(Not so) idle hands...

I'm going into my fifth week of being sick now, and my frustration levels are maxing out :-) Hubby has been working from home this week, thank goodness, so I've been able to to take it easy and try and recover. I'm fine when I'm sitting around doing nothing, but as soon as I think I feel better and try to do something, even as simple as putting a load of washing on, I dissolve into a coughing fit, which usually ends in an asthma attack. I'm new to this asthma thing, so I have the deepest sympathy for those of you who've suffered most of your life! My Dr thinks I will get over it when I am recovered from the chest infection, so fingers crossed.

Anyway, although I've been trying to do some reading, my brain is a bit foggy and I'm suffering from I-just-finished-the-page-but-I-can't-remember-what-I-read syndrome. Luckily however, the weather has taken on a distinctly autumnal feel in the past week; the days are noticeably shortening a little and the evening air is getting an ever-so-slightly crisp feel to it. It must be time for some knitting and crochet!

Learning to crochet has been an ambition for a while now. I did manage to crochet a granny square last year, but oh! The frustration! I just couldn't get my hands to work in a co-ordinated manner, LOL.

With nothing better to do but sit with a hook, yarn and the lap top open to learn-to-crochet videos such as this one on YouTube, I persisted and persisted on my first crocheted dishcloth. I lost count of how many times I had to unravel bits (or most!) of it because I just couldn't get the tension right or because I gained/lost stitches, but finally I finished a basic double-crochet dishcloth! Ta da!





Inspired by that, I am now working on getting the hang of treble stitch in the second dishcloth you can see at the front. The only problem is, I think I now have RSI, LOL. Ah well, once I come back to it, I'll have a better idea what I am doing so I won't be so tensed up :-)

As far as knitting goes, I haven't abandoned it either - I've cast on this cardigan in a black Australian wool/ soy blend. Not the best choice of colour to show off the moss stitch, but it was the only suitable yarn I could find quickly which had the required number of balls in stock (and black goes with everything ;-).

To give my hand a break now I'm going to make another cup of turmeric tea (oh, ginger and turmeric tea, how I love thee), and attack another pile of old gardening magazines. Tearing articles out of magazines used to seem almost sacrilegious to me once upon a time, but now I'm getting older and more fanatical about storage space, and filing only the useful information in display folders seems an entirely sensible thing to do - now the I have the time to do it that is :-)

Wishing you all a happy and healthy weekend!

Cheers,