Yes, I did. And I had a wonderful time. We were staying at the Cassidys Hotel and this was a very fine hotel. I was a guest at the Fibre Fun Friday and knitted my Nell almost to the finish. I shopped till I dropped. I went to Trinity College and saw The Book of Kells. I went to the Francis Bacon exhibition: The Terrible Beauty. It made me understand a lot more about Bacon. I shopped till I dropped. And we lunched or dined in real Irish pubs and restaurants and enjoyed our Guinesses. We had a lovely time and I shopped till I dropped. We will go back. Very soon. ‘Cause Dublin is a nice and welcoming  city where you can relax while enjoying cultural and simplier things of life. And those socks? We came along a wedding with lots of Scottish men. I made this picture and it happens to be the only one worthwhile. Yes, I love socks. Now back to work. Pity.

I have this new addiction: knitting mystery socks. in the course of one month you get 4 clues that together make a sock. It makes you so eager to know what comes next, that your socks are ready before you know it. This month I started two. Overconfident.

This is Janneke’s ‘Sokkenpad’ ( sock track). What you see on my picture looks fairly common, but believe me, what she invented for the heel and the gusset is a real challenge. And very beautiful.  I love the right and left twists, it’s like dancing with yarn.

I have a second challenge. I joined a Ravelry group that has a mystery sock every other month. This month it was a design by StarAthena: Miss Marple. The technique is mosaic knitting and I felt like joining. And this is so much fun. I work with a huge chart (which on first sight scared me like hell) and it is awesome. The result is great. Because of the colours mine is named Miss Marple in China.

All this is far too complicated to knit in the train or while watching television. That’s why I’m knitting another Janneke/Serena pattern: Nell. Nell is kind of blue and a very relaxing knit.

So far the knitting that keeps me sane next to the work challenges.