Thursday, September 3, 2009

Random Friday

Thanks everyone for your good wishes - currently the lurgies are in retreat (fingers crossed, knocks on wood, does lucky dance etc). We have had a single day of sunshine in the past many, many days. Maybe that helped.

Random stuff:

1. Apparently, if it rains on St Swithin's Day (July 15), it will rain for 40 days. It rained on St Swithin's Day and we are now approaching a lot more than 40 days. I'm hoping I have time to go to a woodwork class, because I don't think my skills are up to building an ark, but it certainly looks as if I need to be able to. We may have had enough rain - just for a little while. In ultra-random stuff, St Swithin is also the patron saint of apples and apple trees. Who knew?

2. There is very little sign of it being spring. The bulbs are out and so are the early fruit trees, blossoming their hearts out. But it doesn't feel like spring. It's still cold. And wet (please see point 1).

3. Tempest knitting has finished, but there is still the matter of umpty zillion ends. I hate sewing in ends. I am sure there are people who can make their sewn in ends look great. Mine look crappy and I find that sewing in more than 7 in a session fills me with a level of unholy rage. I loved the knitting. If I make it again I will either make it in one colour, or I will work out a way to carry the yarn up the sides for 14 rows. I won't sew the sleeves in until the ends are dealt with. This may take some more time.

4. The Vine Yoke Cardigan is growing apace. Not only is Ysolda a genius, but I shopped from stash (or possibly from insulation, given that I have no stash, as laid out in the rules of stash), and am knitting it in the Naturally Sensation I picked up in Gawler, SA for $2.50 a skein. The yarn is gorgeous, the pattern fun, and I have a warm inner glow which only comes from feeling that you have a bargain. I even managed to get the perfect buttons for about 80 cents each.

5. The concentration on knitting large garments have meant that the enormous pile of WIPs is still sitting there, staring at me sullenly. I will get to them.

6. Stash honesty forces me to admit that some yarn may have entered the house during August, but I can't remember all of it. I know there was a little sock yarn. There was some Fleece Artist (around 3 garments worth) but I have absolutely no idea what else. I may have repressed the memory.

7. The children have been tending to act up. Part of this is from cabin fever because the weather has been so awful that they have been cooped up - although I drove them outside last weekend with a pitchfork - well, not really a pitchfork, but certainly with a high level of coercion. Partly it is tiredness. The circus school's major show is on now and over the weekend, and there have been long (and sometimes, late,) rehearsals. The concentration on one child, has meant the other child asserting rights to attention by being a right little snot. On various occasions I have comforted myself with thoughts of infanticide, child slavery or sale or return. Then they are nice, and totally disarm me!

8. On one of the nice occasions, the Princess (who spent some of her birthday money on a cookbook) decided to make breakfast, lunch and dinner. She did a wonderful job. She made pancakes, turkish bread pizzas and Tagliatelle Carbonara. Grownups did the stirring things on the gas stove, and the putting into and getting out of the oven, she did the rest. She also made little pink biscuits. I did the washing up. This behaviour is being highly encouraged. I have fantasies of never have to cook through her teenage years.

10. School holidays start today. Next week we will have a few days away, visiting Hobart (and seeing the Knightly Knitter), Port Arthur and Coles Bay. This may help with the cabin fever.

Will try a more organised post (possibly with illustrations!) soon.

11 comments:

Kate (Kiss My Frog) said...

1. I know I mentioned this the other day, but St. Swithin always me giggle.
2. Same here - cold, rainy, miserable. But there are buds on the peach tree in the backyard, and wattles out on the walk to school.
3. When faced with a project of many ends, I try to be smart and forward-thinking and weave them in as I go. It hardly ever happens.
5. I feel your pain.I have multiple WIPs that have been hanging around forever. It makes me pouty every time I go to my Rav-page. Ignoring them was so much easier in the days Before Ravelry. I could just bury 'em in the bottom of the work-basket and forget about them.
7. I would avoid the "Sale or Return" option. Sending them back where they came from would just be icky.
8. What a gorgeous kid! Encourage the cooking, but make sure you drive home the "Clean as you go" ethic with it. You don't want to reduced to Dish Bitch status in your own kitchen.
9. Oh, wait, there is no point 9.
10. Envy, envy, envy. I so wish I could go to Hobart and play with you and Kate. Andrew may be going to a conference in Hobart in a couple of months, and I am trying to figure out how I can stow away in his suitcase without being charged with child abandonment. I was grumping about the fact that there was no way, and he said, "But I'd be at the conference! I wouldn't have any time to spend with you!" They're so cute when they delude themselves like that!

2paw said...

1. In my 365 Things To Know book I learned about St Swithin's Day!! We are thinking about an ark here too.
2. There are daffs and buds on my lemon tree but the weather in unerringly wintry. I quite like it apart from the wind.
3. Oh the ends, the ends, I abhor them You are brave.
4. That is a gorgeous cardigan. Can't wait to see it!!! And bargain buttons and wool too!!!
5. Yes, right, unfinished things, that's why I stated an new pair of socks, but they were DVD watching plain socks. Really!!!
6. I bought 16 balls of Audrey in very green green yesterday. At The BlackSpot of Doomlight. On sale.....
7. Similarly there is Labrador cabin fever her, but it involves a lot of wet fur and mud as well.
8.The Princess sounds like a keeper then!!!!
9. There is no nine, so
10. Have a great school holidays!!!!!!!

amy said...

Oh, we had the lo many days and nights of rain, too. May, June, July... I don't know, it's all blurred into one wet, splashy memory. I hope you get some sunshine soon.

I'm glad you're all feeling more healthy, though! That helps some.

Now I'm off for a morning walk with the baby, while our weather holds up. It'll be cold in the mornings before I know it.

MadMad said...

Oh, you are so funny - I TOTALLY agree with the sewing in of ends, and loved your Vine Yoke graph, too. I am about to start it, but undecided between three yarn choices that I bought to make it with... (so, sort of the opposite and then some of what you did...) I somehow neglected to teach my kids to cook (I think the thinking was that I didn't need them underfoot... and am now paying the price: kids who don't even know how to microwave!) So good for you teaching the Princess to cook. (Don't forget dishwashing lessons, though!)

Alrighty, I've blabbed on long enough. I was just so psyched to see you again! Have a great vacation!

knightlyknitter.wordpress.com said...

1. St Who? Apples? How very appropriate for Tassie. Is there a matching saint who will help things dry out and provide bumper crops without any brown rot if I spy a rainbow in the morning?
2. There's been some spots of nice. I am optimistic about the possibility of some washing drying on the line outside the house at some point in the next two weeks.
3. Bring it down. I'll help with the ends.
4. Now I want one. Oh wait, what's this ruby red thing?
5. Oh yes, it's a highly neglected sleeve of Twist. And then there are those socks that needed to be ripped and redone...
6. I don't need to buy more. It's self-propagating.
7. I hear you.
8. They are concentrating on Father's Day plans right now. As long as they are nice to somebody...
9. Lost in the mists of cyberspace.
10. WOOT!! Looking forward to it!!

Alwen said...

We have finally got over our bout of rain and so the roofers could work.
::wonders where the roofers are now that it is sunny! and dry::

Leonie said...

2/ The weather here has been a bit mad too, not so much with the rainy all day, more like sunny but cold then downpour at school pickup time! Right when you aren't at home to take the washing off the line :-(

3/Congrats on the end of Tempest, I vote for carrying the yarn up the side of the garment next time, just twist it with the one in use every 2-4 rows to keep it nice and tidy "ta da" no ends to sew in and it saves on yarn!

4/ That's going to be a super loved jacket, who can pass up such a bargain.

5/ WIP's hmmm I'm sure I have some of them around somewhere...I think I'm liking Kate's (KMF) new cast one off, cast one on trick!

6/Stash honesty, smash honesty you're a knitter, there's always new additions, some people buy newspapers everyday and just throw them away, at least you get to see your yarn and the projects you make for as long as you want to! (The Age approx $2 a day imagine how much yarn that adds up to in a year.....and you get to keep it!)

7/Don't you just love it when the children decide the love isn't spread evenly and decide to spread it out themselves...NOT!! Also absolutely NO RETURNS, just the thought makes me wince!

8/Make her use all the metal and plastic bowls and utensils then there's no problem with her washing up...unless you like doing the washing up???

10/Two weeks until school holidays here. Never sure whether I want them to come or not! Hope yours go well especially your travelling :-)

Donna Lee said...

I'm glad you're all in the pink! Having children who cook is the best. Although, they never seem to be around when it's time to cook dinner.

We've had a break from all the rain. It hasn't rained in a week. I'm loving it.

Amy Lane said...

So sorry about the lurgys... hope all feels better. Do you know, I've NEVER heard of St. Swithin? Now I have. (No wonder it never rains in NorCal--no rain in July!) My kids have been right little sots too... good to hear I'm in company:-)

Rose Red said...

sorry about points 1, 2, 3 and 7, but hey what about point 8 - excellent!!

Michelle said...

Poo to poopoo weather!

But yay for Princess cuisine!!! Should be more of it!