mental space for other things, like work. Or, you know, how long a 500st attached icord bind off on a shawl takes.

The answer to that on is a long, long, long time.I'm being good though - it is the only thing I am taking to knitting with me tonight, so it might get done.

Note to self: attached icord bind offs are not your friend. They will lure you in with pictures of pretty edges and promises of that little extra weight, but it is a trap. Don't fall for it again.

Socks to be

I went to yarndale yesterday. It was wonderful, actually. We went very early so we were there when it opened, and we left after a couple of hours, just when it was starting to get really busy.

I picked up a couple of beautiful things. Some lovely fibre, and some yarn. Then today I took pictures of my favourite yarns to put on my ravelry stash page. Lots of things that I've had for a while and haven't put up yet. It's not that I went mad at yarndale - though I think it'll be a while before I get any more yarn.

Here are the fibres I got. I was down to my last 100g of fibre, and I think I've been spinning less because I was worried about running out. So hopefully I can start spinning again now. These are from a company called Laal Bear and they are lovely.

I've also been thinking about sock yarn as I was taking pictures of it. I adore sock yarn, and it's dreadfully easy to justify just one little skein more. I love the colours, and that you can get a whole project out of one skein. Some things I have two skeins of  because I want to knit long socks for Ben. But mostly, I just get the one skein (and think to myself that I can always stripe with black, or add contrasting toes and heels if I knit socks for him).

Above is a colourway called Boisenberry with which I've wanted to knit Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Earl Grey socks.

And on the left is some stunning yarn that Ben happily described as being in Chicago Bears  colours. So I want to knit him a pair of plain socks (maybe with the princess sole that he has requested) in those colours. It's from A Stash Addict who I met at yarndale, and I was really impressed with the yarn she had. She and the person running the stall with her were both lovely. I did very well to buy just these two skeins and not All The Things.



Easyknits do 150g skeins of fingering weight yarn called Big Boy which I think is a glorious idea. I picked one up yesterday at yarndale in the wonderful colourway "Marmalade" - see the picture on the right.






But when it really comes to yarns for me, I tend towards the darker colours, the greys, the blues. Even with socks I tend to go for the more subtle shades.

 On the left is some easyknits deeply wicked sock in a colourway called Deadly Embrace, and on the right is some yarn that is probably destined to become a shawl. It's from Eden Cottage Yarns and the photo really doesn't do it justice.


I finished a sweater the other day, and today the plan is to finish a shawl today. I'm on the edging, which sounds like I'm going to get it done soon, but it's a 500+ st bind off with attached icord edging. There are reasons I decided to take pictures of my stash today!

I'm going to try to blog more often. I started a new job just under a month ago, and it's been taking a lot of my time. The commute is longer than I'm used to, and getting up to speed is taking some time. Still, work/life balance is a good thing, and I like blogging.

Next time I am going to post some pictures of finished things - the sweater, the orchid thief (that needs blocking) and hopefully the shawl that needs the icord edging.