Yarning Along: Happy New Year!

Hello, and Happy New Year! I hope this finds you well and that you had an enjoyable festive period. 

I'm still in a bit of a festive limbo - Christmas and new year are over but the kids are still off school - I'm spending a lot more time playing board games and eating biscuits than knitting! I have done a bit of knitting, and am starting to step up the business knitting again, but am generally working on slightly more mindless knits that don't require any concentration. One of the things I have had time for over the Christmas break is thinking about how I want to proceed with this blog; over December the blog got a little neglected as other things took priority, so I feel it needs a bit of redirection for the new year. With that in mind, this is going to be the final Yarning Along on a Wednesday. Wednesdays have never worked that well for me as I tend to spend my weekdays working on business knitting, so Yarning Along is moving to a Sunday, which should make the posts a little more relaxed. I'm also considering creating a few more blog regulars, so watch this space!

My current major knitting project is these fabulous Mind the Gap socks, which I cast on as part of Little Bobbins' Christmas Eve cast on. The yarn is from Trailing Clouds is fabulous - the stripes are in the colours of the tube lines on the London Underground tube map and create a 12 stripe repeat. Each dye lot is dyed with the stripes in a different order, which makes each skein even more special. I've done the heels and cuffs with West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply in Milk Bottle, and plan to do the same for the toes. I've also decided that I'm going to knit the second sock with the stripe sequence reversed so I don't waste any yarn between socks. I'm really excited about these socks and can't wait to finish and wear them! 

I'm currently reading Susan Calman's Cheer Up Love: Adventures in Depression with the Crab of Hate. This book is brilliant; it is autobiographical, but frames each of the periods of Calman's life in the context of her relationship with her long-term depression (which she refers to as The Crab of Hate). The book answers a lot of questions about depression, but in a light-hearted way, and I have spent a lot of the book laughing out loud. I would really recommend this book.

As ever, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along. And I'll be back on Sunday with another Yarning Along! For now, happy knitting.