The Yarn Edition

Well, we are finally home from our trip to the UK. So much happened, we saw all sorts of things and the con itself was amazing. I have a ton of photos and stuff but I figure I’ll stick to just a few posts.

But first, I’m unpacking and doing all the laundry and setting everything back in place. So obviously the first post should be on the loot. And by “loot”, I do mean yarn. (Books to come later – I had to post them home and I’m not saying that that’s because of the yarn.)

Here it is, the pile:

I didn’t get to browse too much of the LonCon Dealers Room. Our table was quite near the front of the room so we didn’t walk past too many other tables to get in in the morning or out at closing time and we were really busy pretty much the whole time. I’m a bit sad but I also had very little room in my suitcase so I wanted to keep book buying to a minimum. HOWEVER. There was a yarn stall. Seriously. All my dreams coming true!

The dealer was a German company called Alte Kunste (Ancient Arts). Their yarns are dyed with plant colours, reviving the ancient craft of natural dyes. The two skeins I couldn’t resist are on the left hand side of the photo – the sock yarn in that delicious brown (called hummus) and the lace yarn in a colourway I can’t read on the label as it’s in German so I’m going to read as Summertime by the Sea.

The neon coloured yarn at the top is the second skein for the Twelfth Planets scarf project which I’ll talk more about later.

The other yarns I picked up in London when I made my pilgrimage to a shop I’ve heard about a lot for many years – Loop. It is in Islington and well worth tracking down. It’s not a big shop and I walked straight past it the first time. They have a really lovely range of yarns (colours and also companies) and you choose what you like and they go find out if they have the number of skeins you need. They also had a really nice range of books. I bought a baby garments book and then picked the grey yarn above for a baby cable knit jumper I want to knit next for M. That’s Cascade 220 which I’ve never seen in real life before and wasn’t really what I was expecting. I also grabbed those two purples in a Just Coz way because they are divine to touch – the uncommon thread in Lush Worsted (merino wool and cashmere and nylon). The darker purple is called Lila and the light one Into Dust. I have no idea what I will do with them (they are 100g and 212m each). So so pretty. I also might have grabbed two Unicorn Tails from MadeleineTosh because reasons.

I found the best coffee I came across in London in the same street as Loop – The Coffeeworks Project. The best flat white I’ve had in a month, for sure.

I’ve been putting off this post for a while. It’s the “Say it out loud” task on the 12wbt preseason tasks. The one where I’m supposed to say my goals for the next 12 weeks in a place that makes me accountable etc. Because, I *am* a woman of my word but I also like to believe I can do more than I really can. Because sometimes I can pull rabbits out of my hat. And because I push myself beyond breaking. And because I feel bad because I really didn’t/couldn’t stick to what I committed to last round.

But I signed up for the next round. And I want to complete all the preseason tasks. And I do want to be accountable.

On a sort of tangent. I’ve been diffusing essential oils for a few years now. I used lemon and grapefruit for morning sickness when the taste of ginger started to make me feel ill. I use lavender a lot for headaches and for insomnia. And I use a bunch of blends as well. After I started wearing the blend “Transformation”, I applied for my Phd and quit my job and got married. Maybe I would have done all those things anyway, maybe choosing that blend was a subconscious action acknowledging a suppressed feeling of wanting to change. Maybe wearing it was giving myself permission to actually pursue it. Anyway, I was at the airport recently and I decided to buy myself one called “Focus” in the hope that it would dispel the cobwebs, the heavy weight of feeling tired all the time and help me to just get on with working one task all the way to the end, not forgetting my handbag places etc. The whole time I was standing there looking, I couldn’t shift the feeling that what I actually should have been buying was “Relax”. The feeling stayed with me so long that last week I finally got myself that one too. And really, it makes sense, that you just can’t keep pushing yourself to work longer and harder and better and think that the productivity/efficiency graph is hyperbolic. That if you could only create more time, you could get more done. I know that’s not how it works.

And the same goes for this whole 12wbt goal setting. This time round, I’m challenging myself to focus (wow that oil really works!) on the REALISTIC element of ACHIEVABLE. And I think that is being the most honest and accountable to those who will be reading this. In the same way that sometimes you need to take time out to relax in order to be more productive, you need to know when to step off being tough on yourself and be kinder to get yourself to do more.

So that’s going to be what I commit to for the next 12 weeks – working out 3-4 days a week, following the nutrition programme, drinking more water every day, taking my vitamins and fitting more yoga in. And to take some time out to just breathe.
I’m not going to set a weight goal and I’m not going to even pretend that I can find time to work out every day.