Not knitting

Another two weeks with no work - the doctor has given me another medical certificate. That makes six weeks all together, the longest continous period I have ever been off work. What have I been up to? Well, I have finished clue 3 of the mystery shawl - no point in taking a picture though, it has reached the stage where there are so many stitches on the needles that I can't spread it out to show off the pattern and it just looks like a tangled mess.
I have also taught myself to spin using a drop-spindle that I won on Ebay. I have only done a little bit so far but I am now the proud owner of a 4" x 8" sample that has been spun and knitted by me. My gaze is lustfully turning to the spinning wheels on Ebay but I have no space (well, nowhere that isn't already full of yarn and merino tops and fabrics and felting needles and sewing machines and patterns and magazines ....... you get the picture). Maybe if I got rid of the exercise bike and that old fire......................
We spent Sunday giving our bedroom a long overdue spring-clean; I am so relieved it is finally done, I didn't realise how much the mess was getting me down until it wasn't there anymore. During the course of our excavations (not exaggerating, honest) I found four jumpers/cardis that are well past their sell-by and haven't been worn for at least a year. They have greatly increased the size of the Up Knit Creek frog pond and will shortly be increasing the stash. One jumper that my mum knitted for me ages ago has already been deknitted and I decided to do things properly and wash the resulting curly noodles to get rid of the kinks. I washed in hot water and hung the skeins up whilst still dripping wet, the theory being that the weight of water would smooth out all the kinks and curls. When I got the skeins in from the washing line they still looked as though they had had a bad perm and I began to think that the yarn must have a high proportion of poodle in it but it was no match for my lovely new "steam ironing station". A good blast with steam at 60g/minute and the yarn was flattened to within an inch of its life. How proud I was, what an achievement! (Can you sense that I need to get out more?). Said yarn, whose composition is a complete mystery, is now wound into nice neat balls, waiting quietly for the next moment of inspiration to strike. I do not own a swift (it is on my "most wanted" list) so had to improvise as Lucy was unwilling to lend me her hands. A bottle of Pimm's No. 1 and a bottle of Vodka placed at strategic intervals on the floor work reasonably well when winding about 1kg worth of yarn - I always knew there was a reason I drank!