The weekend and my lace knitting incompetencies.

On Saturday my main concern was avoiding Dave during his moving out process, so I stalked down to Deluxe with Shannon and drank coffee and then went over to the library. I raided the audio books for any Agatha Christie or Ngaio Marsh that I hadn't thrashed yet, and then went through the knitting magazines where, to my utter delight, I found a pattern that I'd seen on the internet and desperately wanted to make - Offering Mitts, by Nancy Bush. This is what they should look like:

Offering Mitts, Nancy Bush. TO DIE FOR.

I think that they're absolutely stunning, and I wanted to make them the moment I saw them. I rushed home from the library and cast on with some pale blue Touch Yarns merino fingering. Then I attempted to knit the cuff, unravelled what I'd knitted, got as far as the 19th row of the lace pattern, unravelled again, cast on again, knitted the cuff... At 4am I realised what the time was and finally packed up the knitting. This is easily the hardest thing I've ever knitted because of the level of concentration I need to devote to the lace pattern - the pattern is different for each row, and at the end of each row I have to stop and count the stitches to make sure that I haven't fucked up. It feels as though I've unravelled each row at least once. Shannon is impressed by what I've done so far; I'm just hoping that they won't look too gammy when I'm done. Blocking hides a multitude of evils??

Lace knitting is one of those things that I love the look of, but I wonder if I really have the level of concentration needed. Essentially, I don't think that I do. Over the last two years I've knitted maybe four lace items: two cowls from the same pattern, a scarf for my mum, and a pair of socks. All of these have mistakes in them, but I just didn't care that much before and the mistakes weren't very obvious. But on these mitts the lace is everything and there is no point working on them unless I concentrate really hard. Enter, The Age of Enthusiastic Lace Knitting. I can tell now that I won't get these finished until next winter.

The Book Club is preparing for something new and exciting for our next meeting - we will acquire Literary Society status for exactly one evening, and discuss the most highbrow of all literature, Chick Lit. Cutesy genre titles piss me off, BTW. I raided the bookshelves in our lounge that is full of abandoned books, cassettes, CDs, DVDs and videos, and found at least two possibilities. It looks as though I'm going to be reading Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell, and I fully expect to be shocked and horrified by how horrible it is. In fact, I think I'm looking forward to it.

Also on my "reading/to read shelf", Wedlock; How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met his Match by Wendy Moore, Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Unset, Intertwined; The Art of Handspun Yarn, Modern Patterns and Creative Spinnning by Lexi Boeger, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

I cooked dinner for the flat on Sunday night, and made a caramelised onion, mushroom and feta tart and a marguerita pie for dessert. I was extremely pleased with my caramelised onion efforts as I added no sugar and only a splash of balsamic vinegar and still managed to get everything sweet and delicious - seriously long cooking. Adding mustard seeds was a pretty awesome decision too, if I do say so myself. The marguerita pie was the second attempt I've made at this recipe and I've discovered a bunch of stuff: it should be frozen for more like five or six hours rather than the four suggested; the cream should be whipped fairly stiffly; the base should use half a cup of butter instead of 3/4 of a cup and a good teaspoon of salt doesn't go amiss; a couple of dashes of tabasco lifts the filling no end. Also, you can get away with adding almost five tablespoons of tequila with no ill effect. I'll republish the recipe once I've tweaked it properly, and once I've worked out how much half a cup of butter actually weighs. Can't stand American measurements of butter by cups.

Fact: These two pies/tarts have the same sweet/salty flavour combination going on. I love sweet and salty together. It makes me happier than anything else.

I've begun working on my ten more things list, and am quite stoked with my progress so far. I've worn two things that I hardly ever wear, had two Buy Nothing days last week, spent a half hour working on the SCP archive, and have already organised my wardrobe for the Six Items or Less challenge. I haven't heard from the Six Items people yet though. Dudes, I'm totally hanging out here for the challenge to start. I've been looking at my accessories quite obsessively too... so many plans.

Finally, it's crazy freaking FREEZING today, easily the coldest it's been in weeks. The Metservice is telling me that the actual temperature is 6.9C, and it feels like 2C. I want to know where the snow is. If I'm putting up with ridiculously cold temperatures, I want something to show for it GODDAMN IT. Cold.