New job!

I went for two interviews this week - one was a bit of a disaster as I strangely got very nervous. Thankfully, the 2nd one went well - and I heard today that they want me to start on Monday! Whee! Now don't get too excited - it's a temporary role, so far only guaranteed until the end of June. Having said that, it's a proper marketing role and it's with a professional services firm, so I shall be back where I belong in every sense of the word. I'm really looking forward to it - and even better, guess what I get to see out of the office window?

Yep! The Tower of London! And look where I get to spend my lunch break

St. Katherine's Dock - let's just hope there's lots of nice weather in the next few weeks.

One good thing about all the travelling I've done to and from interviews? I've finished a pair of socks - of course, they don't quite match.....

On the left, we have some rather gorgeous Koigu made up using the Charade pattern - I've christened these my Sugar Plum Fairy socks as I think the colours reflect what she would have worn (yes, I'm prone to girly flights of fancy occasionally). On the left, we have the Knitting Goddess's April sock yarn club using a cloverleaf and double eyelet rib. April's sock yarn also coincided with Easter - so the colourway was Speckled Egg - for that particular month, I got the luxury option (80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon). Amazingly soft and a dream to knit with.....

I'm also solidering on with May 2010 Mystery sock by Cynthia Levy - cables, cables and more cables. This is possibly the most complicated pattern I have attempted so far - and I can only do about four rows at a time before my shoulder/wrist starts hurting. Still, I am enjoying it (in a slightly masochistic way) - and I'm really happy that I have finally found a suitable pattern for this gorgeous merino/tencel that I hand-dyed last summer - about time too! The picture shows the first sock done to the end of Clue 2 - but Clue 3 comes out tomorrow, which means I'm already a week behind...

Another month...

Oh my....I really have no excuse for not blogging for a whole month, apart from the usual madness that a normal, busy(ish) life brings with it.

Let's get some major news out of the way first: I am now unemployed again. Yes, you've got it right....Two weeks ago, I realised that the new job was just not working out in any sense of the word. I was in tears almost every weekend at the idea of going back in, and could feel myself getting very, very depressed. I'm not prepared to go back to that horrible place so, after much discussion with the wonderful Mr. A, I tendered my resignation. On the minus side, I feel a bit guilty for not sticking it out (but not that much to be honest). On the plus side, I now know that I never want to work for central government ever again, and I also have a much better idea of what kind of job I DO want to do. I've been much more focused / targeted in my job search and I already have an interview scheduled for next week, so it's looking good.

This all means that I've had some 'spare' time to make sure that Mr A's 40th birthday was celebrated in style. Here is my card:

And here is one that Miss A helped with:

There has also (surprise, surprise!), been much knitting and crocheting. Mr A has expressed some concern about how 'obsessive' I can get with this - he doesn't understand that, in times of high stress and trauma, it's a bit like curling up on the sofa under a snuggly blanket - you just get much prettier things at the end of it!

Back in early April, I finally succumbed and bought this from Amazon:

I've wanted it for some time, and having recently rediscovered my love of crochet squares, I decided it was time. The day that it came in the mail, I also found out that some very good friends of ours were expecting their first baby in early May. Cue some rather large fireworks going off inside my brain.....Several of the squares in the book are named after flowers, so I decided to make them a 'Summer Flowers' baby blanket in rainbow colours. The squares for this blanket will be 6" square - and I need 63 squares in total.

Miss A and I therefore headed off to the local wool shop, and came home with all these balls of machine-wash DK wool:More than enough I think.....in fact, it was just as well that I did buy so much, because when Miss A discovered that the blanket was not going to be for her, she was most upset. So call me a glutton for punishment, I went and started a SECOND blanket for her. This will be using the same 'rainbow concept' but with different patterns for the squares:

These squares will be 8" square - and I need 100 squares. Ermmm, do you think I have maybe bitten off a bit more than I can chew? So far, I have done all the white, yellow and orange squares (plus a few trial ones that didn't work out but which will go to Knit-A-Square instead). Pictures soon, I promise!

I also have knitting to show you, but Miss A is now demanding some attention, so I will leave those projects for the next post.