Has it really been that long?

It doesn't seem like 2+ weeks since I last posted here, but it is.

It's been a busy couple of weeks round here.  Not so much on the crafting front, but with Other Stuff.

First off, we were coming to the end of our mortgage package, so had to spend time researching other options and deciding if going onto another fixed rate or just going with the bank's standard variable rate would be the best option for us.  All rather tedious and time-consuming, but necessary.

I also had to do a fair bit of preparation for DD2, who's away for a few days with school this week.  With her being autistic, it's often difficult to work out if she's understood what she's being told.  For several weeks, she kept insisting that she, me and Jess (the dog) were going on 'school holidays' whilst hubby and DD1 stayed at home.  I've been doing washing, ironing and labelling of clothes and belongings, never mind a dash up to the big Tesco 10 miles away yesterday morning (before I went to work at 1pm) because the Co-Op in our town didn't have any soya yogurts on the shelves.  Anyway, all was packed on time and off she went to school as usual this morning, with her little case and a bag of various gluten and dairy-free foods for her to have over the next few days (Rice 'milk', rice cakes, gf cornflakes, gf pasta, soya yogurts, etc).  I admit to having a bit of a lump in my throat when she walked down the garden path, pulling her case behind her when it was time for the off this morning.

So, there hasn't been a great deal of knitting being done.  There's been some though.  A few rows of my Nympheas scarf (but still not enough to warrant a photo) have been completed.  I've done some spinning (I'll post about that tomorrow) and I've finished some socks.

These ones:

These are made to a modified version of the orange Charade socks I finished last month.  Basically, I doubled the width of the pattern, so did two knit stitches, the herringbone rib twice, then two knit stitches and repeated those eight stitches across/around the foot/leg. 

Here's a closer-up pic of the pattern:

It's a very simple (free) pattern that's effective, but easy to memorise.

I might make it again at some point, but move the herringbone rib diagonally (although I might do a test swatch to see how much give there is if the pattern's done that way).

I also signed up and bought the pattern for Wendy Johnson's Summer Solstice shawl/scarf.  As the name suggests, the start date was 20 June...... but I haven't done anything; not even wound the yarn from skein to ball.  That's partly due to the spinning I've been doing, so I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.

I've also cast on another pair of socks.  Plain stocking stitch ones this time because sometimes you have yarn that you know doesn't want to be anything other than a pair of vanilla socks.