Winter woes

Boy am I glad June is over! We had the most phenomenal summer here, the kind of summer that you remember from childhood, and that never seems to happen when you're an adult: endless warm, sunny days, month after month. But now winter has kicked in with a vengeance; it's freezing cold and we're having a series of incredible hail storms that are so heavy it looks like it's been snowing in the back garden.

And of course, with the onset of winter, came the onset of winter chills and ills. The very best week went something like this:

Date: Monday

To: absences@katiesschool.co.nz

From: rachelc@home

Subject: Katie, Room 17

Katie will be away from school today due to an ear infection.

Date: Tuesday
To: absences@katiesschool.co.nz
From: rachelc@home
Subject: Katie, Room 17
Katie will be away from school today due to an ear infection and an eye infection.

Date: Wednesday
To: absences@katiesschool.co.nz
From: rachelc@home
Subject: Katie, Room 17
Katie will be away from school today due to an ear infection, an eye infection and a chest infection.

Date: Thursday
To: absences@katiesschool.co.nz
From: rachelc@home
Subject: Katie, Room 17
Katie will be away from school today due to an ear infection, an eye infection, a chest infection and chicken pox.

Now, touch wood, we all seem better.

It didn't help that I had more travel than usual in June - I called it my knit-around-the-North-Island month. I knitted in Northland (where people are apparently not used to seeing knitters in pubs - I think Eclair needs to do some work here!), I knitted in Matakana (where I have inspired a lapsed knitter to pick up the needles), I knitted in Gisborne and I knitted in Rotorua (and I stopped in Te Kauwhata on the way to Rotorua to cast on a sock for my aunt). And yet I don't seem to have terribly much to show for it...

I have finally finished (well, almost) the Sunrise Circle Jacket - I just have to sew the buttons on. Photos as soon as I do!

I made a pinwheel cardigan for Jess. That began as an exercise to see if I could do a pinwheel using the magic loop method (I can). Then it was going to be a blanket. Then I found a fabulous pattern for a cardigan so that's where it wound up. It has the niftiest edging - little loops of I-cord running right around...

And I knitted some little hats which are intended for charity but seem to have been appropriated for the dolls by my uncharitable children.

I'm not sure what I'm knitting now... I seem to still have seventeen things on the go but I'm not sure if any of them will actually evolve into finished objects. Time will tell...