I am the boss of my knitting

My knitting is not the boss of me.

Occasionally I forget this truth of textile arts and get terribly bogged down. Then I remember, I reassert my authority, and life gets better. What prompted this round of navel-gazing? My coatigan. Or perhaps ex-coatigan would be a better description!

I lost weight, you see. And the coatigan no longer fit me. Thanks to my mother's sewing lessons, there was no way the seams were coming undone, so it wasn't as if I could unpick, frog and reknit. So I took my scissors, sliced off everything above the armholes, folded and wrapped it around a pillowform and sewed a lovely new throw pillow. I even took the toggles that were the planned closures and sewed them on for decoration. End result - one pillow, 4 pristine balls of yarn to turn into something, and one relaxed and happy knitter.

As it happens, I was off sick yesterday with a stomach upset. Nothing major, but I wanted to get plenty of sleep so it didn't turn into anything bigger. I was a bit too spacey to work on the wedding dress, so instead I flitted about between some of my other WIPs. The ripple afghan is finally past the halfway point. I've still got a goodly chunk left to work on, but it's not so daunting anymore. And the bag that the yarn lives in is looking decidedly smaller. I got a couple of rounds of a mitten done, although the colourwork was a bit more than I could concentrate on. And I got a parcel from my mother and grandmother! Full to the brim of exciting things, it certainly cheered me up.

I received a pile of new knitting and spinning magazines, a spinning supplier's catalogue (dangerous!), and an enormous piece of white linen. 7 yards of 60-inch-wide white linen. It's destined to become new garb at some point in the future. Once the wedding dress is finished, of course. For now I'm content to sit and oogle it.

One last thing that was in the parcel:

Isn't it stunning???