Where did last week go?

WARNING! Post contains insects and s*x.

This week seems to have passed remarkably quickly - but then most weeks do, I find. I think I went to Visual Marks on Tuesday, but it could have been the week before, it seems such a long time ago. Which doesn't really make sense if I'm complaining that time whizzes by, but that's the way my brain seems to work these days. (I use the word 'work' in a very loose sense, you understand.)

But I digress. We spent the Visual Marks meeting planning our group entry for this. We picked a great poem, but I'm keeping that and the work under wraps for the moment, so this is all the information I'm going to provide. That's the pre-design for my bit. Sort of. The embroidery is under way, and looks good.

I have also been knitting. Not socks, but this, and it's siblings.

Looks a bit better when it's washed and blocked. They do stand up, but the fabric is quite soft and inclined to lean if you don't set it up very carefully, as the bad news is that it really doesn't felt much, even when washed hot and long. 

The good news is that I have now used up all the mystery Aran, and started sampling the Wool City Wool I bought from Texere. More good news: it shrinks beautifully. More bad news: I had forgotten that I bought one ball of all six yarn weights Texere sell it in. Yes, six. The extras are 2 ply (lovely but a bit splitty because it is quite loosely spun), and super chunky, which I haven't got round to trying yet. I'm being very methodical and making two tension swatches, one unfelted and one felted, plus a felted vessel, always to the same pattern but on different needles according to yarn, to see how well it works in each weight. So there is a lot of unexciting natural coloured knitting going on - 12 tension swatches and 6 vessels in addition the ones I've already made. (What do you mean, I don't have to use all six types? Of course I do!)

The current book of the week is not very exciting either - a simple case bound notebook to replace the simple case bound book I made in January to use as a diary/notebook/to do list and which is now full. Mostly with things I haven't done... 

Lest you think the week has been completely dull, we did spot these on a granny duty day. Fortunately we did not have small children with us at the time. ('What they doin' granny?'). Such are the small excitements of the retired life.