A couple of FOs

Finally, after several months of hard work I have finished my Thelonious socks and I feel like I understand better how travelling lace patterns work.



I have also finished the stripy scarf I showed off in my last post.  For a scarf in knit 1 purl 1 rib it simply flew by, the chunky yarn helped, as did the mesmerising colours.  In fact I do have to admit that I have been plotting more similar scarves and wondering if there is a limit to how many stripy scarves one person needs.  The scarf is lovely to wear, smooshy, soft, squishy and elastic and I am hoping it will brighten up the winter.



This finishing has not left me bereft of knitting though, I am beginning seriously on Christmas knitting, early though it seems, these projects take time.

Stripes before my eyes

Five years behind the trend, I have started knitting a Noro Striped scarf, using Jared Flood's instructions and am finding it utterly compelling knitting. It is very much "just another row" knitting, or rather in this case "just another stripe".
 
I would also recommend it as a soothing, almost meditative knit. When I was planning this scarf I was worried about getting bored of knitting a knit one-purl one rib for the entire length of a scarf, so I bought some now discontinued Noro Silk Garden Chunky from Black Sheep Wools at a discount. Although the boredom has turned out not to be a factor I am still glad I went with the chunky weight. It is becoming a thick, soft, stretchy and squishy scarf and judging by the weight of it draped across my lap as I type, should be gorgeously warm.
 
Naturally being Noro there is the odd unfathomably itchy bit and the occasional bit of straw/grass/vegetable matter but I am being fairly successful at picking those out and with a wash it should be fine. Silk Garden is definitely the softest of the Noro yarns I have used so far and I am definitely thinking of giving the sock weight a whirl - Noro striped socks here I come?

 P.S. While we're on the subject of socks, I should have some finished sock photos to share tomorrow.

6am

Sometimes there's an advantage to being awake before 6am and thankfully I did eventually get back to sleep. I have got terribly behind with blogging and still haven't managed to write about our holiday. I had intended to post a photograph each day: I'll try to catch up soon.

Holiday day 2

Awandering down country lanes

Holiday day one

Sunset, day one

Holiday excitement

The past couple of "WIP Wednesdays seem to have drifted past me, never mind, these things happen and I have been feeling worn out and really rather out of it, as though the world were quite a long way off.

But, excitingly, on Saturday I am off on holiday for the first time in six years.  Previously I have always felt so tired and just could not face travel, but I have decided to take a step out and be brave and go away for a week.  So I am going with my parents to spend a week on a farm in Sussex.  Hardly a huge adventure or trekking in the Andes, but for me, who has not been outside London in a number of years and lately not even outside Croydon, it is a huge step.

When you are so tired and ill your world does tend to shrink, to places you have to go (hospital appointments etc.) and places you feel safe going and know you can manage, which tend to be repetitive (I can get anxious about new places) and close by.  So a distance that my parents would not turn a hair at as a day trip, becomes for me a trek and entirely new territory, new places to explore.



Naturally I am anxious about being away, about a different bed, new places, there are lots of unquantifiables, and so I am trying to quell my anxieties.  If I have been on the website of the place we are staying once I have been on a dozen times; I have examined the location and the surrounding areas and even looked on Google Earth!  I am packing things that help me cope with all eventualities such as hot water bottle and a fan and will have the internet while I am there so that I can stay in touch with my ravelry friends too.

But despite all this I am genuinely excited, I am looking forward to peace, quiet and green - being able to see the countryside and see beautiful things instead of grey pavements and tower blocks.  I know there are limits to what I can do while there, my world there will be small just as it is at home, because I am not well enough to travel miles or go for day trips in the car.  But I plan to make the most of what I can do, seeing the animals on the farm, sitting with my knitting looking at a beautiful view, enjoying the fresh air and freedom from the Met Police's helicopters.  And I have a couple of little excursions I want to make, notably to Lewes, a town I have not visited in years, but used to love going to.



If blogger's interfaces and my little Android tablet get on then I hope to blog from Sussex; if not then I shall do a post (or two) about it when I am back from my great adventure.  For now I need to finish packing (itself a tiring, anxious process) and try to keep my fear and excitement under check, now I come to think about it they are rather linked emotions; for me this has all the emotions of a ride at Alton Towers.

The photographs in this post were taken at Coombe Wood, one of Croydon's hidden gems and well worth a visit.

What I pray my church will be

Recently while praying for my church I scribbled down a list of attributes I pray my church and the church more widely will have and will further develop, suitably enough on the back of an envelope.  Then I lost the envelope for a few weeks'.

As I have now found it again I thought I would post the list here, in the order in which I wrote it down, in the hopes that it would prove helpful to you as you pray for your church and our church.  Of course the list is not comprehensive, but I hope and pray it can be a place to start from.  I dearly love the church, it is a wonderful concept, the body of Christ, a series of loving relationships changing the world, working through the world like yeast through flour, to make all things new.

Let us pray.


What I pray my church will be:

Founded in Christ – our sure foundation

welcoming, open

a window on another world

learning from the past but not bound by it

preaching the Gospel
boasting in Christ crucified

loving

discipling one another

one as He is one

of pure heart

full of joy in Him

a lamp on a lampstand, a city on a hill, shining for all to see

full of peace

fellowship

different

genuine

a place of healing

a place of prayer for all the nations

Amen.

I will leave you with this song I discovered yesterday, which is a tremendous encouragement to pray.