Zippedee-doo-dah, Zippedee - ay!!

The Clappy has left the needles, I say again, the Clappy has left the needles!

That’s right, the Knitting Goddess smiled upon me and I finished the Clapotis on Saturday night – so a 16 evening knit, including my presence at 2 unavoidable non-knitting meetings and an evening of entirely fruitless tinking, knitting, tinking, knitting because I have no memory and can’t write decent instructions to myself.

Comments: I love it, and fully intend to do another next autumn in wool or wool blended with something – the corn fibre drapes beautifully and looks very nice:

But it has no memory and is, effectively, un-blockable. It’s also not so warm, so great around the shoulders on a cool night, but no so great for the real cold. I also must have MUCH wider shoulders that the designer, as it’s not as long for me – but I presume that if I’d used wool I could have blocked it longer. On the definite plus side it took 5 (yup, 5) 50 gr balls of the aMaizing (130m/50gr), so 250gr rather than 400gr.

Yesterday’s surprise lunch for my Father in Law was great – and was, indeed, a total surprise. It was his 70th birthday and lots of fun. The added bonus was knitting time in the car coming and going to the northern capital, so my Tulip FandF sock is on the instep stretch (sock on!).

This week, however, I intend to finish Juno. She has waited very patiently for me to return to the cables, been shunted aside for my case of the Clappy and I will now finish her collar, block and sew her (because given how cold the weather is, I will need to wear her for the next month or so!).

I managed to prepare a tomato bed on Saturday, but everything has stalled since then, so hopefully the tomato plants will get into their bed tomorrow. Raven, if you ever get to Tasmania, I will happily provide room and board in return for some gardening help!!

It was also fun getting dressed and made-up (rare events since the advent of motherhood). I wore a new kimono style top and new red Rivers shoes, and actually felt rather good! The Princess loved wearing a party dress (her mother was also pleased because any wear for a party dress is a good thing before it’s grown out of), and even Destructoboy looked respectable.

All in all, a good weekend. Finished the new Southern Vampire novel and can now return to the book which keeps getting put aside because library books always take precedence over those I own, After all, there are no overdue fines on MY books!

I also invented a rather nice barley and lentil pilau, involving the above ingredients plus preserved lemons and ground coriander, sumac and a finely chopped tomato (inserted at the end). It makes enough to feed an army and has provided meals for days – I’ve been teaming it with gently sautéed gourmet mushrooms for lunches at least twice (enoki, shitaki and oyster) – yum!

Back to the grindstone – washing up and tidying await me!