Hello honey bunches,

I hope you've had a gorgeous week.

Me? Not so much. Well actually it started off quite promisingly. We had a lovely weekend last weekend. Saturday was busy and we spent Sunday celebrating Bren's wonderful parents and their 50 years of love and marriage with dinner and a show.

But then it nose dived pretty quickly from there. On Sunday night I went to bed and didn't get up again until Thursday. My bones ached, my muscles cramped, I was HOT and then FREEZING, my chest hurt and I don't know how to describe the pain in my head except to say that I've never experienced a head ache quite like it. It was scary.

It's so dumb, but sometimes when I'm running around in my normal, healthy life, the thought of being sick and stuck in bed sounds dreamy. I imagine myself propped up on big poofy pillows, with my hair in a messy bun and my lap top perched on my knees, watching movies, knitting and taking sips of fizzy mineral water guilt-free. In my dreams, being sick was almost luxury.

Of course the reality didn't even vaguely resemble the fantasy: grubby, sweaty hair, eyes that were too sore to watch or read anything, head that hurt too much to listen to anything, scary pain and nausea and as for knitting, forget it. What a waste of time.

But I'm pleased to report that today, on day five of the awful sickness, I am just about well again. I'm still not at that stage where the whole world looks brand new and fresh and exciting and I feel like skipping through the daisies singing, but I'm close. Unfortunately Bren, Jazzy and Indi are still a few days behind me.

In other news, during the week my niece Sascha turned 20. Twenty years ago my farmer boy, who back then was probably more of a dread-locked gypsy boy, took a break from trekking the world and returned home to Melbourne to meet his newborn niece.

Not long after he'd returned, we met at a wedding, we fell in love and have been more or less inseparable ever since. Thanks to Sascha being born. I can't believe that was 20 years ago. I can't believe that that beautiful, tiny red-headed baby who wouldn't ever go to sleep is now practically grown. Sometimes I can't even believe that we have kids and cars and land and apple trees....

Twenty years hey!

What I can believe in though is socks knitting. I still love it. It still fills me up creatively and at the same time feels useful.

I knitted this pair for my farmer boy for his birthday, but due to some issues with the tension of the fair isle pattern around the top, he couldn't get them on. Miss Indi could get them on and modelled them for me, in exchange for a new Facebook profile pic. Remember the days when the going rate for bribery was a cookie? How things have changed. Anyway, as you can see from the photos, the socks are actually too big for Indi so will probably end up on Miss Jazzy's feet. Even though she was the last in the family to receive a pair from me. Better keep knitting.


The next thing that happened in my knitting land is that Indi requested a pair of socks with spots. Cool, I thought and proceeded to search the internet for patterns. Not so cool, I thought, when weirdly I didn't come up with any.

So I tried to convince her that what she really needed was a beautiful, snuggly shawl instead.

She disagreed.

So I got out some textas and paper and tried to work out what spots on socks might look like. Then I tried to work out how many stitches across and up and down they should be, how many stitches between them they should have, and how on earth I could evenly fit them across a 66 stitch sock. Is your brain hurting yet?

Once I had more or less worked out the stitches I tested them out by knitting a square. A square of spots.

That worked quite well but Miss Indi thought the spots were too big.


So I knitted a smaller swatch on 2mm needles with sock yarn.

Perfect!


Which leads us to now. For although I'm not 100% better I am better enough to take my spotty sock knitting into the other room to watch one of the Little Women movies. I have just finished reading the book and am dying to see the characters brought to life.

Gosh I adored that book. It broke my heart and brought me to tears of sadness and joy more times than I could count. I love those March girls, I love their relationships and adventures and of course I loved every single mention of knitting socks for the soldiers. What I wouldn't give for a chance to sit at that table for a night counting stitches with the sisters, turning heels, making lace and giggling at each other.

I can't believe I have never read it til now. Have you?


And with that I bid you farewell for another week.

May we all be healthy, may our tomatoes finally ripen, may our pickles have just enough pucker, and may the movie not disappoint the book.

Bye!


zig zag toe socks details here
lotsa spots socks details here