Gallimaufry 3

I have finished the first of the two unfeasibly large nets, and it is amusing to see just how much bigger it is than the original reel of twine whence it came. (I knew it was going to be bigger - there's a lot of air involved in a net; but the actual amount of extra bulk is quite impressive.) It's far too big for me to fold by myself without risking a fall, so at the moment I have it bundled up any old how, ready to go to drama group next week, where I am hoping some nice person with more space than I have will take it off my hands. I've also started the next one, but I don't expect to get that one finished quite as fast as the first; in fact I rather hope I don't, because I am inclined to do netting when under a lot of stress, and the stress I was under for the last couple of weeks resulted in an awful lot of net.

Given how intensive the process of working on this particular net ended up being, I realised something that hadn't especially struck me before. I was, of course, already aware that jute twine tends to shed a lot of bits of fibre, and this is more obvious now I'm back in the winter trousers, which are jersey and therefore more likely to trap these little fibres. Those, however, are just the larger ones. It wasn't till I looked at my glasses and realised just how much jute dust was accumulating in the angle between the inside of the lens and the frame that I thought... ah. I really do not want to be inhaling that. I have a history of respiratory problems which are known to be either brought on or exacerbated by air pollution (which obviously is not good for anyone, but I seem to be especially sensitive to it); and, in particular, technically I have asthma.

You wouldn't know I have asthma. Most of the time, it never even crosses my mind that I have asthma. I'm completely asymptomatic and have been since moving to East Anglia, I don't need an inhaler or anything else of that sort, but... it's there, lurking in the background. It was originally set off by a week in London, where the air is pretty terrible (I understand it's a bit better these days, but it's still not great), and it didn't get any better once I returned to Sheffield. The air there is better than in London, but it still has problems, especially in the city centre, which is in a dip where all the diesel fumes get trapped. I'm particularly sensitive to diesel fumes.

I still mask against COVID, for a number of reasons, so I have a fancy pathogen-resistant mask; but it's not very comfortable for extended use, and I don't need that for dust. So I did what I nearly always end up doing, and improvised. I had this bright yellow fat quarter that I didn't really know what to do with, and that made an excellent temporary dust mask; for the longer term I've ordered some of those little surgical masks. Those will do fine for the purpose.

So that's the netting, for the moment. Then there's the beading. I've decided I'm going to take a little break from that, for two reasons: the first is that I can store only so many pairs of earrings at once, and the second is that I'm about to restart my degree. (Technically, that is. In fact I actually have restarted it, but the course module doesn't formally start till Monday.) And there are only so many hours in the day, so something, somewhere, has to give. Depending on how sales go I may reconsider before the end of the module, but for now I have around 250 pairs of earrings up for sale in the Folksy shop and a few more in the physical shop up the road. That's going to give me a fair cushion whatever happens.

The sewing, at the moment, is still mostly garb; and I have a deadline. I need to get at least the top and the winter cloak finished before Crown, which is in about a week's time. I am quite well on with the top, but I have run into a little hitch; I think I've already mentioned that I sewed the neck facing on the wrong way round because I was watching a webinar at the time, and I didn't notice till I'd clipped all the curves. Which would have been fine, as the fabric doesn't have any discernible right or wrong side, but I'd forgotten to take account of the fact that the front piece does have darts. Whatever happens, that's not fatal, as the top will be worn under the tunic for garb purposes; but what I'll probably end up doing is topstitching the dart on what is now the right side, and possibly removing the original dart seam, depending on exactly how conspicuous it is. The cloak is just a case of "cut a large semicircle and hem it", so I can probably do that in a day or two, even allowing for study time.

The knitting, on the other hand, boils down to "I need to finish the current pair of socks and then start work on the winter slipover, because I'm going to be needing that quite soon". Yes, there are plenty of other projects in the pipeline, but those two are the urgent ones.

And, finally, I need to get started on the translation work for the Puncetto Valsesiano lace book fairly soon; in fact I had hoped to be into that by now, but the stressful situation went on for a lot longer than I expected. (It is, I'm happy to be able to report, now sorted.) Once that's under way I can think about actually doing some, especially since it is a supremely portable craft - even more so than knitting. And I have my annual blood test in about a month's time, and they do not always run to time at the surgery, so portable crafts are a sine qua non. I've tended to bring sock-knitting in the past, but it's always nice to ring the changes.

Also... congratulate me. So far I have still managed to resist the temptation to learn to tat!