Free time restored

Well, hubby is back to work now and my free time has been restored to me. As a teacher, he's off work frequently for all the school holidays, while I get no such luxuries in health care. He does try to give me my space during his holidays, but it's just not the same as knowing I have 8ish hours a day, 5 days a week to come home in the morning to an empty canvass and then paint my day as it suits me. That's always been my way. I'm full on at work, or pretty much any time I'm around people, but for my sanity I've always needed my "down time" as I call it, when the world is locked out. Working night shift makes that easier, as other's are all at work or school during the day. For me, it's one of the main attractions of night shift.

I had every intention of using my two days off this past fortnight to teach myself how to spin on my new wheel, but it was not to be. Hubby likes to go when he's off work, so we went over to the coastal town of Victor Harbor, by way of Goolwa, which is a river town near the mouth of the Murray. Hubby wanted to see what the recent drought has done to the river levels there, but alas, it was a very windy day, and hard to judge the real river levels, as the direction of the wind was pushing the level up. Still, we had a great time, and I found a bunch of old knitting pattern books at the op shops there. I'll copy what I like out of them eventually, and then resell them on Ebay in the fall (when knitting things sell best). Or that's the plan anyhow.

I broke tradition and took my "on the couch" project with me on this trip. I simply couldn't face the fuzzy techno fleece I'm making his vest out of (see last entry for the horrific details). So I worked with my alpaca, and it was quite relaxing and enjoyable. I love to knit while hubby drives, as I can concentrate on my knitting better than when I'm distracted by the TV or the goings on in my living room. I got quite a bit done on the way there and as we made our way from place to place, but of course, on the way home I mainly looked thru the pattern books. An amazing day really. The temperature was a comfy 25 or so, with a nice breeze. The ocean was crystal blue, and a joy to behold as I worked my needles.

Yesterday was hubby's last day of holidays, and we headed up river to check the river levels there, making it as far as Swan Reach. I've mentioned earlier, I have a UFO, a scarf I'm making for my neice for Christmas. I took this project with me on this trip, and finished it, or at least, finished everything but weaving in the end peices, which I will do soon, and then I'll get a photo. I made the scarf with the most incredibly difficult yarn I could find, some novelty yarn from Lincraft, which had three different types of yarn wound in and about a center yarn, with bits hanging off at regular places. I did a simple garter drop stitch on it, but it was still a mess to work with, which is essentially why it remained a UFO until now. After torturing myself with this stuff for the first couple of hours of the trip, I finally finished, and turned to the fuzzy vest, which seemed like smooth knitting in comparison.

Last night, while watching the absolute worst episode of Australian Idol it has ever been my misfortune to watch, I worked on the vest, bringing me very close to being finished with the back, which of course means I'm almost halfway done. Yippeeeee! I think I've about come to the mind that the quicker I finish this thing, the happier I will be. So I'm going to try to knock out the back before I leave for my meeting and this work this evening. Then I can start the frount, and have a much smaller peice of cloth to carry around with me. The back of the vest had gotten so big I had to move it out of Shelby (my sheep knitting bag) and into a cloth shopping bag.