As promised a picture of my alpaca (courtesy of mayfieldalpacas.co.uk) his name's marco and i think he's gorgeous. He's also a suri alpaca so i don't know how practical his dreadlock like coat would be for yarn but i've fallen in love with him anyway. Sadly not that much knitting's gone on lately, the journeys to and from work have mostly been taken up by bouts of revision wherever possible. The ward i work on has been far too busy lately to sit down and do anything besides grab a very quick cup of tea as and when you can hence the lack of updates here (they never tell you just how hard this business of working for a living is, especially on a student nurse wage. But i won't get into the dire financial situation the majority of trainee nurses find themselves in.) All my projects are coming along just currently very slowly, i'm sat right now in fact with the alpacs wrap on my knee which is somewhere between half and three quarters finished, the second silk sock is about an inch off the heel and the second broad street mitten is awaiting a couple more fingers and a shell and that's done. I'm hoping once tuesday's exam is over and done with my rate of knitting might reach its usual levels again. I was quite amused by the latest shreddies advert which shows the breakfast cereal being knitted with love by a group of knitting grandmas (doesn't do much to smash stereotypes, but what the hey) and leeds is having some sort of knitting festival so the local knitters apparently have all manner of odd knitted objects on needles right now including vegetables (if any of that's incorrect i'm sure one of my fellow knitting tykes will correct me)

wow! i honestly can't believe how long it's been since i updated. things have been absolutely frantic here, been too busy to get much knitting done with revising for another exam, trying to achieve all my competancies out on clinical placement, the long suffering boyfriend and i celebrating our anniversary, oh and adopting an alpaca (more on that next time i update). i did however manage to knit up my skein of woolly wormhead into a very nice scarf (picture to follow next time the camera comes out) i've made a little progress on a couple of other projects as well, but nothing to really write home about.

my first week back on placement has really flown, so much so i've hardly had the time to sit and get any knitting done, something i intend to remedy starting monday. just got back from a little shopping trip to the nearby outlet village and came back with a leopard print sleeping bag, so it now looks like camping trips will be a definite possibility this summer. i was very tempted to drop hints to the long suffering boyfriend that a set of bella blue needles would go perfectly with my new sleeping bag and would mean i'm more inclined to sit and knit him a sweater while we're away in a tent.

the alpaca silk wrap's not coming on too badly, had the chance to get another ball knitted up while the long suffering boyfriend was bowling. i've also just been a rather naughty girl and spent a small fortune on the knit tin, but i got a very lovely skein of woolly wormhead yarn for a scarf which i've actually been after for a while, the skein i chose was lilac and gold very pretty though i was originally after a green one (lime green jelly) but sadly it was sold out i'm quite happy with the lovely angel delight skein i chose with the help of the long suffering boyfriend. i went onto the site to show some buttons to the long suffering boyfriend for his broad street mittens and came away with the buttons i showed him, some more in a smaller size, the knitting accessories tin, a skein of yarn and two or three button jars. oops! still it gives me a little something to do on the journey to and from my placement from next week. as of tuesday i'm back out on the wards doing proper nursing, i can't wait in a way as i love what i do when i'm out working with patients, i love learning about their illnesses and their lives especially as so many of those i work with have been in hospital since their late teens and early 20's and it's possible to see the long term effects that psychiatric medication can have over 40 years or so. but i'm also so aprehensive about the experience as i've never worked full time in a nursing role for three months constantly being assessed by mentors. and while i've so far passed all the exams and assignments i've had the results back for i work so much better in practice when i don't know the staff are breathing down my neck scrutinising every move i make, very nerve wracking, but i shall pull through.

it turns out that actually picking up the stitches for the mitten shell was harder than i thought, i got so far across the back of the hand feeling quite proud of myself and thinking it wasn't so tough after all until i noticed that my lovely straight row of picked up stitches across the knuckles had begun to migrate stitch by stitch towards the wrist, oops! passed the glove over to my mother, because if she can't fix it who can, right? anyway she had the opposite problem and the stitches travelled fingerwards. the problem did eventually get sorted though, and i'd advise anyone doing anything similar to run a thread of contrasting colour one row underneath where you want to pick up the stitches from as a guide just in case you hadn't thought of it before (i honestly hadn't, it was only when my mum came up with the idea that a lightbulb flashed above my head and i just thought, how could i have not figured that out before?) . the mitten shell seemed to be coming on quite well too, until i realised sometime on friday night that i'd come to the end of the shaping for the shell and realised that actually i'd hardly decreased at all and where i should have had less than 10 stitches, i had over 30. it serves me right to try and knit when i'm tired, and the pattern was misleading too, still at least it gave me the chance to practise and perfect my unpicking technique.

Just finished the first of the mitten gloves for the long suffering boyfriend and while it's far too baggy for me i think it'll be just right for him (oh the benefits of having a partner with the same length hands as yourself). Just about to start picking up the stitches to make the mitten shell which should be interesting as it's not something i've done before and it seems a little trickier than picking up stitches on a sock.

i've lost my mojo (and not in an austin powers sense), my knitting mojo that is. this weekend for every row i've knitted on anything i seem to have had to unpick at least two more. i don't know if this is just my body and mind's way of telling me to just completely relax and do nothing for a day or two now my exams are over, or if my brain really has started to turn to mush. after much fighting with it i did manage to correct the mistakes i made on my alpaca wrap and get back to where i was again, but boy oh boy does it take some time! i blame myself for being too much of a perfectionist when it comes to knitting but i've always thought that if i'm putting the time and effort and not to mention the money for materials into a project it's only fair to do it right. besides i feel so much happier when things look good.