Well, this weekend was super happy and super sad at the same time. I spent a great weekend with all the girls - drinking, dancing, gossiping and brunching - to celebrate Emma's last weekend in Barcelona. She's moved back to Wisconsin (cheese state, can I get a what what!) to go to college and see her family and generally get her shit together after Barcelona Baby-adulthood, and we're really, really going to miss her.

The sheep is Pam. Named after the fabulous Pam Poovey. Bear claw rawr-rawr!


On Friday night, we all scrubbed up and went out to Jamboree - a club that's half good and half cutre (that's Spanish for seedy) - and really, the less said about that the better... Two points worth noting are that after a few drinks, I like to pretend I'm better than the tourist plebs by ordering all my drinks in Catalan. Surprisingly, I got what I wanted and everything was all right with the world. Secondly, hot pizza at 4am is just the best thing in the world, even if you do pay for it with a whole handful of 5c coins.

In the morning, we washed off the club stamp and residual shame, and headed out to brunch at Caravelle, a lovely little place in Raval. Whilst waiting for Hilary and Chloe, we enjoyed coffee, fresh orange juice, and amazingly moist strawberry chocolate muffins with a crumble topping. Once everyone arrived, we ordered food, and "delicious" doesn't even cover it. I had the corn fritters with poached eggs and avocado - not only do they look totally yummy, there was a whole series of textures and flavours that made everyone groan at the table in delight.







After a long drawn-out goodbye, we parted ways, and Emma went to start another chapter of her life.



So - what do we do to fill the void and stop being sad? We crack out the wool! This week has been a series of new challenges: I'm learning to knit socks two-at-a-time with the magic loop technique; I'm learning to spin on a Turkish spindle; and I'm starting to knit a jumper for myself.

The TAAT socks are fascinating - magic loop is actually really kickass and I wonder why I didn't learn it before. Guaranteed matching socks every time, and no second sock syndrome after knitting the first one.



The spindle is interesting. I love how winding the turtle results in a centre-pull ball straight away, though the spinning itself is odd because I'm never sure where to hold it to spin in. I've been working with top-whorls for almost a year so I'm very much used to that, but I'm making sure I spend time with my Turk as well, to really get a feel for it. This fibre is Angel Cake from Fondant Fibre.



The jumper is going surprisingly well, it knits up really fast and wool is so squishy and cosy. I'm using natural black Welsh wool - it's a deep chocolate brown, and really lofty and light. The downsides are that because it's undyed, it's also unwashed, so I get to enjoy the smell of dirty barn ass as I knit. Furthermore, it sheds like a motherf- my bed looks like someone's been trimming their goolies all over it. I spent a while hunting for patterns, and I didn't find one I liked so... I wrote my own. We'll see what happens, but so far, I've almost finished the back piece and I'm pretty happy with it. Really excited to finish up the back and get started on the front, get the sleeves done, and give this whole thing a really good soak in something vaguely fresh and floral. Ugh.



2 Comments

  1. Knitting is the best way to conquer goodbyes! And all other sorts of difficulties. I have an on/off love affair with TAAT (sometimes it seems to take about 7x longer to knit them together! haha.) but I love love love magic loop. It makes sock knitting so much more portable! :)

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    1. I think I just have tension issues - I'll knit two separately and even though they have the same number of stitches and rows, one will be noticeable tighter than the other and blocking doesn't fully get rid of that. I'm hoping TAAT will sort it out! Also serious second sock syndrome...

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