Nightmare

Ever since I was young I've had intermittent nightmares. They've decreased in frequency since I've got older, but are still there and are usually pretty vivid. David has learnt to cope with them - usually he doesn't wake me when the shouting starts, but calms me and I go back to sleep. Sometimes I don't remember them, sometimes I have a vague recollection that something's happened and other times I remember them distinctly in the morning.


Last night was a nightmare night. I dreamt that someone was in the room and lay down on the bed on the opposite side of me to David. The confusion and shouting started and I got out of bed, I think to try to switch on the light to prove what I knew in my head was happening. Of course I couldn't find the light switch (I always expect it to be by the bedroom door, but it's been put next to the walk-in wardrobe door) and when David switched the light on (as it was obvious that saying soothing words wasn't going to get me to just go back to sleep) there of course wasn't anyone there. With the turning on of the light and the realisation that the extra person in the bed was a figment of my imagination I woke up properly and was completely confused about what was going on and the emotions I was feeling. My heart also started racing - in fact I don't think I've ever felt it race so fast or so hard.

These nightmare episodes are very strange and I wonder why I get them. Why do I "wake up" in the night shouting and David doesn't (he just gets woken up by me)? What makes my brain convince itself that something is happening that isn't?

quilt update

This week has been a quiet week work-wise so I set myself the goal of making some progress with my quilt. It's been quite some time since I've blogged about it, as it's been languishing a little.

I've added another section to it and removed a lot of the paper backing, which was a pain (including a few paper cuts under my nails), but makes it a lot easier to manoeuvre now. Still some way to go but hopefully it'll remain my 10 year project rather than expanding to 15.

Deep V

So, now that the Cyd vest is finished I've cast on for the Deep V argyle vest. It took a few gauge swatches before I figured out which size and needles to do/use, I also changed colours during the swatching stage as initially I was going to use a lighter grey, which didn't end up having any contrast with the green. And then a couple of re-starts while I did the usual messing up and miss-counting, and then another restart to switch to smaller needles for the rib. I'm now away from the starting gates and am pleased with the decisions I've made about size, needles etc.

My gauge isn't spot on, but is close. I think width-wise will be fine, especially once it's blocked, but I need to have a think about length-wise and decide if I need to make any minor changes while I'm doing the armhole shaping. I'm at the end of my first skein of green and nearly at the end of chart A, so I guess now is a good time to figure that out.

Cyd

I sat down on Saturday and finished Cyd. I'm really pleased with how it's come out. It fits well, I love the colour combination and the drops alpaca used double makes a really nice squooshy fabric.

And it matches my hat (I'm not hiding - honest!)

As you can see from the photo our mud month weather hasn't continued, in fact we have a big blue sky and sunshine at the moment (long may it last).

October

I've been trying to learn the months of the year in Finnish. I was trying to do this while I was walking the other day with my Finnish neighbour, Saari. She was helpful enough to tell me what some of them mean.

For example: January is tammikuu (oak month), February is helmikuu (pearl month). Not all of them have such succinct translations, but I did learn that October is lokakuu (mud month).

We were having this conversation on the last day of September, it was a beautiful evening - sunny, clear blue sky and beautiful autumnal foliage.

So far October has been living up to its Finnish name. It hasn't stopped raining - we even had thunder last night and the rain was so hard during the night that it woke me up (I woke David up and told him he should probably not cycle to work today, before going back to sleep) and I was surprised when I got up today that the whole area hadn't been washed away, but not surprised that it's still raining!

So, stuck in the house is perfect for knitting. I intend to weave in the ends of my Cyd sweater, which is on the brink of being finnished and Quinn is coming over later as we're in the starting throes of both casting on for the Deep V Argyle Vest by Eunny Yang - that's if we both don't get too bogged down with gauge.