Zippedee-doo-dah, Zippedee - ay!!

The Clappy has left the needles, I say again, the Clappy has left the needles!

That’s right, the Knitting Goddess smiled upon me and I finished the Clapotis on Saturday night – so a 16 evening knit, including my presence at 2 unavoidable non-knitting meetings and an evening of entirely fruitless tinking, knitting, tinking, knitting because I have no memory and can’t write decent instructions to myself.

Comments: I love it, and fully intend to do another next autumn in wool or wool blended with something – the corn fibre drapes beautifully and looks very nice:

But it has no memory and is, effectively, un-blockable. It’s also not so warm, so great around the shoulders on a cool night, but no so great for the real cold. I also must have MUCH wider shoulders that the designer, as it’s not as long for me – but I presume that if I’d used wool I could have blocked it longer. On the definite plus side it took 5 (yup, 5) 50 gr balls of the aMaizing (130m/50gr), so 250gr rather than 400gr.

Yesterday’s surprise lunch for my Father in Law was great – and was, indeed, a total surprise. It was his 70th birthday and lots of fun. The added bonus was knitting time in the car coming and going to the northern capital, so my Tulip FandF sock is on the instep stretch (sock on!).

This week, however, I intend to finish Juno. She has waited very patiently for me to return to the cables, been shunted aside for my case of the Clappy and I will now finish her collar, block and sew her (because given how cold the weather is, I will need to wear her for the next month or so!).

I managed to prepare a tomato bed on Saturday, but everything has stalled since then, so hopefully the tomato plants will get into their bed tomorrow. Raven, if you ever get to Tasmania, I will happily provide room and board in return for some gardening help!!

It was also fun getting dressed and made-up (rare events since the advent of motherhood). I wore a new kimono style top and new red Rivers shoes, and actually felt rather good! The Princess loved wearing a party dress (her mother was also pleased because any wear for a party dress is a good thing before it’s grown out of), and even Destructoboy looked respectable.

All in all, a good weekend. Finished the new Southern Vampire novel and can now return to the book which keeps getting put aside because library books always take precedence over those I own, After all, there are no overdue fines on MY books!

I also invented a rather nice barley and lentil pilau, involving the above ingredients plus preserved lemons and ground coriander, sumac and a finely chopped tomato (inserted at the end). It makes enough to feed an army and has provided meals for days – I’ve been teaming it with gently sautéed gourmet mushrooms for lunches at least twice (enoki, shitaki and oyster) – yum!

Back to the grindstone – washing up and tidying await me!

Always Take the Weather With You

Hurrah for Carolyn – who remembered what I had forgotten! – I could see in my mind’s eye a pair of gorgeous red lacy socks with a balck beaded cuff (and due to the fact that my brain disappeared at about the time my daughter appeared I didn’t know whether it was a fabulous design idea of my subconscious, or if I’d seen it somewhere). A cursory search of the usual suspects (own books, Knitty.com, some free internet patterns) didn’t turn it up, but she did! Of course, the Yanr Harlot made one from a kit!

So here’s to Carolyn and her functioning brain! – mine gave out years ago! I’ve emailed the kit supplier, and asked if it would be possible to buy a copy of the pattern, and am awaiting their reply. I really hope they say yes, because otherwise I am going to have to design my own, and we know what that will mean! Nightmares and a probably unwearable sock! Not to mention copyright issues, unless I make it entirely different. Ay me!

For those of you who have signed up, the Southern Summer of Socks starts today!!! – Unless, of course, like me, you have a handicap because you started early! So my SSS starts tomorrow – Yay etc. I will probably try to finish my Clapotis before I continue on the socks though – because having too many WIPs is slightly stressing me – I am so close to finishing Juno and the Clappy has 4 repeats to go before I start on the decrease section.

I really like the Happy Clappy. And I think I may make a wool one next autumn, but next on the needles are several pairs of socks, some Christmas presents, Black Dog’s swing jumper in Silk Garden and Bella in the Amerah silk and Bendigo cotton. That’s more than enough to keep me occupied until nearly Christmas.

It’s been a very blustery and changeable end of September. We’ve had gales, huge amounts of rain, hail, some sunshine, snow in the mountains and yet, spring still marches on.

You’ve got to love the way nature goes “Nup – don’t care about the weather. This is spring, and I’m going to wear my best clothes!”.

My Princess is currently sick – she went to the cinema for the very first time on Saturday with her best friend and best friend’s mother and came home complaining of a headache and sore eyes. She’s been running a fever since then, along with general down-ness and complete lack of appetite (most unusual for the Princess). She’s better today, but still somewhat demanding, so I’ll leave this now.

But as I leave, just a thought. KMS was discussing the’Friend’ thing on Ravelry. I’m with her, in that I don’t think that Ravelry’s a popularity contest. But just to make me feel better, all my blogpals are Ravelry friends, right? Have I missed anyone I should have invited? If I have, it’s because I haven’t had a chance to spend much time there, but I really don’t want to feel like Sleeping Beauty’s mother – let me know if you’re feeling overlooked and sad, because trying to exclude people is not the aim (despite being elitist and invitation only!!). Remember, it’s about yarn and knitting and the size of your stash!!!

Oh, It's a Beautiful Day!

Hurrah for school! Princess is back at kindergarten today, I have the house to myself this morning and all is right with the world.

It is a beautiful day, so what am I doing? Well may you ask. I am uploading photos to my Flickr account, blogging and playing with Ravelry!!! Yay – I’m also intermittently looking out the window and deciding that I’ll take Destructoboy out to play when I bring him home.

So while my photos upload, I thought I’d update you all.

The Happy Clappy has been making progress – to the detriment of Juno – I’ve had a couple of evenings when I haven’t been able to concentrate much on the pattern for cables, so I’ve been working on the Clappy instead. I’m enjoying knitting it, although last night I frogged a row four (get that – four) times because I’d been so tired the night before I’d left cryptic instructions as to where I was up to when I finished for the evening. The instructions were SO cryptic I tried four times to get the counts right until I finally realised that my note meant I had FINISHED row 6 – and NOT THAT I WAS ABOUT TO START IT!!!!



Once this minor problem was sorted (and an hour of knitting time wasted) we were all fine. Now, I should have picked this up before – and, indeed, most people with half a brain WOULD have done so. The problem was compounded by my suddenly getting distracted (Look – something shiny!!! What was that again?) and attempting to knit row 6 of the next section. When I finally realised I needed to knit row 8, it was all plain sailing! (Some days I am soooo dumb!)

In the middle of all this, I realised that I would need some simple knitting – OOOOOOHHHH way back on Friday night – so I head-started myself on Summer of socks and cast on a Feather and Fan sock in The Knitting Ninja’s Tulip colourway. This is sooo pretty – dusty rose, spring green, pastel blue and wine. I have been knitting a plain sock in Patonyle blue faux fairisle, but I’m very bored with it.

Casting on a new travelling sock is breaking a number of self imposed rules. This brings my WIPs to 4, makes me put the Patonyle’s into hibernation, slips Juno down my list – and enrages the Accountant – mainly because I took Tulip to a party on Friday night, evangelised about knitting and chatted to a lovely Grandmother about the best heels!

I decided on another Feather and Fan for a travelling sock, because I have knitted so much of this pattern that I find it easy to knit in cars (or at parties), and I wore my other F&F socks in my Mary Jane’s the other day and was entranced by how pretty the pattern looked!

So, Southern Summer of Socks Challenges:

These are self imposed and I’m quite looking forward to all of them:
1. Knit at least 5 pairs of socks (in addition to normal knitting)
2. Knit at least 2 pairs of Red Bird Knit Sock club socks (yes, the September parcel has been posted and I have knitted no kits)
3. Knit at least one pair of Toe-up socks
4. Knit one pair of real Fairisle socks
5. Knit at least one pair of cotton socks
6. Knit socks only from stash (or socks kits) with one exception – I am allowed one ‘Get out of jail free’ card providing it is to meet one or more of the requirements above (eg. a purchase which assists me in knitting a fairisle, toe-up sock in cotton – well , maybe not, but you get the picture!)

If I meet all these challenges, I will do something nice for myself, like buy some more Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn or something – the reward needs to be thought on a little.

I’d also like to ensure everyone notices that (apart from the socks) all knitting is being carried out by Knitpicks Options needles – quick plug – don’t forget Donyale’s competition and the fact that you can get Knitpicks from her – including the new options later in the year in the lovely wood – but get behind me because I said I wanted some first!!!

Speaking of Donyale, I was a total Yarn Pig yesterday, and bought two of her lovely Yarn Cakes – remind me to stick them in my ‘In’ list at the weekend. I also threw myself off the wagon in order to purchase a Turkish Spindle from Yarn Magazine – who have their Spindle Special on again.

That’s more than enough for today – most of you are probably so bored you’ve already left.

I will have pertinent, witty and amusing stuff for you tomorrow – or the next day – bah!! Who am I kidding? It’ll be the same stuff – you know – wool, yarn, knitting, that stuff – see you then!

Conscience and Unconsciousness

Children and the deluge - for your delectation.

Okay. I know I shouldn’t have done it. For once I’m not talking about buying yarn – or putting things on the credit card. Or opening another bottle of wine. Or even exceeding my broadband allocation (I HAVE to increase my plan). I shouldn’t have done it.

But I was so sick of the whining and complaining. I was tired of the whinging and sulks. I was also tired of spending the entire day dealing with wee and pooh in one form or another. I was just plain tired.

In my defence, it’s been nearly 4 (yes that’s right, FOUR) years since I have had an unbroken nights sleep. I am very lucky to get four hours of unbroken sleep, and it’s usually not even that.

I can’t remember the last time I slept from bedtime at 11 or 12 till 7am without waking up 3 or 4 times, and usually taking hours to get back to sleep.

I’ve never been a big sleeper. I used to be able to get by on 3-4 hours a night for months and months and then I’d get sick and sleep for 36 hours nearly straight. I’ve never been able to sleep in – even as a teenager. To me, sleeping in is getting up at 8am. I used to be known (when young and single) to get up, get papers and coffee and return to bed with a pile of newspapers and cup of coffee, but that wasn’t SLEEPING.

The number of times I would go out, get home at 6, sleep for an hour and then go to work were legion. The scary part was that I would DO IT AGAIN THE NEXT NIGHT! And sometimes the night after, as well.

But since I’ve had children I really, really need more sleep. It might also have something to do with getting older, but I’m not mentioning that. And I don’t get sleep. First it was pregnancy. Then it was breast feeding – then before I stopped breastfeeding number 1 it was pregnancy again. Then it was pregnancy and breastfeeding – then just pregnancy then breast feeding again for a bit over 2 years then it was a child who used to wake up in the night. And if it wasn’t one, then it was the other. Then it was Accountant snoring. Then it was children and the Accountant and a cough. So I haven’t slept through the night for nearly 4 years.

Some days I just get a little unglued when I’ve had a really bad night. But that’s no excuse.

On a lighter note, I finished the gorgeous Turtle Walk socks and they are absolutely beautiful (even if I do say so myself). Tonight I start Juno, and the next exciting socks will be Polyglot (the Return – with corrections). When the Yarn arrives, it will be Happy Clappy with Georgie and Rosered (who has probably given up on us and started her laceweiught clappy but because it’s laceweight and we’ll be working DK we might catch up though due to children our knitting time is limited). And the travelling socks.

Here, just for Rosered are the shoes from my great day.

So, just because I had no exciting knitting on the needles I was cranky. And I had no sleep (see above) And I was sick of the moaning and whining and whinging and complaining – and then the children chipped in – so I shouted at the Accountant.

Tonight he can damn well cook the dinner.

Angling for a holiday (or some time off)

Well, there’s nothing like starting off your day with a pap smear and blood test! Or being woken by the whining of … sorry, laughter of little children.

Destructoboy’s 3rd birthday today – but I had to race off to a doctor’s appointment for the aforementioned checks (my strategy for not spending time in waiting rooms revolves around trying to get the first appointment of the day, before they get a chance to run too far behind – I have been known to give doctors a bill for my time – charged at my consultancy rates!).

He has been asking for a torch for ages (so did Princess for her 3rd birthday) so he got a Torch truck and various other goodies. This afternoon some friends are bringing their littlies around for a visit and afternoon tea. This will involve fairy bread (it’s not really a birthday without fairy bread), chips (crisps), apple tea cake and muffins. You can see I’m going all out on this one!

Truth to tell, I’m just exhausted. I’ve still got the lurking lurgy, I’ve got a convalescent husband (I keep snapping ‘it’s not as bad as a c-section, stop being such a girl’), I’m still chasing my daughter with eye drops and at least Destructoboy can be fairly said to be toilet trained now. Quite frankly, I’d be happy to go to bed, lock the door and let them fight over a packet of mixed lollies for dinner!

Why is it that mothers are always so tired? How come we never seem to get any time off? Heavens above, you only get 10 years for murder – and you’re likely to have time off for good behaviour!

I don’t even get to go to the toilet without small voices outside demanding to be let in – afraid that I’ll sneak out the bathroom window and run away if they don’t keep their eyes on me. (And don't think I haven't been tempted!)

On a lighter note, I re-knitted the heels on the 3 socks my Crocs ate. This took up valuable knitting time, but it’s like finishing 3 pairs of socks all at once!!! I also cast on for the second Turtle Walk sock. I had a parcel from England yesterday with Rowanspun mist grey DK, and I’m waiting for the arrival of some Yorkshire Aran. Apart from the purchase of some yarn for the Happy Clappy KAL, I’m not going to buy any wool for a while.

Well probably not. Unless it’s a bargain. Or too beautiful to resist. Or sock yarn. Or something involving silk. Or cashmere.

Oh, poop! Who am I trying to kid? We all know that if I have money, or room on my credit card, that I will buy more yarn if it offers itself to me. Even if I have to chase it down and crash tackle it!